4 The Officer

Drew and Sam did not wait long before a police cruiser pulled up in front of the church. A male officer got out of the car. He looked like an experienced officer, wearing plain clothes instead of the typical police uniform. He saw the pair sitting on the steps and lowered his sunglasses to get a better look at them. "You two the ones that called it in?" He said.

Drew hopped up and answered the officer. "Yeah we were hoping to give the priest an interview this morning, but sadly we found him a bit tied up."

Sam hit Drew because of his bad joke. "It's not funny Drew a man died." She scolded.

"It's alright mam, everyone copes with death in different ways." The officer sighed. "This gentleman must be the type that tries to lighten the mood with humor, while he is hurting inside. I have seen it time and time again. Sadly, I have seen so many dead bodies I have become numb to the whole thing."

"Oh, is there a lot of murders in this town?" Sam got worried.

"No, unless you count suicide as murder." The officer replied. "You said he appeared to have hung himself and had a note on his chest, right?"

"That's right." Drew said.

"We get at least ten of these a year." The officer said. "Always some fool that went to that damn ranch, I wish we could just burn it to the ground and be done with it. But no one is willing to go there and set fire to the place, seeing how they would probably end up dead afterwards. Shame the father died from it, he was really hoping to cleanse the place with the power of god, sadly that seems to have failed."

"Wait so people kill themselves after visiting the ranch?" Sam asked, still unaware of the story that was told to Drew.

"Yeah, did you happen to read the note?" The officer said. "Did it mention a faceless girl, and how he wanted to be with her."

"No!" Sam shouted. "I ran out of there as soon as I saw the body, Drew read it though. Did it say those things Drew?"

"Yeah it did, it was just like the note Jim showed me at the hotel last night." Drew replied.

"Wait Jim at the hotel?" The officer asked. "Small young man who was overly excited about the paranormal?"

"Yeah that's him." Drew replied. "He hooked us up with some sweet discounts and told me one hell of a story."

"That's not possible." The officer said.

"It happened." Drew said.

"Yeah we both met him." Sam said. "He was a super fan of our show Paranormal is the new Normal."

"Yeah I even gave him an autograph." Drew said.

"Folks, I don't know how to tell you this, Jim died, almost two years ago." The officer paused. "He committed suicide after going up to the ranch, left the same kind of note as all the others. I don't know who you saw last night, but it couldn't have been Jim. I watched them bury him."

Drew and Sam both just froze and turned white. Neither of them could think of a word that they could say, they were both dumbfounded by the realization that they had a paranormal experience.

"Look you said you have a Television show, right?" The officer said. "If it's ghosts you hunt on your show, you need to stay away from that ranch, stay away from this whole god forsaken town. I don't care how brave you think you are, going there is signing your own death warrant."

Sam hit Drew on the back of the head. "You bastard you knew about that story, that everyone dies, and you didn't tell us! Did you not think it would be something we would like to know?!"

"I was going to let the priest tell you." Drew said rubbing his head where Sam had hit him. "Then we found him dead, and I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. I was going to tell you all though."

"You better have." Sam said, threatening to hit Drew again. "With this new information and the fact that our clerk at the hotel last night was a ghost, we need to go. We are not going to that ranch, we are going back to the hotel and picking up our stuff. We are then going to the next gig and forgetting this ever happened. So, help me if you complain and say you still want to go to the ranch, I will hit you so hard your mother will feel it."

"Alright Sam, calm down." Drew sighed. "Last thing I want is to put you or Terry in danger, you two are my closest friends, not my family."

"Well I don't need you two to stick around so why don't you head out." The officer said. "The longer you stay in this town, the more danger you put yourself in."

Drew and Sam walked back to the van to find Terry crouched trying to avoid the gaze of the officer. "Terry what are you doing?" Drew said as he opened the passenger door.

"I am trying to stay out of sight." Terry said. "Cops usually see a brother around a dead guy and that's who they blame for killing them. I have been around I know. Terry didn't kill nobody and I don't want to be blamed for it."

"Did you just refer to yourself in third person?" Sam asked as she put her hand on Terry's shoulder.

"Terry sometimes talks about Terry's self in the third person when Terry is afraid." Terry said.

"We decided not to investigate the ranch on Terry." Drew sighed. "Just drive us back to the hotel so we can get our gear and get out of here."

"That's fine with Terry." Terry said.

"Oh, and something interesting, you remember that clerk last night?" Drew said. "Apparently he died two years ago, he killed himself."

Terry slammed on the brakes. "Oh, hell no!" He shouted. "Oh, hell no! Terry is not driving back to that hotel now, they can mail our clothes back to us, Terry would rather be naked then step on foot in there again."

"Geez I thought you would be more excited Terry!" Drew said. "We saw a real-life ghost last night! We actually did the thing we always pretend we do, and we didn't even know we did it!"

Terry turned the van around and started heading away from the hotel. "Like I said, they can mail our stuff back to us."

"But Terry we left the camera." Sam said. "If we lose that the studio will have our heads, that thing is super expensive."

"Terry will buy the studio a new one." Terry said as he continued to drive. "Terry saved up a lot of money over the years and this seems like a good place for Terry to spend it."

"If that's what you want to do." Sam sighed. "Let's head to the next gig then." Sam set up the destination in the van's GPS system.