Ghost

Chapter 6

Chunks of Gabriel's face flew in every direction like shrapnel as he was held against the spinning blades. The crack and snap of his bone structure breaking down from the high speed filled my brain and if I could move the first thing I'd do would be to cover my ears. But all I was able to do was watch Elaine hold his head firmly against the fans sharp edges with a vacantly amused expression.

When the fan finally stopped, Gabriel was definitely not okay. Not that anyone would think he was. The fan had been quite ruthless and thorough to his face. Most of it was just bloody flesh, almost none of his skin remained and there was quite a bit of bone peeking through all the goriness. His mouth had been pretty heavily damaged too, as Elaine had held his head firmly yet still moved it every so often. His tongue had been sliced into a lump of red stuff and even his teeth had been shattered by the strong propellors.

A gurgling noise came from the back of his throat which gave me the horrifying realization that he was still alive, and the flickering of what was left of his eyelids confirmed that he had been living and conscious through the entire thing.

"Whoops," Elaine said, "I guess I didn't make him dead enough."

She then pulled Gabriel's head even further back and slammed it against the particularly splintered blade, making a deep crater in his skull. The injury made it clear that he was definitely dead now.

"What is it with you people? First you're dead too fast, then too slow. I just can't win." Elaine continued, the expression on her face signalling she had switched to the more narcissistic side of her existence.

"I'll let you deal with that." Elaine said gestured to the bloody corpse as she headed for the doorway. "Oh, by the way." She said, stopping just before entering the hallway, "feel free to barricade yourself in. That way I won't have to chase you very far. Tag is fun, but way too much effort after a while."

With that final compliment, she exited. Humming the same song as before and fading off just like before. When silence filled the house, I finally felt like I could move. But I couldn't find the initiative. I mean, what were we supposed to do now? Two people had died in the last three hours.

So I decided the best thing to do was stare at Celia until she gave her opinion.

"I hate to say it, but she's right." Celia finally broke the deafening silence. "Barricading keeps her out, but it also keeps us trapped in here. If she finds a way in, especially if she's..." Celia paused then continued. "We'd have no way to escape."

"You're not suggesting she's actually a ghost?" Alec said.

"You saw how she disappeared like that. Plus the fan and the lights. Claire's right, there shouldn't be electricity."

Claire's face reddened at Celia's praise, any signs of her previous outbursts were as gone as Holly's left leg.

"Okay. So say that she is in fact a ghost. Theoretically. How would we get rid of her?" Alec asked.

"Exorcism." Mel said. We all stared at her. "What?" She exclaimed at our doubtful expressions. "Haven't you all seen Poltergeist?"

"Yeah," I said, "but that's Poltergeist. This is a theoretically real ghost, there's no way of knowing if that would actually work."

"Anyways, for now we should see how much food we have. It's unknown when we might leave so we should definitely ration for now."

"Mack and I will check the kitchen too. She might be able to be hungry too." Mel said, before grabbing my hand and dragging me down the hall and into the kitchen.

"Don't wander off anywhere else!" Celia called out.

"Kay!" Mel called back before her eyes fixated on something.

"Holy shit." She said, "it's a phone."

She was right. Sitting on the kitchen counter was a house phone hooked up to the wall.

"Do you think it works?" I ask. At this point, it would be too good to be true.

"Everything else does." Mel replied, carefully approaching the phone. She reached for it with shaky hand, but then placed them back at her sides. She turned to me,

"I can't do it." She told me, her eyes begged me to take charge.

"I'll do it." I said, watching the relief drown out her fear.

I reached for the phone and placed it against my ear. But after three seconds of a solid tone, the phone began to scream. That's right. Scream. There was the sound of screaming coming through the receiver, it was loud and shrill. No breaks to take a breath, just screaming.

I hung up the phone. Mel had obviously heard it as well, since her expression was fearful again.

"Lets stay away from this phone, okay?"

Mel nodded.

"Also," I add, "what do you know about exorcisms?"