Ghost Behind You

1.07. The Investigation

Rose had fallen asleep on the floor.

She wasn't sure how that had happened. The fear and confusion from the night before had lingered long into the night, and yet, somehow, she had drifted off. When she woke up, the morning light was streaming through the window, and the sounds of guests chatting outside reached her ears. Groaning, she pushed herself up off the floor, brushing off her pajamas. The TV was still on, quietly playing the morning news.

It was 7:30 AM. Rose glanced at her phone. Though it was still early and she could probably squeeze in a bit more sleep, there was no way she'd be able to rest now. The events of last night—the nightmare on the TV, the shadow at her bedside, the sound of the door lock clicking, and the strange, shuffling footsteps—were all still fresh in her mind. In all her 28 years, she had never experienced anything so bizarre in a single night. She scratched her head, half wondering if the whole thing had been a dream.

Maybe it was all just a dream, she thought. Maybe I fell out of bed, and that's why I woke up on the floor. But then she saw the bite mark on her wrist, still red and painful. No. It was real. I really did bite myself.

She shook her head, trying to process what had happened. What on earth did I experience last night?

One thing was clear: she needed to find Zach. He seemed to know more about the strange events than anyone else. Or maybe... he was the one causing them.

As she thought of Zach, his face flashed before her mind, along with that infuriating smirk. She had read about people with delusions who possessed odd abilities to sense things others couldn't. Zach hadn't come across as unintelligent, though. Perhaps that was why he hadn't been institutionalized—yet.

Whatever the case, Zach seemed to be the key to understanding what was going on. But she couldn't confront him without knowing more. She needed to investigate his background, find out who he really was.

Is Zach even his real name? she wondered. If it was, finding information on him might not be too difficult, especially if he had any kind of criminal record. That would at least give her a starting point. She'd need to do some digging.

Should she involve the police? Rose had a secondary rank as a superintendent, but without actual authority to arrest anyone, she'd need solid evidence before going to them. She decided not to contact the authorities just yet. First, she'd do some investigating of her own. I should sketch him, she thought. If she could get his likeness down on paper, she could track him more easily. Rose was confident in her sketching abilities. She could reconstruct a face from a vague witness description or even from a skull—sketching someone she'd seen up close would be no challenge.

With her thoughts organized, Rose felt a little more in control. She had a plan for the day. But a troubling thought crept into her mind: Could Zach have something to do with Gary's death? She had been so focused on Zach that she had nearly forgotten why she was here in the first place. Sure, the cause of Gary's death had been determined, but the manner of it—burning alive without a sound—was still deeply unsettling. Could his death be connected to the strange occurrences from last night?

Rose couldn't shake the eerie feeling she'd experienced in the bathroom. Ignoring it seemed wrong. Though she knew these sensations could be unreliable—perhaps even hallucinations—dismissing them outright might mean overlooking something important. Her instincts told her that the same dread Gary had likely felt in his final moments had caused him to lose control, unable to save himself as the flames consumed him.

Rose let out a rueful laugh. I'm starting to sound like a superstitious old woman, she thought. Feelings and intuition? What happened to science? And yet, for all her knowledge and experience, none of it explained what had happened. Writing it off as coincidence might make for a perfectly logical report, but it wouldn't satisfy her conscience—or bring peace to Mary.