7. It Gets Worse
seven
It Gets Worse
Liam
Bright white panic takes me.
Raul’s dead. Raul’s fucking dead. And a fucking ghost just killed him.
Ghosts are real, and Raul is dead, and how the fuck did I get here in the middle of it all?
“Shit,” I hiss. “Shit!” I exclaim.
“Liam,” says Archer.
But I barely register him, because what the fuck? “Shit. What the actual fuck?”
The door. I need the door. I have to get out of here.
I’m on my feet, but my legs buckle, and I slam a hip against the table, still-hot tea splashing across its surface, the juxtaposition of what was before and what now is striking me even in this state.
Raul’s fucking dead.
I know I shouldn’t—that this will haunt my nightmares for years to come—but my head turns, almost of its own accord, my eyes falling to the mess on the floor.
Blood. So much blood, seeping out in every direction.
The arms of the chandelier jut out at sharp angles, bent and broken, pieces of crystal thrown across the floor, reflecting the horror back in a million tiny mirrors.
Raul’s arms and legs crushed, his head and his body hidden under the mass of bronze.
Sparks zap from the roughly severed wires sticking out of the ceiling, clawing towards the floor like broken fingernails. And the ghost…
“Liam…” Archer’s voice comes distant. Too distant.
Where’s the ghost?
It was there. I’d swear on my life, I saw a ghost, fully corporeal, right there in the doorway. But the darkness is gone—it’s the same sunny autumn morning it was when Archer was pouring us tea, when I was admiring his nice hands.
One of those hands touches my arm gently now. “Liam, listen to me—”
I lean into him, then grasp his hand. “He’s dead. We have to— We— We need to—”
“Shhhh. It’s okay.” He turns to me, lowering his head to capture my gaze. And his eyes… They’re… They’re so calm. He’s so calm. And how can he be calm right now?
Maybe he’s in shock. Maybe he doesn’t realise. “He’s dead!” I throw out a hand at the corpse, just in case he hasn’t noticed it there. “Dead, Mr Gravely. We need to…”
Oh my god. Am I the one who’s supposed to be in charge here? Because I have absolutely no clue whatsoever what I’m supposed to do. Call an ambulance? Is that what you do? Why? What for? He’s dead!
Call the police? Do they investigate shit like this? What do I say? A ghost did it? Did a ghost do it? If I tell them a ghost did it, they’ll think I’m mad, but if I don’t…
Am I supposed to just say the chandelier randomly dropped? And leave that ghost to kill other people?
I’m not covering for that ghost!
No. Someone needs to stop that ghost. Someone whose job it is to stop things like that. Someone like…
Oh holy fuck. That’s me, isn’t it? It’s my job to stop ghosts, and ghosts are real.
I am not equipped for this.
If Gerald had only given me some warning—some training! Something!
“Liam, are you spiralling?”
“Of course I’m bloody spiralling! Can you not see that dead body on the floor right there?
Why aren’t you spiralling? Why are you so calm?
Has this…” The idea settles over my shoulders, turning them as still as Archer’s, only with fear rather than whatever the hell it is that keeps his hands from shaking like mine.
“Your ghost. You said it was bad. Has it…” I barely even want to speak the words. “Has it done this before?”
A little chip appears in his facade just then. The slightest tremble of his lips, like he’s not sure what to say. And no one should not be sure what to say when they’re asked if a ghost has killed someone on their property before.
I’m just about to press him, ask him just how many people this thing has killed, and what he’s done with the bodies, when a sharp tinkle sounds.
The tinkling of one tiny crystal ball hitting another.
The tinkling of a moving chandelier.
“Kraa!”
That raven, still there. And it taps. Tap, tap, tap, but fast this time, and with its beak it’s pointing directly at the chandelier.
Tinkle, tinkle.
“He’s alive!” I move without thought, muscles coiling to tear the thing off him.
But Archer’s hand curls around my biceps and wrenches me back sharply. “Don’t do it.”
I narrow my eyes at him in as exaggerated a manner as I can sum up right about now. “We need to help him! He’s stuck! He’s—”
“Hooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhhh.” The same sound we heard before—the same sound that seemed, to me, as if it were coming from that ghost. Only this time it’s coming from beneath the chandelier.
My tendons seize, full bodily indecision halting me.
Go to him! Help!
Yet something feels… off. Something that holds me back, like a ghostly hand on my shoulder.
It’s more than being in a haunted house where I just watched a ghost loosen a chandelier and drop it on my dickish coworker’s head.
It’s everything. That raven, staring intently at his body. Archer, still holding me firmly by the arm. And that ghost. Where the hell is that ghost?
Another tinkle, only sharper this time, then the whole chandelier gives a shudder, every tiny bauble shifting, knocking together, swaying back and forth.
With one enormous crash, the chandelier rolls to the side then slams down on the floor to reveal the mess beneath.
He’s flat, broken, blood everywhere.
Raul’s dead. There’s no doubting it. He’s smashed to pieces, chest caved in, ribs sticking out, brains on the floor, dead.
Archer steps in front of me, his shoulder immediately blocking my view, his hands reaching around behind him to press me back. It’s like he’s… protecting me?
I’m supposed to be the one fighting ghosts here, protecting him. But I can’t pretend I’m not grateful for it, that I don’t want to dip down behind him, press my head to his handsome back and let him fend off whatever other nasties are lurking in this house.
Which is a slightly odd thought, actually, considering we just met.
And considering my colleague is pasted all over his floor.
But the weirdest thing of all is, he’s still calm. His hands still aren’t shaking. He’s not grabbing me, screaming, trying to run out the door. He’s… holding me behind him.
Registering these billion thoughts as best I can, I dart a foot out to the side, moving fast, because something tells me Archer doesn’t want me to do that, and why not?
Sure enough, eyes on the body, his hand snaps out to halt me, but I’ve already stepped too far for his reach.
“Liam!” he hisses. “It’s not safe!”
“I know it’s not fucking safe!” I hiss back at him.
“A ghost just squashed Raul!” I’ve already lunged for the door as I’m yelling, “I’m getting the fuck out of here!
” I wrap my hands around the golden door handle and try to turn it, but it barely moves, rattling beneath my hands to no effect.
I turn the little button on the knob, but it still won’t budge. “Let me out of here!”
“Kraa!” yells the raven, tapping at the window, and I slam a hand down on the door, trying with everything I have to get it to open.
“Hooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhhh.”
I freeze, every hair on my body standing to attention. There’s a wet, squelching sound behind me. The feeling of being watched slides all over me like molasses. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to look.
“Liam, come to me,” says Archer, voice still demonstrably low and calm, but a little faster, a little more clipped, like he’s implying exactly what I’m thinking. ‘Don’t look. No matter how bad the urge, you are going to regret it if you look.’
But I’m only human.
I turn to Archer, really I do, move for the one person who might actually know how to get out of this place, but when I do, he’s there, in my peripheral vision, and the sight, the understanding, is so shocking, so compelling, that I have to look.
He’s standing. Raul’s standing now, right in front of me, and he’s looking at me. Eyes open, head tilted to the side, a weird smirk pulled wide across his face. Blood all over him. His head caved in. Brains spilling out and sliding down his cheek.
I’m rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to do a thing.
Then his right arm lifts. It’s half disconnected, dripping, muscle and tendon poking out, but he raises it anyway. It flops up, and he does a little… wave?
They say some people are polite to a fault, and I think that must be me. Because this man is dead. He’s dead, and he’s bleeding, and he’s not breathing, and logically I know this can’t be happening.
Even so, I raise my arm and give him a little wave back.
The grin deepens, Raul’s arm drops, then he starts forward.
And that smile. It’s turned evil. I know it. Every atom inside me is screaming, this thing is dead, and this thing means you harm, and that smile is pure evil.
But just as quickly as the thought registers, I hear my name again, spoken so close, but sounding so far away.
Then the warm and real press of a living human hand.
Archer.
Archer’s got me. He’s pulling me. Turning me away from this thing, and he must know a way out because his strides are determined, fast, and even though I can hear that thing moving behind me, following me, I chase after Archer blindly.
Around the table, through the kitchen, around a corner, and from there I’m thrust into a bright and mockingly cheery sitting room, all pink and flowery wallpaper and shining sun and no hint of a haunting.
No hint that someone just got ghost-squashed out there two minutes ago.
Archer’s fast with the door, slamming it behind us, and he has some pretty old-fashioned key that he slips into the lock, clicks it. Immediately, his two hands are on my chest, a welcome and gentle pressure. “Breathe.”
My fingers shut tight over his, clasping them, and I stare up into his eyes, practically begging, “We need to get out of here.”
I move straight for the window without any thought beyond not getting ghost-squashed, but Archer doesn’t let go of me, and I’m flung back to him with the momentum of my own desperate attempt to escape.
In half a second, I’m closer now than I was before.
So close that on top of all the urgency there’s a new panic. Something I can’t put my finger on.
“Listen,” he says, still maddeningly calm, “I want you to stay here.”
Time stops as I try to make his words make sense. Stay here? “Stay here? What do you mean? Mr Gravely, we have to go!”
“No. Liam, I promise you’re safe.”
The blinding panic, the blood rushing in my ears, all but block out his words. His words that make no sense. “We’re not safe!”
Low, like I’m a hurt bird he’s picking up off the road, he says, “I need to go back out there.”
Before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve grabbed hold of his wrists with both hands, crushing the well-pressed shirt I could never have imagined even touching just ten minutes ago. “Please don’t do that.”
“It’s all right—”
“It’s not all right! He’s dead! He’s dead, and he’s fucking walking! Archer, this is some creepy zombie shit going on right here. If you get bitten—”
My words stop dead at the laugh that rips out of him. Rich and deep, like I’ve just told a really good joke.
He’s mad. He really is mad.
My hands slip from his wrists with the realisation.
He must understand how much he’s scared me because the smile drops from his lips in just the same way. Almost. There’s still a hint of it there, but it’s turned apologetic. His head drops to the side, and he sighs out a soft breath. “I’ll be back in two minutes.”
“You won’t!” And just like that, I’m grasping for him again. But he’s already out of my reach, my fingertips barely scraping his shirt as he pulls away, opens the door between us, then he’s gone and on the other side.
The lock clicks. It clicks!
I’m locked in some posh, sunny parlour, all alone, while the madman who owns this place has left me so he can go consort with the resurrected zombie version of my dead asshole colleague.
Are you serious right now?
I’m going back to telemarketing tomorrow.
If I can just get out of here alive today.