The Great Script: Wraith Removers

Better Lucky than Dead

“Dammit, John I told you the system wasn’t primed yet to take the ghost,” Phil said, sounding annoyed at his friend and coworker. They had been bickering like this all day, and Dan was starting to get real tired of it.

“It’s fine. What’s the worst that could happen, Phil? Besides, I’m late for breakfast,” John replied. As the rumbling around them started, Dan desperately wished John hadn’t asked that question.

“You just had to chance it?” Dan said as Phil ran to one of the monitors and cursed as he quickly typed away on the keyboard. “How bad is it?”

“Extremely, and as annoyed as I may be with John, this isn’t even his fault. Something caused a seismic wave that’s ripping through the city as we speak. The containment system is not designed to withstand that kind of force,” he replied.

“Wait, what. What do we do then? Can we just shut it down?” John asked, the panic rising in his voice.

“Won’t work. We’d let all the ectoplasmic entities we’ve managed to capture free right at our feet. So even if that were enough to keep the thing from overloading and exploding, they’d likely just rip us to shreds,” Dan answered. He had an idea of what might get them out of this, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it. 

“Great, so after all that work, we’re finally starting to get somewhere with this business, and we all get to die instead? And worst of all, I don’t even get breakfast. I really hate you sometimes, Phil,” John replied.

“The feeling is often mutual,” Phil retorted without looking up from the monitors.

The birthmark on Dan’s arm started to tingle. He knew what that meant. It had happened before. They could survive this, but would they be okay with the cost? Something as big as this, he had no idea how long it would take for them to be safe.

“Phil, we aren’t getting out of this one, are we?” Dan asked, looking at his longtime friend.

“No, Dan, I don’t believe we are,” Phil replied, as John swore again from the stairs.

“How long do we have?” Dan asked.

“Five, maybe six minutes. Unless whatever is causing these tremors just vanishes, otherwise we are taking a square mile with us,” Phil answered.

“Guys, I think I can get us through this, but you’re going to have to trust me, and we might lose a few days doing this, but it should save our asses,” Dan said, nervously. Even if these two were bickering, they were both his friends, and he wanted them all to survive this mess. Hell, the city needed to survive, too. Just because they had had the idiotic idea to go into the ghost-hunting business didn’t mean that a big chunk of the city should be destroyed because of it.

“Explain more,” Phil said.

“So my family has always that his kind of weird gift. They call it their lucky birthmark, but I don’t know how true that really is. I have no idea if it’s magic or genetic, but it’s real. Essentially, whenever one of our lives is in inescapable danger from something other than natural causes, it starts to react. We can let it take over, and it will save our lives, and usually those around us,” Dan answered, her nerves causing the words to jumble out of his mouth at lightning speed.

“Yeah, there’s gotta be a catch there, Dan, so spill it,” John replied.

“If I let this work its magic, we are going to be shunted in time until it’s safe,” Dan answered nervously.

“That’s a hell of a trade-off. Considering we have no idea what’s ever happening out there, how will we know where that will be?” John asked.

“Doesn’t matter. This thing is about to go critical. It’s worse than I realized. Dan, do it now!” Phil yelled, cutting off any chance Dan had to answer. He wasn’t entirely sure how to let this power play out, so he closed his eyes and focused on the tingling feeling as the world went quiet.

***

“Is this where those damn ghosts have been coming from? What even is this relic?” a gruff voice yelled from the top of the stairs as Dan felt the silence dissipate along with the tingling sensation. It had been replaced by a burning sensation coming from his birthmark.

“Who the hell are you?” John yelled back toward the voice on the stairs.

“Fascinating. Whatever Dan did, it worked, but there were some unintended consequences,” Phil said with an odd sense of calm.

“Yeah, is one of them the fact that I have what looks like an angry dwarf yelling at me about ghosts from the top of the stairs?” John asked.

“Wait, what?” Phil replied.

“You heard me, there’s a short man with a giant beard staring at me with his mouth hanging open, looking ready to take a swing at me!” Phil yelled.

“I ain’t gonna hit you if you tell me who the hell you are and what this damn thing is!” the dwarf roared back.

“Guys, my birthmark changed shape. Not really sure what’s going on here. Wait, is that really a dwarf? Didn’t expect us to end up in another world,” Dan said. He had never heard of this happening to anyone in his family before.

“Yes, as I was saying. Mr. Dwarf, if you could give us a second, I believe I know what’s happened. We aren’t in another world; we are very far into the future, though. However, while Dan’s ability worked, I believe it was altered by the containment system’s imminent failure. Moments before he activated it, the system cracked. I don’t know exactly what that means for how we ended up here, but judging from the lack of dust, I don’t think the building was actually just here the whole time,” Phil said.

“What? Were we phased out of reality or something?” John asked.

“I believe so. Possibly similarly to what some ghosts experience,” Phil replied.

“That explains the changes to my birthmark. Must have absorbed some of the energies of the system,” Dan replied, wondering what that meant for him long term, or for that matter what this meant for all of them.

“That don’t explain much, like why the hell has this place been the source of so many ghosts!” the dwarf yelled.

“Yes, well, it seems the containment system crack has slowly allowed everything we had imprisoned to escape over the time it took us to reach this point from our origin. I believe your presence was enough to push the last straggler into fleeing the system, normalizing us back into reality just in time for you to find us,” Phil answered.

“Yer telling me that was some kind of prison to hold ghosts, and now thanks to whatever insanity ya did, they’re all free? I knew we’d had an uptick in wraith problems recently, but this sounds like a bigger issue than I realized!” the dwarf said loudly.

“Yeah, it’s probably a giant issue, but hey, the good news is you’ve got the bona fide Wraith Removers right here to deal with it, just as soon as we figure what it is and where we are. I’m John, by the way, what’s your name? Oh, and what passes for money these days?” John said, taking a step toward the dwarf.

“Emmet,” the dwarf muttered as John pulled him away from the basement stairs.

“Phil, just how bad did I mess this all up?” Dan asked, worried about how much damage he had done with his attempt to save them all.

“We’re alive, and I’m guessing we didn’t destroy the city. Time likely did that without our help. We’re just going to have start getting our equipment patched up and fix the rest of the problem,” Phil answered, flicking a few switches that caused the backup batteries to turn on.

“Yeah, guess that’s a possibility,” Dan replied, not sure that would be nearly enough.

“Get your asses up here and check this out!” John yelled from the door. Phil stepped away from his work with a sigh while Dan stayed behind him as they climbed the stairs to see what their friend was so worked up about now.

The sunlight filtered in through the rolled-up garage door as Dan spotted John and the dwarf standing outside. The dwarf looked entirely disinterested; John on the other hand, was staring on the scene in a way that reminded Dan of the first time they had actually caught a ghost. As he reached John he understood why. The garage was now sitting in the middle of dozens of ruined buildings, with an encroaching forest having reclaimed much of the land.

That wasn’t even the most impressive part of the sight, though. Littering the skies were all kinds of flying beasts, some that looked like small dragons, others like whales. “Where are we?” Dan asked the amazement, stealing most of his questions.

“Who knows? I just hope they have money and, preferably, no flying monkeys. I always hated those things,” John replied.

“For the world to have shifted this much, it boggles the mind everything we’ve missed,” Phil added.

“You know what I miss? The food I never got,” John said, shaking his head as the three of them looked out into this new world, full of the ghosts they had tried to contain. Whatever may come, Dan was at least sure it was going to be interesting.