Ghosts: a viral horror sensation (The Cursed Manuscripts), page 7
Shane finally got the old Land Cruiser purring after a few minutes of trying, and his anxiety gradually went away. It was just an old car. With over a hundred-K on the clock, it’d only been a matter of time until it became terminally ill. Other men might have bought something newer, but Shane didn’t see the point of spending money unnecessarily. The Land Cruiser got him from A to B, which was all a car needed to do.
He and Ed were now sitting in a Burger King off of the A419. Ed had thrown her moral outrage to the wind and was tucking into a chicken sandwich. Shane had chosen nuggets, unable to contemplate eating beef after the sight of Jenna’s bloody face. He and Ed had both been checking the news for updates on the girl’s condition, but nothing had come up yet. They had found very little about Stefani and Hannah either. In fact, even the original article by Leighton Wong had been unpublished, and the Rhino News website was currently suffering a 404 error. It reeked of suppression.
Ed put down her chicken sandwich after eating half and picked up a French fry. Instead of eating it, she waggled it up and down like a finger. “Shane, what if the ritual is real? You could be in danger.”
He snorted, surprised to see her so worried. They had got themselves worked up earlier, but it was time to come back down to reality. “Seriously, Ed, relax. Nothing’s happened. I’m fine. I had to prove it wasn’t real, and I’ve done that. No ghosts. No demons. We drove here without a single incident.”
“I know, but—”
“We freaked out, understandably. I, for one, will never be the same after today. The things we’ve seen… It’s a fucked-up series of events, and I’m sorry for dragging you into it.”
“How did you get dragged into it?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“An email. Came from someone called Joker or… no, it was Jester. They told me about the ritual and asked me to search for Stefani and Hannah.”
“You should try to meet with them. Maybe they know more.”
He popped a fry in his mouth, chewed, and then nodded. “I will. Whatever I do next, it’s going to be from the comfort of my office. I’m not cut out for murder and carnage.”
“Me neither. I used to think I was pretty hardcore, but Marilyn Manson never prepared me for this shit. We’re heading back then?”
“I think so. I have enough to work with. Perhaps I’ll try to source a few details on the ritual and its meaning, send a few emails to people in the know, but no more tracking down teens off the net. It hasn’t turned out well.”
“I barely took any pictures. It was pointless bringing me along.” She lifted her camera from its bag on the floor and set it on the table.
“It’s never pointless bringing you along, Ed.” He shrugged. “Besides, anything you could’ve taken would have been too obscene. I’ll grab some stock images, maybe a few screen caps from Clip Switch. It’ll be fine.”
“Good, because I’m still charging you for my time.”
“I expect nothing less.”
She switched on the camera and stared at its LCD. A frown quickly fell upon her face.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The pictures I took are all screwed up. Look!”
She handed over her camera and Shane was careful not to drop it. It was heavy, professional, and definitely worth more than his car. The LCD had a picture loaded on it, a still of the scene back at the ambulance. Finn was in the wheelchair, being pushed along by his mother. There was a strange blur behind them, like a burn mark on the lens. “What is that?”
“No idea. There’s no reason for it to be there. It’s on all the pictures.”
Shane squinted and tried to study the vague distortion. It was kind of in the shape of a person, but there were no distinguishing features. It reminded him of Millie’s video and the subtle change in lighting. He switched to the other photos and saw the blur again and again, always behind Finn, moving wherever he moved.
He handed back the camera with a shrug. “Weird. Must have been the flashing lights on the ambulance or something.”
She put the camera back inside its bag. “Yeah… Maybe.”
For a moment they both just sat there. Shane stared out of the window at the cars coming and going, travellers and commuters taking a break from the motorway to eat or take a shit.
Living their normal lives. Nothing has changed for them. If ghosts were real, there would be anarchy.
Ed ran her fingertips over her tattooed forearms as she seemed to dwell on something. She’d received a voicemail during the drive and had appeared troubled ever since. He didn’t ask her about it because it wasn’t his business, and if she wanted his opinion she would ask for it. Still, when she looked up at him a few minutes later, she seemed tired and weary. “You really think Splatt!’s going to go under?”
“Uh-huh. If we’d jumped to the web sooner, maybe we could’ve kept going, but we won’t be able to build up viewership fast enough to pay the bills now.”
“What will you do? Seriously?”
He pulled at his fingers, cracking his knuckles, while staring out the window. “Honestly, I don’t know. Writing’s all I’m good at.”
Ed raised an eyebrow.
“Eh,” he admitted. “It’s all I’m capable of. Anyway, it’s Bernard I worry about. Twenty years of his life ending like this. He must be terrified.”
“He deserved a happy retirement. Poor guy. I’m going to miss him. I’m going to miss everyone.” She sniffed and looked away, possibly a little teary-eyed. “I still think of Splatt! as my family, even though I take jobs elsewhere.”
“What would that make Craig?”
“The annoying cousin you avoid at weddings.”
“Yep, that sounds about right.” Shane stood up from the table and rubbed his hands together. “Right, I’m ready to get back on the road. D’you need a minute?”
She wiped her hands on a napkin and balled it up. “I just need to go to the toilet. Meet you back at the car?”
“You peed when we first got here. Do we need to get you a potty?”
“It’s my nerves. I’m like a sprinkler when I’m anxious.”
“Don’t be anxious. I’ll see you in a minute. Don’t forget to wash your hands.”
He exited the services building and immediately leapt to one side as a husky dog tied to a lamppost started barking at him. When he glared back at it, the animal grew even more agitated, fixing its glacial blue eyes and hopping back and forth.
“Nice to meet you too.”
Rather than further aggravate the hound, Shane picked up his pace and headed for the car park. Evening was getting ready to arrive, the sky a joyless grey.
Shane’s Land Cruiser looked a sorry state sitting next to a brand-new hybrid Range Rover in an adjacent bay. Even so, he couldn’t fathom dropping eighty grand on a car, even if he had it. Sliding into the driver’s seat of his Land Cruiser was like putting on old slippers. He knew the vehicle intimately and trusted it like an appendage, despite its earlier spluttering. He probably would have to crash it before he got rid of it.
I really wish the heaters worked though.
Shane let out a shiver and waited for Ed, wondering how much he would see her once he took another job. They knew each other well but had never met outside of work. He always drank alone, where he could get as fucked up as he pleased without being judged or without embarrassing himself.
A man should set an example, provide for his family.
Yeah, Mother, I hear you already.
He pulled out his phone and brought up the contacts. For a while, he considered calling his sister. Putting the phone down on her hadn’t been cool, but he hated people being on his case. Anyway, why did Sarah always act as though she had the right to criticise him? He owed her nothing.
I don’t owe anybody anything.
He decided not to call his sister, mainly because he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Instead, he sent a text to Bernard saying he was on his way back to the office. Then he listened to a voice message from his guy at the ONS. No one in the UK had two hearts. In fact, the condition almost certainly didn’t exist.
Well, there you go, Craig. Your contact is a big stinking liar. What a surprise.
Over the years, Shane had dealt with hundreds of bogus stories. People claiming to be Jesus or Elvis or an alien named Doosie. He’d once dismissed a lady who claimed to have had an immaculate birth, when really she’d just been unfaithful to her Royal Navy husband. There was the old man who claimed to have helped Hitler escape his bunker when the Axis replaced him with a lookalike. Oh, and never would he forget the fraud-slash-pervert who claimed he could predict a person’s death date by swallowing a sample of their hair. Shane had spent almost a decade reporting on the bizarre, but people were the true oddities. Everyone was different, and yet depressingly the same in so many ways. Selfish, insecure, violent, manipulative, vain. Only occasionally did he see kindness, strength, and courage. Those were the stories he longed to write about, the McNuggets amongst a sea of soggy carrot sticks. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t remained a mainstream journalist. It was too depressing and required too much of himself.
The Land Cruiser bounced on its springs, yanking Shane away from his thoughts. He turned to greet Ed but was surprised to find that she wasn’t there. Had something put weight on his car from the outside? Glancing around, he saw nothing. The Range Rover had pulled away, leaving the adjacent space empty.
Huh. I swear I just felt someone get in.
His knee bobbed up and down in the footwell. “Come on, Ed. I want to get out of here.”
Although hesitant to admit it, he was growing anxious sitting by himself. Goosebumps rose along his arms, and his knee continued hopping in the footwell. To distract himself, he pulled out his phone and checked the news. Still nothing about dead teenagers, which led him to wonder if the mainstream news was merely slow in catching up, or if there were some kind of mutual hesitation about what exactly to report. Even a half-serious mention of ghosts would lead to ridicule for papers like the Guardian or the Independent. Even the Sun and the Mirror would be reticent to suggest ghosts were killing kids.
His phone display flickered. It was a cheap Samsung model, not above glitching, but the screen hadn’t ever had problems. All the same, it continued to flicker now, even as he tapped at the glass with his index finger. “Don’t you die on me,” he warned. He hated having to visit the phone shop. They always tried to get him to up his contract to some stupid new phone he didn’t need.
This one has eighty megapixels and folds in half.
Does folding in half make it better?
Erm…
No thanks then.
Shane put his phone away and placed his skull back against the headrest. He took a deep breath.
Something brushed his ear.
The car rocked on its suspension again.
“What the fuck?”
He spun around in his seat and stared into the back.
But there was nothing there.
He batted at his ear, certain something had touched it.
“Must have been a bug,” he muttered.
Turning back around, he felt his heart beating in his chest. He was on edge, clearly, so he urged himself to calm down. The hangover, tiredness, and general trauma of the day weren’t helping, but there was another forty minutes of driving ahead, so he needed to get himself together. “I must look like hell.”
He reached for the rear-view mirror and angled it towards himself to check out the state of his face.
Someone else stared back at him.
“Fuck!” In a full-blown panic, he grabbed the door handle and tried to get out of the car. But the door was stuck. The Land Cruiser bounced on its springs like a fairground ride, but Shane didn’t know if it was from his own flailing or something else. All he knew was that he wanted out of there.
He reached across the passenger seat and grabbed the other handle.
The door opened.
Shane yelped.
Ed looked in at him, confused. “Um, everything okay?”
“What? Did you…?” He straightened up and looked in the rear-view mirror again. This time, he saw only his own ashen skin and bleary eyes. Nothing was inside the car except for him. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m just freaking myself out. Too little sleep and too much excitement.”
She slid onto the passenger seat but kept her eyes on him. Her concern was obvious, but she said nothing. What could she say?
He wasn’t about to say anything either. It would only make him sound insane. “Y-you all empty?”
“Yeah. The toilets were gross.”
“Well, women are disgusting.”
Ed chuckled. “We actually are. Some of us treat public toilets like a poop party. God knows how people make such a mess.”
“Best not to think about it. You ready?”
“Uh-huh.” She frowned at him. “You sure you’re all right, Shane? You look like you’ve seen a…” She stopped and cleared her throat. “Anything I can do?”
He shook his head at her. Bad choice of words.
“I’m fine.” He started the engine. “Tickety-boo.”
He tore out of the car park so fast that half a dozen drivers had to slam on their brakes and beep their horns. When he looked into the rear-view mirror, he asked himself if he had really seen who he thought he had.
No way. It’s impossible.
Chapter Six
It felt good to get back to the office. Ed had gone home to shower and wash the day off, but Shane wanted to see people before retiring to the bottle, which was very out of character for him. It was a few minutes after five, but the office didn’t empty until six-ish usually. The first person to greet him was Rachel.
She gave him a massive smile. “Oh hey, Shane. It’s been quiet without you today. Did you get any good stories?”
“Just one, and I wouldn’t call it good.”
She smiled at him again, probably confused by his words or disturbed by the state of him. “Can I get you a coffee?”
“God yes. You’re a star.”
“Coming right up.” She hurried off to the machine to go make him one, enthusiastic even at the end of her shift.
Oh, to be young again.
Shane crossed the floor to his office, but Craig cut him off.
“My guy got back to me,” said Shane, putting a hand up before his colleague could badger him. “Your lady’s full of it.”
His face fell. “Seriously? That’s a downer. She really had me convinced.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, mate. No one in the UK has two hearts. Either she provides you with medical evidence or you cut her loose.”
“Damn. Now I’ll have to run with something else. You got anything spare?”
“Wish I did. Can’t help you.”
He let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Thanks anyway, Shane. I owe you one.”
“I’ve lost count of how many you owe me. What’s one more?”
Craig stormed off, muttering to himself. Even after years on the job, he still took it personally when people lied to him. Naivety was a bad thing for a journalist to have.
Shane entered his office and turned to close the door, but paused, reconsidered, and decided to leave it open. Before sitting down, he went over to the window and peered outside. His Land Cruiser was again parked next to Bernard’s Alfa Romeo. Somehow, his car no longer felt like a cosy extension of himself. The experience back at the motorway services had left him wary of being inside it – especially alone.
Oh, come on, man. My car isn’t haunted.
He slumped down in his chair, rolling away from his desk and having to yank himself forward. Huffing, he lifted the lid on his laptop, but the screen remained blank. The fan whirred to life, and it did the usual beepity-boop, but it took several seconds for the screen to wake up. Loading Windows took two whole minutes.
“Not you too. Why is all my technology playing up on me today?”
Because I buy cheap shit and use it until it falls apart.
Thriftiness is a virtue, child. Give not oneself to gluttony and want.
Shane chewed at his bottom lip and seethed for a few moments, feeling frustrated. His body cried out for a beer, his mind even more so, desperate to send this day spiralling into a fuzzy oblivion where nothing was as bad as it seemed.
Once his laptop finally woke up, Shane did what he always did first. He checked his emails.
A Nigerian charity worker was looking to move a large amount of money out of the country and needed his help.
A poorly formatted newsletter updated him about the gym he had quit three years ago.
An email from someone who wanted Splatt! to feature advertising for their new energy drink.
And a new email from Jester. Shane opened it immediately.
FROM: Jesterness@everserve.com
Subject: It’s happening all over!
The email began not with a greeting, but with six hyperlinks. Each led to a Clip Switch video featuring young people performing the ritual. All ended badly, with the startled youths either being attacked by someone – or something – off camera, or suddenly falling ill with nosebleeds, choking fits, or even apparent heart attacks. In the last video, a lone girl opened her jaws so wide that they dislocated, and a gore-covered snake forced its way out of her bulging throat. It could all have been faked, but he didn’t see how. Or why.
Perhaps Jester was the one behind the whole thing.
This is an attack on our youth. Someone has done tihs one purpose. Find the original video. Find out who is behind this terrorrism before it gets worse. I’ve tried to get help, but no one is listening. I hope you are.
Jester
Shane read the email twice more before sending off a reply asking to meet.
Until he got a response, he couldn’t ignore Jester’s suggestion of digging deeper. There was a dangling thread in front of his face begging to be pulled.
Who posted the original video?
Reluctantly, Shane loaded up Clip Switch, a website and app he’d come to loathe. Perhaps irrationally, he blamed it for the deaths of Stefani, Hannah, Jenna, and however many more. Freedom of the Internet had once seemed like an unimpeachable right. Now he wondered if too much freedom could be a bad thing.
