Strange Happenings: Part 4

by Smitty


"The dust has quite obviously been disturbed. There has undoubtedly been something here, recently." I turned the page, but barely glanced at the words before the book was irreverently yanked from my hands and tossed across the room.

"No more mysteries for you," Tabby proclaimed, sitting on my stomach.

"Geez, Tab," I gasped, pushing her off me. "What have you been eating?"

"Not nearly as much as you and Bobby pack away," she returned.

"Yeah, but we aren't the same size. You're smaller than Jubilee."

"Shaddup!" she snapped. "Or I'll rearrange Dom's stinkin' chart so 'Star has to cook every night." That had serious implications. 'Star had this really annoying habit of ignoring Dom's chart and cooking meals popular on his planet. This has a few problems in itself. Some of the foods aren't the same, so he has to substitute. This has resulted in peanut-butter- and-oatmeal covered meat dishes. He also insists on eating healthy. He actually liked Storm's tofu and sprout crap. And finally, I don't think he was much of a cook, even back where he came from, so he's actually making this foreign, healthy, slightly incorrect food badly. It's not a comfortable situation. And he would never notice if his name just happened to appear seven times in a row.

"All right, all right. You win. What's up?"

"We-ell," Tab said, drawing out the word, wrapping the drawstring of the hood on her sweatshirt around her finger. "I thought maybe you might want to hear about this little tidbit of gossip I heard from one of the neighbors about your little ghost, but if you aren't interested..."

"What?" I sat up a little straighter. "What did you hear?"

"Oh, nothing much," she said, yawning. "In fact, it's practically less than nothing. It'd be wasting your time. Never mind." She got up to leave.

"Oh, no, you don't," I said, diving across the room to tackle her. "Tell me, or I let you loose to the Tickle Monster."

"Oh, no, not the Tickle Monster," Tabby groaned, sarcastically. "Some handsome detective come save me!"

"That's not funny, c'mon and tell me."

"Lemme up, first!" I let her sit up. She glared at me, smoothing her hair and straightening her clothes.

"Takin' yer good ol' time, ain't ya?" I asked her.

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

"I want to hear it, I want to hear it."

"Good. Now, I was talking to Mrs. Norton...Do you know her?" Did I know...

"No. C'mon."

"She's this lady who lives next door. I think she's a widow. She kept talking about her dear departed Ned..." Tabby genuflected and sighed. I stared at her.

"What are you doing?" I asked her. I'd never seen Tabby do anything religious, let alone swoon over the dead husband of some lady she'd just met. She sat up and grinned.

"That's what she does every time she mentions his name." I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Eccentric neighbors...great. "Anyway, she was telling me about how this girl died in here, like, fifty years ago or something."

"What?" The detective in me came out and I started grilling Tabby. "What was her name? How did she die? What room did she die in? What year was--"

"Hold yer horses!" Tabby snapped. "I'm getting there, I'm getting there... Ok, well, she said it was the back corner room in the west wing. Is that this room?" she asked, looking out the window.

"It's a back corner room," I told her. "How do you know the diff between the east and west wing?"

"I dunno. Maybe it has something to do with where the sun goes down. Anyway, this is all romantic and stuff. It was like, the thirties or forties or whenever the whole gangster thing was real big. Anyway, there was this guy who talked to the police, or was going to, or something...I think he's actually the reason they invented the Witness Protection Program, 'cause he pissed off the mob guys. See, he brought his new wife Elena--"

"Elena?" I interrupted. Tabby shrugged.

"It was the thirties. Anyway, he brought Elena here on their wedding night, for their honeymoon, I guess, and the mob guys were waiting in their room when they walked in. They just killed her right off the bat, but they found the guy's body, like, twenty miles from here, and he'd been tortured and stuff before they killed him. But here's the kicker: Mrs. Norton says Elena's ghost walks the hotel, looking for her husband...and sometimes you can hear her in her room, crying for her long lost love." No way, this was too weird.

"Why didn't we see it in the papers?" She shrugged.

"I dunno. We were just looking for the hotel. Elena's family didn't want a big story in the paper, and he was killed so far away, I guess they didn't associate him gettin' offed with the hotel."

"Ohmigod, Tabby, do know what this means?"

"What?"

"I'm not crazy!"

"Well, I wouldn't say that--" she started.

"She really was there! She's the one haunting us!" I was getting excited when one thought stopped me..."If she's from the thirties, how come I saw her wearing jeans and a sweater? Didn't they all have to wear dresses then?" Tabby shrugged.

"Maybe someone gave her a clue and she got on the fashion wagon."

"Maybe." Come to think of it, I really wasn't all that sure what she had been wearing. It almost could have been anything. "Wow, thanks, Tab. This is great!"

"Glad to be of help," she said, heading for the door. "Just watch out for that Norton woman. I have a real bad feeling 'bout that one."


"I did see a ghost," I announced the next morning at breakfast. "And her name's Elena." Cable choked on his toast. Domino slapped him on the back with the power of a wrecking ball. Jimmy squinted at me. Bobby just started laughing hysterically.

"Let me guess," he said, pouring a massive amount of Fruit Loops into a bowl and adding milk. "She came to you in the middle of the night begging for your love and--" Tabby shoved an English muffin in his mouth, effectively shutting him up for the next thirty seconds. "No, no, it was your supremely primed detecting skills, carefully honed at the Clayton Mitchell School of Investigation--"

"It's Clayton Maxwell," I grumbled to my Frosted Flakes. Siryn came to the table with a plate of hash browns.

"Has anyone met the woman next door?" she asked, setting the hash browns in the middle of the table. They looked kinda burnt. "She seems like a sweet woman...but she keeps asking all these questions..."

"That's the woman who--" I started, but I was no longer the center of attention.

"What kind of questions?" Cable asked, his voice taking on a commanding tone. I sighed. Another venture into Cable paranoia.

"She kept on askin' 'bout why we all showed up together, and whether we were all related, and stuff like that."

"What did you tell her?"

Terry shrugged gracefully. "I told 'er m'hash browns were burnin' an' I had t'go." Cable hunched pensively over his breakfast.

"War room in an hour," he announced. "Don't go outside until after the meeting." I sighed. This had all the makings of a disaster.


 

I was wrong. Disaster was much too mild a word.

"I am Nate Summers."

"We know that," Tabby reminded him.

"Hardened vetern of World War II."

"This is news," Bobby stated, matter of factly.

"I know." Cable flipped on of those white plastic boards over. He had a flow chart of some sort sketched out on it in different color markers. "I was married to Linda."

"Who's Linda?" Warpath wanted to know.

"Domino's mother." Domino coughed politely. "When Linda died, I married Cassie."

"Cassie?"

"Kinda sounds like Cassidy. Terry was the first child from that marriage. Got it?" He glared at Terry.

"Aye," she said, reluctantly. "Dad..."

"Only in public," he snapped. "After Terry came Tabitha and Ben."

"Am I correct to assume that you wish me to answer to the name Benjamin when in contact with this 'Mrs. Norton'?"

"Yes. And you are also correct to assume that I want you to speak in contractions when in contact with Mrs. Norton. You are the dirtbag younger son with too much hair and no job."

"Younger son?" No matter what they say, Tabby's not stupid.

"Sam is my older son. He's got a farm in Kentucky, that's why he's not here."

"Oh. Silly me."

"Rictor."

"That's me."

"You're our Mexican boarder. You don't speak English. You can thank me later."

"Si, senor." Mexican boarder? Where the hell did that come from? Why can't I speak English? Why did I care?

"Jimmy, you are...hmm...Terry's husband. You're a semi- professional wrestler, presently out of work due to an injury, unable to support yourselves, and in need of minor financial assisstence until your career picks up again. Or something. If you can think of something better, just put it on the board."

Jimmy scratched his head. "Ooo-kay."

"Caliban...you...is everyone ready for this one?" We all kind of looked at each other. I had a feeling we weren't, but no one wanted to admit it. "Caliban and I were in the war together. He was exposed to a poisenous gas which caused his disfigurement and slowed his motor skills. He saved my life on more than one occasion, and now I'm repaying the favor by not letting him be forgotten in a veterns' hospital somewhere." That one was a little far fetched, but I didn't have a better idea, and I wasn't about to argue with Cable.

"Who am I?" Bobby was leaning back in his chair, with his feet on the desk.

"You are...oh, shit."

"You forgot me?"

"I didn't forget you," Cable grumbled. "I just couldn't figure out where to put you and didn't go back to it..." He scribbled something on the board. "Ok, you're Tabby's live-in boyfriend. Can you deal with that?" Bobby looked at Tabby. She looked back at him.

"I don't think so," they said, with one voice.

"Neither did I," Cable muttered. "Tough. Just...pretend, ok?"

We filed out of the war room, shaking our heads. This was just getting curiouser and curiouser...


Part 5

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