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Great Writing - Home > Extended > Graffiti: Chapter V
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Extended Work
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| Graffiti: Chapter V | |
| By Kezzi | ||
| 12 August 2008 | ||
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Tabitha Walker is an outsider, shunned by the world after her life is
turned around by mysterious circumstances. But an eerie message on her
desk at school and a seductive smile change everything as the world of
the supernatural reveals itself...
-V-
Secrets Tabby's fingers had become lost in Andy's golden mop of hair and his tongue had just begun to nudge lightly at her bottom lip when Ollie’s footsteps on the stairs jolted them apart. The glass of water sloshed in Tabby’s hand, still clutched tight with white knuckles even since she had become pressed up against the spotless marble counter and lost all conscious thought; Andy’s hands hurriedly returned to his sides from her hips, and she found she couldn’t remember how they got there in the first place. Andy began to busy himself tidying away the glasses just as Ollie walked into the room, smiling. “Hey guys, we better get going,” he said, nodding towards the wall clock. “You okay now, Tabby?” “Yes, thanks,” she gasped, feeling the ability to speak finally return to her. Did that really just happen? Andy avoided her gaze as they followed Ollie out into the hallway to put their shoes on; she guessed he didn’t want to let on to Ollie that anything that happened. He’d probably tease him, she thought, winding her orange laces around each other and smiling to herself. It would just have to be their little secret. Stepping outside, Tabby noted with annoyance that the sky had become overcast; sunny rays no longer illuminated the road as they headed along it, barely talking. She noticed that Ollie, much like herself, kept glancing at Andy; he seemed extremely preoccupied. She coughed slightly to break the uncomfortable silence and Ollie looked around at her, smiling inquisitively. She grinned back in response and he fell into step with her, letting Andy stroll on ahead at his leisure. “Looking forward to your first banishing, then?” he asked shyly. Tabby’s insides squirmed nervously as she remembered the reason they were walking; the kiss had driven all thoughts of ghosts from her mind, and now the idea of coming face-to-face with an evil spirit bludgeoned her imagination. Even worse was the notion of having to spend the day with Dean’s vile temperament; and she grimaced. Ollie laughed. “Don’t worry, I was nervous my first time, too.” Tabby let this misinterpretation pass; it seemed more normal than the real reason her stomach was churning uncomfortably beneath her jacket. “So…how long have you lived around here?” “All my life, actually,” Ollie smiled, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “But I’ve never really been very popular…” “Nor me, exactly.” Tabby felt herself begin to relax; here was someone she could identify with, and she began to warm to his jerky mannerisms and quietness. Suddenly, though, he slowed right down and looked at her with a very strange expression on his mousy face. “Haven’t you noticed?” he asked. Worried, Tabby shook her head. “Noticed what?” Something about the look he was giving her made the avenue sides feel oddly close. “We’re all the same. Think about it.” He motioned at Andy, several metres ahead, oblivious to the fact they had stopped behind him. “Andy; who does he hang out with in school apart from you? And Dean; where are his friends?” Ollie scanned her puzzled face. “I…I don’t know,” she replied, realising that he was right; all four of them were overlooked or shunned by society in some way. Yet they all reacted so differently; Ollie liked to stay quiet and out of everyone’s way. Andy seemed unconcerned with not having any male friends despite attention from females and teachers, but there was always something stirring behind his eyes that told Tabby otherwise. She, on the other hand, dealt by rebelling against rules: defying dress code and the school routine. And Dean simply hit back at the world with hatred. “It’s because we’re different,” Ollie said, breaking through her thoughts. “But in our separate ways. People obviously just can’t handle it.” “Do you think it’s because we’re all…Seers?” Ollie shrugged. “There’s no way to tell – but, either way, we can’t all hang out at school; it’d be too suspicious.” He laughed. “C’mon, let’s all go be loners together.” Dean was his usual sour state when they met him at the church, kicking cowering leaves against the grey, mossy wall. The destructive glare in his eyes at once shattered any feeling of identification Tabby had held with him just minutes before; she would hate to be associated with a demon like him, no matter how strong their likenesses. She looked away from him and moved to stand in Andy’s protective shadow. “C’mon, let’s get the old tools out,” he said, leading the way into the church through the ancient, creaking doors. Tabby didn’t know whether it was the coolness of the stone building’s interior or Dean’s sharp eyes on the back of her head, but something made a sudden chill shoot down the length of her spine. The hair on the back of her neck prickled uncomfortably and she hastened to join Andy and Ollie at the organ. The gigantic pipes reached up into the tall ceiling, dull with dust. Cobwebs stretched from one end to the other, and a lone spider spun on around the old dwelling places of his dead relatives. Tabby shivered and looked down as Andy lifted the heavy lid and pushed one of the pedals with his foot. There was a loud grating noise and the floor began to shudder under her feet, her jaw dropping open as the entire set of keys lowered and slid themselves slowly right underneath the main body of the huge, disused instrument. “Amazes me every time how he managed to get that to work,” Ollie whispered into a shocked Tabby’s ear as Andy reached into the dank cavity and retrieved several strange items; a sealed stone bowl, something that looked like a walkie-talkie with a long aerial, a handheld tape recorder and a small, aged scroll wrapped around with a ragged red ribbon. After pressing the other pedal to allow the keys to scrape back into place, he set down the lid with a CLUNK and turned to face them, expression barely concealing his excitement. “Let’s do this thing.” Out on the road again, the wind had grown stronger; whipping leaves into whirlwinds at their feet as they hastened down side streets. “This is a digital thermometer,” Ollie was explaining to Tabby, holding out the device with a display and long metal aerial. “It helps us to pinpoint where the ghost is if they are refusing to divulge themselves.” “But…we’re Seers, can’t we see them all the time?” “Oh, no, only when they choose to appear to us,” he replied. “And, unfortunately, evil ghosts prefer to stay invisible for the scare factor.” “Oh,” Tabby absorbed this new information. “And the tape recorder…is that for EVPs?” Ollie nodded, surprised. “You know more about ghosts than you let on, missy.” Tabby grinned. “I have done a bit of research in the past, yes.” “It’s good to be prepared,” he nodded. “Yeah, we’ve caught a few interesting Electronic Voice Phenomena in our time; you can’t just interact normally with ghosts that are refusing to divulge themselves, like you did with Charles yesterday. The only way to communicate is to record their voices; that’s if they choose to answer, of course. Dean’s best at it, though. He always seems to know what questions to ask to get information out of them…scary how his mind works like theirs, sometimes…” Upon hearing his name, Dean spun around. Tabby flinched at his accusing glare but Ollie smiled. “Don’t worry, I was just telling Tabby about your EVP talents.” “Oh,” he grunted, turning back forward as they entered Well Drive. The sign was cracked and half concealed by trailing ivy, the vines spreading right across the muddy track and up the walls of the houses opposite. The entire terraced row of buildings was derelict and forgotten; windows staring like blank, dead eyes as the four hunters crept cautiously past. “Keep quiet, now,” Andy hushed them, leading the way to a house with a battered door and two boarded-up windows. Tabby picked herself gingerly around discarded takeaway trays; half-congealed chicken wings lay strewn across the ground. Nettles and grass swayed at waist-height either side of the weed-ridden path, thick bramble stems forming deadly barbed traps around their feet. The splintered door hung off its hinges enough to allow them access without disturbing it, and Ollie gave way to Tabby so she could follow after Dean. Reluctantly, she squeezed herself through the gap, leaving the world behind. Inside was pitch black and musty; the thick, rotten air catching in her lungs. Tabby suppressed a cough as she followed in Dean’s silent wake through another dark doorway, his shape only just visible as they entered a larger room off the damp hallway. A thin crack in the opposite wall permitted a chink of light to dimly illuminate the empty space; the others had stopped, and a malevolent glint to her left made Tabby aware of Dean’s eyes upon her. She avoided his gaze and stared blindly around the room, forcing her eyes wide, trying to make out her surroundings. As far as she could see, there was only a small, blackened fireplace and more old cartons of food festering on the stone floor. This must have been the living room, she thought; before realising that, ironically, it was a room for the dead now. “Everyone stay still,” Andy’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’m going to try and get a reading.” Taking the thermometer from Ollie he began to creep quietly across the room, tense figure silhouetted against the thin bars of light from outside that filtered through the dust. Tabby wondered how she could possibly stay silent while her heart hammered painfully against her ribcage, making her entire being quiver with nerves and fear. Far from being a hunter, she felt more like prey. They watched Andy’s every move expectantly as he took slow paces, forehead creased as he struggled to make out the thermometer’s reading. From wall to wall, there seemed to be no change. “Average temperature is fifty Fahrenheit,” he murmured after a while, making them jump. “Normal enough…” He continued to take readings around the fireplace. “Don’t worry, sometimes we don’t find anything,” whispered Ollie, seeming to sense Tabby’s nervousness. She nodded slowly, feeling some of the knots in her stomach loosen and exhaling as the rapid pulse in her temples began to steady. But then her heart stopped dead. An icy breath had just brushed the back of her neck; a bolt of lightning shot down her body as she stood, rooted to the ground in blind fright. The horrifying sensation had felt alien from the world she knew. “Andy…” she hissed, stinging eyes wide and fearful. It seemed he did not need alerting, however, as his figure too went suddenly rigid. “Shit,” he swore under his breath. “What’s the reading?” asked Dean, also frozen to the spot. “Thirteen.” Ollie quickly handed Dean the tape recorder. “You know what to do, Cap’n.” Dean’s dark hair fell over his eyes as he pressed in the record button. “Are you a Black Death victim?” he asked the room in his low voice. No answer. “Are you here to claim your revenge?” Again, no answer. “We have to play it back to hear the responses,” whispered Ollie in explanation. Tabby nodded, transfixed. “Do you wish to hurt us?” Dean allowed a pause before cutting off the recording. “Let’s hear it,” murmured Andy, stepping closer. Tabby felt her blood chill as Dean hit the playback button and a scratchy, inhuman voice much different from Charles’s replied ‘yes’ to all three questions. “Too bad, mate,” said Andy, “You’re not hurting anyone today.” He turned to Ollie. “Got the Holy Water?” “Yep,” he replied, unclamping the lid from the stone basin. The water’s surface shimmered in the weak light. Andy pulled the small scroll from his pocket, untying the ribbon and unfurling it carefully. “Dean, give Tabby the tape recorder so you can keep track of the ghost using the thermometer.” The look on Dean’s face clearly showed that Andy may as well have asked him to stroke a hungry tiger, and it was only the circumstances that made him step so close to her. Their fingers brushed as he thrust the recorder into her hand; static shocks flew between their tips and she pulled back sharply. Something like fire flared in his eyes as he turned away to join Andy. “Watch closely,” Ollie motioned Tabby to stay a safe distance away as Dean took readings, searching for the cold spot. After a few moments, he found it. “Here,” he said; and at the same time Ollie dipped his hand into the bowl, strange, foreign words began to issue from Andy’s mouth. “Inhumanus phasmatis, ego expello vos.” Ollie sprinkled some Holy Water into the patch of air indicated by Dean. “Licentia nos quod nunquam reverto.” “It’s moved,” Dean said, trying to track it again. “Wait…over here!” More glistening drops flew from Ollie’s fingers. “Vos es non exspectata, sic vado.” “It’s heading towards the door,” Ollie’s tone was growing desperate. “Let’s try something…Tabby, quick, hold your crucifix out into the doorway so it can’t escape.” Tabby did as she was told, grabbing her crucifix from under her jacket and holding it out away from her as far as it would reach on its beaded string. “Haud magis inhumanitas mos vos partum.” “Guys…” A chilling iciness had swept over her face. She tried to leap back but fear was rooting her to the spot as she swayed, panicked lights popping before her eyes. The ghost was playing around her head, trying to suffocate her airways. “It’s trying to kill me,” she sobbed shakily, eyes wide. “I can’t breathe…” Dean suddenly grabbed the stone bowl from Ollie and flung the contents directly at Tabby, the freezing water dousing her face and drenching her jacket. The pressing air released itself from her throat and she gasped in surprise as a glowing red mist sped away from her, swirled once around the room and vanished as silently as it had appeared. The only trace it left was the faint imprint on the inside of Tabby’s eyelids as she shut them in relief. “Well, that worked,” Andy remarked after a few moments of stunned silence. Dean looked intently at the floor as Ollie hurried forwards and wrapped a comforting arm around Tabby’s shoulders. “Only did it to stop her pathetic whining,” he growled. “Are you okay, Tabbs?” Ollie asked, brown eyes concerned. She stared back at him in shock, droplets of water trembling on her face. “I…I think so…” Andy came up to Ollie from behind and patted him on the back. “Good work, guys,” he said, without even so much as a glance at Tabby. “Let’s move out.” Ducking out through the doorway into the old hallway, Tabby felt a wave of upset annoyance; she had never been one to expect sympathy, but since their lip-on-lip encounter Andy had been extremely distant from her; so much so that he didn't seem to care that she'd just almost been choked by an evil spirit. On the contrary, he was now chatting happily away behind her with Ollie. Not one word of concern… She felt foolish as the scene she had subconsciously longed for burst in front of her eyes; images of his warm, reassuring arms around her turned to dust and were carried away into the darkness. Maybe he thought I was overreacting like a baby… Comfortingly though, despite her disappointment, she could hear birds singing outside as her pulse returned to normal. The clouds must have cleared; the patch of light cast on the rotting wooden floorboards was golden, and she smiled. It would feel so good to be out in the fresh air again, and she found herself longing to be drenched in that warm glow. But nothing could prepare her for the splintering crack that threw her helpless body to the floor a second later.
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