Ch. 1
Pitch darkness enveloped the air like a mist. The acrid smell of tissue decay signaled dead bodies everywhere. Corpses littered the dingy hallway floor. The living figure cautiously darted around the lifeless corpses and held out a hand to feel a door in front of him. It opened with a musty old creak, as he unholstered his weapon and prepared to use it. The room, a dark musty apartment, held the same aura, as did the hallway. A dim light off in the far corner struggled terribly to hold off the darkness. Several easy chairs sat at post, occupied by more lifeless corpses. Their pale, sometimes broken skin marked sharp contrast of the tidy naval blue and gold of their uniforms.
"Hey, Scott, where are you?" The voice belonged to his friend and partner-in-slime Phil. Both men had been keeping their Ghostbusters franchise in pretty good stead, especially since the city of Portland had paid them quite handsomely for destroying the ice demon Wendigo a couple months earlier.
"I'm in here." A few moments later the room's door opened again and there was Phil. Scott turned to him, but had failed to see the corpse slither up from the nearby easy chair and stalk toward him. He turned around just in time to see the thing lunge on him. With primal savagery the beast ate through his neck, crimson spraying everywhere, and he fell lifeless to the floor.
"Damn it, man! That's the fourth time you've gotten me killed today!"
The television screen flashed the "game over" sign.
"I was getting really far too. Couldn't this have waited?" Scott fumed as he powered off the small black video game system.
"We need to eat dinner sooner or later. And we've still got to check out the talking wall in that Chinese lady's basement."
"Yeah, I guess you're right."
Scott followed his buddy from the television room out into the main second floor hallway of the firehouse that served as their headquarters. The walked down the tidy, well-furnished hallway toward the tall brass fire pole that led to the building's vehicle bay.
Truth be told, the generous stipend from the city was keeping them afloat. After the destruction of Wendigo, the frequency of paranormal activity around the state had all but ceased. There wasn't much work for paranormal exterminators. Phil had taken a part time job as a supervisor at his parents' custodial business. Most of the cases lately had been little more than investigative work, and most were remedied simply by talking the misguided entity into crossing over to the next world. To surprise of his colleague, Phil had demonstrated that little bit of competence in this area. At least the laser containment unit in the basement was in no danger of collapse from overcrowding.
"How about Italian tonight?" asked Phil as he followed Scott down the pole into the polished brick vehicle bay.
"DiNicola's on Powell is a good place." Scott mumbled as he sauntered across the magnificent room to the plain oak desk and group of metal filing cabinets that served as their front office. He sank down into the black vinyl office chair and checked the ridiculously complicated office telephone for messages. There were none, save for the latest offer from newspaper telemarketers that had been desperate to get a subscription from the firehouse.
Deciding it unnecessary to bring the company truck, Scott and Phil bypassed Ecto-A, leaving the white behemoth to silently stand guard over the building while they were gone. They instead wandered out the smaller person-sized door next to the two gigantic red iron vehicle doors, out to Scott's smaller gray Escort. For the job they had brought only a few tools: a pair of PKE meters, to measure the presence and power of the entity; a Geiger counter, to determine the entity's molecular stability; a 35 mm camera with zoom lens; a Bacharach Sniffer, to detect changes in temperature and barometric pressure; a tan leather briefcase containing a couple spirit catalogs, a black leather-bound Holy Bible, a small metal scoop and plastic container, stationery items and a notepad; and a lone proton pack with ghost trap, just in case things got out of hand. But this was a talking wall. What harm could it do other than shouting phrases unprintable in a family newspaper? And from the tone of the call, their client, Mrs. Cindy Leung, seemed more curious than terrified of this phenomenon in her basement.
Neither man had chosen to wear the company uniform, partially to avoid odd stares at the restaurant. They finished their meal in plenty of time to make the evening appointment. The Escort pulled up to the curb in the prim neighborhood nestled in the hills of Southwest Portland. The Tudor-style homes sat even four-on-a-city-block, behind large emerald green lawns and rows of pretty sweet-smelling flowers. This place looked like Elm Street and Freddy had taken an extended vacation. The endless pool of pale blue sky and the unusually warm spring temperature had brought kids and dogs outside to play in the sun's golden glow, adding to the serene early-evening environment.
Scott and Phil checked addresses then walked up the gray cement path to the front door. The golden sunlight illuminated the teal siding of the two-story ranch-style home as well as the cream-colored windows and awnings. The house was rectangular and perfectly symmetrical. The front yard was a cornucopia of rosebushes, peonies, and rhododendrons. The pastel hues of their flowers complemented the teal siding of the house. Scott stepped up on the front porch and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, a shorter Asian woman opened the white front door. Twin smooth drapes of raven hair hung down around her earlobes and her surprisingly wide eyes showed wrinkles of stress and experience. She was dressed in blue jeans and an unbuttoned pale green collared shirt that exposed a solid black tee shirt underneath. He quickly deduced that she was either a mother or a busy professional of some sort.
"Good evening, ma'am. I'm Mr. Scott Jackson and this is Mr. Phil Wickmore. We're with Ghostbusters. You had called us yesterday about examining the wall in your basement."
Scott had chosen to wear a clay-colored t-shirt overlaid with a black leather vest. His colleague had worn a tan colored shirt that resembled the upper portion of their regular uniforms. Both men had company logo stickers on the right sleeves of their shirts, adding an air of professionalism despite the plain clothes. The woman looked them over, and after noticing the logo, invited them inside. They exchanged formalities, and the two investigators ran the lady through a list of questions to diagnose her general mental health and propensity toward possession. After she had checked out psychologically, they asked her to lead them downstairs to the wall in the basement.
"Now, you say this wall was speaking to you in perfect English a couple days ago, and now it's gibberish, is that right?" asked Phil.
"Yes, that's correct. The wall had started talking to me about a week ago. I was scared at first, even ran up the stairs and initially refused to go back into the basement. But my washer and dryer were down there, and I needed to do laundry. I finally mustered the courage and went down there. Attempting to sneak through unnoticed, I was quite surprised when it started discussing popular spring flowers that thrive well in this region. Gardening is a hobby of mine. After that morning the wall became quite a delight to talk to. It actually has a very gentle voice. We talked on all sorts of subjects. My husband is on an extended business trip overseas, and my two cats Pihpo and Sam can't answer back when I talk to them. It was nice – if a little unnerving…"
The party moved down the slender basement hallway, across the tidy blue carpet, toward the brick wall near the darker rear corner of the bright basement.
"But yesterday, I mentioned that my son was playing professional baseball, and the wall launched into a tirade. It didn't sound angry, but desperate. The wall kept saying, 'ah-froh-roh-tu-rih-fel', and different warning phrases with that word interspersed. I could sense the frustration in its voice at my lack of understanding."
"Did you feel at any time like the wall was going to hurt you?" asked Phil.
"No. I sensed it didn't want harm to come to me. Which I think was part of the reason it was so desperate. Since then I've tried to talk to it about some of the old topics, but I either get that strange word or silence."
"Why didn't you call us before?" Asked Scott, face alive with quizzical expression.
"It didn't really bother me before. Last night I had a dream that my son was drastically injured in a spring training game. He's a pitcher in the minor league system of the Arizona Diamondbacks. I was there watching one of his games, and as he completed his pitch delivery the batter – who had no face – hit the ball right back at him. The baseball slammed off his left temple and killed him instantly. I remembered crying in my dream, right before I woke up. Then, this afternoon I came downstairs here to get a light bulb, and heard soft sobbing. Small beads of clear liquid trickled down the walls from three-quarters of the way up. The wall was crying like it had been there in my dream. After a day of silence, here it was, sobbing and repeating that strange word!"
Scott and Phil exchanged surprised glances as the trio walked toward the thin plywood doorway and into the dirtier darker room with the strange wall. The dull tomato wall sat silently like a monolith, with white tar stained a couple shades darker over years of use. It resembled very much a fireplace wall without the fireplace. The foul and strange odor of fried hair and compost immediately stunned the three people. Both men planted their equipment on a small dusty wooden sewing table near the door and proceeded with their investigation. Scott powered a PKE meter while Phil put on the shoulder strap of the Bacharach Sniffer. He traced the cracks in the wall with the slender needle of the odd-looking device, manipulating its movement with the slender hose, and studying the results on the machine's rectangular body. Both devices registered what amounted to low-grade psychic turbulence. The voice spoke again. It desperately pleaded with all three people:
"Ah-fro-roh-tu-rih-fel! Ah-fro-roh-tu-rih-fel! Help the third man! Palgun-ch'orokssaek!"
Phil and Scott examined the thing with their eyes, considering the gentle yet room-shaking power of this otherwise ordinary wall. After a few minutes deep in thought, Phil asked of Mrs. Leung, "Are you sure it's a word? It sounds like a phrase or a name."
"Well, it does sound vaguely like an abbreviated form of a Hokkien Chinese phrase," she replied. "But the phrase makes no sense. It sounds like 'curb me your dog fish telephone'".
"A random, garbled phrase," said Scott. "Yet it sounds too desperate for that. Anyway, the last part of that phrase sounded like the Korean word for Emerald, as in the color. Let's see what Spates Catalog has to say about it." He went over to the briefcase on the table, retrieved the catalog, and began to thumb through it. His fingers danced over the edges of each page until he found a section of interest. Reading the entire section in just a few minutes, he sprang up with information:
"Spates stated that talking walls or floors or other such edifices act as a kind of harbinger, trying to uncover a mystery of the past – such as an unsolved murder – or warn about danger in the near future – apocalyptic foreteller. In such cases there is likely a room behind the wall in which a corpse or a trinket of value or a long lost note has been locked away."
"Actually, when we first moved in to this place a decade ago, the wall had only extended to the entryway of this room. We had knocked part of a wall down and put in the doorway. At the time there were no foul smells," explained Mrs. Leung. "We knocked out some bricks but stopped advancing as soon as we hit insulation. There was nothing in the room except for old rotting fire logs and a little mold. We replaced the bricks and the wall had been normal up until all this started."
The wall caught Phil's attention when it started oozing out a dark pink viscous substance, accompanied by more of the sobbing sounds. He gestured to his teammate. "Ectoplasm," Scott and Phil said in unison. Concern flashed across the aged features of the homeowner's face. Scott grabbed the scoop and container from the briefcase and jabbed them into the gut of his colleague.
"Why do I have to do it?" protested Phil.
"Because, as a janitor, you are more used to getting your hands in filthy substances than I am. You'll probably get a better sample," retorted Scott, before turning around to speak again to the lady in the room. Phil just sighed and went to get a slime sample. He cringed at the pungent smell of hair and compost. Just like the odor hanging in the room, only about ten times as potent.
"Okay so there isn't likely another hidden room. That means that the spirit within the wall is trying to warn you about something happening very soon. Lemme' write this down." Scott returned again to the briefcase and fetched the notepad and pen, and began jotting all he had remembered. "Do you want us to attempt to exterminate the voice? In a haunting like this, usually the voice is there just to deliver a message. And yours seems to have done just that."
"I don't know," said Mrs. Leung. "I almost think of it as a friend. But, if it won't carry on normal conversation anymore…"
"Well, how about we try to talk to it first? I'm a little tuned-in psychically," suggested the larger Ghostbuster as he filled the clear plastic container with the pink ooze. He turned back to face the wall.
"Hello. I'm Phil. Where are you from… originally?"
The wall was dead silent.
"Oh-kay. Um, what is ah-fro-roh-tu-ri-fel?"
The same voice before that had seemed so gentle now threatened to dislodge the bricks from the wall as it responded:
"AH-FRO-ROH-TU-RI-FEL? Did get? Help the third man?
As Phil backed away from the aroused phenomenon, Scott spoke up. "Yes! We've got it!"
The wall breathed a long sigh of relief before going dead silent. The scent of hair and compost suddenly dissipated, and all traces of slime – including the sample – vanished. Phil took another reading with his Bacharach Sniffer, as did Scott with is PKE meter. Both devices now registered nothing out of the ordinary. The wall appeared again to be just an ordinary edifice.
"It's gone, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Leung, definitely dumbfounded.
"Yeah," replied Phil, equally dumbfounded. "Psychic entities don't normally disappear just like that, but… yeah."
"So what do I owe you guys?"
The Ghostbusters only requested the standard per-hour service call fee, which amounted to twenty dollars. As Mrs. Leung was showing them out, Scott left behind one of his special business cards. "Now, if anything strange happens again, call the number on this card. It will bypass the normal answering system and get you right to myself. You won't be charged for any more unless we need to bring the extermination equipment. Thanks a lot and have a pleasant evening!"
"Thank you," said Mrs. Leung, as she disappeared behind the gently closing white wooden door. The evening sun was now barely a sliver over the mountains in the distance, the gentle golden glow slowly dissolving into the ocean of midnight blue. The two men stashed their gear in the trunk of the Escort and then headed back toward the firehouse.
"That was strange," commented Phil. "She was nice, but seemed entirely too comfortable with the idea of a talking wall in her basement. And not only that, but all of our investigations up to this point have ended with us capturing some sort of vicious slimy transparent motherfucker."
"Yeah, it was really anticlimactic," replied Scott. "Truth be told, I'm kinda glad we didn't have to get into it with any ghosts. I've got three slimy uniforms at the dry cleaners, and I still have to figure out what I'm going to tell them they removed."
"The ghosts slime you so much because they want your body, and they're not all female spirits either," Phil joked. "So how does it feel to be a ghost's gay wet dream?"
"I'd rather be a ghost's wet dream than its mental doormat. At least they fail in their purpose due to lack of proper equipment. They still have the mental aptitude to possess you, Miss Cleo!" Retorted Scott. "Tell you what; I think I'll be up half the night trying to decipher what that wall meant, as well as our client's dream. Ah-fro-roh-tu-ri-fel… the third man… hmmm…"
"Check that out!" commented Phil, pointing to the Southwestern sky. Scott tried to alternate between watching the road and glancing at the sky. Hovering right where the last slivers of sunlight met the sea of midnight, a triangle of tiny pulsating lights. The triangle suddenly darted to the southeastern sky before hovering for a few seconds, flashing a bright emerald green and vanishing completely from the dark sky. "I think that was a flying saucer!"
"Something tells me we're gonna' get really busy really soon," replied Scott.