Shot At Combe Carey Hall

Memories

Lucy in fact did not finish her dount but after getting dressed she brought it down to the kitchen and threw it in the trash. As she rinsed her plate she heard a clear whisper in her inner ear.

"You leave me in such terrible company." The voice whined. "Down here Lucy. I'm still under the table where you shoved me."

Lucy blew out her cheeks a moment and dried her hands, lifting a corner of the thinking cloth she spotted the jar just a foot away from the edge. Today his plasm was a sickly yellow-green, it danced around the outline of the skull within obscuring it occasionally.

"I forgot to close your tap." Lucy lifted the jar and set it on the table, she turned to grab the notepad and pen George had the night before and sat in her chair at the table. On a normal day she'd be frightened sitting there alone with a ghost whispering so maliciously in her ear but perhaps she was simply too tired to be afraid at the moment, just irritated.

"I would have thought George would be conducting experiments on you by now." As she spoke she quickly and sloppily recorded the conversation. The skull made a horrid hissing sound in her brain.

"You mean his torture. No luckily he forgot where you hid me."

"Mhm." Lucy took a moment writing his response.

"Must you document our private moments?"

"Yes or George will kill me."

"Oh if he only would, I'm dreadfully lonely here and I bet your soul is much warmer and lovelier than the likes of which I spend my eternity with." A face was slowly forming in the plasma, twisting and tearing as the plasma continued to dance in an almost playful manor in circles around the jar. Lucy didn't like the way it smiled at her and especially not the way it stretched the smile across the glass.

"And where is here exactly?" She asked after a long pause of writing.

"That's so boring Lucy, I'd much rather discuss your position in the company, this place I'm in is permanent your place with Lockwood not so much."

Lucy paused in the middle of her writing and looked at the skull for a moment before finishing writing the sentance.

"And what's that supposed to mean, more of this death is coming nonsense?"

"More like unemployment is. Yes you were quite the topic of discussion last night, the second you closed that door it was Lucy this, Lucy that. Your friends are gossips, as I said such terrible company."

"I don't believe you." Lucy said defiantly setting the pen down.

"What? Don't want to document this bit? You know it's true, you're unstable. You were up all night thinking on your unworthiness. Doubt drips from you like sweat from Cubbins."

"I've about had it with you!"

"I've barely begun."

Lucy made a frustrated noise twisted the tap shut and shoved him back under the table. She finished writing out the end of the conversation and marched down the basement stairs to her office desk, she could hear Lockwood practicing on one of the stuffed dummies but didn't feel like talking to him.

She sat at her desk, closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. She was getting herself into dangerous territory letting that vial thing get in her head. After clearing her mind of his voice she opened her eyes and glanced around her desk. After clearing a space she grabbed her stack of drawing paper and began sketching the stupid skull and his stupid grinning face in the upper corner of the paper.

Soon the entire page was filled with his unusual faces, some stretched and twisted beyond recognition, others grotesque caricatures of a hyper realistic face. She set the paper aside and began drawing on a new one, she closed her eyes for a moment remembering the night of the case, the spiral staircase and the great shadows of the monks looming over them.