Spirit Lost Read Online Free

windowsills illuminated the room enough so that John could see a large projection screen set up at one end of the room.
    The creature had retreated behind a high Chinese folding screen in a back corner. Its eerie glowing head bobbed just above the screen.
    “Take a seat, everyone,” the thing said, its voice deep and commanding now. “Especially you, John Constable. Take a seat in the front.”
    It was odd to be in this room, which was as familiar to John as his own study at home, odd to be in it when it was so strangely arranged. But John took a seat at the front of the room, and Willy sat next to him, once again putting her hand on his arm. Strange noises—creaks and groans and mad laughter and whispers—filled the room, obscuring the noise the other guests made as they cautiously filed in and took seats in the folding chairs. It was odd how pervasive the ghostly noises were, as if they came from the house itself, as if this large, old, powerful secret-filled house had found its voice.
    “Do you know what this is, John?” Willy asked in a whisper. They both could hear people around them asking one another similar questions.
    “No,” John said. “Some kind of joke, I’m sure.”
    “It’s creepy,” Willy said.
    John put his arm around Willy and pulled her to him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s just some kind of foolish trick. This is a party, remember?” He tried for lightness in his voice, but it came with difficulty in this dark room where the candlelight flickered and the glowing ghostly head bobbed and waved, its eyes and mouth now flashing, now dimming, now gleaming.
    “Is everyone comfortable?” the creature asked in its sonorous voice. “Are you comfortable, John Constable?”
    “I’m comfortable,” John replied, going along with it all.
    “Then I will present you with your own special show,” the ghost said. “John Constable—behold your life!”
    A familiar mechanical noise began, a gentle hum. John turned and saw Harrison Adder at the back of the room, bent over a slide projector. Ominous music filled the air, organ music in a minor key.
    The screen at the front of the room filled. In great crooked dripping black letters on a red background the words read:
JOHN CONSTABLE:
THE GHOSTS OF HALLOWEEN!
    The slide projector clicked, and the music changed to sweet notes from a violin, perhaps Vivaldi. The screen now read:
THE GHOST OF HALLOWEEN PAST
JOHN CONSTABLE COMES
TO THE BLACKSTONE GROUP
    There was a click, and then a picture flashed on the screen, bright with colors, fitting perfectly with the pleasant music. It was a shot taken when John had first joined the Blackstone Group; in fact, it had been used by the agency as promotional material for their group. The center of the picture showed John seated at a high worktable, pen in hand, sketching out a model kitchen. A long-haired pretty young female artist leaned over one side of the drawing board, her pencil pointing at the top of John’s sketch, and Harrison Adder and Donald Hood leaned in from the other side. Harrison’s hand was on John’s shoulder. It was the perfect picture of friendly artistic collaboration.
    “Yay!” Donald Hood yelled, and began clapping. His drunken hearty shout broke the tension in the room, and everyone else began to clap and shout out hoorays.
    The projector clicked: more dripping black letters against red.
THE GHOST OF HALLOWEEN PRESENT
JOHN CONSTABLE REMAINS
AT THE BLACKSTONE GROUP
    The music changed now to a swift-moving upbeat rock song. The slide projector clicked, and on the screen was another shot of John, this one taken quite recently, without his realizing it. Looking at it, John thought he knew who had done it and when: Erica, when she was messing around in the office one day with a camera, mugging it up, saying it had no film, pretending to be a fashion photographer.
    In this shot John was wearing a striped button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was leaning back at his desk,