12. The dark has teeth #3
He pulls his phone out and starts pacing the kitchen as we watch him in silence. He puts the call on speaker. The boss picks up on the fourth ringtone with his usual “Thank you for calling ExorSquad, where all your hauntings go to die. Gerald Pickett on the phone. What can I do for you?”
“Hey, it’s James. We have a situation here. We—”
“Who?” the man on the phone retorts like a confused owl.
“James Sato.” Silence on the line. “One of your employees?” I can see a muscle of his jaw flex as he grinds his teeth.
“Oh right! I thought you were a client. You’re the one I sent to Edinburgh right? Are you done with the job?”
“No. Like I said, we have a situation here, and we need reinforcements. There is—”
“No can do. Sorry my boy. All teams are busy. But good luck and make sure to keep the client satisfied!” The client in question, Lana, makes a sour face as he keeps talking. “I’ll be expecting your report by next week. Have fun kiddos!” And then he promptly hangs up.
James stares at his phone, bewildered and angry. He calls again but this time it goes straight to voicemail. On the fourth try, he almost throws his phone through the kitchen but I rescue it before he does. “Motherfucker!”
“Looks like we’re on our own,” Shirley says, and Lana nods grimly.
“We’re not,” I say after a moment. “They’re four of us, seven magical cats, and a sentient house. That’s a better team than ExorSquad could have provided. We’ll figure this out.”
The two women look at me, eyes bright for the first time since we entered the kitchen.
“Well said,” James says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “She’s just another ghost, there must be a way to exorcise her from this place.”
Shirley jumps off the table and drops her now empty mug in the sink. “I’m going to get my laptop. We need to do some research.”
“I’ll get the ExorSquad handbook,” James says.
Lana gently pushes the cats off her lap and stands up. “And I’ll will get wicked Fergus’ journal.”
In the matter of seconds, all three have run out of the kitchen.
“I guess I’ll make tea,” I mumble in the quiet room.
Pearl meows at me.
We spend the entire afternoon researching ghosts.
Paper, books, and the laptop are scattered over the kitchen table, the remnants of our breakfast abandoned on the counter.
I must admit, for a history nerd like me, doing a deep-dive into ghosts like this is actually pretty fun.
They’ve been a part of my life for a while now, but I was in denial and I tried to avoid looking into paranormal activity.
Now it feels like I’m finally taking control.
We made a non-exhaustive list of all the ways to banish a ghost we could find, from salt, to burning the remains and sacraments.
Religious texts seem to be working only if the ghost was a believer, but they have no actual power.
Earl Lynch theorised in his journal that mediums like me could interact with the veil, and that’s probably why some exorcists were good at their job, and it had nothing to do with their prayers.
The ExorSquad handbook is full of absurd rules that are entirely too precise to be random. Some ghost extraction specialists must have faced pretty strange situations on the job.
By the time night comes, we made a few runs to the nearest shops in town to get supplies.
More salt, herbs, holy water—because it doesn’t hurt to try—and things to burn.
We also got some face masks for the spores—who knows what they’ll do to our lungs—and Lana paid for padded armour from a biking shop just in case the ghost decides to get handsy with us.
Our best defence against possession is me.
I can physically push the ghost out of the possessed like I did with the Warrior the other night. Or at least, we hope so.
We’re all tired but too wired up from worry and coffee to take naps, so when midnight comes, we’re just eager to get going. We wait until curfew, Lana bossing around a few guests taking their time to head out to the dormitories, then we get ready.
The seven cats walk with us to the basement door, and having them by our side makes me feel more protected than with the padded jacket.
Our mouths are covered by heavy-duty white masks, the kind workers use to avoid breathing dust. Lana and Shirley have both braided their hair back like Viking warriors.
James looks at ease in his combat boots and cargo pants. He was born ready.
The house too, is part of this team. She lights up the way, and when we reach the bottom of the stairs leading to the basement, the door opens slowly on rusty hinges.
The four of us aim our flashlights at the oily dark beyond.
It feels like staring into a black hole, cold and lifeless, for something that stopped breathing a long time ago dwells in its depth.
Shirley pours a line of salt by the door.
Ghosts can fly through walls, but if we run for our lives again, it’ll at least slow the spirit down if she tries to follow us this way.
We gesture to each others like soldiers speaking hand gibberish, then step into the basement.
I try not to piss myself and we walk into the dark.
The temperature drops considerably after stepping through the threshold. This place is death’s dominion.
Nothing comes at us, so we stick to the plan and stand back to back in the middle of the empty space. Shirley draws a circle of salt around us. We hope that it'll offer us protection. The cats walk in and out of the darkness, strangely calm. Our breaths sound too loud in the quiet.
Our plan A is to talk to the ghost and learn why she’s still haunting the place.
James looks at me and nods. “I got your back,” his eyes say.
I gather my courage and pull my mask down to speak. “Um... hello?” My voice echoes through the basement.
James snorts quietly, and it actually makes me feel better.
I clear my throat. “Oh great spirit of the basement.” Another snort, but this time Lana elbows him. “We’re here to help you find peace and to be free of this place. Please accept our help.”
My hands are shaking around my PolterPulse. This time James taught me how to aim and shoot.
We scan the dark in all directions, not knowing where the ghost will come from. But of course, she appears in front of me. I squeak like a mouse, and James steps closer to me, ready to put himself between me and the spirit.
Spores whirl gently around her translucent figure.
She’s the same as the previous night, her appearance forever frozen into what she looked like when she died.
Tears of blood streak her cheeks and her hair is falling wildly out of her hairdo.
Her blue dress is stained dark. She floats closer, close enough for me to see the veins that have popped in her eyes.
She must have drowned in her own blood. Lana was right, she was probably poisoned.
For now, she doesn’t show aggression.
“Hello,” I say again. “Can you tell us your name?”
She opens her mouth to speak, but only a gurgle comes out.
Well... if she can’t talk, it complicates things.
“We want to know why you’re still haunting this place,” I continue. “Why you... Why can’t you move on?”
It feels like such a stupid question. She was murdered. Her rage must be boundless, and she has been simmering in it for over a century. I’d have difficulties moving on, too.
“We think we know what happened to you,” Lana says, and the ghost turns her attention to her. “The earl invited you to one of his soirees, and when he understood you were a powerful medium, he turned bitter. He lured you back here to poison you.”
The ghost’s pale lips pull back over her bloodied teeth in a snarl.
She tries to talk again, but she vomits blood on the ground instead.
Just like the phantom wine, the blood stains glow bright before disappearing.
Once she has stopped coughing, she looks up at me again.
Being the centre of her attention is jarring, but I have my friends with me and I feel braver than I usually am.
“You're free of this house, my lady,” I say.
“Nothing is keeping you here. Your murderer is long dead and your revenge cannot be found here. You're only hurting the living and endangering this house that we love deeply.” At that, the ghost tilts her head. I might be imagining things, but she looks torn. “My lady, please. I’m sorry about about what Earl Lynch did and—”
BOOM.
The ground shakes under a powerful impact, and the four of us stumble.
The ghost wails and she seems to grow larger, glowing like a blowtorch.
The cats run in circles around us, like a storm of fur and tails and claws.
I cover my face again as I notice the mould on the ground and nearby furniture and boxes release clouds of glowing spores.
“What the hell?” James shouts behind his face mask.
The ghost doesn’t launch herself at our salt circle like I expect her to. Instead, she opens her arms wide and screams at the top of her dead lungs. The mould recedes around her like the tide, before spreading farther in the dark.
“Holy shit... Holy shit... Holy shit...” Shirley says behind me.
Now the air in the basement is thick with spores, and it feels like we’re standing in a powdery fog.
“This can’t be good,’ James says. “Everyone, out! Quickly!”
The heavy door is rattling on its rusty hinges, as if the house herself is urging us to run. The light bulb outside is glowing bright.
James jumps over the salt circle, dragging me along by the arm as I myself grab Shirley and Lana.
As we cross the threshold, we take a look behind us.
The ghost hasn’t given chase. She’s still wailing in the centre of the basement.
The cats are running in circles around her.
Then the house slams the door closed, cutting us off, and all sound dies out.
Shaking and breathless, I stare at the door.