Now We Can’t Sleep At Night (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 2)

by Robert Wilde

  “I really doubt they do.”

  Jeff rubbed his nose. “A thick set man who walks a dog twice a day? He sounds like someone to keep an eye on. But we need proof. Can you get me more proof?”

  “Oh we’re working on it, tomorrow’s task is to follow him and see what we can learn.”

  “Good, good, although you might need to keep the exoskeleton hidden for that one.”

  “Agreed, but we’re not leaving either of us alone. Two at all times.”

  “Very sensible.”

  “So what do you think of the meal?” Nazir interjected.

  “You’ve been waiting to ask that all night haven’t you,” Dee sighed.

  “Oh yes.”

  “This isn’t a cooking contest, it’s a serious occult investigation.”

  “There’s never a serious occult anything. It’s ridiculous by its nature.”

  “People have died,” Jeff sighed in agreement.

  “They certainly have to bring you this Chinese, yes, so?”

  “It’s good. Okay?”

  “That’ll do. Try selling it more next time.”

  “I miss food.”

  “Now you’ve set Joe off.”

  The dog and his owner had gone off for their morning walk, returned home, and the man had disappeared inside. Pohl and Nazir had been sitting in a car outside waiting for something more substantive, and when the man came back out of his home dressed in an ill-fitting suit Nazir thought he had a lead. The plan was to follow the man around, but this was the modern age and that didn’t involve creeping behind people and looking in windows. At least not when Nazir was involved. No, it involved Pohl taking over to drive a good distance behind, while Nazir controlled / played around with a civilian grade camera drone he had purchased from a shop.

  Soon the man was out walking the streets, and soon an eye in the sky was buzzing along overhead. Britain was still in a stage of drone denial, and no one thought to look up and see if they were being followed, which was perfect for Naz and team as they followed the man through the town, observed him enter a café and emerge with two coffees and a bag of something presumably tasty, take a side street, and disappear inside. A minute late Pohl pulled up outside.

  “That’s him followed then,” and Nazir smiled.

  “Well, yes, but that drone of yours isn’t exactly going to the window to discover what he’s doing is it?”

  “Okay, so there’s still a role for humans, that’s generally considered a good thing by civilization. You stay here, engine running, and I’ll go poke about.” Nazir got out, slipped down a side passage and Pohl did as told. A few minutes later Nazir returned and silently got into the car.

  “Did you see something?”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Good, good, so what did you see?”

  “Two naked men, one sucking the other off.”

  “A demonic ritual of some sort? Opening a doorway for more to come through sacrifice?”

  “I think professor you’re getting a bit carried away. It’s was a blow job. That bloke has come here because he’s got a fucking boyfriend in town.”

  “Oh. What a cheating cad.”

  “Yes, but not especially demonic behaviour.”

  “He could have seduced him with his power.”

  “I saw that man’s technique, he was seduced long ago and is now a Jedi master of suck jobs. This is, at worst, a prostitute with, at best, a gay man who can’t come out to his wife.”

  “Ah. Shall we go back and tell Dee?”

  “She’s going to take the piss out of us over this one.”

  “She’s going to mock you, yes.”

  “Great, just great.”

  “At least you were able to use your drone toy.”

  “It’s not a toy, it’s a state of the art surveillance device.”

  “The box says toy on it.”

  “Well that’s to get round the post office. And the police. And your neighbours.”

  “I see. So it’s not a toy.”

  “Categorically no.”

  “So you won’t be using it for any ridiculous schemes, like trying to watch your neighbours movie channel through his window.”

  “Who told you that? Did Joe tell you that?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Traitor.”

  “Just because someone is made of metal it doesn’t mean they’re less likely to tell people things.”

  “I’ll drain his oil when he’s not looking.”

  “You found what?”

  Nazir explained the success, or otherwise, of their mission, and Dee was in hysterics. “We send you out to do one thing and you almost manage to get into an orgy. You really are a ridiculous person Nazir.”

  “Well it’s a good thing you didn’t go, it might have warped your fragile mind.”

  “I’ve seen men fucking.”

  “On the internet.”

  “Yes on the internet. There isn’t a badge of honour.”

  “Now that would be something to start.”

  “So we’re back at square one. What we need to do is get into that house and have a good poke around.”

  “We can break in…”

  “Yes, but the demons will be out. We need to get in and assess the demonic personages. Hmm, I think I have a plan.”

  “Oh here we go. Ten quid says this ends up as some bizarre roleplaying exercise.”

  In did, because that afternoon a doorbell was rung, a woman opened it, and she found three people in suits stood on her doorstep.

  “Hello,” the front one said, an older woman with strong diction, “we’re from the council. We’re investigating issues with a pipe which runs under your property and we were hoping we could look at the structural integrity of your house.”

  “My house is going to fall down?”

  “No, probably not, but we do have to check these things, and there’s a healthy budget for any repair work.”

  “Well you’d better come in.”

  The council team, aka Pohl, Dee and Nazir entered and looked around. They were shown round all the downstairs rooms, and then upstairs, before they found themselves stood on a landing with a concerned homeowner hoping some new wallpaper was somehow going to come out of this.

  “Do you mind if we just confer and take some measurements,” Pohl asked, waving her box.

  “Of course,” and soon they were alone. Pohl switched the box on.

  “Well Joe,” Dee asked, “have you spotted anything.”

  “Oh Jesus.”

  “That’s your this is very, very bad voice. Who is the demon?”

  “Go back in the room to your right,” and the group entered the nursery, where a baby lay asleep in one corner. “Can you see it?”

  Dee reached over and flicked off the baby monitor. “No, we can not see it. What are we…”

  “Hello you fools.” It wasn’t so much the surprise of something else talking, because they were after a demon, and it wasn’t just the words, because they did feel like fools half the time. It was the voice, an antediluvian gravel which sounded like two boulders being ground together instead of words.

  “So you’re our demon,” Dee said, refusing to be afraid.

  “Oh I’m your demon. Have you found me yet?”

  “Well, no,” and Dee looked round the room, “there’s nothing in here except…” She froze, her mind suddenly catching up. All eyes turned and looked at the baby, a small pick sack of flesh that was entirely physically dependant on other people.

  “Do catch up monkeys,” the voice said laughing, “how else do you think a spirit comes into this world? It’s born!”

  “The demon is the baby.”

  “Baby demon.”

  “Fucking fuck.”

  “Don’t be so vulgar around young ears!” it barked at them.

  “Joe is he really the demon?”

  “One of them. The other is in the dog.”

  “The dog’s not young,” Nazir wondered.

  “
You have to test these things somehow,” the demon explained.

  “Ah. So what the fuck do we do now?”

  “A good question monkeys, what are you going to do about me now?”

  “Right, first of all,” Dee decided, “we’re going to move away from it answering us back. Everyone outside.”

  They trooped downstairs, and Pohl thanked the family, assured them the house was fine, and explained there wouldn’t be any money coming. They were then on the street, and they went to their car.

  “Let me be the one to sum up,” Dee said. “There is a demon who wishes to do great evil to people in the body of a baby, and another in the body of a dog, and the only thing we know how to do, to stop them, is to either put them in prison or kill them.”

  “That does seem to be the situation,” Pohl sighed.

  “I think we can rule out sending a baby to prison, because not even the fucking Victorians managed to have a cell for them.”

  “The Victorians get a lot of negative press but really…”

  “Focus Professor, focus. What I’m saying is this: we are faced with going in there and killing a baby, or ignoring it and hoping for the best.”

  “Is that really the choice?”

  “Well I’m open to other ideas. You have no idea how open and Nazir this is not the time.”

  “It’s Hobson’s Choice.”

  “Don’t you mean Sophie’s Choice?”

  “Focus people, stop avoiding the whole baby killing nastiness of it all.”

  “I’m not sure I could kill a baby,” Pohl said.

  “Even if someone else’s life, many people’s lives, depended on it? Because I think Stranos wants us to conclude they do.”

  “Even then,” the professor said sadly.

  “Okay, Nazir. You’ve killed people.”

  “Adults. Well, maybe young adults. But not a baby. I can’t do it. But can’t we use that box that keeps spirits out of Joe’s body?”

  “It works on constructs. Not flesh and bone.”

  “Right, that leaves Joe and I. Fuck it, let’s have a show of hands. All those who can’t kill a baby put them up.” Three hands went into the air.

  “I want it shown, for the record, that I’m raising my hand too,” Joe said from his box.

  “Well that’s all sorted then. The baby lives. Next item on the agenda, could we kill the dog?”

  “What?”

  “Well,” Dee explained, “the baby can’t do anything for a few years can it, except shit threateningly…”

  “They can be good at that.”

  “So if we removed the dog maybe it will get fucked off and leave. We can certainly remove its method of biting people to death.”

  “Hmm, that’s got legs.”

  “It’s a dog of course… oh, I see what you mean,” Joe finished.

  “Right, does anyone have a plan on how to kill a dog?”

  “This is like the worst version of jeopardy ever.”

  “Shut up and start thinking.”

  Nazir, Dee and Pohl were sat in the kitchen with the laptop on the table in front of them, and as they sipped they watched and waited. When a dog appeared on the screen, trotting along the path and then sitting so it could take a good look at their front door, they knew it was time to act. Next door, their neighbour also saw the dog, realised it had returned, and resolved to tempt it inside to personally return to the owner, even if it was a big dog. But all dogs liked steak, right, so he put his shoes on, got stake from his fridge, opened the door and... The dog had gone. Slightly sad he closed the door and went inside. While he'd been putting his shoes on he'd missed a robotic figure, albeit one covered in clothes, turn the corner and walk down the path, try and nonchalantly approach the dog, then grab it from behind and run into the open door of Dee's house.

  The dog was big and strong and felt itself a match for any human, which was why there were a few dead ones in this world now. But it couldn't struggle against the metal and machine which now held it, a fact the three people stood around it had bet on with their limbs. Part one of the plan had gone as smoothly as hoped, which just left the slightly more bloody part 2. That was the problem.

  “Okay, we have the dog,” Dee said.

  “We have the dog.” Nazir confirmed

  “It's still a demon right?” Dee checked.

  “Yes, very much,” Joe confirmed.

  “Okay, all we have to do is kill it.” The dog barked angrily and tried to bite. No one fleshy was within reach. Nazir pulled the pistol from his trousers, flicked the safety off, worked the slide to put a bullet in the chamber, and held the gun to the dog's head. He paused, then turned to Dee,

  “Why don’t you do this?”

  “Me? Me? You’ve killed real people.”

  “I know, but do not you want a turn.”

  “No I do not. You just don’t want to kill a dog.

  “No, no I do not.”

  “Right you big puff, give me the gun,” and she snatched it off him. “Oh Jesus he’s making those noises.” The dog had stopped growling, and was now making an endearing whining noise. “Stop doing that, stop being cute.” The dog now started licking Joe’s hands. “Oh Jesus it's licking. Oh god. Pohl, do you want a go?”

  “No.”

  “Fuck’s sake. Okay Joe, break its neck.”

  “What?

  “You're a powerful robot, you can just snap its neck, kill it.”

  “I, I’m not... I'm not killing a dog.”

  “Well one of us has to kill it." They all looked at each other. Dee put a hand to her head. ”We can’t kill it can we. We're going to have to let it go. What a total fucking shambles.”

  “Lets offer it a deal,” Pohl suggested. “Dog demon. You go your way. We'll go our way, we never meet again. Okay?”

  The dog gave a single bark.

  “Is that yes or no?”

  “Fucking hell, just release it Joe.” He put the dog down, and it turned and ran out the door. “Well I hope we're all fucking proud of ourselves,” Dee added.

  Jeff came to the front door of Dee’s house where he was let inside by Pohl. He went silently to the living room, where they were all sat in glum silence.

  “Did someone die?” he asked.

  “No, and that’s precisely the fucking point.”

  She told him then, and when she’d finished she looked at him expectantly.

  “What?” he asked, feeling her eyes burn into him.

  “Will you go and kill it?”

  “No, I will not!”

  “Right, you’re in the club, get a drink and sit with the failures.”

  Soon he had joined them.

  “It might not be that bad,” Nazir said. “We could check in regularly and make sure it wasn’t acting up.”

  “We could,” Dee said, “but that would be putting a timer on its head. You think you can watch it grow up and then decide it was naughty enough to shoot?”

  “No,” Pohl admitted.

  “No, so here we are. We have to cut loose and let it go, or we’ll be prisoners.”

  “Life was so much easier when adults were trying to kill us,” Joe sighed.

  “Exactly. Jeff,” and Dee turned to him, “you are hereby invited to find us some real fuckwit over the age of eighteen which we can beat with sticks.”

  “You might not believe me, but police have this feeling a lot. Really, a lot.”

  “You’re faced with evil babies?”

  “Not explicitly the same Nazir, but you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, sorry, I do.”

  “Are we failures or heroes?” Joe asked.

  “I believe,” Pohl replied, “that neither is appropriate for this situation, as they aren’t for most situations in life.”

  Ten: Hate

  “I fail to see how it can be the most haunted house in the county if there’s never been a sighting of anything paranormal?”

  Harold felt this entire investigation had gone downhill from that point on. It had be
en a marvellous morning, waking, drinking some obscure tea his agent had sourced for him specially, and travelling through the London streets he loved so much. If his publisher had allowed the change he’d have produced a few volumes of fiction based in and around streets which really existed, but his publisher wanted just one thing, and to many that was fiction too.

  Harold knew that Philip K Dick had made a popular career, but Harold Dick hadn’t been appreciated by publishers and the one who produced his first book changed it to Harold Darke. That should have been a clue, because soon Harold’s genuine and open minded counter investigation into Gorley had been warped into the production line of volumes where the emphasis was less on balanced examination and more on packing the spooky stories in. The latest was ‘true ghost investigations’ for every county, once a year for the last dozen, many more to come. It was tempting to sign every five to ten page chapter off with ‘Wooo Ghosties’, but no one would care.

  He’d conceded defeat and allowed the publisher to draw up a timetable of visits, with a succession of interns sniffing out new spots for Harold to turn up, do a night’s vigil, leave, and write. The latest was a house in the Midlands, and Harold had been presented with papers claiming the property was ‘the most haunted in the county’. Minor problem, that even Harold in his depressed state, could interpret: the list of sightings, alleged or (even worse) found on the internet, was blank.

  “Oh, it’s bound to be haunted,” came the reply, “have you seen what happened there?”

  Harold knew the interns weren’t paid, so he tried not to sound annoyed, but he failed. “The idea is we at least try and pick places where I have something to write about.” The intern looked blank, and Harold slunk home, packed his equipment, and next afternoon arrived at an end of terrace house with no architectural features to pin something on.

  His mind was, well, Darke. The intern thought he made it all up. The publisher expected him to make it all up. He, in truth, had been forced to make things up or work in a call centre. He was a fraudulent shit in the worst version of his career anyone had ever imagined, and he was about to enter this house and find absolutely nothing beyond dust and decades old news stories he was meant to pump up. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d actually have a heart attack, but he doubted that happened through shame alone.