The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (4 page)

  
She just needed to get her hands on the machine… but there might be a weak link
there. Her guide round had seemed quite keen to chat over their lunch together,
maybe she could weasel her way on a second tour. Just to clean a few issues up,
get a better description, paint the picture, that sort of thing. He might
actually go for that, and she did have his number. No need to involve Monroe in
this sort of thing. She did feel bad abusing the trust of something who’d
seemed nothing less than polite and friendly, but she had to take this chance
to speak to her father. And it wasn’t like the laboratory would let her rent it
for a few days was it.

  
Maybe she could involve herself in the testing, be an experiment?

  
No, it was best to handle this on her own, like she’d always done. So a call to
Joe it was.

  
Joe had managed to get to his age without having seen a ghost. Not one. Not
even a flash. He’d watched the stupid ghost hunters on television when his
former roommate had insisted they sit down and view it with a drink, but he
didn’t consider a spot of dust on a camera a ghost. He’d heard the ‘Electronic
Voice Phenomena’ which that flatmate had played on from the web as the night
had got considerably darker, and he’d failed to hear anything of substance at
all. And of course he’d been a child, which means he’d been bombarded with
ghosts stories, and throughout it all he’d resolutely refused to see anything
spooky at all. People, living people, were enough of an issue half the time.

  
However, he had now heard a dead person, a professor no less, and now his life
was changing. Every few minutes the little things everyone sees out of the
corner of their eye would affect him, and his head would snap round, convinced
a phantom would be stood there. Not necessarily a white sheet with eyes poking
out, he didn’t think ghosts looked like that, but some energy form containing
the spirit of the deceased.

  
Every few minutes he’d also have a chill down his spine, as he remembered the
knowledge inside him, and the logical extension that there was an afterlife,
that he did have a soul, that he would experience something after death. No,
after physical death. He should have been bowled over by the existential
enormity of it, overjoyed or hyped to breaking point, and instead he just felt
his nerves fraying as he felt increasingly, and oppressively, haunted by
everything in the air around him.

  
It was worse in his flat, where every little creak at night was a ghost walking
down the hallway, and every half glance into a mirror bought a nightmare shade
reaching out. It was as if, instead of being touched by divine knowledge, he
was a six year old child who’d seen the Exorcist and was now convinced demons
were after him. Or even worse, been psychologically weak and done a Ouija
board.

  
It wasn’t as if there was much help for suddenly feeling haunted. It was either
‘there’s no such thing as ghosts, here’s some psychology’, which was great
until you knew there were ghosts because you’d been speaking to one, or ‘our
Church will lead you into the light’, which was equally unhelpful because
they’d proven ghosts, not God, and the Professor who’d been dead for a few
years hadn’t heard about a Creator once.

  
He’d tried plenty of relaxation exercises, and the age old distraction
technique, in this instance turning that mass of technology into something
easily portable. Although that was a constant reminder of ghosts too and didn’t
so much help as keep things priapic. But this was clearly why humanity had invented
science fiction, so he’d been burying himself in alien worlds each evening.
Which, an observer might remark, wasn’t a great change over his old life.

  
Dee arrived at the security office at the entrance to the park, smiled at the
guard and prepared to explain why she was there, but the man recognised her,
smiled back and waved her through. Although nervous, she did allow herself a
little internal hope that this was going to go to plan. It wasn’t much of a
plan, but at least things had started well.

  
She parked up as close to the entrance as possible and climbed out, having
exchanged her handbag for a rucksack. She wasn’t sure how big the machine was,
so she’d taken the most capacious she owned, slung it over her shoulder in a
manner she only hoped was casual, and went towards the entrance.

  
Of course you couldn’t get into the building without a key card, but she’d
arranged a follow up interview with Joe and the doors slid open as she neared
and the scientist came out, hand waived in a greeting. Then they both went
inside. The plan was still in effect.

  
It would be wrong to say Dee found Joe boring, and there was something special
about having a passion for a subject which enabled someone to transform a dry
subject into a breathing, energetic topic, but today Dee was finding it hard to
follow what the scientist was saying. So not boring, but on this occasion the
rising tide of anxiety Dee felt was washing away her ability to follow. If this
went on for much longer she’d lose her basic motor functions. No wonder the
Tell Tale Heart is so popular, and Dee hadn’t even killed anyone yet!

  
Hang on, she caught herself, this is a theft. Nobody’s going to die.

  
Still, she knew she had to keep Joe talking until it was nearly clocking off
time, which she predicted to be half five like every office. The scientists
might like all-nighters but the security on the site had a timetable she’d been
able to wheedle out with a phone call. Luck was on her side, Joe was proving
keen to elaborate on every point, and the digital recorder was taking it all in
for posterity.

  
Then she came to tricky part one: asking for another look at the laboratory.
She fancied her chances of getting a more detailed walk round as the first had
been so brief, and Joe agreed with her subtle suggestions, so soon she was
being guided round. One lab, full of equipment, and only one box within that
she was interested in. On paper tricky, but in practice, after a little
orientation, you could see how everything was arrayed out from one thing, and
that desk was Joe’s where a box was sat. The size of a small toolbox, made with
shiny metal sides and speaker grilles on top, where a series of buttons sat,
there was also a handle.

  
“What’s that?” Dee asked, letting her hand drift over it.

  
“Err…” Joe said pausing, as he tried to work out what to say.

  
Fucking bingo, Dee thought. That’s the puppy.

  
And then the tour was over because it was nearly time to pack away, so Dee let
Joe escort her out of the lab and into the corridor, when she promptly said “I
need the toilet, it’s down here isn’t it?”

  
“Yes, please do.”

  
“No need to wait, I can show myself out, I might be a few minutes.” Hoping that
was a subtle enough hint to invoke in Joe the age old male fear of women’s
bodies, her heart leapt as Joe nodded and returned through the warning doors.
That was tricky part two. Now all she had to do was hide in the ladies toilets,
which is quite easy to do on a lab complex with relatively few women and many
cubicles, and try to time her exit right. This was part three, the hardest: get
out late enough everyone had gone, but early enough to not raise alarms.

  
Heart pounding, ready to make a sudden retreat, Dee got up off the loo seat,
crept out down the corridor, and came to the lab doors. Then she opened one and
peered in. No one in the antichamber, all packed lunches gone. Dee then opened
the door into the lab and peered in, excuses ready if she was found: her
digital recorder was still on Joe’s desk. But the lab was empty, and it was a
simple matter to dash over, fill her rucksack with the machine, take her
recorder, and walk briskly out, get into her car, and force a smile as she
drove out past the guard.

  
Then she was free.

  
Dee had driven home, sneaked the box inside, and sat it on a table looking at
it. There were switches on top, but nothing was labelled, and no lights to
explain if it was on or not. Such was the improvisation Joe had been forced
into that the details Dee had been leaked didn’t guide her in getting in going.
She presumed it wasn’t on as nothing was being said, although maybe there
wasn’t a ghost in her house? She didn’t want a ghost in her house. Hmm, maybe
if she tried pressing a few of the… no, think ahead. Once this is working
you’ll be off, you know you will, down to where dad died, so best get something
to eat, energise yourself, then operate the freaky machinery.

  
A lager was cracked open, just the one as she’d be driving, and a toasted baked
bean sandwich was prepared and consumed, the messy fingers and kitchen being
cleaned. Then it was back into the room…

  
Dee looked over as the doorbell rang, scowled, and went to open the door. She
froze as she found Joe standing there.

  
“Hello,” he smiled, “I’m not sure if this is appropriate but…”

  
“I knew you’d be coming, just not this soon.”

  
“Oh,” and while Dee’s heart had sunk she wasn’t sure why Joe had smiled at the
last comment, “that’s good.”

  
Slightly confused, she offered “you better come in.”

  
Joe followed Dee in, and found himself stood in a hallway full of photos,
before entering a lounge filled with books and art and that wasn’t at all while
he came so on to the main part. “I was wondering if you…wait,is that my
machine?”

  
“Yes, it’s…hang on, you didn’t come for the machine? Why are you here?”

  
Joe looked at her sheepishly, produced a hand from behind his back where he
held some flowers, and explained “I’m asking you out on a date.”

  
Dee’s mouth went dry. “Well that got out of hand quickly.”

  
Joe kept his hand out, so Dee took the flowers, then he went over and stood by
the machine. “This is my box,” he said with curiously.

  
“Err, yeah, about that, I can explain…”

  
“Did you steal my box?” He looked hurt more than angry as it sunk in.

  
There didn’t seem any point in delaying things. “I’m borrowing your box, you
can have it back tomorrow.”

  
“Oh. Err.” What would someone normal do in this situation. “Why tomorrow?”

  
“I need it tonight.”

  
Joe made a circular motion with his hand. “I got that, but for what?”

  
Dee smirked. “Look around you.”

  
Joe now did so, and noticed something about the room. Many books, but all on
ghosts and spirits, mediums and the afterlife. Pictures of the same subject
matter, 101 ways to paint a soul. Crystals, trinkets, the whole Body and Soul
craft fair.

  
“You’re a New Ager!”

  
“No I am not. I’m someone that needs to speak to the dead, and so far you’re
the only person who’s done it. Everything else is bullshit.”

  
Joe nodded, looked at the machine, and wondered if he couldn’t save his evening
and turn it into a date anyway. “Who do you want to speak to? If I could record
the exchange, I’d be testing the machine.”

  
“Woah. Testing. So technically we’d be forgetting it was stolen?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Excellent. In that case I’ll make you a sandwich, we have a drive to see my
father’s ghost.”

  
“Oh, I’m sorry, was it recent?”

  
“Twenty years ago.”

  
“Oh, and you can remember it, wow.”

  
Fingers pointing, Dee explained forcefully “no, that’s the point, I can’t.” She
then went out and returned a minute later with a sandwich. No point in cleaning
the toaster for Joe.

  
He tucked in, made pleased noises at the ham, and reached over and flicked a
switch.

  
“Does that turn it on?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Oh hellooo my darling!” Dee froze, really hoping that there was another
digital voice talking in her house. “I’ve been longing to speak to you.”

  
“Ah you a ghost?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“In my house.”

  
“Yes, and it’s such a pleasure to watch a fine woman like yourself. You make an
old man very happy.”

  
Dee shot a hand out and switched the machine off. “My house is haunted by a
pervert.”

  
“That is one of the unfortunate problems with the machine,” Joe conceded.

  
“Finish your sandwich, then we’ll leave. And I may never take a shower in this
house again.”

  
Dee and Joe knew they were on a two hour drive, and the question of what to put
on the stereo arose early on.

  
“What music do you like?” Dee asked, deciding she’d politely cede control of
the tunes considering she’d technically stolen the machine.

  
“I listen to talking mostly, plays, news, debate, that sort of thing, but I do
like a bit of, what, what’s funny?”

  
“You can make a boring subject sound interesting, but you make the radio sound
fucking boring.”

  
“Okay, what do you like?”

  
“Radio 1 mostly.”