Page 3 of Squad Ghouls
“We’ve talked about this.” I groaned. “Do I really have to check in every time I leave the house? I’m a thirty-year-old man! I’m not fifteen anymore.”
“He says, like he’s not still doing the same exact things he was as a teenager,” she complained as I tiptoed my way around the room, looking for the poltergeist that had tried to bash my skull in. “Living under my roof. Hanging out at the pub. Staying out all night shagging your way around London.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t exactly shagging the London populace at fifteen, Mum.”
“Not for lack of trying. Are you ever going to settle down? Give your mum a break from worrying about STDs?”
I paused in my search and stood up straight, declaring loudly, “I don’t have any STDs!”
“Yet.”
“I’m settled! I have a steady job now. No more harebrained schemes. I’m practically domesticated, so you don’t have to worry.”
It was an out-and-out lie, but she didn’t know that. In fact, mention of my new career perked her up considerably.
“I want to tell Mary about your new job at the hairdresser’s tomorrow. What did you call it again? You’re always so vague.”
My cheeks heated and I looked down at the Pulser in my hand and my overalls. “It’s a type of exterminator. Very niche. Specialised.”
“Oh yes! Mary had a mouse problem in her shed a while ago, poor thing. Would you be able to help with that?”
“Not exactly my type of extermination, Mum.”
“I’ll give her your number, love.”
“Mum, I just said—”
“Oh, there’s someone at the door. It’s been like Piccadilly Circus here all day.”
“Mum—”
“I’ll give you a bell back, Ryan. Be good.”
She rang off like she was sending me to my first sleepover.
I cleared my throat as I pocketed my phone sheepishly, trying to hold on to some of my mystique in front of the dead.
A squeak on the mirror over the fireplace drew my attention and I was mortified to see the words “Mummy’s boy” spelled out in the dust.
I could feel my cheeks heating up again. “Yeah, and so what if I am? Become corporeal and say that to my face. Or haven’t you got the ecto-juice for that? Is the little ghost stuck on a level-one or -two plane of existence? Talking big but don’t have the ghost balls to back it up?”
I didn’t know what had come over me. Stress? Insanity? I’d always been defensive about my mum since my dad left us when I was six. Any perceived insult to her sent me over the edge and usually to the headteacher’s office.
I guess in an adult setting it translated to antagonising ghosts that could potentially kill me.
A terrible, disembodied moaning voice echoed through the room on a gust of spectral wind, sending the curtains and doilies flying. I held my hand up to block my face, realising I must have really pissed off whatever ghost was in here.
Good sense had me backing up, but the admittedly stupider part of me felt a little vindicated in the name of Sharon Brolyn and her fluffy leopard print slippers.
The door I exited through led me to a kitchen.
I kept one eye on the chaos in the sitting room while I surveyed the new area around me. This room, like the rest of the building, looked like it came from a different era. It was small and square, with antique cupboards and doors in sage green, an ancient stove, wooden counters with water rings dotted about and floral wallpaper plastered over any available wall space, including the shelves. But there were a few additions that assured me it wasn’t just ghosts living here, like the older-style microwave on the counter, a modern kettle, and a phone charger plugged into a yellowing outlet. There was even a fresh mound of some sort of cakes or pastries set to the side on a plate. I crept closer and picked one up as I kept my other hand with the Pulser pointed at the door just in case. They were still warm.
Heavy footsteps sounded from above my head and I looked up, tracking them across the ceiling.
The owner? Or another ghost?
Okay, I needed to get serious here. I stuffed the cake thing into my mouth, only a quarter of the flat disc fitting, the rest sticking out, as I catalogued my equipment and what I already knew.
