Paranormal Short Story - Ghost Protocol

About this story:

When paranormal investigators Alex and Betty enter a seemingly ordinary suburban home, they expect a routine poltergeist case. Instead, they find creeping darkness, unfinished rituals, and a presence that reacts to Alex’s strange allergy‑based sensitivity to the supernatural. As the house shifts around them, Alex and Betty must rely on instinct, training, and the echoes of Alex's mother’s old ghost‑clearing methods to survive. “Ghost Protocol” is a paranormal short story blending supernatural investigation, creeping mystery, and the unsettling question of what really followed them out of the house.

 

Alex flexed against her snug boots, the heft of her body armour, the double weight of her sidearm and ecto-gun hanging from her belt. Finally, her best friend and partner, Betty, handed her an inhaler, allergy medicine and an Epi-pen, which Alex tucked into her front pocket.

“Shepherd. Mackenzie. You’re up,” their commander barked.

“Sir,” Alex replied. 

Betty fell into step beside her. "Not much like practice, eh Shepherd?" 

Alex nodded. The semi-detached house didn't look haunted. Yellow siding shone bright in the sunlight. A wall of windows reflected the blue sky devoid of clouds. There were no cobwebs, broken windows, or eerie mist. 

Back on base, the house they trained in was an old Victorian. Three stories of ghouls behind every doorway. The last time they'd run the course, she and Betty had lost half their crew. They'd stumbled out the other end bruised, breathless, and quietly grateful it hadn't been a real mission.

“Don’t get possessed,” Banyon, their newest teammate, sing songed. His version of ‘break a leg.’

The others laughed, especially the cleanup crew. Betty and Alex exchanged a scowl.

Way to jinx us, thought Alex.

Betty leaned in closer to Alex, but her words would still come through on their headsets. "They're just jealous."

Alex laughed when she heard the grumbles from the lowest men on the totem pole.

The two women started up the walkway to the front door.

“What are you going to do about this craziness?” A woman yelled.

Alex glanced at the neighbours standing on their side of the mini picket fence, not venturing past the property line. The man hovered behind his wife. He frowned, but his wife was the mouthpiece.

The woman waived her hands toward the other half of the building. “Do you know what we have been dealing with? I hope you’re good!”

With a curt bark their CO sent two of their crew mates to escort the two civilians back to their half of the house. Alex and Betty exchanged a smirk.

“So much for your celebrity status,” Betty said.

“I guess they don’t know my mom out here in the ‘burbs,” Alex replied. She stopped at the front door to assess the air. Nothing. “No sniffling, sneezing or hives. Oh, my!” She quipped.

Betty snorted. “Nice.” She glanced at her monitors. “Breathing is even. Heartrate’s normal.”

Inside Alex tested her comms. “We’re in, Commander.”

“Reading you loud and clear, Shepherd.”

Alex glanced around the living room. Despite the wall of windows, and the bright day beyond, the room was so dark it might have been night outside.

“There’s definitely something here,” she reported.

Alex flicked the wall switch. A table lamp came on barely relieving the gloom. The patterns on the sofa looked like serpents squirming in the dim light.

“Any reaction yet?” her commander asked.

“Just a slight tickle in the throat, sir.”

Betty checked her monitors again. “Still within the normal range.”

“We’ll examine the rest of the house, see if I can get a fix,” Alex reported.

Ahead of them stretched a hallway. Stairs to the left led to the second floor. The women followed the hallway to the kitchen.

“Not good,” muttered Betty. The kitchen was even darker than the living room. The doorway looked as it if led to a black hole. Alex and Betty exchanged a look. “Let’s start upstairs?” 

"Kitchen's the hub of activity in the house, Sir," Alex reported to their commander. "We're going to check the rest of the house, just to make sure."

"You know protocol," came the response. Their comms were still clear, suggesting that the entity wasn't nearby.

They climbed the stairs to the second floor. What looked like two guest bedrooms were devoid of any sort of life, after or otherwise. Alex looked in the closet, Betty dragged a finger across the dresser.

"I'm guessing the haunting has been going on for a bit," she said, holding up a finger covered in dust. 

Alex nodded. "Nothing here," she said and led Betty across the hall.

“Did your mother ever get possessed?” asked Betty as she got to her knees to look under the bed.

“No,” Alex replied coming out of the attached bathroom.

Betty sighed in relief.

“But her assistant did once.”

Betty stared at her. “What happened?”

Alex shrugged. “They got the demon out." She pulled Betty to her feet. "Eventually."

Down the hall was an office. It looked clear, but they had to be sure. 

"Were you there?" asked Betty as she checked the closet. 

Alex stared at her spectral scanner, checking indications of paranormal activity. Her allergies couldn't be the only data they used. "The demon? Yeah. It wasn't pretty."

Betty turned from the closet. "I can't believe your mother let you see that."

"Oh, by then I'd seen all sorts of stuff. Puking pea soup wasn't that big of a deal. 'Little mouse', she would say — that's what she called me — 'Little mouse, keep your head on your shoulders, think things through and you'll always be one up on the beasties.'" Alex laughed. "I forgot she used to call me that."

"How long's it been, since she's been gone?" Betty asked as they followed the hall to the master bedroom at the back of the house.

"Twelve years," Alex replied. "I was in university. She went to help a neighbour, and she was never seen again."

"Do they think—"

Alex coughed reflexively when the tickle in her throat build to a scratch when they entered the bedroom.

"Report!" Commander Evans barked.

"Throat tickle, Sir. Definitely stronger in the master bedroom."

"Hmmm," she imagined the big man looking over the mission summary. "That kind of reaction usually means a ghost, doesn't it, Shepherd? I don't see anything here about a haunting. We're supposed to be there for a poltergeist."

Betty glanced at her diagnostic unit. "Metrics are still in the 'normal' range, sir." She glanced at Alex. "Maybe it's just a cough?"

"Don't tell me you're coming down with something, Shepherd."

Alex scowled back at Betty, who shrugged. "Not unless it came on in the last five minutes, Sir. I know procedure."

"Alright. Keep and eye out for spectres or cold spots. It could be a new entity, something that came in after social services removed the owners. You know how these spirits like to congregate."

After finding nothing actionable on the upper floor, Alex and Betty headed back downstairs.

“Is it only demons that can possess people?” Betty asked. She tried to sound mildly curious, but Alex heard the tone underneath.

“Will you stop worrying?” Alex said.

"I'm just thinking of our last drill. And what about what Banyon said?"

Alex stopped in the stairway and grabbed her friend by the shoulder. “Banyon’s an idiot," she said, knowing Banyon would hear. 

Betty grinned.

"I won’t let anything happen to you.” The two women continued down the stairway.

On the main floor a chair sat in the middle of the hallway. A chair that was not there a minute before. A layperson might think it was just a coincidence, but the women had trained for this sort of thing.

Betty was immediately back in the zone. She immediately updated command. “It’s a poltergeist, sir.”

Hives popped up on Alex’s skin. She curled her hands into fists to avoid scratching her arms, her neck, her scalp. Not the worst reaction she could have, but her least favourite.

“Heart rates climbing, but breathing’s steady.”

“I’ll get the team ready,” came the crackling response.

Beyond the chair, a black fog was creeping slowly into the hallway. Alex and Betty turned on their headlamps, the beams spearing into the darkness. In the kitchen they found something even more disturbing than moving chairs and spreading darkness. Their lamps picked out lines of salt which shone with an eerie light in an intricate pattern on the floor. A pattern that was not complete.

“What the hell is that?” asked Betty, standing frozen by the door.

Alex walked around the design. Inside the outer circle was the distinct, unmistakable form of a pentagram. “It looks like we’ve interrupted our poltergeist in summoning a demon.”

“Are you serious?” Betty asked. Alex nodded. “Tell me your mother taught you how to deal with this?”

Alex could tell that the word demon threw Betty. “My mother ‘cleared’,” She used finger quotes and sneered the word. “Bad energies from rich houses for money. There was no science to what she did.”

“And your runny nose is scientific?” Betty asked. It was an old argument.

“You know it.” Alex replied. “I have to admit the herbs she used made her smell wonderful.” She ignored the hollow sound of Betty's chuckle. "She actually used bells, bells! to scare the entities away."

"Seriously?" Betty asked with a half smile. She had finally come into the kitchen and was standing on the other side of the diagram. 

"Bells and incense." Alex slapped her thigh. "Give me a good ecto-gun any day." 

As Alex circled the pentagram, she continued. "My runny nose might not be scientific, but scientists have figured out why it happens. Because of that, you and I know what to expect when we enter a house like this. Hives, sneezes, tingling, they're all typical allergic reaction, each indicating a different entity." Alex finished her examination and radioed their commander to apprise him of this new development.

"Did you say pentagram?" came the broken response. “Get out of there immediately, Shepherd! We do not truck with demons. Call in the big guns.”

“Not necessary, Commander. If there was a demon here, I wouldn't have gotten past the front door without needing my epi-pen. I can still breathe. The poltergeist didn’t get the job done." She gestured Betty towards the cupboards. "Let's find a broom or something to clean this up."

Betty nodded with a wink. A few minutes later she called out from the hallway. "Broom closet. Got one!"

She handed the broom to Alex who brushed it through the middle of the diagram breaking all the lines. They felt the almost-roar of an angry spirit.

“What just happened?” their commander demanded.

“You heard that out there?” Alex asked. "I'm guessing the poltergeist isn't a fan of housework."

Alex continued sweeping until there was just a pile of white in a corner of the room.

Betty visibly relaxed. “No more demon?”

“No more demon,” Alex replied.

"Best option for dealing with the poltergeist?" Betty asked.

"Use the pyramid from last weeks exercise," their commander suggested over a now-clear comms. Breaking the pentagram had removed some of the energy.

"Good suggestion, Sir." 

 Alex led Betty to the dining room. Between the two of them they carried the eight dining room chairs into the kitchen. They stacked the chairs in the middle of the kitchen, four on the floor, three in the second row and one on top, which almost brushed the ceiling. Betty signalled she would hide behind the kitchen island. Alex found her own hiding space in the pantry. Each hunkered down with their ecto guns trained on the stacked chairs between them.

Then they waited. The poltergeist, in theory, wouldn't be able to resist the stacked chairs. 

'It's moving," Alex murmured into her mic. She sensed the energy coming from somewhere deeper in the house. Where was it hiding? she wondered.

Alex kept her eyes locked on the pyramid of chairs. She could sense the spirit moving, but not it's exact location. She hoped she and Betty would be able to pin the creature in the rays from their guns. Her gun wobbled slightly as the strain caused her arms to shake. She relaxed knowing that being too tense was worse than being too loose.

The pyramid of chairs started to wobble and Alex yelled "Now!" shooting a beam at the same time. The green ray encapsulated an amorphous form which writhed. "Betty, shoot!"

When her partner's ray didn't immediately materialize, Alex took her eyes off the straining spirit, to her partner. Betty was on the floor, rolling around as if fighting against something invisible.

“Send in the trappers, Commander,” Alex radioed hoarsely. She breathed steadily. There was nothing she could do for Betty until they dealt with the poltergeist. She focused on the blob, ignoring the movement from the corner of her eye.

The rest of the team arrived in mere moments, but it felt like hours. Holding a spirit in traction was always difficult, but a poltergeist put up more of a fight than most. Alex was shaking by the time the team set up the forcefield, finally allowing her to loosen the grip on her gun. She rushed across the kitchen, around the b-team, to where Betty sat against the wall.

Pressing her hand to Betty's face, she turned her friend so that she could look in her eyes. "Are you okay?" she asked, breathless.

Betty frowned. "I'm exhausted. That beast put up quite the fight."

Alex searched her friends face. "I saw you fighting with something. You were rolling around on the floor."

Betty's frown turned into a scowl. "What are you talking about? I was holding the creature just like you."

"I never saw your ray." Alex knew her partner's ray was pink. When the two combined around a spirit a sickly puke color was the result. Alex couldn't have missed that.

Alex studied her partner. Betty was rubbing her neck and shoulders, releasing the tension from the fight. Although short, it was always a fight when they held a spirit with their ecto-guns, poltergeists more than most. Finally, she admitted that she didn't see anything amiss with her partner. She made a mental note to suggest additional therapy for Betty when they reached headquarters, just in case. “Let’s go,” she said, elbowing Betty in the side. There was more work to do.

Betty groaned, but she grabbed her partners hand, levered herself up and followed Alex out of the kitchen. Alex snapped off her headlamp. The creeping darkness had disappeared as soon as they stored a spirit in the trap.

While the trappers finished the incarceration of the pesky poltergeist, Alex and Betty made their final sweep of the house. The master bedroom was a wreck. The dresser stood away from the wall, the drawers piled on the floor and the clothes strewn across the bed, even hanging from the light fixture. The closet doors were askew. Pillow stuffing spread across everything like snow.

A tiny tickle licked at Alex's throat. Must be whatever spirit had infested this room before. 

Betty stood in the doorway to the bedroom with her arms crossed surveying the mess before her. “Wow, you sure pissed that one off.”

"I don't understand," Alex said, stepping over the disorder.

“What?" Betty still stood by the doorway.

"The poltergeist definitely wasn't up here when we made our sweep."

"True," replied Betty.

"And we never felt it pass us when we approached the kitchen."

"The darkness was coming out of the kitchen," Betty reminded her.

"That would have happened no matter what," Alex said. "If we hadn't caught the creature, the whole house would have been one big black hole."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, if the poltergeist wasn't up here and didn't COME up here, what made this mess?"

"Think it through, little mouse.'

Alex whipped her head toward her partner. "What did you just say?"

Betty looked behind her and then back around to Alex. "Me? I didn't say anything."

Alex shook her head. The stress of the mission must be getting to her. She rubbed her temples. "There must have been another spirit in the house." She looked at her partner again. "Remember when we first came up here, I got that tickle in my throat."

"We never felt any cold spots. Never saw any specters or shadows."

"We were pretty focused on the poltergeist and pentagram."

"True," Betty said. She rubbed her chin in thought. "Could —"

Alex held up her hand silencing her partner. "Bells," she said. Thin chimes reached her, as if they were ringing from behind a closed door. She cocked her head and closed her eyes. She could picture the bells, an old-fashioned handbell. "My mother used a handbell. She would hold the grip and shake the 7 bells, creating a shimmering cascade of tones, a sound she claimed brought the attention of the spirits."

"Fascinating," Betty drawled. 

"Once she had their attention, she would light the ritual herbs." Alex took another step, keeping her eyes closed so she could focus. She took a deep breath. In her memory, she smelled sage and cedar and applewood. Sweetgrass. Juniper. Her throat tightened. It was a long time since she last thought of her mother.

Alex broke from her frozen state and walked back to the doorway.

“What was that all about?” asked Betty.

“I thought I felt something.” Alex shook her head. “There’s nothing here.”

Betty stared at her for a moment but seemed satisfied with what she saw. “We should get going. The others should have finished by now.”

Alex popped a tablet of allergy medicine into her mouth. Time to get back to normal and leave this mission behind.

As she followed Betty to the first floor, she felt a draft swirl past her. Goosebumps speckled her skin, tickling the hives on her arms and throat. She ground, ignoring her discomfort. The antihistamine would start working soon.

In the living room they found the crew packing up their gear. Four of them were struggling to get the entrapment case out the front door. Spirits don’t weigh anything, but the machinery to capture them sure does. Alex and Betty exchanged a wry smile. They put their lives in danger every day but at least they didn’t have to help with the cleanup.

Alex shut the light switch off. Now that the poltergeist was gone the living room was bright and cheerful. The dark patterns on the sofa that looked so sinister earlier now resolved into twining flowers in bright blues and yellows. Alex wondered how the owners of this sweet house could have attracted such a dangerous spirit. 

Before climbing into the back of the truck for the trip back to base, Alex took a final look at the house, ignoring the neighbors staring at her from their window. The house didn’t look infested. She shook her head. Must have been her imagination.

She climbed into the truck. The others were already chatting and joking about the completed mission. Alex ignored them and sat by herself at the back. She clenched her hands into fists to stop herself from scratching. It would only be a minute or two until the medication kicked in and the hives would disappear.

Closing her eyes, she did her post-mission deep breathing. Slowly she tuned out the voices, using the sound of the truck as white noise. Images from the mission flashed through her mind. The pentagram, the trashed bedroom, the broken chairs littering the kitchen floor. The darkened living room, the pitch-black kitchen, the brightness in the trashed bedroom. Betty with her arms crossed surveying the mess.

Was there something there? She tried to follow the images, but they were too quick for her. She was tired. Too tired. She was the one who needed the extra therapy.

A gentle touch on the back of her hand brought her back to the present with a start. Opening her eyes, she found Betty sitting right next to her. Her best friend knew better than anyone not to disturb her post-mission meditation. Betty was looking at her with gentle eyes and a generous smile. Alex’s body reacted immediately. Her shoulders slumped and her hands relaxed from fists. Betty entwined her hand into Alex’s. Alex smiled back at her best friend. Then Betty did something unexpected.

She brushed her thumb across Alex’s palm raising goosebumps on the back of Alex’s neck. The temperature in the truck plummeted ten degrees. The sound of bells and the smell of thyme flooded the bay. 

"What's that smell?" asked Banyon. 

"Do you hear bells?" asked another of the b-team.

Alex snapped her attention to the others. They were looking back and forth between themselves. It wasn't just her! Alex looked deep into her best friends’ eyes. There was a shift there. The shadow they'd been looking for earlier. “Mom?” she whispered.

Read more of my supernatural fiction here

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