by Matt Shaw
“Come on, it’ll be good and it’s not even dark outside, yet.... it’ll be fine...”
Surprisingly, Claire was very much up for it too, “We might get the same Spirit as yesterday.... we need to say goodbye to it so it can rest in peace.... Come on.”
“I’m not sure,” said Hannah - concerned for Josie.
“A fucking glass exploded yesterday,” said James, “I think that was warning enough to stay away from playing with this thing.”
“But that was so cool,” said Adam. “Come on, let’s explode another one.”
“That leaves the room or I do,” said Josie stood up.
“Look, we’ve had a bit of a rubbish day - this will do us good - a group activity to bring us back together....”
“What if it was the Spirit from yesterday who screamed at me earlier?!” yelled Josie.
“All the more reason to say goodbye to it and send it back to where it came from,” said Claire.
“I’m doing it, rest of you can do as you please...” said Adam.
He threw the board onto the table, in the middle of the room, and sat down in front of it. Josie stormed from the room, followed by Hannah and Joel.
“Anyone joining me?” asked Adam.
Tracy, naturally, was the first to sit by his side. Claire followed.
“Tom?” she asked.
He smiled and sat with her. Prick. I too took up a seat, keen to see what will happen this time.
“James?” said Claire.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” he said. “Josie’s right, what if what she heard was the Spirit from last night?”
Adam laughed, “She didn’t hear anything. She just couldn’t handle the skunk. And now you’ve been plying her with alcohol, fuck knows what she’s going to hear this time round...” He stopped and looked around, “We need a glass....”
Tracy passed him the glass that Josie was drinking from earlier.
“Well, I think it’s a mistake.”
“Duly noted,” continued Adam, “fuck off.”
James didn’t need asking twice. He left the others in pursuit of the rest of the group. It’s strange how things turn out - if you were to tell me, yesterday, this weekend would have seen me doing one of these things with some of the group, whilst the others sat out, I would have thought it’d have been Claire and Tom who sat out.... and only Tom because he’d have not wanted to leave Claire’s side. Funny how people change, the more you get to know them.
“Claire?” Adam turned to her.
“Let there be no Evil Forces or Demons,” she said.
The rest of us started to say it too, “Let there be no......”
We didn’t get a chance to finish - the glass slid into action - without any of us even touching the damned thing.
T
H
E
C
H
O
S
E
N
R
O
U
T
E
S
The glass stopped and Adam hit the floor, “Get down!”
The rest of us backed away from the glass, ever so slightly, but no one had quite the same over-the-top reaction as Adam. We waited.
“Spirit, are you still there?” asked Claire.
The glass slid over to ‘yes’.
“Can you repeat your message to us?”
Adam threw a pencil over to me and I quickly scribbled down the message as it repeated the same letters as before.
“The Chosen Routes,” I confirmed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Tom.
“Spirit, we don’t understand what you -”
The glass started moving again, from letter to letter.
‘F’ and then ‘A’, followed by ‘T’ and ‘E’.
“Fate,” I said.
“Fate?” Adam frowned. “Is this fucking thing purposefully trying to confuse the shit out of me?”
“Ssh...”
T
H
E
P
A
T
H
I
S
S
E
T
“Same message as yesterday,” I said.
“Well, it’s obviously important to them,” said Tom.
D
E
A
D
D
E
A
T
H
D
I
E
The glass slid freely across the board with some speed when, suddenly, Claire picked it up and threw it against the wall - smashing it into tiny pieces.
“What the fuck did you do that for?”
“It’s not a good Spirit,” she said.
“You didn’t say goodbye,” I pointed out - helpfully, I thought. I presumed she could still say goodbye without the need for the glass.
“Fuck it,” said Claire. “You can’t tell the others,” she went on.
“What’s your problem?” asked Tracy. “That was interesting.”
“Death, dead, die.... You really think the rest of the group will like that message? Josie’s right, we shouldn’t have done it. We should have just left it alone.”
“No, I bought this from EBay and I want to get my monies worth,” said Adam, “let’s call someone else up.” He looked back to the board.
“I’ll find another glass,” said Tracy.
“No! Josie’s right, we need to call Sarah and we need to go home.... now!”
I won’t deny, Claire’s reaction was a little concerning to say the least. And was the Spirit talking to us - was it telling us to die? We’re all going to be dead... What if it just got it’s wires crossed.
Claire stood up and walked from the room, “I’m calling Sarah....”
“And telling her what exactly?” shouted Adam.
“Mate, you need to hide all this gear,” I said to Adam, referring to both the board and the bag of weed which still had a copious amount in it.
“Fuck this,” he said - he got up and chased after Claire.
Here we go again, I thought. I too stood up and chased after them - followed by both Tracy and Tom. All of us keen to avoid another argument. This weekend was supposed to be fun, as well as a good money raiser for charity. Turning into a proper shit event.
Claire was already upstairs and in the girls bedroom, by the time we caught up with her, where Hannah, Josie, James and Joel were sitting, chilling out and having a laugh.
“What’s going on?” asked James.
“We’re going.... I’m calling Sarah,” said Claire.
“What?” said James.
“What happened?” asked Josie - a look of panic on her face.
“Did the glass move?” asked Hannah.
“It doesn’t matter....”
Claire pulled the phone from her bag and stopped, as she looked down at it.
“Just put the fucking phone down, Claire, we’re not calling Sarah,” said Adam. He was probably concerned about the state of the house and the fact certain rooms stank of his drugs, and rightly so. At least, if Sarah came tomorrow - with the windows left open, it could have aired a little by then.
“She’s been calling.”
Claire held up the telephone - seven missed calls, from early this morning.
7.
Claire was pacing the room, the mobile phone pressed to her ear.
“I should have kept it on me,” she kept saying - more or less to herself.
“We didn’t know she was going to be calling us,” said Tom.
The Claire we had all been seeing, gradually bending the rule books and coming out of her shell, had disappeared once more - consumed by the serious Claire. Claire the do-gooder.
Josie was sat on the floor, Hannah next to her with her arm around her - close to them were James and Joel. I think it’s safe to say Claire’s reaction was
slightly unnerving to most of us.
“Why isn’t she answering?” said Claire as she hit re-dial once more.
Adam tried to take the phone off her, “If it’s important, she’ll call again....”
“Fuck off,” said Claire - stepping away from him.
“Look, he’s right,” I said to Claire, “she will call again if it’s important.”
“What if something has happened?” Claire continued. “We can’t stay here.... and where’s the owner? Isn’t it weird he wasn’t here to greet us and let us know the ground rules.... like, I’m pretty sure smoking the Guest Book would have been mentioned....”
“Yeah, well, maybe the Spirit was talking about him....” said Adam.
“What do you mean?” asked Josie.
Here we go again.
“Dead, die and death.... whatever... maybe it was all referring to the owner of this shit-hole,” Adam blurted.
Great.
“You had messages like that from a ouija board and you didn’t think to say anything?” said Joel - anger in his voice.
“No, we thought about getting us out of here,” said Claire.
“Don’t you think we needed to know that kind of thing?” he said.
“Let’s all try and stay calm,” I said.
“I said not to do it. I said....” whimpered Josie.
“Everything is going to be fine,” said Claire, “Sarah will come, with the mini-bus and take us home... It’s fine...”
“Did you at least say goodbye to the Spirit this time?” asked Josie.
“Fucknuts here smashed the glass,” said Adam.
“Oh God...”
“It’s fine,” Claire reiterated. “Trust me.”
She put the phone down.
“Still no answer?” asked Tom.
“Does anyone have any money?” Claire asked, ignoring Tom.
“I have a bit,” I said.
“Me too....” said James.
“Yes,” said Hannah.
“We could get a taxi,” said Claire. “Get a taxi to the bed and breakfast down the road. What do you think?”
“Guys, this is fucking retarded,” said Adam.
“Retarded is staying here,” said Josie.
“Who’s coming?” asked Claire.
Hannah, Josie, Joel and James were up for it - needless to say Tom and I were too. Adam and Tracy were the only ones who didn’t mutter a ‘yes’ but they’d come. They wouldn’t want to stay by themselves.
“Fine, we’ll meet downstairs in ten minutes....” said Claire. “Let’s pack up.”
“What about the state of the place?” asked Adam - a look of worry on his face.
“Should have thought about that before you did everything you’ve done this weekend.... this is all your fault,” spat Josie.
“My fault?”
“You brought the board, you brought the weed, you tore up the Guest Book....”
“I didn’t smash the glasses,” he protested.
“Argue about it later, pack up,” said Claire. “Before it gets dark.”
* * * * *
“Anyone else think it’s an over-reaction?” I asked as we were packing up. Although I agreed in principle, it still felt as though everyone had gone into a full on panic mode. Perhaps we needed to stop and really think about what we were doing.
James said, “Josie wants to go, I think we should go....”
“And if she said she wanted to jump off a cliff?” I asked.
“I’d wave goodbye,” James replied.
A smart-ass comment but he knew what I was getting at.
“Let’s not start another argument,” said Joel. “If it were just Josie who heard things, or thought she did at least, I would have said we’d stay but let’s face it - everything is wrong.... the missing owner, the sound of crying, the sound of the scream, can’t get hold of Sarah, the fucking glass shattering into pieces after we were talking to a ghost.... I think this is probably the smartest thing we can do....”
Tom muttered something about agreeing and, “It’ll be better in the bed and breakfast.”
“Ready?” asked James - his bag packed and in his hands.
I closed the zip on my own bag and picked it up. Joel was first out of the room, followed by James and then Tom. As usual, I was the last.
When we got to the top of the stairs, we could see the rest of the group were already waiting for us - including Adam and Tracy.
“Taxi’s going to be thirty minutes,” said Claire.
“Great,” said Joel.
We went down the stairs and placed our bags next to the others, before sitting in silence, with the rest of the group.
“Any idea how much it’s going to be?” I asked.
“I forgot to ask,” said Claire. “It’s only down the road, it can’t be that much.”
I raised my eyebrows. She obviously doesn’t have a lot of experience catching taxis.
“Should we leave a message in what’s left of the Guest Book?” asked Adam - his way of trying to lighten the atmosphere a little. “I packed it anyway,” he finished when no one answered.
“You packed it? repeated James.
“Easier than having to explain why there are pages missing...” he answered.
To be fair, probably one of his better ideas. At least we can all deny ever having seen it. The owner wouldn’t suspect us of stealing the Guest Book when there was so much other stuff we could have taken - had we wanted to.
A knock on the door made us all jump.
Joel stepped up and opened it, revealing Sarah - the mini-bus on the driveway, behind her.
“Sarah?”
“I need to talk to Josie....”
She stepped into the house and I couldn’t help but notice how red her eyes were. Had she been crying?
“What is it?” asked Josie.
“Please, come with me....”
She walked Josie through to one of the rooms and closed the door.
“What’s all that about?” asked James.
“Had she been crying?” asked Hannah.
I felt a feeling of unease creep over me - followed by a feeling of sickness, in the pit of my stomach.
“What’s going on?
We all sat and waited, patiently.... wondering what was happening in the other room when suddenly we heard a scream from Josie. The door flew open and she came running out, in floods of tears.
“Josie?!” Hannah called after her but she didn’t stop to speak. She just ran up the stairs, in the direction of the girls’ room.
“What the fuck....” said Adam.
Before any of us could go after her, Sarah stepped from the room and told us to, “Leave her for a minute....”
“Sarah, what’s happened?” asked Hannah.
“There was an accident late last night,” said Sarah - tears rolling from her eyes, she did everything she could to hold them back.
“What?”
“Who?”
“Where?”
Various mutterings from around the group.
“It looks as though her parents were on their way here, to pick her up... when suddenly their car left the road...”
“Oh God.”
“What?”
“Are they okay?”
“I received a call early this morning....”
“Are they okay?”
Sarah didn’t say anything, just simply broke down in floods of tears. Hannah also broke down.
“They were coming to get her.... they knew she had come here and forged her permission slip?” said James.
I shrugged, “Must have done...”
“Fucking hell....”
James looked towards the direction she ran off in.
