five-foot-nothing frame could somehow repel a three-hundred pound ghost man.
And it was working. He seemed bizarrely hesitant to do anything. He wasn't moving forward, taking a swing at her, no actions of any sort. Maybe he was just as confused as I was, because honestly, I almost missed the 'click' that signified the door cracking through whatever was holding it shut. It slid so hard into the wall that I didn't so much walk into the hidden room as trip into it face first, my support suddenly not supporting me anymore.
This adventure was not allowing me a great deal of dignity. Just like, in general.
I scrambled to my feet, spitting out dust that was probably older than I was, and grabbed the back of Lydia's dress. I yanked, and thankfully the dress held; I ended up with a woman in my arms and a ghost on the other side of an easily-closed door, not a dress in my hands and a woman in her underwear facing down a killer phantom.
I slammed the hidden door shut, the frustrated screams of Mr. Stanfield echoing through the room outside, but oddly not reaching the hidden little closet.
“Well!” I said. “That was fun. Good exercise, right Lyd?”
Lydia just kind of desperately panted, apparently not able to get out real-people words right this moment. She had almost gotten me killed, but she had also just saved my life, so I was willing to be patient. I let her catch her breath while I looked around.
We had come to rest in a second closet, hidden behind the pantry by that annoyingly sticky fake wall. It was smaller than the main storage section, but similarly appointed: a bare room with wooden shelving covering the walls. The major difference was that this room wasn't on any of the blueprints, and these shelves were not only not empty, they were covered in some very, very... well, they were weird.
“Huh,” I said. A very eloquent soul, am I. “Well, didn't see this coming.”
Lydia's eyes were wide in stark, raving terror. I started to wonder if she had any other expressions. “It... it was just like... my family, it was just like when...!”
“Hey! Hey! Breathe deep, okay? Breathe nice and deep. You were right about the room near the kitchen, okay? It didn't follow us in here, we can rest here for at least a little while, so you can chill.” I said. “You did good, sweetie. Remembering this place, I mean. Sometimes, ghosts won't enter certain places. The specific spot where they died is a popular one, but another big one is a room that had special significance to their lives, a place filled with reminders that they're afraid to risk damaging. I think that's what we have here.”
“It won't follow? We are safe?” She asked, her frantic breathing slowing just a bit.
“He'll come in here eventually. Before his powers start to wane, he'll try to drive us out by force. But as long as he has energy to burn, he won't risk it.” I said. “So we're not exactly safe, but we have a bit of time to rest, hopefully look around to find out what is so special about this room, and if that information can be used against our buddy out there.”
I rifled through the shelves, opening a few stray bottles and carefully sniffing at the contents, checking inside a few of the boxes, and flipping through what appeared to be old and mostly worn out photo albums and journals. The trend was a bit, erm, off-putting. Yes, that was a good word for it.
“Offhand?” I began. “I'd say that this place was very dear to his heart, and that heart was black as pitch and full of maggots. Yes, it really does look like this was where he, yuck, stored his toys.”
Lydia blinked in confusion. “Your meaning eludes me, I'm afraid. I see only bottles, and some old boxes.”
“Not everyone plays Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” I said, looking around the closet. “For instance, take a look at what the good Mr. Stanfield out there was storing in all those bottles: A lot of it is too worn to read, but I can make some labels. Formaldehyde, arsenic, chloroform... not exactly the sort of stuff a well-adjusted mind keeps in the pantry. And as for those boxes, well, the contents are even creepier, if that's possible. For example, let's look in this one and oh my, what an oddly large variety of knives our friend owned. And yes, there we go: his favorite hook! So dear to his heart he made a ghostly copy of it just to keep it close. See what I told you? Sentimental value, all over the place. He sure did keep his toys here, and off-hand, I'mma say our ghoulie-ghostie buddy outside had kind of specialized tastes in his playtime. The kind of game the other person only plays once, for instance.”
“He... he...” the girl stammered, her eyes somehow widening even further. Geez, were they gonna fall out of her head? I mean, I had never seen a human person with eyes that did that, but until today I'd also never seen the lovechild of every masked movie killer ever roaring down a hallway at me brandishing a rusty hook. It was a day of firsts, is my point.
Errantly, I took a box off the upper shelves and opened it. Part of me wished I hadn't, as there was, erm, a noticeable increase in the odor upon breaking the seal. Sadly, I'm cursed with a boundless curiosity that doesn't always lead me into good things. And I had to admit, if nothing else, the contents of the box gave me something that might calm my jumpy little sidekick down a bit.
“Huh. Well, if it makes you feel better, it looks like you weren't his type,” I said, rifling through several black-and-white photos of very young, very pretty, very dead women, each wrapped in wax paper with a lock of what may have once been hair and was now mostly dust and rot. “It's hard to be sure with how old these are, but from what I can make out, Harry apparently really preferred blondes.”
Somehow, Lydia didn't look terribly calmed by this. I swear, there is just no satisfying some people, you know?
“You... you mean he really was a...” She began.
“Serial killer? Oh, yes. Apparently, the rumors of his sordid personal affairs were greatly understated, if anything. People used to say he killed anyone who trespassed on his property... turns out you didn't even have to do that much. But hey, in a way, that's a good thing!” I said. A master of positive thinking, I am.
“I fail to understand your joy!” Lydia snapped. Sadly, my knack for keeping a bright and cheery attitude was not one shared by my associate. There really is just no pleasing some people, I swear.
“Well, admittedly, it's mostly good in the sense that this means I don't have to worry about his feelings, the prick. The more of a douche he turns out to have been in life, the more joy I'm gonna get from kicking his undead ass,” I replied cheerfully. “So that's a nice weight off my shoulders. Morally speaking.”
Lydia was silent for the better part of a minute. Finally, she said, very slowly and deliberately, “Good sir?”
“Yes, Lyd?” I asked. It's good to seek knowledge!
“Does this information, in any way at all, help to keep us alive?” Lydia asked. With each word, her voice grew higher in pitch, until by the end I was starting to worry that she'd shatter the bottles on the shelves. And hey, it turned out she could have another expression besides fear. Granted, 'disbelieving annoyance' wasn't a huge improvement to me. But still, good for her! I always knew she could do it.
“Not in the strictest sense, no.” I admitted. “But that's what planning is for, right? And there's no such thing as bad knowledge, Lyd. It might not be useful to know he's a relentless thrill-killer, but it doesn't hurt either, right? We were already running from him anyway, it's not like we're all that inconvenienced by the fact he wants to kill us. We knew he wanted to kill us.”
“... Are you quite sane?” Lydia asked.
I ignored her. “But anyway, back to planning. You mind if I think out loud?”
“I suspect you would not listen if I asked you not to.”
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhh, you're disrupting the creative process,” I said. “Okay, so here's what I got from that whole display out there, all the blood and bugs and the jerk with the hook. This ghost is... weird.”
Lydia's mouth opened and closed several times, but no words came out. I assumed her to be struck sil
ent by my genius, and paid it no mind. It's so hard to be so constantly brilliant, you know? I so rarely find anyone I can talk to.
“I mean, all the junk he does, that's normal ghost stuff. But I can't work out how he's pulling it all off. He should still be... re-arranging plates and rattling windows, not flooding the house and definitely not taking physical form! There is just no way he should be so fucking strong, not this soon.” I said. “You're part of it, I know that, but all of it? You have a lot of unreasoning terror going on, sure, and that's like candy mixed with rocket fuel to a ghost. … Which in retrospect, sounds both disgusting and unhealthy, so maybe I should think of a better metaphor for i-”
“Focus, sir!” Lydia snapped.
“-right, sorry! Focusing now. Okay, my point was that you're only one person and you haven't been here that long. He should be capable of basic telekinesis, poltergeisty garbage at best. Not... not that! Reality warping, manifesting avatars, making a mess of my new kitchen? And it is mine now, you prick, I have already made the arrangements! I shall find a way to bill those cupboards to your ghost-account and you will pay me for them!” I said, raising my voice so Harry could hear me.
“Are you quite sane, sir?” Lydia asked me once again, confused irritation rapidly beginning to replace fear as her default