Page 8 of Hot Ghost Summer

Peripherally, I clock Theo stiffen and pull his head back around the front of the pillar. LPA Synchrotron braced in front of him like a shield, he exclaims, “What the fuck is that?”

Despite the situation, I smile. Now I have his undivided attention. “That’s your wee ghostie.”

His excitement is palpable. “No way.”

Another rumble.

Closer. Louder. Harder.

I tilt my head to better listen to the thudding vibrations. This time they’re accompanied by a deep and resonant bellow, a chorus of distress that has Theo wildly gesticulating with the plasma ray. His eyes jerk left and right as he searches for the source, and his breaths gust out in visible puffs.

“Do you hear that?” I ask.

“Hear it?” he yells, talking with his hands as much as his mouth—the ray gun cutting an arc through the air. “I didn’t know ghosts were so loud! Is this normal?”

The sudden and overwhelming smell of burning permeates the building, and given that we’re exposed to the elements on all but one side, that shouldn’t be possible. Like charred meat, the acrid odour fills my nose.

Theo’s question circles my brain. Is this normal?

No. Not for a Level One haunting, which this was triaged as, according to Gerald bloody Pickett. Vollkoffer.

The stifling heat of an unusually warm and hazy autumn mixes with the chilling approach of an unknown entity to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

The building around us rattles, and the air grows electric.

Armed with only an EMF Meter, I stretch my hand straight out toward Theo.

“Ray, now,” I command.

Angling his head, he yells back, “What?”

Impatient, I point the EMF Meter at the gun. “Pass me the plasma accelerator.”

This is no ordinary haunting. For there to be a manifestation across multiple senses simultaneously, this is at least a Level Three entity.

My eyes move fluidly through the space as I wait for the sighting that I know is imminent.

Theo raises his hands—including the one that holds the gun—to cup them behind his ears before yelling, “I can’t hear you.”

Aggravated, that vein in my forehead throbs. The weapon I need points uselessly above Theo’s head. With a half growl, I stand, meaning to head over to him and take the gun back for myself, but there’s a sudden and nauseating wave of freezing air that rushes over me, eradicating the stifling heat in an instant.

Reflexively, I look over my shoulder, but there’s nothing there.

When I next look forward, the LPA Synchrotron rests casually on Theo’s hip, braced for recoil but with no considered aim. His lips form words I can’t hear because of the cacophony that now surrounds us. But it’s the bright purple light of the laser as it’s channelled through the titanium-sapphire rod that pulls my focus.

Instinctively, I put my hands out in front of me, as if that’s any use at all against a synchrotron beam. “Theo!”

He doesn’t act as if he heard, nor understood—nor cares.

The laser passes through the argon gas chamber where it emits a soft blue-green glow as it transforms into a high-density plasma channel.

“Theo! Fuck, the gun!”

Hurrying, I break into a run.

Right before the accelerated electron beam bursts from the tip, its harsh polar phosphorescence lights up Theo’s face and accentuates his freckles.

As if in slow motion, I scramble to dive out of the way, slipping on the dry and dusty concrete debris underfoot.