Ghost Buster 4

The old couple came to see me again today. They're hearing weird noises in their kitchen and think the poltergeist is back. I think it's a rat or some other living and less mysterious vermin but I agreed to check it out for them anyway. Funny thing happened down in the lab while they were waiting for me in my office. Jelly was undergoing the usual routine of being weighed and measured (pointless if you ask me) and all the sudden she started glowing and changing colors like she does when she's about to freak out but instead she just started crying. I didn't know ghosts could do that. Six years on the job and I ain't never seen a ghost cry, not even the rare benevolent ones. I was just passing by on my way from the coffee room to my office and stopped in for a peak at my trophy catch and when I saw her huddled in a corner covering her head I thought, just for a second, that if not for the pulsating waves of red and gold and flashes of blue green she might look almost real. It was weird.

Anyway, the old folks heard something from down the hall and asked who was sobbing so loudly and without even thinking I said, "Some girl just lost her parents. She wants help contacting them on the other side." I don't know why I said that, but I couldn't tell them the truth and that just felt right at the time. My answer seemed to satisfy them and we concluded our business by scheduling a convenient time for me to visit their spook-less kitchen. Midnight, of course. The gods only know how I would survive without caffeine.

As my clients were leaving the lady turned to me and said she wanted to meet the crying girl. I asked why and she looked away, like she was embarrassed about something. Then the husband gave me this cold look like I had just insulted his wife or something and put a protective arm around her shoulders, ushering her out of my office.

"We lost our Nelly some time ago. Maybe the wife thinks we can help this girl. You know, talk to her, tell her she's not alone."

"That she's not," I said, sort of glib, and he gave me another indignant glare. I didn't mean anything by it, I mean, dead or alive no one's really ever alone now are they? Just the same, what I saw in the old guy's eyes made me feel a sort of ugly squirm in my gut.

Then the lady asked again if they could meet her and I'll be damned if I didn't almost say yes, as if I believed my own lie, before I got hold of myself and informed her that it would "not be possible at this time." I use that line quite often with particularly persistent clients; ones who request my presence at castles in Romania, for example.

They looked disappointed but resigned not to pursue the issue and once again began to walk down the hall. Two lab assistants, lab-asses, passed by discussing the results of a new experimental procedure headed up by Dr. Suki-suck-my-Wang, and the old folks heard them saying something about expanding the DNA database with more living subjects as a basis for comparison and sure enough, they volunteered on the spot. Just when I thought I was free to stare at my walls and entertain idle fantasies of that beautiful bitch of a paranormal-scientologistic-researcher-PhD-whatever-her-title-is Suki.

I stood in the doorway, indecisive about letting them go when I got that flash-flood-feeling that something big was about to go down.