Purgatech: Adrian's Ghost-hunting Angst

Chapter Fifteen: Goin' Out West

Adrian Beck couldn’t believe what he’d just read. Was someone trying to set up their very own Ghostbusting unit? That was all he needed to get through his own turmoil. There was someone out there that was interested in doing what he’s been wanting to do ever since he was a child. How could he not be excited about getting on board this project?

So he did as he was instructed. He was told to go down the road from Nova Five and he made his way there. He understood why this was the place that his mysterious friend chose to meet, and it was because it was remote; empty.

Adrian struggled to get back into the handle of driving. He’d not done it in months and because of that, his body was unused to everything that went into driving, to begin with. But soon enough, he was back into it and drove down the roads, their bends and so on until he came across a car that was out of place. A cloaked man standing outside the vehicle, a cigarette in his hand and a hat over his head. Anonymity was strong in this one, Adrian thought.

He pulled up to the car that stood alone, getting out to face the man.

“Adrian Beck?” he asked.

“I am. Who are you?” Adrian replied.

“My name is Ben Scott.” Adrian assumed it an alias, but it wasn’t. Benjamin Norton Scott was a well-documented war hero. In his early years, had Adrian taken the time to go over anything that would relate to the man’s life, he would have found that Ben was commended for his time served in Iraq. That he was a man of honor and great power, and that what was done to him at Purgatech was truly taking on a national treasure. There was no arrogance behind his way of thinking, it was all just true.

“Nice to meet you.” The pair extended hands, Ben’s far firmer than that of Adrian’s. Adrian saw on Benjamin, the war-torn scars of a youth in military service and something in him settled. He felt calmer in the knowledge that this was not a hoax. Not that it truly crossed his mind before he got on the road and made it halfway to his destination. Adrian was a very negative man and he’d become so over his time because of reason’s he’d never have told anyone. Not that he would need to tell Ben. He knew exactly what was running through Adrian’s mind, since it was running on his own, too.

“Why did you call me here, exactly?” Adrain asked.

“Straight to business, I can appreciate that.” Ben replied, “I’m here because of what I told you in that message. I believe that the people were lured into a wolf’s trap when they signed up for the Purgatech projects and I don’t want it to happen to anyone else. Did you also get the phone call from a Doctor Langtree?” Ben asked. His eyes never breaking from Adrian’s own, hell, they didn’t even blink unless the blinks were simultaneous with Adrian’s own.

“I did. I wasn’t sure what to make of the call with him. It came just before your second message.” Adrian replied. He couldn’t keep the starring contest up and often looked around. There was nothing apart from birds squawking from powerlines, a few trees out in the distance and a car every now and then that probably thought this was a drug deal or a meeting with ill intentions to one of the two parties present.

“Well, I found out that Doctor Langtree was not who he claimed to be. The entire Purgatech operation is not what it seems. They’re not trying to help people get in touch with their dead, they’re trying to bring those undead f***s back from the afterlife and give them our world to vegetate on. Everyone who uses the goggles, the doorway, all those shitty apps, they’re just opening doorways for the dead to return to earth. I’m not going to sugar-coat it, and I want you to understand the severity of this operation. I’m not asking you to join, and most of those I saw at the Palazzo opted out in fear of the dead that is now haunting them. But I can see it in you, Adrian. There’s something about the way you walk, the way you talk, the sheer power you demonstrate that makes me believe we can take this operation and turn it around. We can stop the crimes that were done to us from happening to others. Doctor Langtree doesn’t exist. He’s just a figure in the organization. He’s just there to gather information from those who are too afraid to come back in and tell them that they’re not going to be the same after the experiment. Those who do, well they just go missing and Purgatech always has their alibies as to where the person left after they came to the offices.” Ben said, the fiery intensity of his words and actions giving Adrian a small fright. But Adrian wasn’t sure if this was true or if this was just the ramblings of an insane man that was trying to get more people into his own delusions. Something in Adrian said leave now, but the prospect of being a real-life ghostbuster kept him here. He was tethered to Ben Scott, for now, and he was okay with that.

“Doctor Langtree has been seen before. He’s made calls here in Evergreen, in Wichita, in New York, in Ohio, in Desi, in Salt Lake City, that bastard has made phone calls across the country.” Adrian listened, thinking that he could have made those calls from one place and they could have just been picked up in the other city, as a due diligence type deal, “Now before you think that he’s been flying around and trying to gather information, these calls that were placed took place in the span of six minutes. There were thirty six accounts of a Doctor Langtree contacting various people all about the same thing. Some of them even overlapped, so you tell me if that’s coincidence, or if they just slap a name on someone and expect us to follow blindly because we’re just the guppies of a sick experiment. I’m not going to take this kicking lying down. They want to make this world a purgatory, well they’re going to have to get through me and my cold, hard, American steel.” Ben pulled a gun from his hip and showed it to Adrian.

Adrian, in the meantime, considered the man to be insane and this was where he was going to die. A bullet to the head, which he considered not all that long ago. But the thought was not relieving him. It traumatized him and he realized how happy he was to actually be alive.

Not that this would matter in the end.

“So you see, we’re going to take this world on and we’re going to kick it to pieces. Who do they think they are trying to challenge us? They don’t know men like us, Adrian Beck. And even though I don’t know you well, I can tell that you’re a good man, like me. That you have the purest intentions at heart and that you want to see us flourish. I know that there’s nothing stopping us from taking this on and I know that there’s only going to be a victory in the end. We’re not going to back down, we’re not going to surrender, we’ll fight them in their homes, in their bases, and in their god damned afterlife. We’re not going to die, by the dead,” Ben shouted so loud and fierce that spittle continued striking Adrian’s face, “Are you with me boy?”

Adrian wasn’t sure what to say. Ben had a passion for this, but even his last statement seemed misplaced and just a jumbled mass of words thrown together to try and prove a point that wasn’t going to be proven. Adrian had to consider his options:

He would either take Ben’s offer and be a ghostbuster. A real-life ghostbuster that had the potential to fight and those who oppressed him. The ones that instilled fear. The Old Hag’s power over him would be gone and Adrian, again, had the potential to stand tall and strong on his own. Something that he hadn’t been able to do for six months, he’d been depressed, low and turning bitter and brash. Believing that everyone he once loved now hated him. Turning those who came to him away, thinking it was only sympathetic. There was nothing back there for him and here he could do what he’s always wanted to do. But there were downsides to this too. He would have to work with the crazy man that walked around with a gun. A crazy man with a gun had been reason enough not to do many things in his life. It was why he had no intention of joining the army when he was a child or even in his later years. Guns terrified him. Guns were in fact, a contributing factor to exactly what they would be facing now. Ghosts that were shot and killed would probably be pissed about having died in the way, and that would not bode well when they tried to send them back in the same fashion.

On the other hand, Adrian’s only other option was to drop the whole thing and tell Ben he had no intention of joining this venture. That posed its own list of problems. There was the obvious threat of the gun the man still held, there was the fact that Adrian knew too much and he would have to be silenced, there was a chance that no one else would want to join Ben on this mission and nothing would change, leaving the world overrun with ghosts. There was so much to consider on this option, but there were considerably fewer benefits about returning without accepting the offer. Obviously, if Adrian didn’t take it, he would have to go back home to the same depressing situation that he would avoid by taking the first option. Nothing would change. He’d be haunted on occasion when the ghosts deemed him worthy of a haunting, and there was a chance they would strike harder and harder until he turned as insane as Ben seemed to be. He would go back home where he had no friends, no family, and nothing but a disgusting home that he’d not cared to take care of.

So the options that played up in his mind were those that would keep him sane for the next few moments. He knew one option would build him up, have him fight those that tortured him. He could kill the Old Hag, Tommy, and Owen and he could be free of his curse. With that relief, he could save more who faced the same terror that he did. He could make a change for the first time in his life, since he was a child. His imagination would become a reality and he would become a man that had something to live for. He wouldn’t be alone, he would have Ben and his team. He would be a leader of a powerful ghost fighting organization, and though it was childish to think, he liked to think that there would be an underground lair, in the same way, he believed there would be when he was a child.

Yes, this seemed like the right thing to do. He couldn’t just run away when things got tough. He had to stand. He had to fight and he needed to be a part of something.

Looking into the cold eyes of Ben Scott, he took one last moment to consider everything that was running through his mind. And finally, when it was all behind him, he nodded, saying, “I’m in.”