Page 24 of Not That Complicated

If it moved, I was going to shit myself. No question.

I shouldn’t have closed the door, should I? It had seemed like the right move when I did it. The way the bed was placed, I had a view straight out onto the landing from where I lay. I’d closed the door because I didn’t want to be staring out there waiting for movement to flicker in the corner of my eye.

But now I was lying here thinking that a ghost was standing on the other side.

I’d once read that the anticipation of a jump-scare was worse than the scare itself.

Can confirm.

My breathing picked up, hot and desperate.

This room was at the very top of the house. I had two options for escape. I could go out the door—thus having to pass through any spectral beings loitering on the landing—or I could go out the window.

It opened onto the flat roof of my bathroom. Knowing my luck, if I climbed out onto it, I’d fall through and get stuck at the waist, legs kicking in the bathroom below, and the ghost coming at me from above.

I strained my ears, staring at the door until it wavered like a heat shimmer on a summer road.

Nothing happened.

Of course nothing happened. The boards always creaked. It had never bothered me before. It was an old house kind of thing.

It was also possible that nerves were making me extra dramatic right now.

First I ran into Adam at The Lion. Then I gazed down into the floor of my bedroom and saw a dead guy in a tub, like the last biscuit in the tin no one wanted. Then I walked into the Premier Lodge only to be confronted once again with the beautiful boy who was better than me in every possible way, and my genius response was to kiss him.

I was a man on the edge, clearly.

In the room next door, another board creaked.

I gripped my hands tighter together and looked away from the door long enough to glance at my phone on the bedside table.

You know who to call, Detective Nash had said, making his shittyGhostbustersjoke.

Joke was on him: I had his number in my phone, and very little pride right now.

I was calling him if I got even a fraction more freaked out.

The peace of the night was shattered by a shrill blare of jangling sound.

I flailed under the covers, yanking them over my head. My ears roared with a rush of adrenaline-spiked blood. My heart raced. I panted into the blackness.

The noise continued.

A faint glow seeped between the crack made between the mattress and duvet when I bravely lifted it a millimetre.

For fuck’s sake.

I tossed the covers back and lunged for my phone. Sitting up, I pushed my hair back off my hot face and stared at the screen.

I didn’t recognise the number. It wasn’t in my contacts.

Normally, I wouldn’t answer an unknown caller, based on the theory that if it was important enough, they’d leave a voicemail.

But, you know. Times were not normal. I answered.

“Hello?” I said cautiously.

“Hey.”

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