Page 23 of Hot Ghost Summer

I have to find a way out of here.

eight

Open The Door

Hollis

Power-save mode: activated.

It’s been nine hours, forty-two minutes, and seven seconds since Theo turned off the light.

All night while he slept, I tested every wire, app, and network option in range. I even overloaded an ancillary circuit to aim the tiny bolts of electricity at the mirror and for a fraction of a second, I thought I’d been successful. Its surface distorted and faint shadows moved within its depths, but when the energy faded, so did the effect.

I’ve tried every possible route out of my entrapment, and although I have better accuracy when selecting a recipient from my contacts list, I can’t give myself a voice. I can send text messages to my family, but no matter how hard I focus, the words are nonsensical—a jumbled alphanumeric string. For some bizarre and inexplicable reason, Theo’s the only person I can send recognisable words to. And my murderer is as dumb as a box of rocks.

I’ve tried uploading myself into social media as a video file, tested Bluetooth, and tethered myself to Theo’s phone. Nothing works. While I can trigger the actions, my consciousness remains bound to this infernal phone—which is stuck in Theo’s bathroom.

The bright overhead light flickers on.

Theo’s hand stretches toward me a moment before my gyroscope detects a movement.

A new vantage point: beside the sink.

He yawns loudly, then the unmistakable sound of a heavy urine stream floods my microphone. My shudder of revulsion expresses as a lagging of the camera, and Theo’s hazy outline freezes where he stands. Unless… this isn’t lag at all, but the world’s longest morning wee.

Never did I think I’d be so grateful that power-save mode reduces the quality of both audio and visual circuits as I am when Theo groans in pleasure.

Stupefied horror overcomes me.

It’s only after he vanishes from sight that I remember I can disable them both to enhance my privacy.

Next time. Because knowing Theo, even the little that I do, there will be a next time.

He reappears, loitering in the doorway and at the edge of my visual field. Yesterday’s cow T-shirt is replaced by another one of those form-fitting gym vests he seems to favour. As if it has a mind of its own, my camera auto-focuses on the rounded swell of his tattooed biceps, and I rush to close down the memory of how I’d admired him in much the same way only hours before he’d murdered me.

Theo brings a cup to his lips, takes a sip, then cradles it securely in his broad hands. Tea, perhaps? For the first time since I died, an emotion other than anger and denial overwhelms me.

Profound sadness seeps through my neural network as the intense weight of my loss becomes clear. Never again will I know the divine pleasure of a perfectly brewed cup of tea.

My already blurry worldview and compressed audio degrade further as another percentage drops from my dwindling battery life.

Twelve percent.

Theo wraps his fingers around my case, and even though he holds me every bit as securely as he just held his cup of tea, my screen doesn’t flicker with its usual green and white stripes.

When he carries me out of his flat, I disable the mic and withdraw further into myself.

When he exits the building, I don’t spare the resources to map the route he walks. Does it really matter where we’re going when I can’t escape?

London passes by in shades of grey. Busy, yet impersonal. I’ve always thought this place is a shithole, and even without the constant thrum of permanently congested traffic or the cloying, stagnant smell that permeates the air and settles into the threads of my clothes, it presses in around me.

When I left the dramatic rock faces and emerald-green alpine rivers of home to come here, it wasn’t meant to be forever. I wasn’t saying goodbye. I was supposed to return brighter, stronger, and ready to lead the next generation of Nachtmanns. The Ötschergräben Canyon’s vibrancy is my heart’s blood. Now, all I have are digitised memories and the knowledge that I’ll never fully experience it again.

Theo cuts down a narrow side street, and the world falls into a deeper shade of grey. But I recognise the uneven pavement and guttering clogged with clumps of dough and partially broken-down pizza boxes. In my eleventh hour, he’s brought me to the ExorSquad office.

Enabling my audio input circuit, I listen to the weak ring of the doorbell as it echoes through a building I never thought would offer the hope of salvation.

Precious seconds tick by, but when there’s no accompanying buzz to signal they’ve opened the door to let him in, Theo shuffles his feet. Restless. Uneasy.