Chapter 5: chapter five

Ivan discarded the hunted in a locale card and picked up his new Quest card. He frowned at the words as he thought about what he needed to do to keep the adventure moving.

Quest Six: A portal opens in the local park. The heroes must close it, or go through it and never return.

He didn't know how much mileage he could get out of that. It might change the adventure into something else. He thought about it as he looked at the other Quest cards. How could he merge them together?

Time to get to work.

Harris and Jirel spent some time in the hospital. They had to undergo therapy, and still experienced muscle pain, but they were both lucky that nothing had been broken. The Sheriff's Department asked all four of them questions about why they were at the abandoned house. The claim that their boss told them to go out there, was met by denial. Boote had never heard of the place before he was asked by detectives about his part in things.

Evidence suggested that real bullets had not been used in the shooting attempts. Holes had been punched in persons and car, but no other trace could be found. This was especially true about the car where a clean hole existed in the hood of the jeep, but no trace of a bullet which should be in the engine.

Cards arrived for the teachers. On plain white stock, the only words on the paper said, “Sorry I missed you”.

The four teachers didn't have to guess who the cards were from, but handing them over to the police netted nothing since they were on common paper, written with common ink from a common pen, and hand delivered with no one knowing who had done it.

Ashe and Dunwich went over the papers Ashe had found in the gas line. They didn't tell anyone else about them. The concept of grabbing immaterial substances seemed preposterous to the physicist. He thought he could build a working model, but he didn't know what they could use it for other than lighting up the night.

There were no such things as ghosts and spirits around.

Ashe went over the history of the house with as many public records as he could find. The only thing he found that seemed out of place was the last owner, Paula Herzog, was an avid spiritualist. She conducted many seances in the front room of the house.

He didn't know what it meant, but he didn't like the implications they had uncovered her secret scam paperwork and it might have the germ of a true idea in it.

None of what he had found, or the paperwork itself, pointed to who the shooter could be. Boote maintained his innocence. Ashe didn't know what he could do about the situation and he wasn't quite ready to set the dean on fire to get some answers.

And he didn't like the fact the shooter knew who they were and could pick the group off at his leisure and there was nothing they could do to stop him.

That wasn't the reason for the meeting the four of them had agreed to attend months after someone tried to hunt and kill them.

They were meeting about what Dunwich had put together after hours in the physics labs. He had it under a sheet when the other three arrived at the meeting.

“What's under the sheet?,” asked Jirel.

“Ghost gun,” said Dunwich.

“Get out of here,” said Harris. “What do you mean a ghost gun?”

“Exactly what I said,” said Dunwich. “I don't know if it works.”

“I think you need to explain this,” said Jirel.

“Ashe brought me some plans,” said Dunwich. “I got together with some students and lab personnel and made a prototype. The descriptions on the paperwork says this weapon is supposed to agitate the aether and disperse any vibration in the air.”

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“Does it work?,” asked Jirel.

“I don't know,” said Dunwich. “I haven't tested it yet.”

“How do you test a ghost gun?,” asked Harris. “I doubt any ghost is going to sit still while you shoot at it.”

“I just put it together,” said Dunwich. He gestured at the other man. “Ashe found the schematics.”

“Paula Herzog had an avid interest in the supernatural,” said Ashe. He kept away from the windows as he talked. Why give the hunter a clear shot if he didn't have to. “She talked with every genuine and false psychic she could find. She put the notes together for a prototype gun. That much was mentioned in the records I found. And she was the last owner of the house.”

“I don't want to point out the obvious but why were these drawings hidden in a house that had been stripped clean?,” said Jirel. “I would understand it better if the place was fitted up with furniture and cleaned out. What we saw was an abandoned hulk.”

“I don't know,” said Ashe. “Herzog reportedly killed herself at her desk. No note, more importantly, no bullet.”

“What do you mean no bullet?,” asked Harris.

“Herzog had a wound in her skull,” said Ashe. “The gun on her desk had one bullet missing, but the police didn't report a casing. Maybe they didn't see it at the scene, maybe they didn't catalogue it. The coroner's report didn't find an expended round or fragments like you would expect in her head.”

“You're saying that she was shot by the same person who shot us,” said Harris.

Ashe shrugged. The reports hadn't given him enough to confirm, or deny, the connection. He thought it an interesting fact.

“He knows who we are,” said Harris. “Is he going to come after us?”

Ashe shrugged again.

“I don't think so,” said Jirel. “Well, not soon.”

“What makes you say that?,” asked Harris.

“He would have come at us in the hospital when we were helpless if he was still going to come after us,” said Jirel. “We might be clear.”

“So he might be hunting someone else?,” said Harris.

“Might have already hunted more people than we know about right now,” said Jirel. “We can't worry about that yet. We don't know who he is, or how to find him. We have to concentrate on what we can do.”

“Which is?,” said Harris.

“Break into Boote's office and check his records for any mention of Herzog, her house, or any other shootings,” said Jirel. “Maybe check his bank records if we can find them to see if he has extra money floating around.”

“We're going to need a whiteboard before this is all over,” said Dunwich. “Before we decide to investigate our boss, do you mind if I test fire this baby to see if it works?”

“Go ahead,” said Harris. “What does it run on?”

“Don't know,” said Dunwich. He pulled on a set of goggles, and industrial gloves.

“Hold on,” said Jirel. “Should you be firing an unknown weapon in the middle of your work area without some kind of shield?”

“It's a ghost gun,” said Dunwich. “What do you think it will do?”

“Let's get a shield in place,” said Harris.

“Eye protection too,” said Jirel.

The group placed a plastic wall between them and the ghost gun. Goggles were rounded up for them to wear to protect their eyes. They stood back from the shield in case it melted and sprayed the room.

They wanted a chance to get to cover before the shield blew up.

Dunwich pulled the sheet off the large box and tube arrangement he had constructed.

“Are we ready to go?,” asked Dunwich. He held up a switcher box with his thumb on the button. The target was a cube of metal at the other end of the room.

“Go ahead,” said Harris.

Dunwich glanced over to make sure their goggles covered their eyes before he pressed the button. A beam of light distorted the cube before he hit the off switch. He looked at the cube. He turned and gave the others a thumb's up.

“What was that?,” asked Jirel. He looked at the distorted metal. “I thought you said it was a ghost gun.”

“That's what the schematics said,” said Dunwich. “You could shoot through anything with a beam like that. I wonder how it works.”

“You don't know how it works?,” asked Jirel.

“Not really,” said Dunwich. “But whatever is going on, it's exciting. I wonder if we can take the power system and use it for other things like cars, or planes. It would be unlimited fuel.”

“We might could build a car around what you got there, but it would be heavy as crazy to carry around as a weapon,” said Harris. “We would have to scale it down to use it as a ghost gun.”

“If you could do something to ghosts with that,” said Jirel. “You took apart a block of material matter like nothing I have ever seen. It's not even hot. If you used this on a person, it would all over on the first shot.”

“Do you think this is what killed Paula Herzog in her den?,” said Dunwich.

The four paused at the thought.