Paranormal Activities Unit, Page 4

Chapter 2

  "What is that?" Emily asked Will. He was holding a big green hardcover book, with gold letters on the cover.

  "Unexplained or Previously Undocumented Paranormal Creatures and Phenomena," Will read the title aloud.

  "Shit," Emily said, amazed that such a book existed.

  "And look at this," Will held up a similarly sized dark blue book. He read its title too, "Explained and Documented Paranormal Creatures and Phenomena." His eyes grew wide, "Look how big this book is." He opened it and began to flip through pages. "My God, the print is small too!" He put the book back in the cardboard box and pulled out another.

  They were sitting in their tiny two bedroom apartment, looking through a box of supplies that had just arrived. Not by post office or any normal method. They had just come home to it sitting in the middle of their living room. With a folded note sitting on top. It looked like a TV box. It probably was. The note had said, "Here are your supplies. You start tonight." That was all. No signature, nothing.

  So far the box had given up all the gadgets Mr. Dorand had told them they would be using, plus a few he hadn't explained at their meeting, and various books. They had already been through the tests and training required for the job, so most of it was familiar to them. But the training was not as thorough as they might have hoped.

  "Oh, look at this," Will said, holding up two smaller books, paperback.

  Emily read their covers. "Pocket guides," she said, smiling and nodding. Cool. He handed her one. They each thumbed through them for a minute. Then started pouring through the box again.

  "A-ha," Emily said, pulling out a dark gray metallic box shaped object, "The paranormal alarm thing." She turned it over in her hands, studying it carefully.

  "So it begins," Will said quietly. He reached over and took it from her. "There must be an 'On' button here somewhere—ah, yes." He flipped a tiny switch and set it on a nearby bookshelf.

  They both stared at it in amazement. Nothing much happened except a tiny red light came on, just to show it was on. They stared at it some more, expectantly.

  Apparently nothing paranormal was going to happen just now. They went back to looking through the box.

  "Hey, you know, it's a full moon Saturday night," Emily said casually.

  "What are you saying to me?" Will asked.

  "Extra paranormal activity probably," Emily answered, as she turned a little silver orb thing around in her hands. "It makes people crazy, anyway. Maybe 'explained and documented creatures' too."

  Will just shook his head at her, "You and that full moon stuff."

  Emily looked up at him a little annoyed. "You don't believe in the full moon affecting people, but you have no problem believing in a..." she picked up the pocket guide and flipped through it, "a freezialmort?"

  Will made a disgusted face, then looked curious, "What the hell is a freezialmort?" he asked, taking the book from her.

  "It's sort of a..." she tried to mime or show him with her hands, and he just looked at her, obviously still confused. "Never mind," he said, "I already have too much in my head." He shook his head, partly to make all the new information settle better.

  Emily was diving deeper into the box now, bent over, with her head down inside it. "Oh, look," she said, sounding muffled by the box, "There's a whole other layer of stuff down here we didn't see before."

  Will dropped his book, "Really?" He went over to join her, and started digging around down in the bottom of the box too.

  "Hey, don't crowd me," Emily said, with a boxy muffled voice. Will laughed and kind of elbowed her over so he could stick his head in there too. Of course, now it was too dark to see inside the box. They both giggled. Will grabbed something metallic, "Hey, what is that?" Then suddenly the alarm went off.

  They whipped their heads out of the box and stared horrified at the bookshelf where the alarm sat. It played a quiet little tinkling tune. Innocent sounding. They got quickly to their feet.

  "Uh, uh," Will struggled with his pocket guide while Emily looked through the various user manuals they now had.

  "Oh!" She said and reached behind the alarm and pushed a button. The alarm was off. She then took it off the shelf and pushed open a display panel. A little door just pushed back and out of sight to reveal the LCD display.

  Will came over to look over her shoulder at this. "Look, there's the GPS position... oh, and here's us," he pointed to the screen. "Neat," he said as they smiled at each other and nodded. Then as if realizing what this really meant, he said, "Oh, shit. Now we have to go fight something." Emily whimpered.