Ghost hunter story part 2

Honestly, I might have enough for four parts if I wanna make sure that each post isn’t too unbearably long….. again remember I didn’t break this story into chapters so it’s a bit abrupt to start.

⚠️CW ghost shit, mentions of panic attacks, slight body horror. no vomit this part.⚠️

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The next morning, Val woke up only after having pressed the snooze button on his phone twice. And for once he felt great. For a moment. Just for a split moment he felt awake and rested and like the previous day had been a blur, just as he’d hoped… until he sat up. And then he didn’t feel normal at all. He damn near felt like all of his stomach and organs had been shoved up into his rib cage the second he straightened his back, forcing him to lean back to look down at the damage.

He… was fucking huge. At least considering how he looked the previous night. He climbed to his feet, stepping out of his bedroom and slipping quickly into the bathroom to look in the mirror. He didn’t even have to pull his shirt tight to see the bump that time. His stomach poked right through the fabric of his shirt, his navel an extra visible bump. But he still pulled it tight, causing his stomach to look even bigger than he thought. He stumbled out into the living room where Leo and Rico were sitting and chatting on the couch. Apparently, he looked a bit more frazzled than he intended.

“Oh my god, Val,” Leo gasped immediately, eyes glued to his stomach. “It’s visible.”

“Yeah. It is,” he whined, pulling his shirt tight to show them what he had seen himself. Leo immediately turned down to his phone while Rico stood to view him up close.

“Are you in pain?” He asked. “Feeling sick at all?”

“Nnno… weirdly fine. Just… besides looking pregnant.”

“Yeah, you look about 4 months. Which means your baby is the size of an… heirloom tomato,” Leo mumbled, looking back and forth between Val and his phone.

“Oh, shut up,” he muttered, tossing himself down on the couch with a groan, sitting shoulder to shoulder against Leo. “What do I do?”

“I think we should try to convince it to get out,” Rico said, sitting across from them in the loveseat. “That is, take a stab at it ourselves before we attempt to contact an ordained priest to force it out. The less stress we put on you the better. Possessions are no joke.”

“And how do you suppose we do that, Ri?” Leo asked, pushing Val’s knee out of the way so he could lean down and gently knock on Val’s stomach. “Hey there, little demon. Time to get out; your lease is up!”

Val puffed his stomach outwards at Leo’s words, sending his friend barreling to the end of the couch with a look of panic on his face.

“Just kidding,” Val sniggered, raising his eyebrow, and Leo heaved a sigh.

“Fuck, thought it was about to jump out and infest the living room,” Leo said tightly. “Not funny. If we gotta try to ouija it out of you, we’re doing it far away from here. The last thing we need haunting our home is a poltergeist with a pregnancy fetish. No thanks.”

“Rico, you think this counts as a possession?” Val asked, ignoring Leo momentarily until he climbed back over to the middle of the couch to inspect him again.

“Of course I do. Any time a ghost takes residence in something it is technically a possession. It may not have possessed your brain, thank god, but it definitely has possessed your stomach. As long as it stays there and doesn’t change course in your body, it shouldn’t be able to control you or anything,” Rico explained. “We will take the ouija board out to the field after our classes tonight once it’s dark. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll get in contact with a priest.”

Val immediately internally groaned at the idea of having to go the whole day looking like he did, but he was well aware that he didn’t have a choice. Poltergeists couldn’t leave an item, or host, in the daytime. And of course his class that day was going to be more hands on than the last. He would just have to attempt to double layer and hope his classmates kept their mouths shut.

Which… of course they didn’t. His scrubs were not sized to be loose fitting, so he ended up sticking out of them like a sore thumb. The second one of Val’s teammates innocently asked him if he was pregnant, it was like his whole work table suddenly laser targeted him and consecutively forgot that they had a physical lesson to be performed.

“No comment,” was all he could tell them, which, of course, apparently didn’t mean “I prefer not to answer that,” it simply meant, “yes, of course I’m pregnant!” They were supposed to be practicing laying down on one of the therapy cots and locating specific back muscles- but apparently the second they thought he had an actual living thing inside of him, as opposed to some dead thing, they refused to let him lay chest down and get a thumb dug into his latissimus dorsi. Which really was no (pun intended) skin off of his back. But it also was kind of annoying to suddenly be excluded. It left most of the work to him to show the other classmates in his team which muscles were which.

By the end of the day, he was worn out and sluggish, feeling slightly bigger than he’d been that morning. Not as big of a difference from the previous night, but still slightly noticeably. His back ached a bit, even though his stomach wasn’t even heavy. It was the pressure that added so much discomfort, like he was a car tire filled to the brim with air. When he met up with Rico and Leo where they usually waited for him in the middle of town, Rico whipped a hot pack from his attaché.

“How on earth did you know I’d be needing this?” Val asked, gratefully taking the pack and sticking it to his lower back after activating it. Rico simply shrugged nonchalantly.

“Figured I’d bring one just in case you were worse off than this morning,” he said, and Val groaned.

“I just want it to be night time so I can try to get this thing out of me,” he said. It was late afternoon, the sunset had already barely started, but now that Val was waiting for it to be dark, it took its sweet time more than usual. “Maybe it’ll be dark by the time we can walk from here to the backside of the fort.”

“You want to release a demon on the fort?” Leo asked, tucking his hands into his pockets.

“Who cares? The place is already loaded with them. Miss Albreight’s place is only two miles from here, so it’s not like it’ll be too far from where it came from.”

Leo shrugged easily, putting a pep in his step as they started walking through the old town. It was dark enough by the time they settled down on the grass behind the large stone fort, a national monument and known haunted hotspot, thankfully somehow void of other people at that time. Leo tossed his backpack in the center of them, digging through it to pull out a faux velvet pouch that held his ouija board and planchette. None of them really enjoyed using any spirit boards unless it was absolutely necessary. They intended to remove demons and ghosts from places they weren't supposed to be, and the ouija oftentimes brought them in instead. But this time… it sorta seemed necessary. It was the only way they knew how to remove possessions from objects, so hopefully Val’s stomach counted enough as an object for it to work.

While Leo set up the board, Rico pulled out the EMF detector and an electric votive candle, testing the device around Val’s stomach again to be sure it was still there (it was), and then turned on the candle. Working the ouija board was Leo’s wheelhouse, so as soon as he was ready, he took on almost a whole new persona. It was like he didn’t have the world's tiniest brain in that head.

“Spirit that is with us tonight, we would like to connect with you,” Leo started, placing one hand on the planchette, and the other on Val’s knee. Rico did the same, while Val reached out with both hands. “We do not give you permission to stay with Valerie.”

The planchette moved slightly between them, shaking more so than heading towards any specific letter or answer. Oftentimes telling a spirit that it was not permitted or welcomed to stay did the trick- but nothing was happening. If anything, the planchette shaking felt more like a mock.

“We do not give you permission to stay with Valerie!” Leo stated again, more adamantly than the last. “You need to leave.”

The planchette finally shifted across the board, hovering over the word “no”. Val groaned outwardly, annoyance elevating.

“You can’t stay with me, I-“ he stopped with a choke, the feeling of something twisting and moving inside of his stomach causing him to let go of the planchette and grab his stomach in panic. A hard knot pushed upwards towards his sternum, rolling down his stomach towards his navel, causing a slew of chain reactions.

It started with Leo nearly jumping to his feet at the sight of the moving lump on Val’s stomach, only actually letting go of the planchette when the ouija board flipped up and away from them. The votive candle cut off with a static click, a frigid breeze blew past them, and Val felt a rather unpleasant squeeze in his upper stomach that caused him to gasp for breath.

“Okay- okay! Stop!” He yelled, moaning in relief as the pressure inside of him let up and the breeze stopped. Val fell backwards into the grass, struggling to catch his breath, and Rico was by his side in an instant while Leo had stood and moved a fair distance away.

“Val, are you alright?” Rico asked, one hand on his shoulder while the other gently laid over his stomach. He glanced up briefly to eye Leo oddly, and while Val was feeling the same confusion as he was, he couldn’t entertain it at the moment. His throat felt thick, and he had to swallow before he could manage any words.

“It’s… It’s like it was strangling me,” he said, his voice small and shaky. He put both of his hands on his stomach, feeling for movement. It was like whatever was inside of him was breathing out of tandem with his own, pulsing like some type of alien. “…what do we do now, then…?”

“I’ll track down an ordained priest to perform a rightful exorcist. Perhaps at a church, that way it will be dispelled instead of released,” Rico said, both of them jumping when Val’s stomach writhed under their hands at his words.

“Don’t think it likes that plan very much,” Leo’s voice reapproached them, his arms crossed tightly over his front, his face somber and borderline woozy.

“Nice of you to join us,” Val said tiredly when Leo kneeled back down on the ground to sit on his feet. He grimaced.

“I’m sorry- I… I don’t know why this is freaking me out so bad,” Leo mumbled, carefully worming his hand up onto Val’s stomach along with the rest of their hands. It was almost comforting; his stomach being touched by others. Like a dog being petted or something.

“Don’t worry about it, Leo,” Val said. His friend still looked guilty, regardless of how Val felt. He didn’t expect comfort when something like that happened, he knew it was weird. But it was just different for Leo to act so frightened. He was the one who talked them into ghost hunting; he wasn’t just afraid of ghost shit. “It’s just odd. You’re freaked out by the ghost, but you’re not afraid to touch my stomach? Where it is?”

Val’s own hands instinctively moved over both Rico and Leo’s. Leo shuddered a bit, but didn’t move away. Rico remained unphased. As usual.

“Yeah, I-… I don’t know,” Leo muttered, looking at the ground. “It’s not so scary until it moves.”

“You’re telling me,” Val barely laughed, the movement alone that it caused just enough to make Leo jump again. Val held him in place. “It’s not moving, relax.”

“Yep. Sorry. I’m being normal,” Leo said rigidly, using his free hand to brush away the wisps of hair that fell into his face in his rush earlier. “Rico, maybe you oughta get on with contacting that priest? The sooner the better, right? Who knows how big this thing will get.”

Rico nodded obediently, finally slipping his hand out from under Val’s to retrieve his phone and slip away for a moment. Val released his grip on Leo so that he could struggle his way up into a seated position, sighing unconsciously at the pressure it caused. Leo scooted back across the grassy area to clean up the remnants of his backpack, leaving Val to his thoughts for a moment. Was he bigger after that whole shebang? Probably. Who was keeping track? His skin felt stretched and sore, bruised from the rapid movements the night before, and he could feel each ache and pain every single time he shifted. Like he was hyper aware of them. He unconsciously groaned, trying to rub some of the discomfort away from where he had felt that icy grip near his lungs. Leo watched him with an eye that Val couldn’t decipher between apprehension or fascination.

“What?” Val urged, not irately, but enough to snap Leo out of his stare.

“What?”

“You’re just staring at me. Is this really freaking you out this much? Can it seriously somehow be freaking you out more than it’s freaking me out?” Val asked, and Leo’s face turned beet red.

“N-no- I mean-! I i it,” he stammered, crossing his jacket tight over his t-shirt. “You’re the one dealing with it. It’s- …it’s just weird.”

“Thank you for reminding me that I look weird right now,” Val sighed, narrowing his left eye tiredly. Leo somehow turned another shade of red darker.

“Not what I meant. It’s weird seeing you like this. All- like-… mom-like,” he said. “You really just look pregnant. People probably think you're pregnant.”

“It’s probably better that people think I’m pregnant than possessed, honestly,” Val sighed, sitting back on his hands casually to keep the pressure off of his lower ribs. Leo’s words got to him a bit, though. He must seriously look bad if it was making Leo, of all people, uncomfortable. Val sat up straight again, covering himself with his coat. Leo cocked his head.

“What are you doing that for? It's not that cold out; is that thing freezing you?” He asked, and Val pinched the fabric.

“No, not really… I’m just… self conscious. It’s worrying me more now that I’m making you so anxious. You aren’t afraid of ghosts.”

Leo’s face dropped, and he got up onto his knees to scoot his way closer to Val again.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry, Val. You're not making me anxious,” Leo said, frowning deeply. “That’s not the issue at all.”

“Are you afraid it will move from me to you?” Val asked, and Leo froze, before shaking his head.

“No, it’s… it's difficult to explain. It just catches me off guard a bit when it moves.”

Val didn’t relax from his position even with Leo’s reassurance. The poltergeist hadn’t stopped moving around since Rico had mentioned the priest, and the last thing Val wanted was to ruin Leo’s little moment of softness. Or to be left alone. He was terrified, even more so now that the ghost proved it's uncooperation to leave him in the first place.

What would happen if they didn’t get it out by means of a proper exorcism? Would it just stay in there forever? Eventually take over his soul? Or would it grow until he split like a cantaloupe and then be released into whatever common area he happened to be in?

Val’s face scrunched up, his throat tightened, and he felt Leo’s eyes steady on him.

“You’re having a panic attack, Val,” he said calmly, as he usually did when that happened. Val didn’t respond, only turned to the side to lug himself up to his knees, pausing there for a moment to use his thighs as leverage to stand. He moved over to the stone wall parallel from the fort, leaning against it so he could sit in the breeze brought in by the lapping salt water below. He didn’t want to think about all of that shit. Well, he was gonna, but he really shouldn’t if he wanted to keep his head on straight.

“Val, are you alright?” Rico’s voice approached him from behind, his hand resting on Val’s shoulder.

“ ‘M fine. Did you get a hold of someone?”

“Yes, the priest. He can get here by the start of the next week,” he said, already slowing his tempo awkwardly. Val groaned. Split open like a cantaloupe it was, then. The start of next week? That was so fucking far away. It was only Wednesday.

“Any way he can pick up the pace?” He asked weakly, and Rico shook his head.

“You can’t rush a priest.”

“Course you can’t…”

Val pushed himself upright, stepping a few paces in the direction towards the sidewalk. “Let’s just go then, the last thing I need now is to run into Mr. Flagler himself out here.”

Leo hurriedly grabbed his backpack, double checking everything was inside, and hurried behind them.

“Another week? If it keeps going at the rate it’s been at today, he’ll be gigantic at the end of it. He’s already gone from heirloom tomato to carrot in the span of ten hours.”

“Dude, seriously, how long were you looking that up?” Val asked, turning back to look at Leo with a cocked eyebrow. The lighting from the old and dim street lights made Leo look sepia as he grinned that stupid grin.

“Long enough to be considered a pro at gauging the size of a baby via vegetables.”

“Too bad your knowledge is being wasted on a poltergeist, oh pregnancy master,” Val snickered, and Leo grimaced.

“First of all, never call me that again. Second, baby, poltergeist, same same, obviously,” he said matter of factly, gesturing a hand out at Val’s stomach. “It grows in the stomach, moves around, feeds off of your life source, probably.”

Rico kicked his gaze towards Val at Leo’s words, looking immediately concerned.

“Feeding off of your life source? Val, do you feel like it’s sucking up your energy?” He asked.

“I’ve been tired since it first happened at Miss Albreight’s house, but I can’t tell if it’s from my energy being fed off of, or if the whole thing is just taking it out of me.”

“We need to keep an eye on that. If it starts feeding off of your energy then we have a bigger problem to worry about,” Rico said. Leo matched pace with them just enough to wrap his arm around Val as they walked.

“Bigger than the poltergeist currently is in general? Did you see his belly button? I think being tired is the least of his worries right now,” he said flippantly, and Val didn’t mentally have the energy to be too mad. Not because of the previously mentioned energy sucking possibility. If anyone was soaking Val’s energy up like a sponge at that point, it was Leo.

“Is making fun of me going to get rid of the poltergeist, Leo?” He asked slowly. “Because I think you’re just aiming for my self esteem instead.”

Leo frowned. Val knew he was just trying to lighten the mood, so he nudged him against his side to prove he wasn’t actually bothered.

“Didn’t mean it like that,” Leo mumbled, pausing as they loaded up into the car. “It’s probably my fault in the end something like this happened to you. I wasn’t clear enough where the ghost needed to go.”

“You were clear just fine, Leo,” Val sighed. “Poltergeists just do what they want. I could have been across the room from that selenite sphere and it probably still would have chosen to fuck with me.”

Leo groaned, hanging his head against the steering wheel, which Rico patted reassuringly.

“Is that why you are so afraid of Val, currently?” He asked. “Because you felt like it was your fault?”

Leo’s head whipped up, his cheeks red even in the dim light.

“No. And I'm not afraid of Val. In fact, I’m quite comfortable around Val,” he said, and Rico looked like he wanted to laugh, but he held off on it.

“But you still feel guilt. Obviously. You ran when the poltergeist moved, and you ran even when he pretended like it was moving this morning.”

“I didn’t run when it first happened,” he argued, and Rico finally laughed.

“You were pressed up against the wall- you had nowhere to run!”

Leo had shifted his car into reverse to pull out of the parking spot, but he re-parked it with a disgruntled sigh.

“What’s your hangup, dude? Like, seriously. Genuinely curious as to why me reacting to something inhuman moving violently inside of our friend’s stomach is sooo concerning,” he snapped, twisted around to glare at Rico. Val noticed though that Leo completely avoided looking at him while berating Rico, and he cupped his hand over Leo’s bicep.

“Leo, relax. I’m afraid too. You know I am. We talked about this. You don’t have to try to prove a point. Rico’s saving all of this for future provoking and you know he is.”

Leo looked at him, glancing so very briefly down at his stomach that Val almost didn’t catch it, before falling back into the driver's seat with a sigh.

“Yeah. Fine,” he muttered, rubbing his face roughly with his hands before focusing on pulling the car out again. He was lockjaw quiet the entire ride home, which was even more unusual than him being afraid of something. Leo didn’t shut up when he was arguing about something. But Val didn’t bring it back up- not in front of Rico. Rico didn’t have bad intentions, they all just liked to pick on each other. It was the nature of their friendship. It usually meant they cared, but obviously something wasn’t sitting right. And of course, instead of letting Leo forget about the incident after heading up into his room upon returning home, Val wanted to clear the air.

He knocked gently on Leo’s closed door, poking his head in when permission was given to come in. Leo looked weary, but un-tensed a bit when Val closed the door behind him.

“I know you’re sick of hearing about it…” Val started awkwardly, stopping to gauge whether Leo would be annoyed with him or not. To his surprise, Leo nodded, egging him on. “It just seems like there’s more bothering you. It’s worrying us, because things don’t bother you. I’m not here to piss you off.”

“You’re not pissing me off, I’m not… I wasn’t pissed off earlier either,” Leo said quietly, looking down at his knees for a moment as he sat down on the edge of his bed.

“I… god, it’s so stupid. I’m not afraid. I’m really not,” Leo muttered. “I’m just on edge.”

“Why?”

“Because-… I just am.”

“Come on, Leo, you can-“

“Because I’m into this shit, okay?” He burst out, hiding his face into his hands, sounding less angry and more… desperate? “I'm like… attracted to this, but you’re my best friend, I can’t think about you like that. I’m trying to be normal, but it’s just making me jumpy instead!”

Val felt his heart thumping in his chest at Leo’s outburst. So it was his fault that Leo was acting so weird. Like earlier, Val could feel his face tightening, and Leo stood suddenly, opening his mouth to obviously apologize, when a knock sounded against his door.

“…It's open,” Leo approved, and Rico carefully stepped in, looking knowingly at them both. Of course he had heard. He probably wasn’t even upstairs when it happened, he just had great hearing and Leo had just been a touch loud. Val didn’t stay long enough for a conversation to sprout, slipping out the door past Rico to hurry off to his room.

Did he care that Leo had just admitted to being attracted not to him, but to what was happening to his stomach? No. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about what Leo was attracted to. But he did care that, despite everything, Leo wasn’t acting his usual self because of Val. Intentional or not, Val felt guilt. He didn’t know why; maybe that ghost was fucking with him in more ways than just making itself quite at home in his stomach. Did a possessive pregnancy come with hormones? Ugh. Bullshit.

Tiredly, Val changed clothes, swapping his scrubs and coat for a sweatshirt and pajama bottoms. He didn’t have a mirror in his room, but he still looked down at his stomach, smoothing the fabric around it with his hands to gauge the size. He felt a bit queasy in his chest looking at it, how far out it stuck from his body, how his hands felt natural cradled underneath it.

He sighed through his nose. If it were on his own terms… maybe he wouldn’t mind it. If it’d been a real baby with someone he wanted to start a family with, he probably would have enjoyed it. But it was something malicious and inhuman in him; not even a calm spirit. A fucking poltergeist, of all things. It writhed in him constantly, the only comparison he could liken it to being maggots squirming in the belly of roadkill. It wasn’t visible on him, but he could still feel it. Non. Stop.

Only a few moments had passed after Val had finally broken from his stupor and settled down in his desk chair when footsteps arrived outside of his bedroom door.

“Val, I’m sorry,” Leo’s voice mumbled through the wood, his head leaning against it causing it to creak briefly. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Val opened the door slowly, allowing Leo to lift his head off of it, and propped his cheek against the door jamb. He semi-intentionally hid himself behind the opposite side of the door as he leaned.

“Not uncomfortable,” he said truthfully, and Leo raised an eyebrow. “I just feel… bad.”

“Because of me?” Leo asked, and Val shook his head.

“No. For you…? I think… I feel bad for making things awkward. For being a reason you couldn’t speak up comfortably or something. I’m sure later I won’t give a shit, but right now I’m just feeling… overwhelmingly guilty and weird. I think it maybe comes with the territory of having a ghost freeloading off of my guts,” he mumbled. “Everything’s all off balance right now.”

Leo looked… confused. He wrung his hands together, staring at his thumbs. “You aren’t… you aren’t upset with me or anything? Not weirded out?”

“Leo, I don’t care what you’re into. I know you mean no harm and don’t… I don’t feel preyed on or anything,” Val said. “If I can’t be somewhat attractive like this to my best friend, then god would it suck with anyone else, huh?”

At his joking tone, Leo finally loosened up to laugh, and Val opened the door more to give him a playful shove.

“Stay like that, alright? This crap sucks; I’d rather not be stressed about it. Might as well get some enrichment out of it.”

Leo relaxing was a huge weight off of Val. Weirdly so, because usually they loved pushing each other’s buttons. Usually it was under the guise that everything was safe and sound. Val hoped that this clearing of the air would lend him a decent sleep that night, but… it didn’t. It was restless and uncomfortable, and when he wasn’t stuck halfway into a REM sleep that made him toss and turn, he was waking up suddenly to a hypnic jerk, shooting up into a sitting position and regretting it each time it happened, groaning irately as his stomach was stuffed up into his rib cage.

When he did finally get into a solid slumber in the early morning, he felt like his dreams were plagued. He dreamt of things he didn’t think scared him before; being cut open by something dull, throwing up continuously for what felt like hours, childbirth- …Needless to say, he was quite relieved to wake up again with a start to his phone alarm. He never truly got to appreciate that Stargate alarm that he bought for a dollar fifty and immediately grew to hate every time it scared him awake.