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Failure.

It was as heavy as this cliff and just as slippery.

Sighing, I clenched my jaw and walked round to assess the stairs again. I’d done enough dodgy trade work in my late teens with my cowboy builder uncle to know a thing or two about woodwork. I was also top of my design and technology class until I got an F for whittling a giant dick in my final year. Mum wasn’t best pleased.

After finding a safe way up past the brittle wood along the very edges, I braced myself in a wide stance and knocked on the door, peering through the foggy glass. It didn’t seem unclean, more like it had no hope of being clean no matter how much you scrubbed it so the baseline of clean had moved.

A long, slanted hallway greeted me, the reception area an enclosed tiny room at the side with a windowed desk, a small placard on the countertop that read “Fancy a cwtch?”

“What the hell is a cwtch?” I asked, probably butchering the word.

A gasp sounded by my left ear and I startled, turning to find nothing but a wisp of evening fog. All the hairs on my arm stood on end and a definite chill crept down my spine.

Ghosts felt thick to me. And not in the fun way with two Cs. Oftentimes I found it hard to breathe when they were around, like their presence was taking up the space in the room and pushing all the oxygen away.

Even this close to the door, I felt like I could scarcely breathe at all.

I didn’t know what that meant.

I pulled my PolterPulse from my duffel and clipped on the rest of my equipment, leaving the bag on the porch. The last was my EMF reader, which wailed at me as soon as I activated it. I stared at it in consternation as I moved it around and it kept screaming.

This had never happened before.

Nothing had ever been so fucking haunted that the machine lit up at the front door. How was I supposed to find any ghosts with this thing wailing at everything?

I switched it off with a small swallow and reached for the door-handle. The door swung inward on its own and I didn’t know whether that was because the building was so damn wonky, or because the ghosts were inviting me in.

Either way, it sucked for me.

I cringed as I took my first step inside, the whole building audibly complaining.

Dust sprinkled down from the ceiling.

“Hello?” I called with faux politeness as I kept my eyes peeled. “ExorSquad, where all your hauntings go to die, yada, yada.”

There was no answer, only the creaking of the house and the shiver that ran down my spine.

“If you are already dead, please make yourself known. Payment will still be taken; it’s in the fine print,” I muttered as I grabbed my S-TRK 88 “SpecterTrack” Monitor. It fritzed as soon as I turned it on and I swore and bashed it a couple times. “Piece of shit is going to get me killed.”

The fuzzy screen finally cleared up and I saw multiple blue dots around me. A scary amount. “That can’t be right.”

I hit it again and thought I saw the blink of a red dot just as a vase came careening at me.

I barely avoided getting my head smashed in, dropping the SpecterTrack as pieces of pottery exploded against the wall, ricocheting into my uniform and cutting a small hole in one sleeve. I crouched and aimed my PolterPulse at the doorway it had flown from.

Okay, so moving objects with that much force indicated a poltergeist, most likely. Whoopee for me.

I crept forward slowly, an aged sitting room coming into view with yellowed doilies on coffee tables and sunken, floral, fabric couches. A rocking chair in the corner was slowly rocking back and forth.

I switched on the ECH000 Spirit Receiver, flicking through channels. “Is anyone there? If you’re there, I would like to leave a message that you fucking suck.”

I switched it back off, petulant and pouting, and thought I saw the chair shake—

My phone rang, making me jump what felt like ten feet into the air in fright, the sound echoing around the creepy room. I pulled it out quickly, seeing my mum’s name as the caller ID.

“Not the best time, Mum. I’m at work,” I whispered hastily, heart still in my throat.

“Ryan Brolyn, you were supposed to ring me when you got there. Was I supposed to hear on the news that you were dead in a ditch alongside the M25?”