Zero Regrets
(October 2017)
17: Some Questions, Some Answers
Ford accompanied Mabel and Wendy to the Western Alliance campus. It took them a quarter-hour of casually asking the women students coming into and out of Colby Residence Hall before they hit a streak of luck: One student knew the name of a fourth-floor resident, Tammi Weissley. Wendy went in, asked at the desk for Tammi's room number—416, down the hall and on the opposite side from 439.
She used the house phone and got Aleisha Kincaid, Tammi's roommate. In turn, Aleisha knew the names of the students in Room 439. She wrote the names down in a pocket-sized pad—Here I am in full Dipper mode—thanked Aleisha, and then went back to where Ford and Mabel waited. Sunset was dusking into evening, but it was still a warm one.
Wendy said, "Brandi Yarrow and Allie Therrol. Take it from here, Mabes."
"Got it," Mabel said. She had returned from the afternoon's run-through and rehearsal to a dinner that Dipper had saved for her—half his steak, still a good serving, a baked potato, and, in place of the asparagus, some microwaved mixed vegetables—and after she had gobbled that, she and the other two had taken off for the campus, while Dipper and Hazard stayed at the house.
Mabel walked into the dorm and stopped at the desk. A cute guy asked, "Can I help you?"
"Why, sure thing, Sugah," she said in what she thought was a Southern accent—she'd been practicing one, just in case Teek might come home with a preference for Georgia belles—"Ah jus' need to use the li'l ole house phone over theyah to call a friend of mine."
"Go ahead," he said. "What's the room number?"
"Fo' thirty-nine, Ah do believe."
"OK, easy. The number's just the building number plus the room number. Dial 8439."
You are just as sweet as honeh. Thank you so very much."
"You're welcome. Where are you from?"
"Why, from the Peach State, darlin'. Ah'm from li'l ole Atlanta, Jawja. Mah name is Katie Monsser."
"OK, Katie. My name's Wayne."
"I sho' will remembah that!"
Mabel walked over to the bank of phones with a little exaggerated hip-sway. Hah! A little more of this and I could play Lucy the Slut!
She dialed the number, and after two rings, a low alto voice said, "Hello?"
"Hi," Mabel said. "Listen, this is going to sound crazy. Is this Brandi or Allie?"
A long pause. Then: "Brandi. Allie—uh. She's not in the room much. She's not feeling great."
"Noises? Voices?"
A longer pause. "What do you know about all that?"
"Enough to help. Listen, my uncle knows about things like this. He's an investigator. He won't laugh at you. And I won't either. Will you come down and talk to us for a few minutes?"
The longest pause of all. Then a whispered, "You can really help Allie?"
"We sure as heck will try. Listen, I'm in the lobby. When you step off the elevator, look for a girl with shoulder-length brown hair, a blue headband, a dark blue sweater with an appliqué that looks like an orange sunburst and a white Q inside it. Act like we know each other and call me Kate—not my real name, but I'll explain that."
"I'll be right down."
Mabel hung up and then passed the reception desk with a finger-wiggling wave and broad smile at Wayne. She stood near the door. A couple of minutes later, one of the two elevators opened and an African American girl about her age stepped out, looking around. She was petite, a head shorter than Mabel, with luxuriant hair, and she wore a check-patterned jacket over a white blouse and baggy pants that matched the jacket. She saw Mabel and walked quickly over with a tense smile.
Mabel said, loudly enough for Wayne to hear, "Brandi! Great to see you again!" She hugged the other girl and with an arm around her shoulders, led her out.
Ford and Wendy had been waiting on the bench. They might have been a father and daughter. Mabel took Brandi over and made the introductions: "Brandi, this is Wendy Corduroy-Pines. She's my sister-in-law. This is my Grunkle Stanford Pines—that means great-uncle, get it?—he's got a doctorate in paranormal studies. My name's really Mabel Pines. And this is Brandi Yarrow, and I think her roommate Allie is the one the ghost is concentrating on. Listen, Brandi, will you come with us to our house? It's only fifteen minutes away, but if you're uneasy about that, we'll talk anywhere you want."
Brandi was weeping. "People are treating us like freaks," she said. "It's like they think we're causing the damn noises. I'll go with you if you can help. I have to be back by nine-thirty, though."
"Then let's go," Ford said. "I'm sorry for your troubles. I can only promise that we'll do our best to help you, and I'll tell you that we have faced, and overcome, a great many supernatural threats before this."
They walked to the visitor's lot, where Ford had parked the Agency car—a full-sized model, a discreet charcoal-gray Dodge Charger. Mabel and Brandi got in the back seat, Wendy drove, and Ford rode shotgun. Brandi collected herself as they made the short drive. Mabel chattered: "Our house is kinda in the country, but it's real quiet. You'll love my dog—his name's Tripper, and he's just a mutt, but he's the smartest mutt in the whole world! My brother is Dipper—don't get them mixed up!—and he's kinda a nerd—"
"Hey, hey!" Wendy said from the driver's seat. "You're talking about the man I love!"
"OK, OK," Mabel said. "He's a great nerd! He's smart and he stood up against ghosts and monsters, and yes, those things are real. And he's got enough good sense to marry somebody like Wendy, who's freaking awesome. Dipper's a nickname, but everybody who knows him well calls him that, so he'll want you to call him that, too. Grunkle Ford is really Dr. Stanford F. Pines. He's the president of a special university dedicated to the study of anomalous sciences. And he's got twelve fingers!"
"It's a genetic anomaly," Stanford said. "And it doesn't make me any stronger than anyone else. It only makes typing harder!"
They arrived at the house. Tripper, at first ecstatic to meet a new friend, quickly sensed the mood and settled down, stretched out at Mabel's feet, chin resting on paws, his forehead wrinkled as though in concern. Deedee, as Wendy called Hazard, nodded and sat a little apart, concentrating, but she didn't speak beyond a murmured hello in the beginning.
"Now," Ford said as they all settled down, "we'll help you any way you can. Tell us your story, and we'll ask questions. We're your friends."
"My roommate—" Brandi said, and then she gulped—"I think she may be losing her mind." She started to shake. Stanford soothed her, asked the questions, and Wendy and Dipper occasionally put in an observation or a request for more detail. Mabel was Brandi's cheerleader, sitting beside her on the sofa, patting her shoulder, offering her a box of tissues or a glass of lemonade, reassuring her.
With halts and sobs, little by little, the story came out. They recorded it all on a pocket voice recorder, and that evening before he turned in—past midnight—Dipper transposed it all, putting the narrative together by compiling Brandi's responses to Ford's questions.
From Dipper Pines's Report on the Testimony of Brandi Yarrow: I liked Allie from the moment I saw her. She liked me. We're both fans of the same music and like the same TV shows and movies and all that. Each of us has an older brother, and we're both majoring in education. We've got one class that we're taking together. Everything was great for the first two weeks.
I mean, yeah, I'm black and she's white, but we're more like sisters than friends, in a lot of ways. I love her to death. It was all perfect for the first two weeks. Then, a few days ago [NOTE: SEPTEMBER 22 OR 23—DIPPER PINES] we first heard the scratching sounds.
It was hard to tell where they came from—from the ceiling or from the walls. It was like they were just there. Sometimes we thought it was coming from under her bed, sometimes from overhead. We even emptied out the closets. We joked that mice must have come into the attic.
A girl from down the hall [NAME EDITED FOR PRIVACY] told us that the room was haunted. Nobody else had heard anything like that, but she said that every year an angry ghost took the life of one of the girls who lived in 439. [NOTE: NOT TRUE]
The sounds got louder. We heard heavy footsteps, like a muscular guy was stomping around. We heard—muttering. Like a voice, but we couldn't tell if it was a male or a female voice, and we couldn't make out any words. Then the laughing started. It came late at night. We complained. The University sent somebody to inspect. There wasn't anything in the attic and no evidence of mice or rats or anything like that in the walls.
Worse than that, when the adults—you know what I mean, the people from maintenance—were around, nothing happened. No noises. One weekend, the girl from down the hall and two others came to our room to use a Ouija board and Tarot cards to see if any spirits would speak to them. [NOTE: EVENING OF SEPT 30]
That made it worse. We started to hear the noises when two of the girls were doing the Ouija board thing. They weren't getting any answers. The little slidey thing [NOTE: PLANCHETTE] seemed to be moving, but it didn't spell anything out. Then Allie took one of the girls' places and put her fingers on the [planchette]. Then it did spell out a word: HATE. And then it slipped out from under their fingers and flew through the air. It smashed into the wall, and then it flew back and smashed against the door, and then it embedded itself in a ceiling tile.
I begged them to stop but [THE GIRL FROM DOWN THE HALL] did a Tarot reading for Allie. She laid down all the cards in a pattern on the floor. But before [THE GIRL] could start explaining, the whole deck flew up in the air, the ones laid out and the rest of the pack. They were like a whirlwind. And some stuck to the wall over Allie's bed.
[NOTE: ALLIE DID NOT KNOW TAROT CARDS AND COULD NOT REMEMBER WHAT THEY WERE. S. PINES SHOWED HER IMAGES AND QUESTIONED HER. THE SIX CARDS WERE, IN ORDER, LEFT TO RIGHT: THE RUINED TOWER. TEN OF SWORDS, REVERSED. THREE OF SWORDS. FIVE OF PENTACLES. DEVIL. DEATH]
The other girls all ran out of the room, screaming. Allie was shaking and scared. I went over to the wall and peeled the damn cards off. When I peeled the death card off, it came alive. I mean it started to move in my fingers. I couldn't keep my grip on it. It flew out of my hand and went spinning through the air. And it clipped the side of Allie's neck.
It cut her. She bled.
[SUMMARY OF THE REST BY DIPPER PINES:] Brandi says that Allie wasn't right after that night. She has nightmares and can't sleep. She tried to get a room transfer, but there are no rooms available. She's missed several classes. She won't stay in the dorm—she goes and sits in the Student Center or library. She has slept in her car. Nothing Brandi suggested helps her. The sounds get worse and worse. Brandi is afraid that Allie may run away or hurt herself.
Grunkle Ford gave her an amulet that he asked her to persuade Allie to wear. It may provide some comfort and protection. When Brandi sees Allie, he wants her to set up a time when he and maybe Mabel can talk to her. He also gave Brandi a locket and asked her to wear it all the time, even when she's in bed. She agreed. He told me that it contains a wisp of unicorn hair and has a protective spell engraved on it in a code.
I hope the amulets help.
Personal note: Grunkle Ford, I feel so sorry for these girls. We have to end this and keep them safe.
When the questioning was over, Wendy drove Brandi back to campus. Ford said goodnight and drove to a motel to stay for the night. Hazard said she was going to sleep over. Mabel offered to let Hazard sleep in her bed, but Hazard said she'd make do with the sofa. She had a small backpack with her necessities in it. Dipper put blankets and a spare pillow on the couch while Hazard showered and changed to—pajamas. Black pajamas.
Mabel said, "You look like a sexy Ninja! All you need is a black belt!"
"Got one, don't wear it," Hazard said. "Listen, you two, and tell Wendy this when she gets back: we've walked up to a hornet nest and poked it with a stick. We've backed off. But hornets are mean and determined and they'll go a long way for revenge. If anything happens tonight, you are going to follow my instructions. No questions. No suggestions. No objections. You do what I tell you to do."
"Dipper?" Mabel asked, unsteadily.
"I trust her," Dipper said. "Agreed."
"Then I do, too," Mabel said. "I gotta survive. They show couldn't go on without me."
"We'll do our best," Hazard said, "to keep you alive until then."
