The Ghost Collector

3

"I'm sorry," Rachael whispered. "I know I sound crazy. Please just...may I sleep on the sofa? I'll leave in the morning."

"Are you sure it's not someone breaking in and trying to prank you?" Amber returned the squeezed now and perched beside her, other arm looping around Rachael's cold shoulders.

"I don't know anyone who—"

Her breath sucked away as the cello started playing again. A melody fit for the dark recesses of a castle, a place where no one would find you before the morning, a place with no way out.

"I know," Rachael gasped, "I'll call my boss."

"What?" Amber looked at her like she'd grown an extra head.

"I think I remember his number. Can I borrow your phone? I left mine—" 

"That is it!"

At their neighbour's furious shout, the two women clung tight to each other, an awkward embrace of elbows and too-firm fingers. They stared at the door like he might come kicking it down. 

"I'm calling the police!" His rage only grew louder as he returned to Rachael's door and pounded against it. "You fucking deaf?"

Drying her sweaty hands on her trousers, Amber freed herself from the crushing hug and crept to her front door.

"What are you doing?" Rachael hissed. "Don't open it."

Amber clicked her tongue at Rachael for stating the obvious. "I won't." 

A tinny ringtone started in the hallway outside. "You hear that?" the man shouted. "I'm calling the police." In reply, someone unlatched a door lock, the click and shunk loud in the quietness of night time. 

Amber pressed to the spy-hole in her door, her whole body leaning against the wood, breath fogging against the glossy paint. "Holy shit..."

A compressed voice spoke from the neighbour's speakerphone, "Hello, what emergency service do you—" It cut off. The cello stopped playing.

Rachael hopped to her feet and scurried over. She watched Amber's face, her wide eyes transfixed on whatever was happening. 

"Tell me."

"Your door has opened."

Prickles raced from Rachael's head and scurried down her exposed arms. The carpet beneath her feet seemed hard as stone. "Let me out," she whispered, trying to push Amber aside to get at the door handle.

"No way!" Amber hissed. "You don't know how he'll react when he sees you."

"You don't understand." Rachael felt a trembling in her very core. "He could get hurt. I can't let him go in if—"

"Stop fucking around!" The man's ferocity didn't sound so bold anymore. 

Amber glued herself back to the spy-hole. 

"Please, Amber."

"You're so worried?" she shot back. "Call the police." She paused to give Rachael a serious once-over. "You just came in here terrified, and now you're worried about some asshole getting hurt, too. That is a trained professional scenario. Are you going to call the police?"

Maybe it was a prank and not a ghost at all. But all her instincts said otherwise. Rachael shook her head, pressure mounting in her chest with each breath. Unsurprised, Amber resumed watching. She gasped.

"He's going in. Your flat's dark, I can't — wait." 

As the seconds passed, Rachael hugged herself.

"There's someone else in there, with the cello. Christ, Rachael, they're...wearing a mask. They're..."

"What?"

Amber looked like she was remembering how to breathe. Rachael covered her mouth, too afraid to interrupt, to even know what she saw. 

The cello twanged like it had been dropped to the floor. The man yelled in fright before abruptly cutting off. A door slammed, and Amber lurched back from the spy-hole with a scream. She scrabbled as far from the door as possible, over the back of the sofa, farther still until she pinned herself against the wall like she hoped the mortar would suck her in.

"Oh my God," she warbled like she wanted to cry but fear dominated all of her senses. "A ghost—it—it came at me—its eyes—it charged at the door... It was really there!"

Rachael's boss told her not to be afraid of ghosts. He swore that if you told them to "piss off" and "behave, you're just annoying," it usually did the trick. As Rachael flung open Amber's door, she decided he'd obviously never met a poltergeist. 

The volto mask sat on the hallway floor at her feet, staring up at her.