Based on the episode Old Haunts in New Age
October 1989

Fuller assigned his favorite trio: Doug, Mickey, and moi to Taft High School. There was an arsonist setting things on fire over there. Last night, they lit up the schools marquee sign.

I was sitting in a class that I shared with both Mickey and Doug. I put my head on my folded arm, pretending to fall asleep to the most boring video of all time. I secretly hoped I would fall asleep. I had my black coat draped over my back like a blanket. I could not care less about this video about the metamorphosis of beetles, butterflies, moths, flies, or wasps.

I lifted my head up and rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands. I glanced over at this girl in my class, and she looked spooked which caught my attention. She has thick dark hair and big eyes. I've only ever seen her in this class, but she always looks paranoid. I think her name is Dory. She looked down at her notes, and then said out loud, "there's death in the chapel."

My eyebrows twitched as I shot my eyes up at her.

Doug and I exchanged looks, because that was a little too specific. I even looked over at Mickey, and her eyebrows were scrunched over her eyes and she darted them between me and Doug. Dory immediately stood up from her desk and left the classroom. She didn't come back for the rest of the period.

At the end of the school day, we all reported back to the chapel. Blowfish was putting these giant organ pipes up on the wall. He was planning on restoring the old pipe organ because the chapel was being renovated. Ioki was helping him out while someone was holding the bottom of the giant ladder he was standing on.

Doug was sitting at my desk, not really helping while I was trying to fix my typewriter. I had a screwdriver in one hand and pliers in the other. Mickey was kicked back in a chair with her feet up on my desk while she was reading a newspaper. Without looking up, I called out, "Harry, hammer!"

Ioki grabbed a hammer and started walking towards us. Doug asked, "Harry, you didn't happen to get that—"

Ioki had a newspaper in his hand and handed it to Doug as soon as he came up to us. "Here's that ad you were looking for."

Doug took it and joked, "that's so weird. How did you know I was going to ask for that?"

Judy was carving a pumpkin nearby and she said, "you've only been asking about it every five minutes."

Doug opened the newspaper and asked, "does anybody want to get in on that, Crazy Teddy's grand opening?"

Ioki sat down and said, "Doug, that store is way the hell in Fairmont."

"I know, but they got good car stereos for only $50. They're going to have fireworks, free hot dogs, even Sprinkles the Clown."

I looked up and tried to hide my sarcastic smile as I asked, "Sprinkles, really?"

Doug smiled at me and nodded.

"Hanson—" Fuller's voice broke our joy "—there's something strange in your report." He leaned up against some cabinets and opened my report. "What is it, you ask? It doesn't contain any new information except for the brand of lighter fluid this guy prefers."

I did not care for the attitude that Fuller was bringing into the chapel.

Judy said, "maybe it's some guy who has a grudge against his high school."

"Who doesn't have a grudge against their school?" Doug asked rhetorically. I went back to my screwdriver and pliers.

"The marquee was this guy's fourth target in three weeks. Now, we need to find this guy before he manages to burn down the whole place," Fuller said.

"Uh, Captain, there was something strange... there's death in the chapel," Doug said ominously.

"Oh, yeah, that," I said, unbothered.

"Oh, yeah, that? Oh, yeah, that?!" Doug repeated. He turned to Mickey and asked, "did you hear her?"

"I think everyone in the class heard her," she said, "she wasn't exactly quiet about it."

"Very weird, Captain. This girl, out of nowhere, looks up and says, there's death in the chapel," Doug said in the most sinister voice he could muster.

As he said it, I mouthed it mockingly. He was being a scaredy-cat for no reason, he deserves to be mocked.

"What does she mean?" Judy asked nervously.

I looked up and exhaled roughly while shaking my head while widening my eyes. "I don't know." I immediately dropped the act of acting afraid and went back to my task.

Doug said, "she meant death, like end of life, like bye-bye, like arrivederci."

"In the chapel?" Ioki asked.

Blowfish came up behind Fuller. I guess our conversation was gaining a lot of attention. He asked, "so it doesn't necessarily mean one of you guys?"

Fuller was the only voice of reason. "Look, Tom, could you have blown your cover?"

I looked up and answered, "she used a couple of heavy symbols, like death and church could mean anything."

Everyone began to look at each other nervously.

"Typewriter working better now?" Mickey asked, trying to change the subject.

"No, it's still broken," I grumbled. "This thing usually works."

"Well, you know... performance issues... it's not uncommon," Mickey said nonchalantly.

I looked up at her with a deadpan expression while Doug howled with laughter, followed by a that's what she said joke. She smirked and went back to her newspaper.

"Come on, none of that," Fuller scolded.

"Sorry, coach, I just can't stop thinking about it," Doug said while wiping the tears from his laugher off his cheeks.

In a spooky voice, I quoted Jack Torrance, "all work and no play makes Tom a dull boy."

I was inspired by Mickey's shirt. It's yellow, with Jack Torrance's face from the iconic door scene printed on her chest. I saw it in a shop downtown recently and got it for her and she hasn't hesitated to wear it this spooky season, pairing it with black jeans and her black leather jacket today.

"Quit your bellyaching," Fuller said.

Doug said, "there's something weird, and it don't look good."

"What do you want to do about it, Doug?" Mickey asked.

"I don't know. I'll call someone."

"Who are you gonna call? The Ghostbusters?" She asked cynically with a chuckle.

I glanced up and noticed everyone looking towards the entrance of the chapel, so I followed their eyes and my entire face dropped. Three guys wearing beige jumpsuits and had strange contraptions strapped to their backs. They looked like The Ghostbusters. Venkman, Spengler, and Zeddemore.

"Oh my god," Mickey muttered under her breath.

"Looks like I don't have to call them anymore," Doug joked back.

Mickey asked quietly, "are they carrying unlicensed nuclear accelerators on their backs?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," Doug stated without looking away from them.

Fuller finally asked them, "can we help you, gentlemen?"

The one in the middle wearing round glasses said, "we were contracted by the Environmental Protection Agency. We need to check around for any possible contamination by toxic waste dumped by the Protochem Chemical Plant." He looked like the character Spengler.

I rolled my head to the group and Ioki and I exchanged looks. They can't be serious.

Fuller said, "I haven't heard anything."

Spengler stated, "it happened fifteen years ago."

Doug said sarcastically, "well, it's good to see you guys are right on top of it."

"This waste, will it have any effect on us?" Judy asked.

Spengler looked at his merry men of EPA investigators and said, "beams on."

My eyes widened as I watched them turn on their contraptions and hold giant blocks in their hands. A light illuminated from them and they walked around the chapel with the contraptions beeping irregularly.

Doug repeated dramatically, "there is death in the chapel."

______________________________

The next day, Doug and I were in the lunch line when he was telling me about his adventures of going to Fairmont for Crazy Teddy's grand opening last night. Mickey had already gotten her food and went off to find us a table.

Doug grabbed two sandwiches from the food-serving counter and I asked, "abducted?" With my mouth full of my own sandwich. He was in the middle of telling me that he was certain that he got abducted by aliens last night. He's an idiot.

"Yeah, it was long and thick in the middle, had rounded edges, looked like a hot dog," he said as I slowly walked behind him down the line. "It was fatter than that. It was kind of like a knackwurst."

"A knackwurst?" I asked after taking another bite.

He grabbed a pink Crush cream soda and said, "this beam of light come down on me, right? I wake up, it's two o'clock in the morning. I'm looking around for puncture wounds because I think they got me with their surgical tools, you know?"

"Sort of, Doug, come on," I said with my mouth completely full. My words were muffled. "You can't be serious."

Doug is an excellent translator of my mouth-full-of-food mumbling so he said, "it happens to be a very common occurrence. You could write a bestseller about this stuff."

"Stop with that alien stuff. You're gonna freak Mickey out," I warned.

"I know, I know. But it felt so real."

"You know, some people have been institutionalized for believing in stuff like this. You couldn't waterboard this out of me."

"I know, I know. But I know what I saw, and you'd be saying the same."

I groaned and looked out to the cafeteria, trying to scout where Mickey went.

He said, "you know, I don't know how they did it, but I think they moved my navel." He put his finger against his stomach.

I stared at him blankly. I chewed some and asked, "space brothers probed your bellybutton?"

"No, not probed." He kept poking his stomach in slightly different areas. "They moved it. It used to be here, and now it's here."

"Why'd they do such a thing?" He asked.

I looked back up at him and said sarcastically, "it's a mystery." I glared at him jokingly and grabbed my tray and started heading to the table.

I sat across from Mickey and took another bite of my sandwich. Doug sat beside me and I started poking my food with a fork. I glanced across the cafeteria and saw Dory, the weird-chick from class, sitting at a table nearby. She was staring at a crumpled up paper bag in her hands, and I noticed a pencil between her fingers.

She was giving the bag a sour face. She ended up crumpling it up and tossing it in the garbage as she was leaving the cafeteria.

Doug was busy with his mashed potatoes, so I got up and sauntered my way over to the garbage can. I don't think anyone noticed me swooping in and grabbing the bag and bringing it back to the table. I shook off any food that got on it and saw that it was a doodle.

Doug held up a white mound of mashed potatoes and stared at it thoughtfully. "This means something."

He got that from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It's a movie about aliens that came out a little over ten years ago. One of the characters makes a pile of mashed potatoes on his plate and says the same thing. I haven't seen the movie in ages so I could not even think of what it could mean.

I grabbed my fork and smushed it down. "Would you stop that?" I slipped the paper into my pocket.

"Means what?" Mickey asked. "That you took my potatoes?" She used her fork to reach over and bring a small glob back to her own tray.

I rolled my eyes over to Doug. "Spaceman here thinks—"

"Don't tell her," he said to me in a low voice as if he thought she couldn't hear. He darted his eyes between her and me.

Mickey tilted her head at me in confusion, and I gave her a silent nod with a little smile, telepathically telling her that I will tell her later. She smiled back in response and took a sip of her drink.

______________________________

Fuller told us that there was another fire last night. First thing in the morning, Doug, Mick, and I went straight to it to investigate the damage.

"I don't think we're going to be able to nail this guy unless we know where he's going to strike beforehand, and then just be sitting there waiting for him," Doug said.

Mickey exhaled softly before crossing her arms over her cream wide-necked sweater that she had tucked into her dark plaid skirt with tights and knee high black boots. "I love your enthusiasm but we need to figure out a better plan."

I grabbed the paper bag that I kept from lunch yesterday and pulled it out of my coat pocket. We approached the car in the school parking lot. The trunk was popped open, and it was all burnt to a crisp. I couldn't tell what color it used to be, because it was completely charred.

I held the doodle up to Doug and Mick and said, "look, there's the tires, the burn marks—" I pointed at the stop sign "—here's the traffic sign. Even the gasoline burn pattern."

We started to walk around the car and Doug took the paper from my hands and asked, "hey, hey, hey, what is this?"

"I got it from that girl, Dory, yesterday. She drew it," I said.

"Dory, from class?" Mickey asked.

"Uh-huh," I nodded.

"Oh, man—" Doug handed it back "—well, you don't gotta be psychic to know we're all thinking the same thing about this one."

"That's right," I agreed.

"Totally," Mickey nodded.

We looked at each other as Doug said, "she's a psychic."

"She's an arsonist," I said at the same time as Mickey.

Mick and I both froze and looked at Doug, and I assumed that she was also trying to wrap her head about the strange claim he just made.

Mickey's head tilted down as she said, "you're joking."

"No, I'm not," Doug said, "it makes sense."

"No, it doesn't," I said.

"Come on. Death in the chapel, this drawing... it smells suspicious to me," Doug said.

"The only thing you're smelling is the gasoline used to set this car on fire," Mickey remarked. "Or did the aliens take your sense of smell too?"

Doug's face dropped and he turned to me with wide eyes. "You told her?!"

Before I could defend myself, Mickey spoke up, "you know, I've read about alien abductions..."

"Yeah?" Doug asked.

"Have you heard of Betty and Barney Hill?"

"Who's that?" I asked.

"A couple that got abducted by aliens back in 1961. You know, for two years after the alleged abduction, Barney had a perfect concentric circle of warts that grew right above his groin," Mickey pointed out and she made a little circle motion with her finger.

"What?!" Doug gasped. His eyes looked like they were gonna pop out of his head.

"Don't encourage him," I said without moving my lips.

"He had to get them surgically removed," she added while ignoring me.

"Oh my god," Doug said with fear straining his voice.

"You don't think he just... cheated on his wife?" I asked.

Mickey shrugged. "Those two were respected members of society and had to work for it, I doubt they would have thrown it all away to cry alien abduction."

"All the more reason to believe them," Doug said with a wobbly voice.

"So, you really think you were abducted by aliens?" Mickey asked. Not in a curious tone, it was more cynical but I don't think Doug picked up on that.

"It would explain a lot," he said.

"So... you got a metal probe up your ass?" She asked.

Doug's face immediately flushed. "I've been feeling different ever since that night... so probably."

I sighed. "You literally could not waterboard that information out of me."

"How's that ass feeling?" Mickey asked.

"I-I-I... I don't know." Doug's eyes grew wide.

"Maybe you should wear a tin foil hat," she said to tease him.

"Maybe I should." His eyes stayed wide.

"Come on, let's go back to the chapel," I said. I was tired of this conversation and began walking back to our car.

"Fine. We can tell the guys about this drawing and see what they think," Doug said.

"Good idea," I said over my shoulder sarcastically.

We drove together back to the chapel, and Doug immediately got ahold of the paper and handed it to Judy before he told her everything. I went to my desk and tried to tune their nonsense out. Mickey sat on top of Doug's desk while Doug made his home in his chair, with Ioki and Judy bringing up chairs to sit near them.

Judy studied the doodle and asked, "and you say she drew this the day before? Oh, Hanson, you gotta admit."

I was typing away on my newly fixed typewriter with one foot up on my desk and I said, "I'm not listening."

"I do admit that there's an unseen force, but this unseen force is an arsonist. Doug has gone for the bolder choice which is: psychic," Mickey joked as she crossed her legs and smoothed out her skirt.

"More like psychotic," I muttered.

"Come on, didn't she predict death in the chapel? I mean, even we didn't know about the toxic waste," Ioki stated.

"She's two for two," Doug added.

Blowfish came up to Doug, Judy, Mickey, and Ioki at Doug's desk. He said, "one for two. Bad news, there's no toxic waste under the chapel."

I looked up at the guys and let a I-told-you-so laugh escape my throat.

"Even still, there's been some pretty weird stuff going on," Doug said.

"Very weird," Judy and Ioki said at the same time. "We said that at the same time... woah."

They all looked at me, and I was looking at them with just my eyes, but I was still facing my typewriter. Then, I lifted my head up and widened my eyes at them, which only made Mickey crack a smile.

"Maybe she doesn't know she's doing it," Mickey said. Her brown wavy hair was fluffy over her shoulders but she ran her fingers through her hair to get her curtain bangs out of her face.

"Oh, explain," I said and took a break from my writing to hear her thoughts.

"She could be sleepwalking or something, dreaming that she's doing these things. Or she has some sort of dissociative identity disorder. Hence the drawings, but doesn't know that she's actually doing them."

"That's not a bad theory," Judy agreed.

"Or, she's possessed," Doug decided to sincerely include.

I gasped and let my face fall into the most afraid expression I could muster. "Oh, Doug! Oh my god, Doug!"

"What? What is it?" He leaned forward, waiting for me to admit defeat.

"The ghosts... they told me... they told me that you don't wash the back of your knees. Oh, the horror!" I gasped out.

Doug's face dropped while everyone around us snickered. He scolded them by snapping his fingers and said, "hey, don't encourage that, guys."

"Ghost stuff freaks me out. I don't know about you guys, but I'm staying away from all that mambo jambo," Mickey said while she crossed her legs, letting her feet swing since she was up on Doug's desk.

"Say, Mick, why does scary stuff spook you?" Doug asked. "You handle criminals, real scary people, on a daily basis like it's no big deal."

She looked down at him and said, "because you can't kill the boogie man."

"Are you superstitious?" I asked her.

"I'm not superstitious, but I am a littlestitious..." she said.

"Are you afraid of..." Doug's voice trailed off.

Mickey's eyebrows rose, waiting for him to finish. "Afraid of what? Dying?"

"Yeah."

"I go to work everyday prepared to die on the field. Dying doesn't scare me," she said, with no emotion in her voice. No fear, no sadness, nothing. It chilled me. My heart dropped a little, especially since there have been so many close calls. She really wakes up everyday, with a mindset that it may be her last time? That broke me.

"Have you ever seen a scary movie in your life?" Doug asked, without acknowledging her previous statement.

"I've watched Unsolved Mysteries," she said, like it was the same thing.

"I tried to watch it, but it pissed me off," Doug said.

"Why?"

"Because they're never solved. I don't know why whenever I watch it I expect an answer but I'll watch the entire thing and suddenly I've wasted forty minutes dedicated to never getting the answer."

"Because unlike the victim, you have a life to live," she joked.

Everyone was speechless for a moment and I saw the pure panic flash across her face until we all began to laugh. Sometimes I banter with her about how her intrusive thoughts sometimes slip, and the moment of hilarious panic that follows but usually what she says is ironically hysterical.

"Wow, that was... oh my god," Ioki put his face in his hand and laughed into his palm.

"Mickey!" Judy said through her giggles.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," Mickey said with her cheeks flushing with either embarrassment, or trying to hold in her own laughter.

"Okay, okay. What about Child's Play?" Doug asked when everyone was composed again.

"Oh, I wasn't very scared of that one. A killer doll? Come on. He was funny though. Oh, I saw Poltergeist just a few weeks ago," she stated. "Since I've already seen it, I know what to expect. I can watch it again without getting scared. But it's mostly just the movies that freak me out the most."

I smiled softly to myself. I remembered that night fondly. She had come to my door in the middle of the night like a lost puppy because the movie freaked her out. She hates when I bring it up, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Did you know that the set for that movie was cursed?" Doug asked.

"What?" Judy asked. Her head snapped in his direction and her eyes went wide. I didn't realize how nervous she got with spooky stuff too. I thought she was more rational than that.

"Yeah. You know the little girl, Carol Anne? Well, she died just last year. And the older sister, Dana, she was murdered at her own home back in '82. There were two other guys with medical issues that died recently. They used real skeletons for filming too. Apparently, someone performed a real exorcism on the set."

"That's horrible," Ioki said.

"How sad," Judy said.

"Now I'm never watching it again. Thank you, Douglas," Mickey said while glaring at him softly.

"I do what I can," he shrugged.

"Is it bad that I kinda want to see a skeleton?" Mickey asked.

"It's kinda weird," Ioki said and sneered his lip.

"I've got to say, after knowing all that I know about Poltergeist and watching it, that's probably the most scared I've ever been for something in the supernatural," Doug said.

"I once stayed up for five days straight to studying," I stated.

"Really?" Ioki asked.

"Did you start to see flickers and shit?" Doug asked while fluttering his fingers by his head.

"Absolutely! On the fourth morning, when the sun came up I remember feeling relieved that the vampires did not get me that night."

"Thank god," Mickey said sarcastically.

"I convinced myself that vampires were not only real, but they were roaming the streets of Metropolis, Evergreen State and coming to get me specifically," I recounted with a shudder.

"Tom, to be fair, you don't got enough blood in you. If I'm a vampire, I'm going after the sturdy ones. Doug, you're most likely to being sucked off..." Blowfish began.

Mickey laughed, "what?!"

"Well... to be sucked out by a vampire," Blowfish corrected.

"I don't know how I feel about that..." Doug said.

"Look, I don't know what the term is for blood spewing out of your neck and into the mouth of a vampire," Blowfish defended himself.

"Obviously I'm a tasty morsel for a vampire. If they want to come for me, I say come for me but I eat a lot of garlic, and I am a light sleeper. I'd like to see them try," Doug stated.

"I'm going to go look for some more organ pipes," Blowfish said to excuse himself from this conversation.

I finished my line on my typewriter and took my foot off my desk. I began to stand up to follow him as I said, "I'm going to go help—" I turned to Doug "—what sayest you about that, Merlin?"

I took my hat off and threw it on my desk. I was sick and tired of hearing about all this paranormal madness. We are police officers. We thrive on hard physical evidence, and logic. Not hocus pocus or unexplainable phenomena. I walked through the chapel to follow Blowfish down to the basement.

______________________________

Blow was using a crowbar to bring up old planks of wood while I was cleaning off one of the organ pipes on a desk we have down there.

I heard something break so I asked, "what you got, Sally?"

"I don't know," Blow said, "check down that hole."

I dropped my task and carefully walked over to Blowfish and his hole. I peered inside, and I did not expect to see anything. My eyebrows raised when I saw a skeleton covered in old clothes and thick cobwebs. I was not expecting that.

"Any pipes?" He asked.

Blowfish's head came up beside mine when I didn't answer. I puckered my lips together in thought, not quite sure how we were supposed to deal with something like this. I knew I needed to get Fuller.

"Tom, I think I've got to sit down," he said in a weak voice.

Blow suddenly collapsed beside me, and I looked over and watched him fall. I looked back at the skeleton, my face flexed in horror and disgust.

"Yikes."

I stepped over Blowfish so I could run upstairs. As soon as I got to the squad room, I called out, "hey, Fuller?"

Everyone turned back to me but I didn't pay them any attention until Fuller came out of his office. His eyebrows came together and he asked, "what's going on?"

"There's something down in the basement that you need to see," I said, trying to be vague.

"What?"

"There's—um, there's a skeleton down there."

"What?" Everyone asked in shock at the same time.

"We found remains of what appears to be a human-person," I stated.

"I wanna see," Mickey said and she pushed herself off the desk.

"Great, the more the merrier," I said sarcastically.

I could hear their footsteps pairing together to follow me as I ran back down the steps. I got to Blow, who was just waking back up, and I helped him off the floor and sit on a nearby box. He was trying to find his breath after fainting, and everyone met us down in the basement.

"He's over there," I pointed to the hole when Fuller got down there.

I stood back with my arms crossed, and I could feel Doug almost breathing down my neck behind me. Ioki was standing close to Judy, and Mickey was right beside me. She scrunched her nose and squinted at the hole, slowly rocking up on her toes and trying to peer inside.

"Creepy," she shuddered but wouldn't look away.

"You said you wanted to see a skeleton... here you go," Doug joked.

"I take it back," Mickey said.

"Little too late," I stated.

"It smells haunted down here," she stated.

Fuller knelt beside the hole and inspected the bones. "This obviously isn't recent. The pine box, the clothing suggest a formal burial. I'm sure with a little investigation we can find an explanation." He stood up and turned to Blowfish. "Put the floorboard back, Sal."

Fuller walked off and Blow lifted his head up. "I ain't going nowhere near that damn thing. I've opened up a curse."

Ioki asked, "how do we investigate a spirit?"

Judy suggested, "call Shirley MacLaine?"

Shirley MacLaine is a psychic enthusiast from Ripley's Believe it or Not. She's also an actress so that should be a dead giveaway with how much of a fraud she is.

"You know, I've been thinking and you're right," I said to Doug as I grabbed a hard hat that was hanging up on a nail on the wall. "The only way to get this arsonist is to be there before he gets there."

"You're not saying—" Mickey asked.

"We should go talk to the girl," Doug finished for her, while suggesting it.

"No, I'm not. I think we're going to have to take night shifts at the school. I'll go tonight, you tomorrow, then Mickey."

"That's a good idea," Mickey agreed. Doug didn't object, but I think he was disappointed that I wouldn't give in to his supernatural beliefs.

"Perfect," I stated.

Mickey's head turned to the floorboards that Blow had pulled up and her eyes widened. "I want to go back upstairs."

"Why?" I asked.

"There's scratches on the board, dude," she said with her voice rising. "I'm out of here."

I watched her scurry up the stairs with her black boots clicking against the wood. She smoothed her hands down the back of her plaid skirt so it wouldn't fly up, but she was wearing tights anyways. Doug's attention went to the board, which also made him run up the stairs after Mickey.

I put the hard hat on, and made sure it fit snuggly on my head. I grabbed the floorboards that were propped up against the wall and I started to place them back over the bones, thus also making the scratches disappear.

______________________________

That night I was making my rounds around the school, and it was pretty creepy. There were moving shadows from the branches of trees all around, and the school was decked out in decorations for Halloween that was coming up. I heard owls hooting off in the distance, and a couple of wolves too. I don't get frightened, but I was on my toes and on high alert the entire time.

I was walking along the wall of the school quietly, because I thought I saw someone run past my vision out of the corner of my eye.

As soon as I made it to the end of the corner, someone jumped out in front of me. She had a bright pink cardigan on and brown hair. I recognized her as Dory from class.

We both screamed loudly, and I raised my hands up in my panicked state. She covered her mouth with her hands to stop herself from screaming. Before I could ask her anything, she turned around and ran off into the night.

I saw a fire start straight ahead in some sort of shed, so I rushed to it. I quickly found a hose and I turned it on and immediately began spraying the fire until it was out.

I tossed the hose to the ground and looked around for Dory, but she was long gone. I had many questions going through my head, but one thing was certain: she is a major suspect.

______________________________

The next day, I wore a dark striped sweater with my long black wool coat over it. I had a flier sticking out of the front of my jeans and I had my hands in my pockets.

Mickey, Doug, and I approached Dory outside of a fundraiser for the Halloween Dance the school was throwing in a couple of days and we didn't have to say a word. As soon as Dory saw us, she said, "okay, I know what you're going to say, the thing about the chapel, it was totally out of left field, so I'm sorry."

"Which you predicted," Doug stated.

"Just forget it." She turned to us.

"What were you doing here last night?" I asked her.

She narrowed her eyes at me. "The same thing you were. I'm not the one torching this place so just leave me alone."

I rolled my eyes and grabbed the brown paper bag with her doodle on it and straightened it out for her to see. Doug flat out asked, "is this a premonition?"

She looked at it and said, "I'm not a freak."

"Nobody said that," I said. We may be thinking it, but we didn't say it.

"Cards on the table," she said. We waited for her to continue. "We each have these—oh, god, this is—we each have feelings about each other."

I gave Doug a quick glance and Dory scoffed at me. "Grow up. Not in a horny way. Senses, suspicions."

Mickey looked at me and smacked my arm. I instantly smirked down at her but then cleared my throat and turned back to Dory to give her my full attention.

"So, like you sense like psychic energy coming from us?" Doug asked.

I laughed, "come on, you didn't draw this because of us. You know the guy who's starting these fires."

Dory twitched her head to get her bangs out of her face and she said, "well, not exactly. I don't want to sound like an actress on a talk show but I feel energies, images, I guess. I don't know what they are at first, but then they happen."

"Are they like dreams that come true?" Mickey asked.

Dory looked at her with a nod, "yeah, sort of. But they're dreams when I'm awake."

"You are a psychic?" Doug asked.

She huffed and said, "okay, you know my secret, and I know yours."

"Which is?" Mickey asked impatiently.

Dory's eyes darted between me and Doug. "Can I say?"

Doug chuckled, "have at it."

"You're cops," Dory revealed.

I chuckled nervously and we completely denied it, "we're not—"

"What makes you—" Doug's voice overlapped mine.

"There's no way—" Mickey added.

"I won't say nothing," she interrupted us. "I want you to catch this guy. I need you to. The pictures, the feelings, are so sick. I don't want them, but I have no control."

"You know, I think I know a way that we can both help each other," Doug said.

After Doug gave Dory the idea, she hesitated to agree but she was willing to try anything to get these visuals out of her head. Or claims to be in her head. We should get her drug tested though, just in case.

When we were on our ways to our cars, away from Dory's ears, I asked, "which one of you blew our cover?"

"Who says we blew it?" Mickey asked in their defense.

"Well, she figured it out somehow," I reminded her.

"Maybe you blew it," Mickey blamed.

I chuckled, "unlikely."

"She's psychic," Doug said.

"Ever think that she found out you guys are cops because you're pushing thirty, not because she's psychic?" Mickey asked.

Doug and I stopped walking at the same time and stared at Mickey with our mouths gaping wide. We were speechless. Doug finally said, "wow, Mickey. That was a low blow."

"I'm nowhere close to thirty," I snapped.

"What about you? You're like our age," Doug said.

"Yeah, kinda, but I haven't begun to peak yet," Mickey said and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Neither have we," Doug snapped back.

"Did you hear her hesitate to say that you're cops around me?" Mickey asked. "She didn't know."

"Who cares?" Doug asked.

"If she were really psychic, she would have known that I was a cop too," Mickey stated.

"She has a point," I said and gnawed on my pinky finger nail.

Doug sighed, "let's just go back to the chapel until the sun goes down."

We all continued walking to the parking lot together. When my car was in sight, I heard Mick and Doug both called out, "shotgun!"

They looked at each other as I unlocked the car.

Doug reasoned with, "I got longer legs than you."

"So? I said it first," Mickey said.

"Nuh-uh," Doug said, "I did."

"Look, the rules of shotgun are very simple and very clear. The first person to yell 'shotgun' when you're within sight of the car gets the front seat. That's how the game's played. There are no exceptions for someone with long legs," Mickey snarked.

They finally decided to play rock-paper-scissors to see who got to sit in the passengers seat of my Mustang. Mickey won, so she got the passengers seat while Doug complained about how tiny my backseat is all the way back to the chapel.

______________________________

That night, we were sitting in the back of Doug's yellow pick-up truck in a graveyard. It was dark, smelled like dirt, and the thick fog made it difficult to see. Mickey and Dory were squished between me and Doug.

"Why are we here?" Mickey asked while letting her legs swing gently. My hand accidentally brushed the side of her soft brown corduroy pinafore dress and I put my hands in my lap.

Mickey fixed the roll neck of her cream colored sweater and adjusted a button of the green flannel she had over the sweater but under the pinafore dress. She wore cream fleece tights with knee high boots, which helped keep her warm this chilly night.

Doug said, "this area is charged with paranormal energy. It will help her get in touch."

I wiggled in my seat because it was so uncomfortable. It was chilly outside and I just wanted to go home.

"You feeling anything, Dory?" Doug asked.

"Yeah, cold," she said.

"Yeah, me too," Mickey said. Her teeth were practically chattering, but she was luckily wearing enough layers tonight. Usually she underestimates how cold it's going to be. If we have to be out here longer than a few minutes, I'll give her my coat. I'd rather be cold than her.

I looked over at Doug and he told Dory, "you know, there are some areas on earth that are more receptive than others to this kind of phenomena, like the pyramids or the Bermuda Triangle."

I added, "Las Vegas, I feel things there."

Doug asked, "didn't you ever feel anything that was totally unexplainable?"

"Well, last year I was in this bowling alley, and I'm pretty sure the guy on the next lane was Elvis," I said sarcastically.

"Did he keep dropping the ball on his windup?" Dory asked.

"No, he was buttering a pastrami sandwich and scratching his stomach a lot."

Mickey asked Dory, "hey, how is Elvis? Have you seen him lately?"

Dory laughed and said, "only occasionally. He says he likes to sit in the backseat of your car when you're playing his songs. He loves singing along with his fans, even if they can't hear him."

Dory may have laughed but now I couldn't tell if she was playing along with us or not. The look in Mickey's eyes told me that Dory's comment made her uneasy. Did she believe her?

Doug snapped, "don't encourage them. They don't understand."

Dory said, "neither do I. I don't think I want to understand."

"Why not?" Doug asked.

She sighed, "I don't know. Afraid."

"Mick, I thought you believed in the parnamormal," Doug said.

"I said I was scared of it. I didn't say I believe in it," she said. I'm not quite sure where that logic came from. If she knows it's fake, why is she scared? "If I let myself believe in this stuff, I'd be halfway to Canada by now. I don't like things that can't be explained. I'm afraid of Freddy Krueger, but that doesn't mean I believe he exists."

"Yeah, there's something about that guy that makes me... uneasy," I shuddered.

"Did you always see things?" Doug asked Dory.

"When I was younger, I saw this image of this big man, important like, he kept getting hit here with a hammer." She tapped her ribs. "I told my mother and she said I was being silly. A week later, Reagan was shot, and he said it was like being hit with a hammer."

I scrunched the side of my face and shook my head. I didn't believe it, but I believed that she believed herself.

"Ever since, I tried to shut it out, but lately, it's—"

I interrupted her to ask, "if this thing is your gift or whatever, why do you want to shut it out?"

"You tell me," she said. I furrowed my eyebrows at her in confusion so she elaborated, "why do you question being an officer?"

My eyebrows raised and my eyes widened and I looked straight at Doug. He returned the expression while Mickey whipped her head in my direction.

"Wow. You can see that?" I breathed out.

"Anyone can see that just by opening their eyes," she said. I didn't realize it was that noticeable. But still, it does not prove that she is a psychic.

There was a low rumbling in the air that stole our attention.

"Oh," Doug said while looking up to the sky. He slowly began standing up and he said, "this is it. They're here. The space brothers are here."

There was a bright blue light that shined down on us. I squinted my eyes as I stood up and stood beside Doug and I blocked the light with my hand. Once my eyes were adjusted, I let my arm drop to my side and I looked up at the light.

Doug shouted at the sky, "hello! Hey! Hey! We mean you no harm." His arms were raised up above his head to get their attention. Aliens?

There was a blimp that was floating low in the sky. On the side it said, "FOLLOW ME TO CRAZY TEDDY'S...."

The light disappeared and we were back in the darkness. My angry gaze slowly made its way over to Doug as he brought his hands up to his cheeks in complete shock.

Through my teeth, I said, "aliens travel six light years to get a good deal on a car stereo, believe it or not."

"Oh my god," Doug muttered. He took a moment to process it and then he said, "a blimp. I can't believe it."

I could stop staring at him in my annoyance. I could hear Mickey giggling ever so gently by the truck.

Doug put his hands down and he asked, "you're never going to let me live this down, are you?"

How did he know? I grabbed his jacket and pulled him in to dramatically cry out, "Doug, you're psychic!"

"Oh, man, leave me alone." He pushed me off.

"Oh!" We heard Dory exclaim. We slowly walked back to the truck. She was leaning against the bed of it, so Doug stood behind her and I sat back in the truck by Mickey. Dory's eyes were squeezed shut as she said, "oh, he's there. It's dark. There's a field, a wooden field, I think. There's—there's lines, a lot of long wooden planks at an angle like this." She raised her hand up in a diagonal line.

"Bleachers?" I asked.

"Yes. Yeah, on fire!" She grabbed my arm. She shook me slightly as she said, "we have to go, now. He's there! Please." She turned around and began to push Doug back to the truck.

He stumbled backward and said, "okay, the school, right?"

Doug opened the door and Dory jumped in, and I waited for Mickey to run to the door. She snuck into the backseat, but I took the opportunity to be frisky so I pinched her butt. She turned back for a moment to playfully squint at me, and I returned the expression. She laughed and rolled her eyes at me, and then she settled in the seat while I crawled in right behind her. Doug ran to the other side and hopped into the drivers seat.

Doug was speeding down the dark road, and we suddenly heard a siren. I sighed and turned to look back and I saw red and blue lights flash behind us. We were so close, Doug drove to the schools bleachers. We all jumped out of the car, and saw that there was no fire. We lined up in front of the truck, and I felt Dory grab at my wrist after I stuck my hands in my pockets.

The cop pulled in and came up to us. "All right, guys, where's the fire?"

I glanced back at the bleachers, almost hoping that something would come up in flames. Sometimes, I wish I wasn't right. I glared down at Dory, and she looked down at her shoes.

We tried to explain to the cop that we were undercover, but he wasn't really listening to us. He yelled at us for how fast we were driving, even though we tried to tell him that we had reason to believe that a possible fire would be here. He was mad, and he gave us a ticket.

______________________________

Back at the chapel, I had a one-on-one meeting with Fuller to give him my report of the day and to see if he can expunge the traffic ticket for us. When I told him about how Doug's alien experience ended up being a blimp from Crazy Teddy's Car Stereo, he couldn't stop laughing. He thought that was hilarious. But then he told me that Dory was going to be a suspect because he agreed with me that her psychic abilities were hocus pocus. Then, he asked me to send in Doug.

It was getting late, but we still had things to do in the chapel. Everyone else was gone, and it was just the team and Blowfish. The entire chapel was eerily quiet, and you could hear the pattering of rain on the roof. Fuller came out of his office carrying his raincoat over his arm and held an umbrella with the other. "Good night, people."

I noticed Doug gave Fuller some side eye as he was slowly walking across the chapel. We all looked at him when he didn't open the door. He said, "guys, I have no patience for hysteria. I don't care if it's Halloween. I don't care if the dead are walking the earth. No more antics in this chapel. No more ouija boards, no more palm reading, no tarot cards, no divining rods, no healing crystals. Matter of fact, I don't want to see even a Marshall Brodien card trick. Am I understood?"

Mickey leaned forward and asked in a low voice, "you guys did all that?"

"We didn't use divining rods," Judy defended.

"You guys used a ouija board in a church?" Mickey asked.

Ioki shrugged, "it felt right."

"No hocus pocus," Fuller warned.

We didn't say anything else, and he finally left. I went upstairs to my locker to change my shoes and when I began my trot down the stairs, I froze when I saw a strange man sitting at the head of our table. I could hear him perform strange vocalizations and breathing patterns. When did he get here? All the other lights in the chapel were off, and I saw Doug, Blow, Judy, and Ioki sitting at the table too.

I slowly approached the table and saw that the man's eyes were closed. He kept twitching his head and yelling. Mickey was standing off to the side, and she stared at the man with a confused expression and her arms crossed over her chest.

I came up beside her and whispered, "we don't have to stay." I was afraid that he would freak her out. Hell, he was freaking me out.

She whispered back, "no, that's okay. It seems... interesting."

I kept watching the man because I couldn't look away. His face kept contorting to uncomfortable expressions. I returned to my normal voice to say, "I looked that way once after an especially gnarly chili dog."

Ioki held a finger up and he shushed me. "He needs to concentrate. A channeler's gotta raise the vibrations of the souls."

Lighting struck which lit up the dark chapel. I asked, "what for?"

Doug responded, "$75 a shot."

Judy added, "to telepathically link up with other consciousness."

I raised my chin and said, "ah."

Then, I pulled out a chair for myself and Mickey at the empty corner of the table.

Mickey whispered, "has anyone here seen Poltergeist?" Judy, Doug, and Ioki all slowly raised their hands, and I added mine to the group as well. Then Mickey cleared her throat and asked, "what can we learn from that movie?"

"That summoning spirits is stupid?" I suggested and everyone put their hands down.

"Bingo," she said.

"He's trying to find Yates, so we can communicate," Ioki told me.

I sat down and nodded along like I cared. This is so stupid, and so bad that it's like a car accident that you can't look away from.

"Who is Yates?" Mickey asked and sat down beside me.

"The man buried under the chapel," Doug answered.

"Yates roams the world in internal unrest," Blow said.

The crazy man's eyes were still closed, but he stopped the strange seance stuff. He smiled unsettlingly and said, "good modern being of light, I am Zombo, lord of the blue ray, primary energy in the kingdom of Atlantis. My friends, what is your quest?"

Judy cleared her throat and then asked in a slow English accent, "we wish to transverse with the being called Yates."

"Thank you," Zombo said, "I will grant your request, my dear." Then he hovered his hands above the table with his palms facing up, and began humming deeply.

"He's changing consciousnesss," Ioki explained.

"Damn, I had a question about Atlantis," Doug said sarcastically.

Zombo started heavy breathing and screaming dryly, and making strange sounds in his throat. Then, his facial expression morphed into a twitching smile and he said in a cartoony voice, "greetings, we are the winds of the cosmos. If you wish to crossover over to the abyss, you must learn to speak in tones, tonal enhancement. Put your hands over your aural canals."

Judy did it first. She put her hands over her ears, and almost everyone did too. I thought it was strange and dumb, so I didn't.

"Let your voice create tone," he said in a calmer voice. Yates will come to you now." He yelled the last word, which made me jump.

Mickey chuckled softly at me, "you scared?"

"No," I whispered back quickly. "He just got loud. That's all."

Everyone was humming while plugging their ears, to create tones... or whatever. I glanced at Mickey and saw that she was slowly putting her hands up to her ears, and I followed suit.

"Tones," Zombo said, waving his arms in a circle motion to get us to hum louder. He suddenly screamed and smacked the table with his hand. Everyone stopped to stare at him. His lips contorted down as he said in an old-man voice, "I am the Yates you seek."

"The one we've disturbed beneath the chapel?" Judy asked. We all got our hands away from our heads.

Zombo nodded, "the same."

Mickey leaned toward me and said, "if this is a joke, I'm going to brain them."

"The power of Christ compels you," I said with wide eyes. We both froze to stare at Zombo but nothing happened. I looked at her and shook my head. "Nothing."

Blowfish comically spoke up, "I got a curse on me, take it off."

Ioki asked, "have we caused you any suffering?"

Zombo responded, "there is a pain in this area." He drew a circle in the air with his finger.

Judy almost gasped, "the lynching?"

"Yes. My neck." He put his wrinkled hand up to his neck.

Judy set her hands down on the table and asked, "is your soul mournful?"

Zombo nodded softly and opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him by standing up and chanting, "yee yee yee yee."

I could see right through his act. He was only building off the information that Judy was willingly giving him. He wasn't saying anything new, just playing off of their fear. He's a fraud, and I was getting tired of seeing him try to take advantage of my superstitious team.

I closed my eyes and began imitating his hocus pocus. I even threw my hands around in the air like him. "Yee yee yee yee yee yee pope. Yee yee yee. Yee yee pope."

His voice broke me out of character. "I don't believe it."

I opened my eyes and noticed that his were finally open too. I finished with a wave motion with my hands and sat back down in my seat. I waved my hand at him in a circle motion and said, "yeah, neither do I. Give them back their money, Yates."

Lightning struck again, and Zombo was silent.

I looked to Mickey and asked, "ready to go?"

She nodded, "yeah."

We both stood up and we said our goodbyes to our team. I had picked Mickey up for work today because her car was in the shop all day.

I drove her home and walked her to her door, as I always do when she will let me. As soon as she got it unlocked, I asked, "want me to stay with you?

"I'm fine. If I have any more fun today, I don't think I can take it." She chuckled, "all this spooky stuff is giving me the heebie-jeebies."

"You don't believe in that crap, do you?" I asked.

She shrugged, "not really, but we all go a little mad sometimes. Those guys are just on edge because of the holiday. I think that if this was happening three months ago, they wouldn't have even thought about incorporating horror film plots into their work."

"Exactly. It's not real. There's an explanation for everything. There is just one thing you gotta do."

"What?" She asked.

"Don't fall asleep." I wiggled my fingers in front of her face and bellowed out a hearty yet evil laugh.

"Ha-ha, very funny," she smirked annoyedly at me and swung the door shut.

I chuckled to myself in front of the door and stuffed my hands in my pockets. I waited a moment before I asked in a loud enough voice so Mickey could hear me through the door, "see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow!" She called out, followed by a little laugh. Her voice sounded cheery so I knew she wasn't mad about my little joke.

I nodded to myself before I began my walk down the hallway to head back out to my car.

______________________________

Back at school, I went back to that one class that Doug and Mick and I have with Dory. I was gnawing on the end of my pencil as we were watching a documentary about llamas. Dory turned over to me, and I looked away by looking to the front of the class and acted like I was paying attention to the film.

Dory got up and left her notes on the table. I waited until I heard the classroom door click shut before I reached over to grab her paper. That's when I saw another one of her doodles. This time it looked like a table from a science classroom, with a lit candle and a skeleton next to one of the tables.

I grabbed Doug and Mickey and we immediately left the room. We started going down the hallway, peering into classrooms to find the candle.

"Hey, what are we looking for?" Doug asked. Shoot, I forgot to tell them.

I peered into another window of a classroom and saw the candle on the table. I answered, "that."

As soon as I opened the door, the smell and sudden feeling of pressure washed over me. I even heard the high pitched hiss of gas leaking from the nozzle. We started coughing as I ran to the table to turn the gas off. Doug was gagging as he opened up the window and I bent down to blow out the candle. Mickey stood by the door, swinging the door open and closed to get some air in there.

I coughed and said, "this bag over here, would you?"

Doug grabbed the nearby bag and held it open for me. "How did you know?"

I picked up the candle and dropped it in the bag while plugging my nose. I lied, "I smelled the gas." I held the bag up in front of my face as we got out of the classroom and walked down the hall. "Finally, some real evidence."

Dory came out of the bathroom and started walking toward us down the hallway.

Doug greeted her, "hey, Dory."

She pointed shakily at the bag and said, "candle in that bag, it's his, isn't it?"

We stopped walking and I lied, "no. It's my lunch."

I wasn't sure if she believed me, but I didn't care. She was getting on my nerves. We kept walking, getting out of the school so we could deliver our evidence to the lab as fast as we could.

______________________________

At the chapel, Doug angrily shoved a dart into our dartboard and he said, "we checked the file of all known arsonists in the area and not one of the fingerprints match. We're back where we started."

I was sitting at my desk when I sighed, "no, we still have a main suspect."

"Yeah," Mickey nodded softly. She had pulled up a chair to sit close to me and Doug.

Doug was behind me and he asked, "who?"

I frowned and said annoyedly, "read my mind."

"Dory?" He sounded surprised. "You're just going to keep picking on her, aren't you?"

"Look, it was her drawing that made me go to that room."

"You didn't tell me that!"

"That's because I've had it up to here—" I made a quick throat cutting gesture with my hand that was also gripping a hot dog wiener "—with this psychic doo-doo."

I believe that there is a scientific explanation for everything. I don't believe in any of this supernatural phenomena. It annoyed me that we have worked together for years and never once has Doug thought anything was something supernatural until Halloween rolled around. It's completely bonkers.

"Why is it so hard for you two to believe that maybe, possibly, she could predict the future?"

"Because there is no future."

"Wow," Mickey said under her breath.

"What does that mean?" Doug asked.

"It hasn't happened yet, and I believe that I have some say in how it happens." I shook the hot dog wiener in my hand for emphasis.

"What about how she knew that the candle was in the paper bag?" Doug tested me.

"Maybe it was her candle," I said. It seemed painfully obvious to me.

Mickey elaborated, "she probably put it there and knew that we were going to find it after that drawing she made."

Doug began to mumble before he admitted, "yeah, well, that's a good point."

I flipped the page of the report I was reading through.

"You admit that this arsonist is eventually going to end up hurting somebody," Doug said.

"Yes," I hissed.

"Well, you know, so far, we're nowhere and Dory was getting some serious vibes off of that candle."

I stared straight ahead and said, "all right. Go to her with the candle, but not the candle."

"You mean, like to test to see if she really is psychic?"

"No, I mean like to get her fingerprints, and see if they match," I said.

Doug sighed and agreed. Mickey went with him to try to find a candle that looked just like the one we found at the school. Hopefully she can talk some sense into him, because he won't listen to me.

______________________________

I was in the chapel and the phone began to ring. I daunted over to it and answered, "hello?"

Doug sat down on the table as the voice answered, "this is Dr. Howser from Metro Lab."

"Oh, it's the lab," I said to Doug and sat down on the tabletop. I glanced around for Mickey because she would want to know this, but I didn't see her.

"We just tested the candle that you sent to us last night," the doctor said.

"Oh," I responded.

"Unfortunately, they were not a match."

"Oh, okay."

"If you need anything else, officer, let us know."

"Thank you," I said and hung up.

"What?" Doug asked.

I sighed and told him, "Dory's fingerprints didn't match. It's not her."

Doug stared straight ahead and said defeatedly, "oh, great. I'm dead."

Now we don't have time to unpack all of that. But I couldn't let that go. He already told me that Dory saw him dead. He said that she saw fear, fire, and an angel coming to take his soul away.

I groaned, "oh, Penhall, will you stop it? Listen, it's not even the right candle."

His face was somber and he said, "yeah, you're probably right. She doesn't know what she's talking about."

He slowly stood up, and he didn't sound like he believed what he was saying. I asked him, "where you going?"

"I'm going to go put my things in order," he said in a low voice and went over to his desk.

I flexed my face in frustration. Why was he being so paranoid? She probably told him that to take the attention away from her and the candle. Dory, a con-woman high school teenager, has seriously gotten into his head.

______________________________

I got to the school and opened the door to the gym. It was ready for the Halloween Dance that was coming up. There were black and orange streamers all over the walls, paper bats taped to the walls, decorations, pumpkin tablecloths, lots of carved pumpkins, and black and orange balloons.

I immediately saw Dory standing in front of the bleachers. She had her hands raised to them, and she looked focused. She was the only one in the gym. What the hell was she doing? Trying to spiritually tune into the wood?

I walked over to her and asked, "need some help?"

She put her hands down and said, "no. The bleachers, a wooden field. Remember that night?"

I looked at the gym floor as she gestured to it. I nodded, "yeah."

"Well, maybe I was wrong about the time and not the images."

I sighed and leaned back into the bleachers. She could tell by the look on my face that I wasn't having it. She said, "look, I don't blame you for not believing. Even I don't want to. So just don't listen to me."

I looked at her and asked, "Dory, how did you see Penhall die? Look, I don't believe in this stuff, but I also can't explain your drawings. And now there's this thing about Doug and I just don't want to take any chances."

She huffed and said, "I think it's tonight, the bleachers. The devils burning. There must be kids in costume. I saw Doug severely burned. He was wrapped in a black material like a coat or a cape. I saw an angel standing over him to take him away."

I nodded at her and thanked her. I really don't believe in what she says, but I really don't want to take any chances. Doug is one of my best friends, and he obviously believed her whole-heartedly. I trust Doug's judgement, and if he thinks she's the real deal, I should at least pretend.

______________________________

I was in the chapel changing into my Halloween costume when I heard eerily beautiful organ music playing throughout the building. Blowfish must have finally found all the pipes.

I was walking over to the squad room when I heard Ioki sing the line, "you're the Devil in disguise."

Judy laughed and said, "oh my god, that's very good."

In Elvis' voice he responded, "thank you, thank you very much."

I walked out to the squad room, and I leaned back slightly with my chin tilted up. I looked at Blow, Ioki, and Judy through my dark sunglasses. It was already dark in the chapel so I could barely see, but it was all for my costume so I couldn't just take it off. I had spent too long putting on this Mohawk wig. I was dressed like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. I never go to costume parties anymore, so I was going to go all out for this one. Even though I don't believe in the paranormal, I do love Halloween.

I kept my stance and started walking across the chapel after hiding my fake dog tags under my green military style jacket. Underneath I had a plain white shirt on, and I completed the look with Travis's signature aviator style sunglasses

Ioki spoke up, "hey, can we help you?" He was dressed as Elvis in his jumpsuit era. He styled his dark hair just like him, and wore a little purple scarf with his white bedazzled jumpsuit.

I spun back and forth to them a couple times and asked in a New York accent, "are you talking to me?"

Judy was dressed like the devil. She had a red cape and had a headpiece with devil horns covering her dark hair. Her eyebrows came together and she asked, "Hanson?"

I quoted the movie to help them out, "someday a real rain will come and wash away the scum, the pimps, the screw heads."

"De Niro," Blowfish said. He was dressed like the Phantom of the Opera. "Taxi Driver."

I smiled and glanced around and asked in my regular voice, "where's Mickey?"

Ioki's eyebrows came together, looking like he was wondering the same thing. Judy answered, "she's almost done changing. She should be out any second—oh, there she is."

I turned around to follow her gaze and watched Mickey walk out of the bathroom. I immediately noticed her hair that was in perfect curls, and the white Angel wings attached to her back. She wore a little headband that had a halo attached to it which hovered above her head. She wore a modest yet attractive simple white dress with long bell sleeves.

Headlights shined through one of the stained glass window in the chapel, illuminating Mickey as she smiled over at us. Just the way she looks at me strips my conscious bare. There's no defense for it. It's witchcraft. She was literally glowing, and she looked absolutely stunning. I can't believe she's my girl. She could make a devil out of me.

"You guys coordinated again this year, huh?" Ioki asked.

Mickey chuckled as she grabbed the skirt of her dress so she wouldn't trip as she walked over to us. "Devil and angel, at your shoulders."

"Again?" I asked. When did they dress up the first time?

"We had an assignment her first year where we had to dress up for Halloween. Oh, man. We went as the Blues Brothers," Judy said.

"That was probably my favorite," Mick said.

"I wish I could have seen that," I chuckled.

Mickey came up beside me and I noticed some flattering sparkles on her face. I'm glad my sunglasses were dark, because I could not stop looking over at her. When she looks at me like that with those hypnotic eyes of hers... oh, woe is me. It's moments like these that make having a secret relationship really difficult.

In a low voice, she asked, "do you think there's gonna be a fire tonight?"

I sighed softly and shook my head. "Honestly, I don't know. I don't want to think so, but I wanted to talk to you about that. Just in case, I don't want you to go to the dance tonight."

"Why?" She frowned.

"Because I need you more than those kids do."

Her pink lips smiled at me. "You're funny."

"Mick, I'm serious."

"Fine, then you can't go either."

"Why not?"

"Because I need you more than those kids do."

"Fair point."

"Uh-huh," her voice had a twinge of attitude to it. "I'm going to that dance. And if the school burns, we will burn together."

"That's sweet but not the response I was looking for," I admitted which made Mick laugh.

I nearly jumped when I heard someone behind me call out with a deep Transylvania accent say, "good evening!"

I spun around and saw Doug standing up on the loft by the lockers. He waved his black cape in the air, and hissed at us with thick makeup that made him look pale and dead. He also had fangs in his teeth. Dracula. I grimaced when I noticed the black cloak. Was I beginning to fall for Dory's con-woman ways?

Doug coughed and slid down the fireman's pole to us.

"Oh, that's great, Penhall," Judy complimented.

"Hey, are you Bela Lugosi Dracula or Christopher Lee Dracula?" Ioki asked him.

Doug daunted her over us and said, "I'm Count Chocula."

"I 'vant' to eat your cereal," Mickey said in the Dracula voice. Every word she says is kindling, even something as dorky as that. It feeds the fire in my heart that burns for her.

Doug chuckled proudly, "nice job."

I marched right up to Doug and ordered, "you're going to have to change."

"Why? It's a classic outfit," he said.

"There's going to be about 100 Dracula's there," I said. I didn't want him to think that I was afraid that Dory might be right. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

"No way." He took his teeth out.

"Listen, you're not going to be able to wear this. You're going to have to change," I said firmly.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked.

Before I could say anything, Fuller came out dressed as a bullfighter. His outfit was red with details of black on his shoulders and down his arms. He was going to the dance too, as a chaperone. I quickly noticed a priest behind him. "All right, everybody, listen up."

We all dropped our own conversations and started making our way over to him.

"I got some news you won't want to hear. Since it's Halloween, I thought it might be appropriate," Fuller said.

Doug and I immediately turned to each other.

Fuller gave the priest the floor, and he introduced himself. "My name is Father Alex, I am an historian for various ministry's in this area. A century and a half ago, a house stood near this spot, about 40 yards to the west. A Protestant minister and his wife lived there. They had built it as part of an Underground Railroad to help slaves escape during the Civil War. In 1888, on May the 14th, the house mysteriously burned down and the minister was killed in his sleep. When the community organized to build a church, they saw this minister to be the very seed of their faith. His wife donated the land and suggested that her husband be buried below the chapel to be its spiritual foundation. In the Depression, this chapel was turned into a mission, and the minister's remains apparently were neglected. Forgotten."

Fuller waited a moment before he said, "I believe the curse has been lifted."

Judy seemed freaked out. She asked, "what was the minister's name?"

"Reverend Jacob Gwynne," he answered.

Ioki asked, "then who is Yates?"

Fuller didn't give Father Alex a chance to respond. He stepped up to him to shake his hand and said, "thank you, Father."

Father Alex left, and we all dispersed. That was just more proof that they were all afraid of absolutely nothing. There's nothing spooky going on around here. However, I still wasn't going to take my chances with Doug.

I turned back to Doug and said, "maybe you shouldn't go tonight."

"Again with this thing? What is this?"

"I just—I think, I think this is what she saw you in," I disclosed.

He lifted up his cloak and asked, "saw?"

I nodded and his eyes bulged.

"Oh, you mean like, saw."

I kept nodding.

"Well, you know, I've been thinking about what you said before, and I think I have a say in how the future is written, so you know, I'm going to go."

He walked off, and I was quite surprised. The man who has been cowering in the corner for this entire assignment finally put on his big boy pants. But now it was me who was going to be paranoid the whole night. That's just great.

______________________________

We got to the school and everyone was dancing and having a fun time at the Taft's Halloween Dance. Monster Mash was playing on the speakers, and everyone was in fun costumes.

But we weren't there to have fun. We were there to work. The team separated to try to find anyone or anything that might be the arsonist. Judy was over by Fuller, and Mickey was looking outside with Ioki.

I was in the gym with Doug and asked him in De Niro's voice, "you don't know anybody by the name of Iris?"

"What?" Doug asked.

"You know Iris."

"What are you talking about?"

"You talking to me?" I asked and pointed at myself as if he was threatening me. I scrunched my lips slightly to try not to laugh.

"Stop quoting that movie, man," Doug demanded. Then he turned to look past me and he said, "hey, Dory."

Dory came up to us wearing a dorky Merlin costume. She had a fake white beard, a tall pointy hat and everything. Very geeky. It's also a little on the nose. Her eyes bulged and she said, "Doug, you shouldn't be here."

"Don't start with me. I wasn't put on this earth just to be taken out in a Prince of Darkness costume," he said. His words were a little muffled because of his fake fangs. "I'm gonna go take a look around."

Doug left and I stuck my hands in my pockets as Dory asked me, "you told him?!"

"Just a little," I said, "it's all right, he's a big guy, he can take care of himself."

We walked over to a table with carved pumpkins. One of the pumpkins candle was blown out and Dory said, "oh, man, look at that. Do you have a lighter?"

I thought for a moment. I don't have a lighter or anything because I don't smoke. But then I saw a box of matches on the table and I picked it up. "A match right here." I grabbed a match and struck it as Dory picked up the lid of the pumpkin. I was about to put it in the pumpkin, but then I noticed that the candle was missing.

"Somebody stole the candle," Dory stated.

I stood up straight and puckered my lips in thought while she put the lid back on the pumpkin. That's not good.

Doug's POV

I was walking down the hallway near the gym when I heard Mickey call out, "Tom? Where are you?"

I could hear her approaching, so I smirked to myself and pressed up against the wall. I held my breath as she walked up along side me, but looked down the other hallway and didn't notice me. I tried to think of the best quote I could think of from a movie that she would remember, and I thought of the terrifying phone scene from Nightmare on Elm Street.

"I'm your boyfriend now, Mickey!" I shouted in Fredy Kruger's voice and lunged at her. I grabbed her arms and she jumped and squeezed her eyes shut and screamed bloody murder. Her legs nearly collapsed so I had to squeeze her arms tight just so I wouldn't drop her.

I laughed and she opened her eyes. The fear immediately turned to annoyance and she smacked my arm. "Don't jump out at me like that!"

"It's Halloween. Everyone's entitled to one good scare."

"You're an asshole," she said while laughing.

"I'm sorry. You said that you were scared of Freddy, so I had to. I'm sorry, I won't do it again," I promised.

"You think I'm scared right now, but I'm not," she said, dropping her smile to try to look serious.

"Sure," I chuckled.

"And what was it you said?" She asked.

"I'm your boyfriend now, Mickey?" I repeated.

"Why'd you say that?"

"That's an iconic horror movie line," I reasoned. Why was she so suspicious?

"What's going on in there?" She pointed. I almost felt like she was changing the subject, but I followed her finger anyway and saw a nearby closet door that was being propped open with a soup can.

"I'm not sure, let's check it out," I said quietly. "By the way, I might die tonight."

"What?"

"I might die."

"No, you won't."

"I might."

"But you won't."

"What if something goes wrong?"

"Then we will mourn you," she said deadpan.

"Mick." I was not in the mood for jokes about my mortality.

She chuckled and said, "nothing is going to happen to you, I promise."

We walked into the room to see another Dracula standing in front of a bunch of rolls of paper towels, using a lighter to light a candle in his hands. The entire room smelled strongly of kerosene.

"Ew," Mickey said under her breath.

"Hey," I called out to him. The heavy door closed behind us, and the Dracula turned around in surprise and dropped the candle.

The paper towels lit up like a Christmas tree. I saw the fire and fear had washed across my face. Fire. Death. Fire bad.

"Oh, shit," Mickey said. Her face was dropped and her eyes were bulging at the flames that reflected in her eyes.

I gripped the door handle and tried to open the door, but it was locked. Smoke was filling the room, and the fire was spreading like... you know... fire.

"Help!" We all screamed.

"Help us!" Mickey shouted.

I was coughing as we all tried to break the door down, but it was too strong. We were banging on it with our fists, and Mickey was slamming herself into it to try to break it down. She took the wings of her costume off, as well as her halo. I took her idea and kept banging my shoulder into the door, but it wasn't budging. I really was going to be taken out wearing a Prince of Darkness costume.

"Help!" I screamed.

"Help!" The other Dracula yelled.

Mickey paused to cough. "Someone! Help us!"

The room was quickly filling with smoke that was making my lungs and eyes burn. The kid was trying desperately to get the door down, but it was no use. Mickey slowly lowered to the ground, but was still banging her shoulder against the door in her squat position. Being lower to the ground is a good idea, since heat and smoke rise but I was in too much of a panic to copy her.

The doorknob was getting hot, and oxygen was diminishing. We kept coughing, and struggling immensely. I gripped the door knob again and hissed when I pulled away. The metal was so hot, I felt like I grabbed a hot pan.

Tom's POV

I was still standing beside Dory next to the pumpkin when a kid dressed as a court jester shouted, "hey, there's a fire!"

I snapped my head toward the gym doors and saw dark smoke sneaking into the gym from the cracks of the door. I immediately began running as fast as I could to the doors, and Fuller was coming from the other side, pushing past kids as he ran.

Fuller pointed and shouted at me, "Hanson, grab that extinguisher."

I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and Fuller opened the doors for me to run into the smoke filled hallway. I heard him yell at someone, "you, call 9-1-1! The rest of you people, clear this room now!"

I hugged the fire extinguisher to my chest as I ran through the smoke, and I could hear Doug's voice calling out for help. I used the heavy extinguisher to break the doorknob off, because I knew the metal would be piping hot. It took a couple of knocks, but as soon as I got the knob off, the door burst open. I jumped out of the way for someone to jump out of the room, then Mickey, and then there was another. He was screaming and covered in flames.

Oh my god, Doug.

I pulled the pin and sprayed the contents of the fire extinguisher onto him. As soon as he was covered in the thick white substance, I noticed the second Dracula who crawled out of the room. He leaned up against the wall, and I saw that it was Doug. My Doug. I looked down at the other Dracula who caught on fire and I didn't recognize his face. I took my green jacket off and placed it over his shoulders.

Mickey crawled over and placed her hands tenderly on the kids shoulder. Her headband halo was gone, along with her wings. Her white dress was now covered in black burn marks and holes. Her eyes were red from the smoke, and her skin was irritated from the heat she was trapped in for god knows how long. There were also thin black marks on her skin. She asked him softly, "are you okay? Does anything hurt?"

His lips trembled as he tried to speak, but no words were coming out. I inspected his face, and I couldn't help but feel like he had no control over what he was doing. It was as if the fires were impulsive.

I looked up at Mickey, and realized that this was what Dory claimed to have seen. Doug, covered in burns wearing a cloak with an Angel over him. This kid wasn't Doug, but looked a lot like him. They were both wearing the same costume, and Mickey must have been the angel that Dory saw. That's an easy mistake to make.

I asked her, "are you okay? Do you need your inhaler?"

She coughed but said, "I'm fine."

She didn't sound fine, but I had to take her word for it. I kept my eye on her, and she looked like she was breathing okay so I relaxed a little. If I had her inhaler in my pocket, I would have given it to her right away whether or not she thought she needed it. I really should start carrying it around.

I know it is strictly taboo, but I had to fight the urge to embrace her after this scary situation. What she arouses in me is uncontrollable, and my heart yearns for her. I'm just a fool in love with her. My earth angel.

I heard footsteps behind me, and it was Dory, the jester, and basically the entire student body coming to see what all the commotion was about.

"Doug," Dory gasped.

"No, it's not Doug, and he's not dead," I said to her over my shoulder.

Fuller and Judy ran into the closet and extinguished the flames that were still bouncing around in the room. Doug sat up against the wall, coughing and wiping his mouth with his hand.

The jester obnoxiously said, "hey, that's that dork, Allen."

Dory pushed him away, "leave him alone!" She knelt down beside me and said to Allen, "it's okay, Allen. We're going to get you help."

Mickey and I looked up at each other at the same time. Fuller had the kids leave us alone while we stayed with Allen until the cops came. Dory stayed too.

Once we were relieved of our duty and we knew that Allen was going to be fine, all four of us slowly walked out of the school. I was relieved that this assignment was finally over. Dory took her tall Merlin hat and beard off and held them in her hands.

We passed by firefighters as soon as we got outside and she said, "Doug, I've never been so relieved to be wrong about something."

"Hey, hey, now, don't jinx me. I'm still in the costume," Doug said.

We sat down together on a nearby bench and she said, "I always questioned what I saw until that kid was laying there. The look on his face. I knew he couldn't help what he was doing."

"Yeah, I saw that too," I admitted.

"I hope he gets the help he needs," Mickey said.

"You think now that this is over, your visions are going to stop?" Doug asked.

"What am I, a fortune teller?" She asked.

Doug and I peered at each other over the girls heads and he chuckled. I smiled softly, and then my eyes drifted down to Mickey.

Mickey yawned and said, "I think I'm going to head out."

"Me too, I'll walk you to your car," Doug offered.

Doug and Mickey stood up and said their goodbyes. I glanced at them as they walked away, and I saw Mickey laugh at whatever dumb thing Doug said to her. I'm a complete sucker for all of the subliminal things that no one else knows about her. There's something in the way she moves that attracts me in a way that no other girl has before. I adore her. My whole world begins and ends with her. My lips twitched up in a small smile at her, and I let out a sigh. I have spent nearly every day with her for the past eight months, and my heart still whirls when I'm around her. Even though I tell her everyday, I will love her more than she will ever know.

Dory's voice took my out of my trance. "Is it for her?"

I didn't even look at her as I asked, "is what for her?"

Her voice lowered, "the ring? It's blue."

I froze. I got a ring for Mickey months ago, like a week after we started dating, but I haven't given it to her yet. No one knows about it. It's my promise to her that I'll love her forever. I wish it was an engagement ring, but she would never say yes this early on. She's always been one to play it safe, so I got her a promise ring just so she would have one. Right from the very start, I had always known that with her I found a home for my heart. I've been thinking that I'll give it to her at Christmas. But I know one day, she will take my hand and she will take my whole life too.

"How did you know that?" I asked her with my eyebrows furrowed together.

"I can see it. Bedside table? Right by your retainer. I can feel the love you two have for each other. Don't let her go, okay?"

I nodded softly at Dory with a gentle smile.

Maybe she's not so crazy after all.

🤌I really wanted to include the ouija board scene because Fuller was so funny but Tom wasn't in it and I didn't want to make the chapter too long :/
🤌little off topic but how great would it have been if Doug played Uncle Kelso in Wizards of Waverley Place? I'll forever be upset about this
🤌I am a horror movie fanatic so I included references and quotes from Ghostbusters, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, A Haunted House, Child's Play, The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, The Shining, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and Poltergeist. Did you catch them all? 🤩
🤌thank you TayNicole99 for the request! ❤️