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No. 4740
Ah, finally finished. It's not as clever as I hoped it'd be, but at least I managed one explicit scooby doo reference. THANKS MARTY FOR BETA BUT I AIN'T CHANGING EVERY H IN HELL I'M LAZY
:l
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“So…ye’ve come fer me help, have ye?” They’d gathered Demoman and Engineer in the barn after breakfast, away from the rest of the team to talk candidly.
“Both of you bloke’s help, actually,” Sniper said. “There’s a bit of a…problem ‘round this place.”
“Problem?” Engineer asked. Whatever it was, he was sure he could fix it. That’s what an engineer did.
“Yes,” Spy said, taking a deep, calming breath before continuing. He felt ridiculous, like he was a child complaining about a bad dream. But this was no bad dream. “Zhere is…something ‘aunting zhis place.”
“Haunting?” Engineer asked, raising an eyebrow. “Y’mean like, a memory…?”
“Like a freakin’ ghost!” Scout exclaimed, nearly falling off the crate he was sitting on. “It’s here, and it’s hauntin’ us!”
“A ghoost?” Demoman asked, leaning forward. “Are ye sure it waren’t a changeling, or a will-o-the-wisp?”
“Of course!” Scout said. “What else could it-wait, a what?”
“A will-o-the wisp?” Demoman said. “Ye knoo, a bog light, a Corpse Candle. They’re the spirits of the dead, come tae haunt the living with thei-”
“They’re the oxidation of phosphine and methane with high albedo levels,” Engineer said, rolling his eyes behind his goggles. “Dead people don’t haunt the earth, boys. There ain’t no such thing as ghosts.”
“Says you!” Demoman said, turning to face the Texan. “And I suppose there’s noo such thing as the Loch Ness Monster either, Mr. 10 Ph.D.s!”
“That don’t exist either,” Engineer said, turning away from the Scot to face Sniper, Spy, and Scout. “And besides, it’s 11.”
“I know wot I saw, mate,” Sniper said, slamming his hand to the crate Engineer sat upon. “And we figured you’d be the best blokes to ask, since Engie here has more Ph.D’s and Demo’s knows more ghosties and ghouls than I get headshots in a day.”
“I ain’t got no Ph.D’s in pseudoscience,” Engineer said, but this was up for debate to him. How the hell is psychology a science, anyway? “I’m ‘fraid I can’t help ya with what doesn’t exist.”
Sniper and Scout were about to open their mouths when Spy cut them off with a loud, disdainful /humph/. “Fine,” the Frenchman said, standing up, “We do not need zhe ‘elp of a coward.
“Coward?!” well, if that didn’t get the ol’ cowboy riled up. He stood up and pointed his wrench at spy, almost poking the man in the chest with it. “I ain’t no coward! I’m just not afraid of things that don’t exist!”
“Zhen prove it,” Spy said, taking a slight step back. “Come to zhe ‘ouse tonight, and see for yourself what is ‘appening. If zhere is nozzing, zhen you win. But if zhere is…”
Engineer grunted. “Fine,” he picked up his toolbox and started trudging out of the room, grumbling to himself as he did. “But when I show y’all what a bunch of fools y’ are, you’ll feel mighty foolish.”
Spy /hmphed/ and lit a cigarette. “We shall see.”
That night, when everyone was settled into bed and the moon was high in the pellucid sky, Spy, Sniper, Scout, Demoman, and Engineer all sneaked across the base and into the old house, looking around for the ghost all the while. They were all equipped with flashlights and walkie talkies, except for Demoman, who had equipped himself with a large iron lantern with a special candle inside, to ward off evil spirits. “Somehow, I think any ‘spirits’ are gonna be more afraid of your bombs than any silly candle,” Engineer noted dryly.
“Says you,” Demoman retorted, lifting the lantern to face level. “Ye’ll be seein’ none of yer fancy technology’ll do ye a bit a’ good in the face of a ghost.”
“I’m shakin’,” Engineer said, shaking his head. “So, you think this here ghost is the spirit of Zepheniah Mann?”
“Zhat is our theory,” Spy said, opening the door with his shoulder and turning on the flashlight. A rat scurried out of the light, the only sound or movement in the otherwise still, silent place. “And we figure if we can find out why ‘e is ‘ere, we can put eet to rest.”
“We’ll need to trap him before we can do anything,” Demoman said. “When we got the devil where we want him, we’ll trap him in this,” he pointed to the lantern, “And then release him in the graveyard, so we can put him to rest!”
“That’s the dumbest thing ah ever heard, Demo,” Engineer said with a frown, quietly stepping into the house. The floorboards creaked and groaned under his boots, sending shivers across the foyer and even to the walls.
“So stupid it’ll work, right?” Scout asked. Nobody answered him.
“Let’s split up,” Sniper suggested, pointing his flashlight down one hallway. “Spy and I’ll take this hallway, and Demo and Engie can take the main floor. Scout, you get upstairs.”
“Me?!” Scout asked, his face becoming a pallor in the dark. “Why do I gotta be the one who goes alone?”
“Because you are zhe least likely to be attacked by zhe ghost,” Spy said with a sneer.
“Why’s that?” Scout asked, scrunching his face up at the Frenchman.
“You can run zhe fast, silly boy. And your girlish screams will surely scare ‘im away,” Spy said, chuckling to himself. Scout turned profusely red.
“Hey, it’s not my fault!” he protested. “It’s puberty’s!”
“At age twenty?” Sniper asked.
“I wish I was you, Spooky,” Scout said, starting up the stairs. “It’s the girl that always lives the longest.” Scout stuck his tongue out at him before making a turn and disappearing out of sight. Spy just sneered back at him.
“Well, let’s get this going,” Engineer said, starting down the foyer with Demo at his side. “So we can end this silliness and get some shut eye.” When he and Engie were out sight, Spy and Sniper’s eye met. The same thought passed between both their minds.
“Besides zhe ghost, we /are/ all alone,” Spy said, resting his hands on Sniper’s chest. The disdain they showed towards each other was a very good act. No one ever suspected.
“Don’t worry,” Sniper said, smiling as he took Sniper’s tie in his hands. “If you’re the girl, I’ll protect ya.”
“Oh, mon cher,” Spy said, sighing as Sniper half dragged him into the hall. Who cared about a silly ghost anyway?
“Here, Mr. Mann,” Scout said, his hands shaking around the flashlight as he stalked up the stairs. “I don’t wanna hurt ya…just send you back to hell, is all…” a sudden creak came from one of the rooms, followed by a moaning sound. He froze in his tracks, then, turning as if in slow motion, whispered, “Mr….Mann?” the door creaked as Scout slowly pushed it open, moonlight filtering through to reveal an old, dusty room that held an old wardrobe and the metal frame of a bed. In the corner was a hunched figure, cloaked in darkness. “H-hello?” at the sound, the figure turned around swiftly and suddenly, making scout cry out and shine the flashlight straight at it in surprise. It was none other than Pyro, who gave a jovial ‘Mmm!’ and hopped up at the sight of the boy.
“Pyro?” Scout said, still reeling from surprise. Pyro nodded to him, something hanging limply in his hands. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”
“Cm lkk!” Pyro walked over to scout and showed the boy the item he had in his hand. It was a thick, vinyl covered notebook, filled
“What the hell’s this crap?” Scout said, taking it from Pyro. The pages fell lightly as he flicked the book open, revealing a series of photographs on one page and an letter on the other. “What’s…” he looked over the pictures, seeing them to be a bunch of diagrams. “Hey…this is…” he flipped the page to find more pictures and notes. “Damn, firebug, it is! Where’d ya get it?”
“Fnnd ut,” Pyro said through his gasmask. “Nnr th brrn.”
“Freakin a, the rest of the team’s gonna love that we found this!” Scout said, flipping through the pages. But one page caught his attention, a page with several ghostlike sketches on it. “What the…”
“Uff?” Pyro asked, putting a hand to his hip. Scout, however, wasn’t paying attention. The Bostonian squinted to read the tiny notes written by the sketches, and flipped the page to have his suspicions confirmed.
“Those freakin’ bastards!” Scout said, huffily stuffing the notebook into his back pocket. “They’re…c’mon, Pyro, we gotta stop them!” and before Pyro could react, Scout had grabbed his thick gloved hand and dashed with him out of the room.
“Here, ghoosty!” Demo said, calling into the dark hallway. Engineer followed reluctantly, finding the entire excursion quite silly.
“Yer not callin to anything, pardner,” the Texan said, shining his flashlight towards a shelf stacked with oil cans, bolts and screws, and bits of metal. “Only ones here are you, me, and the others.”
“That’s wha’ a ghoost’d want ye to think,” Demoman said dismissively, waving his archaic, obtuse lantern in front of him. “Ye’ll be sorry if ye keep thinking that.”
“I’m shaking,” Engineer said. Just after he said it, a sudden chill came over him, literally making him shake in cold. “Now what th…” As Demoman bent over to examine a shelf, Engineer turned to see a tall, ethereal blue figure with a gibus materialize before him. For a minute, the Texan just stood and stared, before muttering, “Heh heh…look, Demo, it looks like we’ve serendipitously stumbled upon some never before seen phenomena…take some notes, would ya?” Demoman turned around just in time to catch Engineer as he fainted. Then, looking, up, he saw the ghost, and his face turned from surprise to fear, and then to anger.
“Ye’ve gone and killed him!” Demoman said, lifting his lantern to face the spectral figure. “And now I’m sending you t’hell tae join him!” the Scot gave a cry and waved the lantern at the ghost. It, and his hand passed through effortlessly, leaving the ghost unfazed. The ghost floated closer, and let a low cackle that send shivers through Demo’s spine. “Ah-hah…” the Scot stuttered, stepping back, “Maybe ye ought tae…get in th’ lamp…” but then Demo remembered genies didn’t exist. Silly him.
“Wh-…what the…” just as Engineer was waking up, he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and pulled backwards, the ghost of Zepheniah before him. The scene was enough to make the skittish Engineer fall unconscious.
“No bloody demon’s gonna take me alive!” Demo yelled back at the ghost, racing down the hallway with Engineer in tow. He ran into a room and slammed the door shut, forgetting that nasty little trick ghosts can do. In a moment, the ghost had passed through the wall and floated to Demo’s shoulder, giving the quietest cackle in his ear. With a hoarse yell, the Demolitions Expert jumped a foot and raced out of the room, arms flailing up in the air and totally forgetting Engineer. Engineer had the luck to wake up just then, to find Zepheniah floating before with a ghastly gleam in his ominous oculi. The Texan started panting and sweating as the creature floated before him, like an owl over a mouse.
“N-now…” Engineer said, pushing back against the floor, “About that stuff with y’all not existing…y’know I was kiddin, r-right?” the ghost responded with a high, unearthly cackle, prompting the Texan to scramble up and rush for the door. Forgetting it was closed, he simply smashed through the thin wood, sending a ringing through the house that alerted the then occupied Sniper and Spy.
“If you like zhe man so much, why don’t you invite ‘im to your next scary expedition?” Spy spat, turning away from Sniper with a /humph/.
“For the last toime, I didn’t say ‘Oh, Saxton Hale,’ I said ‘Oh, sex, tons of hell!” Sniper said, struggling with his boxers.
“Zhat doesn’t even make sense!” Spy shouted.
“It does to me!” Sniper retorted. Internally, he was berating himself. ‘Tons of hell?’ what the fuck does that mean?
Just then, the sound of something smashing rang through the halls, distracting the two from their bickering. “Wot the hell was that?” Sniper asked, finally managing to get his pants back on. The question was soon answered for him, however, by Demoman coming bolting through the door, a look of panic on his face.
“Run! That ghostie’s got a vengeance!” he yelled, running past them and through another door. He was followed by Engineer, who was yelling at an octave rather higher than one might have expected from such a man. Spy swiveled around to see the ghost come through the wall, and couldn’t help but scream at the sudden occurrence.
“Eek! Les fous! Kill it, Sniper!” and Spy was off, running at the pace of a Kenyan runner out of the room and leaving the marksman alone with the ghost.
“Uh…g’day,” Sniper managed, before running out of the room with the rest of the them. The ghost let out a cackle and floated back through the wall, intent on the chase.
“C’mon, we gotta tell ‘em!” Scout was saying to Pyro as they came down the stairs. He was still flabbergasted by the truth, but determined to make it known. Pyro was short behind him, fumbling with the flashlight as he waddled down the steps. “Now where the hell could they be?”
“Fnnd thmm,” Pyro said, pointing with the flashlight to Spy as he came sprinting down the hall.
“Run! Eet cannot be stopped!” the Frenchman cried, pushing past Scout and Pyro as he scrambled up the stairs.
“Hey, wait-” Scout began before Spy disappeared up the stairs. “Dammit!” what the hell ever happened to being a professional? “C’mon, let’s get the others-” he was interrupted by three more screams, these ones coming from Sniper, Demoman, and Engineer as they all scrambled by. The ghost of Zepheniah Mann trailed behind them, floating swiftly and cackling as it went.
“Run, laddie, before it takes ye to the dark below!” Demoman cried as they took a turn and ran down another hallway. The ghost did not follow, but instead chose to float directly upwards, to where Spy was hiding. As Sniper was running with Engie and Demo, he heard the girlish scream of his lover and stopped in his tracks.
“What’re ya doin?!” Engineer said, skidding to a stop to avoid hitting the Australian.
“I gotta go rescue ‘im!” The marksman protested, running back the opposite direction. Fight or not, he wasn’t going to let anything happen to Spy.
“I thought y’all hated each other!” Engineer yelled as he followed. The two of them ran up the stair and past Scout and Pyro before the Bostonian could say what he wanted to.
“Wait-guys-oh god dammit!” Scout said, turning to Pyro. “Come on, let’s grab the tools!” Scout jumped off the stairs and towards the supply shelf they’d seen, Pyro close behind.
“Oh, bloody hell!” Demoman said, retrieving his sticky bomb launcher and shooting a single bomb. “Imma comin, lads!” Closing his eye, he jumped up and set the bomb off, blasting through the ceiling.
Spy was cornered in a bedroom, cowering behind a bed. “Oh, merci, I beg of you…” the assassin stuttered, going as low to the bed as he could. “I ‘ave been a good person…never told a lie in my life!” the ghost cackled, making Spy give a little shriek. “Okay, maybe just that once…”
“Spy!” Sniper said, bursting into the room with his kukri in hand.
“Sniper!” Spy said, a sudden smile coming to his face. He was saved! With a growl, Sniper swiped at the ghost, only to have it go right through. Spy’s smile did a one eighty. He was screwed.
Just as Engineer came to the door, the floorboards burst as Demoman came flying upwards and landed on the bed, unusually graceful for someone so big. The ghost turned to see him, and when it did, Spy cloaked and tried to slip away, only to be stopped by Engineer. “If we’re dyin’, we’re doin it together, dag nabbit!” the Texan said as he forced Spy to rematerialize. Recovering from Demo’s dynamic entry, the ghost cornered them all to a corner of the room, leaving them nowhere to go.
“Sniper, if zhis is it…I want you to know…” Spy started, breathily heavily.
“Y-yeh?” Sniper said, pulling the Frenchman close to him.
“…I always pretended to be your fazzer on zhe phone.”
“…Wha-” He was interrupted as Pyro and Scout burst into the room, crying out and tossing buckets of water on the ghost. Instantly, it stopped dead and started sparking, sending sizzling sounds out and flickering.
“What in the hell…” Engineer said, coming closer to it and reaching his ungloved hand out. A spark of electricity passed to it, shocking his index finger.
“We’ve been tryin’ to tell you since we saw you!” Scout muttered, stepping right through the ghost. It was cackling now, over and over at varying pitches and frequencies, until it stopped altogether and produced a low buzz. Pushing past Spy, the boy gave the notebook to Engineer. “Look at it.”
“Why…” Demo, Sniper and Spy leaned over Engineer’s shoulders to see. The Texan’s eyebrows raised and he gasped slowly as he read. “This is…”
“Tht’s rhht,” Pyro said, coming behind the ghost. “Thh ghst ss actlly…” he pressed the back of the gibus and the ghost turned into a solid blue sheet, falling to the floor with a thud. The hat fell open to reveal a radio and antenna on the inside, the logo BLU emblazoned on it.
“BLU team!” the gang cried out all at once.
“They were trying to scare us off the base so that they wouldn’t have to fight,” Scout said, picking up the hat.
“And we would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you meddlesome REDs!” the radio turned off with a fizz after it said this, leaving the room quiet.
“What low, cowardly snakes!” Spy said, cursing as he pulled out a cigarette. “Anyone ‘ave a light?”
“Maybe I can get Pyro here to light up, in light of recent revelations!” Sniper yelled, whipping his kukri out. Back to their old ways, Spy chuckled before jumping down the hole Demo had made, Sniper following.
“So it was thaym Bloos behind it this whole time,” Demo said, shaking his head. “Well, this has been one hell of a night, But I think I’ll be headin for a kip meself. Night, lads.” with a yawn, he hopped down the hole as well.
“What a cheap trick!” Engineer said, looking through the notebook. “But imagine the kind of technology they must of used. To create an intangible cloak around a sheet, yet balance a gibus with a radio…it must have something t’do with the refractory properties like in Spah’s watch…”
“Sure it ain’t just anything spooky, hardhat?” Scout asked, punching him on the shoulder. “That’s what ya thought back there.” Engineer frowned.
“I didn’t buy that ghost thing for one minute, boy,” the Engineer spat before heading back to the door. “I was just trying to observe.”
“Yeah, cause pissin ya pants and running the opposite direction is a real good way to observe stuff,” the Bostonian said, snorting with laughter. “Oh man, Pyro, I can’t believe we solved this!” the boy said as Engineer left the room grumbling. “Now we can get back to life as usual, huh? But it makes me wonder…if that ghost was just a BLU trick, then is the real Zepheniah Mann…” as he mused, a luminous blue glow appeared behind him. Pyro saw it and squealed, silenced by the appearance of this figure. Seeing Pyro’s look and the blue glow, Scout muttered “what the…” and turned around…
“Oh, you have /got/ to be kiddin me.”
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