Lovers From Beyond Ep. 10

Murder City Heights

"I'm getting all wet here!" Buttons complained.

Hank grinned. "That sounds like a personal problem."

"Oh, you know what I mean!" Buttons grimaced back. "The equipment's going to get all wet! If it starts to malfunction, we won't be able to record anything! We'll be lucky if nothing gets fried."

"Fine, get over here."

Once Buttons stood at Hank's side, both men scanned over the old, wooden porch for a better angle to film from. None looked as dramatic as when Buttons was on the walkway in front of the house, with his camera perched on his shoulder. Hank had been standing at the edge of the porch, waving his arms out expressively and jabbering away, as he usually did.

Now, Hank stepped over to one end of the porch, as the threatening drizzle turned into more bothersome raindrops. He observed an old, wooden swing that had once been held up by two thin lengths of chain that went all the way up to the overhang. The chains were still there, albeit showing signs of rust and neglect. One end of the two-person swing had broken off and twisted awkwardly on the wooden boards below. The paint on the residence's front wall was yellow, faded and cracked. The paint on the porch had once been white, but was now rubbed away so much by the elements that only small portions of it were still visible. Hank reached the wooden beam that signaled the end of the porch, watching the rain fatten up and continue its steady assault on the low-income neighborhood.

He turned back toward Buttons, who had slinked over to the opposite end of the porch. The cameraman now stood about twenty feet away from him.

Buttons was shaking his head. "The first shot we had, that was the best one. This porch angle, it looks as if you're talking about kids selling lemonade. You want to wait until the rain quits?"

"What if it doesn't quit?" Hank considered the clouds, which were thick and dark, like a serving of cotton candy soaked in despair. "What if it rains all night?"

"We could try the opening shot tomorrow morning."

"What if it's bright and sunny in the morning? I'm not waiting until tomorrow night to get another shot at the intro. I don't want to have to come back here just for that."

"Well, what do you want to do, then?"

Hank scanned past the property, where another old house stood. Its lights were on, and two cars sat dormant on its driveway. The view over on Buttons' end, he compared, was pretty much the same thing. Not the best way to set up a sinister atmosphere for a haunted house story.

Finally, Hank said, "Let's just get a first take of the intro. If we get a chance to use the walkway shot later, we'll just film it again. I'll stand here by the door. You put yourself as close to the front end of the porch as you can."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one that's going to get wet."

As Buttons tried to find a good spot, Hank realized his cameraman would only be five or six feet away from the front door. That was way too close for a good, wide panoramic view of the ill-reputed home. The first shot they'd wanted to film, with Hank walking in from the sidewalk, across the narrow cement path and up the rickety steps of the porch, that one really had been the best approach. At least, it had been until the rain had screwed it all up.

"You prepped?" Buttons asked.

Hank considered his attire. He was wearing a black leather jacket that was more flashy than rugged, a tight black shirt underneath, and a pair of denim jeans that looked as if they'd been bought last week. Too bad it was cold and raining, Hank thought, else he'd have already taken his jacket off and would have been showing off his broad chest and thick arms for the camera. One last thing, he thought. "How's my hair?"

Buttons glanced over. "It's flat, and it looks wet."

"Crap." Hank started mussing it about, trying to revive it back into the quasi-greaser look he had earlier. The sides were slicked back, the top slightly puffed up, and a Superman curl hanging from the front. "How about now?"

"You look like dynamite." Buttons lied. "Will you just hurry it up?"

Hank kept fussing with his hair.

"Unless you get a blow dryer and do it all over, that's the best you're going to get it. Can we just film this shot and get inside, please? I'm getting cold out here."

"How does it look now?"

"It looks great." Buttons quipped. "Like you're running for mayor. Now, come on! Let's get the shot and go inside."

"How about now?"

"You look like fucking John Travolta in Grease, okay?"

Hank smiled. That was exactly the look he was going for, a look showcasing John Travolta's hair and a quarterback's athletic body.

"Come on, Hank! Wipe that fucking smile off your face. What do you think this is, the shopping channel?"

No, no it wasn't, Hank mentally acknowledged. He was part of a small troop of ghost hunters that worked for a major TV network. Said network regularly paid him an exorbitant amount of money to scare the crap out of its viewers. The thought of being shoved back into obscurity, of losing his nice, fat paycheck and ugh, of having to get some kind of dull nine to five job, jolted Hank into a more suitable frame of mind.

"Give me a three count, and let's get this done." Hank said, now brimming with the confidence of a professional reporter.

"That's more like it." Buttons adjusted the camera on his shoulder. "Three, two, one, and we're on."

Hank postured up, as if he were about to have his mug shot taken. "Why are we standing here, in one of the more dangerous sections in the city of Middleton, with night creeping up on us and rain pouring all around?"

Buttons shifted away from the handsome star. He took a brief scan of the porch and yard as evidence that it really was starting to rain down hard. The camera panned back to capture Hank's brawny upper body.

"I'll tell you why we're standing here." Hank leaned back, only slightly because he had no further room to maneuver. He motioned at the house's front door. "It's because we're about to enter this place. 1519 Beech Avenue, Middleton, California. It doesn't look like much, but this little house has a very bad reputation. It's empty now, and it's been empty for the better part of two decades, but it wasn't always this way. Back in 1985, it was said that this house was haunted. But Hank, you might ask, this house is right near the center of town. It is in a regular neighborhood where people come and go every day. How could this house in the middle of suburbia possibly be haunted?"

Hank reached into a pants pocket and drew out a small ring, with a realtor's tag and three keys on it. "Let's take a look inside."

Under the watchful eye of the camera, Hank leaned over and quietly unlocked the door. After twisting the knob, Hank pushed the door wide open. Revealed was a gloomy and dilapidated living room. He paused to allow the cameraman to take a step closer.

"Cut." Buttons said, walking past Hank and inside. "Give me about thirty seconds."

From the outside, Hank shut the door, as Buttons set himself up inside for the next shot.

"We're on!" Buttons called out.

Hank swung the door open and stepped in. After taking a quick look around, he resumed his monologue. "This site is a little off the beaten path for us. Normally, we're out investigating abandoned lunatic asylums, or ancient forts from the civil war, or navy vessels that have been decommissioned. We're here in Middleton City Heights this time because one of our viewers sent us an email. They claim this is the most haunted place they've ever been around. After you hear the story surrounding this house, you might agree with some of the residents. The people that live in this area don't call it by its official name of Middleton City Heights. Instead, they call it Murder City Heights." Hank made an uneasy grimace. "I'm getting chills just standing here."

He stepped further away from the camera, turned and pointed at the two large front windows to either side of the front door. "People walking by on the street have reported seeing strange figures or shadows in this house, or hearing a strange chanting emanating from one of the two bedrooms here. That's just the beginning. Follow me."

In a rare instance, Hank turned his back on the camera, before strolling down the hallway that lay just past the wide living room. To the left side was an open dining room area. Just past that was a short wall that divided the room from the kitchen. To the right side were the doors to the home's two bedrooms, both carelessly left open some time ago.

Hank faced the camera again. "Back in 1985, there was a series of bizarre murders and suicides in this neighborhood. We marked them out on a local map, and we found that all of these troubling incidents occurred in a rough circle around this house. Let's take a look at that map."

Hank paused, as this is where a segment was going to be spliced in later. He waited about ten seconds, before he resumed his address. "Now, I know what you're thinking. Murders and suicides aren't that uncommon in a bad neighborhood such as this one. Normally I would agree with that. What separates what happened here, from what takes place in bad neighborhoods all across the country, is this. All of the incidents that took place in Middleton involved women. That's right, I said women. They were all young and they were all pretty. Here's what some of them looked like." Hank waited another ten seconds, as this was yet another spot where graphics and other information would be inserted later.

Once the time had elapsed, Hank continued. "Some of these women were the unfortunate victims of a domestic dispute that horribly got out of hand. Their husbands or boyfriends caught them cheating, or spending too much money, or whatever. One police report confirmed that a poor woman was shot and killed because her husband's football team lost a game, and as a result the man lost a big bet. Domestic abuse accounts for four of these strange deaths.

"Next, we come to the five suicides, which aren't all that easy to explain. These women had no reason whatsoever to take their own lives. They appeared to be happy. They either had decent jobs or were going to college. One of these ladies was overjoyed because she'd recently become pregnant with her first child. All five of these women had very bright futures ahead of them. They had everything to lose by what they did to themselves."

Hank took a dramatic pause. "You might be wondering how the murders connect to the suicides. Well, here's how. We didn't tell you the dates these women all lost their lives. Take a look at this."

Another ten-second intermission followed.

"If you'll notice, each and every one of these ladies died between the tenth and the thirtieth day of the month August, all during the year of 1985. I don't know about you, but when I saw these dates, and after I read about the circumstances of these nine deaths, the first thing that I thought of was that I was looking at the work of a serial killer. Not a regular serial killer, but one that can move around an entire neighborhood without being seen, or that can influence a heated argument into becoming murder. That's right, I was looking for a ghost or a demonic serial killer. Guess what? I found one, and he lived right here in this house."

To break up the static nature of the situation, Hank walked back over to the expanse of the empty living room.

"This is going to sound like something out of the Psycho movie with the Bates Motel, but with a terrifying twist to it. The man's name was Armand Goode. He lived here with his mother, Beatrice Goode, otherwise known as Betty. Armand was not a very nice guy. He was always picking fights with the neighbors over trivial things such as trashcans or dogs trespassing onto the yard. He served prison time twice, once for assault, and a second time for aggravated rape. Armand physically assaulted a woman in a bar not that far from here, in November of 1984. He was shot and killed just outside the bar after he got violent with police. But that's not the end of the story.

"You see, Armand's mother, Betty, was rumored to be a witch. Back in the old days, a witch like Betty might have caused her neighbor's chickens to die, or their cows not to produce milk, or other weird things like that. Things that were very important for that day and age. Old time witches had their sordid reputations. While a part of the population feared them and avoided them like the plague, another part of town would always seek these witches out. They'd pay good coin for a spell that would help them obtain love or good fortune, or to help them get revenge against their enemies.

"And so it was with Betty Goode. She was reputed to be able to afflict people with bad migraines just by giving them the 'evil eye.' She was said to be able to know things she couldn't have possibly known about, or to locate items that were thought to be lost forever. People came to this woman for Tarot readings, for medicinal cures and for casting spells. I believe, and many other people in this neighborhood also believe, that Betty Goode was able to keep the ghost of her son Armand alive inside of this house. This was after her son was killed. I believe that Armand's ghost was able, back in August of 1985, to roam the streets of this neighborhood. He was able to provoke and incite domestic arguments until they became murder, or to pressure those young women into committing suicide. Maybe some of those suicides weren't even suicides after all, but murders committed by the ghost of Armand Goode."

"And I'm here to prove that tonight." Hank nodded resolutely. "I'm going to spend the night here, inside of the Goode home. I'm going to challenge Armand Goode into showing himself to me. He may be good and strong enough to take on a young woman, but I want to see this jerk try and take me on. You hear that, Armand Goode? I'm standing right here, you sick bastard! Come at me, bro!"

Hank faced the interior of the house. He patted his chest as brazenly as he always did, like some kind of modern day Tarzan. Then, he glanced back at the camera with a serious look on his face. "You ready for this, Buttons?"

Buttons lowered the camera and pointed it up at his own face. He nodded. "Let's make this happen, Hank."

"That's what I want to hear." Hank smiled, once the spotlight was back on him. He glared into the haunted home like a bulldog straining at his leash.

"And, cut." Buttons said.

Once the camera was shut off and no longer perched on Buttons' shoulder, Hank grinned and asked, "How'd I do?"

"You did good, you even gave me a pecker." Buttons joked. "But man, you can sure talk a guy's ear off."

Hank's smile widened. He loved being praised for his performances, because he was such an out and out showboat. Heck, he'd given himself a pecker, too.

Buttons glanced through a window, noting how hard the rain was falling. "We'd better run out there and grab our sleeping bags, and bring in the rest of our equipment. It looks likes it's going to pour all night."

Ten minutes later, and we find the two men back inside and soaking wet. They'd brought in a couple of boxes full of gear. Thankfully, the expensive devices inside hadn't gotten rained on. Their sleeping bags, on the other hand, had both received a light coating of water. Because of the cold, both men were hoping the bags would dry out by the time they were ready to hit the sack. Lighting was provided by two large, portable flashlights, with boxy nine-volt batteries to power them up. To conserve their charge, they were only using one light at a time. The two men were well illuminated, as long as they didn't move too far away from the flashlight's wide spotlight.

They also returned with backpacks full of bottled water and light snacks. Hank had even brought along an extra shirt, identical to the one he was already wearing. This was a standard precaution for Hank, as he frequently ended up tearing or otherwise ruining his shirt somewhere down the line while filming.

Hank grimaced. "I've got an extra shirt, but my jacket and my pants are still soaking wet."

"Well, count yourself lucky." Buttons said. "I didn't bring any extra clothes along. The only thing I have that's dry is this jacket that I just got from the car."

"If I walk around with only my boxers on, do you promise you won't hit on me?"

Buttons started laughing. "Shut the fuck up! Need I remind you, I have seen you in your boxers plenty of times, in motel rooms all over the country."

"I just wanted to know where you stand tonight, that's all." Hank grinned, as he shucked off everything except his underwear. He considered the temperature inside of the haunted home. "It's not so cold in here, now that we're not getting rained on."

Buttons took in Hank's muscular calves and athletic thighs. For a short period, he even allowed his eyes to roam up higher, over Hank's abs, chest and arms. He compared the former quarterback's build to his own, like he sometimes did. "I really hate you sometimes, you know that? Why couldn't I be born with a body like yours?"

"What do I keep telling you about that?" Hank reminded him. "You eat right and you work out every other day, and you could look like this, too. I was tall and skinny up until I got into high school."

"I know. You've told me that story like a million times." Buttons looked around. "Too bad this place doesn't have electricity, or else we could have brought along one of our portable heaters."

"It's not that cold. Just strip down like I did and put your dry jacket on."

"You won't try to hit on me, will you?" Buttons kidded. "Once you see me in my red bun-hugger briefs?"

"I'll try to keep my hands to myself." Hank laughed.

Buttons always wore briefs. He found them preferable to boxers if the situation for a sudden getaway arose, like it had that time back at the Homestead Valley Hospital. The cameraman stripped down, setting his soggy clothing into a little pile by the glare of the portable light, next to Hank's attire. The light was pretty much the warmest place in the house, and that wasn't saying much.

The two men spread out the drier of the two sleeping bags, and sat down on top of it with their backs to the wall. They began comparing notes and working out a strategy for the rest of the night's filming.

Hank frowned. "Even with the stuff we'll be editing in later, I think we've only got about ten minutes worth of material for the show. I was really hoping we'd have closer to twice that by now."

"Well, we could redo the front porch scene, once this blasted rain lets up." Buttons suggested. "And we never got the chance to film around the outside of the house earlier."

Hank shook his head. "That won't help much. Susie and Eli filmed enough of the outside when they scouted this place a couple of days ago. We've got plenty of footage of what this place looks like in the daytime."

"Yeah, that'll take up about one minute of the show." Buttons frowned.

"What we need now is about ten minutes worth of fireworks."

"You wish Bill was here?" Buttons asked.

Neither man spoke for the next couple of minutes. They recalled Bill's sensational story about what he'd experienced a few weeks ago at the mental hospital. The rest of the team still hadn't decided whether the erotic incident had really happened or had merely been imagined.

"You're thinking that Bill made it all up, aren't you?" Buttons asked.

"I really don't know." Hank shrugged. "It's not like Bill to take his clothes off, lock himself into a room like that and pretend he's unconscious. I don't think he was even pretending. I think he was really knocked out."

"Well, the whole world thinks it's a set-up."

Hank laughed. "We set up nearly everything we do on this show. The one time we really have something supernatural happen to us and nobody believes it."