Chapter 7

Hemmingway’s door opens with difficulty, as if there is a lot of resistance. Finally it flies open, and Hemmingway himself, sprawled on the floor, is attempting to pull himself through the door, but being pulled back by Annette. Hemmingway knows that he needs to get away, as much as he doesn’t want to. She makes all his dark fantasies come to life, and has been seduced by her in that fashion, but human beings are human beings and can only stand too much before reality becomes an immediate necessity. His promises that he will be back have been met by a too clingy Annette acting as if she has been rejected for another woman by a long term partner. And it is this, more than anything else that Hemmingway needs to get away from. It is not so much a fear of commitment on his part, but a fear that she will get too committed to him. And as much as anything else, she is a dangerous woman to be around at the best of times. He is partly aware of the serious risk he is putting himself through by fighting with Annette in this way, but it is desperation that is in the driving seat. 

He allows himself to get dragged back into the room, and as she relaxes, thinking that she is winning, he snaps his legs out of his grip and leaps to a standing run and out through the door. He slams the door and locks it. Taking an extra precaution, he searches around for a sharp item, hoping that the lock will last long enough. He purposely asked for a strong lock, knowing that the F.I.B. would provide for such a particular character, but he is unable to find anything sharp. He puts his index finger to his mouth and nibbles at the skin, creating a wound that bleeds but one that will bleed enough. Using his blood, he draws a symbol in the door that glows before being sucked into the pattern of the wood grain. Finally he is able to relax. 

Away from the seduction, Hemmingway knows that he is not achieving his objectives, that he is not allowing himself to take control. From now on, no more fantasies. Well… maybe one more. Maybe he can do his work during the fantasies? He forgets just how seduced by Annette he becomes. 

He looks at his watch, feeling guilty that he has been in there for well over two hours. Knowing that Mitsuko needs his expertise, he wonders just how well she has been getting on. It is time to rejoin the investigation. 

Hearing voices from the living room, he uses his expertise to deduce that they are still in the living room. He walks in. 

“Mitsuko, I’ve been thinking… Where are you?” The room is empty except for the ghost that Hemmingway is unable to see watching the TV, relaxing after its exhausting run. It barely bothers with Hemmingway, not wanting to go through all that effort again. 

Hemmingway moves over to turn the TV off. The ghost, angry, moves right up in front of Hemmingway, yelling “Oi!” in his face, but like the woman before receives no response. It doesn’t matter as Hemmingway heads back to the door. The ghost, using his new found powers flicks the TV back on. Hemmingway hearing the noise turns back to see the TV on, but just shrugs, more concerned about finding Mitsuko and heads off. The ghost, seeing there is to be no more trouble goes back to watching the TV. 

Mitsuko’s room is empty, as are the bathroom and kitchen. Apparently she is not in the house, nor is Bunuel. Checking up on Crunchy, he knocks on his door, but there is no answer. Poor chap, really does not know what he is getting himself into. Hemmingway reaches into his pockets for the keys to the room. Crunchy must be furious that they’ve locked him up, maybe when everything is over he will realise it’s for the best. For the time being, best to try and get him to calm down a bit. But the key does not turn in the door. Checking the handle, the door opens having never been locked. Crunchy is not inside. He heads over to the closed window, but cannot see a body lying on the ground or any other signs of escape. No the window was closed, there is no way that he could have closed it had he jumped. Hemmingway must just have not locked the door, but that is wrong as he remembers checking and double checking to ensure the door was locked. They need to find Crunchy. He could be anywhere by now, within London or somewhere outside, but finding Crunchy is their absolute priority. 

He hears the front door opening and goes down to see Mitsuko and Bunuel. 

“There you are. I was wondering where you were.”

“We went out”, says Mitsuko glossing over the panic with which they went out with. “Listen, I don’t think it’s safe that we stay here. I think we’re haunted. The ghost, Bunuel says it was a ghost, it kept changing the channel. It told us to leave.”

Hemmingway is slightly confused by her babbling, but thinks back to the TV turning itself on, the one that is still currently on. “Oh, that. No, it’s just an F.I.B. donated TV. At least, that’s what I’m putting it down to.”

Hemmingway gestures for them to go and sit in the living room. Mitsuko shudders, going into the kitchen to sit there instead. 

“No, I think it’s real. It… It chased us down the street. Has that dweeb seen anything?”

“Dunno where he is. Thought he’d gone with you.”

“He’s missing? Eh well. Who cares?”

“Mitsuko, we need to find him. He’s important. You know like in James Bond, he gets given all these gadgets? Well, I think he’s a gadget.”

“He’s a gadget?”

“Well, a tool. I recognise him, Mitsuko. There’s a report on him at the office. I don’t think he’s actually here on work experience. I think he’s here to help us.”

“Well, he’s a fucking good actor. I just think he’s a dweeb.”

“He is a dweeb. I don’t think he knows any more than us. Less than us. As far as he’s concerned, he’s here on work experience.”

“Well, what does he do?”

“I don’t know. I need to get hold of the file.”

“Hang on a second. What file? Since when did we start keeping files? Since when did we start having ghosts? You know I don’t believe in that shit, Hemmingway. Since when do weird little freaks make windows explode, come back from the dead? We’re the Fucking Idiotic Bastards. I know it’s not the best job, but it’s my job. What the fuck is going on? We’re supposed to come along, say everybody’s making it up, ‘cos let’s face it, they’re delusional little tits, and piss off home.”

If only Mitsuko knew, but this isn’t the time for Mitsuko to find out. “It’s a police file. I stumbled across it once.” Hemmingway has no problem lying to her, he just wishes it was a better excuse. “And as for this. Maybe we just stumbled upon something completely unrelated. After all, what use is a ghost going to be for us? We want to find out about dead people, Mitsuko.”

They hear Bunuel say something, both turn to face him to see what he just said, but finding it odd that he isn’t even facing them. 

The ghost has entered the kitchen, determined to find out why strangers keep coming into his house, but the only person responding to him is Bunuel. Being a child, the ghost is trying to stay as calm as possible but wants to know who they all are. 

“I think they’re the police or something,” says Bunuel, indicating the other two. “But this doesn’t look much like a prison cell. I don’t know why they’ve arrested me.”

“No, this isn’t a cell. This is my house.”

“I thought it was their house. Anyway, it can’t be yours, you’re dead.”

“Who said that?”

“Well, you’re a ghost aren’t you?”

The ghost is a bit perturbed. Something has been nagging him, but his conclusion was a bit misplaced. “I thought they were the ghosts. They couldn’t see me, I thought they were just playing out the things they did when they were alive.”

“No, you’re the ghost. You’re dead.”

“That means I…”

As far as Mitsuko and Hemmingway are concerned, Bunuel is having a one sided conversation with himself. Finding it cute, the kind of imagination that children of his age are supposed to display, Mitsuko wants to join in. “Bunuel, who are you talking to?”

“I’m talking to the ghost here.”

Mitsuko smiles, thinking that he is just taking inspiration from the events of a few hours ago. “You can talk to it? Are you sure it’s there?”

Bunuel turns to the ghost, eager to convince them. “Can you prove to them that you’re here?”

“I… I shall pick up that knife over there.”

“It’s going to pick up the knife over there.”

The ghost approaches the table. It has been denying a lot of things today. Its inability to touch things, for one thing. The powers it gained has been a serious concern, though. But you do hear about these people like Uri Geller, psychics who can bend and move stuff. It may have been happening to him, but he didn’t understand why, and didn’t particularly want to think about it, either. He knows that he won’t be able to pick up the knife, but he wants to prove that he can. If he can do that, then he can prove that he’s not a ghost. He holds his hand above the knife, wanting to delay the moment of truth as long as possible.

“I can’t see anything.”

Spurred on by Mitsuko, the ghost reaches for the knife. His hand passes through, causing him to yell out in fury. “Fuck it!”

The knife moves, as do all the items in the kitchen. In the of the knife, case it flies directly towards Mitsuko. Her saving grace is that she, like Hemmingway and Bunuel, is also thrown back and out of the knife’s path. 

Hemmingway is the first to recover. “Well, I’m convinced. Mitsuko, I think we have our lead.”

***

It took Mitsuko and Hemmingway half an hour to go round to the houses on their list, with Bunuel as the aide. Surprisingly, many of the houses had a ghost of the victim still there. Bunuel did the talking, telling them where to go in order to conduct a large interview.

Back at the safe house, Bunuel was able to confirm the arrival of the ghosts. To Mitsuko’s surprise, it was warmer in the living room with a load of dead people than cold, the surprise element filling her with more unease. But this needed to be done. 

Out of respect for the dead, a table had been arranged in the middle of the living room, empty chairs surrounding it, leaving Mitsuko uncertain whether or not to sit down in case there should already be someone there. In fact, she was afraid to move, until guided by Bunuel. She took her place next to Hemmingway at the head of the table as Bunuel, the interpreter, took his at the other end. Mitsuko prays that the proceedings are quick, as she wants it to still be daylight when everything is over. She waits for Hemmingway to take charge.

“How exactly are they feeling, knowing that they are dead?”

Bunuel looks around the table as the ghosts begin relating their own stories, speaking over each other. He tries to listen to everything, but finds it impossible. Only one of the spirits is not talking, that of his mother. Being able to see the dead, it is only now sinking in that his parents have joined that category. Having both been victims of this mass suicide, they had come back as ghosts, and Bunuel had not noticed anything different, except suddenly having to make dinners for himself. But regardless of all the other ghosts, hers, and that of his father’s are the only two explanations that he cares about. 

“They say that they are angry because their lives were taken away from them. They feel cheated.”

“Taken away from them? But that sounds like murder,” states Mitsuko.

Bunuel looks to his parents. Both nod. “That is what they believe.”

But this is not good enough an explanation for Mitsuko, still struggling to make sense of everything. “Our investigation began with us looking into a series of nearly identical, apparently related suicides. At what point can suicide become murder? Was this a cult that we are dealing with here?”

Until now, after finding out, Bunuel has not known how to feel about his parents death. Words such as suicide he struggles to comprehend, murder is very clear. Death itself is a concept he understands as his grandmother died from cancer the year before. He knows that it is more than just funerals and people being sad. He knows it is never seeing the person again, having only memories and wanting more memories. That it’s not just people falling over in the movies, it’s families hearing the tragic news. People fading away. That it’s not sleep, it’s… death. Death is the only word he can use. And now his parents are dead and this lady is saying that it might be because they wanted to be dead. He’s too young to understand rejection, but these feelings start stirring. But if they didn’t want to be around him, then how come they still are? Murder he can understand, because although it is just as tragic, he knows that he was still loved. But this lady’s lies make him angry, and he is flooded with thoughts and emotions right now. He doesn’t want to be here. He wants to be elsewhere, where his parents are, even if they are in the same room. He begins to break down. 

Seeing their interpreter fall to pieces, the ghosts know that something needs to be done to communicate to the two other living people, to give the warning of the danger that is out there. They invade his body, possessing it to the strong objections of his parents who see this as a sacred violation of their child’s mind and body. 

Mitsuko is also uncomfortable seeing Bunuel break down, wanting to go over and comfort him. She is held back by Hemmingway, who can see his convulsing body. He senses something big is happening, and is soon proved correct when Bunuel’s body is lifted into the air, a fire appearing behind his eyes and, despite the warmth of the room, his breath turning to steam.

“No.” Bunuel’s voice is deeper, polyphonic as if many people are speaking through his one mouth, all saying the same thing. “This was no cult. Most of us did not know each other. Nor do we believe that we share anything kind of belief in common. All of us were targeted individually. We had no knowledge that any others were going through the same things as ourselves.” 

Mitsuko is unable to continue her questions, far too petrified, but Hemmingway is able to take what is happening in his stride. “But… Each of you must have known at some point that there was a problem. That what you were going through was not… normal. Why did none of you attempt to reach out for any kind of help?”

“What help? What can we say? That we looked into the mirror, but saw only ourselves? A beautiful, more accurate, more efficient version of our own selves?”

“You’re vain, then. Is that what you are trying to say?”

“Yes, we were vain. We always saw ourselves in such a narcissistic light. But we were shown something. All of us. A way to achieve our dreams, our desires. All we had to do was follow these guidelines and we could become perfect. What all of us had wanted.”

“You were told to kill yourselves?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“Our weaknesses were highlighted. We were shown ways in which we could work our way through the problems caused by such weaknesses. It all looked so simple. However, when it came to ourselves having to confront such situations, we failed. Always.”

“And how exactly were you shown these things?”

“It varied. At times it was in the mirror, some kind of reflection that could think for itself, had a degree of independence. And it would show us things, things that as ourselves, it could do easily, but that we could not. Other times, it was just a feeling that we could not be good enough. But it must be getting stronger. More recently, the reflection can come out of the mirror. But not for very long.”

“And yet you thought nothing of this to report it?”

“The stronger it gets, the faster and harder it can act. It feels as if to disclose such a weakness is a weakness in itself. This is about hiding your flaws. From yourself, from others.”

“And because you felt so flawed, you felt then as if you had to kill yourself?”

“It was a voluntary act.”

“Then how can it be murder?”

“Would we have killed ourselves had this reflection not come into our lives? That is why it was murder. Its sole purpose was to achieve our deaths. But it cannot kill us. We have to believe in our own weaknesses to that extent for it to feed.”

“It feeds?”

“Yes.”

“Then we can kill it?”

“We believe so.”

“How?”

“We believe it to be a vain creature itself. It is a bully. It degrades us to make it feel superior. Hence it feeds and gets stronger. We just need to ensure the fragile link in that chain and break it. We shall destroy it. We shall obliterate it. It took our lives, we shall take its.”

Bunuel drops back into his seat, unconscious. Hemmingway runs over to check his pulse as all the ghosts depart, except for Bunuel’s parents, concerned for their child’s welfare. He is okay but just needs rest. Mitsuko slowly awakes from her fear, neither her nor Hemmingway knowing whether the ghosts are still present or not, afraid to discuss anything until Bunuel is well enough to give them the all clear.