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  A Paranormal Properties Book

  Pants On Fire Press

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  Pants On Fire Press, Winter Garden 34787

  Text copyright © 2015 by Tracy Lane

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher, Pants On Fire Press. For information contact Pants On Fire Press.

  All names, places, incidents, and characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Illustrations and art copyright © 2015 by Pants On Fire Press

  Art by Natalia Nesterova

  Book & eBook design by David M. F. Powers

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content).

  First edition: 2015

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

  Visit us at www.PantsOnFirePress.com

  “I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.” ― Carl Sandburg

  A special dedication to Frank Stallone for the inspiration he has given me even though he never realized it.

  Chapter 1

  The floorboards creaked beneath Jake’s feet, and cobwebs were hanging everywhere he turned.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Weir, “at least we won’t have to use any of the budget on making the place look haunted.”

  Her voice was bright, but Jake knew she was nervous.

  And with good reason. It was official now: Paranormal Properties would be on the Scream Channel starting just before Halloween, and this was to be their first episode of the brand new season.

  Everyone knew how much was riding on this, their first official episode – the fancy new Paranormal Properties van out front, the freshly minted designs on the crew T-shirts they all wore, the equipment, the new crew. It was all paid for by the studio, and if they didn’t get results, the Scream Channel would pull the plug after just a few episodes, if not sooner.

  Then they would be back to small cable stations and rundown motels and takeout dinners in greasy Styrofoam containers and never knowing where their next haunted house – let alone paycheck – was going to come from.

  Jake kind of missed it. Not the cheap apartments or milk-crate bookshelves or frozen dinners, but the freedom to go wherever, whenever they wanted. Their new apartment in San Francisco might have been bigger, and sunnier, and airier, but it came with a big price tag. He felt it resting in the pit of his stomach.

  He knew his parents did too.

  “Relax, kid,” said Frank Barrone, who stood close by his side, that giant black fedora gleaming in the dim lobby light. “You act like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Jake snorted and nudged Frank where his waist should be, his elbow gathering in the cold bluish mist that collected there instead. Frank was resplendent in a white zoot suit, the same one he had been wearing when he was gunned down by a mobster back in Dusk, North Carolina in 1951.

  The only living being who could see or hear him, Jake had helped Frank solve his murder, and now that Paranormal Properties had relocated from Dusk to San Francisco, the friendly ghost had decided to tag along for the ride.

  Jake looked up at the older man, who was adjusting his hat to avoid the masses of cobwebs, and smirked.

  “So far,” he whispered as his parents walked a few feet ahead and his best friend, Tank, still lingered on the front porch, “you’re the only ghost I see around here.”

  Frank shook his head, his face tightening. “For now,” he said, voice as cold as the rippling air that surrounded his spectral body. “But I can tell this place is full of them.”

  He wasn’t kidding. The Balthazar Hotel had quite a history. Back in 1921, the night clerk started a trash fire that killed over seventy-six staff and guests staying at the hotel. It was the Weirs’ biggest case yet, and everyone on the Paranormal Properties team was on high alert.

  “Come on, Colton!” bellowed Tank as she stumbled into the lobby, letting bright California light in as a tall, gangly intern followed closely behind her.

  “By the way,” Frank muttered, “I’m loving this ‘crew’ the station assigned you.”

  They both turned to watch Colton limp along in Tank’s wake. He went to one of the local high schools, and the Scream Channel had dumped him with the Paranormal Properties crew to satisfy his summer internship.

  “Well, they promised us a crew in our contract,” Jake whispered as they approached. “He’s better than nothing.”

  “Jake, please, talk some sense into this clown.” Tank’s face was flushed under her dirty blond bowl cut. She had grown an inch or two since Jake had first met her back in Dusk, and she now towered over him. She was nearly as tall as Frank!

  She wore a black shirt with bright green letters printed in spray-paint design on the front to read “Paranormal Properties”. So did Colton, so did Jake, so did his parents.

  “Who died and made him boss?” Colton snorted. His long, greasy red hair hung over lively green eyes, and a spool of video cable was draped over each bony shoulder.

  “I’m your boss,” Tank reminded him, “and Jake’s my boss, so that makes him double your boss.”

  Colton looked unconvinced. “You know you’re both still in junior high, right?”

  Jake looked at Tank and arched one eyebrow. Frank stiffened a little, though only Jake could notice him. And feel him. Every time Frank grew upset, or angry, or frightened, or all of the above, little waves of cold air seemed to float off his body.

  “Want me to spook this one for you?” he asked, sounding just like the gangster he used to be once upon a time.

  Jake ignored him, because although Tank knew he could see and hear Frank, she still couldn’t, and Colton didn’t know at all.

  “What’s your problem?” he asked Colton instead, a little tougher than usual because, well, he had a big, spooky ghost at his back.

  Colton rolled his eyes. “I’m stuck doing everything she asks.”

  “Yeah, at, like…half speed,” Tank added.

  “Sorry if I’m not as athletic as you,” Colton sneered, and Tank’s face turned another shade of crimson.

  “My folks want to get set up before we lose the afternoon light,” Jake snapped as Tank shuffled away, feelings hurt and all the fight nipped out of her. “So do what Tank says and try to keep up.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Colton drawled, snapping off a mock salute as he limped off to follow Tank into the main sitting room where Mr. and Mrs. Weir were setting up the opening shot.

  “How can I hate someone so much even though I just met him?” Jake grumbled as he followed.

  “Don’t worry,” Frank assured. “Something tells me old Colton is going to run screaming the first time he actually sees a ghost.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Jake warned, though he wouldn’t be opposed to Frank spooking the older kid, just for a taste of his own medicine.

  “I’m not talking about me,” Frank said quietly.

  Jake shivered a little and slipped into the main parlor. It was massive in size, nearly as big as the new apartment the Scream Channel had rented the Weirs.

  In its day, it would have really been something. The ceilings soared, most of them taken up by windows, like a sunroom. Now the walls were scarred by flames, the windows broken out by the force of the fire and long since boarded up. Hardwood floors scorched by flames crackled and creaked underfoot, and the smell of smoke, embedded deep in the charred wallpaper, was everywhere.

  Mr. Weir hustled about, carefully positioning dusty curtains to let in the afternoon sunlight as Mrs. Weir, decked out in her favorite safari pants and m
atching vest, stood in the middle of it all with a sleek headset blinking in her ear.

  “Can you believe this is a microphone and an earpiece?” she asked Jake as he walked into the room.

  “Uh, it’s called a universal mike,” Colton answered for him. “What’d you guys use back in Dink, walkie-talkies?”

  “Dusk.” Tank and Jake corrected him at the same time.

  “Same difference,” Colton mumbled.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Jakey,” his mom continued, clapping her hands excitedly. “We want you to hear the promo your dad wrote for this first episode.”

  “Now, now,” said Mr. Weir as he adjusted his black and green Paranormal Properties ball cap and stared through the viewfinder of a portable camcorder. “You wrote most of it, dear.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be great,” Tank sighed. She was well aware that Jake’s parents would happily spend the rest of the afternoon arguing over who wrote how much of the episode’s introduction, rather than just rehearsing it.

  “Me too,” said Jake. He was eager, and more than a little nervous, to get the introduction on tape.

  “Okay then,” his mom said, but before she had a chance to begin, a small shuffling sound caught their attention.

  Eyes met from across the room; Jake’s with Tank’s, Mr. Weir’s with his wife’s, Colton’s with, well, nobody’s. Jake’s mother motioned toward the source of the noise, a large display cabinet on one side of the room. It had to stretch halfway to the ceiling, and on every one of its shelves was a small black and white caricature. Seventy-six in all, one caricature for every victim of the Balthazar Hotel fire of 1921. They stood ten or eleven to a shelf, propped on little black placeholders.

  Everyone inched forward, Mrs. Weir’s voice soft and tight as she asked her husband, “Honey, are you recording?”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Weir as he stretched his camera out toward the display cabinet.

  The room grew quiet. They all held their breath, the floor creaking quietly beneath antsy feet.

  The shuffling sound grew stronger.

  “Jake,” Frank hissed, and Jake was so tense he had to force himself not to snap at the ghost. “Jake, they’re here.”

  Jake was turning to question him, at least with his eyes, when he stopped and gasped out loud.

  “Jake?” Tank asked, following the direction of his stare. “Do you…are you okay?”

  She knew his parents didn’t know he could see ghosts, so like Jake himself, she had to be careful with what she said.

  “Not really,” Jake answered before he could stop himself.

  And it was the truth, because walking into the parlor were more ghosts than he had ever seen in his life. Three, six, nine, twelve, twenty, they filed in side by side, all of them blue and cold like Frank.

  They were dressed, like Frank, in the clothes they had worn when they had died, only not charred and grisly like they must have been in death, but pale and clean and crisp. They were young and old, employees in maid uniforms or chef hats, and guests in crisp pleated pants or long, frilly skirts.

  They walked with purpose, ignoring the living beings, ignoring even Frank as they approached the tall display cabinet. When they had all formed something of a circle around it, several of the dead men reached out and shook the cabinet.

  It rattled and rocked, sending the black and white cards scattering to the floor. Jake blinked, startled, and tried to picture the room as it must have looked for the rest of the Paranormal Properties team.

  They stood transfixed, mouths wide – Mr. Weir filming, his mother watching, Tank frozen and Colton trembling. The cards swept off and fell, drifting to the floor one by one.

  But that was not what spooked them all. It was when, one by one, the ghosts started placing each of the cards back up onto the cabinet! Mr. Weir filmed, Mrs. Weir grinned brilliantly. Tank’s eyes were squeezed shut as she clenched her fists at her sides in fear.

  Colton? Colton ran, bolting through the crowd of ghosts that surrounded him, sending each one he passed through into a fine mist that swirled in his wake. His face was as pale as a sheet as he tore past, tossing off his Paranormal Properties cap and nearly crashing into Jake.

  “I quit!” he called out behind him. He bolted through the lobby, out the front doors, and was gone.

  “Told you,” said Frank, nodding down at Jake. “Kid just wasn’t cut out for the business.”

  Jake laughed nervously, heart pounding, as he turned back to the parlor. The ghosts were gone. The room was empty except for the living. And, well, Frank.

  Chapter 2

  Mott Street sat next to Front Street sat next to Clay Street, and on and on they went, crowded city roads jammed so close together, there was hardly room for cars to drive down one, let alone turn onto another.

  After the quiet country lanes of little Dusk, North Carolina, San Francisco had been a huge culture shock for the Weir family. It had taken Jake a few days to get used to all of the funky side streets and odd-shaped buildings that awaited him every time he ran out to the corner market for a candy bar or a fresh notebook.

  The Cathedral Apartments building in which the Weirs now lived was tall and sleek and new. It overlooked the San Francisco Bay and sat close enough to famous Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant that Jake could smell the crab claws in the morning trash or the fresh shrimp frying at night.

  The apartment itself boasted a long wraparound balcony and large picture windows, and since it came furnished, there was no need for their milk crate bookshelves or fold-up picnic tables.

  There were four bedrooms, which meant that both Tank and Jake had their own rooms and there was still one left over for the computer monitors and digital editing equipment the Paranormal Properties team needed to cut their episodes together.

  That was where Mr. and Mrs. Weir were now, fussing and fighting over how much of the falling caricatures to include in the teaser footage to show the folks at the Scream Channel.

  Jake snuck past them as he brought two sodas out to the balcony, Tank’s new favorite place. He paused in the doorway and watched her for a moment as she relaxed against the far railing before he slid the glass doors shut and alerted her to his presence.

  She was looking north toward the Bay. Her hair was cut short in that tomboy style she liked, and since her latest growth spurt, she looked thinner.

  She wore green sweatpants with brown stripes down the sides and a yellow track jacket, her favorite color. She looked comfortable and rested on the outside, but Jake knew she was still grieving the loss of her father. He had passed only a few months earlier, and she would often sit alone for hours at a time, staring off into the distance and thinking. About what, Jake could only guess.

  He didn’t like to see his best friend that way, but his mom said it was natural. “After your grandma passed away,” she’d told him, “it took me three years to quit staring into space just like she does.”

  Jake slid the door shut and watched Tank jump a little, as if she’d forgotten where he had gone – or that he’d eventually come back.

  “Hey,” he said quietly, as a shy grin passed across her face. “You okay?”

  She smirked and accepted her Goober Grape soda. The Weirs might have had a high-rise apartment overlooking San Francisco Bay, but some habits die hard: they still bought knockoff-brand everything.

  “Thanks,” she said, slinking down into the deck chair that sat beside the cozy fire pit they lit most nights. “I was just thinking of my dad. He always wanted to go to San Francisco.”

  “He never did?” Jake asked, then took a sip of his own soda.

  Tank shook her head. “He was always too busy with work. I’m not sure, even if he’d come out here, if he would’ve enjoyed it.”

  Jake nodded and sat his can on the stone table surrounding the fire pit coals. “I wish he could be here with us, Tank.”

  She shrugged, her voice creaky as it was so often these days. “Me too. I like to think he’d be proud of what we’re doing her
e, helping these ghosts find peace and all.”

  Jake nodded again. “I hardly ever think about the stuff we do all day, but…does it freak you out that we talk about dead people all the time?”

  She snorted quietly and shook her head. “This might sound kind of weird, but it…kind of makes me happy that Dad isn’t just worm food in the ground, you know?”

  Jake flinched. Tank always did have a way with words.

  She smiled wider, as if shoving her grief away. “What are the folks up to?” she asked, looking past Jake toward the floor-to-window sliding glass doors that led into their spacious apartment.

  “Figuring out how to tease the folks at the network with yesterday’s footage without giving too much away.”

  “Crazy wild how that stuff fell down and then went back up in the cabinet, huh?”

  Jake studied his drink. “I’ve never seen anything like it. My folks haven’t either.”

  Tank looked over Jake’s shoulders, first his left, then his right. “How about Frank?”

  Jake gave a short laugh. “Haven’t seen him since then,” he said, and it was true. When they had left the Balthazar Hotel, Frank had stayed behind, perhaps to consult with the ghosts still frozen in time, stuck in 1921 forever.

  Tank wrinkled her nose. “You sure you’re not lying to me?”

  Jake shot her a glance. “Why would I lie?”

  “I dunno.” She took a long gulp of her soda. “I hate that you can see ghosts and I can’t.”

  “Jealous much?” he teased.

  “I think it would help me do my job better.”

  “You know we don’t get paid, right?”

  “I still like to do a good job,” Tank said, stretching her broad arms above her head before climbing from her chair.

  “Where ya going?” Jake asked. “I just got comfortable.”