The First Visit (Part 2)

“We don’t know, they’re all gone now,” Jesse put his hands on his hip, “How would you suggest we find them? Seems like they’re all spread out around this maze of a place,” He appeared to be more levelheaded now, softening his voice.

Laysha made a quiet “Hm” sound, “What if we just go searching from where they came from? Didn’t Elliott say that they came from the speakeasy, did you respond to the ghost in any way, or did you just run?”

Elliott promptly piped up, “No, I just ran,” He clasped his hands and shuffled in his spot a little bit, “The guy seemed creepy either way.”

Laysha had a bright, encouraging smile on her face, “Well then maybe he’s still there, I say we go check.”

Without giving any of her friends a choice, she hastily made her way down the winding hallways all the way to the makeshift speakeasy.

The entrance to the speakeasy was as dark as ever; like it was sucking in the surrounding light for itself. Laysha swiftly made her way down the stairs, intaking every little detail (about as much as her eyes could let her). The oldened floorboards creaked beneath her shoes until she finally made it down. As she stepped down, she immediately went in a sprint to look for the supposed ghost. She booked it straight towards the bar, looking down behind it but alas, found nothing. Rapidly jumping up and over from the bar, she looked past the nearby corner of the room, but there was still nothing in sight. The entire speakeasy was flat and open and there were no ghosts to be seen.

Laysha sighed and moped to the center of the room, “Well, so much for that.”

“Well, I wouldn’t give up so easily now!”

She jumped and instantly turned around, abruptly met with a man smiling only mere inches from her face. As she turned away, he floated backwards and held his hand out to shake. Laysha shook it and promptly had a horrible, painfully cold sensation going up through her hand and into her arm.

“Hello, hello! The name’s Vincent, Dr. Vincent Geiermann and you are?” He rapidly shook her hand up and down, not even letting go for just a second.

She barely understood what he was saying, sounding like a slur of vowels and breaths strung together and barely pronounced consonants. Laysha quickly pieced together that he was asking what her name is.

Talking with a steady voice, she responded, “Oh, my name is Laysha, Laysha Boyer. Those are my, uh, friends over there.” She gestured with her head and saw Elliott giving her a disapproving shake of the head.

With an unnatural turn of the neck, the doctor stared at her friends with an even wider half-faced grin. They all stared at Dr. Vincent with large eyes. The man was dressed from head to toe in shades of blue and green; save for his circular, bright red glasses and a top hat taking up most of his height. His tailcoat was spread out as he floated, and underneath it seemed to be a tie and a green button-up. Most notable of all was the mask covering the left side of his face.

He floated over to the group, kicking his feet and giggling. Scanning over the group, his cyan pupil began to widen.

“Say, what exactly brought you’se four here?” He turned upside down and proceeded to float over them, “Its a rarity to see anyone that's here and not around to mess up the place or whatnot; but you’se seem like a good bunch!”

The ghost chuckled after finishing his sentence and the group all took turns glancing and nervously looking at each other. Suddenly, he flipped back upwards and twirled his cane, setting it right back on the ground. His legs continued to float as he rested his arms on the cane.

Jesse was the one to pipe up first, “Well, the gist is that we kind of... Hunt ghosts? And we were here to see if there were any to, uh...” He trailed off, still baffled about everything that is occurring.

Elliott finished for him, “We were coming to see if we could buy it and use it as a haunted place attraction.” She was completely unmoving from her spot, letting her monotone voice do all the work. Dr. Vincents eye widened as his smile managed to creep up through his face.

He let out a sinister laugh before responding, “Oh, how lovely, lovely! Also, also, did you happen to see any other ghosts on your little tour?” Dr. Vincent seemed entirely unphased by the whole “buying the asylum” bit and instead indulged in his own conversation.

“I found a ghost in the office-” Laysha was cut off in an instant by the ghost.

“Oh, that was my father, don’t worry about him!” He giggled and joked, not having a care in the world (I guess you wouldn’t if you’d been on Earth for that long).

Vixen made a small gasping noise before questioning, “Wait so you are-”

Dr. Vincent cut him off immediately; already knowing the question and answer, “Yes, yes, second – and last, heir to the throne of the asylum! I thought, I thought I gave it away with the whole introducing myself as doctor and Geiermann, not the brightest of the bunch, eh?”

“Well, I-”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” He appeared over to Vixen in less than a second, “You even lose a bit of that smartness when you’ve been staring at the daisy roots for how long!” He laughed and leaned his head on Vixen’s shoulder until the boy rapidly stammered away from the ghost. Dr. Vincent promptly reappeared back to his original standing point and continued their little conversation.

“So, you’se were saying about possibly buying the place; turn it into those haunted house ‘tractions, yeah? How much we talking here?” Not being able to stay still, he started floating and roaming around the group; making zig zags between them. Patiently (or not so) waiting for a response.

Laysha started walking towards her friends, watching the ghost drift mesmerizingly above, “Well, I think- I guess it would depend on how much you would like it to be.”

She returned to her friend group, but Elliott leaned in and asked her, “Do you not think it would matter more if we asked the guy that owns the place?”

“Well, considering that there are also other people that live here, I think we should ask them too!”

Elliott sighed, not wishing to pursue the conversation, so he let Laysha and Dr. Vincent continue with their bargaining.

She crossed her arms, “Exactly how old is this place?”

The ghost paused, tapping the bottom of his chin with a quizzical look, and making a ‘Hm’ sound. Without warning, a large puff of red smoke appeared right next to Dr. Vincent. As it dissipated, a figure took form and revealed that it was the same ghost from the office; Dr. Geiermann himself.

He spoke in a low, annoyed voice, “One hundred and thirty-seven years old. I thought you would do better, Vincent,” He turned to the group and raised a brow, “You are the others I presume?”

Vincent answered right away for them, “Yes, yes, they’re visitors, visitors!”

“Trespassers, imbécile,” He shot his head over to his son and frowned, “You are seriously giving the asylum away to children?”

Laysha argued, “We are not children! We have a whole job to do, that’s why we want to buy this asylum in the first place!”

“I do not want this place to be the next dernier cri, so do not bother-”

Vincent rapidly flew over to Laysha and held his hand out with a malicious smile, “How does 5 grand sound?”

Dr. Geiermann sputtered and stammered for a second before gathering himself together, but by that time Laysha had made her choice.

“It’s a deal.” She shook his hand and started giggling as his smile grew, unnaturally stretching up to his eye.

“And how! So wonderful, wonderful!”

“No, Vincent, not wonderful,” Dr. Geiermann grabbed his son by the shoulders, moving him away from Laysha. Vincent stared up at his dad with a confused and frankly annoyed expression, “You do know what you are doing, right? You are seriously giving it away that easily? You did not even think!”

“First of all, I thought it all the way through.”

“En cinq secondes, sérieusement?”

“Yes, I know, shocking. I think it would be nice to have more visitors, wouldn’t you say?”

Dr. Geiermann sighed and rolled his eyes, exhausted, “Tu me donnes mal à la tête...”

Vixen leaned into Laysha and whispered to her, “What is he saying?”

“I have no clue,” She replied in a similar subtle tone.

Vincent exclaimed once more as he whipped his head around to the group; his pupils a wide blue, “We have come to an agreement!”

Dr. Geiermann chipped in an immediate, “No we did not,” he scooted his son away and stiffly approached the friends. He stopped just in front of them, staring them down; he finally replied, “If you go through with buying this place, I have rules. You touch not a thing, you change nothing, you add nothing; is this go to be a paid tour?”

Laysha panicked for a moment before responding, “Oh, uh, yes?”

“Then you can put a box next the front entrance. That will be the only thing you add. You will add caution tape to the front of the stairs,” he walked over to the end of the staircase and pointed to the top of it, leading back to the main hall, “None of us want anyone else down here. You tell people, stay together, no one go to upstairs near the main entrance. Only the first and second floors. Do you understand?”

Laysha shook her head in slight confusion, but he had a point, it was his asylum after all, “Alright, we’ll follow your rules.”

Vincent responded an unnecessary and drawn out, “Boring,” he made a yawning motion with his hand. His father shot him a sharp glare, narrowing his eyes, but Vincent did not seem to care nor notice, “So many rules,” He tilted his head backwards to where his father was standing, “You’re a real pill, you know that?”

“And you think of yourself as better?” Dr. Geiermann started walking his way back to the group, looking down at his son, “You were about to let them do qui sait quoi!”

“Oh, boohoo, at least it would’ve brightened the place up a bit,” He stuck his tongue out nonchalantly, “But I’m guessing you wouldn’t want that, eh?” He started giggling at his own joke.

His father rolled his eyes, but took his attention back to the friend group, “So, you understand what you can and cannot do?”

Laysha nodded, “Yes, we do,” she glanced over to her friends with a desperate look in her eyes. The group nodded with murmurs of yes’s and yeah’s.

Dr. Vincent swiftly turned his head up and in an unnatural pattern, he swiftly floated over back to Laysha and shook her hand once more.

“Another deal then!” He rapidly shook her hand up and down before moving onto the rest of the friend group. The ghost swapped his hands, turning them over on one another, almost looking like a pretzel in comparison. Vixen had jumped back slightly at the sheer freezing cold of Dr. Vincent’s hand. Elliott and Jesse just nodded and shook, exchanging distressed looks to each other.

He finally let go, sparing everyone of a frostbitten hand. The ghost ascended upwards, suddenly stopping just before the ceiling and he looked down at the newfound owners in an aplomb pose. Dr. Geiermann watched his son with skepticism and uncertainty.

“So, any more questions or anything for me at all?” Dr. Vincent smiled as he scanned the group. He checked their mannerisms, any minute details. The way they looked; the way they stared in absolute awestruck.

Seemingly with no questions asked, he was just about to continue until Vixen impulsively asked, “What’s with the half a mask?”

The ghost snapped his attention abnormally over to the young man, his smile unwavering. He immediately flitted down to him, only mere inches away from his face, close enough to feel the icy chill. Then he spoke, “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Vixen was astonished and creeped out, the color seemingly draining from his face. His lips quaked, but all the ghost did was chuckle at his sheer fear until it turned into a boisterous laugh, swinging his arm around Vixen, “Oh, I’m just messing with ya!” Dr. Vincent took his arm away from Vixen, still continuing his giggling spree.

Dr. Geiermann looked at his son, his pupils visibly only a slit now, and turned to Vixen, “This is what you will deal with now,” Vixen nodded slowly while giving out a nervous chuckle.

Laysha had been in thought for quite some time, and decided, “If you have rules, then I have some as well,”

“For my own asylum?”

“Yes, actually. First of all, don’t interfere much,” She got cut off in an instant.

“Again, in my own asylum?” The ghost took a menacing step forward, narrowing his eyes.

Laysha confidently continued, “Let me finish, do not interfere much while we are working. Like doing tours and stuff.”

Dr. Vincent floated over to his father with his arms drooping downwards, seemingly sliding over to him without a single real movement, “Didn’t you say that the whole deal of buying this place was to turn into a, y’know, haunted tour?”

“I mean, yes, obviously, then there would be no fun! But just maybe keep the whole...” Laysha trailed off, trying to think of the correct words to use to not make anyone upset, “Everything to a minimum.”

“By everything do you mean him?” Dr. Geiermann nodded his head towards his son, and he seemed entirely unfazed about the fact they were now talking about him.