Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“I guess they can’t all look like Gothic horror movie sets,” Gretchen says beside her. She’s wearing a nice black blazer and slacks today, looking every bit the junior news producer, down to her sensible kitten heels.
“We’ll get some Dutch angle shots, make it a little creepier,” Stan says on Gretchen’s other side.
Stan, the cameraman assigned to Gretchen’s shoot, looks like an old pro in jeans, a crewneck sweatshirt, and an old Yankees cap. He grins over at them, brown eyes bright, lined cheeks all squinched up. Frannie likes him already.
Gretchen looks down at her and Frannie smiles. “You’re gonna crush it.”
Gretchen opens her mouth to argue—
“Hey, gang!”
Frannie turns, surprised to find a preppy blond guy standing in front of them in a polo shirt, with a backpack slung over his shoulder, and an iPhone steady cam tripod in hand. This is Brad Drill, famous ghost hunter? He looks like he should having drinks at a members-only club.
“You ready to talk to Mark Twain?” he asks.
Those blue eyes, those forearms, that perfect flop of blond hair—Frannie can see why Gretchen’s been giggle-texting for the last week.
She glances at her roommate and finds Gretchen staring at Brad, entranced.
Frannie’s about to elbow her, discreetly, when Gretchen shakes her head.
Frannie can actually see business-mode overtake her face, which is adorable.
“Brad, thank you so much for doing this segment with us,” Gretchen says, stepping forward to shake his hand.
Brad’s smile gets even wider, which doesn’t seem possible. He’s totally smitten, and digging Gretchen’s work outfit.
“My absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me,” he says.
They hold hands for a couple seconds too long to be professional, but damn if Frannie’s going to interrupt. Brad seems to notice first, breaking the handshake and moving to greet Stan.
“Brad,” he says, extending his hand.
“Love your videos. I’m Stan,” the cameraman says, shaking his hand. “I’ll follow your lead. Gretchen’s the brains of the operation.”
Gretchen blushes and Frannie makes a note to buy Stan the biggest coffee known to man after this.
“I’m thinking we mostly use you guys, but maybe I keep my tripod going, so I’ve got B-roll for the socials, and you guys get me in action?” Brad suggests, glancing between them. Then he seems to finally spot Frannie. “Nice to meet you,” he adds, extending that perfect hand again.
Frannie shakes it with a smile. “Frannie. Just along for the ride, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. We can use you for reaction shots, though, if we encounter anything?”
“Sure,” Frannie says.
It’s a great handshake, but it lacks a certain tingly feeling she’s come to expect from contact with anyone that attractive. Damn, she might not be the right reaction buddy for this. She likes the feeling of ghosts. Well, one ghost, and her two cute kids, in particular.
But she’s not here to think about Elsa and her enormously inconvenient crush today. She’s here to follow Brad, Gretchen, and Stan up into the House of Death to meet with the third-floor tenant who’s letting them use her spacious, airy, Nancy Meyers-style apartment for ghost hunting.
Frannie has all night to write about Elsa and work her confusing feelings out on the page. Her alter ego, Charlie, is having a lot of intimate time with her ghost lady. While Frannie’s … still blushing just thinking about Elsa squeezing her knee on the couch with the kids in the room.
Shit, she needs to focus.
“It’s not all the time, but every so often it’s like there’s something at the corner of my eye, you know? And there’s this … pervasive feeling of being watched I can never quite shake,” the apartment owner, a tall, spindly woman named Ann, tells Brad.
Her voice is tight, cheeks a little pink, like she’s embarrassed to be talking about this. Clearly, the thought of being watched by ghosts doesn’t give her the same butterflies it does for Frannie.
“Did you know the history of the house before you moved in?” Brad asks, his tone warm and face completely inviting. It’s clear how he gets people to open up to him.
“A bit. But I didn’t believe any of it. People died here, but people have died in almost every building in this city. Why should this one be any different?” Ann asks with a little shrug.
“And now?”
“I’m certainly less of a skeptic,” she admits.
“And the accounts of Mark Twain walking around?” Brad asks.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen him specifically, unless he’s the thing in the corner of my eye. Not sure why he’d be here, though. I thought he died somewhere else?”
“Connecticut,” Gretchen puts in.
“Then he can’t actually be here, right? Ghosts can’t just … come and go, can they?” Ann asks, looking spooked.
Now Frannie’s leaning in as well.
“Depends on the type of ghost,” Brad says, turning in a slow circle, presumably to get footage on his iPhone.
“What are the types?” Frannie asks too loudly. Whoops.
But Gretchen winks at her and Brad revolves to face her, smile in place. “The type of ghost depends on the method of death. Your average ghost—the kind we think about drifting above the ground, going through walls, unable to touch anything or interact with the world—died in an average way.”
“Like old age or disease?” Gretchen asks.
“Exactly,” Brad says. “Violent deaths are a bit different.”
“Does that mean the ghosts here are violent and disturbed?” Ann asks, her eyes growing larger.
Frannie doesn’t blame her. That didn’t sound good at all.
Brad holds out his free hand in a calming gesture. “Ghosts who die in a violent manner tend to have different powers. If they were murdered, they can usually make the most noise. And if they were electrocuted, they’re able to manipulate our world.”
“So electrocuted ghosts are functionally poltergeists?” Frannie asks, her heart rate speeding up.
She was right.
“You’ve been doing your reading,” Brad says happily.
Frannie nods, because what else is she supposed to say? Nope, I asked a ghost in person. He spends the day playing my boss’s Nintendo.
“Electrocuted ghosts have the most physical powers, but they’re trapped inside the electrical system where they died,” Brad goes on. “Regular ghosts, it appears, can travel outside their haunts as far as they want, but they can’t physically interact with the world.”
“And murdered ghosts?” Gretchen asks.
“Seem to be able to travel, but rarely do. They’re here because they have unfinished business wherever they died. Those are the ones people exorcise,” Brad says.
“Why are poltergeists trapped in the circuit that electrocuted them?” Frannie asks, trying not to appear too desperately eager.
“We think their afterlife force is feeding off the electricity, which keeps them in one place. If they leave, there’s no more power source. They fade away.”
Frannie swallows, hard. “So, it’s not about unfinished business, like murdered ghosts or … regular ghosts, so much as—”
“Being trapped in an endless electricity loop,” Brad says, completing her thought and nodding.
“Electrocuted ghosts, as far as we can tell, are here forever. Which, historically speaking, is a relatively new phenomenon. Your average ghost with unfinished business, or murdered ghosts, can sometimes make peace and cross over to … whatever’s over there, and have done so for as long as humanity’s been around. ”
“No big theories on heaven and hell, then?” Gretchen asks, laughing as Brad huffs, like this is just another tease in an ongoing conversation.
“Can we get rid of them?” Ann interjects, her voice quiet now, her eyes flitting around. Not so sanguine living in the House of Death all of a sudden.
“We’re just here to observe. I’m not an exorcist,” Brad says gently.
But Frannie’s not really listening anymore. It’s not like she didn’t know Elsa, Michael, and Bridgette were stuck, exactly. But to have it confirmed …
Frannie looks around the room, trying to shake off her sudden surge of melancholy. Can she see all ghosts, now that Elsa, Bridgette, and Michael have shown themselves to her? Or is it the ghosts who decide?
She’s not going to inspect her knee-jerk negative reaction to “getting rid” of ghosts either.
Wandering outside the camera line to look around Ann’s apartment, she loses track of the interview for a few minutes. The apartment is gorgeous, sunny, and perfectly unhaunted, as far as she can tell. Then again, it’s a big enough building; the ghosts here probably wander, like hers do.
Not that they’re her ghosts. They’re just her ghostly little friends and their beautiful mother with whom she’d absolutely like to be far more than friends.
“So, are you a believer, Frannie?”
Frannie turns to find Gretchen and Brad heading her way, while Stan follows Ann down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
“Yeah, I didn’t realize you were really into ghosts,” Gretchen says, smiling at her. “I figured it was more storyteller curiosity.”
It would be better to pretend, wouldn’t it? “The Dakota Building’s famously haunted,” Frannie hedges.
“You work in the Dakota?” Brad asks, his voice almost an octave higher.
“She practically lives there,” Gretchen says, laughing as Frannie sighs at her.
“Have you seen anything? It’s supposed to be crawling with ghosts,” Brad says excitedly.
“Nothing really … concrete,” Frannie lies. “But things move around, you know, and sometimes I get the feeling I’m being watched.”
“That’s amazing,” Brad says gleefully. “Do you think you could get us in?”
“Us?” Gretchen asks while Frannie flounders.
“Yeah! You guys have been great. And it would only be fair. Frannie got to come to this one,” Brad says, his face all lit up.
“That would be great,” Gretchen says slowly. “Can you?” she adds, looking back at Frannie.
“I can try. My boss isn’t back for another couple weeks, but I’ll ask when he is.”
What can it hurt, asking Henry? At worst, Frannie thinks he’ll laugh.
“If you can swing it, that would be amazing. They never let people in; it could be a great proof of concept for the series idea I was telling you about,” Brad says, looking to Gretchen.
“His pitch is incredible,” Gretchen says, smiling at Brad, cheeks dimpling. Oh, they have it for each other so bad.
“That’s awesome,” Frannie says.
Brad fumbles in his bag and pulls out a small remote-like device. “Ready to see what kind of ghosts we’ve got?”
“Is that an EMF reader?” Gretchen asks eagerly.
“It is. All ghosts give off some level of electromagnetic force—” Brad starts to explain, heading down the hall.
Frannie and Gretchen follow him farther into the apartment. EMF readers are real. Cool.
And so are trapped ghost families, stuck in the Dakota for eternity with no way out.