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Apr. 23rd, 2007 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gone_byebyeWednesday, March 28, 2007
Federal Prison Camp Yankton
Yankton, South Dakota
The car from the airport pulled to a stop; Ray peered out the window at the buildings heaped up next to each other. "Unappetizing place," he said.
"It's a federal prison, Ray. The general idea is for them to be unappealing," said Egon.
"True. Well, let's see what they've got for us. I'd like to go home as soon as we can. The whole thing gives me the creeps."
There were several prison officials waiting for the two Ghostbusters as they got out of the car. The foremost was a harried-looking redheaded man who nonetheless managed a smile and a strong handshake. "Hi there, Dr. Stantz, Dr. Spengler. I'm Jack Mulroe," he said. "Glad you could come out here. We've got a problem."
"So we've been told," said Egon dryly. "Would you mind filling us in on exactly what the FBI investigators think constitutes grounds for outside consultancy?"
"Sure thing." Mulroe started up the path to the prison's main building. "Basically, sometime between two-forty-five and two-fifty-nine AM last Friday, one of our inmates stopped being in his cell."
"Interesting choice of words," said Ray. "Stopped being in his cell how?"
"Wish I could say, gentlemen, but the video records don't give us any kind of clue. There are about six different cameras covering all possible entrances and exits from that section of the prison, and there were no disturbances to any parts of the HVAC system or the plumbing that we could see. There were no signs of tampering with any of the locking mechanisms or restraints, and the guards on duty were all the kinds of men who- well, they all hated this particular inmate's guts enough that he couldn't have bribed them to do so much as hold back a sneeze."
"Wow," said Ray. "That's impressive. What'd he do, eat somebody?"
Mulroe laughed. As they continued down the corridor to his office, he said, "No, no, this was in the non-violent offenders' wing. Still maximum security, you understand, but inmate number 35712-165 was in for a stack of paper felonies. I've got his file in my office. He was just the kind of person who could irritate somebody five miles away by looking at them funny."
"You still haven't mentioned why you called for us, instead of invoking some of the other federal agencies qualified to handle this kind of situation," said Egon.
Mulroe sobered, his hand on his office's doorknob. "It's very common for prisoners convicted of certain types of crime to take an interest in the occult," he says, "but usually it's the cheap, sensational form of devil worship that you see on the news. Our former inmate's had someone on the outside sending him books on ceremonial magic for a while now- I asked for a list of his reading materials as soon as the investigation started. There's been a lot of interest in Thelema, which I'm not very familiar with- I just saw the word repeated on his reading list. Most of his books weren't on our list of forbidden material, so we just noted them and let them pass."
Ray and Egon exchanged glances as they stepped into Mulroe's office.
"Normally I wouldn't take that as anything in particular, but the FBI guys swept his cell with blacklights and he'd managed to cover every single flat surface in ceremonial glyphs and diagrams," Mulroe added. "Totally invisible without the blacklight, you understand. I'm not sure how he pulled that off, because we restrict the amount of fruit our inmates get to avoid people saving it up to make pruno." He started rummaging through the folders on his desk. "The one in the middle of the floor looked like it was pulsing. Anyway, here's his file."
He held out a manila folder. Ray reached out for it, but as his eyes fell on the tab near the top his hand froze as if he were being asked to grab a snake by the head. "Something wrong, Dr. Stantz?" asked Mulroe, puzzled.
Egon took the folder from Mulroe instead. His eyes narrowed, and he looked up at the redheaded man. "You might've warned us that inmate 35712-165 was Walter Elias Peck," he said.
Federal Prison Camp Yankton
Yankton, South Dakota
The car from the airport pulled to a stop; Ray peered out the window at the buildings heaped up next to each other. "Unappetizing place," he said.
"It's a federal prison, Ray. The general idea is for them to be unappealing," said Egon.
"True. Well, let's see what they've got for us. I'd like to go home as soon as we can. The whole thing gives me the creeps."
There were several prison officials waiting for the two Ghostbusters as they got out of the car. The foremost was a harried-looking redheaded man who nonetheless managed a smile and a strong handshake. "Hi there, Dr. Stantz, Dr. Spengler. I'm Jack Mulroe," he said. "Glad you could come out here. We've got a problem."
"So we've been told," said Egon dryly. "Would you mind filling us in on exactly what the FBI investigators think constitutes grounds for outside consultancy?"
"Sure thing." Mulroe started up the path to the prison's main building. "Basically, sometime between two-forty-five and two-fifty-nine AM last Friday, one of our inmates stopped being in his cell."
"Interesting choice of words," said Ray. "Stopped being in his cell how?"
"Wish I could say, gentlemen, but the video records don't give us any kind of clue. There are about six different cameras covering all possible entrances and exits from that section of the prison, and there were no disturbances to any parts of the HVAC system or the plumbing that we could see. There were no signs of tampering with any of the locking mechanisms or restraints, and the guards on duty were all the kinds of men who- well, they all hated this particular inmate's guts enough that he couldn't have bribed them to do so much as hold back a sneeze."
"Wow," said Ray. "That's impressive. What'd he do, eat somebody?"
Mulroe laughed. As they continued down the corridor to his office, he said, "No, no, this was in the non-violent offenders' wing. Still maximum security, you understand, but inmate number 35712-165 was in for a stack of paper felonies. I've got his file in my office. He was just the kind of person who could irritate somebody five miles away by looking at them funny."
"You still haven't mentioned why you called for us, instead of invoking some of the other federal agencies qualified to handle this kind of situation," said Egon.
Mulroe sobered, his hand on his office's doorknob. "It's very common for prisoners convicted of certain types of crime to take an interest in the occult," he says, "but usually it's the cheap, sensational form of devil worship that you see on the news. Our former inmate's had someone on the outside sending him books on ceremonial magic for a while now- I asked for a list of his reading materials as soon as the investigation started. There's been a lot of interest in Thelema, which I'm not very familiar with- I just saw the word repeated on his reading list. Most of his books weren't on our list of forbidden material, so we just noted them and let them pass."
Ray and Egon exchanged glances as they stepped into Mulroe's office.
"Normally I wouldn't take that as anything in particular, but the FBI guys swept his cell with blacklights and he'd managed to cover every single flat surface in ceremonial glyphs and diagrams," Mulroe added. "Totally invisible without the blacklight, you understand. I'm not sure how he pulled that off, because we restrict the amount of fruit our inmates get to avoid people saving it up to make pruno." He started rummaging through the folders on his desk. "The one in the middle of the floor looked like it was pulsing. Anyway, here's his file."
He held out a manila folder. Ray reached out for it, but as his eyes fell on the tab near the top his hand froze as if he were being asked to grab a snake by the head. "Something wrong, Dr. Stantz?" asked Mulroe, puzzled.
Egon took the folder from Mulroe instead. His eyes narrowed, and he looked up at the redheaded man. "You might've warned us that inmate 35712-165 was Walter Elias Peck," he said.
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Date: 2007-04-23 04:12 pm (UTC)