Now We Can’t Sleep At Night (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 2)

by Robert Wilde

  “It’s just an afternoon, just one afternoon talking, and then some financial security. And a holiday without any Russians nearby.”

  “That does sound tempting,” Dee said.

  “You could even sell on eBay the signed memorabilia he’s throwing in.”

  “If we’re doing this, and I’m not saying we’re doing this, but if we are, I’m allowed to burn his memorabilia in the garden.”

  “Okay, so you’re in agreement?”

  Dee looked round the room, to find Joe with a face that didn’t move and Pohl slightly smirking. It didn’t suit her.

  “Oh fucking hell, we’ll do it.”

  Acid Phantogasm, or Acid to his friends, thought of himself as a tolerant man. After all, he indulged in a pastime that many people would find strange, if not outright perverse, so you had to give the benefit of the doubt to others. However, now Acid was coming to the conclusion that the world was populated by idiots, charlatans, and idiot charlatans.

  His offer of a million dollars to anyone who could connect him vocally with a ghost was well received, by which he meant his inbox flooded with thousands of emails. But it soon became apparent he wasn’t being emailed by everyone who could help him, but by everyone who wanted a million dollars, a crucial and increasingly problematic difference. The result was Acid having to sit down and wade through a morass of bullshit, to try and find the people who really were trying to help him, Okay, his sales were soaring, but time was money and he had a new album to record.

  Eventually he put together a shortlist, and began to schedule meetings where people could help him, and it was here his patient began to be, not so much tested, as locked in a cage with a hungry tiger and told to give belly rubs. The first visitor came with a Ouija Board, which Acid thought would be the answer first, and when the board was set up and he and the two guests had their fingers on it things went well. The ghosts talked to him, the ghosts were lascivious, it was marvellous. Unfortunately, the ghosts refused to move anything when he alone had his finger on it, and only moved when the guests were attached. Acid might be a borderline sex criminal but he wasn’t a total fool, and he knew he was being played. The people were ejected with no money.

  Next came a medium who claimed he could allow spirits to occupy his body and talk through him. The initial results were impressive, with the medium’s voice and body language completely changing, and a woman talking through. But Acid tried some searching questions, and the medium supplied only vague, catch all questions, and Acid reluctantly concluded his search was going to move on, because this man was a fraud.

  The next few weeks were a cavalcade of bullshit, with every snake oil salesman in the country trying to con him. Even the rather attractive woman who claimed that she was possessed and they must have physical sex had completely missed the whole point of the literal fucking exercise, and the million dollars remained in his account. It was enough to make a pop star / internet fad scream with frustration.

  So, who was next? A trio of people had guaranteed they could let him speak to the dead or his money back, which was the kind of joke entry that made them stand out from the crowd of bastards, so he sent them a message and arranged for them to visit.

  Five minutes before they were due a car pulled up on his drive, and he noted three people getting out. An interesting mix: a striking redhead, a woman old enough to be her mother who held herself imperially, and a man scanned the surroundings just a little too much.

  Acid went to his front door, opened it, and welcomed the three in. They, in turn, looked round his hallway, and noted every single thing somehow related to the esoteric: angel statues, aura photographs and lots of pictures of ghosts. Lots and lots. In fact so many…

  “Did you paint these?” Dee asked.

  “Yes, I paint as well as sing. Do you like them?”

  Smiling her professional smile, Dee answered a perfect “yes,” while simultaneously wanting to piss on them all.

  “So you can help me speak to the dead,” Acid said as he led them through to the dining room.

  “Oh yes we can.”

  “Well, if you’d like to set up in here.”

  “We don’t need to set anything up, we’re ready.”

  “Oh?” Acid said, turning to the redhead who seemed to be in charge.

  “We just need this!” And Dee waved the box.

  “That’s a… small wooden box.” Well, his eyesight hadn’t failed him.

  “That’s all we need.”

  “Everyone else has been considerably more… theatrical.”

  “And failed.”

  “I’ll give you that. Well, what happens, do I need to lower the lights?”

  “Please Mr. Acid,” Nazir said, “this is science. The box has a quantum foam that allows spirits to talk to us.”

  Dee put the box on the table and switched it on.

  “Hello,” said Joe.

  “That’s a male voice?”

  “That’s the boxes incumbent,” Dee explained.

  “You could have said ‘your colleague’, or ‘your friend’, but I’m the incumbent…”

  “So, is there a ghost in the area Joe?”

  “Yes, there is a lady here who’d like to speak.”

  “Hello?” came a woman’s voice.

  “Hello?” Acid tried.

  “You can hear me, after all this time, you can hear me!” There followed a squeal which everyone hoped was delight.

  “I assume you have a question you’d like to ask to prove this,” Dee said smiling.

  “Err…yes, yes, what’s my favourite position for masturbating.”

  Dee stopped smiling. In fact she looked at Pohl, who’d turned a shade of red and found no looks of comfort.

  “Laying upside down on the stairs.”

  “Yes! Yes! You know, you know, you can help me talk to the dead!”

  “Yes,” Dee replied sadly. What have we done. What have we fucking done, no, no, not fucking, never fucking ever again.

  “I will arrange for your payment when I’m finished. The deal was the whole afternoon. But if you’re not needed, you could go into the garden?”

  “I think some distance would be good,” Dee said standing.

  “Hang on,” Joe said, alarmed.

  “Close your eyes and think of England, my ancestors had to do it,” Dee replied as they walked off.

  The trio soon found themselves sitting in an immaculately kept garden filled with sculptures of ghosts.

  “He’s having some sort of screwed of phone sex isn’t it,” Dee said putting her head into her hands.

  “I fear he is,” Pohl said sitting down in a daze.

  “Just focus on the money people, just focus on the money.”

  “I feel even more like a prostitute than the time I dressed up fashionably for a night out.”

  “It could be worse.”

  “How, Nazir, could it be any worse?”

  “We could have to watch.”

  The afternoon passed, assisted by frequent trips to the kitchen fridge, before Joe was collected and the money transferred. The bank believed Dee and co would be able to see it as soon as they’d made it home, so they drove with the radio on loud enough to blast away the visions, until they arrived, rushed in, and stood round Dee’s laptop.

  “Okay, okay, I type in this code, then I type in this answer, then I, Jesus, it’s an internet bank not a nuclear weapon.”

  “Stay calm, press cleanly,” Nazir advised.

  “Right, so I press that and my balance appe…” A seven digit number appeared on the screen with a 1 at the start. They looked. They looked again. They felt their bowels tighten up in shock.

  “Is that real?”

  “Lights on, clothes on, awake…”

  “Oh my god, we’re millionaires.”

  They weren’t exactly sure how it happened, but soon Dee and Nazir were dancing up and down the living room while Pohl found herself stroking Joe’s head.

  “Party in the USA!”


  Then Nazir’s phone pinged, so they paused as he fished it out.

  “Turns out Acid Phantogasm has released a demo of a new song. Freshly composed.”

  “I dread to think.” Put that down and keep dancing, we don’t need anything more to do with the creepy twat.

  “It’s called ‘She Entered Me Lubed By Ectoplasm.”

  “Actually,” Dee mused aloud, “Now we have his money, maybe we can burn his house down. With him in it.”

  “Well Dee, it’s funny you should say that, because the net is trying to discover the identity of an unnamed guest star.”

  Dee scowled. “I know that look. That’s the something really fucking bad has happened look.”

  “Apparently he sings of a beautiful and helpful redhead that he can’t wait to shag when she’s died.”

  “I am going to the fucking police. No, no, Nazir, you can stop laughing, you can shut the fuck up.”

  “It’s… hil…rious.”

  “He can’t just sing about people and hope they don’t care. I care.”

  “Just look at those digits again,” Joe added.

  “Surely this is illegal. I’m going to ring Jeff and find if this is…Professor!”

  Pohl was smirking slightly as her face fought a war to keep straight. It was currently losing. “It is quite funny all things considered.”

  “Well you’ll support me won’t you Joe!”

  “After what you made me see today, you’re on your own.”

  “Oh great. I’m the Mona Lisa of ghost shagging.”

  Dee was staring at herself in a mirror. She tried to avoid this as much as possible, because it did seem the way to become narcissistic, starting with a few tweaks of your hair, and then like a tabloid newspaper’s drug fears, moving on from that single bong to injecting yourself with botox instead of heroin. Still, there was no harm in the occasional bit of preening, and she had just spent more of her life than she’d like in bed in pajamas, so some dressing up was surely overdue. She hadn’t even spent that long deciding what to wear, she just had to get it fitting right. Hmm, all that post bed exercise had mostly got her back into shape.

  Feeling pleased, Dee came downstairs and found Pohl finishing her tea in the kitchen. She also found Nazir, who was helping himself to the biscuit tin.

  “Ohh, you’re looking good Dee…”

  “Thank you.”

  “I hope the date goes well.”

  Dee narrowed her eyes. “It’s not a date. It’s me taking Jeff out for a meal to say thank you for his support while I was ill.”

  “He did shoot you, maybe you need to be letting him pay.”

  “I had something inside me.”

  “Good point, and how often do two people who’ve been inside each other go out for strings free meals with each other?”

  “Right, you and Pohl can enjoy your bowling, but I’m going for a platonic Italian. The professor can explain what platonic means, I’m sure you’ll need diagrams.”

  She turned, hastened out the door, and was soon driving through the darkness until she parked up and entered the restaurant. A waiter approached faster than was seemly, eyes gleaming, and wished her a happy hello, but he visibly deflated when Dee said she was meeting a man, whereas she was happy to discover he’d already arrived.

  Dee sat down after giving Jeff a welcoming hug. “You look smart,” she complimented.

  “It’s a suit I never wear for work. I thought it bad form to come to somewhere this expensive without changing.”

  “Well I did come in my pajamas,” Dee joked.

  “You look lovely too,” Jeff replied, remembering he was supposed to have started the compliments, as defined in the ‘how men teach their sons to behave handbook of 1956’.

  “Thanks. I polish up quite well. Now, have you ordered?”

  “No. Wine?”

  “No, I drove, I’ll just have a mineral water.”

  “I don’t expect that’s any cheaper.”

  She laughed. “Ah, are we pushing the police pay packet this month?”

  “No,” and he laughed in return, “I actually saved up for this. Pick whatever you want.”

  Dee opened the menu, then looked up at Jeff with undisguised horror. “It’s all in Italian,” she whispered.

  “I know. I couldn’t order if I wanted to.”

  “Oh shit. Do you think they’ll notice if we crept out to a carvery?”

  “I think we’re in deep now and we’re going to have to go with it. Shall we guess or do you want to have a go at working things out?”

  Dee looked at the menu again. “Well, lasagne has got to be the same hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but what’s in it?”

  “Good point. Alright,” and the menu was purposely put down. “We’re playing Italian meal roulette. Pick something and see how much of it you can eat.” It did occur to her she could ring the array up and use its translating software to find everything out, but where, really, was the fun in that?

  “I have to ask Nazir, and perhaps waiting until we’d arrived at the venue wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but do you know the rules of bowling?”

  “Of course, you throw a ball badly down a lane at some skittles.”

  “Yes, but, how many throws, do you follow on after a full house, what is a full house even called?”

  Nazir put his hands on the steering wheel and realised he hadn’t got a clue. “Err, maybe the computer will do it all for us?”

  “Isn’t that a vision of the future, we will do exactly as the computer orders us.”

  “Joe would know the rules,” Nazir said, and then he managed to do a perfect impression of Joe’s complaining voice.

  “Do you think he’s still mad we wouldn’t let him bring the construct?”

  “What did he say, ‘what do you think? What fun am I going to have bowling in a box?’”

  “I imagine he’d be reduced to hilarity as we make utters fools of ourselves,” and Pohl had a point.

  Nazir imitated Joe again. “’I think my trenchcoat and hoodie idea would have worked fine.’”

  “And what did you reply, ‘You’d have looked like a cartoon paedophile.’”

  “Yeah, well, I can almost see why he stayed at home in a huff. It would have been fun, he could tell us what to do, and we wouldn’t know if those were really the rules or whether he’d invented things to make us look silly.”

  “That does have a certain appeal.”

  “Right, let’s go in, get some special shoes, and some special hot dogs.”

  Pohl looked at Nazir. “I’ve heard of the shoes, but the unhealthy animal product?”

  “They serve foot long hot dogs.”

  “Oh, for sharing.”

  Nazir looked like someone had run him over. “Not for sharing!”

  “You expect us to each a whole twelve inches of re-processed meat each?”

  “Yes. You clearly aren’t a professor of marketing.”

  “I suppose we’re in this all the way now,” Pohl said. “Let’s hope there is at least some of a pig in there.”

  “Neigh,” said Nazir.

  “I think that went rather well,” Pohl said as they were pulling up outside their home.

  “You won,” Nazir said.

  “Aside from that, I think we all had fun.”

  “Well, yes, because you turned from a mild mannered university professor to a demon flinging cannonballs of power.”

  “Did I get a bit carried away?”

  “I think you scared the children in the next aisle.”

  “How unfortunate.”

  Nazir leaned so he could look at the house. “Did you leave any lights on?”

  “No, no I didn’t. I know we have all that money but electricity is…”

  “I’m not worried about your carbon footprint, I’m worried about the lights being on.”

  “Must be Dee and Jeff. I hope we aren’t interrupting anything.”

  “Her car’s not here.”

 
They were both looking at the house. “Let’s go have a look.”

  Creeping up the front, they came to a door which was almost locked shut, if you avoided the very important few centimetres it hung open.

  “I think we’ve been burgled,” Pohl concluded.

  “Fuckers,” Nazir said, pushing the door open with his elbows. “Well, the hallway is fine.” They entered, listening for any giveaway sounds, wondering if the thief was still here. Naz went into the lounge, and found it neat and tidy. “Have you been burgled by obsessive cleaners?”

  “Oh dear no.”

  “What professor what?”

  “Joe. Joe and his box. They were sat on that table when we turned him off in his huff.”

  “Fuck, that’s why the place is neat, someone just came to steal Joe. Fuck.”

  They heard cars pull up outside, and went to the doorway. Jeff and Dee came up the path a moment later, both grinning.

  “Oh hello mum and dad, have you been waiting for me to return? I wouldn’t want to have kept you up.” But she stopped then, seeing their depressed faces. “What’s happened?”

  “Someone’s stolen the box.”

  “Oh shit. Oh, okay, don’t panic, what have you done about it?”

  “Done?”

  “Yes, what steps have you taken?”

  “Dee, we’re a paranormal investigation team. We ask the ghosts through the box. When we don’t have the box, we’re just civilians, what are we supposed to do?”

  “Good point.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Jeff said.

  “Oh?”

  “Well, just a thought, but how about some old fashioned police work? Fingerprints, that sort of thing? I can ring up the boys and girls, get them down here.”

  “I think that’s where we at,” Nazir confirmed.

  “I suppose you don’t want to come in for coffee if that’s happening?”

  “No, no, better not. But I’ll come round tomorrow morning and give you a summary of what they’ve found.”

  In the early hours of the morning, Pohl got up for the loo and found Dee stood in the corridor staring through a doorway. The professor came up behind Dee, touched her light on the arm, and looked through. She could see immediately what had made Dee paused, and it was the construct lying unused in the spare room.