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Post By The Hooded Hood passes through for the Feast of All Hallows. Sat Oct 29, 2005 at 11:00:58 am EDT |
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#237: Untold Hallowe’en Tales of the Lair Legion: The Watery Grave, or ‘Twas the Night Before Hallowe’en… | |
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| #237: Untold Hallowe’en Tales of the Lair Legion: The Watery Grave, or ‘Twas the Night Before Hallowe’en… The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse “Ah, young Visionary,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton called as he caught the possible-fake man walking down the corridor dressed as the Marquis de Sade. “The very chap. Are you busy?” Visionary indicated the velvet jacket with the lacy cuffs and ruffles. “I’m trying on my costume for Pricilla.” “New costume, eh?” Mumphrey approved. “Jolly good. Much better than that strange yellow coat thing you used to wear. Absolutely.” “My costume for Dancer’s Hallowe’en party tomorrow night,” Vizh clarified. “Hey, what’s wrong with my yellow coat?” “Do I need to write the full list?” Pricilla DuBois asked, stalking round the corner in fishnets and a crimson leotard. She was going to Dancer’s fancy dress party as the notorious supervillainess the Vermillion Vex. She’d even managed to get the demon-horn tiara from somewhere. “Ah, Ms DuBois,” Sir Mumphrey said, snorting in the embarrassed fashion of a Victorian gentleman who very much approved of a lady’s costume choice but wasn’t allowed to say so. “Didn’t realise Visionary was courting.” “Oh, he’s courted me twice already today,” Pricilla answered. “I was so courted I could hardly walk afterwards.” “Um, we’re just trying on our outfits,” Visionary said hurriedly, trying to avoid the eccentric Englishman’s eyes. “You asked if I was busy?” “Hmph. Got a strange little case to investigate. Rum do. Don’t want to call in a full squad, but I thought I’d grab two or three chaps and have a wander out there. Volunteers.” Vizh swallowed. “Are these voluntary volunteers or the usual kind?” “Oh, just some chaps who want to get into the spirit of the Feast of All Hallows. A little ghost hunting, that’s all.” “Ghosts?” worried Visionary. “Ghosts,” perked up Pricilla. “Ooh, can I come?” “Well, we don’t usually take civilians on Legion cases, Ms DuBois,” the leader of the Lair Legion warned her. “Nonsense,” Vizh’s girlfriend told him. “You dragged half of Paradopolis with you on that world tour of yours. Besides, I have super-powers.” “The ability to make ketchup bottles splurt out isn’t going to save you against the hordes of hell,” Visionary warned. “Hordes of hell?” Yuki Shiro asked, sticking her purple-topped head out of the rec room door. “Did I just hear hordes of hell? I haven’t fought any hordes of hell since that University business.” “I’m still having flashbacks,” Visionary admitted. Pricilla took his arm. “Sir Mumphrey, I can’t possibly allow Visionary to go out and abandon me, but I don’t mind him taking me along. To protect me.” Yuki tossed her ipod back into the rec room (it was a fashion choice, not a necessity given she was a cyborg with considerably more hard drive space than the music gadget) and she linked herself onto Visionary’s other arm. “If it’s a ghost investigation, I’m the associate member who’s supposed to be the investigator. Hordes of hell, you said?” “Just some weird happenings down in Snyder Hollow, that’s all. No need to take a busload,” Mumph assured her. “Four isn’t a busload,” Pricilla argued. Mr Epitome rounded the corner, strapping on one of Al B. Harper’s standard ectoplasmic wave mapping backpacks. “I’m ready, Sir Mumphrey,” the paragon of power said, then halted nonplussed when he saw the Marquis de Sade, the Vermillion Vex, and a punk cyborg waiting to join the mission. “Visionary is an essential component of this investigation,” Pricilla insisted, meeting Epitome’s stare. “In case we need a victim to show how the monster works?” the exemplary man suggested. “Hey!” objected Visionary. “I don’t always get thrown to the monster, you know. Sometimes it’s spiffy or Nats.” “spiffy and Nats aren’t here,” Yuki pointed out helpfully. “We could always take Trickshot along,” Vizh suggested hopefully. The irritating archer rounded the corner. “Did someone call?” “I thought you had to say his name three times before he appeared to plague you,” Pricilla frowned. “It’s a ghost-hunting outing,” Yuki explained. “Who they gonna call?” “Ghost-hunting? Hey, count Bre’r Tricky in!” “But…” said Sir Mumphrey. “Six is still a manageable number,” Visionary offered. “If we take a big Lairjet.” Hatman appeared out of the Monitor Room, strapping on one of Al B. Harper’s ectoplasmic wave mapping backpacks. “I got one,” Epitome told him. “Hatty’s coming too?” Trickshot realised. “I thought he was busy chaperoning Little Miss Fun Fur.” Zdenka Zarazoza, the Candian exchange visitor, appeared in the Monitor Room doorway behind the capped crusader. Hatman looked sheepish “Er, well, actually, since Zdenka’s supposed to be shadowing me…” “So that’s what you kids are calling it these days,” Yuki chipped in, contributing the traditional quip. “I would be pleased to see decadent American ghost,” Zvesti Zdrugo assured the team. “More the merrier, wolfie,” Trickshot assured the graceful Candian woman. “Hey, I wonder if I kin get Natalia to come along so we can double-date?” “This is a serious psychic investigation, not a lonely hearts club outing,” muttered Sir Mumphrey. “You could have fooled me,” glowered Mr Epitome. 1665 Ploog Street was one of the old houses built by the Lutherian church up on the hill. As the two Lair Legion vehicles drew up (one a four by four all terrain vehicle, the other an antique Rolls Royce) there seemed to be an argument going on outside. A power company workman was trying to take down a ladder that was propped against a pylon while an angry woman kept battering him with a newspaper and a beat cop tried to separate them. Meanwhile a soaked teenager was picking up pieces of TV set from the drive. “This must be the place,” Mr Epitome said. “See what all the fuss is about, would you, Visionary old chap?” Sir Mumphrey suggested. The possibly fake man pushed Pricilla off his lap and slid out of the vehicle. “Hi,” he called. “I’m with the Lair Legion.” The teenaged boy looked him up and down. Vizh was glad he’d changed back into his familiar trademark yellow coat rather than the ensemble Pricilla had picked out for him. “No way,” said the youth. “You don’t look anything like Visionary. He’s not old and balding.” “Sure he is, kid,” Trickshot assured. “And he’s getting a little pudgy round the tum too.” “I’m on a cruller-free diet,” Vizh argued, unhappily glancing at Pricilla DuBois, the source of the ban. “What is this, trick or treat?” the kid asked. Hatman couldn’t stay out of it. He was the police liaison for the LL anyhow. “Officer, what seems to be the problem?” he asked the beleaguered policeman. “Stop hitting that state official,” Zdenka advised the woman with the newspaper. “Before they send in riot squad and tanks and bulldoze your house.” The woman looked very miserable. “I wish they would,” she admitted. “At least then it would all be over.” Yuki was squatting over the fragments of television scattered outside the door. “This was tossed,” she deduced. “Quite hard, judging by the scatter patterns.” “It wasn’t me,” the soaked kid denied. “They say it was, but it wasn’t.” Freed for the moment from newspaper assaults, the power company man tried again to escape with his ladder. “Look lady, I gotta go! I checked your line, okay. It’s working fine.” “You said there were fluctuations,” she accused. “You said it buried the needle of your meter.” “I said there were momentary fluctuations. Nothing serious.” Mr Epitome was staring into the house, right through the walls. “You appear to have a water leak,” he warned the occupants. “It’s coming down right in the middle of the kitchen.” “Sure, we know,” the teenager answered as if it was self-evident. “It always does the kitchen about tea-time.” “It does?” Pricilla asked in a fascinated tone. “You know I’m beginning to see what you people enjoy about this. There’s an element of black comedy to so many of your cases.” “Like when we throw Vizh to the monster,” suggested Yuki. “Madam,” Sir Mumphrey said to the distressed woman, “There’s no point detaining this poor chap. He’s done his job, what?” “He’s not done his job. He’s trying to cover the backs of his employers in case their new power pole caused all the trouble we’re having. He’s not explained why all our fuses keep blowing, and why the TV set flew out of the door twenty minutes ago.” “That had to be thrown,” the cop accused. “And the kid was the only person in the house.” “See?” the teenaged boy appealed to Yuki (who, being a purple-haired hot chick was undoubtedly the coolest person there). “I told you they’d blame me!” “With the amount of water leaking into that house it’s no wonder there’s electrical faults,” Mr Epitome noted. “There’s water trickling right out of some of the first floor sockets!” Sir Mumphrey asserted himself again. “Right. Jay, Ms Zarazoza, take this constable over there and take a statement from him. Visionary, Ms DuBois, talk to the lady. Yuki, the gentleman from the power company. Bastion, the youngster. Mr Clancy with me please and we’ll go take a look at this bally leaking water, what? All clear?” But when Mumphrey and Mr Epitome ventured inside the house on Ploog Street the water incursions had completely stopped. The sofa was patched where it had been slashed with something sharp, and the fabric was still slightly damp. Sir Mumphrey settled back with a cup of tea and gestured to indicate Yuki should start the summary. “The Spring family have lived in this house for seventeen years,” she began. “Father James, mother Dorothy, and their fourteen year old boy Jack. And they’ve not had any problems with the house until about seven months ago.” “I think they have a definite damp problem now,” noted Vizh, his sensibilities heightened as a new homeowner himself. “In March they had intermittent problems with water seepage in the kitchen. Drips from the roof. They called a plumber, but there are no pipes above that part of the kitchen.” “I checked,” Mr Epitome confirmed. Mr Epitome had x-ray vision. “I could see channels in the dust on the top side of the ceiling panels where considerable amounts of water had trickled, but I can’t figure where it comes from.” “Neither could the plumber,” continued Yuki. “A while later the family began to notice they were suffering quite a few electrical problems. Fuses shorting out, lots of light bulks blowing.” “I went up the pole outside again with my Con Ed hat on,” Hatman contributed. “The linesman was right that there is some fluctuation that’s not usual, but I don’t think it’s happening at the power company’s end.” “There was a minor fire with the toaster,” Yuki told them. “That kind of thing could happen to anybody,” assured Vizh. “To anybody in a yellow coat,” Pricilla contributed. “James Spring is close friend of commissar, yes?” asked Zdenka. “To possess of toaster for personal domestic use?” “The fire services have been called out to this house nineteen times this year,” Hatman added. “That’d be an all-time record if it wasn’t for Vizh’s condo. They were the first people to suggest wiring problems or an electrical anomaly.” “Which the power company denies,” Mumphrey reminded them. “To avoid litigation,” Trickshot snorted. “Anyhow, according to the kid things got really bad when they started getting busted up and tossed around when there was no-one in the room.” “According to the kid,” Pricilla pointed out. “I talked to the neighbours,” Yuki pointed out. “A few of them have seen sudden bursts of water and watched windows smashing when Jack’s nowhere around.” “The cops are pretty sure one or more of the family are behind this,” Hatman reported. “Maybe as an insurance scam, or hoping to tell their story or something.” Sir Mumphrey stroked his whiskers and considered. “Maybe. But these people seem genuinely frightened. If they’re fraudsters then they’ve perpetrated the fraud without getting caught for months. Nobody will believe them that something extraordinary is happening here. Let’s just imagine for a moment that they are right.” “Maybe we can get someone expert in ta look at this?” Trickshot suggested. “The Shoggoth maybe?” “Because that’s just what a nervous terrified household needs,” Pricilla snorted. “More things oozing.” “Xander’s still missing, but I suppose we could try to find Con Johnstantine,” Vizh suggested through gritted teeth. “Or Hagatha Darkness,” added Epitome, with a smirk towards Hatman. Zvesti Zdrugo gestured to the devastated kitchen where the Spring family were mopping. “These people are needing of help, yes? They are frightened and threatened. It is best we help them, please?” “That’s what we do,” Hatman appealed to his team mates. “Something sure smashed up this house. Something strong. Have we tested the Swifts for latent mutate abilities?” “They came out mutate negative, poor things,” Pricilla answered. “Well then,” Mumphrey decided, “I imagine the best thing to do would be to spend the night and keep watch. Deploy young Harper’s thingummybobs and whatnot. Try to work out if a con’s being played and if so how and by whom. And if it’s some kind of supernatural beastie, pot it back to the netherpits, what?” “Dibs I get the armchair!” called Trickshot. “It’s very kind of you to help out while Mr Papadapopolis is having his veruccas treated,” Dancer said, “but when the children come to the Coffee Bar for trick or treat they really expect a treat.” “They clearly offered a choice,” puzzled the Manga Shoggoth, oozing back into his bandages. “The nice thing about living in a gothic castle,” noted Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo, “is that no annoying children dare come to ask for candies.” “Then why did we buy so many candies?” wondered Silicone Sally. “As a contingency plan,” scowled the Baroness, sweeping away up the staircase with a tub of chocolate bars protectively in her arms. Baron Otto watched her go with a worried expression. “I hope she’s wrong about the little children,” he declared. “After all, I oiled the spikes in the pit trap specially.” “What are you going to do?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! demanded. “Hold on,” Al B. Harper told his comrades in arms. “I’m just programming an algorithm to help calculate the odds and inform a flow logic chart.” “There’s no time for that, man,” CSFB! urged him. “Not with the Librarian wounded on the floor and undead racing down the corridor towards us.” “I’m not used to this kind of thing. It’s a bit of a change from my usual work.” “That’s the point, right? So get out there and kick some evil butt!” “And preferably before I bleed to death,” contributed the Librarian. “If you don’t mind. The archscientist looked very worried. “Alright then,” he decided impulsively, putting his keyboard aside and throwing the dice. “I run forward and hit the vampires with a fireball for 32 points of damage.” “So there are such things as ghosts?” Pricilla asked as the investigating team hunkered down for the night. They’d sent the Swifts to bed, but Trickshot and Epitome were camping out on Jack’s floor to keep an eye on him and Mumphrey was outside the parents’ door. “I guess,” admitted Visionary. He’d never taken a date on a ghost hunt before, but he could see Pricilla was into the whole thing. “We have a banshee at the Lair Mansion. Lovely woman. But who knows what these ghosts really are, spirits of the dead, or echoes, or telepathic thingies, or something entirely different?” “There are ghosts,” Rabid Wolf contributed. “Spirits who cling to the land where they died, or to some object. Animals can see them, and when I am animal I see them too.” “You do?” Hatman was fascinated by pretty much anything about Zdenka. “Do you see ghosts here?” The Candian beauty shook her head. “But it may be that I am far from home. When I am from Candia I am not so much able to do things.” Pricilla snorted. “Not what I heard.” Yuki looked up sharply. “Guys, there’s… Guys , there’s an electromagnetic pulse around here. My buffers are being overloading around ever… My buffers are being overloaded around every two seconds.” “Get out of here,” Vizh warned her. “We should have realised there were dangerous electrical anomalies in this place!” “Are you kidding?” Yuki grinned. “Just when it’s getting interesting?” Hatman thumbed his comm-card. “Sir Mumphrey, we have activity.” His comm-card screamed back at him. “You’re a big superhero, right?” “Yep,” agreed Jack’s first floor-guest. “The one and only Trickshot the Marksman, in living colour!” “He’s a medium-sized superhero,” Mr Epitome suggested. “Small to medium.” “So you’ve got to have faced spooky situations before.” “Oh sure,” Tricky grinned. “Like that Hallowe’en with all the tentacles, and that thing with the sunken mall of D’Leyh. Oh, and the ghost sandwich case.” “The what?” “Heh. Only time my Mayo Arrow ever saved the day!” “One of the few arguments for you actually being in the Legion,” suggested Mr Epitome. “If we get hungry, you have an arrow we can put on our sandwiches.” “Hey, I don’t see you bringing the munchies to the major battles, flag-butt!” Epitome jumped up from the floor and headed out to the landing. “I’m going to check in with Sir Mumphrey. If you see a ghost try not to scream like a girl.” “Hey, I’m not the one wearin’ the womens underwear under their costume,” called back the archer. He caught Jack’s glance. “I have no idea whut kind of underwear he wears really. Honestly.” Jack nodded uncertainly. “All I’m asking is… are there such things as ghosts? Or maybe poltergeists? I read up that sometimes poltergeists seem to attach themselves to teenage kids. And I’m, well, a teenage kid.” “There’s more weird stuff than you’d believe in this old Parodyverse of ours,” Trickshot replied. “But look kid, if you’ve got somethin’ ta do with all this, now’s the time to spill it. Did you maybe find this old ouija board wit’ your buddies and maybe give it a try? Or secretly accidentally kill somebody last summer and bury them on the road? Or, y’know, sign any pacts with guys with horns?” “No. Why won’t anybody believe me? Why?” And then the wardrobe fell over on Trickshot. Sir Mumphrey looked up from his vigil as Mr Epitome came to find him. “Anything?” “Not sure. I’m smelling a build up of ozone.” “Hmph. We’re quite a way from the sea here.” “Yes. Though I keep hearing gulls too.” Mumphrey frowned. “All that water coming through the ceilings. I don’t suppose anybody checked whether it was fresh or sea water?” Epitome’s eyes changed focus for a moment. “It’s left some salt staining on the fabrics.” “Well then. Now we’re getting’ somewhere. Why on earth should a house be supernaturally filled with sea water and electricity?” “If it was some kind of electrical anomaly caused by that new power pole I suppose there could be some kind of electromagnetic effect drawing the moisture from the ground.” “From the graveyard soil next door?” wondered Mumphrey. “Well, it’s an idea. But really I don’t know why that should cause such malicious effects. It’s like there’s an angry sentience behind this, petulant and vengeful.” “Assuming it isn’t just an attempt for the Swifts to get compensation or to sell a book.” “Indeed. But I’m tending to believe these people. Looks to me like they’re at the end of their tether. They’ve tried the utility companies. They’ve called the emergency services and had no help. Finally they used the Legion hot line.” “We may be wasting valuable time on a set of red herrings though,” Mr Epitome warned. “Even if there is some genuine metaphysical manifestation occurring here the documentation of such cases always indicates that it seems to vanish in the presence of qualified investigators. We’ll probably find…” The crash of the wardrobe in Jack’s room echoed through the house. The living room door flew open and Visionary and Hatman rushed out. Their comm-cards were screaming for help. “There is something unhappy here,” Zdenka Zarazoza said to Pricilla DuBois. “But I cannot tell it. It is angry, and maybe frightened. Confused, perhaps.” “Could you be a little vaguer?” asked the Vermillion Vex. “Trickshot’s gonna be okay,” Yuki reported, returning to the lounge. “The wardrobe mostly hit his head, so he’s not that injured.” “There was no sign of strings or mechanisms to make the furniture topple,” Hatman noted. “I’ll check the scanning equipment to see if there was any micro-seismic activity.” Upstairs the Swift family were up and panicking. “That thing could have killed our son if it fell on him,” Mr Swift was shouting. “We have to get out of here. We’ll all be murdered in our beds!” There was the unmistakable sound of Sir Mumphrey slapping him. “Pull yourself together, man! No time for hysterics. You have a wife and child, dammit!” “There’s got to be a way to get to the bottom of this case,” Visionary said. “But really we’ve got the wrong team here. If only Sorceress was still around, or even Ziles…” “Why do you need those people?” demanded Pricilla, slightly jealously. “You want to get to the bottom of this? Well I’m sure that will happen.” And she concentrated her secret vex powers to make the most annoying thing possible come to pass. And the haunting woke up. The house shook as the thunder pealed. A bolt of lighting arced from the power cable across to the Swift dwelling, flaring through the wiring, searing into the remaining electrical equipment. Yuki spasmed for a moment as her buffers dealt with the potential overload. The lounge ceiling collapsed, hammering the people below to the ground under a tidal wave of freezing salt water. The whole room seemed to rock. The furniture rolled over, slamming into the heroes as they foundered, suddenly in danger of drowning in a domestic living room. Mr Epitome grabbed Mr and Mrs Swift to stop them being washed away by the torrents on the upper landing. Trickshot pressed Jack through the doorway, narrowly avoiding a fresh torrent that spewed through the floorboards below them. Visionary, Hatman, and Zdenka could no longer feel the lounge floor beneath them. It was as if they were washed above a vast watery abyss that sought to suck them down. Then Visionary felt bony hands close around his ankles and pull him under the water. He was going to show the others how the monster worked. A huge silver dolphin swirled beside him, nudging away his attacker, helping him back to the surface. Rabid Wolf could take many animal forms. She pressed him towards where Hatman and Pricilla were clinging to the floating coffee-table. “Okay, so that wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” Pricilla admitted to herself. “On the other hand, it’s not boring.” There was the sound of snapping timbers and the currents began to pull the floating Legionnaires into a great whirlpool spiral. Hatman reached for his diver’s helmet. Sir Mumphrey Wilton reached for his temporal pocketwatch and stopped time. “Right,” he breathed. “Enough of this claptrap. Let’s find out what’s going on.” He reached over and tapped Yuki Shiro on the shoulder, releasing her from the little pocket of held time. “This way please, m’dear,” he said to her. “What’s going on?” asked the cyborg P.I. She hadn’t seen one of the eccentric Englishman’s time stops before. “We’re getting’ to the bottom of this, that’s what,” Mumph answered her. “And I need a detective.” They went outside, where the house was being wracked by a ferocious thunderstorm. Pressing through the suspended rain droplets absolutely soaked them. Mumphrey led the way to the power pole. “There’s no way this could be an electromagnetic effect,” Yuki warned. “I’d have detected any weird standing wave long before now.” “But this all started just a few days after the new pole was erected,” Mumph remembered. “Only change we’ve heard of that might have triggered events.” He reached out and examined the old heavy wood. “This isn’t a new pole,” he frowned. He raised the Chronometer of Infinity to it. “Hmph. Was first cut in 1844! July 14th, 9.38am.” Yuki shinned up it to examine further. “There are old holes in the side where things have been joined on to it,” she reported. “Looks like the power company’s saving money by using second hand timbers.” “What’s been joined onto it, would you say, Ms Shiro?” Yuki looked more carefully. The upper section of the pole was slightly charred, although the top had been sawed clean. Part way down small wedges had been hammered in to fill joint-holes, and there were marks where bolts had been passed through the timber. This didn’t look like it had previously been a power pole. It looked more as if it had once been…” “A mast!” Yuki called. “Sir Mumphrey, I think this is a ship’s mast!” “A ship as in sea water, as in struck by lightning, as in men drowning, screaming for help?” the eccentric Englishman demanded. “As in furniture being tossed all around while a ship was hurled over a story sea,” Yuki went on. “And maybe as in vengeful, unhappy, restless spirits who died of drowning in an untimely tempest. It was never the electrical connection that was the problem here. It was the pole itself!” “Jolly good. Right, let’s get Mr Epitome.” “Epitome? Why do you need him?” “Because you’re strong m’dear, but he’s able to caber-toss this damned stick all the way to a watery grave.” Visionary wrung the water out of one corner of his coat. “Well, that’s another case dealt with,” he sighed. “And it did get those ketchup stains out of my hem.” “So all’s well that ends well,” retorted the Vermillion Vex. “I’m amazed that you guys even survived this.” “We’ve faced much worse than this and survived,” Hatman told her. “The Legion’s resourceful.” “Yes, I’ll have to keep that in mind.” “Legion will help of these poor people to rebuild their home, yes?” Zdenka asked anxiously. “Is not their fault they were given power pole of capitalist exploitation vessel.” “The Bautista Foundation usually steps in with a chequebook,” Mr Epitome told her. “And I’m sure the Librarian’s going to enjoy working out exactly which wrecked sailing vessel it was that contributed its timbers to our little adventure.” “And I’ll be paying a visit to the power company,” added Yuki, “to have a chat with them about cut-price power poles.” Trickshot snorted as he anticipated that discussion. “I’ll get CSFB! to have a word with his imaginary dead girl-pal to see if she can’t do somethin’ for whatever the hell it is that’s haunting that bit o’ wood,” Trickshot suggested. “Then we’re done here?” Pricilla checked. “Only I need to get home and wash the salt out of my hair to be ready for the fancy dress party tonight.” “There’s still a party,” Vizh winced. It was back to being the Divine Marquis. And far out to sea a wooden mast floated on the tides, and brooded, and waited its day. Nightmare on Footnote Street: The inspiration for the ghost story in this chapter came from an account of an alleged real-life haunting at 3 Church Lane, Adisham, Kent, England. In 1976, after living in the house for 23 years, the Orchard family (father, mother, and teenage son) began having trouble with strange water incursions, flooding the cottage to a depth of three inches. When a table was moved to pile possessions on it, it was seen to rise from the floor. When an engineer from the power company arrived to inspect soaked sockets water gushed from them. In the following year the cottage became completely uninhabitable. Random water and electrical effects, plumbing torn from walls, wrecked furniture, and smashed windows were commonplace. Local police blamed the teenage son, even though some damage, such as shattered windows and broken furniture, occurred while he wasn’t in the house. Having employed a private electrical engineer who found significant electrical irregularities in the power supply, the Orchards blamed the power company’s new high-tension pole for “electrical osmosis”. In 1978 the Orchards issued a writ against the power company, and their claim was heard in court in 1995. Numerous neighbours and expert witnesses testified to the strange goings on at 3 Church Lane. A number of photographs of wreckage were produced as evidence. It’s a rare case of a ghost story ending in a court case. The judge found against the Orchards despite the weight of supporting testimony, suggesting that the Orchards’ accounts must be consciously or unconsciously untruthful because of their content. The case is discussed in more detail in #203 of the Fortean Times. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2005 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2005 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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