Page 31 of Hot Ghost Summer

You shot me and left me.

Exasperated, I discard the plasma ray on the table and straighten to my full height. “I didn’t leave you. I went t’ get help!”

Get help? I died.

“Right, but you were electrified, so I couldn’t touch you.” I step out from behind the table and move around the shards of broken glass embedded in the carpet. “I only left because I couldn’t get a phone signal.”

That static buzzing in the sockets returns, raising the hairs on my arms.

Before he can blow up anything else, I snatch Hollis’s phone from the sofa. “I didn’t leave you… I came back. It was a few hours later, I know, but still… I came back.”

Why?

I dip my eyes, suddenly shy. Bringing him closer, as if we’re on a video chat and he’s not a ghost, I quietly admit, “Because I was going t’ try t’ put your soul back in your body.”

Another video clip plays. I recognise it straightaway as an episode of Supernatural. The one where Death plainly tells Dean that, “You cannot simply put a soul back in a body.”

“Well, yeah…” I scratch the back of my neck with my free hand. “I figured, but I didn’t know what else t’ do. It didn’t feel right t’ just leave you there, like Mister Pickett said I should.”

That same heavy vibration that Hollis had sent through the phone when we were standing outside ExorSquad’s door this morning shakes the phone in my hand. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that last bit? It would piss me off too, knowing someone had ordered me to be left to die.

“Anyway. My point is, I didn’t leave you. I came back,” I remind him, trying to get us onto a more peaceable track. “In fact, that’s how come you’re ’ere and… existing like you are, I guess. So really, you should be thanking me, I reckon.”

This time, it’s the hallway lightbulb that explodes.

“Aww, look, come on. Stop blowing stuff up. Now I have t’ go buy more bulbs.”

Hollis goes quiet, but it doesn’t feel like a good silence. It’s got that same feel about it that my mum’s silences have. Heavy. Loaded.

Hopeful, I turn with his phone and point the camera at his box of things on the floor.

“If I’d killed you on purpose, then why would I have tried t’ take you t’ work this morning? And then why would I have brought your possessions back home? It’s not easy carrying a box on the Tube, you know? And why would I plug your laptop and phone in t’ charge? And… I didn’t even go through your stuff. Look, it’s all there. Felt disrespectful t’ go through a dead man’s things.”

I say the last part quietly, then force a smile onto my face. Rotating the camera lens my way, I announce, “You, Hollis Nachtmann, died in a work-related accident, and are now dead. You are free t’ move on.”

Hollis sends a scoffing noise through the phone.

“What? The ExorSquad handbook says that sometimes ghosts don’t know they’re dead, and that just informing them o’ that fact can be enough t’ help them move on.”

This time, a manic laughing sound blurts through his phone’s speakers.

“No need t’ be so rude about it. How are you doing this anyway? I can’t see anything on the screen.” I flip the phone this way and that, looking for any sign of him.

The microwave starts up again, its light on and the plate turning. He’ll blow that up like he blew up my lightbulbs if he keeps on. Marching over, I open the door to break the circuit.

“I know you’re frustrated; I get it, I do. But I’m going t’ find a way t’ help you move on. I am a Spirit Extraction Specialist, after all.” I straighten and square my shoulders. “That’s why I started reading the handbook.”

I pick it up from the floor to show Hollis the pages through his phone. “I’ll put it right, I promise. It just might take me a bit because I’ve not done this before. I was supposed t’ be paired with some ghost-hunting guru at work, but he went and died on me.”

His phone grows dark.

I aim my brightest smile right at the camera. “Too soon?”

Sparks crackle at the socket where his laptop is plugged in. Tracking where I think Hollis is by which appliances turn on and off, I turn in a circle. Round and round the room, faster and faster, until everything turns on, and then finally off.

“I don’t think you can leave my flat, you know? We run on meters, so each o’ us has our own supply o’ electricity. If you want out, then you’re going t’ need me t’ take you out while you’re in your phone or something.”

I sigh, nose wrinkling.