Chapter Fifty
A Fast Talking Fox
'T' minus 2 hours and holding...
The brick and mortar structure of Erkin Electrical Enterprise stood nonchalantly between rows upon rows of other, near-identical industry buildings. Outlined against the falling sun, it was but a silhouette offset with gray twilight. The sun was still dancing; however, in the city of skyscrapers night came early, the beam of life thus blocked by the many towers of the city skyline, even though nightfall was still more than two hours away. A car pulled up against the side of the road. From within, two disguised officers stepped out into the warm air. The wind had picked up; a hot wind — stuffy and breathless — which made the very act of walking alone nearly enough to bring out a sweat or pant.
The two officers trod down the road, adjusting their recently acquired clothing as they paced towards a row of tall, industrial buildings some way off; the smaller of the two, the rabbit, speaking to the fox as they made their journey towards it, "Honestly, though, I think you could've bought something better than some old sweater to disguise yourself in. It's not your style."
"This is not a sweater," Nick pointed out with indignation, "this is a hoody. It's a gray hoody, with 'Freedom Festival' printed on the back. And it is the most amazing piece of clothing I've ever bought with ZPD budget."
"And you're seriously going to claim this under expenses?"
"Yeah! It's for work, it was expensive. Why shouldn't I?"
"And the creamy, suede over-the-shoulder bag? Admit it, Nick. You wanted it for yourself."
"Well, that too— but look. You got some nice stuff out of it."
"A black hoody and a pair of denim jeans? I look ridiculous."
"They're awesome!"
The rabbit squinted up at the fox as they walked. "Nick, are you feeling okay?"
"Of course, I'm fine! Why wouldn't I be?"
"You seem a little... excited."
"I'm getting into character. Stop ruining it, Johnny!"
"What, I thought you were Johnny?"
"I am Johnny! How dare you. I can't believe you just said that…"
"We're both called Johnny?!" Judy shouted, clutching at her skull, "Why can't this just make sense! You haven't even told me what our cover-story is yet."
"You know more than you need to know already."
"Wait, Johnny's a male's name..."
"Well then, you'll just have to speak in a deeper voice, won't you. Do I have to explain everything?"
"So, what… the story is I'm a male who's had a sex change now? Is that it?"
"Don't put so much thought into it."
"You clearly haven't."
"Trust me, Hopps," he muttered under his breath, "the less you understand what's going on right now, the more convincing we'll be."
"Damn it," the rabbit muttered to herself, "why do I get the feeling the only reason you're not telling me is because you know I'd never allow it." The only response the rabbit attained from that was a dry chuckle, while the dreaded front door and reception area of Erkin grew ever closer. "Nick," she tried again with last efforts, "can we just be sane for one moment please? We're almost there."
"Who needs sanity when you can be happy?"
"For crying out loud, Nick," Judy moaned between begging and screaming, "you're gonna get us both killed!"
"That's the beauty, Hopps," he responded, turning to face her and walking backwards toward Erkin, "if we broke in and they found the two of us as Nick and Judy, they'd put a bullet in our brains. But, going in like this: like a couple of wacko nut jobs, the worst that can happen is they kick us out."
"I, I..." Judy stammered, "I kind of get the logic of that… But if we're going to just knock right on the front gate, won't they just bar our entry?"
"They can't bar us entry," the fox sung, shifting around and spreading his paws in the air at the front doors. "We are PIE!"
"Pie? What's Pie?"
"PIE," Nick exclaimed and clarified, "Paranormal Investigators Extraordinaire!"
Judy blinked. "No. Oh sweet cheese and crackers, no!"
"Come on, Johnny," Nick laughed, putting his paws on the building's front doors, "let's go catch ourselves some ghosts!"
"No, Nick, no. Don't do this to us!"
Throwing both doors open, Nick burst into Erkin's reception area with all the will and excitement he could muster, anew throwing his arms out wide as he exclaimed dramatically to the hall, "Greetings fellow adventurers, I am Johnny Ghost, Paranormal Investigator Extraordinaire! This is my partner: Johnny Toast, also a Paranormal Investigator. We have come," he shouted over whatever the receptionist was about to say, "to a Class Nine paranormal flux-reading on our ghoscilloscope, warranting an immediate Clearance-Eight sweep of the area. Is your boss available right now?"
"Well, I, ughm," the receptionist stuttered.
"No time," Nick interrupted, "Toast," he insisted with a glance to Judy, "go check under that nice receptionist's desk; make sure there's no paranormal activity going on under there." Flummoxed beyond being able to question her orders, she made silently towards the receptionist's desk and started to search for... well, that was it... she didn't have even the vaguest inkling of what she was looking for.
"Now," Nick continued, pacing towards the receptionist's desk and placing both paws on its smooth surface, "you have to let us in. We have no idea of the kind of paranormal activities we can expect. People could die."
"Well," the receptionist stuttered, "I—"
"Toast," Nick cut in, "you find anything under that desk?"
"I, urh," Judy stumbled on the unconfidence that stood around her tied tongue.
"Hey," Nick grilled with subtle caution, "your voice has gone all feminine, you must be possessed!"
Coughing, the rabbit hurriedly lowered the pitch of her tone, standing now in a slightly more masculine way, "Didn't find anything, sir."
"That's good, it would've been a real pity if this nice femammle had turned out to be the ghost all along, wouldn't it? Especially if she'd used her corporeal form to rip open our stomachs and eat our livers."
The receptionist stared, beyond bewildered. "Would a ghost do that?"
"That's all part of the job, Ma'am." Placing his paw on his heart, the fox spoke as though reciting an oath, " 'We shall haunt and hunt the ghosts, we shall seek and seek the monsters, and we will look for 'em real good.' That is the motto of PIE, and we seriously need to get in there and clear things up before people start disappearing. Please, time is of the essence."
"I, uhgm... just give me a, ghm..." Stuttering elaborately, the unfortunate receptionist pressed the buzzer on a radio on her desk. "Mister Banes," she said, "I think you'd better get in here right away."
"Not now," came the gruff reply, "I'm busy."
"But, Sir, there's a Mister Gh—"
"I told you, Samantha, I'm busy! Now for the last time, buzz off!"
"But, Sir, this is important!"
"Not the police, is it?"
"No, but—"
"Then buzz off! I'm busy as you know. We've got another shipment of stock coming in this evening, and I will be ready for its arrival."
Slowly — not wanting to look at either of the Paranormal Investigators — the receptionist put the radio back in the receiver. "I'm afraid Mister Banes is unavailable right now," she explained, keeping a calm tone. "You two will just have to come back some other—"
"Come back? That's impossible! Listen!" Nick exclaimed with urgency that nearly got him to climb onto the desk to whisper, panic stricken, to the receptionist, "The ghost we're hunting down is a Level Four entity known as The Whisperer, otherwise known as The Housekeeper."
"What's the difference in entity levels?" she asked, also whispering.
"Okay," Nick looked around and put his paw close to his mouth as to steer his voice only at her, "Level Four has a physical, actual body. That means he can reach out and he can touch you and rip your organs out, okay? A Level Three can easily be seen with the naked eye, Level Two can only be heard and Level One only shows up on our equipment. Now, he's been seen thirty-six times since his very first noticed appearance in nineteen thirty-six, and he has killed thirteen people up 'til this time period. So he's a very deadly ghost. You need to keep on the lookout and let me know if anything strange happens, while Toast and I search the place."
The receptionist rubbed her head, almost having lost all her self-assurance and bamboozled to the point of almost believing him. "But I really don't think I can—" Nick made for the kill. He could see she was on the point of believing him. It wouldn't work for long, but it didn't need to. A minute is all it would take, and they'd be in.
"Miss," he pressed, earnestly, almost begging, "just think of the terrible repercussions that could come as a result of this. Think of the trouble this restless spirit could cause. All we need is five minutes, and we will be able to scare this ghost away to another scene. He knows better than to mess with Johnny Ghost, after all."
"You're really that great a ghost hunter?"
"The best you could ever hope to find."
The receptionist breathed a laborious sigh. "Alright, who did you say you were representing again?" she asked, taking out what looked like a guest book.
"PIE. Paranormal Investigators Extraordinaire."
She wrote out the name. "And you are?"
"Johnny Ghost." Then he pointed to the rabbit. "This here's Johnny Toast."
"And it's just the two of you?"
"No," Nick deflected with a disregarding paw, "of course not. We also work with Colon Ghostie and Fred Spooker. But Colon's out of town at the moment and Spook's in jail."
"What happened?"
"He was found selling macaroni to children."
"And, ughm," she hesitated with a nod at Judy, "Johnny Toast, is he—"
"His real name's 'Johnny Toast Jonathan Bartholomew Maxwell Johnny Toast Junior'. He's written a book on Paranormal Investigation, which he'll probably try to sell to you sometime before the night's through. Don't buy it."
"There's three Johns in his name?"
"And two Toasts, yes."
"But he, ughm... that is to say, he looks more like a fema—"
"It's a long story. He's Iirittish," Nick reminded, as though explaining everything with that simple answer. "Aren't you, Toast?"
Startled, Judy cleared her throat and put on a hasty, Iirittish accent. "Yeah," she confirmed, still in the tones of that lower pitch. "That's right." The receptionist stared at her as though expecting something more. Scouring her mind, the rabbit sought for the one thing she knew without doubt all Iirittish usually articulated, "Erm, tea and biscuits, wot ho...?"
"And," Nick added at the spur of the moment, "she was once attacked by a werewolf and actually became a wererabbit for a few days—"
"What?" Judy exclaimed.
"— but she has blackouts and can't really remember it." The receptionist gawped down at them with... well, the kind of expression you'd expect from someone who's just be told what she had been told. "Oh, don't worry," Nick assured, intentionally misinterpreting her gobsmacked bafflement for concern, "we took her to an exorcism and she's been fine since."
"I thought you said it was a him?"
"Well... they sung hymns at the exorcism?"
"Alright, look," the receptionist imposed resolutely, "tell me honestly: how important it is you get in there and have a look?"
"On a scale of one to ten," Nick hummed with a claw under his chin, "I would say it's at an H level of importance."
"An 'H'? That's not, ugh... that's not a number."
"Well, it kind of is if you think about it. It's just an eleven that's hugging."
"You know what? Fine, just go in," she surrendered with a grunt. "Go in, and take a look around. I'm not going to be held responsible for any paranormal accidents happening 'round here. So go look, then get back here."
"Thank you, Miss," Nick beamed, "you can count on PIE."
"Here," she added, reaching under the desk and taking out two 'pass' badges, one of which the fox hung around his neck. "Just be sure not to open up any boxes, whatever the excuse!"
"Thank you so much," Nick uttered as he passed the other badge to Judy. "Toast, say thank you."
"Erh, my heartfelt and utmost thanks to you, good lady, for permitting us entry to this establishment, wot."
"Good job," Nick said, passing by Judy and towards the insides of the establishment, "now, come along. We've got work to do." Judy stared down at the badge in her paws. Her gaze slowly rose, the smallest of grins on her lips, as she looked at her fox, a look of simple admiration. She turned to the receptionist, who responded with a confused but polite smile, slipped the badge over her ears and followed the fox en suit.
The receptionist stared after them as the rabbit left the room. She sat in conflicting musings for long moments, and then opened up a drawer under her desk and took out a small book. The title of the book: 'My Diary'. Turning to today's date, she snatched a pen, pondered for a moment and started to write, 'Do you ever have one of those moments that leaves you chilled? Leaves you shaken...?'
Author's notes:
Hesitance jumps around your mind,
Grooms decision thus chosen blind.
Your thoughts most succulent of snack,
All delivered by luscious feedback.
So don't hide like a tiny shrew,
Thus share that belovable review!
- One of our montly gifts for our supporters! Monthly updates.
Social Links:
* To use a link just replace {dot} with a full stop/peirod.
- Youtube: youtube{dot}com/c/inlet
- Twitter: twitter{dot}com/inletreal