AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then you’re the man we want to see,” she said. “May we come inside?”
“Am I in trouble?”
“We have a few questions to ask you right now,” Faith replied, deflecting the question.
“Um… do I need a lawyer?” he asked hesitantly.
“Do you think you need one?” Michael countered.
He hesitated another moment before saying, "No. I mean, I didn't do anything wrong."
“Then you won’t mind answering a few questions,” Faith insisted.
He frowned but couldn’t come up with a good reason to refuse. “No, I guess not.”
"Wonderful," Faith said. "So, may we come in?"
He hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
They followed him down a short flight of stairs into a cozy but reasonably well-appointed shelter set up like a studio apartment. There was a compact refrigerator/freezer, a microwave, a tv and a futon, but the centerpiece of the shelter was a desk with an overbuilt gaming desktop and a monitor nearly as large as his tv.
“I do gaming when I’m not writing,” Callum explained.
“I see,” Faith replied. “Are you any good?”
He shrugged. “I mean, I’m not ranked or anything, but I do okay. Hey, do you guys want some soda or anything?”
“We’re fine, thank you,” Michael replied.
“You mind if I grab one?” he asked.
“Go ahead,” Michael allowed. “It’s your house.
“Sweet.”
He shuffled to his refrigerator and grabbed a two-liter bottle of cola. He unscrewed the cap and drank a long draught directly from the bottle before recapping it and setting it back into the fridge.
Good thing I declined the drink, Faith thought. Aloud, she asked, “Mr. Jennings, you recently published some blog posts on the most haunted places in the local area, correct?”
“Yeah,” he said, eyes brightening. “What did you think? Were they good?”
“Riveting,” Michael said drily. “I was particularly interested in the part where you said that Dr. Gemma Montgomery, Patrick Jeter and Kevin Malloy must have deserved to die and that was why the spirits killed them in those abandoned buildings.”
Callum blinked in confusion. Then he realized. His face blanched and his eyes widened. “Oh God,” he said. “I wasn’t… I mean, I didn’t kill them! I didn’t want them to die, I just… I wanted to sell the book.”
“The book?”
“It isn’t out yet. It’s going to include those articles, but yeah, I’m writing a book on haunted buildings in Iowa. Oh God, I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just for show, you know? So people get spooked.”
“It’s definitely spooky,” Faith agreed. “To know that someone might actually endorse the brutal murders of three innocent people. It keeps me up at night for sure."
“No!” he said. “I don’t endorse it! I…” he sighed. “Look, it’s all made up, okay? None of those buildings are actually haunted.”
“You don’t say?” Michael deadpanned.
"I mean, they're not even rumored to be haunted. They're just regular old buildings. I made up stories about vengeful ghosts so I could be published."
“Well, I imagine that the fact that people actually died in those buildings will lend some credibility to your claims, won’t it?” Michael said.
