As evening fell over the crescent city, Doug, Snook and Skeeter wandered down their familiar cobblestone path of the French Quarter to Zeke's. Having slept all day after the eventful evening the night before they all were anxious to go to their favorite watering hole and compare notes with each other. Gus's party had been a blast and even the crazy Voodoo ceremony had been fun up until the point where Marie looked like she was having a heart attack. Spending the wee hours of the morning in the emergency room of Tulane Medical Center however turned out to be the ultimate buzzkill. After it appeared Marie would be alright they all went back to their respective homes, too tired to discuss what they had just witnessed. Now however was different and they were quite awake.
Entering the bar, Zeke warmly welcomed them as he was busy stringing up a set of Kwanzaa lights he had just received via UPS.
"Hey, Guys! The usual?"
"You know it Zeke!" Doug answered for them all as three drafts were poured and passed their way. Looking around the bar, it looked completely empty.
"Kind of slow tonight isn't it?" Snook asked as Zeke shrugged.
"Fairly typical for a Sunday night in summer. Who the fuck wants to deal with this heat and humidity at this time of year." Zeke replied as his face lit up when the light set turned on. Seeing the glowing lights, he was pleased. "Perfect, I think these go well with the Saint Patrick's Day decorations quite well don't you think?"
Shaking his head at witnessing yet another decoration added to the bar Skeeter said "You missed it last night man, you and Jasmine both. You two should have stayed longer at Gus's party. We have one crazy mother fucking story to tell you about."
Looking around the bar Doug asked "Where is Jasmine anyway?"
"I gave her the night off. She was exhausted."
"I bet she was not as exhausted as us. We did not get home until almost 10 am this morning."
"Jesus, why? That seems late even for YOU guys!" Zeke exclaimed.
Drinking his beer down quickly Doug began telling the story of what happened after Zeke had left. Hearing the story of the ritual, Marie's trance and the incident in front of the rosary wall Zeke looked unimpressed.
"Look guys, that is definitely an interesting story and sounds pretty cool, but you don't honestly believe in ghosts do you? You know the whole thing is either bullshit or self-induced hysteria, right? Hell I just had a similar conversation with Jasmine this morning so it seems everyone has ghosts on the brain today! After a night of good weed and lots of booze you can think you see anything. I don't buy any of it."
Grinning, Doug nodded his head as he triumphantly pulled out his cellphone. "You are a hard man Zeke and I know you are a basic cynic about pretty much everything, but I think I might just have the evidence here in my photo stream that will change your tune."
Crossing his tree trunk like arms over his chest Zeke smirked. "I doubt it, but hey, I don't mind seeing your little picture show."
"Pictures? What pictures did you take?" Snook asked as Skeeter nodded. They had been there with him and were amazed by what they had witnessed but neither of them had seen anything concrete enough to convince Zeke of anything.
"Oh I took a lot of pictures. I really did not expect to capture anything weird but once Marie started foaming at the mouth and her eyes rolled back in her head I thought it would definitely be worth snapping that scene. After all, you don't see that kind of thing every day. I will say up front right now, what I caught on film last night I did not notice at the time so I have no idea what caused it. Once you see what I got though, even you Zeke will have to admit, it is pretty fucking creepy."
Snook and Skeeter now looked quite intrigued and leaned forward as Doug started his slideshow on his phone. Rolling his eyes, Zeke muttered "this is all crap" under his breath but was a good sport and being kind of curious he watched too.
The first shot was a snap of Marie sitting alone inside the circle of salt with everyone sitting around her. She had not begun channeling yet but already the screen was filled with orbs of all sizes floating in the background. Some of the orbs were tiny, like someone had fired up a bubble machine while others were the size of a beach ball. "So" Doug smiled "What do you say about this?"