LOGINShare
Ch. 18 Behind the Fridge
Last Updated:
2025-04-27 19:51:07
Related chapters
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 19 A Night in the Basement
Alice didn’t return, at all. Eventually, after thirty very tense minutes according to my watch, Liz’s voice in the dark said, “They must have arrested her. Let’s get out of here. Mont, push the fridge out.” Cautiously, we emerged from our hiding place. The basement light bulbs, dangling from the ceiling, had been left on. The basement looked as we had left it. “I’ll scout upstairs,” Mont said. He pulled his gun. “We’re dealing with a duly authorized sheriff’s office,” Liz reminded him. “Put that away. Don’t go waving a gun around law enforcement if you don’t want to get shot.” Mont nodded with a slightly sheepish expression as he put his firearm back in its holster and covered it up. Liz was right. Whatever they were involved in, they were the sheriff’s office, a normal part of law enforcement and society. We were Control. And what was Control? Was it a secret part of the government? Was it a private entity? Was it even American? Was it international in scope? I wondered why I’d n
Last Updated : 2025-04-28Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 20 My Extraction
Well, dear reader, it’s been awhile since I added to these files, but something came up that interrupted the flow of this writing, my extraction from the hospital. I’m writing to you now from a different location which I shall not divulge. However, I’m keeping my commitment to you to complete the story of what happened in Dust Bowl as long as I’m around to keep writing it for you. I left off my last entry with our team in Alice’s basement. Alice had been taken by the La Paz County Sheriff’s Office. We were spending the night in her basement with the house surrounded by law enforcement with canines. Liz had used tech equipment from Spitfire’s pocket dimension to contact Control and request extraction. The extraction was denied. I’ll get back to that, picking up from there, soon. First, however, I’d like to explain why I’ve taken so long to write again and what happened with my extraction from the hospital. Not too many days after Spitfire had warned me on the phone given to me by Mr.
Last Updated : 2025-04-29Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 1 Meeting Mr. X
I don’t know when you’ll be able to read these memoirs, whoever you are. By the time you read them, I could even be dead. That’s one of the reasons I’m writing them, because someone has to know these things. A second reason is that Samuel Moore needs to know what kind of man his father was and the real reason he won’t be seeing his father anymore. A third reason is that writing it will keep me from going crazy while I recover here in this facility, whatever it is and wherever it is. My mind desperately needs something to do while my body heals, which the doctors here tell me will take time, a lot of time.Fortunately, Rachelle taught me how to encrypt files on my laptop so that they look innocuous if Control sees them and how to foil keystroke recorders. Rachelle is a computer genius. I’d call her a savant. She’ll come into the story soon enough. Do I think Control could be spying on my computer activity here, in a hospital bed, on my own laptop? I know they are. However, when Control
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 2 Meeting Rachelle the Computer Whiz
Physical therapy sucks! It hurts. I’m back in bed now, with my spasms under control enough to keep writing to you, dear reader. One day soon, I’ll probably give you the details of my injuries, but I really don’t want to think about them right now any more than I have to. Writing to you will help keep my mind off the pain. Yes, they give me painkillers in this place, but they don’t block all of it. I’m also writing this time to keep myself awake until dinner gets here. I don’t want to miss dinner because I passed out from pain and exhaustion. Been there, done that. At least the food is good in this place, something to look forward to. Last time, I told you about my encounter with Mr. X that fateful day and the card he left with me. It wasn’t long, maybe a couple of days later, during the weekend, when I called the number. I wanted to ask more questions. To my surprise, Mr. X answered himself immediately after the first ring. I had expected to get some voicemail or an operator, but n
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 3 What's Going on in Dust Bowl, Arizona?
I knew it would happen eventually. Today, the main doctor who sees me informed me that I am deemed well enough to be debriefed about what happened in Dust Bowl. I have an appointment tomorrow morning after breakfast to talk about my experiences there. I won’t be walking to the appointment myself, of course. I’ll be wheelchaired in.I’m actually surprised this hasn’t happened a lot sooner. I’ve been conscious and well enough to answer questions for weeks. I mentioned that to the doctor when he was here in the room. He said that they also wanted me to be in a good state of mental and emotional recovery, too, for the debriefing. I can appreciate that.In the meantime, I’ll be debriefing you some more dear reader, before I slip off to sleep tonight. Last time, I was in the Ford Expedition with Rachelle and was just opening the Dust Bowl, Arizona mission briefing video.The video started with a map of Arizona zooming in on a region northwest of Phoenix, and well off any interstate or highw
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 4 Getting Food To-Go
I have a confession to make. I skipped making an entry here yesterday. You're probably reading this in its completed form, so you'd never know I skipped a day, but I'm telling you because I want you, whoever you are, to know how much I appreciate you reading this. Writing this record is really helping me process what's happened to my life since I became an Agent of Control (if I even still have that status. It's not exactly clear at this point what's to become of me once I'm all healed up as much as I'm going to get healed up, especially after yesterday.)I have faith that Rachelle’s pet AI will get this file in front of a lot of eyeballs, but I have no idea whether you're taking me seriously or just thinking that you're reading a piece of fiction. Either way, it helps me a lot to know that you're reading this. It's a much nicer way to work things out than what happened yesterday after breakfast.My first debriefing session since I came to be here at the facility was intense. Although
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 5 Black-Eyed Kids
Today, I had a different debriefing interviewer, a much more normal seeming person. Although he wasn’t a Mr. Rodgers level of friendliness, he was calm, professional, and not rude, a huge improvement over yesterday’s guy. But, I'm sure you're more interested in reading about the road trip to Arizona than about me right now as a guy recovering in a hospital room, so here goes.When Rachelle returned from the restroom, she acted like nothing weird had happened, as if a physics-defyingly long electrical cord had not emerged from and then disappeared back into her cargo pants, as if we had always planned to get our meals to go. She smiled a lot, cracked jokes, and seemed in good humor like before, but didn't offer any kind of explanation for the odd occurrence or even acknowledge it.I took my cue from her and conversed back with her normally. Once at the vehicle, I got into the driver's seat and she got in the back for her nap as she had planned. I set my food container on the front pass
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 6 The Giant of Kandahar
I was very surprised today to be visited by Mr. X. This isn’t the sort of hospital where one gets visitors. I’m sure the general public doesn’t even know this place exists. I’ve even wondered, out of paranoia, if the outside world out there even knows I’m alive.Mr. X came by beaming his characteristic unusual-looking smile. I found myself so happy for his company that it didn’t even creep me out like it did before. He was bubbly and effusive. He opened my curtains in the room for the first time in my memory to get sunlight for the small, tastefully-sized vase of flowers he brought me to cheer up my room. There was a small parking lot outside with ordinary-looking cars, as if this was a small hospital or nursing home anywhere in America. So, I was above ground. I made a mental note to get closer to the window as soon as I could to see what state the license plates of those cars were from.Mr. X offered enough information, worked and woven into the one-sided conversation that he had wi
Last Updated : 2025-04-18
Latest chapter
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 20 My Extraction
Well, dear reader, it’s been awhile since I added to these files, but something came up that interrupted the flow of this writing, my extraction from the hospital. I’m writing to you now from a different location which I shall not divulge. However, I’m keeping my commitment to you to complete the story of what happened in Dust Bowl as long as I’m around to keep writing it for you. I left off my last entry with our team in Alice’s basement. Alice had been taken by the La Paz County Sheriff’s Office. We were spending the night in her basement with the house surrounded by law enforcement with canines. Liz had used tech equipment from Spitfire’s pocket dimension to contact Control and request extraction. The extraction was denied. I’ll get back to that, picking up from there, soon. First, however, I’d like to explain why I’ve taken so long to write again and what happened with my extraction from the hospital. Not too many days after Spitfire had warned me on the phone given to me by Mr.
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 19 A Night in the Basement
Alice didn’t return, at all. Eventually, after thirty very tense minutes according to my watch, Liz’s voice in the dark said, “They must have arrested her. Let’s get out of here. Mont, push the fridge out.” Cautiously, we emerged from our hiding place. The basement light bulbs, dangling from the ceiling, had been left on. The basement looked as we had left it. “I’ll scout upstairs,” Mont said. He pulled his gun. “We’re dealing with a duly authorized sheriff’s office,” Liz reminded him. “Put that away. Don’t go waving a gun around law enforcement if you don’t want to get shot.” Mont nodded with a slightly sheepish expression as he put his firearm back in its holster and covered it up. Liz was right. Whatever they were involved in, they were the sheriff’s office, a normal part of law enforcement and society. We were Control. And what was Control? Was it a secret part of the government? Was it a private entity? Was it even American? Was it international in scope? I wondered why I’d n
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 18 Behind the Fridge
I saw there, on the faces of my field team members, one by one, a revelation of what Liz had meant that their particular “personal dirts” would include monsters. Mont, Mitch, and Rachelle each looked somber, but Jonie looked as if she was about to lose her cool. “This Dirt curse can’t possibly bring back Ashley to haunt me.” She sounded as if she were a child, scared of the dark, trying to calm herself by simply affirming over and over “I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m not afraid of the dark.” And, like such a child, she repeated the affirmation a few times until Rachelle came over to the couch, knelt down in front of her, and took her hand comfortingly. “This Dirt curse can’t possibly bring back Ashley to haunt me. This Dirt curse can’t possibly bring back Ashley to haunt me.” “I don’t know,” Rachelle cooed soothingly, “but whatever happens, we’ll face it together. I promise.” Before Jonie could respond, there was a booming knock on the upstairs front door, so resounding that we c
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 17 Alice Introduces Wonderland
“What do–”, Liz began but Alice cut her off. “Please,” the Dust Bowl native said, “not here. We'll be safer at my place. Voices carry.” So, we walked in silence across the field where something otherworldly had hovered over us before we met this mysterious Alice lady. Mont brought up the rear. I could tell from the way he walked that his hand was ready to pull his gun from its hidden holster if that turned out to be something necessary. Mitch and Jonie walked in front of Mont. Mitch’s eyes were wide open scanning both the sky and the horizon, no doubt looking to see if his Sight showed him something. In contrast, as I saw her face in the moonlight, Jonie’s eyes were nearly closed as she walked. A true mage, she was reaching out with other arcane senses than Mitch possessed. Liz and Rachelle walked behind Alice, Rachelle looking down at her feet, probably concerned, as I was, about stepping into an ankle-twisting hole in the dark. Liz’s face looked as if she were workin
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 16 A Close Encounter
Behind our hotel was a tall wooden fence, about ten feet high. This would have kept folks from casually strolling into the field back there. Upon investigation, we discovered a few loose wooden planks in the fence that were not actually nailed in place. They were propped in place to look from a distance like they were attached normally, but they were not. Someone had obviously moved them on occasion to access the field behind the hotel.Wearing our hiking boots so that our feet would not encounter anything sharp on the field after dark, we entered the field ourselves and began looking for a good spot to observe a potential UFO light show. When I call the area a field, we have to remember that we’re talking about the Arizona desert. A field here isn’t like some farmer’s field in Iowa. It was an open field, sure, but no farmer would have wanted to plant crops there. It had definite boundaries like a field, though. Behind us was the hotel. To our left, quite a ways off, was a road. Ahead
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 15 A Visit to the Library
Around noon that Thursday, before the Dirt rolled in, I found myself headed to Parker, the county seat of La Paz county, in the Ford Expedition with Mont, Rachelle, and Spitfire. Our mission was to visit library archives of newspapers and other sources of records for La Paz county. Until the 1970s, Dust Bowl had had its own newspaper. As a precaution, we weren’t all leaving Dust Bowl in case it might become more difficult to return for some reason, such as if the roads back into Dust Bowl became closed, for example. Liz had wanted Jonie and Mitch to stay there since their particular talents made them more useful onsite there in Dust Bowl, such as when Mitch had seen the peculiar aura emanating from the statue of Lt. Sees-Like-A-Hawk. So, it was left to us “muggles” as Rachelle described us, who weren’t mages and who didn’t have the Sight, to slog through old records.Once we got into Parker, we grabbed some burritos from a Taco Bell drive-thru and headed for the county library. We fin
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 14 Preacher, Go Home!
Liz directed a comment to the man who was trying to be chatty. “Pardon me, sir, but you don’t seem local. Are you a tourist like us?”He smiled at her. “Well, I’m not local yet but I’m working on it. I’m a pastor who’s come to see about reviving the old church in this town.”You could have heard a pin drop when he said that. There wasn’t even the sound of someone’s silverware scraping a plate or scooping up a bit of omelet.“My friends and I noticed the burned one when we got to town, but we didn’t see any others.”“There aren’t any, but God called me here to change that.”The waitress came by to refill the pastor’s coffee. She added her two cents to the conversation. “It’s not that there aren’t any Christians around here, Pastor, but no one’s had the heart to have an organized church since the old one burned down. Most of us just follow Jesus in our own way without a church. Maybe your ministry is needed in another town.”“I’ve been praying a lot about it,” he replied “I’ll keep seek
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 13 The People in Dust Bowl
It was my turn to drive as Field Team 42’s Ford Expedition rolled into Dust Bowl, Arizona. According to the dashboard readout, it was 101° outside. I was thankful to be born into a time period with air conditioning technology. It was about an hour before sunset on Wednesday night. The Dirt was due to blow in at midnight on Sunday night. There were no ROAD CLOSED signs out yet. The hotels we passed all had VACANCY signs. Apparently, it was a few days before the town would begin turning away strangers. Things were still normal, whatever normal was in this place for fifty-one weeks a year without the Dirt blowing in. We were greeted at the city limits by a huge billboard capitalizing on the town’s UFO reputation featuring a scene in which a Gray alien with an exaggeratedly large head smiled down at a huge plate of pancakes, urging us to eat at a local establishment.Liz instructed me to drive all around the town once so we could scope out the place. She said that doing that once wouldn’t
Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders Ch. 12 Arriving in Dust Bowl
It was my turn to drive as Field Team 42’s Ford Expedition rolled into Dust Bowl, Arizona. According to the dashboard readout, it was 101° outside. I was thankful to be born into a time period with air conditioning technology. It was about an hour before sunset on Wednesday night. The Dirt was due to blow in at midnight on Sunday night. There were no ROAD CLOSED signs out yet. The hotels we passed all had VACANCY signs. Apparently, it was a few days before the town would begin turning away strangers. Things were still normal, whatever normal was in this place for fifty-one weeks a year without the Dirt blowing in. We were greeted at the city limits by a huge billboard capitalizing on the town’s UFO reputation featuring a scene in which a Gray alien with an exaggeratedly large head smiled down at a huge plate of pancakes, urging us to eat at a local establishment.Liz instructed me to drive all around the town once so we could scope out the place. She said that doing that once wouldn’t
