Ghoul Interrupted (38 page)

It was exactly the type of location we needed after shooting our last episode in Dunkirk, which had been a complete bust. The most we’d managed to record were some faint disembodied footsteps and the sound of a horse whinnying in an abandoned stable. Otherwise, it’d been a whole lotta footage of Heath and me looking for spooks and finding nothing. And that shoot had unfortunately come immediately after a particularly harrowing haunting that had involved Heath’s tribe and the Pueblo he once lived on. But we had no footage of that ghostbust because it’d involved a death in Heath’s family and our crew hadn’t been with us at the time.

Now that
Ghoul Getters
had switched networks, I knew the pressure to produce something good was heaped on all of our shoulders. We needed to score a good episode and do it quick, before the new network execs canceled us.

As we were wrapping up the shoot in Dunkirk, our two production assistants had alerted Heath, Gopher, and me to the terrifically haunted location in northern Wales. We’d all thought that the moors held such promise, which was why we’d all agreed that we should come here and investigate it next—well, except Gilley. None of us had told him about the moors and all the ghosties haunting them. And the reason we hadn’t told him was that for the past few weeks, he’d been acting crazy. I’m talking crazier than normal, which for Gil meant
crazy
!

He’s always been afraid of the spooks, but as long as we give him a nice, safe place to work out of, like a van parked somewhere outside the haunted zone, and keep him relatively in the dark about what we might encounter, he’s usually more than willing to provide his considerable technical expertise to our shoots.

But in Dunkirk something happened, and I still didn’t quite know what. Gil stopped showing up for our morning meetings and every time he thought he saw something creepy on one of his monitors, he flipped out. I’d been called off the location a couple of times to try to talk some sense into Gil, and my calm reasoning had worked well enough to finish the shoot and load him onto a plane, but I hadn’t counted on Gopher spilling the beans about how haunted the Penbigh moors were. And I had a feeling Gopher had even highlighted the fact that we’d be focusing our investigation on one particular section of the moors where the ghost of a woman was said to lure young unsuspecting men to their deaths by drowning them in one of the boggy marshes or the surrounding lake.

It seemed that was Gil’s breaking point. Right before landing, he’d convinced himself that the ghostly woman was going to come after him specifically, because that’s what all the other ghosts have always done. Pick on Gilley.

The sad thing is . . . he’s mostly right. Gil makes a nice target for a spook. It must be something about the electromagnetic frequency he puts out, because ghosties just love him. Or, more to the point, they love to torture and terrorize him. I’ve never actually told him this, but I’ve been in enough haunted locales to understand that Gilley is a magnet for spectral activity. It’s like he’s wearing Hai Karate for spooks or something, but I also couldn’t think about doing a ghostbust without him. Gil’s my best friend, and he’s been my best friend since I was in grade school. For most of my life, in fact, it’s been me and Gilley, facing down every challenge the world had to offer. We’d always managed okay, and I had no reason to doubt that this little episode was just another challenge to work through together.

So, after ten minutes of waiting near the men’s room door with no sign of him, I sent Heath in to check on Gil. He was back in a minute to tell me that Gilley had locked himself in one of the stalls and wasn’t coming out until morning.

I turned to Gopher at that point and shouted,
“Why?”

“I didn’t know he didn’t know!” our producer exclaimed. “You guys gotta tell me what’s safe to tell Gil and what isn’t!”

“Nothing,” I growled. “
Nothing
is safe to tell him, Goph! You got that?”

Gopher shifted the strap of his duffle to his other shoulder. “I do now, M. J.,” he said contritely.

I then looked about for the rest of our production crew, spotting John, Meg, and Kim. I waved them over. “I’m sure you can tell we have a situation,” I began.

“Gilley?” John said.

“Yep.”

“What do you need?” he asked. I liked John. He was a good guy and he was always ready to do what I asked.

“I need for you three”—I said, pointing to him, Heath, and Gopher—“to go in there and get Gil out of that stall. Then, we’ve somehow got to get him through customs without causing an international incident, and take him to the hotel. He just needs a good night’s sleep. He’ll be okay by morning.”

Heath, John, and Gopher all exchanged uncomfortable looks. They knew how big of a challenge it was gonna be to get Gilley to go anywhere he didn’t want to.

Still, without a word they marched into the men’s room, and me, Kim, and Meg all stood outside, where we heard a pretty good commotion erupt.

At last the four of them appeared, Gilley’s torso slung between Heath and John while Gopher carried his legs, and all the while Gil put up a really good fight, kicking and struggling for all he was worth. I looked around at the alarmed passengers and sure enough, two security guards began to trot over. “I guess avoiding an international incident was a little much to hope for,” I grumbled, moving to intercept the guards.

Six hours later we were still being detained by those same guards in a stuffy detention room at the Manchester Airport. By this time, Gilley was asleep on my shoulder, having thrown his hissy fit and exhausted himself, but managing to get us into deep doo-doo in the process. He was lucky I loved him and had known him all my life.

Still, I was pretty angry at him. Shifting in my seat I pulled my shoulder out from under his cheek, and his head lolled forward. He snorted himself awake. Looking about blearily, he asked, “What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” I said through gritted teeth. “We’re still being detained.”

Gil yawned and took in all the angry faces of our crew glaring back at him. “You guys shoulda just let me get back on that plane and go home,” he groused.

“Trust me,” I told him, “the six of us are currently unanimously in favor of voting you off the island.”

Gil looked down at his hands and sighed. “I can’t help it,” he said. “I’m really scared this time, M. J.”

I frowned as I felt my irritation ebb. Darn it. Why’d he have to sound so sad and pathetic? “What’s so different about this time?” I asked gently. “Seriously, Gil. We’ve faced some super-crazy stuff before and you’ve come out of it okay. What’s got you so spooked this time?”

Gil leaned his head back against the wall, and I could see that his eyes had gotten moist and he was trying to hold back the tears. That took me aback. Sure, Gil was emotional and flamboyant, but he didn’t usually cry unless he was really shaken up. “It’s just . . .” he began, without adding anything more.

“Just what, honey?” I encouraged. “Come on, Gil. Tell me. What’s got you so freaked out?”

Gil wiped his eyes and cleared his throat. He wouldn’t look at me, which troubled me even more. “At some point,” he finally said, “I think my luck’s gonna run out. Someday on one of these busts, either you or me or Heath or one of our crew is gonna end up dead, M. J.”

“Oh, Gil,” I whispered, laying a hand on his arm.

I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him until he wasn’t afraid anymore, but at that point Gilley looked up at me with big liquid eyes and said, “And this time, I really, really feel that it’s gonna be me.”

Gilley then dissolved into real tears and I hardly knew what to do. I’d never seen him so undone before, so I threw my arms around him and hugged him as tight as I could. When Heath’s concerned eyes met mine across the room, I shook my head. I found I couldn’t talk. And deep in my heart I noticed for the first time my own sense of foreboding. It was like a small dark hole began to form in the center of my chest, and try as I might, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that maybe, this time, Gilley’s intuition might be right.