With Spirit Part 5

Part 1 here

Sean was an arrogant shit, he rolled his eyes; as if he needed to be told it was cold.  He signalled Lea but she didn’t even look up.  He didn’t notice, he was confident of his control over his little star, he barked she jumped.  He checked if everyone was ready to go; no one was but it was near enough for Sean.  So he just started his corny spiel.

“Leanora Gaskill has been in contact with the spirit world since she was a small child.  She has helped many lost souls pass over,” even his enemies had to admit his beautiful gravy deep voice & perfect intonation was intoxicating.  “You will be joining us as she and her loyal film crew visit Candlenook Close; a house so haunted that it has been on the market at a price less than the cost of the land alone for over 3 years.  And yet no one has remained in this house of horrors for long enough to even make an offer.”

“Jane Simpkin, our fabulous researcher,” continued an oblivious Sean, “has discovered that although Candlenook Close was a new build, somewhere in the general vicinity was a graveyard, abandoned in 1870.  Time has erased all signs of where the cemetery originally lay.  Could the builders have awoken something?  Something… evil?”

Sean revelled in the limelight, “Before the crew could even finish setting up for the shoot things started happening here.  So forgive the primitive conditions, but we don’t know how long it is going to be safe for us to remain here.”

“Leanora,” said Sean after his ‘meaningful pause’, “What are you sensing?  Are we alone?”

Lea didn’t even look at him.  So Sean shoved the microphone right into her face to try & pick up what she was saying.  Lea was talking so fast individual words blurred together into nonsense, with the occasional discernible word like ‘why’, ‘okay’ or ‘help’.  It sounded like she was having a dozen conversations at once.  As if dozens of people were constantly asking questions and she was answering simultaneously.  This large group of people unseen by anyone else there seemed to need Lea’s reassurance while conveying vital information.  All of this conversation occurring inside Lea’s head with such speed that only a small proportion escaped to her lips.

Sean was frustrated, once Lea got into this ‘Psychic’ bag she was impossible to direct.  I mean the nonsense babble looked freaky but they needed to work together, he was the expert on what an audience wanted.  Why couldn’t Lea understand the dead don’t pay the bills?  It was him, Sean, and his vision that made this show what it was.  Sometimes he thought that having a real psychic was a mistake, it would be so much easier if they had some hot bimbo who would read a script, and maybe another one to run the instruments, no need for an expert on fake instruments.  An all-girl crew that would do anything he said, anything!  The head honchos could spot competition so no one was gonna give him a shot.  Until he got that dizzy ghostbuster under his thumb, the studio loved Lea, and he was gonna ride this gravy train until he had enough clout to do things his way.  He was gonna cream all those jerks that had tried to get in his way.  Anyway keeping Lea sweet wasn’t so bad, he’d of screwed a hell of a lot worse to get this gig, in this case it was a perk not a chore.

“Mike are we picking up anything?” Sean purred turning to the instruments.

“Lea, I can’t get anything clear, but I don’t like the way this looks.  I think we gotta come back later, do more prep!” Mike didn’t look at Sean.

“Mike Radcliffe our technician this entire series is the calmest man I have ever worked with,” Sean affected concern.  “Whatever is here is having a startling effect on all of us!”

Wal almost dropped his camera when the knocks started again, 3 in quick succession all as loud as the first, the echoes merged creating a cacophony, reverberating through their bodies. This time the noise seemed to be coming from under the floor.

Jerry could hear something else; a low rumbling sound, not loud but it had the quality of a loud noise heard at a distance.  What would make that kind of noise?  Jerry had no idea!

Wal raced to pan the camera to catch the footage as a small orb of white light wafted in from the hallway door.  The orb drifted slowly towards Lea.  This was fantastic footage, there was something serene & beguiling about the light; it was undeniably not of this world.

Mike noticed the smell; the room now smelled of baking, pine & woods.  A rustic, homey scent calmed the crew.  A couple of orbs followed the path the first had taken & joined it hovering near Lea.

Paulo’s attention was drawn to a cracking sound, it sounded as if something had come through a door into the hallway.  More and more orbs moved into the room, they moved more & more swiftly, arriving in larger groups as night drew in.

Jerry got the feeling that his fellow crew would have been overjoyed to stay and film these gentle orbs.  As the room started to fill with bobbing little balls of sunshine Jerry felt safe.  The orbs were no longer all pure white; some of the later arrivals had been tinged with pastel colours.

Sean looked around impatiently; the crew looked like a bunch of lovesick dorks.  These weirdo balls made his skin crawl.  It was probably good footage although critics would think it was camera tricks, ha camera tricks; one shot of Goofy behind the camera there and they’d know he could barely operate the machine let alone do anything useful with it.  But this sickeningly sweet stuff was only interesting for the first 5 minutes.  His show needed an edge, some action baby!

Part 6