Page 60 of Hot Ghost Summer

“Don’t worry, Sir. I brought my game face, see?” I lower my arm so he’s at eye level and give him a wink.

Theo.

I pull the chain through the hole in the fence, and push the gate open. “How do you manage t’ sound stern over text? You said one word, but I swear I can see the vein in your forehead throbbing.”

Before I step through, I pause. What if this is it for him? What if there’s a magical barrier, or something, and the moment we cross it he just poofs and is gone?

Should I say something? Eulogies are always so deep and profound; I’m not really sure that’s my style. But it doesn’t feel right to just walk in there either. Deliberately, I turn his camera so he can see what I do: the row of abandoned diggers and cranes that glint in the sunlight, the shipping container site office, and Plot 47 in the background.

“So, um, I don’t know how this might work, but if being back ’ere is what’s needed for you t’ move on, then I want you t’ know that I said goodbye. And that I really am sorry.” I clear my throat. “Ta-ra, Hollis.”

No response.

With the camera focused on my first destination, I take a deep breath and stride toward the site office. It’s not far, a few meters at most, but each footstep that crunches over the baked ground kicks up a cloud of chalk dust and sounds out like a death knell.

Dropping my shoulder, I let the work bag slide down my arm, then use it to wedge the door to the little metal oven open. Turns out that smartphones are a bit like cows: both are prone to overheating and will shut down in hot temperatures.

Don’t forget to wear the Kevlar gloves. And stay away from those trenches.

Despite his unnecessary instructions, I smile. Still here, then.

“I won’t forget the gloves,” I confirm, purposefully not acknowledging his other request. Mostly because I’m not a liar.

Propping Hollis up in the doorway so he can watch, I dig out the gloves from the inside pocket of the bag. Then, I tease my Kevlar-coated fingers over the tight fit of my gym vest as I roll my spine in that provocative way they do in thirst trap videos. “How do I look?”

Like we should have added rule five.

I stop gyrating and wrinkle my nose. “What would that have been?”

Theo will not flirt with his colleagues.

Snorting a laugh, I clarify, “Not all colleagues. Have you seen Mister Pickett?”

Put your uniform on properly.

I shove my gloved hands down inside my trouser legs, making a show of trying to stretch out where the long sleeves are tied around my waist. “Well, see, I would, but someone shrank ’em when they got angry. This is as good as it gets.”

Hollis doesn’t respond this time, and I pull my hands out of my coveralls. Probably, he thinks he’s encouraging me or distracting me, and the truth would be both. I like having his eyes on me. Which reminds me why we’re here.

Selecting the smaller bag of cameras, a couple of the telemetry gadgets, as well as the plasma ray that started all this, I offer my best confidence-inspiring salute and head off.

I’m not really sure what Hollis had in mind when he suggested all this filming, so I turn the first camera to video mode and document everything like I would if I were selling a house to a potential buyer.

“This is the ground floor o’ Plot Forty-Seven; I don’t have the square meterage, but it’s really big. As you can see…” I pan the camera around. “Currently, there’s only one wall, a few support pillars, and all this open space. But out back ’ere… is a big pit.”

I set the camera down, just as Hollis instructed. It’s facing the wrong way. He wants it to look into Plot 47 so he can view the entire floor from this angle, but I want a minute first.

“This is the foundation they dug—and it goes deep deep—I can’t even see the bottom. They’ll fill it in eventually, but it would also make a great swimming pool, koi pond, or place t’ bury your enemies.”

Smiling wide enough to show all my teeth, I then make a show of taking readings on both the Kestrel Meter and this other Logger thingy that measures otherworldly energy… or something.

See, Hollis, I’m working.

Moving back inside—if it can be called that—I place the camera on the ground and turn it to face through the plot. I set a second camera on to video mode at the far end of Plot 47, closer to the ladder that leads up to the first floor.

When I’ve taken all the readings I can with the gadgets I have, I stare up the rungs of the ladder. On an exhale, I climb up and immediately my gaze falls on the scorched outline where Hollis’s corpse was. He shouldn’t see this. I don’t know what he remembers of the actual process he went through to become what he is now, but it doesn’t seem cool for me to film it.

Standing where he once was, I turn the camera on to record and aim it away, making sure the frame captures only what he saw that day—not what I saw.