Darkhouse (Experiment in Terror #1)

CHAPTER SIX

I woke up the next morning to loud banging on the door. It sounded like something was going to break it down.

I moaned and rolled over. It was ten a.m. I had already woken up at seven-thirty to call my boss and see if it was all right for me to work today. I had felt a lot better than yesterday, maybe not full of pep and beans, but then I let it slip that my sister was at home with the swine flu. I guess the flu paranoia had a hold over everyone because the conversation went from “Yes, come in” to “No bloody way. Stay at home until you know for sure you don’t have swine flu.”

Well, I knew I didn’t have swine flu, but I can’t say I argued at all with her logic. Though it still didn’t reflect very well on me, this was their doing. Plus, I was lazy and the thought of Alana being stuck on the phones for an extra day made me cackle inside.

“What?” I yelled at the pounding door, my morning voice cracking. “Can’t I sleep in? I’m sick. Maybe.”

“Lemme in!” Ada yelled from outside.

“Don’t come in, you sicko!” I sat up. I didn’t actually want to contract this infamous flu.

“Perry, my blog, holy shit.”

Aww crap. The night before returned to me. She was pissed off that I took her fashion bible for jealous tweens and turned it into the Ghost Whisperer. Sure, I had Jennifer Love Hewitt’s rack but not the rest of her body post–“I’m a size two” slim down. I sighed and crawled out of my warm bed, quickly slipping on my house robe.

I walked over to the door and leaned against it. I could imagine her fiery expression behind the door.

“I’m sorry, Ada. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Open the door!” She pounded on it hard and my head felt the impact.

I supposed that because I probably ruined her career and her income, I deserved the swine flu. >

I opened it and took a few steps back, covering my nose and mouth with the sleeve of my robe.

She stood before me looking wane and bony. Her eyes were flashing with brilliance (or anger), giving her the appearance of a mad woman with frazzled white hair, like Doc Brown’s granddaughter.

“You are a genius!” she exclaimed.

“Come again?”

She waltzed into my room and over to the computer.

“Um, please don’t touch anything,” I pleaded.

“Oh, whatever,” she scowled and proceeded to run her hands all over my desk. I wondered if I had enough sanitizer in my drawer to eradicate her. She flipped my laptop open and immediately opened her blog post. Or should I say, my blog post.

“Look!” She pointed at the screen.

I edged closer and looked over. It looked the same as it had last night. I shrugged at her.

“Have you seen the comments?” she asked incredulously.

“Ada, I just got up.”

She shook her head at my priorities and started scrolling down the screen to the comments section. She turned to look at me, utter shock and glee (and maybe a slight hint of admiration?) in her eyes.

“Two hundred comments!”

“Huh,” I mused. “That’s good, right?”

“Good? I’ve never gotten that many before. I mean sure, lots of people look at my blog and all that shizz, but two hundred? From your post? The most I’ve ever gotten was a hundred and sixty, and that’s only because I was giving away a Chanel scarf.”

“You gave away a Chanel scarf?”

“It doesn’t matter, Perry. Focus! This is insane. And all because you made up this crazy ghost story.”

I scoffed. “Made up? I didn’t make it up. That’s what happened on Saturday night when you were busy knocking boots with The Whiz.”

Her nostrils flared. If she was standing, her hands would have gone straight to her hips.

“First of all, I did not knock boots with him, and second of all, his real name is Mario.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Mario was not much better than Whiz.

“Well,” I tried to explain, “if you had actually told me what went on that night instead of ignoring me, maybe I would know that instead of assuming the worst of you.”

“I love how naturally you assume the worst of me. Whatever, it’s irrelevant.”

“You’re irrelevant,” I countered. Poorly.

“Good one. Anyway, you’re the one who ran off alone. Talk about being irresponsible.”

“And, as you can now see, this is what I ended up doing. Exploring the lighthouse.”

“And scaring the shit out of everyone.”

“And myself. There was a lot of stuff that happened later that I can’t even begin to explain.”

“OK, so write about it. Now! Look at these comments.” She started reading from them, “‘Can’t wait to hear what happens next, I’ve got goose bumps’ and ‘This totally got me in the Halloween mood’ and ‘Where’s the rest of it? I want to know what happens, this is scaring the bejesus out of me.’ Hardly anyone has even made a peep of condolence for my swine flu.”

“Apparently they are too scared,” I offered.

Ada nodded slowly. With her eyes were returning to a non-psychotic state, I could see how sick she really was.

“Look, go back to bed. Get some rest. Work told me to stay home today so I’ll start writing the next part, OK?”

She batted her red eyes at me. “Can you go around and visit the blogs of everyone who commented...make a nice comment in their comment section, something like ‘Thanks for the blog support while Ada is sick, please come back tomorrow for the second installment’?”

“That’s like two hundred blogs!”

“It’s what you do! No one said blogging was a cake hop.”

Cake hop? She must have meant cake walk.

She got up and shuffled to the door, turning once more to look at me. “Please?”

I rolled my eyes and nodded reluctantly. What on earth had I gotten myself into?

***

As it turns out, I had gotten myself into plenty. My life turned into a blur of writing, editing, posting, visiting blogs, and answering emails.

So many people were interested in my experience, the majority of whom were emailing me solely to ask whether it was true or if it was a fake post. I had gotten so many of those inquiries that I decided to make an FAQ post on the blog where I could answer those kinds of questions.

What was really interesting, though, was how the story seemed to take on a life of its own.

The videos that I posted on the blog had to be uploaded to YouTube first before I could link them. YouTube was something of an afterthought. Little did I know that my videos, within days, had an average YouTube rating of four stars (which is pretty good), had at least sixty comments, and had thousands of viewer hits.

I have to be honest, that thrilled me to the very core. I was never popular at anything, so to see so much approval and attention paid to something that I did, which featured me (and, well, this Dex person), was an amazing feeling.

Sure, it was weird to find yourself an internet sensation—even if you couldn’t really make out that it was me in the video—but it was still flattering that so many people wanted to know what happened next, that people cared about this little experience I would have kept to myself like I had done so many times before.

In the weirdest way, I was happy that I was actually doing something with my life. Writing the blog posts, reliving the experience, crafting the video until it was on par with any ghost story, and just revving my underused creative juices in general, made me feel like I had a purpose. Sounds stupid and superfluous, I know, but I couldn’t help feeling that way.

Naturally, it was a real downer to have to go into work and face the reality of the rest of my life. I couldn’t stay home and blog forever. Eventually, the interest in my paranormal experiences would wane and the creative fever would subside and I would be back to answering phones for the rest of my life.

Answering phones and barely able to concentrate on doing so. I could only think about the blog all morning. How many people visited in the last hour? How did they find me? What did they think? How many comments were there now?

In the afternoon, my boss came out to see me. Earlier she had remarked that I looked a million times better and was glad that the rest did me some good, even though I noticed she was keeping a hypochondriac’s distance away.

Now, though, there was something else on her mind. She stopped just behind me.

“Hi,” I smiled up at her.

“I’ve got to show you something.” Frida leaned over and opened Firefox on the computer. She clacked away in the URL bar until YouTube came up. My blood ran cold. I didn’t like where this was going.

She entered “haunted lighthouse” in the search bar and up came my videos.

“Is this you?” she asked, pointing at the screen. I felt like I was going to get in trouble if I said yes, even though I didn’t know what exactly for. But my YouTube user name (PerrySlayer) kind of gave it away.

“Yeah,” I eked out slowly.

“You’re kidding me. I saw this video posted in my Facebook feed at lunch, so I clicked it to see what the fuss was about. Damn if I didn’t know you were a ghost hunter.”

She didn’t seem mad. She was acting different though. I couldn’t read the strange expression on her face.

“Oh, I’m not a ghost hunter.” I laughed uneasily. “My sister is a blogger and she wanted me to write a few posts for her. This is what I came up with.”

“But it’s all true, right?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don’t really know what happened but what you see is what I got.”

“Perry, I must say I am impressed.”

Oh. She was impressed. That’s the strange emotion she was trying to express.

I shrugged. “Well, thanks. It was nothing really. Was actually kind of fun to write.”

She leaned against my desk, arms and legs crossed and looked me up and down. “I mean it, Perry. I had no idea you were so web savvy. To capitalize on YouTube like that, get that video on Facebook, get a group started—”

There was a group on Facebook?

“—not to mention all the links back to your sister’s blog. Those are some good marketing strategies.”

“Oh. Well I—”

“Plus the writing. You’ve got a real knack for getting people to want more. Have you taken writing classes?”

Was she kidding me? Did she not read over my resume when she hired me?

“Yes, I have. In advertising school.” I raised my voice over the last few words.

She mulled that over. “Oh, yes. Now I remember. You went to Oregon State.”

“That’s what it says on my resume.”

She nodded slowly, not getting it. She straightened up and clapped her hands together.

“I have to tell you, Perry, this certainly helps your situation.”

“Uh, what situation?”

She cocked her head at me. She obviously thought she was keeping me up to speed on things around here. She did remember I had been gone for the last few days, right?

“Can you fill me in to use the Pacific boardroom for next Monday at nine a.m.?” she asked, turning her attention to my Outlook calendar.

What situation???

“I would like to have a meeting between you, me and John,” she continued, “so we can plan on our next steps here.”

John Danvers was the CEO of the company. If she wanted a meeting with him and me, this definitely meant I was in a “situation.”

“Sorry if I seem to have missed something here, but what are these next steps about?”

“Your job, sweetie,” she gave me a quick squeeze on the shoulder. “But you don’t have to worry as much anymore. Things should turn around now.”

And with that, she left the reception area.

What the hell was that all about? Don’t have to worry as much? Was I worried before? Things should turn around? I was in a situation?

Oh God, was I going to get fired? Suddenly it all started making sense. Maybe she sent me home on Monday so they could try out a few temps while I was gone and see if any of them were better than me. Maybe Alana wasn’t filling in for me after all. Only one way to find out.

I dialed Alana’s extension.

She picked up with a dry, “Yes?”

“Hi, Alana. Sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to thank you for taking over the phones while I was sick.”

“I didn’t answer your phones,” she spat out, clearly insulted. “They hired a temp for that.”

“Oh,” I replied as nonchalantly as possible.

“Yes, someone who doesn’t suffer from ‘ghost’ disease.” And at that witty remark, she hung up.

Very mature, Alana, I thought. It was safe to say now that everyone in the office knew about my newfound ghost fame.

I just couldn’t believe they hired a temp while I was gone.

Calm down, I told myself. Alana probably refused to do it and claimed she was overloaded with business card orders or something like that. A temp didn’t mean I was going to get fired.

Unless the temp did such a good job that they realized what fools they were to keep a slacker like me on the payroll and were planning all week to let me go.

Until today, of course, when my boss finally realized that I may actually be better suited to roles in the company other than answering phones and setting up meetings.

It was funny how I suddenly cared about keeping my job. I dreamed about this opportunity for such a long time, to be free of this horrid place and nine-to-five utter boredom. But even on welfare, which wouldn’t be much, I knew I would have to get another job. And dealing with finding another job was beyond me. So as much as I hated it, I needed this job.

There was that glimmer of hope on Monday, though. I started fantasizing. I know I said I didn’t want to stay in advertising, but it would be better than nothing. And who knows, I might actually be able to do something really cool with myself. Plus, my paycheck would be bigger and I would finally feel proud to answer the question “what do you do for a living?” without having to justify being a receptionist.

Still, the uncertainty was nerve-wracking, and I was in a bit of a downer mood when I arrived home after work. The reality was coming in cold and hard. I tried to keep an optimistic outlook but the jaded part of me kept telling me to expect the worst.

I walked into the house and heard my mom call me from the living room. I came in and saw her lying on the floor doing Pilates to a DVD. My mother was forever after the best at-home DVD workouts.

“Some man called for you,” she said without looking up. I absently watched her leg rise up and down in time with the instructor.

“OK...” That was a bit strange. I couldn’t remember the last time a man called for me, especially at the house.

“I gave him your cell number though. I thought he might have called you.”

I fished my phone out. No missed calls.

“Nope. Did he say what he wanted?”

“He said his name was Declan...something. And he was interesting in speaking with you about your blog,” she continued her scissor kicks. “I didn’t know you had a blog now, too.”

“I don’t,” I said slowly. Declan? Who the hell was that?

My heart started to beat a bit faster. Maybe it was someone like a book agent who saw my blog and wanted me to write a book. I know that’s pretty far-fetched but it happened a lot to bloggers and my hopes were suddenly, naively, sky-high.

“His number’s on the kitchen table,” she continued. “He said for you to call him as soon as you could.” >

Well, it was at least intriguing. I went into the kitchen and picked up the pad of paper.

My mom had scrawled a number with a Seattle area code on it and the name Declan Foray.

Dex Foray?

I reached into my wallet and pulled out the business card he had given me. Sure enough it was the same number, though I had no idea his full first name was Declan. The way the name is usually pronounced (DEE-Clan) it didn’t even make sense.

I got strangely nervous when I had to call people I didn’t know. You would think that being a receptionist would have helped me get over that hump but it hadn’t. I tried to mentally trick myself into thinking I was making just another business call.

With my heart beating a tad faster than normal, I dialed his number from the house phone. It rang so many times that I was about to hang up when the other line clicked.

“Dex here.”

Ah, his voice; low, deep and rich, like a polished instrument.

“Hello?” he said more impatiently.

“Uhh,” I stammered. “Hi. Um, this is Perry. Perry Palomino. You…called me?”

“Yes?”

“Yeah. Well… just…calling you back!”

“I got that much,” he replied matter-of-factly.

This was off to a horribly awkward start. I rubbed my forehead and thought of what to say next.

“So, yeah, I—” I started.

“Listen, Perry. Can I call you back? I’ll be two seconds.”

“Uh—”

“Perfect. Talk soon.”

Click. The line went dead. I looked at the phone in disbelief. How long was two seconds? I stared at the phone for what seemed to be forever before I decided to head back over to talk my mom. Just as I was out of the kitchen the phone rang.

I raced back to it, composing myself before I picked it up. I needed to be more demanding.

“Hello, Perry speaking.”

“Perry! It’s Dex.” He sounded a lot more enthusiastic now.

“Hi...Dex? Listen—”

“So, Perry. It is Perry, right? I couldn’t remember what you told me in the lighthouse but that’s who your little blog posts were attributed to.”

Uh-oh. The blog. Dex was in my blog. I hope that it wasn’t about that…

“You found the blog?”

He laughed, albeit rather sarcastically. “Kiddo, who hasn’t found your blog?”

I started feeling ill. “Look, I’m sorry, I was just filling in for my sister and I had nothing interesting to write about.”

“You mean to tell me you’re not a narcissistic fashion blogger? I’m liking you better already. I might almost forgive you for publishing that footage of me on f*cking YouTube.”

He nearly yelled that last word. I cringed. I was in shit.

“Look, I didn’t say who you were, and you can barely even tell who is in the shot most of the time. I mean, you told me to turn my camera on, so I did, and there’s no law against that.” I was rambling.

“Did it occur to you that there was a reason I gave you my business card?” He sighed.

“Not really. You just ended up leaving me in there at the end anyway,” I replied, now feeling anger rising in my throat. Come to think of it, how dare he call me and give me shit. It gave me clarity. “And let me remind you again, as you seem to have forgotten, but you were trespassing on my family’s property, so actually, you should be glad I’m not turning your stupid shoddy business card over to the police.”

Silence on the line. It gave my heart enough time to slow down by a few beats.

“Fair enough,” he finally said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Well… so, is that what you wanted? To call me and get mad that you were somewhat featured in the video I posted? Or was it that I shot some footage that you would have loved to have had yourself for your little…ghost club…or whatever the hell it is you do again.”

I could have sworn I heard him stroke his facial hair over the line.

“That was pretty much the gist of it,” he replied.

So much for my high expectations. He was just some guy that was annoyed that I made him look stupid in front of the entire world (or whatever miniscule portion of the world that had watched the video and read the blog), and annoyed that I cockblocked his chances of using the footage for financial gain.

“But that wasn’t all…” he added.

“Well?” I asked, still vexed but also curious. Maybe he was asking me out on a date? My heart started to pump faster again. I was such a girl.

“I’m a producer for Shownet.com. You heard of us?”

“Only from your business card,” I said truthfully.

“We produce webisodes. Webcasts. You know, on the internet.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of this internet before,” I said. The sarcasm just slipped out.

“Perfect. That will make things easier,” Dex replied, sliding over my snark. “Shownet at the moment is airing Wine Babes on Thursday nights, which you should watch tonight, by the way, as well as Gamer Room, Dude Zone, Cooking with Colleen, and Amanda Panda’s Animal Friends. You heard of any of them?”

“No. Should I have?”

“Probably not. Anyway, see…I’ve been dabbling in this and that, here and there, and I decided I should maybe jump in on this ghost bandwagon. The main thing I wanted to do though was have it run a little differently. There are tons of those shiteous shows on TV, run by tards who are running around with these cameras and having these geeked-out experiences that in the end amount to nothing more than their own ineptitude and inflated sense of self. You following?”

“Not really.”

“And so that’s what I was doing at your uncle’s place. No one had done any shows there yet.”

“That’s because he wouldn’t allow anyone,” I pointed out.

“Which is why I had to be sort of sneaky about it. Thank you, by the way, for not blowing my cover. I had thanked you already, hadn’t I?”

“No,” I said.

“Ah, well anyway, I thought I would get a leg up on these other shows, shoot some shit and show it to my boss, hoping he’d see some potential in all of it.”

Pause.

“And?” I prompted him. “Did he?”

“No,” he sighed. “He didn’t. However, he did like what you did.”

“What I did?”

“OK, he liked the idea of the two of us doing that. Together.”

A naughty idea flashed through my head. “And what is that, exactly?”

“You’re not secretly blonde are you?”

Now it was my turn to sigh. This phone call was confusing as hell and I could tell my mom had been listening to it for the last five minutes because the workout DVD had been turned off. I had an idea what Dex was hinting at, but his aggravating way of getting around to it was throwing my mind into a tizzy.

“Mr. Foray,” I said as professionally as possible, “you called me wanting to talk me about something. Get to the point.”

I have to point out that I am neither A) this ballsy on the phone with people I didn’t really know or B) this rude, but there was something about Dex, perhaps it was the way we met, that made me feel like I didn’t really care how I was coming across.

“Based on the footage I shot, based on the footage you shot—which, by the way, you wouldn’t have shot had I not told you to—and based on the way your writing so eloquently told the story when the images could not, I think we could actually have a real show here.”

“You think or your boss thinks?”

“Either or; it doesn’t matter.”

It did matter, but I didn’t want to question it anymore, lest I screw up my chances of whatever this was. I didn’t want to think too deeply into it, though with my mind that was more or less impossible. I could feel my subconscious jumping to a million fantastic conclusions. It was really hard to keep the voices at bay and concentrate on the cold, hard facts.

“What do you do again? Are you a host on this Shownet?” I asked.

“F*ck no. Excuse my language, but f*ck no. I’m just the producer and cameraman. And composer. I’m entirely behind the scenes, which is why I need a person like you to be in front.”

“Me?”

“Yes. As I was saying, you’re real and you’re very personable. Charming, some might say. I wouldn’t because I don’t even know you, but we’ll find out. Your on-camera presence is bold; at least the stuff I have on my end is. And your writing doesn’t suck. Have you ever done acting before?”

Technically I hadn’t. Stuntwoman training didn’t involve any acting and I’m sure my homemade movies from my youth didn’t count either.

“No.”

“Good. That’s better. That means you aren’t a bullshitter. I hate bullshitters; you can never bullshit them. So you’re a natural, which is perfect because people want to see natural fear. They don’t want the Hollywood treatment. And your writing is the perfect companion. It shines some sort of clarity on a subject that most people don’t understand.”

“To be honest, I don’t understand it myself.”

“That’s OK. Honesty is good. Understanding is overrated. But this show won’t be overrated because it’s coming out of the dark and sneaking up on people until—”

Click.

Did the phone just go dead?

“Hello?” I asked. Silence. Did he just hang up on me?

I looked over and saw my mom hanging around the doorway to the kitchen with a quizzical look on her face. No denying now that she was totally listening.

“Hello, Dex?”

Click.

“Yeah, hi, sorry, someone on the other line,” his voice coming in low and husky. “Jimmy Kwan, you heard of him? Doesn’t matter, you haven’t. But he’s the one who started up Shownet back in 2004 and the first person to really take a chance on me. My boss. But now he’s on the other line and wants to know what Perry Palomino thinks of all this. What say you?”

I took a deep breath.

“I have to admit, I don’t really know what’s going on here,” I told him carefully. “I mean, you haven’t really come out and said anything. I just got a message to call you and, so, here I am.”

“Ohhhh,” he said slowly, “You want it in layman’s terms. Oh, come on, Perry, I thought you were smarter than that. Don’t you know how to jump to wild conclusions? That’s what your whole ghost thing is about. Let’s ignore the reality of the situation that we were in a shitstormed old lighthouse and jump to the conclusion that some beastly ghost was after us.”

“To be fair, I never thought there was a ghost.”

I heard a sigh of disgust on the other line and immediately feared I lost all chances with him.

“Honesty is good, but good is overrated,” Dex lectured. “I appreciate a straight shooter—f*ck knows I don’t have enough of them around me— but don’t admit the thing is fake.”

“It’s not fake!’ I exclaimed. “You were there!”

“Anyway,” he said, ignoring me, “I, Declan Foray, and my boss, Jimmy Kwan, want to ask you if you would be interested in joining me in filming a demo for the website about our ghost-slash-weird encounter. Kind of like a TV show pilot. If it’s good and you look good, then I look good and Jimmy will want to pick it up as an actual show for our network…netsite. Web thing. But it’s all riding on you. I’m pushing for this show because to be honest here—and I mean let’s keep this between you and me—I can’t stand another day of shooting Wine Babes. I need something different and I just think this could be really, really cool. Now it’s your turn to say something.”

I was taken aback, to say the least.

Amazing. Awesome. Cool. Fantastic. Stupendous. Crazy. Too good to be true. I wanted to say all of those things. But I could only manage to squeak out:

“OK?”

“That’s the spirit! Now we are cooking with gas!”

“You’re not drunk right now, are you?”

“Not really, why?”

“I just hope this isn’t something that you’ll forget about in the morning.”

“I don’t think I will,” he mused.

“It’s just this might be the coolest thing that has ever happened to me and I really don’t want to get excited about it until I know for sure.”

“In that case, don’t get excited. Sorry, but you…I…we must remember that this is just a demo. For all I know it will totally suck balls.”

“You have a way with words. Are you sure you aren’t a writer?”

“You’re the writer. And the star. Now here’s the plan. I’m going to drive down from Seattle on Saturday morning, pick you up and together we will go to the lighthouse. We’re going to need your uncle’s permission, of course. And we’ll go on Saturday night and shoot the shit out of it. I drop you back at home on Sunday and then I go and edit it until its worthy of a Kubrick film. Hopefully, by mid-next week, Jimmy will be pleasantly surprised with our piece de resistance, or else I’m back at Wine Babes and you’re back to whatever the hell you do.”

“I’m a receptionist,” I muttered.

“Fun!”

There was something so terribly abrupt and hazy about this whole ordeal.

“Now, wait a minute,” I started, “how do I know that this is legitimate? I mean, you could still be a bald-headed meth addict hobo I stumbled upon in the lighthouse.” >

“Oh, whatever. He’s a cameraman now, not a singer, so he failed somewhere along the way. This conversation is boring me now. Good luck with your thing.”

Ada turned on her heel and left my room, slamming the door behind her. Come in quietly, leave loudly.

I shook my head at her teenage dramatics and turned my attention back to the screen. It didn’t really matter to me whether Dex was a singer or not. But I couldn’t help but be even more intrigued. I had a huge respect for all musicians; they were sort of my weak spot. I could barely write notes, my songs were terrible and though I had heard I had a strong and pleasant singing voice, it wasn’t anything to make a career of.

Curious, I started cruising torrent sites trying to see if I could find any recordings of Sin Sing Sinatra or Declan Foray. I found nothing and eventually fell asleep on my keyboard.