Insomnia

Stage Two


At six PM the following day Gregory rose from bed to empty his bladder and brush his teeth. His body moved on auto pilot while he did his morning routine, despite that it already was late in the afternoon. He dressed, brushed his hair and pulled it back into a little ponytail, then walked to the kitchen for the cup of coffee he needed to wake up properly.

“Shit, I forgot,” he groaned when he spotted the broken coffee machine on the kitchen counter. Annoyance welled up in him, and he felt horribly grumpy for having slept 13 hours straight. If he could not have his coffee he might as well head down to HQ and start work. The required period of rest had been completed.

He pulled on his jacket gloves and tied his boots, hardly eager to leave the warmth of his home to go outside.

As expected, it was freezing cold outside the building. The wind had picked up over night and tried pushing him back while he struggled. It threw his hair about, and as luck would have it the bubble in his hair broke and flew off, leaving his hair for the wind to toy with too. He pursed his lips angrily and dug his hands deeper into his pockets.

Twenty very much exhausting minutes later Gregory found himself standing at the doorstep of HQ, and he didn’t hesitate to get inside and out of harm’s way. The woman at the desk was the same one he’d talked to yesterday, and he noticed that she seemed to be trying not to laugh when she spotted him.

“The weather is quite unfriendly today, isn’t, ?” she asked sweetly and tucked a stray curl behind her ear with an amused smile. If Gregory hadn’t been so awkward when it came to talking to others he might have snapped at her for having a laugh at his expense. Instead he nodded and bit the inside of his cheek. The anger was already draining from him to be replaced by the usual anxiety he felt around other humans.

“Sir Hank has requested your presence, .”

“I know.”

He left before she could force him into a proper conversation and ran a hand through his hair in a poor attempt to tame it, but the damage caused by the wind couldn’t be fixed without a hairbrush. A couple of co-workers stared at him when he came their way, but he whole-heartily ignored them and went up the five flights of stairs to the top floor, avoiding the elevator on purpose.

The top floor was reserved for the Rank A exorcists and the Organization’s two leaders, Hale Williams and Hank Morris. Gregory himself was only Rank B, but he knew this floor pretty much inside out due to the numerous missions he’d had for the past two years. He knew none of the other exorcists worked as often as he did, but the reason was also very obvious.

While his co-workers were able to see and sometimes track ghosts, Gregory attracted them like a fire attracts a moth. Ghosts were drawn to him, as they had been since he was twelve because of an accident. Thinking of it made him lick his lips nervously, and the ice inside of him that never melted only felt colder.

‘Don’t think about it. It doesn’t matter.’

He walked down the wide corridor past several offices until he reached the largest of them all- a shared office between the two leaders that also functioned as their home. He knocked the door twice with his knuckles and waited to be invited in.

“Come on in,” Hank Morris’ deep, rough voice called, and Gregory closed the door behind himself as he went in and bowed lightly at the man behind the desk. The other leader was elsewhere, and Hank appeared to be busy with paperwork, if one was to judge by the pile of papers on his desk. His strong, bearded face regarded Gregory with a sharp look that never failed to make him feel pinned down.

“You needed me, sir?”

“Yes, yes. Come over here, lad.”

Had it been anyone else, Gregory might have felt insulted that someone called him ‘lad’ when he was already twenty-one. But he did as told without hesitating and waited for orders. Hank picked up a case file from his desk and handed it to him.

“We don’t know much about this ghost, but it seems to have wrecked a great deal of havoc in the area where it resides. I want you to go exorcise it. If you need assistance, use Nathan or Max.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

Gregory bowed a second time and left in a hurry, his heart almost in his throat. On his way downstairs he opened the case file and quickly skimmed through the pages. No picture had been attached, which made the job a little harder, but if the information was correct he should be able to locate this ghost without much trouble.

‘Male, age unknown. Victims say that he looks like a teenager. Strong spirit.’

Perhaps it was another revenge-bound teenager? Gregory had dealt with his fair share of those. Teenagers had a real knack for winding up in trouble with others that got them killed, or for taking their own lives and regretting it afterwards. If this ghost was anything like the average stuff he dealt with he could consider the work done in a couple of days, at the most, even if it was a strong spirit. Gregory had never spent more than six days to complete a mission, something that had given him a bit of a reputation. It was nothing he flaunted or made a big deal out of. Gossip and social status mattered little to someone like him. But results did.

Becoming an exorcist was not as hard as people might think, but it required a certain amount of spiritual energy and a whole lot of patience and self-control. Gregory had been lucky enough to be born with his powers, although they had taken him years to control, and the Organization had not taken him in until he was nineteen. Obviously, tests had been required to measure his strength and to determine which rank he should be given.

He had vivid memories of the second test he was put through, a test to measure how long he could keep in touch with spirits without loosing himself and his strength. They had locked him up inside an old, spirit-infested building with barely enough food and liquid to get by for seven days. Of course, every ghost in the building had showed up either to chat, insult or harm him, and the pressure to his mind had been strong enough to leave him half-mad by the time those seven days were up. But Gregory was good at concealing his less acceptable emotions, and his superiors had determined him to be a Rank D. Since then he had steadily worked his way up through countless jobs and exorcisms, and as a side effect he’d developed a strange mix of insomnia and hypersomnia.

It would take him five minutes by buss to get to the location, fifteen by feet.

He was not carrying any money right now, so he would have to make do with his own feet, even if he dreaded the wind. When he read the report-details he frowned deeply.

‘One victim reported to Research that the spirit had turned everything in her apartment upside down during the night and filled her bathtub with juice. Another reported that he woke up with a floating gun pointed at his forehead, held by a see-through teenager. The spirit left the man unharmed, but returned for several nights to throw his kitchen knives into various walls and doors.’

On top of being a strong spirit, this was also someone who was dangerous to its surroundings. As far as he could tell, none of the victims has been physically harmed by the ghost, but it was a long shot that it would remained that way.

This teenager, was he looking for revenge? Or was he looking for something entirely different? Gregory would know once he got to the location and met him.

The secretary in the lobby raised her head when he walked by, but she had no smiles or greetings for him this time. He hadn’t meant to offend her in any way, but if he had he was not going to correct the misunderstanding. Before stepping outside he stuck the case file into his jacket to avoid loosing any papers.

Right away the wind caught hold of him, but he grit his teeth and began to walk with determined steps towards Blvd. 14, Complex 6-B, Number 8. If he remembered correctly, that street looked rather poor and unfriendly anyone passing by. But it was not wonder that a violent teenager’s ghost was located there, was it?

Gregory’s mind was wholly focused on the new case while he walked, speculations and questions constantly swirling around in his head. It was dark outside- these days night fell around five-thirty in the evening and lasted until ten the following morning. Gregory disliked winter strongly because it sucked the warmth and light out of everything, and the next few months would indeed be dark and bleak. Had he known that this town endured long, harsh winters when he moved here he certainly would have picked one of the Organization’s other branch offices. But there was no turning back now- you had to make to with what you got.

The building named Complex 6-B was just another bunch of apartments thrown together, and more than anything it looked like a big, square lump of cement with windows that stared out at you like little holes. The courtyard was small, the grass close to turning brown because of autumn, and the swings were untouched by children, but not left alone by the wind. It looked sad.

Gregory passed along the building until he came to the right number and went inside. The lights in the corridor were flickering on and off, and he supposed cheap places like these had no janitor of their own to fix the problem. His eyes scanned the door signs (some of the doors had none), and he passed by Nr.7 only to stop at a door that lacked a number. The plate appeared to have been torn off, because the little holes that had been made when it was drilled into the wood remained still, along with a vague imprint on the surface.

Very cautiously he put a hand on the handle and tested whether the door was locked. It was not; it swung open to reveal a dark room behind it. He felt a shiver run up his spine, feeling chilly all of a sudden. The aura was easily recognizable- it belonged to a spirit. Well, in fact, several spirits. Gregory held still and kept his breathing to a minimum while he listened closely.

He looked back out into the corridor, and his nerves were calm when his eyes fell upon a shimmering, human form. It was weak, hardly had any aura at all, and even though Gregory was better able to see spirits than most people, this one seemed ready to fade any second. It stopped and floated in mid air, slowly turned it’s head and regarded him with an empty stare. The mouth opened and closed, but he could not hear anything. Maybe it wasn’t speaking at all.

It must have been attracted by his presence. That tended to happen when a location had a high amount of spiritual energy gathered. But he was not here to deal with them- they’d have to wait for now.

But just as he was about to get on with his current job two more appeared, and their forms were not half as shimmering and see-through as the first one. The tallest one- a man who wore a long, brown jacket and a hat on his head- tilted its head to the right and stared at him.

“You can see us,” it simply said.

“Yes, I can. But I am not here for you. I need to find another ghost, the one who belongs to this apartment.” He pointed at the door, hoping that they would understand.

“You shouldn’t. That one does not like it when others come into his place. He threatened us if we did it again,” said the other, a young girl. Gregory frowned when he saw that there were red cut wounds on her wrists, injuries of someone who had comitted suicide. Her eyes were bright and blue still, so she could not have been dead for long. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her young face looked withdrawn and solemn. The blue eyes kept glancing over his shoulder into the apartment, as if she was nervous that the ghost would come out.

“I am here to exorcise him. It’s my job,” Gregory explained. “Please leave and let me take care of it.”

He felt chilled to the bone now, a result of being in the presence of three ghosts at once. His fingers felt stiff and hard to move, and nausea began to settle in his stomach.

“I’ll take care of it. Maybe I’ll come back and help you when I have time.”

The man shook his head, and when his jacket moved Gregory could spot a blossoming spot of red on his shirt. He’d been shot.

“You should leave the dead. No one mourns for us any longer,” the man said.

“I assure you, I know what I am dealing with.” He smiled a bit, surprised that they seemed so concerned about his safety.

“Do you?” the girl asked, and she floated over to him and reached out her thin, wounded arms to cup his face. Gregory shuddered at the contact, but it did not frighten him. This girl was gentle, even in death, and she wished him no harm. “Do you really know?” she repeated, and he wondered why she looked so sad while her cold fingertips brushed over his cheeks.

“Yes.”

Suddenly she vanished in thin air, and the abrupt disappearance startled Gregory a bit.

The man shook his head again, a vague gesture that maybe suggested that Gregory was going to get in trouble. “Good luck, young man. You might need it more than you think.”

“Can you tell me anything about the ghost that lives here?”

“He has a taste for sadism. His name I do not know. But you best not fall asleep in there, otherwise you might wake up dangling from the roof, my friend.” With those words the man disappeared through a nearby wall, followed by the weak, shimmering ghost that first had appeared.

Now that he was alone again Gregory released a long, shuddering breath and rubbed his palms together to bring some warmth into them. It was strange how so few people could actually see and notice ghosts when they radiated cold like that. Sensitive people were able to pick that up, but tended to blame it on some condition because believing that ghosts actually existed was too scary. Gregory had never harbored such illusions. To him, seeing and talking to ghosts had been a reality as far back as he could remember. But it was only when he was nineteen that it became his official job to exorcise them. Before that it had been charity work, something to put his mind at ease.

He reached out for the light switch and let the light flood the place. It revealed an apartment that was far better kept than he had expected, and he slowly walked inside the living room to inspect it closer. Hardly any dust seemed to have gathered, despite the lack of living humans to keep it clean. A soft, grey couch stood before the television. Bookshelves filled with DVDs covered one of the walls. There was nothing here that looked like it belonged to a teenager on the wrong side of the law. The walls were painted white, the furniture was either black or grey- simple.

When he moved on to the kitchen he found that it followed the same colour scheme; all clean, neat lines, black and white mixed together to create a look of minimalism.

There was nothing on the sink or kitchen counter, and when he looked through the cupboards he found that everything was in place- plates, mugs and glasses were lines up in perfect symmetry. Gregory couldn’t help but wonder if this might be the wrong apartment after all. But the other ghosts had warned him against going in here, it had to be the right one.

Maybe the bedroom would reveal something interesting to him.

He moved across the living room, and the first door he picked lead to the bedroom, so the other must be the bathroom. He switched the light on and stopped to give it a once over. The walls were black, as was everything else, even the curtains. The bed was made and untouched, and the covers were silky soft as Gregory touched them. A walk in closet revealed nothing interesting other than the knowledge that the ghost had liked to wear ripped jeans and black clothes in his living time. Even the socks and underwear were black.

Gregory sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out the drawer in the bedside table and began to rummage through it. Apart from paper there was nothing much in it other than a leather bound book. He picked that one up and opened it to the first page. In the lower left corner a name had been written in a small, girly handwriting.

Trent.

Nothing more- just Trent.

When he turned the page he was disappointed to find it blank. Quickly he scurried through the rest of them, and they were all blank. The book would give him no clues.

He was putting it back in when something slid out from the pages and landed at his feet. Gregory put the book back in the drawer and picked it up- a photograph. On the backside it read ‘24th of April. Borrowed D’s camera again without permission.’

The picture itself was strange- Gregory thought it must be this ‘Trent’ who’d taken it. It showed someone standing before a large mirror wearing only black boxers while taking the picture. Most of the face was hidden behind the camera and hands, and he could see puffy, white hair sticking out from the head. The body was extremely pale, the skin close to being translucent. Just about every vein showed through and created complex, ugly patterns. He could not recognize the room, so the boy must have taken it elsewhere.

The words might have some value, so he stuck it in his jacket pocket and closed the drawer.

There was no aura in the apartment, no cold seeping into his body. The ghost was elsewhere, which left Gregory wondering just where exactly. Of course, only weak spirits were location-bound, the one he was looking for might be miles away if he was as strong as the case file indicated. He had no wish to wait around and risk falling asleep here. After he’d checked out the bathroom he was going back home to piece together what he knew so far.

He turned off the light on his way out and pushed open the other door.

When the lights came on Gregory nearly took a step backwards in shock over what he saw.

The tiles were stained with old, dried blood that seemed to have splattered all over, including the floor and the bathtub. The rusty brown was a sharp contrast against the white surfaces, and Gregory felt himself go pale and uneasy when he realized that someone had been beaten to death in here. Most likely the subject of his job. But God…How much blood had the person lost before he died? Just how had he been murdered? Knowing this there was a high chance that this indeed was a revenge-bound ghost. Who wouldn’t want revenge if their blood had been splattered all over, like…this?

It seemed like such a merciless and painful way to die.

Gregory felt his stomach churn uncomfortably. He turned the light back off and closed the door.

The unease remained lodged heavily in his stomach, like a rock, all the way back to his apartment.