Page 9 of Hot Ghost Summer

The last thing I see is the brilliant oscillating beam that heralds my death.

“Scheiße.”

four

Get Help

Theo

The light is blinding, and the ringing in my ears so overwhelming that it blocks out everything save for my own rasped breaths and pounding heart.

What. The. Fuck?

Even with my forearm pressed tightly over my face, the inside of my eyelids boast a dazzling array of neon greens and yellows. My tongue curls, scraping over my teeth, and I lean back against the steel girder behind me for support.

I repeat: what the fuck?

I’m hot and cold, panicked and calm, excited and terrified.

A laugh bursts out from my chest. What a rush.

I had no idea that meeting a ghost would feel like that. I didn’t even see anything, but I felt it. I felt everything. It was like that time I went skydiving—hard to breathe at first, every cell in my body fighting against an invisible enemy, and then… peace.

Wow!

“Hollis?” I call, but I don’t even know if I’m making any sound. “Hey, Hollis?” I yell louder.

Wait, what if he’s answering, but I can’t hear him?

Lowering my arm, I open my eyes, but it’s not really an improvement. This section of the building is in the shade, thanks to the wall, but that means everything I’m trying to focus on reflects the full glare of a strong midday sun.

“Hollis?” I call again. Still, all I can hear is a continuous high-pitched whining sound.

Slowing my breathing creates the space to detect both the tantalising taste of barbecue, and that the fine hairs all over my body are standing on end, as if I’m at the centre of a massive electrical discharge, but Hollis said no cables have been laid here yet. My fingers cramp from holding the plasma ray, yet the pain helps ground me.

Better oriented, I straighten away from the steel beam, and that’s when I notice Hollis lying unmoving on the floor. I call his name with a croaky voice.

Despite the fact that he’s got his navy ExorSquad coverall fastened all the way up, I can tell that Hollis is fit. It’s in the way he carries himself. Even back in the office, when he’d been wearing suit trousers and a shirt—in a heatwave—the fabric had clung in all the right places, giving him that “gent in the streets, but a freak in the sheets” vibe. So whatever’s taken him down must be pretty strong.

His hard hat blocks my view of him, so I creep closer, and that’s when I see them. Tiny blue sparks of electricity weave all over his body and occasionally spark into the concrete around him. Each one creates a scorch mark that kicks cement dust up into the air and coats my tongue in a chalky residue.

His glasses are broken and the fractured lenses obscure his eyes. The greyish pallor of his skin, offset against his neon-yellow high vis, paints him in a sickly greenish hue. That’s not… normal.

“Hollis?” I whisper.

Stretching forward, I reach for him with my fingertips, but as if whatever has claimed him doesn’t want me getting any closer, stronger bolts of electricity shoot into the floor between us. Instantly, I withdraw.

Unsure what to do, I think back.

Hollis had seemed urgent. He’d been yelling and holding out the EMF Meter—waving it like he’d wanted me to take it, but with the plasma ray and Kestrel Meter I’d already had my hands full. Besides, what good is an EMF Meter when you’re being actively haunted? It wasn’t as if we didn’t know what that was and needed evidence—it was pretty clear.

My eyes are still on Hollis’s prone form. Could he just… be unconscious?

Setting down the plasma ray and Kestrel Meter, I pat my pockets to see which one has my phone, and roll my eyes when I realise it’s in the pocket of my shorts, under my uniform.

“Don’t worry,” I say out loud, wrestling with the tight knot of my coverall sleeves around my waist. “It’s going t’ be okay. I’m going t’ call Mister Pickett; he’ll know what t’ do. Hang on a minute.”

When I finally loosen them enough to fumble my phone out, and it lights up, there’s no signal. Fuck.