I Was a Teenage Ghost Hunter

I Was a Teenage Ghost Hunter Chapter Two

Clive struck the last few notes of his latest composition. They were all at the far right end of the piano, tinkling high notes that sounded like a sort of spooky wind chime gone berserk.  

Devin had walked in the room a few moments before, but he knew better than to interrupt his friend when he was in the middle of playing a piece. Few things irritated Clive Welter-Manes more than being startled out of a performance. 

At the moment, he was still bent over the keyboard, waiting for the last resonance of sound to dissipate, his long, curvy blonde hair dangling in front of his forehead and down the back of his baggy black sweatshirt. After holding this pose for a few dramatic seconds, he turned his head to the right and realized he wasn't alone. "Dev. What's up?" 

"That sounds pretty cool."  

Clive sat up on the piano bench and brushed his hair back. He had a pale face that appeared to have inherited all its characteristics from the many English ancestors in his family tree. With the black garb and disordered hair, he looked every inch the distracted artist. He even spoke with a slight British accent, leftover from his first five years of life spent in London. "Thanks, man. It's called 'Ants of the Mortuary Recessional'." 

Clive Welter-Manes was perhaps the only student at Grey Bluff High who was not only a devoted pianophile and classical music fanatic, but also a budding avant-garde composer. He wrote a never-ending cascade of short pieces with titles like 'Caramel Nightgown Pursuit', 'Stuffed Dog Dissection' and 'Intercession of the Pallid Stalker'. He was currently working on a larger cycle of works under the morose umbrella title 'Ants of the Mortuary'. Devin had been treated to a private recital of several earlier installments in the group and had pronounced them suitably creepy. 

"Is that last part supposed to be the little ant feet, walking on a body?" 

Clive frowned slightly, standing up. "Don't be so literal. Not every note has to go with some comic book image. Want a Coke?" 

Devin nodded and they moved into the Welter-Manes' gleaming kitchen. When Devin had first visited the Welter-Mane house he'd half-expected a proper butler to answer the door, or Clive's mother to offer them a tray of tea and scones, or ask him to stay for a dinner of fish and chips. But Clive and his family had become comfortably Americanized. Their British heritage tended to come out only in certain minor traits, like Clive's refined musical tastes or his mother's fondness for Judi Dench movies. 

"What'd you do at work?" Clive asked. 

"Make coffee." Devin answered sulkily. 

"Ah." 

Not only did Clive have interesting English parents and a precocious talent for writing macabre piano works, but he also avoided the boring world of typical afterschool teenage jobs by helping out at his mother's eclectic used bookstore, Odds and Sods. Arcata was exactly the kind of town where an eccentric bookshop likes Odds and Sods could still survive, while the more mundanely-oriented big city suburbs complacently rolled over and happily made do with their giant book superstores. Odds and Sods was classic Arcata quirky, with its own eccentric cat, ratty black sofa, random selection of antiques and even a slightly rusted suit of armor.  

Clive took a seat on a barstool and launched directly into a new topic. "Nayra said you saw a spirit or something and spilled latte all over the floor." 

Devin spit up part of his Coke on the Welter-Manes' stainless steel kitchen island. "She said what?" 

"Well, it's true isn't it? I mean you have these little episodes. Shouldn't be a surprise you see a manifestation of some sort." Clive looked at him over his soda, looking every bit as urbane as if he was holding a glass of fine Scotch instead of a mass-marketed American soft drink. Maybe it was his slight resemblance to a young Jude Law that always made Devin think of him as absurdly classy.