The Gun

[Joselle]

Alex Groham

"I hope you're serious about this." Groham throatily began as he rubbed the bottom of his nose with his index finger. He glanced around at the room. It was a humbly furnished room--well, if those boxes could be considered as 'furniture'. Though it seemed innocuous by the naked eye, there was a certain, heavy vibe in the atmosphere. Then a breath of cold air kissed their skins.

Groham grunted, indifferent to the drop in temperature but was nonetheless weary. "Some kids took this task before. A few of them ended up leaving after the couple of minutes." He cleared his throat, still standing by the door.

"Eh... I don't know too much about the paranormal to be honest. But one of the blokes who works here--the cleaner boy kept on telling me that there's something in here. He might know more than me n' I can bring him here if that helps. He's a little stupid--not smart enough to lie. Eh. I'll bring him."

With that gave them a slight nod as a gesture of a momentary farewell. The large man trotted off to find the kid.

[Deleted]

As he walked behind the two, Jia felt his phone buzz again. He pulled it out, only to blink in amusement at the picture his friend had taken during the Maximantics gala. Is that… that Kirkland guy? Indeed, the very one, running for Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The boy felt himself snickering. Brilliant! He owed Sindri one, most definitely.
The chill that ran down his spine was what brought Jia back to reality. He looked around the boxes and the hangers. Not the coziest place, but far from haunted. As for the cold, it was certainly nothing but a draft. A glance to Lucille and another to the manager only told him to keep on playing. ”There might be something here, yes. We’ll look around if you don’t mind.”

When the man turned around and left, Jia stepped into the room. The place indeed felt a little… stagnate, maybe. Oppressive, perhaps. There was just something about it that he couldn’t quite place, but Jia and his skepticism found “odd” to be a too common occurrence in shady, war themed old pubs in London. With a sigh, he looked back to his companion. ”So, what do you think?” But when no other worldly footsteps were heard, no bloody words appeared on the wall, and no angry spirits tried to expel them, the Chinese rolled his eyes.

But never mind the ghost; he had better news for her. In a swift move, Jia pulled his phone up again and offered it to Lucille, with the picture of the drink soaked candidate shining in the screen. ”At least one of us three is having fun. Sindri just texted me this from his party.”

[Deleted]

"Ugh." Lucille shivered as a breath of cold wind blew past them. Well, it added to the atmosphere all right. Where did the draft even come from in the first place? Glancing at her friend and the big guy, none of them seemed to be bothered by... whatever it was. She crossed her arms to ward off the lowering temperature, but chalked it up to her imagination easily enough.

"No worries, dude," she said as she stepped aside to let their temporary employer out. "We got this." Her eyes slid over to Jia, catching his look. Yeah right, they had this. As far as she was concerned, her only experience with paranormal stuff were horror movies and the occasional creepypasta that her friends forwarded out of paranoia (all of which she'd casually deleted, and no harm had come to her yet).

Once the manager was well and out of sight, Lucille trotted into the dim room. She eyed the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling warily—ghost or no ghost, it would be freaky if the pitiful little bulb went out—but diverted her attention in favor of the meager furnishings that scattered around the room. She went over to the cabinet, peeking into it curiously as she opened its doors. It was a dusty little thing, with a few coats hanging from the rack and a pair of working boots in the corner. Finding its contents to be of little interest to her, she shut the doors again.

Spinning around with a scrape of her boots against the creaky, wooden floor, she took to poking around the discarded boxes. "Well, whatever ghost it was it must've lived a pretty depressing life if it's haunting a pub," she remarked in answering Jia's question.

In all honesty, however, she was curious. After all, the big guy had said that they weren't the only ones to try out this little mission before, and if it was one thing teenagers didn't like it was being made a fool of, and there could hardly be anything that was much more embarrassing than pissing themselves over some ghost. Still—the theoretical poltergeist really could have chosen a classier place to loiter, rather than the small, dusty storage room of an only mildly-reputable bar.

However, Lucille perked up at the mention of Sindri. "Oh? What'd he say?" she asked as she bounced over to her friend. She peered at the screen of his phone, a beat passing before her eyes widened.

"Woah what?!" she exclaimed, once the image had fully registered. She snatched the mobile from Jia's hand and lowered her head, frowning down at the picture. "No fucking way—is that Arthur? As in like, cousin of the kid I babysit and future PM?" A moment passed in silence before she breathed out, the air leaving her lips in a low, impressed whistle. "Daaamn."

Returning the device to her friend, she tugged absentmindedly on one of her pigtails instead. On one hand, she found it hilarious that Arthur had been the victim of an upper-class tantrum, but on the other hand—well, conflict between her regular employer and Jia's future brother-in-law boyfriend's brother? Talk about awkward.

She planted a fist on her hip and huffed. "Well, I guess that's how it is with guys," she said flippantly. "You can never just like, hold your mouths, can you?" As though she were the one to talk. But then, with a small giggle, she added, "But anyway, I hope the press got some good shots." The next time she had to meet up with Peter would be priceless.

[Joselle]

Philip

Nervous. Finicky. Nervous. Much nervous. Groham told him to talk to these two strangers when he really didn't want to. Breathe. Breathe.

Philip walked as he fidgeted with his fist. He was a short and lanky man. His complexion was gaunt and sickly pale, as if he hadn't gotten enough sleep for the past couple of weeks.

"Y-You're the two huh... Oh boy." He muttered as he bent down, getting ready to sit, as he groped around behind him for a seat. Once he found a surface, he shifted to the side and sat on a wooden crate. The man looked around and then cleared his throat. "Erm... You'd want to look at the corner over there... you know, where that sink and mirror is?"

He winced. "Eh... W-Well if you want to hear the story I suggest you sit around maybe."