“Tell me that was you, Charlie,” Lyle said after he’d ushered the three sitters out the door. “Tell me that was some new gag that went wrong.”
Charlie shook his head. “Nuh-uh. I was crawlin’ my way to the table with the dog whistle when the spirits started wrecking things.”
“The spirits? Charlie, boy, have you lost your mind?”
“Forgive me, Lord, I know it’s a sin to believe in such things, but how else you gonna explain what happened here?”
“Last night you said it was God sending us a warning, now it’s spirits? Make up your mind, Charlie.”
“Making up my mind ain’t the point, yo. I don’t know what’s happenin’, but you gotta be blind or stupid or both not to know something’s happenin’!”
“Yeah. We’re being gaslighted. You saw that guy running last night. You saw the gas can. You going to tell me now that was a spirit?”
“No. Course not. But that different. That—”
“No different. They couldn’t burn us out, so they’re trying to scare us out. First the doors and windows, now this. Same people behind everything.”
“Yeah?” Charlie said. “Then we up against some real geniuses. Anybody who can open and close windows and doors and mess up a room like they did today should be workin’ for the CIA.”
“Maybe they once did. CIA’s into everything.” He gestured at the shattered windows. “Sound shatters glass, right? How about ultra-high frequency sound waves that …”
Charlie was shaking his head. “No way. We got company,
man. Told you that last night. The earthquake opened a gate and shook somethin’ loose. This house possessed, yo.”
“And I told you I’m not going there! Some very human assholes tried to scare us and scare off our sitters. That’s it, pure and simple. But guess what? It backfired. The fish thought they witnessed a bona fide, super-duper supernatural event and they’re totally sold. They think Ifasen’s the realest of the real deals and they want more-more-more!” He started when the phone rang. Without thinking—normally he’d check the ID or let the voice mail pick it up—he snatched it off the cradle.
“Yeah, what?” he snapped.