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.
