"You don't know Amity Park unless you know tragedy. And for tonight's unfortunate and unforgettable soul, he was well acquainted. Every Casper High Freshman knows about the haunted locker and its occupant Sidney Hershel Poindexter. Welcome to the first installment of… of…?" Dash covered his microphone, glancing over to his cohost. The skinny ginger was spinning a basketball on his middle finger, looking unimpressed.
The quarterback whispered-yelled, "What name did we decide on?"
The fellow jock gave a taciturn smirk. The basketball player mouthed, 'Ghostbusters.'
Unamused, Dash Baxter pouted. He should have known that the ginger would be unhelpful. Too late to recast now; Kwan was already nice enough to demo the equipment. He didn't want to bother him anymore. Apparently, it was Scrabble night. Wes wasn't a bad candidate by any means, a little full of himself, sure. Wes needed a hobby. In Dash's professional opinion— Wes was… dull. The only reason why Wes was available was that he literally had no life outside of the basketball court. From playing together, Dash knew Wes played the game somewhat selfishly, not passing and risking fouls to make impossible shots. They had gotten into spirited debates on away games if Amity Park really was cursed. Dash thought they were engaging conversations, sure. When the quarterback approached Wes about this project— he had surprised Dash by agreeing to it. Though quickly, he said he was mostly in it to prove definitively that ghosts were not real. So really, this was all just a big bet to see which one of them would cave first and admit who was right.
Hurriedly, Dash uncovered his mike, "Welcome to the first installment of Amity Park Anomalies!"
The readout peaked and blew out in sync with the quarterback's voice crack.
The shooting-guard leaned into the microphone before cooly stating, "Tentative title."
He then pressed a button on the sound effect board, prompting canned studio audience laughter to exit the speakers.
Shake it off, Baxter, shake it off.
He dragged a folder across the desk, introducing, "Uh, hi. My username is His-dude-Friday. For simplicity's sake, you can just call me Friday, I guess."
His cohost snorted, "Oh yeah, anonymity. Like all six people listening in aren't gonna know who we are."
Finally fed up with his attitude— Dash smacked the back of his cohost's head. The sound of the basketball hitting the floor and rolling away also appeared on the audio readout.
"Alright! Jeez! Hey, my username is Atlas-dunked, but all you—" The ginger waggled his eyebrows suggestively, "Lovely, lovely, people out there in cyberspace can call me Wes."
Wes poked another button on the soundboard, eliciting a sound effect of swooning girls.
"I apologize for him," Dash mumbled. He opened one of his school folders containing some of the black and white low-toner print-outs of articles he grabbed from the library. Doing some last-minute organizing of his research material, the quarterback posed a question, "So Wes, what do you know about Casper High alumnus?"
"For those of you at home, I'm putting my hand on my chin."
"Rather smugly, I might add," The football player remarked.
After a pause of the basketball player looking towards the ceiling with a mock-pensive expression, Wes chuckled, "You got me; I don't know my Casper High lore as well as someone on the student council. Enlighten me."
Wes took off his headphones, and they clattered against Dash's desk. He tracked down the dusty ball that wedged itself under Dash's bed.
Dash fanned out his papers and selected his first one, "Some accolades under our high school's banner include: Crazy Carl of Crazy Carl's Used Car Lot? Graduating class of eighty-seven."
"Wow— Fascinating."
Slightly irritated, Dash picked up the microphone stand. Reaching towards Wes for his comment, he asked, "Say again? I don't think the mike got it."
"I said that's so interesting. I am practically moist." Wes sneered, kicking his ball free.
Baxter chuckled, albeit still disgusted, "Dude— C'mon, take this seriously."
"Then tell me something serious!" Wes exclaimed, glaring at one of the posters on the wall— it was some german horror movie Wes had never seen before. He had no desire to either. The basketball player should have known Dash had a pretentious side. Wes guffawed, "I know we aren't talking about Crazy Carl actually going crazy."
"It's called building suspense!"
Wes blinked at the soulless monster on the poster staring down at him. The monster was very clearly a man in terrible make-up. You could see where the brush missed parts of the actor's face. Parts of the pale make-up were coming off with the sweat and studio lights—fake plastic teeth jutting out of the actor's mouth. The basketball player was trying to assert dominance over a poster in a staring contest no one was having. Why couldn't Dash be a normal red-blooded American male and have busty ladies adorning his walls instead? No, Dash had to believe in the absurd like vampires, ghouls, and ghosts—
The poster told Wes everything he needed to know about Dash Baxter. Dash could only handle scary if he could turn it off. If the fear was completely artificial. If the fear was something he could justify with reality. Dash has never been truly scared in his life. The quarterback had never been face to face with something that genuinely made him ponder his little time left on this rock of a planet. Wes was going to change that. Wes was certain Dash didn't actually fear the paranormal because Dash, deep down, knew that it was all fake. In the meantime, Wes was going to annoy the shit of him too. Really that was just a signing bonus.
Wes spun his ball in his hand, idly— before sauntering back to the desk with a grin on his face, putting his headphones back on. The headband cracked with Wes' exaggerated and deliberate movements. Wes leaned and curled around the basketball resting on his lap, "Continue, Dashell."
"Thank you." The quarterback said. He took a moment to adjust his sitting position, and he shook out the muscles in his arms before getting back into his flow. Dash tapped the next passage, "Mr Burkowitz of the Amity Park Video rental, he graduated in the late seventies, went into the navy…"
"Oh apparently, Author Stephen H.G Phillips graduated class of seventy-seven…" Dash began, hopefully. He then folded over the articles he stapled together, starting at the top of the next page, "before he was found dead in his manor outside of town in his late twenties."
"Ouch." Wes was half tempted to hit another sound effect on the board, but Baxter shot him a disapproving glance.
"Let's see…" Dash inched his finger along the page, squinting between the blobs of letters, "Famed petty crook, Jeremy Tris— Trisdek— It's something greek. Jeremy Trisdeka is all I'm gettin'. He dropped out in nineteen-eighty-three before getting hit by a train on the run from the cops after he shot his foster father in cold blood. He would have been nineteen at the time of death, but reportedly his foster parents tried putting him through high school despite him only having a sixth-grade education."
Okay, slightly less boring. Wes could agree on that. The shooting-guard nodded, stifling a laugh, "I heard something about that guy; he thought he was playing cowboy against ol' Johnny law… well until he was pancaked. He walked the line until he could walk no more. He fought the law, and the locomotion won. He—"
"Are you done?"
"One more?"
With a sigh, Baxter acquiesced, "Fine. Go ahead."
Wes snatched the microphone off the table before the quarterback could change his mind. He snapped his fingers before butchering a well-known gospel tune, "JERAMAIAH WAS A BIKER— HE WAS A DEAR FRIEND OF MINE. I NEVER UNDERSTOOD A SINGLE WORD HE SAID BECAUSE HE GOT FLATTENED BY THE A-LINE."
"That was Wes," Dash threw off his headphones and steepled his hands in front of his nose, "Proving that he doesn't have a face for television or a voice for radio."
"Hey, at least my vocal cords are done growing, okay?" Weston pushed Dash's shoulder, "Lest ye cast the first stone who is without judgment."
"Just so we're clear. We've barely cracked the lid on the story I wanted to cover and so far—" Dash began to count the offenses on his fingers, "You have mocked two dead people, butchered a beloved song, got up and wandered away— I'll add misquoting the bible to make fun of me to the list."
"That isn't the bible, you ignoramus." He sat up and raised a brow.
"... I will fact check you live, and I don't want it to come down to that, Wes." Dash readjusted the volume on his headset and put them on again.
While gesturing, Wes knocked his knuckles against Dash's computer monitor, "And what are the dead guys gonna do to me—? They're dead! I'm alive. I'd say I already have a head start."
"Actually, that gives me an excellent segue." Dash pointed to his computer, a knowing smile inching across his cheek, "On your side of the desk, I already loaded up the Casper High library register. I want you to tell me if you notice anything weird about the page."
"I can tell you about four things that's weird about your computer. Firstly, what's with the carebear stickers?"
"Just read the screen!" Dash stole the basketball from Wes's lap and bounced it against his cohost's forehead.
"Alright! Keep your shirt on— jeez!" Wes rubbed his face bitterly as he analyzed the webpage for anything unusual. Really it was poorly designed. Comic sans everywhere it didn't need to be. Big grey windows with clashing saturated school colors. It's a graphic designer's nightmare. Weston murmured this observation into the recording device. It was open specifically on the reference section, the search was narrowed on Casper High yearbooks. Begrudgingly humoring the charade, Weston narrated his findings as he scrolled, "...Casper High nineteen-sixty-four, Casper High nineteen-sixty-three, Casper High nineteen-sixty-two—"
"You wanna read that back to me one more time?" Dash tapped the monitor.
Wes glowered at the request before fixing his gaze back on the computer. He went down the list again. The covers weren't anything particularly special for the era. They were undoubtedly more well thought out and purposeful than the Casper High website. They were hardback books bound with a faux leather material embroidered with the Casper High colors, purple and red. The crow logo was either stitched in the center or lower right corner. The quality has certainly gone downhill with the budget. Noticeably the stitching on the books and the binding was more noticeable after nineteen-sixty—
"There's a gap here," Wes finally said, turning to Dash.
The knowledgeable look the quarterback had plastered on his face deepened with his lack of response. With a flick of his fingers, Dash rolled his wrist, signaling for Wes to continue.
An odd sensation pooled at the bottom of his chest. It pulled at his lungs. However, he couldn't identify the source. Slowly Wes articulated, "Th-there is no yearbook for nineteen-sixty-two."
"Mhmm." Dash hummed and leaned to the microphone with a sing-songy tone, "Do you wanna know why?"
"It's obviously some kind of clerical error," Wes dismissed; The ache in his lungs did not abate. The shooting guard refreshed the page, "there's nothing otherworldly about someone checking out an old yearbook."
"See, that's what I thought at first, but I checked it out in person, and there was a huge supply of donated yearbooks— like hundreds— from the three years behind nineteen-sixty-two." Dash rolled across his floor, being careful of the tether to his computer. He retrieved his backpack and dropped a stack of dusty tomes onto his desk, "Practically bursting out of the storage boxes. So you have hundreds of copies of Casper High years nineteen-fifty-nine to nineteen-sixty-one. Like there's a sarcastic amount of documentation about these three years, but nothing about sixty-two." Dash concluded with complete confidence, "It doesn't exist."
"It doesn't exist?" Wes replied incredulously. Scanning the covers of each book, fifty-nine through to sixty-one, sixty-three, seventy-seven, then finally eighty-three. Raising a brow, he squinted at his acquaintance. The expression on his face read as someone trying to find the kindest way to call someone a moron. Obviously, the sixty-two yearbook had to exist. That was indisputable.
Sensing Wes' reservations, the king jock took a thin book from the center of the pile. Dash began to thumb through it, "Maybe at one point it did exist." The plastic-coated pages gave a satisfying crack as they were peeled apart, "But according to the library, it doesn't. According to the trophy case, according to the school records— the year nineteen-sixty-two did not happen."
Dash slid over the thin laminated paper-back. This book in question was the yearbook for nineteen-sixty-three. It was significantly gutted compared to the years prior. It matched the website image and description. It was a cheap flimsy thing stapled together— much like Dash's instant print notes. It had a checker and jack pattern with dots scattered on the cover. It was the cheapest one in the bunch. There wasn't much in terms of padding, just pictures noticeably for maybe seventy or so students for a single freshman class, no sophomores, no juniors, no seniors. There was nothing about the clubs or extracurriculars. It was comparable to something a rural elementary school would produce. The quarterback was positively buzzing, "The messed up part about this, comparing sixty-three to sixty-one. None of these freshmen are the same. We don't know where these kids went. Arguably they'd still be around three years later, right? They would've been seniors—" Dash was impassioned about this oddity, "but they're not there!"
Wes opened the sixty-one yearbook and pinched his fingers around a large section of the pages to find the freshman pictures. None of them matched. At first glance, it appeared what Dash was proposing was true. That something happened to the class of sixty-two. However, Wes wasn't about to make any declaration like that any time soon. He'd sooner eat his own sneakers before admitting Dash Baxter was right about anything.
"The school probably closed down or something." Wes shut the book, "There were riots around that time. Vietnam? Ring any bells? They probably didn't have enough staff to distribute around the district."
"Face it," Wes couldn't help but chuckle at how riled up the quarterback was, "For every one fantastical option, there's thousands of perfectly reasonable mundane explanations."
Furrowing his brow, Dash emphasized his point, "For one year? They would close down the school for one year?"
Prying up his sweatband, Wes stole a look at his watch, he yawned, "I imagine you're about to tell me why?"
Mistaking Wes' impatience as genuine interest, Dash clapped his hands together, rubbing them in anticipation, "I'm glad you asked!"
"Oh god, here we go."
Shoving Wes' chair back, Dash crossed his torso over the desk, the fabric of his shirt rubbing against the microphone. He switched tabs on the window from the school's library to the public library. Dash zoomed in on digitized snippets from the local newspaper, The Amity Park Herald. Date: December fourth, nineteen-sixty-one. The headline?
Flirting With Disaster— Household Cleaners Deadly as Mustard Gas!
"So, the theory you're pushing is that there was a custodial mishap of epic proportions." Wes snickered, wiggling his fingers, "Spooky."
Sitting back in his chair, the plastic wheels creaking under the weight, Dash picked up his pencil and wedged it between his headset and ear. He jutted his jaw towards the monitor, "Keep reading."
There was something about the way Dash's eyes lit up. He was looking past Wes as if he was using Wes as a vessel to experience this second-hand eureka. Baxter's vindication only steeled in the face of Weston's mockery.
Local housewife Shirley Poindexter, found face down in her sparkling clean bathroom by her son. Black curly hair matted to her face, she had sustained a head injury upon losing consciousness in her unventilated water closet. She split her forehead open, blood trailing down the tile and down the bathtub wall and circling the drain, still covered in her cleaning solution. A homemade concoction of vinegar and bleach. Her glasses were found in her closed fist, implying that she had a few moments of lucidity before slipping into a permanent sleep.
"I just thought that she had fainted," Her son's statement reads, "I wake her up before I go to school every morning; she looked like she was… asleep. She seemed at peace."
Shirley Poindexter was known as a delight to her neighbors and the winner of the city-wide cherry pie-making contest. Her birthday was a week away. She would have been thirty-nine. Her funeral and wake will be open casket due to the intact state the body was found in.
"... the autopsy revealed that Poindexter was carrying a tumor in her frontal lobe; therefore, she may not have been thinking logically when she combined the two cleaners." Wes scrolled to read more, but the page cut off and went into an advert for the Amity Park bowling alley, then known as the Foxtrot.
"What does this have to do with anything?" Wes getting the idea that Dash wanted him to read fucked up shit on live air for jollies, "It just sounds like a classic case of 'let's give you heroin for your cough.' Like sure, it's screwed up— whatever, but—"
"But Shirley was Sidney's mom!" While Wes was captivated by the article, Dash had opened the sixty-one yearbook in the juniors' section. He circled the subject in red ink. A monochrome photo of a rather unfortunate-looking boy. Overbite, with two buck teeth that stuck out from under his top lip, greasy hair that fell limply above his ears, cystic acne scars, and blemishes. Coke-bottle glasses tapped up the center. The name beside the photo: Sidney H. Poindexter.
Wes did not want to give the impression that he was rattled by what he read, "What is your obsession with this kid, dude?"
"He was rumored to be the most bullied kid in Casper High history." Dash pointed to the picture before flipping into the photos of the activities and clubs. Sidney could be seen in the background either being hassled or sitting by himself with a notebook, "There's still graffiti in the bathrooms dedicated to mocking him, decades later. There were rumors of his family being connected to the communist party— these kids were trying to ruin his life and get him arrested or worse!"
Talk about bad luck. The guy's mom died, and everyone still gave him a hard time? Still clinging to the idea that this was all some sort of misunderstanding, Weston snorted, "Spend a lot of time in the bathrooms, do you?"
"Ha. Ha. You're hilarious." Dash closed the book and climbed across the desk again. His chest nearly draping on top of Wes' head. Switching the tabs, he found another article reporting on the rise of poisoned cats and other animals after Shirley's death.
As if to corroborate the two pieces of information, Dash pulled up an image file on his computer from a scan he pulled from the sixty-one yearbook. Sidney was cleaning up after a chemistry experiment with bleach and an unmarked bottle, "It was noted that Sidney's strongest subject was science, and he was allergic to cats."
Wes blinked, dumbfounded by how large of a leap Dash was making, "Oh no, I'm allergic to cats!"
"You can't deny that this is sort of an…" The king jock picked his nail scavenging for the right word, "Angle."
"Yeah," Wes nodded his head, "its angle that occurs when a football player with too much time on his hands finds a bunch of events that barely have a connecting thread. What are you suggesting? This guy… killed his entire class in some sort of mass chemical poisoning? And no one found the bodies— and no one reported it?"
Dash crossed his leg at the thigh, "I'm not suggesting anything— but Sidney is the only one of the class of nineteen-sixty-two with a death certificate. Allegedly he was found stuffed in a storage locker, having died of asphyxiation."
"That's an awfully big word for you." Picking his teeth, Wes remarked under his breath.
There was a moment of silence as both boys turned their heads, hearing a freight train in the distance. Its horn blared in a constant unending shape until it passed over them.
The quarterback cocked his head towards his acquaintance, "Could you at least give me the satisfaction of telling me that it's weird that both mother and son died of suffocation?"
Coiling the cord around his finger, Weston inched the microphone over to his side, "I'll say this. You know how to tell one hell of a ghost story. But that's all." Wes made sure he wouldn't be misheard, "a story."
In the dim light of Dash's red lava lamp and pale blue tinged computer screen, Wes wanted to make sure his mischievous grin was woven into his words. Dash stared down at him, realizing that this was a lost cause.
The doorbell rang—
Well, not wholly lost. Takeout, when you didn't pay for it, was always delicious.
Dash removed his headphones again, "Did you get the extra eggrolls and gyoza like I asked?"
Wes yawned once more, this time for real, "Yeah, man!" He inched forward to the edge of his seat, "God, we've been sitting here for forever, my ass is numb— Sweet and sour pork here I come! If you even touch that crab rangoon, though I can't be held responsible for what I'll do to you."
Realizing they were still, in fact, recording— Dash pressed one ear to his headset and snatched back the mike, "Uh, thank you all for joining us tonight for Amity Park Anomalies. This has been His-dude-Friday and—"
Wes pushed Dash away, scooting over to take his place, "Atlas-dunked!"
Quickly Weston smashed the applause button, "Also, this is totally not a sponsor, but the Duck Factory?" the second jock gave a kiss into the microphone, "To die for. A thousand chef kisses— tell your friends. Ghosts aren't real, deuces!"
Shaking his head, Dash shoulder-checked Wes away from the recording station. He rolled up to the desk and punched the stop. The audio then appeared on to his desktop. The live viewer count only seemed to be three people. More accurately, two once Dash remembered to factor out his computer tuned into the audio stream. Not a bad night at all.