Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel

‘Go on, ask a question.’

Toby watched the smoke rise and twirl up to meet the velvet sky. It really did look like velvet tonight, though if he was truthful, he wasn’t exactly sure what sort of fabric velvet was. Soft though. It had to be soft. He reached out a hand and the smoke twined around his fingers. He could stroke the sky from here. His sister elbowed him in his side.

‘Ask a question,’ she ordered
.

He blinked at her, squinted, and watched her pale face contort in the candle light.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘She’s not going to answer.’

‘She might.’ Tully’s voice was constricted, and he could see her throat working.

‘You’re taking this seriously?’ he asked.

Another poke in the side from her elbow, sharp as a needle. ‘Of course I’m taking this seriously. Why can’t you? Just for five minutes?’

He took a deep drag on the joint before answering her, holding the smoke in his lungs to the count of five, then let it dribble slowly from his nostrils.

‘Because she’s dead,’ he said at last. His sister’s eyes rolled around in her head like a pair of glossy marbles.

‘Well duh, Toby, that’s why we’re doing this. Otherwise I’d be sending her an email or picking up the damned phone. Shit.’

Heaving himself up into a sitting position, Toby shifted on the grass and
squinted, focusing on the candle flame flickering in the slight summer breeze. He sniffed, pinched the joint between his fingers, and tapped a bit of ash from the end. Tully made another sound of impatience and nipped the joint from him.

‘You could at least pretend to take this seriously.’ She sucked on the
joint, wetting the paper with her lipstick.

‘You’ve been watching too many of those programmes.’

She played dense. ‘What programmes?’ Her words were shrouded in fragrant smoke and he pursed his lips and breathed a little of it in, falling back onto his elbows again, ready to contemplate the sky – perhaps it was more like silk than velvet. Silk rippling with stars. Yeah, that was pretty poetic. He smiled at it.

‘They get results on those programmes, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. They get the spirits to turn torches on and off – you should see it, it’s bloody amazing.
’ She stopped to suck on the joint again. ‘And they just about always get the EVP’s.’

Toby waved a lazy hand at her. ‘It’s all faked for TV, Tully. You know that.
When you’re dead, you’re dead.’

She shook her head and passed the joint back to him. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Yeah, sure it’s all been edited and shit – the boring bits taken out. But they play original footage from the investigations, and they play the EVP’s and I’m telling you it works.’

He scrunched his eyes up and the stars tripled in numbers. ‘What’s EVP again?’

A long-suffering sigh. ‘E
lectronic Voice Phenomena. Jeez Toby, I told you this already.’

‘And you just ask questions into thin air?’

There was rustling beside him and his sister settled down on her back beside him, looking upwards at the stars. ‘You ask if there are any spirts around, say you want to talk to them.’ She sniffed. ‘We could ask for Mum to come through, speak to us.’

‘How would we know it was her?’

‘We could ask her things only she would know.’

The tissue paper was damp where she’d had her lips. He grimaced and pulled the smoke into his lungs anyway. Held it there. ‘Aren’t you talking about Ouija boards?’

He felt her shrug. ‘Those things are dangerous. This is safer.’

‘How?’

She rolled over and got to her knees, looked down over him, and now her eyes were glittering brighter than the stars. They looked like stars. Wet stars.

‘I just thought we could try,’ she said. ‘That’s all. Just try. It’s not like it takes a lot of effort. Just a couple questions.’

‘It works on these programmes you watch?’

She slumped back down onto the grass. ‘Don’t you miss her sometimes?’

Toby looked back at the stars and shrugged. ‘Can’t miss what I’ve never known.’

‘Of course you can. I miss her every day.’

‘I’ve got you.’

That shut her up. Toby sniffed. The pungent smoke
made his throat and lungs feel thick, like there were cobwebs in there. He closed his eyes, and Tully lay back down beside him. After a moment, her hand touched his, burrowed into it and he squeezed her fingers thinking he shouldn’t let her smoke. It always made her like this. If he looked over at her he’d probably see little tear tracks down her cheeks.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Let’s go do some real ghost hunting.’

Her fingers stiffened in his hand. ‘What do you mean?’

‘
The old insane asylum’s up there. Seacliff.’ He nodded vaguely at the hills behind them. ‘I bet if we went up there, you’d get an EVP. One of those poor bitches who burned to death.’

‘The buildings have all been pulled down.’

He brought the joint, scarcely more than a roach now, to his lips with his free hand and squinted through the smoke. ‘Where the buildings were - they call it the Enchanted Forest,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Besides, the spirits will still haunt the place, right? Even with the buildings gone. Though you can see some of the foundations, and there’re a couple walls still standing.’

She pulled her hand from his and sat up, leaning over him.

‘You’ve been there?’

‘Yeah. Steve
and I went up there with a couple girls once.’ He waved his hand, the smoke sending lazy signals into the air. ‘Was a creepy place even in the daylight. You know they made a horror movie there not long ago?’

He had her attention now, even though the place hadn’t really been all that creepy. Probably
would be at night; he wasn’t sure. He could practically feel the cogs turning in his twin sister’s head. He imagined them, twisting and turning inside her skull. Steam-powered. He grinned up at the sky.

A rustling from the bushes and someone appeared from the path to the house,
flung themselves to the ground, and pressed a cold bottle into his hand.

‘What are you guys doing?’
Lara, Tully’s best friend.

It was Tully who answered. ‘We’re going ghost hunting,’ she said. Toby’s grin widened.

‘Cool. Where?’

‘Up at Seacliff. The old lunatic asylum?’

Lara gave a theatrical shudder. ‘Sounds freaky already. Count me in.’ She turned her head and shouted back up at the house. ‘Hey Matt! We’re going ghost hunting!’

Tully giggled. ‘Shh.
Jeez, we don’t need to tell the whole neighbourhood.’

‘Don’t worry about it. The old folks next door are deaf as a couple fence posts.’

Matt pushed his way down the overgrown path to the tiny lawn where they lay, and Toby heard him skitter to a halt on the gritty little estuary beach beside them. Tully’s candle blew out. Flicking the nub of the joint into the water, Toby pressed the beer bottle against his lips, the glass cold against his skin. He licked away some of the condensation, then sat up and twisted the top off. The beer smelled yellow and yeasty. He giggled at the word yeasty, liking the way it sounded damp and fragrant.

Tully punched him on the arm, spilling some of the beer. ‘Pull yourself together. You
gotta drive.’

Shaking his head, he licked the beer from his hand. ‘Nope. Not me.’

‘I’ll drive,’ Lara said. ‘I’m good to go.’

‘What are we doing?’ Matt asked.

Lara leapt up and swung herself into his arms, pulling them around her and giving another of her mock shudders. ‘We’re going ghost hunting.’

‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Matt said, burying his face in her hair and making her giggle.

‘Well you’re going to get the fright of your life then, aren’t you? When we see some of the poor spirits of the insane.’ Lara wriggled in his arms.

‘Insane?’

Tully piped up. ‘We’re going to go up to Seacliff.’

Matt
lifted his head from Lara’s neck. ‘To the old lunatic asylum? There’s nothing there anymore.’

‘Yeah there is,’ Toby said. ‘There’s the Enchanted Forest.’