Ghosts In The Machine II
Part Two of Approximately Six
PG 13 For Language
Crossover between Insidious and Supernatural
Word Count: 1,100
Updates Weekly (Fridays)
Link to Part One
Summary: Ben Winchester has taken his first steps to becoming a hunter. He has more trouble than he expects with a simple spirit until art student Dalton Lambert offers some tips. The amateur leading the amateur may just be worse than the blind leading the blind.
The professor breezed into the studio ten minutes later, and addressed the class in a friendly tone. He didn’t notice Ben sitting in the back of the room, and Ben was content to let it stay that way.
Dalton apparently managed to overcome his procrastination in the end. The canvas he showed to the class was complete; he had added at least a hundred minute touches since showing the painting to Ben. Ben had to admit it wasn’t half bad.
After his presentation, the teacher assigned the class to break into two groups and practice thumbnail sketching with the still life stations set up around the room. Ben moved silently to join one of the groups.
Unfortunately, Dalton made a beeline for the same group, flashing Ben a languid smile.
Avoiding this guy was going to be a bit difficult, Ben realized grimly.
He did not return the smile, and turned deliberately to the student beside him.
“Hey, this is my first time in class, I don’t have any supplies with me today. Can I borrow a sheet of paper to sketch on?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” the girl tore a page from her sketchpad and handed it to Ben.
He sat down beside the girl and pulled out a pen, beginning to doodle on the paper. He had no intention of actually doing the assignment, but it was important to look like he was.
“Thanks. I heard we do sculptures in this class too. What kind of sculpting do we learn, pottery?”
“Well, it changes every year,” the girl said slowly. “Last year, it was glass blowing, and before that we worked with wire-”
“What Alice is trying to say is no, no pottery,” a nearby guy added. “We’ll be lucky to keep the kiln after Owen was dumb enough to burn his arm to a crisp in it.”
“That’s not fair, Kyle,” Alice said. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“They called out some kind of inspector and everything,” she confided to Ben with a glance, her pencil sketching lightly over her paper. “No one can figure out how his arm got stuck. There’s supposed to be some kind of safety measure to keep that from happening, right?”
Ben shrugged. He didn’t really know or care about the specifics of kiln engineering. He finished his drawing of a stick pirate and paused a moment to admire it before beginning to draw something else.
“So there was a kiln accident? Was this Owen guy alone when it happened?”
“No, it was during a demonstration,” the student who had spoken up earlier, Kyle, seemed to have become a part of their conversation. He leaned against the table, his expression sly.
“I was there when it happened, you know. He kept screaming about how his arm was gone, I guess it just went numb or something. When they finally managed to pull him away from the kiln, his arm- well, what was left of it, was black. The smell was awful.”
“Sulfuric?” Ben asked. He doubted it was a demon, but there was no harm in covering his bases. He noticed with discomfort that Dalton was studying him intently.
“No, like burnt barbecue.”
“I bet the heat was bad with the kiln still on. Did anyone open a door? Let in a draft?”
“Why would we notice how hot it was? A guy’s arm just got toasted before our eyes, we were a bit preoccupied,” Kyle said.
Ben was beginning to think that Kyle was a bit of an ass. He gave up on the horse he’d been attempting to doodle and set his pen down. Dalton was still visible in his peripheral, keeping the atmosphere creepy with his steady eyes. Ben didn’t think he’d moved his pencil the entire time.
“It doesn’t seem weird though?” Ben pressed on, determined to ignore the stare-down he was receiving.
“I mean, first Owen cooks his arm in the kiln, and then another student fries herself on a copy machine in the graphics lab. It’s like the art department is cursed- or haunted, right?”
Alice and Kyle both looked up at him as if he had sprouted a second head.
“Look man… technology is cool, but it malfunctions sometimes. Doesn’t mean a ghost made it happen,” Kyle practically oozed condescension.
Ben ground his teeth and bore it; he was pretty sure stabbing another student would get him removed forcibly from campus.
“Right. Just thinking.”
He focused on the sheet of doodles before him, hoping they would all take the hint that the conversation was over. After a few minutes, Ben found that even Dalton has given up his disturbing silent stare campaign.
With thirty minutes to kill before he could leave the campus unnoticed, Ben flipped his page over and began to pen a detailed comic in which Kyle the art student met a painful and untimely end.
----------------------------------------------------------------
“New kid! Wait up!”
Ben swore under his breath at the sound of the call from behind him. He almost kept walking, but then his irritation got the best of him and he turned to face Dalton. The art student was half-jogging to catch up with him.
“My name is Harry,” Ben scowled.
Dalton shot him a withering look, stealing the paper dangling from Ben’s fingertips.
“This is a really nice set of thumbnails, Harry. Your talent is…” he got his first good look at the doodles and his sarcasm faded into uncertainty. “Jesus Christ, you really suck dude.”
“Give me that,” Ben demanded. He snatched the paper back and crumbled it into a ball.
Dalton folded his arms, “You’re taking a Studio Art and you’re definitely not an artist. You come in halfway through the school year, using the name of a famous ghost researcher, and you ask questions- poorly phrased, just so you know- about a haunting. The only way you could be any more obvious about what you’re doing is if you tattooed ‘Who Ya Gonna Call?’ on your forehead.”
Ben was about to retort when his attention was caught by the unknown reference.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ghost busters, ghost hunters, ghost facers,” Dalton shook his head. “Call yourself a ghostologist for all I care, point is, you’re an amateur.”
The irony of a horror movie fan calling him a beginner was too much for Ben to take, “You think I’m an amateur?”
“No, I know you are. Whatever you think is going on here, you’re mistaken.”
“I think that you’re insane. Leave the ghosts in your horror movies,” Ben couldn‘t get away from this guy fast enough.
Unfazed, Dalton called out after him, “It’s not a ghost, Price! It’s something you’re not ready to deal with!”
Ben didn’t give him the satisfaction of stopping again.
PG 13 For Language
Crossover between Insidious and Supernatural
Word Count: 1,100
Updates Weekly (Fridays)
Link to Part One
Summary: Ben Winchester has taken his first steps to becoming a hunter. He has more trouble than he expects with a simple spirit until art student Dalton Lambert offers some tips. The amateur leading the amateur may just be worse than the blind leading the blind.
The professor breezed into the studio ten minutes later, and addressed the class in a friendly tone. He didn’t notice Ben sitting in the back of the room, and Ben was content to let it stay that way.
Dalton apparently managed to overcome his procrastination in the end. The canvas he showed to the class was complete; he had added at least a hundred minute touches since showing the painting to Ben. Ben had to admit it wasn’t half bad.
After his presentation, the teacher assigned the class to break into two groups and practice thumbnail sketching with the still life stations set up around the room. Ben moved silently to join one of the groups.
Unfortunately, Dalton made a beeline for the same group, flashing Ben a languid smile.
Avoiding this guy was going to be a bit difficult, Ben realized grimly.
He did not return the smile, and turned deliberately to the student beside him.
“Hey, this is my first time in class, I don’t have any supplies with me today. Can I borrow a sheet of paper to sketch on?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” the girl tore a page from her sketchpad and handed it to Ben.
He sat down beside the girl and pulled out a pen, beginning to doodle on the paper. He had no intention of actually doing the assignment, but it was important to look like he was.
“Thanks. I heard we do sculptures in this class too. What kind of sculpting do we learn, pottery?”
“Well, it changes every year,” the girl said slowly. “Last year, it was glass blowing, and before that we worked with wire-”
“What Alice is trying to say is no, no pottery,” a nearby guy added. “We’ll be lucky to keep the kiln after Owen was dumb enough to burn his arm to a crisp in it.”
“That’s not fair, Kyle,” Alice said. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“They called out some kind of inspector and everything,” she confided to Ben with a glance, her pencil sketching lightly over her paper. “No one can figure out how his arm got stuck. There’s supposed to be some kind of safety measure to keep that from happening, right?”
Ben shrugged. He didn’t really know or care about the specifics of kiln engineering. He finished his drawing of a stick pirate and paused a moment to admire it before beginning to draw something else.
“So there was a kiln accident? Was this Owen guy alone when it happened?”
“No, it was during a demonstration,” the student who had spoken up earlier, Kyle, seemed to have become a part of their conversation. He leaned against the table, his expression sly.
“I was there when it happened, you know. He kept screaming about how his arm was gone, I guess it just went numb or something. When they finally managed to pull him away from the kiln, his arm- well, what was left of it, was black. The smell was awful.”
“Sulfuric?” Ben asked. He doubted it was a demon, but there was no harm in covering his bases. He noticed with discomfort that Dalton was studying him intently.
“No, like burnt barbecue.”
“I bet the heat was bad with the kiln still on. Did anyone open a door? Let in a draft?”
“Why would we notice how hot it was? A guy’s arm just got toasted before our eyes, we were a bit preoccupied,” Kyle said.
Ben was beginning to think that Kyle was a bit of an ass. He gave up on the horse he’d been attempting to doodle and set his pen down. Dalton was still visible in his peripheral, keeping the atmosphere creepy with his steady eyes. Ben didn’t think he’d moved his pencil the entire time.
“It doesn’t seem weird though?” Ben pressed on, determined to ignore the stare-down he was receiving.
“I mean, first Owen cooks his arm in the kiln, and then another student fries herself on a copy machine in the graphics lab. It’s like the art department is cursed- or haunted, right?”
Alice and Kyle both looked up at him as if he had sprouted a second head.
“Look man… technology is cool, but it malfunctions sometimes. Doesn’t mean a ghost made it happen,” Kyle practically oozed condescension.
Ben ground his teeth and bore it; he was pretty sure stabbing another student would get him removed forcibly from campus.
“Right. Just thinking.”
He focused on the sheet of doodles before him, hoping they would all take the hint that the conversation was over. After a few minutes, Ben found that even Dalton has given up his disturbing silent stare campaign.
With thirty minutes to kill before he could leave the campus unnoticed, Ben flipped his page over and began to pen a detailed comic in which Kyle the art student met a painful and untimely end.
----------------------------------------------------------------
“New kid! Wait up!”
Ben swore under his breath at the sound of the call from behind him. He almost kept walking, but then his irritation got the best of him and he turned to face Dalton. The art student was half-jogging to catch up with him.
“My name is Harry,” Ben scowled.
Dalton shot him a withering look, stealing the paper dangling from Ben’s fingertips.
“This is a really nice set of thumbnails, Harry. Your talent is…” he got his first good look at the doodles and his sarcasm faded into uncertainty. “Jesus Christ, you really suck dude.”
“Give me that,” Ben demanded. He snatched the paper back and crumbled it into a ball.
Dalton folded his arms, “You’re taking a Studio Art and you’re definitely not an artist. You come in halfway through the school year, using the name of a famous ghost researcher, and you ask questions- poorly phrased, just so you know- about a haunting. The only way you could be any more obvious about what you’re doing is if you tattooed ‘Who Ya Gonna Call?’ on your forehead.”
Ben was about to retort when his attention was caught by the unknown reference.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ghost busters, ghost hunters, ghost facers,” Dalton shook his head. “Call yourself a ghostologist for all I care, point is, you’re an amateur.”
The irony of a horror movie fan calling him a beginner was too much for Ben to take, “You think I’m an amateur?”
“No, I know you are. Whatever you think is going on here, you’re mistaken.”
“I think that you’re insane. Leave the ghosts in your horror movies,” Ben couldn‘t get away from this guy fast enough.
Unfazed, Dalton called out after him, “It’s not a ghost, Price! It’s something you’re not ready to deal with!”
Ben didn’t give him the satisfaction of stopping again.