Chill: The One Thing You Can't Replace

Here we are back in Alaska! 

Recall that last time, the envoys had encountered the ghost of a World War One soldier named Benedict Martin, who had put a bullet in the hip of Khalil Barnes. With Barnes in the hospital overnight, the envoys decide to rest up and get back to the investigation in the morning.

And indeed, the following morning, Amelia Rostov and Kayla Vanderhoven hit the library and research who Benedict Martin might be. They wind up discovering that he was born in Seward in 1899, and died in 1968, long after the Great War. He married a woman named Judith Chauncey and they had four kids together. They wind with constructing a family tree for him:

This doesn't have birth/death dates, but the envoys did find them

They share this with the other envoys, and Tulugaak Hanta realizes that he knows Avery Martin. She was a year behind him at Seward High School, meaning she's a senior now. So how did the photo of Benedict and (presumably) Judith wind up in Alex McNulty's house? 

Arlo Miller picks up Khalil from the hospital, but shortly thereafter, the envoys all get alerts on their phones from Dr. Bellman. "Don't know if this is related to anything you're doing, but there's an active shooter situation at Seward High." The envoys all race over there, Amelia and Kayla arriving first. The situation doesn't look bad - no violence evident, the cops aren't getting ready to storm the place, and it looks to the envoys like things are winding down. Amelia talks to an EMT that she knows and learns that, to his knowledge, there was a shot fired but no one was actually hurt, people just saw a man walking around outside with a rifle. 

The other envoys arrive, and while they're waiting for the cops to empty out the school, Khalil and Kayla walk around the building a bit. Khalil glances around the side of the building and sees the weird, non-Euclidean, hallucinatory sightlines that he sees when the Unknown is about. They find footprints, resembling military boots but out of date, and the prints have blood and mud in them. There's no blood or mud in the area, though. Khalil takes some quick samples and he and Kayla watch as the prints fade away. Tulugaak touches the wall of the school and learns the locale of security cameras, and unfortunately none of them are pointing at that side of the building. But there's a classroom window looking right out there, and if Tulugaak's memory is right, it's Mrs. Mueller's senior English class.

When the school does get evacuated, Tulugaak spots Mrs. Mueller and goes to talk to her. He chats a moment, but she never saw the guy, just pulled her students away from the window when they did. Tulugaak spots Avery Martin and he and Khalil go to talk to her. 

Avery says that she saw a man with a big rifle walking around outside. She thinks he might have been wearing camos? But the weird thing is, he turned to the window and caught her eye, and she thinks he looked familiar. 

Khalil shows her the picture on his phone of the framed photo of Benedict and Judith and asks her if he looked anything like this, and Avery is flabbergasted, both because yeah, he did, but also because that photo disappeared from her house a couple of years ago! She'd had a party without her parents knowing and the next day, that picture was gone. She mentions that the same thing happened to one of her volleyball teammates, actually - she had a party and the next day an old photo was gone.

Khalil promises to get the photo back if he can, and the envoys regroup. They figure that they need to talk to Alex. It seems pretty clear that he stole at least a couple of these photos, but they don't know why. And even if he did, why is Benedict showing up now? That photo has been in Alex' house for a couple of years, after all. They have Tulugaak go and get Alex and bring him to a burger place for lunch, and stage a bit of an intervention.

The envoys explain that what shot Khalil yesterday was a ghost, and it was the ghost of a man in a photo that Alex took. Alex, after some prodding, admits that he was kind of fucked up in high school, and used to steal old photos from classmates at parties - they are, he says, something that you can't replace. The envoys note that everyone does stupid things in high school (Kayla relates her experiences with stealing cosmetics as a teen), but the Alex asks if this ghost killed his mom.

The envoys confirm that he did, but Khalil emphatically states that this is not Alex' fault. There's no possible way he could have known this would happen. Everyone decides to go back to Alex' house and check out the physical photo a bit more. 

They arrive at the McNulty house, and everyone goes inside. Amelia and Arlo stay downstairs, while other folks go up and check out the framed photo. Khalil pops it out of the frame and looks at the picture, and on the back, finds "B.M. + J.M. 1920" written in ink, but also a small, discolored rectangle, about the size of a little piece of Scotch tape. Something was affixed to this photo.

He looks around the room and finds a small lock of hair between floorboards. Khalil calls downstairs for folks to find some tape...and then feels a raindrop. Amelia notices fog rising up from the floor downstairs. Tulugaak heads out of the room into the hallway, and nearly runs straight into Benedict, who cracks him in the jaw with the butt of his rifle. He feels a tooth chip and pushes forward, attempting to tackle Benedict, and Khalil emerges from the photo room with his .45 drawn. He puts a bullet in the ghost, and Benedict falls to the floor, gasping, and melts away.

Meanwhile, Amelia attempts to get up the stairs quickly, but misses a step and tumbles back down. Kayla catches her to make sure she doesn't seriously hurt herself, and then creeps up the stairs, too, activating Eyes of the Dead to see if Benedict is still around. She doesn't see him, but he's melted away into a yellowish gas. Tulugaak, Kayla, and Khalil all cover their faces and head downstairs, where Amelia has already enacted a ward.

Alex is panicking a bit, looking through drawers for tape. The envoys figure they need to tape the hair back onto the photo, but they've left the photo upstairs. Hearing that they need to get it, Tulugaak runs back upstairs (and Kayla follows), and finds that the room with the photos is full of a thick fog. 

Kayla slips into the room and hunches down into the fog. She sees Benedict hunkered in the corner, peering over a nonexistent trench with his rifle. When Tulugaak enters the room, Benedict fires off a shot and hits Tul in the shoulder (Tul immediately gets a spike of adrenaline and doesn't feel a thing. Arlo comes up the stairs and into the room ("maybe next time you wait for me") and activates Sphere of Protection. The fog vanishes within the sphere and Tul grabs the photo. Benedict takes another shot, but it crackles harmlessly off the sphere. Arlo waves Kayla and Tul out of the room and they rush downstairs; Arlo follows slowly, maintaining the protection.

Downstairs, Amelia tapes the lock of hair back onto the photo and puts the photo back in the frame. Everything upstairs goes quiet, and the envoys slowly creep back up. 

They find Benedict in the photo room, his spectral form flickering between his Army uniform and the suit he was wearing in the photo. They enter the room carefully and engage him in conversation. Benedict is confused; he remembers being at war, but remembers coming back? Maybe? Khalil shows him the picture and reminds him that it was taken after the war, in 1920. He came back, he married Judith, he had four kids and multiple grandkids, and he didn't pass away until 1968. 

(Arlo draws a Line of Defense around him, just in case he panics.)

Benedict says that something still feels wrong, and the envoys tell him that they'll make sure the photo gets back to his family. Benedict, hearing that, slows down, and says that he's tired. Khalil tells him that he can rest now. "You did good, soldier." 

"I never really liked being a soldier," says Benedict. "But I did like being with Judith. You know. Being a husband." And he fades away.

Amelia takes Tul to the hospital so Dr. Bellman can work on his shoulder, while Khalil, Kayla, and Arlo go to the Martin household. They knock, and Avery answers. She's overjoyed to see the photo, and thanks the envoys - hopefully her parents just won't notice. She takes the photo, and the envoys regroup at the hospital.

"Well," says Dr. Bellman, "nice work. Hopefully that helps the ghost pass on, and doesn't just put him back to sleep." 

Amelia nods. "No way to know."

"Other than taking the hair out again, I guess." 

"Nope."