Chapter 27 #2
“Wow, you’re buzzy,” Brad’s disembodied voice says dazedly. “Was that it?”
“Wait for it,” Michael says, his fingers snagging Frannie’s.
The tingle that travels up her arm is familiar and welcome, and she squeezes his hand back while she disappears.
“Fuck,” Brad shouts, his voice ringing around the cavernous white basement.
“Shh!” Frannie and Michael hiss.
“Sorry, sorry. But—holy fuck, I mean, shit, I mean sorry.”
Michael snickers while Frannie grins, not that Brad can see it. “Frannie swears like a sailor when she emails people.”
“I do not,” Frannie protests, jiggling his hand. “Now, shouldn’t we get going, before someone starts thinking they’re hearing voices?”
Michael tugs on both their hands and Frannie follows easily, smirking at the sound of Brad’s clumsy shuffle on Michael’s other side.
“How is he doing this? How are you doing this?” Brad asks as they hurry across the basement and through the side maintenance door.
“I don’t know,” Michael says. Frannie can feel him shrug by the way his hand moves. “A while after I died, I just started being able to do stuff. Bridgette taught me a bunch, and we both taught Mom. She thinks we have to soak up the electricity, and it charges us up.”
They traipse down the narrow, dingy maintenance corridor, passing Michael’s usual hideout. Around the next corner, there’s a choice between right or left. Frannie glances up at the ceiling.
“Michael, are there any cameras here, you think?”
“Nah,” Michael says, dropping their hands.
All three of them pop back into visible reality, and Brad jumps about a foot in the air. “Jesus. Okay. I mean, Jesus.”
Michael giggles and Frannie shakes her head. She pulls Michael’s tablet out of her bag and opens the PDF reader, staring down at the map of the basement.
“I think we’re going left,” she says, tracing her finger from the blueprint of the basement and off down the maintenance corridors. “The regular breakers are here, right? So, we think maybe the older ones would be on the opposite wall,” she explains, tilting the tablet toward Brad.
But he’s still staring at Michael, his fingers tapping against his thighs, his eyes wide.
“Do we need to go back upstairs so you can have an existential crisis for a bit? Do this another day?” Frannie suggests.
She thought, with all the ghost hunting, he’d be a bit more chill. It’s all pretty insane, but—
Yeah, no, it’s entirely insane. His reaction is probably the normal one. She’s the weird ghost girl.
“No, no, I’m good,” Brad says, blinking a few times before reaching out for the tablet with lightly twitching fingers.
Frannie and Michael watch him peruse the schematics.
“Okay, right, yeah, left. I mean …” He looks up at them.
She can still see a little too much of the whites of his eyes. “Left. Definitely. This way.”
He steps off, leaving them to follow behind him. Frannie shivers at bit. It’s cold down here, and the next hallway is even more dimly lit and eerie than the last, full of cobwebs and flickering florescent lights.
Michael’s hand slips back into Frannie’s.
She looks down to find him grinning, nearly skipping beside her.
It makes her smile, but at the same time, something clenches in her chest. She knows she needs his help; he’s the expert on the building, and these basement hallways.
His counsel will be much more useful to Brad. And yet …
“You know we might not find anything,” she cautions, because his hope is catching, and dangerous.
“I know,” Michael says, glancing up at her, his blue eyes crinkled in a smile. “But we’re trying, and that’s what counts.”
She can’t help squeezing his hand. “Yeah.”
“Okay, so I think the breaker room is around this bend, and then maybe we just turn—” Brad rounds the next corner. “Shit!”
“What?” Frannie exclaims, hurrying forward with Michael.
They careen around the corner and almost crash straight into Brad, who’s standing slack-jawed in the middle of the hallway, staring at …
Elsa. Michael deflates next to her and Frannie swallows hard.
Elsa looks back at them, arms crossed, standing directly beneath a blinking fluorescent light, which catches her just right to give her a ghostly halo.
She meets Frannie’s eyes, one of those perfect eyebrows arching before she glances back at Brad. “Shit” is right.
“Um, Brad, let me formally introduce you to Elsa. Elsa, you know Brad,” Frannie says, her voice tight.
Elsa simply stands there, unimpressed. Brad looks back at Frannie, who shrugs helplessly. She thought Bridgette would be able to keep Elsa distracted for longer.
“Nice to formally meet you,” Brad says, holding out his hand. “The, ah, haunting was very impressive.”
Elsa just stares at him. Frannie tenses, wondering if this is the final straw. She knows bringing Brad in was a risk, but they need him. This electrical ghost stuff is so far beyond her area of expertise, and if she has any chance of presenting Elsa with a foolproof plan to convince her …
“Brad’s great, Mom,” Michael pipes up. “He gave me a bunch of awesome books about haunted ruins in Italy, and he’s gonna show me the footage of our haunting.”
Frannie winces. That’s probably not going to—
Elsa considers Michael for a moment before heaving a sigh and extending her hand. “Frannie tells me your pilot pitch is going out to studios?” she asks.
Brad gapes for a second, then eagerly takes her hand. He fully jolts at her touch. “Ye—yeah. We put together a great sizzle reel for it, so we’re hopeful.”
Elsa nods and drops his hand. Brad shakes out his arm. Michael giggles.
“Has there been any interest yet?” Elsa asks.
“A&E looks like they want to go to pilot, so we’re going to start cutting together everything we have.
And technically, we’re still waiting to hear back from a few others.
Our agent at WME is pretty confident A&E will offer, though.
I don’t think we’d be getting this kind of reception if you hadn’t decided to …
visit us that day, so thank you for that,” Brad says, looking from Elsa to Michael.
Michael drags Frannie forward so they’re standing next to Brad. “We really scared you!” he says happily.
“I wasn’t scared. I was surprised and overwhelmed,” Brad says defensively.
“We can go with that,” Frannie mutters.
“I can only imagine you being scared would make for a better episode,” Elsa says.
Michael laughs and Brad huffs a little. “I suppose that’s true. Regardless, if it sells, by the time the show actually airs, we should have you safely across the street, in case any other ghost hunters come to call.”
All the air seems to go out of the hallway around them. Elsa stares at Brad, her jaw clenched. Frannie’s pulse jumps.
“I meant, ah, if you three decide you want to engineer an … escape plan, we could make sure that happened before the episode airs. The building’s still pretty strict about granting entry, but I think there’s a high possibility there will be other interested ghost hunt—ghost enthusiasts hoping to case the building after it comes out,” Brad rambles on.
Okay, damage control. Frannie needs to—
“I think we’re close,” Michael says, overloud.
Bless that little boy. Frannie looks down and finds Michael slipping the tablet out of Brad’s hand. He points to the diagram and tilts it up for her to see.
“I think it’s here,” he says, pointing to a door on their left.
“Why don’t you and Brad check it out. I’ll be there in a sec. If that’s okay,” Frannie adds, meeting Brad’s eyes.
“Yeah! Yeah, come on, Mike.” All three of them make a face and Brad holds up his hands immediately. “Michael.”
Michael nods and drops Frannie’s hand to grab Brad’s wrist, practically hauling him backward. He reaches up and unlocks the doorknob to Frannie’s left, swings the door open, and drags Brad into what looks like an incredibly dusty old utility closet.
The door creaks shut behind them, leaving Elsa and Frannie standing alone in the maintenance corridor in a stuffy silence. Frannie fights against fidgeting. Yeah, this looks … bad. But she’s got a plan. Or, parts of a plan, at least.
But Elsa doesn’t say anything. She just remains a few feet away, staring at Frannie, head slightly cocked, like she’s trying to solve a puzzle.