Index 1 E221.1

The first story in a collection of stories that revolve around Fenton Umbren and his work with the IIA

The call came in around midnight, rousing Fenton from his sleep.  After fumbling around in the dark for a second, he found his phone. 

“What is it?”

“We have an E221.1.” The operator replied.

Fenton let out a sigh, falling back onto his bed “Another one? I’ll take care of it.” He hangs up the phone and heaves himself out of bed. A E221.1, a dead wife haunting husband on second wife, the second one this week, at least it was something easy. Fenton sighs again and pulls on his uniform, a simple shirt with a long coat bearing the agency logo on it. Still half asleep, he made himself a cup of coffee, black. Now a bit more awake, he got into his car and drove to the station. When he arrived it was around 12:30, he pushed open the glass double doors into the well lit interior

“Welcome Dr. Umbren” the operator piped when she saw him.

“Good morning Operator, an E221.1 huh, well, at least its something easy”

As he walked by the Operator, he handed him a slip of paper with an address and name on it. Then, Fenton headed into the back of the station and into the armory. While there were a few firearms, it was mainly things like salt, cross, silvered weapons, and the like. Fenton mumbled to himself as he ran his hands over the racks of things, eventually taking a flashlight, some salt, a fire starter, and a silver cross, just in case things went south. Now all geared up, Fenton walked out the back of the station, and got into an agency cruiser, he inputted the address the Operator had given him, and took off. 

He arrived a short time later at a modest middle class home. He got out of his cruiser and knocked on the door. The door was answered by a tired and disheveled looking man.

“Oh, thank goodness you're here, I’v-”

Fenton cut him off “Are you John Peterson who called in the E221.1 at around 12 this morning?”

Peterson looked taken aback “I- uh, yes, that’s me, now can you please help me?”

“Of course sir I just need you to answer a few questions”

“Alright, yea sure.” Peterson ran a stressed hand through his hair “What do you want to know?”

“How long has your wife been dead?”

“One year exactly”

“How long have you been married to your new wife?”

“About six months now”

“What things happened to prompt you to call us?”

“She started throwing things about, and made blood leak from the ceiling, and tried to strangle my new wife.”

“And what makes you so sure it’s her?”

“She called me by her pet name for me, no one else knows it, and it sounded like her”

“Alright one more question, where is your wife buried?”

“I don't see how-”

“Just answer the question, sir”

“In the old cemetery, just down the road but why-”

Fenton cuts him off again “Thank you for your cooperation, a cleaning crew will be here shortly to clean any messes the ghost may have made, they will not however replace any objects that may have been broken, have a nice rest of the evening.”

Fenton walked briskly back to his cruiser, and, after calling in a cleaning crew, headed to the cemetery Peterson had given him. When he got there, he grabbed a shovel from the trunk of the cruiser, and headed into the cemetery, it didn't take him long to find the grave, Emily Peterson, the date was wrong, almost 5 years ago, why did Peterson lie about it, Fenton shrugged, not his job to worry about it. After about 2 hours of digging, he had finally unearthed the coffin, and after a quick walk back to the cruiser to grab an axe, and broke open the coffin, and after moving the splinters out of the way. He threw several handfuls of salt over the body, and after lighting a match, burned the body. He stoop there in silence and said a small prayer

“I release you from your business in this world, may you pass peacefully from this world into the next.”

Fenton stood in silence with his head bowed as the fire burned itself out, as the fire burned down to embers, Fenton set about re-burying the coffin, and when that was done, he got back in his cruiser, and drove back to the station. On his way back he stopped by the Peterson home to let him know the problem was dealt with and to call again if any more problems occurred. The cleanup crew came by and cleaned up the blood and broken vases. With that done he drove back to the station, sent his gear down for cleaning, and wrote his after occurrence report. “Subject [John Peterson] experienced a level 2 E221.1, Subject said it had been dead for “1 year exactly” however the date on the E221.1’s tombstone indicated it had been dead for 5 years, reason for discrepancy is unknown, further investigation recommended. E221.1 dispatched via salting and burning of it’s bones. Fenton placed his report in the tray, and drove back to his house, signing out with,

“I'm going to bed, signing out.”

When he arrived home, he rehung his uniform and collapsed back into bed, and went back to sleep.

Author's Note

the first of hopefully a seris

Reviews

[Anni Pon]

Awesome! I was drawn in immediately. I love the idea of a professional ghost hunting agency, and you introduced a bit of mystery with the discrepancy in years, which I assume will come back again in the following chapters. That's enough to keep the reader wanting to read more to find out the answer. Great work!

One minor critique is that there's a few typos and punctuation issues, in the first few paragraphs especially. Missing periods, run on sentences that should probably be broken up into two separate sentences instead of connected by commas. And I think you probably meant to say "silvered weapons" instead of "slivered weapons". But otherwise, I enjoyed it and will be reading more!

[aly]

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