6. Dead Men Tell No Tales #2
The room falls deathly quiet. It’s at once respite for my overwrought senses, and also totally fucking unnerving. It feels like the calm before the chaos, the eye of the storm.
CRACK!
Something smashes into the windowpane. I scream.
A bird. Black and bigger than a crow. A raven maybe, or an owl. It squeegees down the glass and drops out of view.
Fuck, this is getting weird. Also . . . ew.
I’m not frightened. I’m definitely not frightened.
There are logical explanations for all of this.
The whispered name, the microphone tipping over, the chandelier rattling, the light bulb failing, the kamikaze night fowl.
I’m definitely not weirded out to the point of wanting to crawl under the covers and wait for this all to blow over.
Lightning snaps right outside my window. The closest it’s been all night, and the entire room’s thrown into daylight. At most, it lasts for one second, but it’s long enough for me to glimpse a figure in the room with me.
The silhouette of a person or person-adjacent .
. . thing looms over me. A shadow, yet solid.
I can’t explain it, but the shape has a male presence, an underlying sense of hurt and anger.
Suddenly, the air temperature drops as though someone has thrown open all the doors and windows.
As though it’s January, not one week outside of August.
As soon as the lightning is over, the figure’s no longer there.
I’m not scared, but I definitely run back to stand beside the bed.
Was it a person? Or am I hallucinating? Did I accidentally ingest drugs?
I’m kinda hoping it’s the latter. If Helga’s indications are correct, the kitchen here doesn’t have a great track record.
Maybe there were some suspicious shrooms mixed in with my risotto tonight.
Helga . . .
There’s another possibility, that the figure was her.
She’s certainly tall and broad enough to fit the specifications.
I can’t explain how she vanished so quickly, but one revelation at a time.
This could all be an elaborate ruse to prove to me that the ghosts of The Paragon Hotel really do exist. And perhaps if I turn around and blame everyone’s death or disappearance on phantom phenomena, that would help to . . . cover her tracks.
“Gaaarry,” the whisper says again.
I take a deep breath. “I’m not falling for it.”
And with that, the lights flick themselves back on. The room stops rattling. I am indeed still alone. Now all I can hear is the rain hitting the glass.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” I say, walking over to my holdall beside the desk. “I’m onto you. If anything, this proves that you’ve got something to hide.”
I’m not frightened. I don’t believe in ghosts. Helga’s a crackpot and most likely guilty of multiple murders, and I will prove that.
Even so, I reach for two things. The PolterPulse and the tub of Sainsbury’s own brand table salt.
Not worried in the slightest, but with the salt, I draw a ring around the four-poster bed and toss a handful towards where the shadowy would-be apparition appeared.
I climb onto the mattress—fuck donning my PJs or sliding under the covers, I might need to make a quick getaway—and I flip through the ExorSquad employee manual to the part about weapons and how to use them, and if it comes to it, how do I exorcise this fucking thing.
Section 1894.3.11.a The PolterPulse 33X
The PolterPulse 33X is the strongest, most powerful anti-apparition device on the (albeit extremely limited) ghost removal market.
Simply unclip the safety valve, point, and shoot.
Remember, the only proven method to permanently remove an entity, levels one through three, is to solve their unfinished business. In which case, chatting to it may help. In the unlikely event the spirit is feeling talkative, please do not forget rule number one: ghosts always lie.
If the spirit presents as level four or higher, I’m afraid you’re fucked on your own, buddy. My suggestion would be to run and/or burn the place down.
Helpful.
How do I know what level the entity is?
Oh, get a grip, Gary. There’s no entity and there never has been. This whole thing is a con. Helga’s a murderer, Gerald’s a charlatan, and I’m the gullible twat falling for it all.
I don’t test out the gun, because even though the contraption looks like an eight?year?old kid’s Crayola sketch of a water pistol, the ghost pew pewer is very heavy, and I don’t want to accidentally blast a hole in century?old brick work.
Especially with a tropical cyclone raging just outside my window.
I nestle the weapon under the unused right-side pillow, rest my head on the left-side one, and stay alert. Eyes open, ears open, waiting for any sight or sound to let me know Helga or Franny or Sergeant Dave Davies is in the room with me.
“Garrryyy,” the voice says again. Only this time I have my eyes wide open and all the lights on, and I am about eighty per cent sure it’s the wind.
But just in case it’s not. “Listen, I know I haven’t paid for this suite and have no intentions to, but for the time being, this is my space.
If anyone is here, I suggest you either make your presence known immediately or fuck all the way off.
I have a weapon of . . . unknown destruction, and I won’t hesitate to use it.
” I pause, waiting for any kind of acknowledgment.
“And if it turns out to be a totally useless duff gun, which, let’s be fair, is an astronomically high likelihood, I will . . . just donk you on the head with it.”
Nothing. Not a sound besides the now rather soothing patter of rain on the glass.
“Gary . . .” it whispers again. Gently this time, cajolingly, like a child changing tack to gain their parents’ favour.
But the wind doesn’t change tack. It doesn’t actually want anything from me. The wind just winds. My sleep?addled mind is adding personality, reasoning, motive.
I let my eyes close. Though I don’t plan to sleep. I’ll stay alert, keep my glasses on, and my weapon nearby. Just in case.
“Gary . . .”
But it’s definitely wind.
It’s definitely, definitely wind. Definitely, definitely, definitely nothing else.
“Garrrryyy . . .”
“Nope. Fuck off now.”
“Garrrryy . . .”
Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe I’m already asleep.
Shit, I can’t open my eyes.
The last thing I remember before I’m robbed of consciousness is the jingling sound ringing through the room again.
The chandelier?