by Robert Wilde
“Wait, you don’t believe in ghosts?” Dee asked amazed. “Given what your father did?”
“No, no I do not. He wanted to make it father and son when I was little, and I ran off to the army to get away. Now that’s a life, not pretending to see smudges on photos.”
Pohl nodded. “So it doesn’t really matter if we tell you about what we do, and our success, and the police who vouch for us, because you don’t believe it and never will.”
“Hey, I’m not the bad guy here!”
“Then please understand, we are not ambulance chasing, we really believe we can shed light on what happened. For instance, do you not find it unusual that your father killed himself in the same manner as a man killed his family here several decades before?”
“He did?”
“Why don’t we sit down, have a coffee, talk about it.”
“I have rum,” Dee offered, then gave Naz the evil look of ‘don’t mention it now this is delicate’.
“Okay, okay I’ll talk. But I want the rum in the coffee.”
Steven Smith looked into the bathroom mirror and rubbed his eyes again. When his vision cleared he was once more looking at his face, which was lined and puffy. The headache had started again, that dull grinding behind his eyes which remained no matter how often he rubbed the little gooey sacks in front of them, and he knew that, once the headache really took hold, the feelings would start again. Always a headache and then the feelings, and then the need to sit alone in the dark and grip your hands and bite your lip until both bled.
He didn't know why the headaches began, just that he'd come back to the new house one morning, fresh from posting his membership to one of the many anti-nuclear weapon groups from which he'd made his choice, and been struck with a sharp stabbing sensation in his temple the moment he'd come in through the door. That had lasted for an hour, and he'd told his wife and laid down hoping it would go, before he first felt it. A feeling rising up from the depths of his brain, an urge to go and kill his wife, who the rest of him knew he loved so much, and his daughters, the people he adored. An alien sensation, but one which his hands and arms warmed to, crawled to as he lay there and wept in frustration.
The pain and ideas went, eventually, but they returned a few days later, and if anything were worse the second time around. But he had the oddest feeling that they were worse because something was getting better at tormenting him rather than an illness increasing. But what could hate them all so much, what could be in this house?
He went to church and prayed, but it didn't go away. He thought about a psychiatrist, but he couldn't bring himself to admit anything to one of those. He thought about handcuffs, so he could lock himself away when the ideas came, but how could he hide that from his wife? So he medicated with alcohol and found it had no effect. There was one option left and that was to fight a battle of willpower with himself, or whatever it was.
He was supposed to be going out today, but the pain worsened and he lay on the bed he shared with his wife and writhed. Later that day the family returned, to find their father and husband sitting reading the paper. He read it cover to cover and then read it again, and they all had their dinner and went to bed disturbed by what was wrong with him. Later that night he put the paper down and his broken mind picked up a working body, went to the shed, picked up a hammer and came indoors. Then he beat them, their shielding arms and their egg bursting brains, until they lay dead around him. Then he beat himself until he joined them. Only then was there peace.
“This rum is very good,” Theo said, savouring the flavour.
“Thank you, I came into some money and have upgraded the drinks cabinet.”
“Drinks extension,” Naz chided Dee.
“Yes, we built an en suite and I have the bath filled with vodka,” she smirked back. Theo was beginning to wonder what sort of mad house he’s entered, then realised that madhouse wasn’t really the right word.
“I think you’ll find the coffee is good too,” Nazir said raising an eyebrow and fishing for a compliment.
“Err, yes.”
“Good,” Joe took over, “We brought our own rather than fish in the cupboards. Although that pile of custard creams is scavenged, who knew they still made them.”
Theo looked around, confused. There was something very wrong about that last voice. “Who… who said that?”
“That’s Joe, he’s our spiritual expert,” Dee replied.
“Yes, but… is he on a phone or something?”
“He’s dead. He is literally our spiritual expert. He talks to us through that device.”
“You expect me to believe you can talk to spirits?”
“No matter what you thought of your father we can. And the moment something unusual is spotted in this building our expert here will spot it. Won’t you Joe.”
“Of course,” he replied, having forgotten he was supposed to be doing that.
“If that’s true, why don’t you do that sceptics million dollar challenge!”
“Because we make more privately. I did say we’d come into money, but really we earned it.”
“Fuck.” He looked at the mug, “have I had too much of this?”
“It took us a while to get used to it.”
“Okay, okay, come on Theo, focus, focus on something else to distract you. Err, right back to my father and this building. So Smith did a murder suicide and they never knew why?”
“Not a Scooby,” Dee confirmed.
“So that’s the starting point right? You go to the records, you see what you can dig up, you let a psychiatrist have a look?”
“Well, yes, we could do that, or we could spend the night here with our box.” Dee had never felt less like a journalist. Well, apart from all those dog grooming parlours whose opening she had covered. Furry bastards.
“So, what, you sit all night talking and eating biscuits?”
“In many ways we have the best job in the world, right up until Dee gets shot in the stomach.”
“Sorry?”
“Ignore him,” Dee said.
“No, please, don’t joke about getting shot. I lost people who got shot.”
“Sorry, but he’s not joking. I was possessed and someone shot me in the stomach. Took me a while to get back.”
“Things can possess people?”
“Some of the spirits can. We don’t really know the full extent of what the bigger ones can do, or what people can learn to do, there’s so much to study.” Joe sounded sad.
“But you’re a spirit?”
“Yes, and it’s a learning process. Really, trust me, a lot of learning.”
“I’m sorry I scolded you all, and that you were hurt. Does that happen a lot?”
“Err…”
Joe had said err in such a strangled way everyone stopped and turned to the box. “Joe?”
“There’s a spirit here. There’s always been a spirit here.”
“What, where?”
“It’s leaking out of the goddamn walls.”
“The house?”
“In the house, hiding, no lurking, waiting. Like a chameleon spider.”
“I think we’re getting carried away again.”
“Right, we have questions for it. Start by name, age, sex, that sort of thing.”
“It’s not here to answer things, it’s here to, no, stop that, stop that…”
Dee was listening, but she felt an intense pain and put a hand up to her head where it lanced through her skull. She shut her eyes briefly at the sting, and opened to see Nazir grimacing and holding a hand over his ear, presumably for his head. Dee didn’t have to turn to hear Pohl groaning in a manner Dee wanted.
“Is… everyone… in pain?”
“No?” Theo said calmly. Dee turned to look at him, and he was sat, arms folded, looking at them bemused.
“No headache?” Dee got out, one eye half shut.
“None. Have you lot all gone mad?”
“The spirit is doing it,” Joe said, “it’s a
ttacking you, and, err, what’s it doing now.”
The pains began to leave Dee, Pohl and Nazir, and all relaxed in triumph, which was when the urges began. Dee felt the strongest desire to grab the rum bottle, shatter it on the table, and slash Pohl’s throat. Nazir wanted to lift the footstool he’d had his feet on and batter Dee to death, while Pohl was seeing her hands around Dee’s think, alabaster neck. As they fought they all looked up, at each other, and realised they felt the same.
“What are you three doing?” Theo said, beginning to get worried.
“I have the strangest urge…” Nazir said, as he bent and picked up the stool, holding it in both hands as he advanced on a Dee focused wholly on the rum bottle. As the stool was raised to dash Dee’s brains out Theo leapt up, over and bumped Nazir into the armchair to his right, where he dropped the stool and staggered for balance.
“Shit dribbles, this spirit is in your heads, it’s trying to make you kill each other,” and as Joe spoke the others knew he was right.
“Not possession,” Pohl hissed, “but something so very close.”
“It must have done this to Darke and made him hurt himself.”
“What, my father, you’re saying there’s a ghost here driving you to murder?”
“Yes, do keep the fuck up,” Dee moaned as her hands wrapped round the rum bottle, and Theo went to her grabbed her wrists so hard she let go of the bottle, and flung her into another chair.
“Thanks,” she complained.
“How do we make it stop,” Joe cried, “what do I do?”
“Who the fuck is it?” Pohl said, breaking polite ranks.
“Oh, right, I can look at his soul, and I can harass him with questions, it’s a him, and he looks at me sneering, and I see war, trenches, the Great War, he’s a soldier from the First World War.”
“Trevor,” Pohl hissed, doubling herself up as she resisted. “A man named Trevor lived here from after the war until he died, when the Smiths moved in. Aagghh. He did this to the Smiths, to Darke, and now us.”
“That’s daft,” Theo said, “someone lived here for years between the Smiths and my father. Why didn’t it do anything then?”
“That’s the question Theo, that’s the question.”
“And why isn’t it doing anything to him?” Nazir asked, and they turned to see their friend advancing with a flower pot he’d snatched off the mantelpiece. They were too late to stop him trying to smash it into Dee, but she did have enough time to roll away and it just shattered across her chest.
“Try harder,” she groaned, lunging for a piece of sharp and shattered vase and finding Theo grabbing her and dragging her away.
“Come on fellow,” Joe called out, “come on, why do this? Why are you hurting us? Why are you doing any of this? These are good people. Darke was good. The Smiths were good. Why attack us all? Stop it, stop it.”
“Well pleading did a fuck load of good,” Dee sighed, struggling against Theo.
“What’s the connection, think,” Pohl forced out.
“Thinking difficult,” Nazir added.
“What connects Theo, the middle owner and Trevor. What makes them safe?”
Theo had to let go of Dee, who he made sure was forced to the ground, and run over to stop Nazir from mounting another slightly floral attack. “Your professor is doing the best,” he said shaking his head.
“What am I missing. What is it?”
“Theo, you sure you’re not an elf or something immune?”
“An elf Naz, an elf, what are you fucking on?”
“Come on Dee, have you got any ideas?”
“Come on squaddie, join in and help out,” Dee said to Theo. But it was Pohl who reacted.
“The spirit, he’s from world war one. The middle owner, he was a retired second world war soldier. And Theo here, you said you ran away from the occult to join the army?”
“Yes?”
“Then that’s it. That’s it, he likes soldiers. He must hate people who aren’t keen, maybe Smith was a pacifist, and your father…”
“Never liked my choice of career.”
“Right, and us, Nazir, you ran away from a war.”
“Oh right, judgemental spirit, fucker.”
“Away?” Theo asked.
“I’m Syrian. But it’s not my war, no side wants a gay Muslim. But lots of soldiers have served my dick.”
“That’s not helping!”
“Right, it likes you Theo, start talking to it.”
“Talking to it? Talking?”
“Yes, tell it to fucking stop!”
“I’m not sure I even believe it’s there. You could all be mentals, this could be some huge excuse, I can’t just ask something I can’t see.”
“Theo, either you talk or in twenty minutes you ring the police and explain why we just killed each other in front of you.”
“Alright, alright. Err, ghost person, err, I’m a soldier, like you. I served in Iraq, I served in Afghanistan. I lost friends, I left friends behind, I hope the world is okay for them. I fought a war which has probably failed in one place and has already failed in another. You fought in the Great War, you know all about that. So please, please, leave these people alone, just for tonight, just so we can finish here and leave.”
There was no big flash or shaking of earth, but Dee, Pohl and Nazir felt their thoughts begin to calm, and had the strangest sensation of tendrils removing themselves from their souls, until they were able to sit down in the seats, breathing hard, hands on their heads.
“Has it gone?” Theo asked.
“Back into the walls,” Joe confirmed.
“And you, you all, what’s it done to you?”
“I think it’s gone, left me alone.”
“And me.”
“Okay, we’re safe, we’re fucking safe.”
“Wait, just for tonight?” Dee said.
“Yes?”
“We had better pack up and fuck off then.”
“Let’s just sit a minute,” Pohl asked, and they could all see she was shaking. Theo poured them all extra large shots of rum and handed them out, and all four drank like they were sailors about to go into battle.
Finally things calmed, and they could talk.
“Thanks for trying to kill me Nazir.”
“I was being possessed.”
“Yeah, like Pohl, who managed to resist trying to take my head off.”
“Well you can’t complain you had the bottle in hand.”
“You smashed a vase on me!”
“I think,” Pohl interjected, “we need to just be thankful that no one is seriously harmed.”
“Actually, my wrists sting like a bitch.”
“Sorry,” Theo said.
“More rum will cure that.”
“I must say professor,” Nazir began. “you’ve got ice in your veins.”
“Thank you. It was a very strange experience and one I hope I never have to experience again.”
“We need to pack up and fuck off.”
“Well, yes, but have a biscuit and let’s sit here until my legs want to stop quivering and we can make a dignified exit.”
“Are all ghosts such arseholes?” Theo asked.
“Let’s not antagonise it even though it likes you.”
“Sorry, err, professor.”
“I think, now I have my mind back,” Pohl explained, “that Smith was involved in anti-nuclear campaigning. He must have been a broader opponent of the Cold War too.”
“And it cost him a whole family.”
“Yes.”
“Terrible. Absolutely terrible.”
“So I killed my father.”
“What, no, Theo, no,” and Dee saw the look of pain on his face.
“If he hadn’t been so opposed to me going, doing what I did, he’d be alive.”
“You can’t change your life to fit in with your father, never, ever. You have a right to your own life. It’s this spirit who’s at fault, it’s this spirit that’s the problem. No
t you.”
“Very noble Dee, but I’d like to point out the no antagonizing rule.”
“Oh fuck.”
The group did indeed pack up a short while later, and they went out to the cars they had bought, put their kit in the boots, and then climbed into one vehicle to keep talking. As the sun began to rise, Joe had a realisation.
“If you’d let me bring the construct I could have helped restrain you.”
“What’s construct?” Theo asked.
“A sort of robot body,” Dee explained.
“Oh but of course.”
“And no, you shouldn’t have had the construct here Joe, because then you’d have had the power to rip our arms out of our fucking sockets or something.”
“Oh.”
“It left you alone, I suspect, because you couldn’t do anything useful.” Pohl had been expecting a reply, but Joe just went “mmm.”
“That’s pretty much what I expect sad emoticons to sound like,” Dee said. “Now, is more rum going to count as day drinking?”
“Most definitely.”
“Bugger. We can’t even risk going inside to get a coffee or something. Anyone know if there’s a café near here?”
“Luckily someone invented the internet for just this purpose. Well, they probably didn’t think of precisely this context,” but Nazir was on his phone.
Dee turned to look at the house. “So what are we going to do?”
“Go home and sleep?”
“About that house. We can’t let anyone else buy it, or go into it, or do anything with it, because they might end up dead.”
“Can’t you call an exorcist?” Theo asked. “Isn’t that how these things work?”
“Sadly, that really isn’t how they work. A few prayers and waving some water about achieves as much as a government commission.”
“Oh. So what do you normally do?”
“If there were bones, or a body the spirit was attached to, we could move it, move the ghost, stick it in a graveyard. Or a distant wood or something.” And Dee was operating on the fringes of known knowledge here. “But it’s in the walls, right Joe?”
“Right. Clinging onto the walls. Once a spirit has moved, rehomed, very hard to get it to move.”
“By which he means we don’t know any way to get it to move. So we have a lethal house.”
