Page 29 of Hot Ghost Summer

“Are you…” I begin. The light flicks off, then on again. “Are you a ghost?”

The light switches off and doesn’t come back on.

I blow out a long breath that, partway through, turns into a huffed chuckle. This is wild! I’ve gone my whole life seeing nothing out of the ordinary—not even a hallucination that one time I took LSD at a warehouse rave—but in the last two days, I’ve had two paranormal encounters.

Standing, I prod the light bulb with the tip of the plasma ray. Nothing. I’m not sure what I expected might happen.

A sudden string of beeps blasts from the microwave on my right. I whirl on my heels to find the timer on the display climbing in thirty-second intervals. Slowly, I tread closer, my heartbeats large and full inside my chest.

“I don’t speak ghost,” I inform him. That’s why I’d been reading the ExorSquad handbook, but it wasn’t helpful. “Do the numbers mean something?”

I peer closer, searching for Hollis in the darkened glass of the microwave door, but only my reflection stares back.

All of a sudden, the numbers stop.

I take a step back.

The light inside turns on and it whirs to life.

Frantically, I press the stop button. “Hey, come on! You’ll break it.”

The microwave falls quiet and dark, but then the loud patter of fast-running water hitting an empty shower stall sounds from the open bathroom doorway. I jolt.

My flat’s not big—nothing affordable to a regular person in London is big—and the plumbing all shares one access point, which places the shower on the other side of the kitchen wall.

With a firm grip on my gun—business end raised, just like I was taught in the cadets—and my back pressed against the kitchen cabinets, I slink the few steps to the bathroom.

The light is off, the shower beats down, and my gaze drifts to the mirror above the sink. I’ve seen what ghosts write on them in scary films, and right now, this is feeling a lot less like catching up with a colleague I’d thought had left, and more like being taunted by a malevolent spirit.

When there’s no menacing message scrawled there, I let out a sigh of relief so huge it drags my shoulders several inches down from my ears. Stretching forward, I shut off the shower. Hollis turns it back on.

I press the off button again

Instantly, it’s back on.

Off. On.

Off. On.

“I had no idea ghosts could be so annoying,” I huff.

The bathroom light, and the hallway light behind me, alternate flickering on and off.

I grip the pull cord for the bathroom light and hold it, but Hollis still connects the circuits.

On, off, on, off, on, off…

Walking out, I slam the door on him, forgetting that he was already haunting the hallway light.

“So, this is how it is, huh?” I tap the bulb a bit harder with the plasma ray. “Can you not just… appear?”

The light stays on. No flickering.

“I didn’t see the ghost yesterday either.” It’s hard not to let the pout in my tone slip through. “What’s the point in being a Spirit Extraction Specialist if I still don’t get t’ see any ghosts?”

Reaching out, I switch the bulb off.

“If there’s some rule about it, and you’re only allowed t’ show yourself at certain times, then I can get you a sheet t’ wear?”