“No one’s around when you’re there late at night, Amy, right? How about then?”
“And if Lynch should pop by unexpectedly? Or word ever got back to him that we did this against his wishes? Someone somewhere in Swinson would be bound to spill it sooner or later…”
“Yeah…I guess you are right. And I do remember you mentioning what a control freak Lynch was when he lectured you back in August…you know…’I’m the only one making the decisions and such’.”
“Yep. The last thing I want to do is go through that again. Or even worse. Lose this job. It’s still a lousy gig, but for the moment I do need it.”
“Me, too. Forget I brought it up…”
About two weeks later, Amy happened to pass Lynch in one of the hallways that led off the main theatre and toward some back rooms that were used for dressing areas for actors and singers when they put on live shows. Lynch looked drawn and sallow and sickly. With his alcoholism, it was not much of a decline, but something in the haunted look of his eyes and face gave Amy the impression it was more than booze. Had he been sued by some woman he had accosted perhaps? Amy could only hope…
For a few more days, she noticed this slight decline in his appearance and even though she detested the man, she was concerned. He was another human being after all…well…sort of. The dark circles under his eyes seemed to be getting worse with each passing day, and the weight seemed to dropping off his already lean frame dramatically. Could he be really sick? As her suspicions grew, Amy decided to check in with Sophia as she typically had more interaction with him than Amy, what with selling tickets and marketing The Review and all.
“You notice Lynch looking awful these days?” Amy asked as she poked her head through the ticket booth where Sophia was rearranging a new shipment of forms and folders.
“Hard to miss. He looks awful doesn’t he.”
“He sick or something?”
“Since when do we care?”
“Aw, come on, Sophia…he’s sort of human.”
She laughed.
“Sort of I guess. No…it’s nothing like that. It’s the finances of The Review.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The distributors for the films we show? They raised their prices and apparently we cannot pay the extra fees.”
“And that is…or was, I guess, now…our cash cow here, right?”
“Yep. I think Lynch’s investors have given him an ultimatum. To find a new source of revenue to meet certain loan deadlines or else…”
“Shut down?”
Sophia shrugged.
“Maybe just fire Lynch. From what I know of they have sunk too much money into this place to just pull the plug. My guess is they want to replace Lynch if he cannot get it fixed.”
“Wow…”
“Yeah…wow.”
Late that day, Lynch summoned Amy to his office. A leaden ball of anxiety formed in her stomach as this never happened. Never once, not even to chew her out. With trepidation, Amy made her way into Lynch’s office and took a seat after closing the door behind her. She figured this was her last day at The Review, hence the forced privacy and she steeled herself for her dismissal based on the rough financial background Sophia had spilled, though she was sure Lynch had no idea she was aware of it.
“Amy…I…well…first of all I want to apologize.”
Amy nearly fell off her chair.
“There has been a lot of pressure in getting this place up and running, and I am afraid I let the stress of it all out in unprofessional ways.”
Oh sweet Jesus, thought Amy…please let him be firing me and not coming on to me at last…
“I am afraid I have been overly hard on you and quite frankly rude and disrespectful. I am sorry.”
Amy just nodded her acknowledgement as she awaited what was coming next.
“You probably do not know, but The Review is really struggling financially right now. I know I was resistant to the idea from the beginning, but I am beginning to rethink this Malcolm Peters thing you suggested. You know…the haunted evening event…”
Amy sighed inwardly with relief. Both option A and option B seemed to be off the table.
“From what I understand, he is offering a tidy fee to use The Review for one of these things, right?”
“He is, Darren. It is how he gets a lot of his future clients.”
“Well…as much as I am still resistant to buckle under to the idea, seeing as how I do not really buy into supernatural stuff, personally, I am left with no choice if we are to keep the doors here open for what it was intended when we began. Can you get him in here so we can negotiate a price and date?”
Amy could hardly believe her ears. Things must really be dire, she pondered. Sophia must have been right. After the shock of what had happened in the last few minutes evaporated, Amy nodded vigorously and told Lynch she would get Peters to drop by the office as soon as he could.
The Haunted Evening At Last…
Swinson, UK
November 2017
“He what?” Sophia exclaimed as she looked at Amy, her mouth agape.
“You heard me…”
“Wow…things must really be in catastrophic condition. Not only does the almighty Lynch finally agree to talk to Malcolm Peters, but he even managed to swallow his ego and apologize to you. I’d say this calls for a celebration!”
“Let’s not go crazy here, Sophia. After the fact, I think the apology was merely a way for him to get me to intercede on his behalf to Peters. Not that I won’t and did not take it. But, knowing the real Darren Lynch, my gut feeling now is that was just a ploy. He knew appealing to my humanity, and sensitive nature would open the door. But, whatever…we finally get to run the haunted night event like we wanted, we don’t put out jobs in jeopardy…at least until we go bankrupt here…and I actually got to hear the words ‘I am sorry’ come out of Lynch’s vile mouth. Just wish I had a recording…”
Sophia laughed out loud.
“Well said. How about that drink?”
“You bet! It’s a banner day for the staff of The Swinson Review!”
Amy called Malcolm Peters that afternoon to give him the good news that Lynch was finally interested in hosting one of his haunted evening events. Peters was as shocked and stunned as they were, Amy thought, finally getting his foot in the door after so many months of being rejected.
“Why now?” Peters asked.
“I am not at liberty to say,” Amy replied, keeping her promise to her boss not to reveal the actual reason so his negotiation with Peters over a price would not be tainted.
“OK…I’ll be by tomorrow in the morning if that is fine with Mr. Lynch. Say around ten?”
“Should be good. I’ll let you know if that is a problem, Mr. Peters. Otherwise, we will look for you then.”
In a rare show of gratitude, Lynch thanked Amy for talking with Malcolm Peters for him. It was, he told her, not a complete fix to the financial bleeding at the moment, but it would sure help and keep the investors off his back for a few weeks anyway. In an almost piggyback fashion, following the agreement with Peters, Lynch landed an agreement with a touring theatre company to do a short run of shows at The Review. They were preparing for a national, and then possibly international tour, and were looking to work out some of the questions they still had in the performances in smaller to mid-sized towns before launching in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and then hopefully across Europe and maybe beyond. It was just the band-aid that Lynch had needed to placate his investors’ anxiety and he passed the word along to both Amy and Sophia, so they would put their best feet forward as they hosted the visiting actors, singers, and dancers plus the support staff that was coming along as well.
In another quirk of fate, during the last dress rehearsal, one of the actresses fell ill with a recurring bout of this stomach virus that she had been battling since they had begun their travel. Up until now, she had been coping with it successfully, but during the final dress rehearsal, she could no lo
nger maintain her energy and the infection had made both her speaking and singing voice just a raspy whisper, with laryngitis setting in on top of all her other maladies. The director had been noticing the unwavering interest that both Amy and Sophia had been consumed with as they watched the troupe prepare. Having no other choice available to him, and having heard through the grapevine in Swinson about Amy’s past as well as Sophia’s dream of being on stage, he offered both of them the opportunity to audition, so they could not have their schedule fall behind while his own actress recovered.
Lynch was a bit resistant to the idea, knowing how he and Amy had gone round and round over this issue, but he did not want to make waves for the director and possibly lose the fat fee they had offered for the use of The Review. Having watched all the rehearsals thus far, neither Amy nor Sophia needed much coaching in terms of what the role was to require. It was going to be a combination of acting, dancing, and singing, and they both sat in as each of them took a shot at the role under the director’s and producer’s close eye. While they both hit all the marks the men were looking for in acting and dancing, it was the singing portion of the role that made his decision. When she had been at both Sylvia Young and LAMDA, Amy had been an adequate, but certainly not an outstanding singer. She took on much individual training to improve, but she just could not seem to rise above what she saw as mediocre, relative to her classmates at the time.
Sophia, however, knocked the socks off the director and producer as well as the other cast members who had hung around to observe. She hated to admit it, but Amy was stunned as well. Without any real professional training or education in the field, Sophia seemed to be a natural. As soon as she watched Sophia sing, she knew she was out. It was horribly upsetting, and she was very disappointed over the rejection—reminding her of how it had felt back in London getting close but not being selected—but for what was needed in this particular part, it had been no contest. Amy gritted her teeth, put on as happy a face as she could muster, and congratulated Sophia. Amy went home after closing up the theatre that night really beginning to wonder if she was just destined not to be onstage after all.
……….
As hard as it was, Amy went back to her normal routine at The Review. Lynch had gotten another young girl in town to fill in for Sophia at the ticket booth while Sophia made do until the regular actress could return. The only plus, for the time being, was that Amy was to work Peters’ haunted evening event and it would be a nice bit of extra cash in her weekly pay. She got the theatre set up as Peters had requested, letting him know he would be doing his event on the night off from the prep work of the touring theatre company. The decorations and lighting were, at least to her, a bit cheesy, but she had to admit Peters struck quite a presence as he appeared on the dimly lit stage to give his audience an introduction as to what he was going to do and what they could expect during the evening. He was, Amy thought, quite the showman, even if it was laughable to her.
Peters had the auditorium lights dimmed, leaving only a vague halo of light to illuminate him as he went into his schtick. The audience seemed enraptured and on the edges of their seats, but due to the high degree of skepticism Amy had about paranormal events in general, her own experiences late at night at The Review aside, she just found Peters’ whole performance rather silly. However, as she had signed on to be the representative for The Review, Amy sat back in a seat off to the side of the stage, just behind the curtains, and tried to stay as positive as possible. About halfway through Peters’ show, Amy began to feel woozy and like she was entering a dream state of some sort, although she was still wide awake and fully aware of all that was going on around her.
Peters’ words and gesticulations became less and less clear to her ears, and a vision came to her as she got unsteadily to her feet, swaying as if on the deck of a gyrating ship under the effects of a strong tide. With no warning, her vision and attention of the show faded, and all she could see was an older, and more glorious version of the theatre in front of her. The audience from Peters’ event had been replaced with a vacant house, the mostly darkened concert hall stretching out before her. She shook her head and blinked trying to clear her mind, but whatever it was that was going on remained unchanged. As she peered out onto the stage, Malcolm Peters was no longer to be found. All that she could see was the prone image of a woman in an elaborate costume and jewelry, her head lolling back as she appeared to be swallowing a handful of what looked to Amy like pills of all sizes, colors, and shapes.
From what she had heard over the years and read about, Amy finally knew that she was seeing Rosalva in the last few desperate moments of her life, as she ingested what she assumed was responsible for ending her life. Even in her logical mind, Amy knew this was impossible, but acting on sheer instinct. She rushed to the divan where the dying woman lay to try and intervene. However, when she arrived at her side, the woman looked up at her, her eyes barely open to slits, a weak and trembling grimace on her lips, her skin almost ghostly white. That was troubling enough to Amy, but as she got closer, she drew back as a wave of horror and revulsion swept through her. Though she had only seen very old and poorly preserved images of Rosalva, she knew immediately that the woman on the divan, the woman who had just attempted to kill herself…it was not Rosalva. The woman reclining in all her finery before her was in fact herself!
The Haunted Evening Takes A Twist
Swinson, UK
November 2017
Amy staggered backward, stumbling and shuffling along, her eyes wide with fear and disbelief as she tried with all her might to wake up from whatever nightmare she was having. But the harder she tried, the more the scene before her remained unchanged. She began to back away from the woman as the diva-thing…the one with her face…smiled at her in a combination of warning and enticement. Reacting in self-preservation, Amy turned and began to run across the stage when an object from above fell from its mooring and struck her in the side of the head sending her sprawling. The audience from Peters’ haunted evening somehow interpreted the sudden unexpected flurry of activity as part of his show and they went wild in response. Peters ran to the fallen form of Amy on the stage and rushed her away as the audience assumed this as his finale. That he had conjured a spirit from the old Regent, making it materialize in the physical form of this woman—they had no idea who Amy was or from where she had come.
A few minutes after Peters got Amy offstage, she came to, though was very groggy and had no idea where she was or even who she was.
“Call an ambulance!” Peters yelled to a stagehand that had come to his side as well.
They rushed Amy to the hospital, and Peters waited anxiously, pacing like a man possessed in the waiting room while the doctors attended to Amy in the ER. About an hour later, a young doctor who had been the attending emergency physician appeared in the room and came to Peters.
“Are you her husband?”
“No, she was working with me tonight when she got struck. I just got her here.”
The young man nodded.
“Any relatives here at all?”
“Sadly, no…her parents live in Swinson, but are out of the county at the moment. I guess it is just me for the time being. What can you tell me?”
“Lucky girl, Mr…”
“Peters. Malcolm Peters.”
“Lucky girl, Mr. Peters. Had that boom hit her at other than a glancing blow, she might not be with us any longer. She’s got a nasty laceration and a concussion. But as far as the x-rays, show, no skull fracture or other damage.”
Peters sighed with relief.
“Can I see her?”
“I’d give her a night’s rest for now. We’ll keep her under observation tonight, and then I’d say drop by in the morning and based on how she’s doing, I think that would be better.”
“Of course, doctor…and thank you for everything.”
He shook the physician’s hand and returned to his hotel, though he did not sleep well. It was a very frightening event
, but something in how it had all happened was bothering Peters as well. Malcolm waited until he could stand it no longer and then returned to the hospital where he checked in on Amy’s condition.
“She’s still a bit out of it,” the nurse told him, “but all things considered she’s doing pretty well.”
“Is it OK for me to visit her?”
“The doctor gave you the green light, but make it a short visit, please. We don’t want to have her overdo it.”
Malcolm nodded and made his way down the hall to the room the nurse had indicated and eased open her door. Amy was sitting up but wearing dark glasses as she turned to face him.
“Mr. Peters? How nice to see you. Excuse the glasses, but the lights are giving me headaches, and Dr. Dale said to avoid bright lights for now.”
“How are you otherwise, Amy?”
She shrugged.
“I guess OK. My head hurts, and I feel like I lost an argument with a truck, but not too bad all things considered. At least from what they tell me happened.”
“You don’t remember it?”
“Not at all. I was backstage watching your event, and then it was like I fell into a dream of some sort, although I was wide awake. Then I woke up here.”
Malcolm Peters felt a sickly tremor of uncertainty and anxiety wash over him, and he tried to hide it as best he could. He was glad Amy had no real memory of the event, though he had a feeling that could change in time, he had heard concussion victims often had memory lapses that filled in later, though he was hoping this might be one of those times that the loss of memory might be a coping mechanism for her to deal with the trauma…and that maybe it was a permanent loss. As for himself, Malcolm had this nagging suspicion that something else…something much more insidious and dangerous might have occurred.
He had never been involved in any cases professionally where a bystander became the recipient of a paranormal release he had been responsible for, but now he was worried. Just as Amy had wandered onto the stage, and just moments before she had been struck in the head, he was sure he had sensed a major release of psychic energy from the old theatre. That plus the similarity of Rosalva’s accident and what had happened to Amy gave him the shivers…much like Amy, Peters was not a big believer in coincidences. He left her to rest, not saying anything further as he did not want to put any ideas in her head, but as her folks were away on holiday, he made sure he checked in with her each day as he was still feeling a significant degree of responsibility for what had happened to her.
Haunted House Tales Page 109