AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Zoe’s stomach churned at her lie. She looked at her report for Mr. Gravesend, and couldn’t help thinking this wasn’t quite the thing Spooks had in mind. She pushed the feeling aside, and forced herself to concentrate, before she returned to her laptop once more.
An abandoned motel occupies the current site, a dilapidated dump where no one living or dead would want to be seen…
Zoe glanced at the run-down motel, its weather-beaten structure creaking in the Arctic winds. She watched as Shadow swept through the motel like a storm cloud, his dark mood tainting the joyful song of the Phantom Fiestadores, until their music died in the winds.
The present occupant tends to stick to the shadows, but is as frosty as the barren landscape in which he calls his home…
She followed Shadow’s gaze to the maze in the distance, where golden lights twinkled within the darkness, before she typed once again.
Sometimes to find a location’s true potential, one must dig deep - quite literally. A prime location for drilling; certainly no one living would mourn its loss.
With her report complete, Zoe’s finger hovered on the send button. A pang of guilt washed through her as she glanced at the specters gathered below. But she steeled herself, knowing that Swindleton was right. If she wanted the promotion, she had to follow her head, and not her heart.
“Oh, the Phantom Fiestadores have started their performance!” Spooks’ grinning face appeared through her laptop screen with a chuckle. “Care for a dance?”
Zoe watched as the ghosts merrily resumed their music-making, while Misty twirled across the makeshift dance floor in the light of the sunset. Despite her reluctance, Zoe couldn’t help but admit that it did look a little fun. But one glance at her overflowing work emails brought her back down to earth with a thud.
“Perhaps another time.” Zoe tried to concentrate as the mariachi’s trumpeting reached fever pitch. “And would you mind keeping it down? I still have so much work to do…”
“Keep it down? But the Phantom Fiestadores need to get their practice in. The Spectral Soirée is in just a few days, and we need to ensure they’re in tip-top shape. Besides, this might be a ghost town, but it comes alive in the night time.” Spooks perched on the windowsill and swung his legs merrily from beneath him. “Once the boys have finished their sunset performance, then the real celebrations will begin! There’ll be trick or treating, hide and shriek, pin the tailbone on the skeleton, and the main event of course…”
“The real celebrations? You mean this will last all night?“ Zoe groaned in despair. “How am I supposed to get any work done?”
“But you’ve been working all day long. You should join us and live a little!”
“Spooks, we’ve been over this. I don’t have time for trick or treating, I don’t have time for pin the tailbone on the skeleton and I don’t have time for…” But Zoe drew a breath as she realized this was the perfect opportunity to free herself from the gaze of her ever-present tour guide. “Actually, perhaps a game of hide and shriek is exactly what I need.”
“I knew you’d come around eventually! Oh boy, this will be a night to remember!” Spooks somersaulted through the air, until his bells jingled in delight. “Just don’t hide in the master’s underwear drawer. He sure does get grumpy about that…”
“I’ll, err, be sure not to.” Zoe shook her head to rid herself of the idea, before she glanced at Spooks once more. “Okay, now close your eyes and count to a hundred. No peeking, okay?”
“Me? Cheat? Whatever would give you that impression?“ Spooks cackled, before he covered his eyes and peeked through the cracks in his fingers. “Very well, fleshie. One, two, three…”
Zoe grabbed her satchel and raced to the doorway. She might have brought herself some time, but something told her the town poltergeist wouldn’t play fair. Despite the wave of guilt that rushed through her, she sped from the bedchambers and down the stairs.
“Eleven, seventeen, twenty-two…”
Zoe picked up her pace, knowing that Spooks’ desire for bending the rules, and his inability to count, gave her no time to waste. She raced towards the maze, using her tracker to guide her through the twists and turns of the thorns.
“Ready or not, here we come!”
Zoe glanced over her shoulder, to see Spooks soar through the air like a firework, while barks of excitement told her Cerberus had joined the hunt, too. So much for the poltergeist playing fairly. She ducked behind a corner as Spooks’ head burst through a nearby wall of vines, the bells on his hat jingling with abandon as he searched for her.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Spooks cackled in delight as he whizzed through the maze, while Cerberus barked as he followed her trail. Zoe rummaged in her satchel, retrieving half a granola bar from the bottom of her bag. Well, she supposed it was better than nothing. She threw the bar deeper in the maze, before she took off in the opposite direction, retracing her steps from the day before, until she reached the gate.
“Hopefully Cerberus’ appetite will buy me some time.” Zoe tried the gate once more, to no avail, before she peered through the keyhole. “Hmm, I wonder…”
Zoe reached into the bottom of her satchel, and retrieved her old camera. She blew a layer of dust off the long-forgotten item, and smiled as she relived the memories that it conjured. Of the countless hours she had spent capturing the magic of the world around her. Of a time she had sought to preserve the beauty of nature, rather than aid its destruction. Of when she’d been free to pursue her dreams, rather than sell her soul to a company. But as she peered through the camera, her heart sank as she spied deep cracks within the lens.
“Dammit. It must have broken in the crash…” Still, Zoe angled the camera towards the keyhole, hoping to discover what lay within the center of the maze. “Let’s see if the zoom on this is as good as I remember…”
She adjusted the camera lens, its cracks turning her vision into a distorted kaleidoscope of blurred lights. A blanket of freezing fog swirled before her, shimmering with a strange golden aura, while great snow-covered roots emerged from the buckled and uneven ground. Zoe zoomed in further, hoping to catch a glimpse of what lurked within. But all she could spy was a vast silhouette that reached towards the heavens, and a crimson-hued sparkle that gleamed in the sunset…
“No Cerberus, that’s not the fleshie! That’s food! Quickly boy!”
Zoe cursed as the jingle of Spooks’ bells grew closer. If she wanted to discover the treasure of the Underworld, then she needed to buy herself more time, free from the prying eyes of the poltergeist. She ventured deeper into the maze, searching for a hiding place, until the sounds of her pursuers grew more distant.
