51: The Series

51: Monsters Chapter 5

Lindsay drove back to the department, closely followed by Wren. The entire drive, she wondered about the conversation Wren had with John before she arrived. Whatever had happened had upset Wren, and that bothered her more than finding out John had been secretly studying her. She pulled into the parking lot, exited her car, and waited beside it for Wren. Just as Wren began to get out of his car, she heard what sounded like yelling coming from inside the building.

“What was that?” he asked her as he closed his car door.

“I don’t know, but I need to find out,” she told him as she walked toward the front door. Wren jogged ahead and pulled the door open for her.

“Thanks, I think,” Lindsay said as she stepped inside. “What is...?” she began to ask. Before Lindsay could finish her question, a ceramic coffee mug hit her on the forehead. She stumbled back with Wren catching her. “Son of a...!” she yelled as she went forward onto her knee.

“Sheriff! Are you alright?” Viktor exclaimed as he came toward her.

“That depends on who threw that,” she answered through clenched teeth as she reached up and touched her forehead. She could feel a knot already forming and saw a little blood on her fingertips when she looked at her hand.

“No one threw it. I swear. Viktor and I got into a discussion, and that just flew across the room,” Cat told her excitedly with her eyes wide.

“Lindsay, let me see,” Wren told her as he kneeled beside her and tipped her head back, looking at her forehead. “You need to go to the emergency room and have that looked at.”

“I’m fine, or at least I will be,” she told him. “Has anything else been thrown?” she asked no one in particular. Her question was answered with replies of ‘no’ and head shakes.

“Lindsay, you alright?” Little Bob asked as he walked around the corner and saw her still kneeling on the floor with Wren beside her.

“Fine, Bob, but if anyone else yells, you have permission to beat them,” she told him.

Wren stood, helped Lindsay to her feet, and they walked into her office. Without saying another word, Little Bob retrieved a first aid kit and followed them into her office. Wren opened the bag, pulled out what he needed, and began to clean the cut on her forehead.

Lindsay asked, “Bob, do you know what happened? I am not getting much out of Viktor and Cat except they were having a discussion, and the coffee cup went flying.”

“Well, they started screaming at each other, mostly in Russian, while I was walking around with Randy as he took reading with those gadgets he has. I was coming back up here to tell them to knock it off when I heard you yell,” Little Bob told her as he watched Wren treat her forehead.

“Do you know if Randy found anything?” Wren asked without looking away from treating the cut on Lindsay’s forehead.

“He was talking about readings being high, but to tell you the truth, I have no clue what he said. He is in the back around the loading dock if you want me to go get him for you,” Little Bob offered.

“That would be great, Bob, thank you,” Wren said.

Little Bob gave a nod, left Lindsay’s office, and walked toward the back of the building.

Wren stopped what he was doing and pulled a chair over so he could sit in front of Lindsay and finish caring for the wound on her forehead. “You know, this kind of puts a damper on my plans for this evening.”

“What did you have planned?” Lindsay asked him with a smile.

Wren looked at her with concern and said, “After visiting John and the fact that Dillon is spending the night with the Jones’, I was hoping you would be up for a night with just the two of us. I thought we could have a date night with dinner and a movie. Now that you have been beaten up by the poltergeist, I think a night with just the two of us is good, but it needs to be at home,” Wren told her. He leaned back a little and looked at her. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but you might want to fill out an incident report on your head, and I still think you should have it looked at in the emergency room.”

“Wren, I don’t know what you and John were discussing before I got there, but you were both emotional. Honestly, it has me worried, but I’m sure that it is just from the conversation the two of you were having. Now, as for your original idea, it sounds wonderful, but you’re right. I think we may need to tone it down a little until we know how this is going to progress,” Lindsay told him, pointing to her forehead. “Finally, I would fill out that incident report, but exactly what would I say? I was hit in the head with a coffee mug by an angry poltergeist. I think we should let this one go.”

“Yeah, guess I hadn’t thought about it that way when it comes to filing a report,” Wren told her, laughing a little.

“Agent Gold, Chief Deputy Smith asked me to explain what I found while you and Sheriff Gold were out of the office,” Randy said nervously.

Wren turned and looked at Randy, moving to the side to allow Randy to see the bruise and cut on Lindsay’s forehead. “Hey Randy, what did you find?” he asked.

Randy’s eyes grew wide, and his mouth fell open. “What happened? Are you alright, Sheriff?” he asked her.

“I am, and this is what happens when the department poltergeist gets mad, throws a ceramic coffee mug at your head, and you don’t duck in time,” she answered him with a weak smile. “What did you find? Please tell me that you have some news about whatever was going on in here today.”

“Yes, ma’am, I think I might have found something. When I got here this morning, I started checking the level of the electromagnetic fields here in the building, and they were high. The readings are so high that I have never seen any this high outside of controlled environments. So when the power went out, that should have made them drop because if there is no electricity, there should be no fields, but they went up when the power was out. That should not even be possible. Slowly, they dropped over the past couple of hours, but just before you returned, they went back up.”

“OK, I am not an expert on this stuff, but I know that high EMF reading can be a problem. How high are we talking about?” Lindsay asked him.

“Under most circumstances, the reading should be around five milligauss in an office like this with all of the fluorescent lights and electronics, but it was over fifty milligauss at one point today,” Randy told them.

“Fifty? Is there a risk with that?” Wren asked him.

“Not if it is short-term and those readings lasted only seconds, but if it stays high in this building, it could become a problem. High levels can cause all the feelings everyone seemed to have earlier today, along with health issues. Right now, the levels are almost down to what would be normal. They might also be high here all the time, but if they were, then they should not have dropped. It would all depend on the wiring and all of the equipment and electronics being used on a regular basis,” Randy explained.

“That makes me wonder if our poltergeist friend could be the cause of the spikes,” Lindsay said, looking at Wren and then Randy.

“That is something we can find out more about later,” Wren told her. He turned to Randy, “Randy, will you check her out? You have more medical training than I do.”

“Yes sir, Agent Gold,” Randy said, stepping toward Lindsay’s desk, taking a pair of latex gloves from the first aid kit and carefully putting them on. He reached toward Lindsay’s forehead and then pulled back. Randy took a deep breath and seemed to be holding it as he reached toward her again. This time, he did touch her forehead slightly before pulling back again. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I need to push around where you got hit, and it will probably hurt.”

“Randy, stop holding your breath. I know this will hurt because this is not the first time something like this has happened to me. Try to relax and treat me as you would one of Agent Gold’s team members. Do your neurological assessment, and let’s move on with this,” Lindsay told him.

She glanced at Wren, who had moved to the chair in front of her desk. She was getting frustrated that she still had not been able to return to the pile of paperwork on her desk that she had left that morning.

“Yes, ma’am, whatever you say,” Randy answered as he quickly examined her injury. After over a dozen questions, light shined in her eyes, and some poking and prodding where she had been hit, he finished. “I think you should be fine, ma’am. Just keep it clean and make sure there are no signs of infection,” he told her as he took off his gloves.

“Thank you, Randy. Agent Gold is lucky to have you on his team,” Lindsay said as she smiled at him. “I have a question for you. If your boss approves it, would you mind taking some readings at random times here in the building? I would like to know if this was a freak occurrence, the poltergeist, or the new normal for this department.”

“Of course, ma’am,” he told her and turned to Wren. “Do I have your permission, sir?”

“Yes, if she hadn’t asked you to do it, I would have told you to do it.”

“Then I will take all of the data I collected today back to the base and start putting it together unless you have something else for me,” Randy said.

“No, I think that is all, Randy. Lindsay, is there anything else you need?” Wren asked her. She just responded by shaking her head slowly. “Thank you for your help today, Randy. I will get the report from you later.”

Randy nodded and left her office. Lindsay could see him walk toward Little Bob’s desk, where his black case sat. He and Little Bob spoke as he put everything away. As they did, she saw each of them look toward her office at least once. When Randy finished repacking the case he had brought with him, he quickly walked past Cat and out the department door.

Lindsay looked at Wren, who was staring at her. “I’m not going to lie. This hurts,” she told him, pointing to her head. “The bruising is getting worse by the second, isn’t it?”

“It is. Your eyelid is turning black as we speak,” Wren answered her.

“I need ice. Is there any chance I am lucky enough that there is a cold pack in that first aid kit?

“No, of course not,” Wren answered her. “What are the chances of you going home and laying down with ice on that so it doesn’t get worse?”

“Considering it is starting to hurt with every blink, better than you might think,” she answered. Just as she did, Little Bob walked into her office and looked at her.

“Darn, you’re still alive. I was hoping for another promotion,” Little Bob said to her with a big smile on his face.

“I know it, but you are out of luck this time,” Lindsay told him with a feeble attempt at a smile. “We need to implement an immediate order department-wide. There is to be absolutely no yelling or raised voices of any kind in this building unless there is an emergency of some kind, and I mean a life-or-death emergency. If people want to yell at each other, they need to go outside and do it. In addition to that, find out whose coffee mug hit me. When you do find out, throw it at them.”

“Got it, I will start by telling those two out there,” Little Bob said, motioning to where Cat and Viktor were. “Since they are the ones who started this, then I will call Big Bob and Max to make sure it is passed on, and as for the owner of that mug, that would be Big Bob. Would you like me to hide it so you can throw it at him on Monday?” Little Bob asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“Why Monday?” she asked, confused.

“You need to look in the mirror. When you do, you will understand that you should probably go home and stay there until Monday even if you do feel alright,” Little Bob told her, still smiling.

She did not have a mirror, so she pulled out her cell phone and turned on the camera as if she were going to take a picture of herself. When her image popped onto the screen, she understood. The cut on her forehead was small and still oozing blood, and a pronounced lump was forming where the mug had hit her. A large dark bruise was forming from near her hairline down to her eye and beginning to cover her eyelid.

“Well, I guess this is what I get for taking aspirin so often,” She said, putting her phone back in her pocket. “You know, this is why I always have a headache. Something is always hitting me in the head. Were there any reports of weirdness while I was out of the office today?”

“No, nothing except what happened in here. I will write that up for you if you want,” Little Bob told her.

“No, I will. Randy filled us in on everything that happened. I guess I will go home then and take this stack of paperwork with me,” she told Little Bob, then looked at Wren. “Are you going to follow me home?” she asked Wren.

“I am not only going to follow you home, but I will stay there and make sure that you have everything you need to help slow the bruising and swelling. The entire side of your face will be black in the morning if that bruise keeps going. It has gotten bigger in the past few minutes,” Wren told her, tipping his head to the side a little as he looked at her.

There was a bright flash to Lindsay’s side. She looked to see Little Bob holding his phone after taking her picture.

“What are you doing?” she asked Little Bob.

“I thought a picture of you might help Big Bob understand why you no longer want ceramic coffee mugs in this office. You would think that after that thing broke all of them the last time, he would have figured it out, but he didn’t,” Little Bob explained.

Lindsay began to laugh and stood up. She collected the files and stacks of papers on her desk and placed them in her bag. Wren stood and waited for her to begin to move before he did. She picked up her coat, put it on, and took her bag off the desk.

“Let’s go. I think he has everything under control, and there are only a couple of hours left in the shift,” Lindsay said to Wren. Lindsay patted Little Bob on the shoulder as she walked by him. They walked out to where Cat and Viktor were quietly sitting. “Before I go, I want to say one thing. No more yelling in this office! Is that clear?”

Lindsay was not directly addressing either of them, but they both answered and were adamant that they would not do it again. After they had responded, she continued out the door and to her car. Wren walked Lindsay to it and made sure she was able to drive. She was happy that he wanted to ensure she was taken care of, but this annoyed her. Lindsay felt like he was overprotective for nothing right now. She started her car and waited for his wave to show he was ready to follow her home. When she saw it, she pulled onto the street and turned toward their home. The entire day had been long and not kind to her, and it could not end quickly enough for her.