As far as dark and stormy nights went, this one was more dark than stormy.
The clouds were thick and the streets were inky black like maybe if somebody stepped out onto them the gravel would turn to slime and stick to the soles of their shoes. The air was buzzing with that ‘maybe it might rain’ feeling and the wind seemed to be an old high school friend of the oak trees that littered the front lawns, chattering noisily among the leaves and branches. It should’ve been Halloween, really. But it was the weekend before and everybody was standing in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot like they were being led off to the gallows.
The atmosphere was hostile at best.
The “paranormal investigator” was running late and Pam felt herself itching to just hop in her car and drive away from this entire thing. She glanced up at Roy standing with Kevin and Oscar a few feet away and caught his eye, grimacing at the situation, and he offered her a half-hearted smile in return. Right. If she took the car she’d be stranding Roy here without one, and she was trying really hard to tread carefully with him, to make sure he was ok and to reassure him that they could still be friends.
She still wanted to be friends, she just didn’t want to marry him.
The difficult thing was that he'd said he didn’t want to marry her, either, and that made being friends with him…a challenge. A painful and practically impossible challenge, since her pride took a little sucker punch to the gut every time he looked at her and seemed a little bit relieved or disinterested. She was full of double standards and hypocrisy and confusion but she couldn’t really blame herself for that. It had only been three days since she and Roy had called it quits. They hadn’t even told anybody yet and were still keeping up half-hearted appearances like driving into work together.
“I should’ve brought white bed sheets for us to wear and scissors to cut the little eyes out of them.”
She started at the sound of Jim’s voice in her ear, snapping her back to the present and sending a little sizzle of electricity down her spine. She shifted away from him a quarter of an inch for her own sanity and laughed up at his sardonic expression.
“I can’t believe you dropped the ball like that,” she muttered, shaking her head. He clicked his tongue, feigning disappointment with himself, and she crossed her arms both because of the cold and because of other kinds of discomfort. She’d broken up with Roy three days ago and she hadn’t even told Jim, who she loosely considered to be her best friend.
Loosely because she was pretty sure a girl wasn’t supposed to day dream about her best friend taking off his shirt or grabbing her and kissing the regret from her mind. Especially if he was sort of seeing someone. But…
Anyway.
The Dundies had changed things for her, and she didn’t know what the hell was going on. Jim definitely didn’t know what the hell was going on because he’d been acting the same as always. He hadn’t picked up on the stiff silence between her and Roy or the way they didn’t touch anymore, and she was a little bit annoyed because she’d wanted Jim to notice and make her life easier by figuring it out. He hadn't yet. Obviously she was going to have to tell him.
And when he asked her what exactly had happened she was going to have to lie.
Headlights crept down the road and a flashing yellow blinker cast the fence of Dunder Mifflin parking lot into an eerie sort of light as a black pickup truck cautiously pulled in toward them, the height of the Ford 4X4 forcing Pam and her office mates to squint against the glare. Michael bounced on his toes and rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
“They’re heeeeeeere,” he called and Pam rolled her eyes, expecting that this was just the beginning of Michael’s shenanigans for the night. She glanced at Roy across the group and his stare quickly shifted away from her, skittering to look at the truck as the engine cut off. She sighed.
“Do you think we’re actually in danger participating in this?” Jim wondered and Pam pretended to think.
“Depends. Are you afraid of the dark, Jim?” she wondered, looking up at him mischieviously.
“When I’m ghost hunting at the abandoned West Mountain Sanitarium? Yes I am, Pam,” he responded, his eyes flashing and her stomach flipping just a little bit. She looked away from him then and refocused on the combat boots emerging from the truck, hitting hard against the ground as a man standing at about 6’ 2” emerged wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. His shaved head and broad shoulders reminded Pam of a cartoon general or a drill sergeant in some movie she’d seen. He slammed the door closed and the group practically jumped from the sound of it.
“Dunder Mifflin paper?” the man asked shortly and Michael stepped forward, awkward and inappropriate.
“That’s us. Are you the ghost buster?” he wondered and Jim shook his head subtly. The man just stared at Michael for a moment before looking away and ignoring the question, addressing the rest of the group as if Michael hadn’t even spoken at all, and Pam had to admit that this guy was not what she’d been expecting.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Vincent Montgomery and I’m a paranormal investigator with PROS, the Paranormal Researchers of Scranton, Pennsylvania. When you have to call me, you can call me Vince,” he explained. Jim leaned down toward Pam and she held her breath because otherwise she was afraid she'd make some kind of sound, a happy sigh or a moan or something else inappropriate.
“I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me…” Jim quoted and she grinned.
“I’ll call you Al,” she responded and he bumped his shoulder against hers in what she was sure was meant to be a friendly gesture. Her stomach tightened and she cleared her throat. She wondered why Jim hadn't brought Katy for this excursion, and was pleased when the name sent her warm and wanton thoughts right down the drain.
“The instructions for this evening are clear and are not negotiable. Do not leave your group. Do not lose your walkie-talkie’s. Do not stray to areas we have not discussed. And lastly, when something goes wrong find me immediately.” Giving them a moment to digest his list of instructions, Vince nodded and turned to the flatbed of his truck, hoisting two black duffel bags and a smaller camera bag onto his shoulders. Pam watched him distractedly and zipped her coat up a little bit higher.
“Did he say when something goes wrong?” she whispered, and Jim glanced down at her with a furrowed brow.
“Hey, Vince?” Jim called and the paranormal researcher turned toward him with a hint of accusation, but Pam figured that was just how he looked at everybody. “Should we be…I mean, isn’t this place a safety hazard?” he questioned and Vince squared off, rolling his shoulders back slightly, and Pam almost chuckled.
“I’ve been to the Sanitarium hundreds of times and it is only a safety hazard if you don’t follow directions,” he told them, “People get hurt when they ignore the rules.” There was silence in the crowd and Pam looked over at Dwight who was nodding emphatically and dressed from head to toe in black, clearly ready to take on any phantoms that might be lingering in the night. “This place was a TB hospital and there have been documented findings of disembodied voices, phantom gunshots, apparitions, unexplainable fluctuations in magnetic fields, and erratic temperature drops throughout the building. If you pay attention you will experience something. If you goof off and ignore my instructions you will get yourself hurt. Understood?”
Everybody nodded mutely and Pam was starting to feel the flutter of nervousness from something other than Jim’s arm brushing against hers and the hollow look of disinterest in Roy’s eyes. She was starting to feel the effects of this outing already and they hadn’t even left the parking lot yet. She felt herself cursing Michael and his stupid required team building exercises because if she had her way she’d be at home with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s right now, wallowing in her own mistakes. Instead she was here, taking a small tape recorder and what Vince called an EMF meter and shoving them into her messenger bag where she planned to leave them for the rest of the night. She was not interested in finding ghosts.
The air was cold and the moon was full and she was pretty sure this was how every single horror movie she’d ever seen started out.
She was also pretty sure that the red head was always the one who died first.
