2.

Gabriel walked down the carpeted hallway of the Adelphi Hotel, smelling the stale carpet cleaner that rode the air. Doors on either side passed him with every new stride, and occasionally, he picked up some distant chatter from the rooms. Golden plaques bearing room numbers were far into the hundreds up here on the top floor. Regardless of this, Gabriel took the stairs. He wasn’t afraid of elevators, nor was he claustrophobic, but rather, strange things seem to happen to Gabriel while on a job. The unmistakable fact of this troubled him. At first, he considered the strange occurrences such as elevators breaking, lightbulbs blowing out, doors turning up locked, and the general hostile mood of people around him; was nothing more, or indicative of anything else say perhaps a mere coincidence. But with every new job, an underlying trend unfolded. One the Gabriel simply learned to expect.

Gabriel took the stairs watching carefully to where he placed each one of his steps. All too easily could there be a lost shoe, discarded book—or toy that so happened to appears at the base of one of these steps. All too easily could that one well-placed possession, cause him to break a leg…or his neck. On a job, it felt to Gabriel like the universe itself was trying to stop him. But why would that be? Were the dead not meant to be, well…dead? What power wanted these spirits—the bad spirits specifically—to continue in this world? Surely that seemed like the work of some devil he thought. And if that was the case, he knew today of all days he couldn’t risk falling asleep behind the wheel.

At the front desk, Gabriel withdrew twenty pounds from the ATM (which surprisingly worked) for his booze, then asked the front desk clerk if the hotel supplied maps of the local area. The surprisingly polite gentlemen behind the polished wood counter offered him a brochure where inside he could find a miniature map of the area, along with ’12 fun things to do in Liverpool.’ Gabriel wasn’t sure if this miniature map would do, but nevertheless thanked the clerk for his help and offered him one of his brightest smiles. The clerk looked as if he was holding back some irritation. The trend continued to unfold...

He exited through the hotel’s main entrance which gave birth to a line of eager taxi drivers awaiting pickups. It was mid-afternoon and the forecast looked bleak. To Gabriel, the sky looked ready to burst at any moment. The dark clouds made the day feel later than it truly was, and as if to warn him of some oncoming storm, rain began to trickle down, hitting his bowler hat with a series of tips and taps. He made his way to the nearest shop, his briefcase swinging neatly beside him. Inside the briefcase was all the equipment he would need for this job. The most important weapon of all, however, sat atop his head. A ‘Very special hat’ his grandmother called it. It once belonged to his grandfather and besides that…that was really all Gabriel knew about it.

His plan was simple: He would wait until dusk before attending the site to which the spirit clung. Night worked best for this line of work. Both because they were typically fewer people if things got animated, and spirits, like in the cliché movies, only came out at night.

A spontaneous and harrowing thought preceded him as he exited the small corner shop. Maybe it was the spirit itself that caused the line of bad luck prior to its exorcism? The bowler hat grew colder atop Gabriel’s head as if snickering to this new idea. Moreover, maybe it was the things that lived up there that caused the ill-tidings? That idea terrified him more.

Gabriel ate his tuna sandwich on a bench on the grounds of St. John’s Garden not far from the hotel. He watched with hollow pleasure as people passed him, each as involved in their lives as the next. He wondered—like he often did; especially growing up, what it would have been like to live a normal life? His grandmother called his sight a gift. But she’d not been the one to live with it. The gift had claimed his grandfather’s life, and at times, almost claimed his. Booze helped. Helped him forget. Removed the anxiety that shadowed him every day. One would think, a person might get used to seeing the dead right before their final fade…But hadn’t the dead hunted him, terrorised him. The memory of all his previous jobs tolled on him too, like a case of PTSD. To make matters worse, he was soberly aware that he was doomed to live a life of solidarity. What partner would believe that he saw ghosts without assuming he was bat-shit crazy? His grandmother believed him, but she was dead. Her fading memory, most painful of all.

Despite how close he was to his grandmother; Gabriel hadn’t attended her funeral. This was something Gabriel’s narrow family tree found most confusing of all. When Mary died at her glorious age of nighty-six, Gabriel by that time was a man-grown. He’d lived alone in a small house in Manchester which he rented at the time before moving south. What seemed most suspicious of all to his family was: how Gabriel managed to support himself after admitting he had no job. When asked by his mother one day while visiting, Gabriel had lied about receiving government handouts.

Mary Ann Walker was a wealthy woman towards the latter end of her life. After selling her husband’s house and moving into a small bungalow, Mary had kept most of her savings in a separate bank account, an account Gabriel would ultimately inherit. Rumours surrounding Mary’s money circled, with half the family believing she’d given the money to a charity and wished for it to remain anonymous, while the others, more deviant, suspected she’d given it all to her favourite grandson Gabriel. The question of why? was up for debate between those that believed this rumour. Sure, she adored Gabriel, but to hand him a sum not far from a hundred-thousand pounds was ludicrous, especially considering the rest of her children and siblings received nothing more than a few old possessions.

Gabriel would deny any money being given to him on his grandmother’s orders. And to this day held most of it in his bank. He lived a frugal lifestyle, minus the booze perhaps, which he would admit had taken up most of his lion’s share of expenses. He didn’t think his grandmother would mind in that aspect though. Out of all the people God blessed upon this earth with a level of understanding, Mary was certainly one of them.

If Gabriel was to guess. He’d estimate he had enough money to supplement at least another ten years in his current lifestyle. It wasn’t as if he was abject to work either. Gabriel had had jobs in the past. The longest of which lasted a year in a retail chain. But his real job often involved him travelling, sometimes weeks at a time, usually on the drop of a hat.

Gabriel checked the face of his watch. It was quarter to four and thankfully the rain had subsided a little. Pigeons gathered around him in their flocks, eagerly expecting the morsel of bread leftover from his sandwich. Gabriel despised the crust on sandwiches, so happily obliged the begging birds at his feet. Wings cut the air in flutters as the pigeons leapt on the discarded bread. A seagull glided down from some apex Gabriel didn’t see, its great winged shadow large enough to disperse the smaller birds who promptly danced away. ‘Rats with wings’ his mother used to call them. And he suspected her displeasure of pigeons originated as far back as high school when one was gracious enough to take a fly-by shit on her.

Looking at a flock of birds at his feet, watching at how impossible it seemed for them to not bob their tiny heads with every strut; why was that? He contemplated whether he’d ever seen the spirit of an animal before? Maybe he had and simply hadn’t realised. Or maybe there was an equally simple fact that such things as animal spirits didn’t exist. His grandfather never mentioned anything about animal spirits before. The thought both relieved and saddened Gabriel who then opened the brochure the clerk had given him and flipped to the back where a zoomed-in map was shown. He was looking for Isaac Street. The street in which he’d find the burned house, and whatever remained inside.

Gabriel walked. Occasionally asking directions to Toxteth. So long as he kept the Albert Dock to his right-hand side, and not divert too much from the Mersey which flowed beside him like the river out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he’d arrive in Toxteth soon enough.

An uneasy calm overcome Gabriel as he walked as if the mere motion of his legs which acted like pistons somehow drove away from the looming fear. To double dose this euphoric feeling, Gabriel reached deep into his jacket and took a swig from the flask there. He also found walking helped him think. Ideas and thoughts that would elude him for days suddenly presented themselves in a rhythmic burst. Or instead came smashing into him like freight trains. He wasn’t sure what the act of walking, or more accurately; travelling, had to do with this onset of revelations, but he was pleased to at least have them.

While he walked, the thought about what to do with his hat occupied his mind mostly. Over the years it seemed to have accumulated power. Gabriel felt it. Felt how at first the rim was nothing more than a cooling kiss, where now it felt as cold as ice. The dreams were bad too and getting worse, getting…vivid. Even his optimal low mood seemed to have dipped further as of late.

When Gabriel finally reached Harlow Street, he made a left. The sun at his back drooped like a melting orange and soon, it would become swallowed up by the horizon. He took the next right into Mill Street, and then, at last, saw the dooming sign of Isaac Street. The residential houses lined up like soldiers on either side and like a lieutenant general, Gabe walked down the centre line. Cars were kerbed all the way up the street. Not a single sound broke that extended silence as if the entire street was holding its breath. A black cat bounced from under one of the kerbed cars and halted in the middle of the road. It eyed Gabriel suspiciously, then completed its crossing, disappearing under the bonnet of a red Clio.

Gabriel heard the clean, crisp clicks as his shoes danced across the smooth runway. Then he saw it. Not quite near the end of that street, on the left, was the black tooth in an otherwise healthy set. Even at this distance, Gabriel could see the outline of its hollowed windows, missing front door, and charred interior design. Black suet tattooed the adjacent houses, and he was amazed by how those neighbouring houses were still intact after the blaze.

He halted at the foot of that husk of a house. Most of the burned furniture inside had been cleared out. The stench of ash still clung to the air with every passing breath of wind. A dog barked noisily in the next street, and as Gabriel stood there—alone—staring into the remains of that house, the house seemed to look back at him. Rather, the thing IN the house looked back at him. It knew his purpose and like a brooding black widow, it waited for him to enter its nest.

The street was quiet, quiet enough to hear a mouse fart. And if any of the neighbouring residents were to look outside, they would see a lean man standing adjacent to a burned-up house. A lean man with skin as dark as midnight ink and teeth as white as chalk, wearing a navy suit and carrying a briefcase. If they watched that man, they would see him kneel to place the briefcase on the ground and open it. See him place a pure-silver cross on a chain around his slender neck, swig from a bright canteen that drank the sun’s last rays. And as the lean man rose, he carried something in his right hand. A book? A…Bible.

“You know why I’m here,” Gabriel said at the open house. The house looked back silently as if brooding. Nothing moved from inside its skeletal framework.

He willed himself forward. ‘One step, two-step, three steps, more.’ A voice sang in his head. He passed a leg through the house’s threshold feeling his foot hit soft ash that was baked into the ground. The surviving framework looked to be coated in the hide of some demon. Some of the blackened beams had jagged cracks that sprouted out like veins. Every part of Gabriel wanted to leave this place, to run. Fear cuts deeper than swords, he had read in a book somewhere. But it wasn’t swords that he was afraid of. It was something much worse.

‘It’s just as afraid of you, as you are to it.’ His grandmother had assured him once after he screamed at the appearance of a spider in his room. But this was a big spider, Mary. Not some daddy-longlegs on the wall, or a small house spider. This spirit was something equally as black and terrifying, but it was also dangerous, and Gabriel was now on its web.

“She burned me.” Said a voice behind him and Gabriel whirled around, raising his hand that clutched his Bible more out of instinct than intent. But there was nothing there. Something had spoken; words that sounded like they had been pushed through a tight hole. It was a dry, old voice.

“She burned me in life, then in death.” It said again and it sounded to Gabriel like weeping. The voice also, always sounding like it was spoken over his shoulder, or more accurately: whispered in his ear.

His breath faltering slightly, Gabriel spun around in that skeleton of a house and this time saw something move. It appeared briefly and as thinly as the beams which sprouted all around him and appeared equally as black. It shifted this way and that, disappearing, then reappearing as fast as Gabriel’s eyes could keep up.

“She burned me!” the voice now screamed. Gabriel felt trapped in what he suspected was the living room of the house. “She burned my heart! Then she burned us both!”

Gabriel spun again; this time sure to catch the spirit that was so surely behind him. Nothing. He spun again. Nothing. At last, he found he could muster his voice and said firmly: “Duncan Mi—”, but his words were cut off. Black fingers that were burned right down to the bone, wrapped around his throat with unrelenting force from behind. He could feel his airway seal completely shut from those iron sticks. He widened his mouth in pain. He could already feel his head growing feint. The only thought that occupied his mind then was how strong those fingers were.

“I fucked her till she bled!” The voice screamed in his ear, only this time, Gabriel could feel the breath against his cheek. He couldn’t smell the breath on the account of not being able to breathe but guessed if he were to smell it, it would be nothing shy of the stench of burning flesh.

“Then she burned us both!” It declared; its voice loathed with anger.

He couldn’t break free of the thing by force, and he couldn’t speak its name; couldn’t remove his hat which somehow remained firmly—as if by choice—on top of his head despite the intense struggle. White spots blew up in Gabriel’s vision and at any moment he felt he’d pass out. Then the fingers retracted at once as if they suddenly touched something hot. Gabriel fell, unable to support his weight, and gasped in a lungful of air. It was like getting high. The elation of simply being able to breathe was ecstasy.

He coughed as the inner lining of his throat felt red and raw. Turning, he thought his heart would stop right there in his chest. A figure stood, as black and skeletal as the house that it died in was standing before him. Melted skin stuck to an eyeless skull, and to Gabriel, the body looked nothing more than the frame of charred bones.

“It burned!” the spirit screamed. The smell that Gabriel faced when opening the newspaper that early morning, days ago returned. He could taste the ash on his lips. Taste the smoke in his lungs even though there was no fire. It choked him. It burned him.

“I burned till my skin melted, my eyes popped within my head. I screamed but no one came. SHE-BURNED-MEEEEEEEE”

The spirit rushed forward; its arms outstretched like broom handles. Fingers sprouted from each broom handle towards his neck. They wanted to wrap once again around his throat. Probably to squeeze the life out of him this time. To finish the job.

“DUNCAN MILLER!” Gabriel swiftly yelled as if casting some fantastic spell. He held the Bible up in front of him like a shield. The spirit shrieked, then haltered. Relief washed over Gabriel at the spirits sudden hesitation, but his hand holding the Bible was shaking furiously. He stroked the rim of his hat with thumb and forefinger, then lifted it up slowly before his courage waned. Death began to sing.