The Haunting of the Holy Mackerel
(August 14, 2016)
14: Confrontation
From the Journals of Stanford Filbrick Pines: 14 August 2016:
To my wife, Lorena: In the unlikely event that we do not return, please get this information to Deputy Director Jack Powers. He has full authority to marshal all the forces of the Agency to deal with this should our attempt fail.
We are as prepared as we will ever be to conduct the investigation of the haunted pub called the Skull Fracture in downtown Gravity Falls. I hesitate to take the entire party, yet the lore of such strange and atypical hauntings suggests that anyone who has been in the presence of the entity—and survived—must be in at the end of it, for the sake of their bodily well-being and their sanity.
Disturbing news came during the three p.m. news break on the local radio station; my brother alerted me in time for me to hear most of the report.
The Britco-Am service station on Washoe Road has been . . . attacked is the appropriate term, I suppose. Apparently a good many people stopped for gasoline this morning. They found the station unattended.
Some of the frustrated customers must have cleaned out the racks of candy, gum, and beef jerky. The woman who came on duty at six a.m. found all the snacks gone and what looked like a bullet hole in the window beside the door. She summoned the police, for all the help that is in Gravity Falls. I called Sheriff Blubs and got very little information from him, except he suspected the Manotaurs of abducting the night attendant, a Mr. Vetch, and holding him for ransom, to be paid in jerky. There is a security camera, but a fast review of it shows nothing out of the ordinary until suddenly everything blacks out. When the picture resumes, Blubs said, there is no sign of anybody. The security camera doesn't show the window, he said, and he has decided that whatever made the hole ("Most likely a woodpecker") did it weeks ago and that it has no bearing on the disappearance. In my opinion, whatever attacked must somehow have disrupted the electrical supply for ten minutes, and in that darkness whatever happened took place. Even Blubs agree that the abduction occurred in near-total darkness, and when it resumes, the picture is hopelessly foggy.
Blubs says some kind of slime covered the camera lens. Though it records about half a dozen blurred figures helping themselves to candy bars and jerky sticks, they're too vague for detail, and Blubs says they must be Manotaurs or possibly Sasquatches, since those creatures are known to cause cameras to be able to take only blurred photographs.
I think we can definitely rule out Sasquatches. As for Blubs's suspicion that Manotaurs are involved, I find that unlikely in the extreme. First, Washoe Road is off a few miles to the west, and that is not the Manotaurs' territory. Second, though the stock of jerky in the station has evidently been completely pilfered, Blubs says there were no chewed-up empty packages around—the Manotaurs view it as a kind of inedible skin, but they chew it up to get the jerky from inside., and then spit it out. I have often seen them do this.
But what concerns me most is that Blubs said someone had dumped garbage near one pump. What kind of garbage, I asked, and he said—I shall transcribe this word for word from the recording I made—"Old pair of khaki pants, socks, undershorts and shirt, tennis shoes, and some kind a stinky gel that smelled like death."
What color gel? "Sort of purple and chunky, green moldy splotches. I expect somebody dumped their RV toilet containment tank."
I told him that I very much feared that he was wrong and that the gel might be the remains of Mr. Vetch.
He did not think it possible, pointing out that it lacked the usual basic bodily attribute of human shape. However, I did persuade him to agree to order Deputy Durland to shovel the mess up, put it in a large plastic storage bin, tightly cap and double duct-tape it, and place it in the morgue's cold room for examination. I told him I would call in a favor and have a forensics expert come tomorrow and investigate. I have already texted Dr. Brendon from Sacramento and she has agreed to make the trip.
If what I suspect it is true—if that is indeed all that is left of Mr. Vetch—then it is disturbingly suggestive.
Research note to self: Refer to Manhorne, Upon the dyverssitye of banefull Spirits (1566); to Sevier, Des les mystères du royaume des esprits: les fantômes hostiles et leurs forms (n.b. the second, posthumous edition, 1803); and the Pastoral Diary of fr. Anthony St. Vincent Dessoins, (n.d., unpublished, but covers the years 1855-1869, bound photocopy in my library, the locked bookshelf)—in the diary, note especially the long section on the ghosts of the frontier Pacific Northwest.
It has been many years since I read these, but I feel sure they hold information in them that is suggestive of the present circumstances. And—something just jogged my memory—look at Magnus Polydorus' Compendium noxii daemones, Apparitionibus et Pallidos (1701), entry "Mortuus esuriit."
Dear Lord, if we are up against the all-devouring spirit that I fear, we are each and all in mortal danger.
Just in case the worst occurs, I record here the names of those of us who will in a few minutes attempt to confront and ascertain the nature of the threat: Mason Pines; Mabel Pines; Wendy Corduroy; Ticknor Keevan O'Grady; Stanley F. Pines, my twin brother; and me, Stanford F. Pines. I record this because if things should go awry, identification may be problematic.
Dear Lord, if you hear the prayers of an agnostic, let things not go awry.
At a quarter to four that Sunday afternoon, they arrived at the Skull Fracture in two cars, Ford's Lincoln, in which he, Dipper, and Wendy rode, and Stanley's El Diablo, with the rest of the crew. The pink bike still lay where it had fallen, and before they even approached the building, Ford scanned it with his most sophisticated anomaly detector.
He drew in a long breath. "Well, something paranormal has meddled with this machine. I'm getting residual traces of pattern interference, and a hint of ectoplasm."
"Slime?" asked Mabel, who had seen the Ghost Stalkers movies and cartoons.
"Slime?" Ford asked, blinking in surprise. "Not precisely. It is an intermediate form of matter, coalesced from the environs and consisting of both inorganic and organic—"
"That's slime," Stanley said, cutting him off. "OK, enough with the motorcycle. First, let me take off these chains that Blubs put up, then I got the key to the Skull Fracture. What do we do?"
"The chains, I suppose," Ford said. "The rest of you stay here, well away from the building."
He and Stanley walked around front, and then a moment later returned and Stan unlocked the back padlock and let the chain drop. Ford said, "I'm glad we don't have to call the sheriff. It would take him all afternoon to get here. Thanks for remembering to ask him to give you a duplicate key."
"Uh, yeah . . . duplicate key. Sure, let's go with that," Stan said. "What's next?"
"First," Ford said, taking the cardboard box of supplies from the trunk of his car, "Everyone put one of these on. Look at me. The spherical conductors go against your temples, like this, you see? The head band is adjustable, so slip the inner band to compress it, or pull to expand it, as you see me doing with this one. Stanley please—"
"Great," Stan said, taking off his fez and tossing it into the front seat of his car. "Not only do I gotta hang with nerds, I have to look nerdy myself. Lemme see. Like this?" He donned the sliver headband, and Mabel giggled.
Ford adjusted the positions of the two accumulators. "There, how does that feel?"
"Humiliatin'," Stan said.
"Is it too tight?"
"No, it's comfortable in a geeky way," Stan said.
Meanwhile, the teens had donned and were adjusting their own headsets. "I can't hear anything through these," Mabel complained. "How do we change stations?"
"There are no stations to change," Ford told her. "These are not radio receivers, but paranormal energy dispersers. In case of a psychic attack, these devices should intercept and scatter or at least greatly weaken psionic impulses."
Dipper told the others, "That means the ghost can't read our minds or possess our brains."
"Correct," Ford said. "Now, here—I know this appears childish, but each of you take one of these."
"Squirt guns?" Mabel asked, aiming.
"Atomizers, and don't use that yet!" Ford said, reaching out to push her arms down. "These are full of anointed water, which is anathema to virtually all ghosts—"
"Five-dollar words, Poindexter?" Stan grumbled. "Does that mean it puts 'em to sleep? If that's all, you might try lecturin' to them instead."
With a touch of impatience, Ford shook his head. "No, not anesthetic, anathema. it means it banishes ghosts—or makes them retreat, at least temporarily. From your descriptions, this entity has a mostly gaseous form, so simply sprinkling it with the water would be ineffective. These atomizers dispense it as a very fine mist, which should be ideal in neutralizing ectoplasmic vapors."
"OK," Stan said. "I think I got it. We spritz the boogey, it clears up, like blowin' a hair dryer on a fogged bathroom mirror."
Ford blinked. "That . . . is an acceptable metaphor. Now, here, Stanley, take this but don't use it unless I tell you. Mason, here's one for you. And I'll take the third."
"No fair!" Mabel said, eyeing the compact little silvery guns—if that's what they were. They had a handle grip and a trigger each, but the bodies were bulbous, brushed-stainless-steel oblongs, like very fat sausages, and instead of muzzles, they ended in small chrome parabolic reflectors, looking like something from one of the bad 1950s sci-fi movies that Wendy and Dipper watched. Mabel stuck her fist in the air. "Women's rights! We have the rights to have arms! And bears! Or however it goes!"
"Cool it, Mabes," Wendy said. "I think I can guess why there's only three. Lines of fire, right, Dr. P?"
"Precisely," Ford said. "These, for want of a better term, ray-guns, fire streams of anti-plasmodic energy. They will appear as cones of red light. Now, the beams can do serious damage to humans, so I want our lines of fire to be clear. No one is to get in front of Stanley, Mason, or me. Stanley, Mason, hold your fire if one of us blunders in your way. That's vitally important. If you do shoot at the entity, hold the trigger down. You'll get a continuous beam until the power runs out-at least five minutes of firepower. Stanley, you take the left flank. Mason, you the right. I'll take the lead. Teek, you between Stanley and me, and a little behind us. Mabel, you between me and your brother, and stay even with Teek. Wendy—you have your axe?"
"Right here," she said, drawing it out of its scabbard.
"But how's an axe supposed to cut the greeny-smoky thing we saw?" Mabel asked.
"Mabes," Wendy said, "this axe was a gift from Archibald Corduroy. You may remember him as the guy who turned you and all your friends, and everybody else 'cept Pacifica into wood that time Dipper worked on banishing him from the old Northwest place."
"Eww!" Mabel said. "He had an axe in his head!"
"Yuck," Teek, whose family had not arrived in town at the time of the Northwest Mansion haunting, said.
"He's a ghost," Wendy explained to Teek. "And he was then, too. Anyway, this is the same axe, his axe. It's weird, and I can't explain the details, but it's been in both the real world and the ghost world, and it has some kinda power."
"We think it repels ghosts," Dipper said.
"I may not be able to chop it into kindling," Wendy told Mabel, "but I can mess up its day. We ready? Let's go before I get scared." But her grin said that was unlikely to happen.
"Wendy, you're the rear guard. Stay alert! All right," Ford said. He checked his watch. "It is 1653 hours, Pacific time, and we are going in. Stanley, unlock the door and then take your position."
Stan did as requested, and the party squeezed through the doorway and into the slightly wider hall, though it was a tight fit. Ford immediately opened the men's room door and scanned it, making a stink-face. "This is incredible. I think the spirit may be using odor as a weapon!"
"Nah, that's normal men's-can stench," Stan said. "What's your boogey meter findin?"
"Well, something paranormal has been here, but it's not here at present. Or if it is, it's inactive. The—is that thing on the wall over the sink a mirror? Incredible, it's so dirty! Anyway, it's like the motorbike, bearing a trace of ectoplasm. Let's go."
They reached the bar and hurriedly shoved tables together so they could take their stand in the center of the room. Ford used his most sensitive scanner. "It is here," he said in a troubled voice, "but I can't localize it." He aimed the sensor up at the ceiling and swung it in a wide arc. "The return doesn't seem to be any stronger upstairs than down here. It's lurking somewhere, I think."
"Grunkle Ford!" Dipper said. "Check the floor!"
Ford pointed the sensor down. "Great Scott! It's beneath us! Stanley, where is the basement entrance?"
"Ain't one!" Stan snapped. "I dunno what's under there or how to get to it. Crawl space, I guess!"
"It's stirring!" Ford said, staring at the display of his detector. "Let me try something." He boomed out an incantation: "Audi me, spiritus malus! Testor virtute luminis ite hinc gehennae! In nomine domini, ut!!"
He studied the anomaly detector. "It's hesitating. I don't like this. It's not retreating. Quick, everyone, back up to the front door—it's the closest. Stanley, unlock it. If we have to retreat, first lock that door and then we all must run around to the back and secure that exit. I don't think it will emerge into daylight, but we must take no chances! Stan, Mason, ready your pistols. We'll hold it off to let everyone escape."
They backed up. Dipper felt the strange shivery chill that he had experienced before in the presence of the uncanny. He kept his gaze on the floor, but he couldn't see any manifestation—just a worn, somewhat warped wood floor, stained dark and oily-looking, with long black cracks between the boards, nail heads corroded to brownish-red, like old dried blood, and sometimes projecting above the surface—
"Got it!" he exclaimed.
"Got what, Brobro?" asked Mabel.
"I know where the croquet set is!" he said.
And then the ghost attacked.