Purgatech: Adrian's Ghost-hunting Angst

Chapter Twelve: Such A Scream

Twelve:

Adrian was alone.

He hadn't been alone in his home for a very long time; it was an unsettling feeling. Eliza left, not only him but everything he brought into the house. She was afraid, and where he was too, he'd never give the ghosts, himself or even Eliza the satisfaction of seeing him weak. Weakness was nothing he aspired to, even in his lazy day today. He never claimed to be something he was not, nor would he try to attain that which was out of his grip, but he knew his own limits. He knew where he stood and where it would take him, that didn't mean, from time to time, he could not hide behind his petty veneer of self-delusion.

"What do you want from me?" He shouted into an empty house. Nothing replied.

"Where are you, you bastards? Tommy? Owen? Old b***h?" He roared, still he was afraid. He went from the bedroom, down the hall, which was now well lit with Eliza who had mad a hasty retreat to wherever she would be going, Probably her mothers Adrian assumed. That would be great, another reason for the old woman to hate him just a little bit more. Not that he expected to see Eliza again for a very long time, if ever. He was now stuck alone. He didn't want to go to work because he needed to find the solution to the ghosts that now haunted his home. He didn't want to sleep, because what if they came to get him while he was off in gentle slumber?

No, Adrian was torn between an inevitable eventuality. One that he'd not seen coming behind his own skepticism. Not that if anyone told him he'd be standing in his kitchen in piss stained pajama pants, a bottle of scotch being poured down his throat and a half-lit cigarette in his hand because of ghosts, he'd ever believed them. That would be foolish, right? Ghost's weren't real.

They were just a figment of one's imagination, a subconscious evaluation of a scenario that played out somewhere in their lives before and now manifested in the day to day because of any number of factors. That made more sense to Adrian, that was, before the events that happened in his bedroom. Now there was nothing but a belief that poured through him. His home was haunted and he was the victim they chased. The Old Hag, Tommy, Owen, they were all part of the grand scheme, one that Adrian could never have known.

One of the most dire of results behind it.

So what could Adrian do but finish his drink, get so drunk he could no longer stand, and collapse to the ground in a drunken stupor? Nothing. He had nothing more to do but get so drunk that he could no longer walk, fall to the ground in the living room where he got carpet burned on his face, and sleep in a puddle of his own puke.

This was the only option of rest, for a man who had lost his way.

~ ~ ~

Adrian woke up to an empty house. He rose from the floor, where the dried puke crusted on his hands and face and dashed to the bathroom where he expelled a second bout of vomit from his system. It was somewhere between the stench, the hangover and all the rest that brought his sickness up. Always a little squeamish, he never had the ability to keep everything down when there was a particular smell, when he felt a little woozy or lightheaded and so on.

And never knowing his limits, he always went overboard. Following the events of the previous evening, this was only natural. The ghosts were happily roaming his home and invading his mind without his want, Eliza left him and he knew there would be no way of telling what the situation would end up as until she returned. Adrian believes that it would never remedy itself, of course, seeing that she warned him and he still ended up going on his own path anyway.

And then he thought of Martin, and what his take on the ordeal would be. It would be an I Told You So moment that Adrian knew he would not be able to face and so he left it for another few days. This was his vacation. On Monday he would deal with everything again. For now, he entered the living room to clean his mess, the black stained contents of his belly, having seeped into the floor through the evening and proved difficult to remove. When they were out, he fried up eggs, bacon, and toast, accompanied by a glass of orange juice and a cigarette. He ate outside in the garden, hoping that he would find the ghost that haunted him the night before so he could confront it head on but nothing appeared. It was only him.

Birds were chirping and he heard children in the street from behind the wall that was at his back. He wondered why they weren't in school, and inspecting his cellphone realized that it was already late afternoon. He'd slept over sixteen hours, which was uncommon for him, but he blamed the booze. Not that anything happened through the morning. Everyone was busy. Those who weren't directly involved didn't bother getting in contact because he was on holiday, Eliza only just escaped a fate far worse than death, and the wounds were tender.

So he went to the swimming pool and dove head first, dressed in his pajama pants and the accompanying white t-shirt. He held his breath and stayed beneath the water until his lungs began burning. When they did, he pushed himself out and gasped for air, panting. When he was under, with his eyes clothed, it was the closest he'd come to weeping in years. The last was at the death of his dog, Stanley, who passed away in the most tragic of ways.

Escaping from their yard, he walked over to a neighbor who had fierce mutts as pets. Trying to pull him through, they shattered bones in his chest, causing hemorrhaging and internal bleeding until he passed the next morning. That was Adrian's hardest day, it broke him inside. He'd formed a connection with the dog instantly the moment Adrian saw Stanley at the shelter and he knew he had to take it.

And so he did.

Eliza took it hard too, but Adrian believed that her empathetic nature clung to his sorrow more than her own sadness towards the dog's death.

And then he snapped back to reality, from the events of that dark day. Why did they even cross his mind? He wondered. The dog was long gone, he hadn't felt sad about it, nor did he care until this moment, so why then did it burden him then? Maybe it was just the weight of the depression that he felt from the ghosts that spurred and having no idea how to deal with them; maybe it was because of the regretful nature that hangover's generally brought over him.

"What else can I find to mess up today?" He wondered, floating in the pool, one hand over his eyes to block it from the sun. Maybe there was nothing to mess up. Maybe it was just time to lay in the pool, be lazy and do nothing about everything that happened. He was numb inside already, so why bother trying to make it anything else? There was no point, after all, it was just another day in paradise, right? He got out of the pool, taking his shirt off. It was something he seldom did when Eliza was home. He was ashamed of the way he looked, even though there was no real need to. He had stretch marks on his love handles, midsection and belly, but that was because of an excessive weight gain with the more stressful nature that life took. He was unfortunate in the way that he gained instead of lost, and he hated himself for it.

He hung his shirt out in the sun, took off his pants too. The high walls and trees surrounding obscured the vision of anyone that would have been able to see in from any side or street. When naked, he lay on the side of the pool until he was dry enough to enter the house without worried about dripping over tiles and carpet to make his way to the bedroom.

When he got to the bedroom, he gave up on trying to figure anything else out for the day, heading into the shower, finishing off without washing his hair – another daily ritual that killed him not to take part in, but it was one of those things. This was reality, sure, but it seemed the ghosts in the real world and those in the movies had the same hidden agendas. They seemed to enjoy the jump scares and he would not be stupid enough to face a jump scare in the shower and risk getting soap in his eye.

After his shower, he had one more cigarette, a glass of bourbon in real hair of the dog fashion and headed to the living room. For a good while, he considered grabbing the Purgatech cell phone to go over everything one more time. Make sure that there was nothing in his home and that he was safe, but he gave up on that idea soon enough.

Another consideration was to head to the study, where he would smoke another cigarette – the third in less than an hour – and get behind the computer where he could do some research on everything he saw and try and figure a way out of it. Adrian wanted to do more research about Purgatech, the experiment and he wanted to see if anyone else was having similar, negative experiences that they posted on social media or something of the like.

That would bring some ease to his mind, he thought. With the uneasiness of everything that was going on, he felt that it would be welcomed to get some sense of comfort, that at least someone else was having a s**t time just like him. But that was just trying to get a negative response that would boost his own ego and there would be no real change to his situation.

And that's what he needed now, to find a solution. Another thought that crossed his mind was going online so that he could watch stupid videos that would, for however long it could, distract him from reality for a while. That was what he really wanted. A distraction from being alive.

That's why he believed he was here, in his recliner, with his feet kicked up, the bottle of whiskey and a tumbler at his side, flicking through the channels that came on. Nothing really caught his fancy, so he took a look at what was recorded and there was a few British television shows that he thought would be a good laugh. One of his favorites at that moment had been Come Dine With Me. A series dedicated to four poor souls that invited complete strangers into their home for a meal, then they got scored on their performance, cooking and so on. So he rested, watched his shows and drank. He had no intention of getting through another bottle in the span of a few minutes and would keep his wits about him now. There would be nothing that could get in his way, not tonight, but nothing happened. Eliza didn't return, nor did the ghosts. Adrian was alone, facing the empty home that felt like a mansion when he stood alone in it. Jhe wondered if this was it, now.

If his life was would be reduced to nothing but the torment of loneliness and self-pity, but that couldn't be right. He would be able to go out and make friends, had that been the case.

Adrian laughed, knowing that this was a lie.