Page 26 of Curse of the Stag's Eye
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Come on, Rhys, live a little. And I thought your schedule was only for your fake haunting?”
He rubbed his beard. “Not entirely. I always make a schedule. It keeps things orderly.”
I crossed my arms. “I thinkorderlywent out the window when a spooky ring of black smoke tried to electrocute us and a wet hammer tried to brain Nikesh.”
He sighed. “I suppose we could give it a go. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, mind. In my experience, things like this don’t work. You remember how to use the radio? Good. You two take the room on this floor, Gaz and I will take the one on the ground floor.” He took out his bundle of keys and tried several before finding the right one to unlock the little storeroom. A shoddy collection of cheap, plastic shelving held bottles of bleach, rags, and some cracked plastic basins. A mop lay against the wall, over a pair of thick pipes that passed through the room. “Try not to touch anything in there.”
Nikesh went first, checking out the little space. “It’ll be cramped in these. I hope you two don’t mind getting close!”
Dawn giggled and took the door by the handle. “’Course they don’t.” She winked at Rhys, who blushed.
My ears burned a little. Rhys blustered something and helped Dawn to close the door.
When he and I reached the ground floor, Rhys stopped. “We don’t have to do this. We can just tell them we did.”
After seeing the shape in the kitchen, my whole body had gone numb and not even the crisp, foggy air had woken it up again. “Let’s do it properly.”
He took out his walkie-talkie. “Can you hear me, Nikesh? Over?”
The radio crackled “… think I’ve got… hello?… button on the top… let go…”
Rhys sighed. “You have to keep your finger on the button, Nikesh.”
The radio popped. “Got it. Right. Yeah. I can hear you.”
“We’re just getting into the storeroom now. If you see or hear anything unusual, let us know right away. Over.” He unlocked the door and we stepped inside.
I’d been in lifts with more floor space. A stack of plastic storage tubs filled one wall. In the soft lantern light, I could just make out rolls of cable inside, with some gloves and what looked to me like plumbing parts. A bench strewn haphazardly with tools stood on the other side of the room. Rhys closed the door behind us.
He reached into one of the storage bins and withdrew a little grey plastic drum. He sheepishly slid a power button on the back of it. “This is the last speaker, I swear.”
We stood close to each other. Because we’d no other choice. I asked him what we were supposed to do.
“Just wait, I suppose.” He set the lantern on the bench and took out his notepad. “I hadn’t planned for this. My schedule will be totally messed up now.” He crossed a couple of things out on his list, then fidgeted with the aerial of the walkie-talkie.
I didn't know how long we'd be in there and my mind raced with ideas on the many ways he and I could pass the time. My fingers flexed. “Listen, I wanted to—”
“I’m sorry for—” He stopped. “You go on.”
“No, you first.”
“I’m sorry for lying,” he said. “I’m sorry about the speakers. I should have known better. It was stupid.”
“Have you ever done anything like that before? Faked a haunting?”
He shook his head, vigorously. “Never. Never ever, I swear. I promise. God, my palms are sweating.” He rubbed them on the legs of his jeans. “I wish I hadn’t done it. I’m not a liar, not usually anyway. I’m not a conman or a scam artist, honest, I’m not.”
I wiped my mouth with my hand. “You were trying to give us value for money. I get it. And I may have overreacted. What was that thing, in the kitchen?”
Rhys held his hands up. “I’ve read about shapes like that appearing in haunted places. Darker than dark, formless but contained. I think it’s the beginning of a manifestation. An apparition trying to, well, appear.”
“Could it have been a kind of… mass delusion?”
“I don’t see how,” he said. “We all saw the same thing, felt the same thing. It came and went so quickly. I can’t speak for you but I’ve never had a hallucination before. And what are the chances of us having one at the same time, right here, in a haunted lighthouse, for the first time ever?” He gave a little smile that dimpled his cheeks and melted my heart.
When I found the speaker in the kitchen I’d been so angry I thought I’d pop a blood vessel but then that thing, that shape, thatghostappeared and everything else melted away. The shock we all felt when it touched Nikesh was real. It had been like touching a live wire. The whole world tilted after that and being mad about a little, well-intentioned lie was no longer important. And I believed him when he said he’d never faked anything of that kind before.
“Did Michael say anything to you?” His eyebrows pinched in the middle. “Outside? Before he left?”
