Nearly Departed, Max Schlienger [the gingerbread man read aloud txt] 📗

to bulge outward. Dennis suppressed a triumphant smile as he heard Elspeth shuffling behind him. She had a remote control in her pocket, he was sure of it. Well, it was disappointing that the woman wouldn’t be a candidate for Harding, but the act was enjoyable, at least. He wondered what she got out of it. Just the satisfaction of tricking people who made a living at playing exorcist? Dennis had met a few other folks in his line of work, and there were even a handful who truly believed that they had some otherworldly gift. He wondered if Elspeth had mistaken him for one of them, or if she played the prank on anyone who would sit still long enough.

Hello.

… That was odd. The voice hadn’t really been audible, so to speak, but Dennis was still certain that he had heard it. Someone had told him once that it was possible to play sounds in such way that the ears didn’t really hear it, but the brain did. He had never experienced it before. He stole a quick glance around the room, trying to spot the speakers. Well, you wouldn’t expect them to be visible, would you? No, that would have been a mistake on Elspeth’s part.

“She might be like that for awhile yet, Doctor,” Elspeth said from behind Dennis. “One can never be sure. Would you like some more tea?” Dennis considered. When Elspeth left the room, she’d undoubtedly rush off to wherever she had the microphone stashed, and treat Dennis to a real two-way conversation with her “dead sister.” If he refused the tea, she wouldn’t have an excuse to leave, and the performance would likely drag to a halt.

“Perhaps later,” replied Dennis. “For now, I would like you to stay here with us.” There, he thought. If she leaves, she’ll know that I’m onto her.

“Suit yourself.”

Thin trails of smoke started to rise from the seat of the armchair, and Dennis felt a moment of concern. It hadn’t occurred to him that the hotplate could start a fire, but now that he thought about it, the amount of heat necessary to bend the air was probably more than enough to spawn flames. Then again, maybe the smoke was part of the act. Elspeth didn’t seem concerned about it, anyway.

“Evelyn,” Dennis began, once again addressing the chair, “I’d like to talk to you about something important, if I may.” As if in response, the smoke began to thicken and coalesce. From the right angles, it could almost be mistaken to be the shape of a person.

Dennis shrugged off the thought. The human mind was instinctively driven to recognize patterns, and it could find familiar shapes in almost anything. If he tried, he was certain that he could even see a face in the smoke. It would be a much younger, more attractive version of Elspeth’s face, with more open eyes, shoulder-length hair and a curious smile. She would be slender, too, and clad in a short-sleeved day dress with a tight waist and a v-shaped neckline. In fact, if Dennis looked hard enough, he might even be able to pick out the subtle shape of a bracelet around her left wrist. Not that there was actually anything there, he chided himself. It was just a trick of the mind.

Albeit a very convincing one. In fact, the more he stared, the more he was unable to see anything but a girl, sitting with her hands folded on her lap. Dennis squeezed his eyes shut and tried to clear his mind, but when he looked again she was still sitting there, watching him with a look of puzzled amusement.

“Are you alright, Doctor?”

There was no mistaking it this time. He had heard a voice, and it had come from directly in front of him. As far as illusions went, this one was quickly moving beyond impressive and into the realm of unbelievable. The girl seemed to cock her head, and her expression grew more quizzical.

“Doctor?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Dennis snapped, sounding impatient. Was it a hologram? Maybe there was an array behind him, casting an image into the smoke. That would make sense, and it meant that all he had to do was stand up and block the projection. He rose, but the image remained, following him with her eyes. Okay, it must be coming from somewhere else, then. He walked a slow circle around the chair, examining every inch of the room. The ceiling was much lower in here than it had been in the foyer, and there weren’t many places to hide a projector. The girl seemed to watch him in his path, going as far as to sit up on her knees and peer over the back of the chair. Elspeth stood by the door, saying nothing, an unreadable expression on her face.

I’ve had enough of this, thought Dennis angrily. He returned to the front of the chair and stood with his hands in fists. He didn’t appreciate being made into a fool, no matter how convincing a prank it was. With a defiant motion, he reached forward and slammed his palm down onto the seat of the chair, determined to reveal the location of the hotplate.

The chair was cold.

“Doctor September!” exclaimed the ghost, pulling her knees up to her chest. Her face was a mixture of shock and anger, but there was a touch of excitement there, too. It barely registered over the feeling of Dennis’ heart pounding in his chest, underneath the soft vibration of his cell phone, which had chosen that moment to go off. He reached in to silence it, but felt a wash of icy fear as he realized that he had left the phone in his car. With a sense of dawning horror, Dennis’ fingers closed around the stone that he had been given at the curio shop. It hummed in his grasp as he pulled it out, which he was certain was not a natural action for a piece of polished rock.

His