Nothing Major Had Come Up, But Things Are Changing

[Jack_Fisher]

Hey all. Nothing major has come up, but because of the virus we aren't looking as hard as we should.

The university is starting up again. A lot of the classes are "virtual" ones, but you can't do Fine Arts on a computer. Well, digital stuff, maybe, but not any of the other art.

With all the changes going on, the team is changing.

Here are updates for the team members I've mentioned before:
Preppy graduated in the upper half of his class and is now working for his father's company. He still drops by, now and then, but he's really focusing on his job. In college he paid people (including me) to do his assignments, but in real life he has to do it all himself. If he screws up his dad won't be able to save him, so he can't take time to handle the weird stuff.

Girl With A Spirit Guide (and her spirit guide) left soon after the last big battle. She hooked up with a slightly older guy (mid 20s), who's a Psi-Mechanic. I'll call him Gadget Guy, but not for long. The two of them are off to deal with ghosts of gold miners in the Yukon.

Diviner is entering her second year of college, but her finances aren't any better. If anything they're worse thanks to the virus. She still lives at home, with all the negative stuff that entails.

Kid is a bit older, but he's still too young to get involved in weird stuff; but he's making trouble of his own. Basically, he's a preteen and preteens do stupid things.

Flamer is still here, and on academic probation, but he should grad this year if he pulls it together. If not, either way he's out of the university come Spring. Or maybe he'll try to take another degree.

Me, I'm still the eternal student, cashing in on the student health care because Fine Arts doesn't have a real time table to it.

Some other members of the team left, but the Prof is recruiting new people. One of the new guys is a Ghost Hunter. He already has a bunch of anima like weapons that look weird but work for him. He's also a bit of an asshole, but not enough to make me miss Preppy.

Another guy is a healer, but he's not the calmest guy around. He used to get in to a lot of fights and started off healing his own black eyes, bloody noses, and general bruises. No, he does not have the power to cure disease, but he can do a COVID test and have the results in minutes. I'd call him Healer, but that's not what he is. I'll call him Boxer instead. He likes solving his problems with his fists

The third new member, I'll call her Pixie because she cosplays as one (a blue one with wings, a blue costume, and blue body paint). She's a Psychic Sensitive, like me, but most of our powers don't overlap. Her big thing is she can go invisible for about a minute. Oh, and she says that her powers didn't make her life a living hell. She claims she used to mentally spy on the popular girls, getting dirt on them, and stuff like that. No, she doesn't have Clairvoyance or Precognition, but she does have Telepathy to read their surface thoughts and Thought-Reading to probe deeper.

Personally, I know her claim is BS. When I was talking to her, Sensitive to Sensitive, she let slip that one of the reasons she cosplayed was that there weren't a lot of jocks or popular guys cosplaying. I sneaked a peek at her thoughts and saw why she had avoided those boys: she sometimes picked up their thoughts and desires through uncontrolled bursts of Telepathy. Yeah, peeking into a lustful teenage boy's mind would be traumatic. Almost as traumatic as my Dreams and Visions.

Speaking of Dreams, Kid called me the other day. He wanted to rant about how he DIDN'T have a Dream. It seems that before he pulls some preteen mischief he has planned he gets a Dream warning him about what will go wrong. If there's no Dream, he does it, knowing that he won't get caught.

Yeah, I know, warning Dreams don't work that way. You can't depend on them to warn you about everything, especially when things have nothing to do with weird stuff. I had warned him that dreams don't work that way. I would have told him that he should think ahead before doing stupid stuff, but he's a kid and kids do stupid things.

Anyhow, Kid was part of a group of about a dozen kids who were chalk painting, drawing things that they shouldn't (dirty words and the best they could manage in regards to dirty pictures) in a place they shouldn't. In addition to the rude drawings, one of the older kids did a huge drawing that read: "Black Lives Matter as much as Blue Lives Matter". I'm not sure if it was the preteen attempt at filth or the political slogan, but boy did they all get in trouble. And a high pressure hose erased all the great artwork they did.

Kid was a kid who thought that the world had wronged him, so I let him rant. When he calmed down I reminded him about how Dreams only sometimes warn people and that all the "yeah, buts" in the world didn't change that. I also offered to teach him some chalk painting techniques, but that didn't make him happy. In the end I offered to do a chalk drawing for him, and if he wanted he could claim that he did it, but no one would believe that he did it.

The most important thing? While he was being balled out, punished, whatever, his powers didn't go off. At least that's what Kid claimed, but I thought I had to be sure. I didn't want to talk to his parents, but I got in touch with his sister (I've got a sock puppet account that's friends with her on Facebook) to make sure that nothing happened. Yeah, I have few a sock puppet accounts. I didn't set them up to befriend teens; when I joined Facebook I played a couple of games and I needed "friends" for those games.

Anyway, his older sister was glad to share all the gory details. She gleefully told me that some of the younger kids got spankings for their roles in the "vandalism", but despite all her digging she didn't know if her little brother was one of them. She wasn't sure who did the spanking and she didn't think it was legal for whoever did it, but none of kids would admit that it had happened them so none of the parents were getting the cops involved. Most importantly, she told me that he tried to go super hero on the people who caught them, but he couldn't make his powers, any of them, work on demand. He kept trying to do things, but all that happened is he looked constipated.

That didn't surprise me. That's what Latent Psychics are all about - uncontrolled and uncontrollable powers. Anyway, I'll do a chalk drawing inspired by Ralph Bakshi's classic movie Wizards. It will be a bit cheeky, but since the movie was only PG I won't be drawing anything adult. It will be a thing of beauty, until it rained or someone washed it away.

And yes, I did tell the Prof about Kid's misadventure. The Prof's only comment was that he wanted to know if Kid had been spanked. Basically he wanted to know if physical trauma would set Kid off or shut Kid's powers down. Not that he wants to test it, but he's asked me to try to get the info out of Kid. That or try for Visions and Dreams to see how much control Kid has.

Yeah, like that's going to happen.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Okay, Hunter is more of an asshole than I thought. The bastard is racist, sexist, and probably a few more "ists". Seriously, he never listens to females and has actually said "Quiet, men are talking". No, I'm serious. He actually said that.

And he has what used to be called "Roman hands and Russian fingers". In short, he puts his hands where he shouldn't. I even saw him smack a waitress on her butt! Not pat, smack. Smack hard. She glared at him, but Hunter put a twenty on the table. The woman had to choose between being outraged and getting a $20 tip. I know how much an extra 20 can mean, so I don't blame her for choosing money instead of pride. No, I blame Hunter for smacking her butt.

Now he's tried that on a member of the team. He slapped Diviner on her butt when she was bending to pick up something. She wasn't sure what to do, but Flamer lit up and I hit the asshole with a Psi-Bolt. It didn't really hurt him much, but it got his attention. That was when the Prof tore into Hunter. I've never heard him let go like that, and I don't think Hunter had ever had someone go off on him like that. Anyway, the Prof might have changed his mind. Just on the off chance that Hunter didn't get the message, Flamer and I (and some others) had a private chat with Hunter. He agreed with our point of view, and he didn't have to go to the hospital.

This time.

Fuck, he's worst that Preppy ever was. He's not as arrogant, but he's a different kind of asshole. Later we mentioned to Diviner that if Hunter ever, EVER tries to do something like that, that it could be the last thing he did. She thought that we were joking, but we convinced her that we were serious. She was a bit freaked out, but flattered that we would kill for her. Not that killing Hunter would be easy, but if that's what it takes then that's what it takes.

We're serious about how his bullshit has to stop. The team has to be focused, all pointing in the same direction, or bad shit happens. If we can't trust each other to be there, if we're worried that Hunter will ignore the females on the team. Or if one of the females on the team won't help a sexist asshole. Hunter's skill set would be a great addition to the team, but if he can't treat everyone with respect he has to go. Walking out or otherwise.

And it's not just the people who have been on the team for a while can see that he's an asshole. The other new members? Boxer wanted to beat Hunter's face in. Pixie told Hunter that if he ever tried slap, pinch, or otherwise touch her butt without her permission that she discover his deepest, darkest secret and spread it around.

I think that threat hit him harder than our threats. As in he thought that maybe he could take the rest of us in fight, but he couldn't bear to have his secrets known. At that point I mentioned that I could do that as well, picking up a few of his surface thoughts and telling him what he was thinking.

Hopefully Hunter will at least pretend to change when he's around the team.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Who knew that dealing with personnel issues could be more difficult than fighting monsters?

Seriously, Hunter is a major asshole. He heard that the Prof wanted to know if Kid would lose control if spanked, so what does he do? He waits until Kid is with us and announces that he's going to experiment. Kid has no idea what Hunter is talking about, and the rest of don't know, until Hunter tells Kid that he's about to get a bare butt spanking.

So most of the team gets between the two of them while the Prof is asking him if Hunter's gone insane. Hunter just smirk as if he could take all of us with one hand tied behind his back.

That was when the Prof asked Hunter if he had ever tried his weapons on normal people. Hunter hadn't, and the Prof explained Hunter's weapons work best on weird stuff. I nodded, and chimed in how my Mind Bolt barely scratched him but it could destroy weird stuff. Which is why I carried a gun.

That calmed him down. I could see the change in his face as it dawned on him that he wasn't the untouchable killing machine he thought he was. That there was a reason that none of us were all that scared of him. It wasn't that we didn't know what he could do, it was that we knew what he could do and we still weren't scared of him.

Things calmed down, but Kid is majorly spooked about Hunter - and I can understand that. So spooked that things started moving as he lost control of his powers. We calmed him down, but we had a schedule we had planned to work to. Things like making lists of places where weird stuff might be happening, working out what I should try to dream over, and other stuff connected to ghosts etc. No, we didn't cover any of that. The entire meeting was side tracked by Hunter's idiotic stunt.

The Prof has talked to Hunter, some of the others have talked to Hunter, and if Hunter can't straighten up he's going to be off the team. Meanwhile he's still as sexist and racist as ever. The only reason he hasn't been hit with multiple code of conduct violations is that most of his classes are virtual and he lives off campus.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with him? My only idea is to find a Big Nasty (through Dreams or Visions) and use that to unite the team, but if that doesn't work we'll be fighting as a split team and that could get some of us dead.


Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Hunter is officially off the team and off campus. That last bit wasn't our call; Hunter finally went too far. In one day he slapped three butts, two freshmen and a TA, told four different people what he thought of "their kind", and told an associate dean "quiet, men are talking". Anyone of those things would have eventually gotten him into serious trouble, but all of it happening at once? That expedited it.

Expedited it and resulted in a TRO, which is going to become a permanent restraining order in a week or so.

Did Hunter take it well? Well, he didn't kill anyone, but there was a lot of shouting and a bit of shoving, with him defending himself by saying that he was just putting those so-called people into their place. No, that didn't help his case.

The team is already working better together. Everything is clicking - but we're keeping an eye open for Hunter just in case. We're thinking that he's going to move back to his hometown, but we're not sure.

And no, we haven't had a major case yet. We've had a couple of minor cases, but nothing major. And no, we aren't really looking for anything big.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Halloween was more chaotic than usual. Some people wore medical masks, some people didn't. Some people were pretending that the virus didn't exist, others were paranoid.

We took out some graveyard ghouls, but that wasn't much of a fight. A couple of us spotted Hunter while we were hunting them. Yeah, was doing a Lone Ranger bit, showing off. Trying to show that we needed him.

Or maybe he was just showing off.

Not that it mattered. We aren't taking him back."

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Yeah, so something major happened. Hunter's gone rouge. Seriously rouge. The police hunting him down rouge. Facing serious jail time rouge. There's nothing we can do to help him or hurt him. Well, okay, maybe we could help the police catch them, but we don't think that we should do that. If nothing else it would link us to Hunter, at least in the eyes of the police.

What did he do? He went over to Kid's house and spanked him. Then, for good measure, Hunter spanked Kid's older sister. Yeah, Hunter decided to test to see if Kid's power would go out of control if that happened. Did it? Who knows. Maybe Hunter knows, but we aren't going to ask him.

How does everyone know he did it? He just walked up to the door when their parents weren't home. The security camera on the front door caught him coming and going. He was smiling both times.

Yeah, Kid's parents Were Not Happy. It took the Prof working hard to keep them from mentioning us. It took mentioning how the story would have to include Kid's powers. Oh sure, we all got contacted by the cops, but so did everyone else who knew Hunter. Diviner pass on that Hunter had given her butt a good smack and the rest of pointed out that we had reacted to Hunter doing that. Pixie said how she had to threaten him with legal consequences to keep him from smacking her on her butt.

On the bright side, Hunter had joined at least four other clubs - all drinking clubs. Two of them had experienced Hunter's view but just thought he was an asshole when he was drunk. The other two didn't know that Hunter had been kicked out of university. Seriously, they didn't notice what an asshole was, which told me that they were assholes too. No, I'm serious, the guys in those clubs might not have been racist but they were sexist as hell. They sometimes held their meetings in strip clubs. Not that I'm a prude, but hitting a strip club as part of a university club is a good way to break several parts of the school's code of conduct.

Anyway, the cops ended up writing some tickets for underage drinking and making some arrests for some other underage things. They're looking at those other clubs, and some White Power groups he's part of. Oh, and he's also involved in something called "Head of House" bullshit that sounds like the Male Power counterpart of White Power.

Sigh. Sometimes I have to force myself to remember that just because someone had our type of power doesn't mean that they are good people.

Here's hoping Hunter leaves town soon. Maybe he'll go home for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas.

Other than that, well my income is still on the limited side. I'm still not hitting craft shows or even doing caricatures. I'm selling online, taking commissions, and doing porn, but without selling prints in a booth the money just isn't coming in.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Hunter isn't going away. He sent us each the same email, saying that he solved the mystery of if the kid's powers... Okay I stopped reading around then, but The Prof didn't. He's not happy, but said that we shouldn't go hunting for him.

Right. Hunter is nuts and he knows where we live. We don't know where he is. Having an evil madman knowing where you live isn't good, so some of us, well we aren't actively looking for him but we're glancing around.

No, no luck. The email came from a computer at a library, which all of us BCC'ed on it. It was from a throwaway email address linked to a cheap prepaid phone. Flamer did his Fire Omen thing, but it didn't pick up anything, which means it's probably too far down the road for him to sense. I'm leaving myself open to visions about Hunter. Kid is too, but his Dreams are far less dependable than mine, and that's saying something. I tried clairvoyance, but no dice.

Oh, and it seems that the email had attachments. I deleted it before I noticed, but a couple of team members opened them and now have to reformat their hard drives. Yeah, apparently Hunter documented his "experiment", which makes me glad that I didn't bother reading it.

Now for some bad news: My art isn't selling as well as it should. I'm doing everything I can, selling on the net, selling erotic art, taking commissions, and doing bulk sales to people peddling things during the pandemic. My cousin is a bit down because I'm not paying him to help. Yeah, he's up for work. I know he's not following the rules, but I'm not doing anything that would expose him to covid. I'm lucky that none of my family have gotten that sick. I don't even know anyone who's been in the hospital with it.

Knock wood.

I'm staying afloat mostly because the Prof let me do those prints for free. I'm even able to pay Diviner to help with internet fulfilment, for now, but I'm really that that vaccine comes out. I can't even find Healer anymore - she's laying low and pulling in major money curing sick people.

Jack

[Kermode]

This Hunter sounds like a major . . . does this board have a policy on bad language?


The good news, he knows you have a gun, so he might thinnk twice about going ater you in person.

Bad news, he knows you have a gun so if he goes after you in person he will take that into account.

[Shadowstalker]

As for the policy on language, generally I think it is wise to keep it PG13 but sometimes you have to go R.
As for Kermode's comments I would agree. This Hunter bozo has at least basic Intel about you , and the people you work with. You never know how or if he may try to leverage said info against you.

[Jack_Fisher]

The good news: I'm not dead. The better news, I have COVID antibodies. The bad news? I came down with COVID. Yeah, I was in hospital for a while.

Basically I got greedy and hit some of the Christmas craft sales. I could have survived for longer, I had savings, but I told myself I couldn't miss the Christmas sales. So I made some money, got sick, spent sometime in the hospital, and I'm better now. Yeah me.

A few of my friends and relatives got sick as well, but so far everyone I know who's gotten it has lived. Knock wood.

Now, about Hunter. Maybe I was delirious or maybe I got a few of Visions of Hunter while I was in the hospital. Probably both. Anyway, I think his family lives in a compound. Militia like. All whites, men in charge, lots of guns, that sort of thing. He was there, but he's also been visiting the city. Yeah, there's police looking for him, but he hasn't done anything in this city for months and it's not like there's a special taskforce looking for him. As long as he drives an average looking car that isn't linked to him and he obeys the traffic laws, well I doubt the cops will find him.

And I know I've gotten a few Visions after I got out of the hospital. I don't want to get in to politics but one Vision had him planning to be somewhere special on January 6, 2021. Alas, on the morning of January 6 I got another Vision of him. Hunter was stuck on the road with a flat tire and no spare. If he had made it to where he wanted to be the FBI would be really looking for him. His views and connections, and the warrant out on him, would have made him a priority. And maybe a couple of more people might have died, but he wouldn't be my problem

The warrants out on him? Well the biggest charge he's facing is because he sent that video. You'd think that grabbing and beating a kid would be the biggest charge, but producing and distributing that kind of video carries more years. And he's done it again. I didn't see the email (being the hospital, focusing on breathing) but I gave an investigator my password to that email (I don't use it for business). From what the rest of the team says it was a "and this is how a normal kid reacts to a spanking" type of thing. They couldn't track him down, but this email crossed State lines (Boxer was home for Christmas) and that added a lot of charges. But with that January 6 thing I'm guessing the FBI has bigger fish to fry.

On my personal finances, I made some cash but then the medical bills, call it breaking even. I'm doing a couple "boudoir art" paintings for Valentine's Day. Two couples want "coming out" art and want it in oil pantings. It seems a bit dramatic, what do I know? I've never had to "come out" as anything but a Sensitive to the Prof and the rest of the team. On top of that I banged out some custom Valentine's Day cards, including a few X-Rated ones. Which has the money rolling in again.

Now more bad news. Two days ago I had Vision of Hunter. He's back in the city trying to "prove himself right". Which means he's as stubborn and stupid as he is racist and sexist. All he has to do leave the area and avoid places that the police know about and odds are he won't be picked up by the law. The FBI are looking for him, but if any cop in town IDs Hunter he's getting arrested.

So this year is weird all the way around. Yes, the team is still taking on the "strange" but most of our attention are focused on someone who should be helping us.

And Kermode? You're right. He could be screwing us all up big time. Contacting our families, phoning in tips about us, and countless other ways. The thing is, I think he still wants to "prove" that's he's right. I can't thing how he could do that. I mean, his views are so twisted that no one with a sane mind could follow them. In some ways he's an internet troll trying to win a flame war.

Which isn't a good thing, not when he can dox me. I don't need people looking closely at me because of some lie he posts on social media.

And Shadowstalker? I sometimes talk about adult artwork. I try to keep it at an artist level, but let me know I cross a line.

Here's to still being alive, fighting the "strange", and maybe getting Hunter arrested.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Does anyone remember Summer Student? The guy who worked for the Prof in the summer of 2019? Well I ran in to him and he has some great research skills. Okay, maybe he's just much better at social media than I am. Maybe both?

Anyway, for some reason he's on radical right. Mostly because his professor is planning to shoot the down a paper that an associate dean is writing and a lot of other academic politics that I didn't follow.

Why am I talking about this? Because he thinks that he's spotted Hunter online. Maybe we can track him down and send that info to the cops? That's a plan. A good, non-violent plan. One that we might need soon.

Why? So Saturday, the day before Valentine's Day I was selling at a craft fair and sketching custom Valentine's Day cards. Yeah, I know, it was stupid, but (hopefully) I can't get COVID again. Now that I've said that, watch me catch a variant. So I was there and I spotted Hunter looking at me. Well, make that staring. He held up one his "toy gun" looking weapons and made sure I saw it. I tried to look bored, which made him angry. I was going to say "made him mad" but he's already insane.

Hunter comes over and when there's a break in the line he asks why I'm not afraid of him. He pointed out that he has weapons and he knows how to use them. There's something I've learnt when dealing with predators: you never let them know you're afraid. My response was something along the lines "If something starts then security is going to end it. Maybe half of them are off duty cops. I can claim I was defending myself from a guy wanted for beating kids but him. If I even raise my voice I can send him to jail."

Now all of that is true, but he might be able to kill me before anyone got involved.

Hunter sneered, saying that a "real man" wouldn't hide behind "the Law". I said something along the lines of me not knowing what he meant "real man", but a civilised man does. Just as a civilised man doesn't go around beating women and kids. A civilised man is secure in his manhood and not threatened by the fact that some of other men aren't straight. A civilised man can accept and explore other cultures. A civilised man doesn't call himself superior because he happened to be born one colour rather another. I suggested that maybe he should stop caring about being a "real man" and focus on becoming a civilised man.

Yeah, he was armed and I was insulting him and his life choices. Things could have gotten really interesting, but a pair of teenagers in love came by and want me to do a couple of Valentine's Day cards for them. They looked like high school kids, and I picked up that they were in love. Most of the high school kids I saw that day were in serious lust, and there was some of that there because they teenagers, but they loved each other.

So I turned my back on Hunter and started to work. Yeah, he could have shot me in the back, but the "real man" bit he was talking about didn't lend itself to shooting someone in the back. The idiot sees himself as the hero, a John Wayne type, and I was pretty sure about how he would act. Mostly because I've dealt with bullies over the years.

That was when I started thinking of him more of a bully than predator. You might recall that in high school I was a weird artist type who did gymnastics, so I know all about bullies. Don't give them an audience or the attention that they want and they usual back down because they can't read the situation.

When I glanced back he was gone.

Of course I told the Prof and the team about this. The Prof said something about Hunter not being complete bad or he would have attacked me. I said something about all the security guys watching the crowd and how a lot of them were off duty cops. We agreed to disagree. The rest of the team more or less thinks that it would be good if Hunter was arrested, but no one is going to take a stand against the Prof.

Jack

[Kermode]

The bad ones rarely are 'bad' especially in their own mind.

I dealt with it all the time, especially from guys that wore uniforms and badges. They think that because they 'serve and protect' they can do whatever they feel is right in making that happen.

They don't get what they are doing is wrong.

Doesn't make them any less dangerous though. Take care of yourself.

[Jack_Fisher]

Yeah, he thinks he's a good guy. The problem is on how he defines "good". He sees sexism, racism, etc as good. That real men resort to violence to prove they're right.

He's becoming more of an issue than weird stuff we normally fight. And maybe more dangerous.

I never thought I'd be looking fondly at fighting weird stuff. At least with that you can tell the bad guys on sight.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Summer Student is working hard at trying to track down Hunter. It doesn't help that the folks who post in those areas usually take precautions against being doxed. Most of them don't want their friends, family, co-workers, bosses, etc learn about their racist views. Here's hoping we'll get something to turn over to the cops.

No, Summer Student doesn't know anything about Hunter stalking us. He thinks we're doing this because Hunter committed those crimes. I'm not worrying about Hunter going after Summer Student, mostly because Hunter doesn't know about Summer Student.

Remember how I said this was Flamer's last year in university? That he was either going to graduate or fluke out? Well one of the bright sides of the current crisis is the academic chaos that is attending university this year. Flamer has already filed the paperwork over the problems he encountered this year. If he doesn't graduate this spring he can come back next fall, and maybe even next winter.

On the "weird" side of things, Kid encountered an entity and it scared the piss of out him. Literally, as in he had to change his jeans after he calmed down. The team checked it out and handled it. We took Kid along, mostly so that he could see that we handled it. Now he doesn't have to worry about nightmares where he thinks that it's still after him. Diviner even assured him that we all bathroom accidents the first time we encountered something like that. Only most of us wouldn't admit it. Boxer said that he didn't, which Diviner said proved her point. The rest of us mostly said something along the lines of pleading the fifth.

Basically, no one wanted Kid to be embarrassed over pissing his pants. Especially since he likes thinking of himself as a superhero.

Later, after Kid was home, we talked about that statement. We were all older than Kid when it happened and the "weird thing" was usually ourselves. Flamer chimed in to say he was "very excited" when he projected his flame, and had to change his pants after that. I admitted that some of my first Visions were of girls, because I was a teenage boy. Getting the topic away from that, Pixie mentioned that she had used "Thought-Reading" on Kid while we were fighting the entity, to make sure he was mentally okay, and discover that Kid had made a superhero costume.

Which was sobering news. Pixie thought that it was cute, but if Kid has a costume he might try to be a superhero. Playing superhero when he can't control his powers could lead to him getting hurt. We made sure that Prof knew about it. He sighed and added it to the growing list of his problems. What else is on that list? Hiding the team's activities and funding when everything is so chaotic. It doesn't look as if we can do the old "Frat Boys 'borrowed' and wrecked some of our equipment" trick, and this is the second year in a row we haven't done that. Which makes it much harder to hide the equipment that gets damaged while we're working on cases.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

So shit hit the fan in a small way. Kid went out to play superhero. Luckily he's young enough that no one thinks it's too weird that he's playing superhero. Unluckily he tried to use his powers in public.

Tried. As in did his best and couldn't make them work. He still can't control his powers and when they didn't work, well he was lucky he was trying to fight some high school age boys. They were doing typical teen stuff - graffiti, underage drinking, maybe a bit of weed, that sort of things. One of them must have seen an old movie because he called Kid a wannabe "Kick Ass". After that, they kicked Kid's ass. Not his ribs, head, junk, or anything vital, just his butt.

Kid got some bruises and cried in front of "big boys". Boxer was able to heal him, getting rid of those bruises. Pixie told him to tell everyone that he was cosplaying and got really in to character.

After making sure he was okay we had zoom meeting over what to do. A few of the team suggested that maybe we should have a "talk" to those teens, but that wouldn't work out. They would figure out why we did it and we can't guard Kid 24/7. Beyond that, it would be illegal. They're just normal kids, not supernatural threats. The worst thing about giving them a beating is that Kid would think that we always had his back. He would take more and more risks and could get seriously hurt or killed. Instead we are going to have one on ones with him to ensure that he understands that none of us are superheroes. I plan to show him my scars. Flamer is going to talk about the fire investors who have been on his case. The rest? We all have different types of scars.

Summer Student is still looking for Hunter. He thinks that he's found Hunter posting in forums centred on CMNF - which is NSFW. I won't explain it, but I will spell it out with capital letters. Basically, it objectifies women by imaging a world where Females aren't allowed to wear clothes (so are Nude) but Males are Clothed. Yeah, well, it's not my sort of thing, and no one is paying me to make art for it, so whatever.

Speaking of being paid, I'm still a bit down for the year, but here's hoping I can sell things at Easter. And the adult art? It's going to part of my income stream until COVID is over. Even though I'm constantly getting ripped off. Those commissions aren't supposed to shared, but people keep scanning them (or snapping a photo on their phones) and posting them places. Piracy is sucks when you produce things.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Yeah, things with Hunter have gotten bad in a real bad way. Remember how some high school kids beat kid up? Well they won't do that again because they're dead. Yes, Hunter killed them.

That is really Not Good. I've taken a couple of Psych courses but I didn't need them to know the word "escalation". Hunter getting used to killing normal people makes it more likely that he'll kill us. That's very not good. The Prof is rethinking whether we should help the cops find Hunter.

On the brighter side of life, I'm pretty sure that Kid is going to stop playing superhero. He was impressed by my scars until I told him how much it had hurt getting them. Flamer talked about being investigated by the cops for being seen too close to too many fires. Diviner told him how she had tried to find lost things, but that people thought that she had stolen or "borrowed" them just to be the hero by "finding" them. That she had gotten in so much trouble she had gotten spanked with a belt to teach her not to steal. Pixie told him about some bad experiences at Cons. One was when she had used her powers to pick out who was selling purple pills and had a knife drawn on her. Another time she tried to prove that someone was in the wrong category in the costume (she knew that the other girl was in the beginner's category when she was really an expert) and had gotten her own costume slashed up in retaliation. Boxer explained how he thought that his healing powers could fix everything that he had gotten in a fight and had ended up too unconscious to patch himself up afterwards. The others told their horror stories.

Pixie did another Thought Reading and thinks that we convinced Kid not to play superhero until he's older. Let's hope he doesn't sign his mind.

You might say that we're busy. I mean, that between keeping Kid out of trouble and Hunter becoming a murderer, we'd have our hands full. Nope, there's still the weird stuff out there. There's a mall that is basically dead, it wasn't in good shape and COVID closed most of its stores, and there are reports of a mannequin stalking the mall. Yeah, I know it sounds like a 80s horror movie, but reports a mannequin from one of the closed stores stalking people at night. It's a female mannequin dressed a nurse, or a male one with a cleaver, or kid in a little league uniform carrying a baseball bat, or maybe a three or four other ones. Which won't help narrow down which store it's from.

I was really hoping that these rumours were just rumours. Maybe a prank, maybe someone taking drugs, maybe someone telling ghost stories, or maybe something else. Those hopes faded when Prof announced that his equipment picked up readings.

So, we have to figure out what's stalking people in a mall, keep Kid out of trouble, all while keeping an eye out for a killer who has some of our powers. Yay us.

Jack

[Kermode]

Ever think about changing the title of this thread?

While I'm not a particular fan of the police, this does seem like the sort of thing they are meant to take care of.

[Jack_Fisher]

The police are looking for Hunter, just not for the recent murders. There's video of him attacking Kid and Kid's sister and those videos he emails of him beating some random kid. If we knew where he was staying we'd tip off the cops, but my Dreams and Visions aren't picking him up. We pointed them at him for the murders, but they didn't believe our anonymous tips.

Pixie has mentioned that she can sometimes Remote View things, but she's never been able to do it unless she was in the presence of something very, very weird. Here's hoping that doesn't happen, because if we're going up against something very, very weird and Pixie wastes time and effort looking for Hunter, well that could be very bad for all of us.

As for the title of this thread, hmmm. Okay, there's nothing world shaking happening, but maybe you're right. Hunter is maube threatening our lives and there's that mannequin thing happening. And it is happening. I'll post an update about that later.

And thanks for the advice to focus on using the cops to deal with Hunter. There's been some debate in the team over doing that, mostly because Hunter has powers like ours. It's nice to see others support the "put Hunter in jail" option. Maybe we can frame Hunter for other things?

Anyway, it was nice to hear from you. Sometimes I feel like I'm shouting in to the wind here, but posting here does help me organise my thoughts. Sometimes I'll miss something until I'm writing it down and then it pops out at me.

Jack

[Kermode]

Yeah, this place is a lot quieter than it used to be.

I have contacts with a group of the old posters, but they have moved their activities off of here for a variety of reasons (new projects, new families, etc).

I'm a strong believer that human crimes need human solutions. As much as some of us like to think our gifts make us separate or different, if we start thinking of ourselves as outside of normal human society and its responsibilities, we can easily turn into . . . well that Hunter fellow.

If anything, the standards us gifted people are held to should be higher and stricter than those without these abilities to use and abuse.


It's going to be a while before I'm able to travel freely, but if he's still at large when I'm free to help, I'll see if I can point you and the police in the right direction. I'm really, really good at finding things.

[Jack_Fisher]

Our plan to explore the mall is, well, less than legal - but it's for the greater good. I'll see about posting a larger update on Monday

As for travel, I wouldn't recommend it until the fall.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Good news! Kid isn't trying to play superhero anymore. Bad news! He's planning to cosplay when cons return. How is that bad news? He's coming up with a "custom hero" with powers that are basically what he could do if he could control his powers. Yeah, that's not going to work well in the long term.

Hunter is still around. The cops didn't believe the "anonymous tops" linking Hunter to those killings. The cops found some weed and are going to a drug angle, which is the only thing that makes sense to them. That or the kids were at the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, why would a racist who beat Kid and his sister kill some random teenagers in the area?

I'm leaving myself open to Dreams and Visions about Hunter, but nothing so far.

Now on to the weird stuff. We've been looking at the dying mall while respecting social distance and keeping safe. That is, keeping an eye on each other as we investigate
.
There's not much left in the mall. The food court is down to 3 places, and they're mostly staying open by doing deliveries. Looking at places where mannequins could come from, wow, there are a lot of closed shops. The most likely sources seem to be one of the two closed department stores, three closed clothing stories, and a sporting goods store that used to sell some clothes.

No, we didn't make this list. We got it by listening in the food court. As expected, the mannequin bit is the main topic of conversation around the mall. At least half the people visiting the mall were there because of that story. That list makes sense to us, seeing how those are stores that haven't been cleared out yet. Most of the other closed stores are clearly empty (as in you can see in the stores and there's nothing there) but there are still things left in those stores.

The fact that the mall is mostly empty helps and hurts. It helps that we don't have to avoid a mass of people seeing us, but it hurts that in that there's no crowd to blend in with. Luckily some of us have worked in malls (okay, not me, but some of the others) and have an idea of where to go. No one worked at this mall, but most malls have the same types of layout because that design works - or worked when malls were a thing.

Another good thing is that mall has really, really cut its security costs. The security here is contracted out and as the stores close the mall is cutting back as much as they can. We've overheard the mall cops in the food court talking and they talk about reduced personnel, reduced hours, shitty working conditions, and things like that. The "higher ups" have been reduced to a single supervisor per shift, the manger is off site, and the supervisor spend half their time shouting at the mall cops. We also kind of planted some bugs and we've learnt that the security company is sending the screw ups here.

How bad are these mall cops? Smoking weed in the parking lot bad. Having sex with their girlfriends behind the dumpsters bad. Which kind of worked out for us. We were able to "borrow" some of their IDs. They are old fashion, magnetic strip ones. Easily duplicated. Yes, we duplicated them. We even found and "borrowed" some mall cop type uniforms from theatre arts. "Borrowing" was easy because there are no productions going on this semester. The upshot is that as long as we avoid the real mall cops we should be good.

We headed to a dead area in the mall and changed in a bathroom area that was marked closed. No, the yellow tape on the door didn't stop us. Looking official, we found our way to the back corridors and delivery areas. Prof had the plans for the mall, which guided us to the service areas. I'm talking where they run power and water lines. Cramped, narrow, awkward places. Did we find mannequins walking around? Nope. Did we find other things? Sure. We found some rooms that don't seem to have been used in years, maybe decades. In a couple of them we found old newspapers and magazines from the 1980s or 90s. We haven't stumbled over anything collectable (old comic books, baseball cards, etc), just old junk, but we're mapping out the place and updating the plans that Prof came up with.

We aren't sure what is at the mall, but it's something. It's no longer just rumours and Prof's readouts. Diviner has seen signs warning of something that is weird here. When we were in our normal clothes, Pixie used thought reading on a self-proclaimed victim and confirmed it. A day later Boxer talked to the victim about the incident while Pixie and used Telepathy; we got a glimpse of a mannequin walking slowly (very slowly, slower than a movie zombie) towards her with a knife in its hand. The lighting was bad, very bad, but it was clearly a naked male mannequin. Which isn't as helpful as it would have been if the mannequin was wearing something to indicate what store it came from.

Anyway, we plan to hit the mall on Easter Weekend and see what we can see. Security is going to be light because the security company is shifting assets (i.e. mall cops) to a pharmacy where they're giving the vaccine. That will improve our odds of passing as security, or at least not being noticed. Prof is drawing up a list of stuff we should take. Plenty of senses, readouts, lights, GPS units, navigation aids for when the GPS doesn't work (GPS doesn't work in the basements of concrete buildings), and half a ton of other equipment. Oh, and we're also carrying weapons. Not just because we might have shoot mannequin, but because Hunter might be stalking us.

Now to fill some Easter art orders. I'm doing okay in the money department, but I'll be much happier when everyone is vaccinated. Once that happens, and Cons start up again, art will be much easier to sell.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Okay, things are weird. I know what I saw in that witness' mind. It was a mannequin, not a person. Pixie claims that maybe a great cosplayer could dress that way, and I can see a great makeup artist doing something like that, but why? And Diviner saw those signs and...

Let me order my thoughts a bit. Exploring didn't go as expected. We sensed things, Prof's machines detected things. Everything was pointing to something weird being there. Then we found signs that it was all a hoax. Clear signs. We even found a binder labelled "The Case Of The Mall Mannequins". It was empty, but it was it there. We took photos and fingerprints from it, but we didn't move it. We did rig surveillance for it, okay, we set up a modified nanny cam, but that room had almost no cell signal and we couldn't set up a better system, so it's iffy if we'll learn anything from it.

One of those old break rooms where there were old newspapers had changed. Someone had cleaned it up, put some chairs in it, and painted parallel white lines on the wall opposite the door. Those lines are exactly three inches apart. Exactly. Prof got some callipers out and measured. Everyone else seemed impressed but I brought up how the word "template" had a meaning in the art world. I went looking around and found the pant splattered template. It wasn't a cheap one. High quality custom Fiberglas with a laser level attached to it. Whoever is behind whatever this is has some money.

Prof is baffled. Nothing that we've found points to magic or even idiots playing at magic. There's just nothing "weird" or any sign that anyone is doing anything to attract "weird" stuff. If it wasn't for Prof's readings, Diviner seeing patterns, and what we saw in the mind of that witness then this would look like one of the frauds we've investigated in the past. Or maybe this new weird stuff has nothing to do with the "weird" stuff we're investigating. Maybe some homeless types or disgruntled former employees? Maybe a former store owner?

Now an update on Hunter. He's sending messages to some of us. Basically, he's noticed that we're investigating something and wants in. As if that's going to happen. Only we have to be polite when we say no because he's crazy.

Maybe I'll draw him a picture.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

So I drew Hunter a picture. Several of them. Call it a short graphic novel in ebook form titled "<Hunter's Real Name> Troubles". Basically, it shows what Hunter has done, with $@#& symbols for his racist and sexists slurs, and the results of his actions. The first section shows him being expelled and the restraining order keeping him off the campus. Next is him is a PG version of him beating Kid while smiling at the security camera, followed by him sending those videos, with panels of the cops reacting to what he's doing. Local cops for the first part, FBI agents for the second part. I left out the murders, but I included how the cops were contacting us and keeping an eye on all of our hangouts. I spelled it out that it doesn't matter what anyone on the team wants now: he's wanted by the cops and that's that.

And that's true. It wouldn't matter if we loved Hunter or feel the way we do; Hunter is wanted by the cops for crimes against kids. Full stop. Even if he had been framed the guy would be too hot to associate with. He could be the best of the best, the guy we really need for everything, but there's no way we would associate with a wanted criminal.

So the graphic novel has three endings, labelled Alt Endings 1, 2, and 3. One shows him giving himself up to the cops (as if that would ever happen), the second shows him living a quiet life on the run, and the third have him going down in a hail of bullets. I added a bit of commentary on that last one. Basically telling him that I believe there's no way that he wouldn't try to take the cops on, and the cops always win the shoot out. Maybe not the first one, but once they have SWAT out to deal with a cop killer there's only one way it can go.

I sent a PDF of "Hunter's Troubles" around to the rest of the team, mostly to cover my ass if the cops find the thing in his possession. While spreading this art around I discover that Hunter hasn't actually trying to contact all of us. He was only reaching out to the male members of the team. Trust a sexist to do that.

He replied, in a way. He sent us (the male members of the team) a manifesto explaining how the White Race is superior because of blah, blah, blah, and how women are inferior and meant to serve men because of blah, blah, blah. It even had some porn, sorry, "photos to illustrate points" of naked women around clothed men. I didn't read that pile of crap, but when we met up to talk about I pointed out how some the photos were photoshopped. Who ever did had some skills, but the shadows weren't right. That's something that most people doing porn photoshops forget about.

Looking more closely at the photos, I saw some symbols that reminded me of something. Searching online I confirmed that I had seen them before: the symbols were from the Gor books. If you haven't heard of them before there's all sorts of stuff about those books online. There's even idiots who role play living in those novels, and Hunter would fit in with them.

But that whole thing is a good thing. Hunter is using his words rather his guns. Our response was basically "dude, the cops are still looking for you" which is true as far as it goes. It just left out the rest of the reasons. How he's a sexist racist who beat Kid and murdered some teenagers. But being polite is better than fighting him. As long as he's talking he's not trying to hurt us.

So, about the mannequins stalking people at that mall. You know, the weird stuff we're fighting when we aren't worrying about a racist sociopath. There are more reports of incidents. The police, news, etc - call it the normal authorities - are ignoring those reports, but there's been some social media posts. The cops that Prof knows have contacted him, and he was able to get those fingerprints run. Whoever was handling that binder isn't in the system, which is a good thing. Much better than learning that we're dealing with dangerous criminals or former military types.

The nanny cam didn't capture much. A girl in sneakers, jeans, wearing a blue hoodie picked up the binder. We tried various things to get a better picture of who it might be. All we can tell is it's a girl, woman, or a guy wearing fake boobs under a hoodie. We're thinking that it was a girl because of the jeans and sneakers, but nothing really makes sense.

The readings from the equipment we left makes no sense. There are readings that suggest that there's something "weird" happening and others that suggest that there are people wandering around where they shouldn't be. Prof is talking about going back with different equipment, stuff to detect and track normal people.

That room where the lines were painted? More work has been done. Someone read "ageing paint for dummies" and pulled those tricks on the painted lines. Someone also left some plaques there. Wooden ones with "Established 1952", "Est, 1963", and four other dates on them. All of the dates are before when the mall was built, which was in 1992. The latest plaque reads 1984. Prof is researching all of those years, but he thinks that they are just random years. A few more chairs were there, more comfortable ones. Nothing to hint at why someone is doing things here. We left more monitors, but the room is surrounded by so much concrete we can't get a signal in it for real time readings. A couple of the more technical minded team members talked about routers and laying cables, but cables would be noticed. There was talk of chaining Wi-Fi signals, and other things like, but I couldn't really follow them.

Which leaves back at where we started. We have evidence that something weird is happening and we have evidence that this is a hoax.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

So the shit hit the fan at the mall. Some kid (boy, 9 years old) got messed up by a mannequin. Messed up as in he was picked up by a mannequin, swung around by his leg, and tossed him against a wall. Only he was somewhere he shouldn't be. The mall is blaming the security company, the security company is blaming those cutbacks, and the police are looking around. Anyway, he survived, but has a couple of broken bones and will be in the hospital for a while.

As almost always the normal media isn't covering it as supernatural. The official story is the boy was playing somewhere he shouldn't be and got hurt. Maybe a mannequin fell on him or maybe that was just a 9-year-old's imagination. The police are blaming his mother for letting him wander off, the security company that let him get back there, and the mall's management for letting it happen.

The really bad news? Kid knows the boy. The boy a friend of a friend. As near as I can understand, Kid has a friend whose older stepbrother has a cousin whose uncle's wife has a niece whose cousin was attacked. I know, this sounds like an urban legend, but Kid is upset over it and wants to get in on the hunt. Like that's going to happen.

So the cops that Prof knows are being more cooperative but we can't actually use their help because we don't have anything to go on. We have fingerprints that aren't in the system and some video of a girl in a blue hoodie. No, the other monitors haven't picked up much. We're poking around but not finding much. One thing we found was an old style VSH camcorder. Seriously, something out of the 1980s. There wasn't a tape in it, and we dusted it for prints, but they were the same from the binder.

Where are we? The cops reviewed all the security footage and found nothing. Nothing about the boy who was injured, nothing about us sneaking around, just nothing. There weren't any security cameras where the kid was attacked and we've been careful. They didn't find anything about whoever it is who painted those lines.

In short, they found nothing.

Hunter made contact, again, trying to rebut some of what was in that graphic novel. The thing is, his attempt was weak and it looks as if he knows it. He's expressed regret about being hunted by the cops. Not over what he did, but that the cops are looking for him, but it's not like that matters now. I think it's starting to sink in to his mind just how seriously he F'ed up.

On the bright side, even though Preppy isn't with the team, he's come through for us. He managed to get Diviner a bursary. Enough cash to support her parents for a while. Prof's gotten her all the financial aid he can, and Preppy's cash will keep her afloat for a while longer.

As for me, I'm keeping afloat with the online sales, the porn sales, and heading to the occasional event that I wish wasn't happening. Yeah, the money is okay, but even though I recovered from the virus I'm waiting to get my needle. I want to be fully vaccinated ASAP because that virus really took me down.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

The team found, and fought, a walking mannequin. It was real, it was weird, and it got away. I think. I don't think we defeated it, but, okay, some details.

The mannequin was male, not wearing clothes, and it had cornered one of the mall cops. The guy was curled in to a little ball, whimpering, as the mannequin stood above him. Kicking at him, but it didn't look as it was trying to kill him. At least not right away. Yeah, there are lots of things out there that like terror, far too many things to label what it was. All I know for sure is my power level spiked high and I was tossing off Mind Bolts like there was no tomorrow. The others unleashed their stuff, but Flamer wasn't there.

Yeah, Flamer had an exam. If Flamer had been there I'm pretty sure we could have taken it out, burnt down the mall, or both. Okay, maybe it would have helped if Hunter was there, but Hunter isn't an option.

What happened? The mannequin raced off. When we caught up with it the thing was just a normal mannequin. Prof took it to his lab, but the readings are saying that everything is normal. Worse, there's no sign of which store the mannequin came from. We might have to start breaking in the various former stores and searching them for evidence.

The mall cop, well he was dropping drugs. He claims that everything that happened was just a "bad trip". We don't know if that's just his defence mechanisms kicking in or if his drug use summoned the thing. The drugs he was using normally wouldn't cause issues like that, but they're street drugs and the security guy says that this has happened before.

So bad news - we had a chance to stop and didn't. Good news? We can now blackmail one of the stoner mall cops. Yes, Prof had cameras running to document things and ended up filming the mall cop using. I'm pretty sure the guy had enough stuff on him to be charged with possession with intent.

Kid was "trying" to hang around the mall, but that's going nowhere. Prof mentioned something to his parents and they put their foot down. To make sure he doesn't try to sneak around Diviner had a talk to him. I can talk to him like a mentor, but she can talk to him like his sometimes babysitter who he is used to being in charge of him. She says that it was hard to win him around until she mentioned that Hunter is stalking us. Ghosts, monsters, etc don't frighten him, but Hunter? Hunter scares him. Maybe because no ghost has ever hurt him.

Now for the unexpected part. I had a Dream. I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down a URL. The Dream was odd, but I knew that the URL was the important part of the Dream. Only the Dream itself wasn't all that important, if that makes sense. The next morning I checked the page out and it's for a ghost hunter group. I didn't recognise the names involved and they didn't use the terms we use.

That group is "researching the activities" at the mall, but the information on that page is all wrong. Seriously wrong. They've got a timeline that includes a mansion being built on that site in early 1800s. They even have photos taken in the early 1900s of a creepy looking Victorian house. But all of that is wrong. The property was in a natural state until it became farmland. The farmland was developed in 1940s-50s and there was never a creepy old house there. Even if there was a house there, the photos are of a creepy Victorian house - which would mid to late 1800s, not early 1800s.

The info is wrong, the photo is wrong, and the info about the family living there makes no sense. The site has more timeline information, all of it clearly fake, but some of the dates jumped out at me. Those plaques we found were dated 1952, 1963, 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1984 when the mall was built in 1992. Well those dates are used in the timeline. I'll summarise here:
1952 - large store built on that spot.
1963 - Store burns down, new store built.
1972 - Store badly damaged in a storm. It was demolished and replaced. The new name is a bit racially insensitive towards African-Americans.
1976 - Store is rebranded with an inoffensive name.
1980 - Store sold, remodelled, and renamed.
1984 - Store damaged badly in flood and replaced.
1992 - Store replaced by mall.

That's only part of the timeline. There are other things, including "sightings", only everything is fake. There was a windstorm in 1972, but there wasn't a store to be damaged. There was a flood in 1984, but it wasn't anywhere near that location. No sightings took place near the mall's location. Trust me, when it comes to investigating things the crew goes all out on the historic research.

Anyway, I sent the link to the crew. I made sure they knew that I had seen the URL in a Dream, pointed to the timeline, and asked them to research what it means because my Dream only told me this was kind of important.

Now about that other thing - the room with the lines painted on the wall. There's nothing to add. Well, okay, there's negative evidence. No one has been there since we increased the electronic surveillance. Did whoever it was get spooked or it is something else? No clues here.

On the bright side, college is over for another year. Flamer managed to hold on and will graduate in December. He just needs one last class - and he's going to take 3 so it won't matter if he fails one.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Okay, there was another incident at the mall, but time it's different. We didn't see it, but everyone had phones so there was video taken. Some teenagers got chased by a mannequin. Only it was less terrifying and more... Okay, I'll say more Scooby Doo. The mannequin popping up in unexpected places and scaring some "investigators" who were "investigating" things. No, they weren't the ones with the website. They were all in their early to mid teens and posted what happened on YouTube, FaceBook, Instagram, etc. I think they even did some TikTok clips.

Then all of those social media posts vanished. The cops are looking for those kids, but they can't find them. Something about fake accounts that were only opened a day or so before posting. Which is weird, but not the type of weird we handle. Various cops have talked to Prof, but he doesn't have a clue.

Speaking of clues, the more technology inclined members of the team tore in to that website. The one with the fake timeline and photos. That photo? It was tracked down to Maine. Yes, Stephen King country. It was nothing to do with us. We've documented the "problems" (a.k.a. straight-out lies) with the timeline. I knew it was wrong, but now there's an annotated rebuttal to it. Footnotes and everything.

More importantly the crew ripped apart the metadata and hunted down website ownership. I don't understand all of the technological details, but they've traced the ownership to a local law firm. The site was created with an expensive suite of software, not the free or student versions, but paid licenses. One member of the team estimated whoever made the website spent in the four figures or more, which means that it's far beyond the usual group of ghost chasers. Grad Student pointed out that if we couldn't afford to do something like, not without using the student and or educational versions. Which means that it's not an average group. Maybe they have a sponsor, or maybe someone's using daddy's credit card. We don't know yet.

Speaking of not knowing, the names on that website are fake. Completely fake. Even their bio information is fake. As in fake schools are listed. Fake elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. Yeah, all of their names are fake, their addresses does not exist, it's all fake. Everything on that website is fiction.

And that website has been updated. A new photo of the house has been post. Blown up, with an outbuilding circled. No clue of what it means, just that something will be coming soon "that will blow this wide open" - whatever that means. Now we all had the website backed up - even me. It's not that hard to download a site. The picture we had downloaded? It's been changed. That outbuilding was photoshopped in. We've tracked down the original photo and the outbuilding wasn't part of that photo. It's not even a good photoshop job: the shadows are all wrong. Other people even noticed that before I pointed it out. Whoever it is has spent $$$$ on the software but did an amateur job on doctoring the photo. Nothing about that group makes sense.

Speaking about not making sense, we hit the dying mall again and found Kid wandering around there. He claimed that he was there because a friend's mom had brought him there, which was true as far as that goes, but he had "wandered" away and was in a dead area of the mall. Basically, Kid was being a typical kid and stretching things with "yeah but..." thinking. Diviner basically read him the pre-teen version of the riot act. Some of it stuck, some of it was water off a duck's back - typical kid stuff. Diviner ended up escorting him back to his friend's mom who (reportedly) was more than a bit miffed over him roaming. Or maybe it was him roaming and her being caught not noticing that he was roaming, caught by a young adult babysitter type who is likely to mention it to his parents.

But Kid being there worked out. While she was walking back, Diviner noticed that there isn't just one complex pattern. There are two patterns that matter at this mall. One is Weird and one is just strange, but they overlap. Yeah, that makes sense for her, and a couple of the others, but I'm not sure.

What I am sure of is that whoever is messing about in them mall's hidden guts set off motion detectors, which is basically all we know. See, Prof had to return most of the equipment for an end of term inventory and hasn't been able to "borrow" it again. Something about the university wanting to set up monitoring when it goes back to full in person classes. It could be months before Prof can use that stuff again. On the up side, the parapsychology only stuff (EMF recorders, EVP recorders, thermometers, ionisation sensors, etc) is still there, but we didn't have enough cameras to cover everything. Yeah, that's ironic. We should have hit a Best Buy or even a Wal Mart, but money's tight all the way round.

Just an aside about money. Most of the crew have summer jobs. Prof was able to swing things so Diviner is his summer student, but she's still doing side jigs, like babysitting Kid at times. I pay her to stuff envelops when I have enough clean stuff to ship, but money is tight for me too. I'm doing a few commissions and I'm half working on another graphic novel. If I can finish it I'll crowd fund the printing costs and hopefully get a lump sum of money.

Back to the case: we traced where whoever visited went, but we didn't get video on them. Only the motion detectors picked them up. Nothing weird registered. None of the sound recorders were in the right places to pick up anything useful.

We went over every place they went. The room with the painted lines changed a bit. There was some "new" furniture, stuff that looks like it came from a thrift store. We later search them out online and discovered that most of the stuff is from the 80s and 90s. Chairs, a couple couches, a long wooden bench (one that looked weathered), a few side tables, all with no clue of why they are there or what happened to some of the old furniture. Oh, and some old dividers. They look like they were liberated from one of the closed stores. Pixie thought that they looked like sections of changing rooms.

With nothing else to go on, we snuck into one of the shuttered businesses. There wasn't much left in the lingerie store, and that included its changing rooms. There were mannequin, some still with clothes on, and some cheaper product, but not the changing rooms. Just an outline in the dust where they had been. No one would leave the rest of the stuff and take the changing rooms, so we narrowed down the source at our first stop. And since we were already taking a huge risk by coming in here, we made marks on all of the mannequins. Not obvious ones, but if we encounter another walking mannequin we'll know that it came from here.

Then we got the hell out of there. There's no need to push our luck when we're breaking and entering.

So, there's two pieces of good news. All of the crew have gotten our shots! Yay for science! I'm counting the days until I can get the second shot.

The second piece of good news? Hunter hadn't contacted any of us for a while. Here's hoping he'd moved on to somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Jack Flash

[Jack_Fisher]

So I had another Dream. I could tell that it was symbolic and I usually hate symbolic dreams. All the symbolism comes out of my head but I don't always understand it until it is too late. This dream was clearer than usual, which is a good thing.

Most of that dream didn't matter, but the end was the Scooby Doo gang unmasking a mannequin. A mask comes off to reveal that it was Mr. Smithers (who did it to impress Mr. Burns "and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids") when a real haunted mannequin taps Shaggy on his shoulder and says "Boo". Then the mannequin rips Scooby's head off, tears Daphne's dress off (and she had a purple bra and thong under it), and grabbed Velma's glasses. He smashed those glasses as the gang ran off. Scooby Doo got up, put his head back on, and ran after them. The mannequin chased them, Freddy Krueger style, making quips as it threatened them. After that the mannequin started killing them, one at a time, leaving only naked Daphne and Velma alive (their carpets matched their curtains). Oh, and Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo, and Scooby Dee died too. Ripped to little pieces. Died where the rest of the Scooby gang could see them and react in horror. Those reactions were more important than the deaths of the animal characters. That part stood out to me. That people reacting in horror meant more than animals dying.

So that was weird. My overall impression was, well, some idiot is doing a Scooby thing. Which made sense. That Dream is about the idiots with the website.

So I call the crew when I woke up (waking a few of them up) and let them know. Things started rolling, and rolling. Okay, some of this was lucky timing, but my Dreams often come at the right times. That website was update when I had that Dream. And it's still a fake site.

That outbuilding they added? It's supposed to be a woodshed. Which is fake. The actual woodshed was already in the picture. The real one was a large barn like building, but the inserted building was labelled the woodshed. There were even GPS co-ordinates there, from more than a century before GPS existed. Latitude and Longitude would make sense, but GPS?

Back to the fake website.

They linked the site of the woodshed to the various stores. Each of them had a backroom where "naughty kids" were dealt with. Which is bullshit. I'm not a historian but no one needed a private place to deal with a "naughty kid" in 1952. And probably not in 1960s or 1970s. Oh, and the GPS numbers are off. Those numbers are about a mile away from the mall.

More "historic incidents" have been added. Most of them are some ghost appearing and spanking bratty kids. Yes, the woodshed is mapped to those stores to the mall and there's been spankings happening there since the early 1800s. Which is bullshit. Those lines on the wall? Kids were spanked at the mall in that room and had to stare at those lines instead of facing a corner. Which is bullshit. The mall was built in 1992. There was no way they had something like in the 1990s. No way. That site claims that the room operated in the 2000s, at least until 2007, which just couldn't have happened. CPS and the cops would be all over them. The press would have swarmed that mall and we'd still be talking about the scandal.

That website has another addition - a link to a pay site. This whole thing is an alternate reality game (ARG) based in the mall. The haunting mannequin gets combined with the "spanking room" along with some local legends. I didn't pay for the ARG content, but more on that later.

Finding this out now is good. Prof called his cop friends and explained things to them. Our team has some people who are good with computers, but the cops have an IT wing for these situations. The cops in the know are letting their IT people know that the folks behind the ARG bit have been scaring and hurting people to sell their game. Which is a good thing to tell the mundane authorities. I think the cops are going to serve a search warrant on the lawyer who is the registered owner, which should shut those idiots down.

And not a minute too soon. Like I said, I didn't pay for ARG access, but Prof swung it through his budget. Well, he got the Dean interested, and that's the same thing. Yeah, the words "alternate reality" caught the Dean's attention. The man wants to explore the question of if "alternate reality" can complement his psychonautic explorations (that is, getting stoned on psychotropic drugs and taking trips in to his mind). So the crew met to see what is beyond the pay wall and the stuff there is scary.

Not the fake ghost stories (they have plot holes you can drive a hearse through) but the upsells. They're going to be leading tours through the mall, hinting that you could see a living mannequin and maybe find that room where all the spankings took place. They're turning the mall in to a haunted house. That's right, they're doing a haunted house where there's actually something weird going on! I'm thinking that this could be a slaughter.

Speaking of potential slaughters, someone spotted Hunter. He's been scouting around the mall. He's got a sports bag with him, and I'm sure that's where his weird weapons are. I don't think he's hunting us, but he could kill the AGR crowd. Or us. Or anyone. He is nuts.

So we're looking at things, but things are heating up. We've got to stop whatever it is before those idiots start doing their haunted house tours.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Bad news. That ARG team? They have money. Real money. They are incorporated and their website takes credit cards and crypto. They have insurance. They have PR person. They are even paying rent to the mall! Worst of all, they have a very good law team. Good enough that the police have backed off.

Yeah, people have been hurt (including a kid!) and the police are backing off. Everything is somehow "legal".

But back to the weird stuff. We encountered another mannequin. This time the mannequin was a kid, maybe 4 feet high, wearing summer clothes. The others unleashed on it as I opened myself. Yeah, I was a walking target, but I did the Commune with Spirits thing. And it worked. There was a Spirit inside that mannequin. Flamer was with us and when it caught fire it ran, getting away, but now we have an idea of what we're dealing with. Luckily Flamer was able to put out all the fires that got started because, well Flamer was with us. I'm pretty sure that the mannequin thing fled because it was on fire, but the fires were spreading and we needed to get those fires out before chasing it down.

When we caught up with the mannequin it was "empty". I told Prof about what I sensed, and we talked about it. Prof has a theory.

Bad news: we caught Kid at the mall again. He was in one of the dead areas of the mall, poking around again. This time Diviner handled it. There is still some mall furniture there (those uncomfortable bench seats things that are built in) and, well, she dragged him towards one, flopped him over her lap, and put him back on his feet. She explained that Hunter wasn't the only one who could spank him and maybe his parents would understand. She went on to tell him that Hunter has been seen here, carrying his weapons and looking for a fight. Her act left an impression, but the idea of meeting Hunter again made a larger impression.

The message sank in, again. But Kid's a kid. I thought he had gotten the message before, I was sure he was, but at that age the "I'll never do it again" vibe doesn't last long.

So Prof is going to talk to Kid's parents again, but first he interviewed me to get my impression of what I sensed. I used Telepathy to give him my impressions, and he's working out what it was. He has an idea already (it feeds on fear, inhabits things, and that's pointing us in one direction) and is working out a plan to handle it.

We now have a deadline to handle this thing. We have to stop it before that group starts running tours through that place. I mean, running a haunted house around a Thing that feeds off fear and attacks people? Something that's hard for us to handle? That could be a bloodbath. If nothing else those people could be mentally and emotionally scarred forever.

Flamer has an idea, one that we might have to use. It involves buying out all of the tickets for the first tour or two. Now that's expensive, and Prof's expensive budget has shrunk because of audits, and some of us can't afford the ticket price, but that might be better than allowing normal people to be attacked.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

People are idiots. Every time I think I know just how stupid people can be I'm proven wrong by someone doing something much stupider. It's amazing that some people are still living - Darwinism should have taken them down by now.

Stupid people.

That ARG group? They are hiring "Little People". The type that used to be called midgets, not the type that was called dwarfs. None of them over 4 feet tall. Why? To be the "kids" in the "punishment room". We scouted that room again and discovered boxes filled with... well if you can swing it against a butt it's in those boxes. There's also kids' underwear scattered around. There's also an all call for actual child and young teen actors, which has me shaking my head. There's no details about those roles, but I'm hoping that they are just playing ghosts.

Yes, we finally made contact with the people behind that website. We met them. We explained things to them. We explained how dangerous things were, and they countered with how profitable things were. Yes, they have money, but that's family money and they all want to be rich with their own money.

Now the person behind the ARG is someone I've labelled as SH, with the H standing for Head and the S being that noble Anglo-Saxon word Shit. And I'm not the only one; the entire crew feels the same. See, SH is a woman who happens to be a Medium. She's in her early 20s and only recently stumbled over her powers. After talking to her, we're more than half convinced that she lured the weird thing to the mall.

Aside: Prof says that he knows what we're facing in the mall. A ghost / entity thingie that moves into and between the mannequins or can build a body out of loose materials. A medium could easily get it to move into that dying mall.

The money man, sorry, money boy (hereafter called MB), makes Preppy look humble in comparison. Seriously, he's arrogant, entitled, and looks down on anyone who isn't wealthy. In some ways he's more annoying than Hunter, but not as racist, sexist, and murderous. Why? Because MB bases all of his attitudes off of his parent's money. MB accepts that there's an uncontrolled thing that has hurt people in that mall, but he sees it as free publicity. Something driving the ARG that's mostly a haunted house attraction backed with a fake history and some web stuff. I think he's around 18 or 19, so he might change IF he lives long enough to learn something.

And that's a big if.

There's several others, all with family money, all late teens or early 20s. About half of them think that they are a real parapsychologist style ghost hunters (or at least cable TV style ghost hunters) while the other half think the supernatural is bullshit. What unites them? A desire for money. Oh, and the half that believes? They're stoked at having a real ghost for their haunted house. Yeah, even after people have been hurt. Even though they could get hurt, or killed.

Why are they still going ahead? Because people are idiots.

Oh, and they're all either anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers, or both. Why? Because people are idiots.

No, the cops aren't thinking about stopping them. At least not yet. I don't know why they aren't getting involved, but I have an idea that might work. Of course I thought the plan was perfect because I came up with it so I tossed it to the crew to poke holes in. They found some holes, and they worked out ways to do things anonymously. Which is good because I'm not getting caught doing any of this crap.

I'm taking a page from Hunter's toolbox. Those idiots want to mix spanking and a haunted house? Fine. They're buying online ads and putting up posters advertising the website / tour / urban legend. Well we'll going to change those ads and maybe put new ones up. Ones with art that could be illegal. They want to run ads hinting that they'll beat kids? Well those ads are about to become explicit. Of course I'm making sure to use a different artistic style. I'm even borrowing one of the university's graphic stations and printing the art on an old printer that someone picked from a pawnshop. Yes, modern printers have watermarks and I'm not risking someone tracing this stuff back to me.

So here's hoping we can those idiots shutdown before their first tour.

Oh, right, I almost forgot about the weird stuff. We've traced the possessing thing to one of the mall's closed department stories. The mannequins we damaged? They are there. Prof set up sensors and other equipment and we're hoping that we can track it down and take it out before the first tour. Ironically it would help if we had a medium working with us, but the only one we know of is SH.

Sigh. Anyway, I'm planning to Astral Project and see what I can see there. Yeah, it's dangerous to do that where a weird spirit / entity thing is hanging out, but not as dangerous as doing that possibly illegal art.

Jack

[Jack_Fisher]

Okay, I did that Astral scouting thing. It didn't end badly. It didn't go as well as it could, but I came back alive so it wasn't as bad as it could be.

Yes, I spotted something. Something big and ugly. Something that had gotten fat on a diet of terror and pain. It was cruel. Some creatures are merely uncaring or don't know how their actions impact on normal people, but this one wanted people to suffer. Not good. Very not good.

But more on that later.

The first place I went was the room at the heart of the haunted house tour, and it wasn't empty. SH and MB were there with some of the others, talking about the big launch, and SH's spirit guide was hanging around. I got to talking to him, and he answered my questions, mostly because he's bored with only talking to SH. His name is Eddy (short for Ebenezer). He was 11 when he died in 1932. His death was an accident, one he still blames on his sister, and SH is descended from that sister. He's trying to be a mentor to SH, but that's not going well. He might have been born in 1920 (research showed that he died 2 months, 11 days from his twelve birthday) but she treats him like he's an 11-year-old boy. That annoys him, and he's got the patience and tempter of an 11-year-old because ghosts don't mature. He'd like to see her taught a painful but not fatal lesson, which is why he's encouraging her to go with this ARG. He thinks that she might get the "good thrashing" that she needs.

I tired to convince him to change her mind, but, well, a) he's got the mentality of a small boy, b) he's a spirit and spirits don't like changing their mind, and c) he's still her spirit guide and thinks that this is for her own good. I pointed out the danger, but he's fine with her getting hurt. Just as long as she doesn't die, and if she does then it will be "an accident" like the one that killed him.

I finally gave up talking to SH's spirit guide and went to that shuttered department store. It took a bit of looking, but I spotted it before it spotted me. It was cruel and slightly amused by me being on the Astral Plane. I tried to convince it to leave, but it claimed that this place was his, gifted to him "by the boy", and it wasn't going to leave. That confirms that SH lured it here for the ARG - which shows how much of an idiot she is.

I debated trying to take it on by myself, but this was just a scouting mission. While I was mentally debating Eddy came up behind me, trapping me between the Thing and the spirit guide. Eddy said something about teaching me a lesson so I snapped back to my body.

Which was in the lab, surrounded by the crew, and I started what Prof calls the "debrief" and what I call the "Okay, here's what happened" bit. It didn't take long to confirm that Eddy died when he said he did, that it was an accident, and that papers said that there was no one to blame. It helped that we had already researched family trees for SH, MB, and some of the others. Um, by "we" I mean Diviner who is Prof's current summer student, along with Grad Student.

Armed with this fresh knowledge, we are working on a plan, factoring in that we'll probably have to deal with Eddy and the thing. And that deadline of the first tour is coming up. My guess is Eddy will work with the thing to cause trouble and people could get killed. Even if they aren't killed they'll get hurt by Weird Stuff and that's bad.

We finally got a bit of video surveillance in that room. No, we didn't get a new budget - but sometimes you have to make due. We're using an old dash cam with a 512 GB memory card. Normally it plugs into a USB socket in a car, but we've got a USB power source that should keep it working for 36 hours. We'll try to switch power sources and download the video every day. It should give us some insight to what those idiots are planning.

Oh, and that plan to have the cops shut them down? It seems that only photos can be illegal, not artwork. At least not the artwork in this case; it's classified like those old Coppertone ads. Who knew? Another brilliant plan bites the dust. At least I'm not linked to that art.

Jack