Sparrow Girl Read online

  SPARROW GIRL

  Kate Genet

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Sparrow Girl

  The sinister, the terrible never deceive: the state in which they leave us is always one of enlightenment.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Three | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Four | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Five | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Six | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Seven | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  Chapter Eight | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Nine | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Ten | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Eleven | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  Chapter Twelve | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Thirteen | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Fourteen | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  Chapter Fifteen | 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Kate Genet is a New Zealand writer of supernatural suspense, apocalyptic, and crime fiction. Find out more at kategenet.com

  Remnant | (book 2 coming soon 2016)

  Sparrow Girl | Psychopathia | Simulacra | Dorado

  Close To Home | (Coming Soon 2016)

  Sign up for Kate Genet's Mailing List

  Copyright © 2014 by Kate Genet.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Chamberlain Press

  Dunedin, NZ

  www.kategenet.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout & Design ©2013 - BookDesignTemplates.com

  Cover Design: Elderlemon Designs

  Ordering Information:

  Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the “Special Sales Department” at the web address above.

  Sparrow Girl/ Kate Genet.—1st ed.

  ISBN 9781516366101

  The sinister, the terrible never deceive: the state in which they leave us is always one of enlightenment.

  ―THOMAS LIGOTTI – THE MEDUSA

  Chapter One

  ‘It has to be something frightening.’

  Stacy looked over the table at the boss man. ‘But we’re agreed, right?’ she said. ‘We’re planning on inventing a ghost – bringing it to life – you know, manifesting a thought-form and making whatever it is real. That really means we don’t want it to have claws, teeth, a taste for blood, that sort of thing.’

  Darryl, also known as Boss Man, among other occasional things, sniffed, then spread his lips in a grin. ‘It’s going to be awesome whether it works or not. We’ve the perfect place to shoot the television episodes, and remember – in the end, the thing probably won’t even be real, but we’ll get lots of good shots anyway.’

  She could feel her eyeballs rolling around in her head like it was a pinball machine. ‘If it’s not real, then what’s the point to doing this at all?’

  Another happy grin. ‘Ratings.’

  Stifling a sigh, Stacy tapped her fingers on the table. ‘So what’s it going to be, then?’

  Along the table, Martin piped up. ‘Just making it a regular person wouldn’t be all that interesting. I mean, we’re basing this off the Philip Experiment, right? But our audience is all far more familiar with Slender Man, and what with that stabbing in Slendy’s name, wouldn’t we be better off inventing something like him?’ He subsided, cheeks flushing a slow rose. ‘If we’re after ratings, that is.’

  Darryl looked toward the door. ‘Ratings is the name of the game. Bottom line, people, ratings keep you in a job.’

  Which meant that their experiment had to be sensational. Stacy leaned back in her chair. The Philip Experiment, in the early seventies, had been considered a phenomenal success – a ghost created solely from the minds of a bunch of paranormal investigators, a ghost that rapped yes and no answers, that walked tables around the room, that knew his own – made-up – history, and the general history of his designated era, but all the same, it didn’t hit the mainstream, and why?

  Stacy looked down at her laptop keyboard. Sensationalism, that was why. Good old ghostly Philip never hurt anyone, never even scared anyone – she’d watched the video footage of some of the séances, and they were singing for heaven’s sakes. Singing and laughing and generally having a blast. No wonder Darryl was taking the stance he was.

  His show – their show – was based on giving the viewer a good scare. One of the most popular paranormal investigations shows in Australia, The Ghost Crew kept its viewers coming back for more by feeding them a diet of spooky, scary, and the more demons they came into contact with, the better. Darryl had always pushed it right to the edge, going after supposed cases of possession and Satanism, along with the more typical haunted asylum stuff.

  What kept Stacy sitting in her seat, and staying in her job, was that it wasn’t all faked. Most of it, sure, but not all, and it was that ten percent genuine phenomenon that kept her from telling Darryl that sometimes he could be the biggest jerk since caveman days.

  ‘So what’s it going to be, folks?’ Darryl was rubbing his thumb and fingers together the way he always did when he wanted to get up and get moving. ‘We’re all agreed that taking it to Philip levels, for want of a better term, isn’t going to cut the mustard. We want to milk this for all we can. I’m expecting to get six or seven actual shows out of this, and mentions and updates in the rest of the season.’ He sniffed again, shifted in his chair and leaned forward to his own computer, punching a couple keys with meaty fingers.

  Something blipped on Stacy’s screen, and she clicked the transferred file open. A series of pictures bloomed on the screen in front of her.

  ‘I commissioned an artist to play around with some ideas. You’re looking at the results.’

  They were good, Stacy had to admit that. Atmospheric, and downright creepy.

  ‘Why is it that the forest is always so damned scary?’ Jeremy asked. He was the cameraman, and was peering at the pictures on his screen with frowning concentration.

  ‘Dunno, but there’s a good lot of forest at the location I scouted for us.’ Darryl hit another key on his computer and there was
that blip again.

  Photos, this time of a house. ‘This is where we’ll be staying?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep. Rented the gem for six weeks.’

  There was a rustle of movement around the table as it sank in that they were really going to do this.

  ‘It’s confirmed?’ Martin. The team trainee, and only twenty years old. Darryl had him along ‘to keep up in touch with the younger viewers’. He was a whiz on all things techy.

  Darryl slapped his pocket. ‘Booked and paid for. So all we have to do now, is decide which of these beauties we’re going to conjure up, and then we’re heading out there.’

  Stacy took a deep breath. ‘You do realise it took months for the people doing the Philip Experiment to get any results?’

  Darryl turned and looked at her, letting loose a sabre-toothed grin. ‘Yes, but they didn’t have the advantages that we do.’

  ‘What advantages are those?’

  The grin widened, if that was possible. ‘Social media.’

  ‘Social media?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. We never discussed social media as a part of this.’

  Rubbing his hands together, Boss Man leered at the whole table. ‘But it’s brilliant, see? We’ll fast-track the whole establishment phase – by getting all our viewers to manifest it as well.’ He sat back in his chair, triumphant.

  ‘You’re not at all worried that this could back-fire in any way?’ She could feel the frown lines etched in her forehead.

  ‘Of course not.’ Darryl snapped the screen of his laptop closed and looked at them one after another around the table. ‘We’ve been through this. We’re applying limits to our manifestation – geographical limits – and certain physical limits, so that no one will actually be harmed...’

  ‘No vamps,’ Jeremy laughed.

  ‘No vampires,’ Darryl repeated and gestured to the pictures he knew were on their screens. ‘We invent the person or creature, we’re in control. We design it whatever way we want, so obviously no blood-sucking, murderous bastard. And best of all, when we’re done with it, we can destroy it, or let it loose, or whatever the fuck we want. It’s our show, we call the shots.’ He looked around at them all, one by one, then opened his eyes wide, the picture of innocence. ‘Look, let’s face it – we’re going to have to fake a lot of it anyway. Even if we can get stuff happening, we’ll probably have to use some special effects to amp it up enough for public consumption. Right?’

  They all sat silent for a moment, staring at their screens while Darryl slumped back in his chair and preened himself like a smug cat. Stacy looked at him for a moment, before focusing on the pictures. She nodded in approval at the ones of the house.

  ‘Nice place,’ she said. ‘How far away from everything is it?’

  ‘Civilisation, you mean?’ Darryl said, and Stacy sighed at the thought of spending six weeks in his company. Deirdre was going to hate her being away that long. She was only just recovered from her hospital stay. Six weeks was a big chunk of time.

  But Darryl was talking, and Stacy tuned back in. ‘It’s pretty isolated, which is what we wanted. No collateral damage if things get hairy.’

  ‘You’re not expecting things to get hairy though, right?’ Martin’s eyebrows were roosting somewhere along his hairline.

  ‘Not at all,’ Darryl replied. ‘But no one’s done this before. Not to this extent. Besides, the last thing we’re going to want is to be tripping over civilians all the time.’ He nodded at their screens. ‘Here you have the perfect place. Backs onto woods. A thousand hectares of them, to be precise. Which will be excellent, if you decide to choose one of the forest-dwelling spooks.’ A sniff, and a quick glance at the expensive watch on his wrist. ‘Then there’s the house. I’ve already been down with Marcia to check the place out.’

  Stacy perked up. Marcia was their medium. ‘Did she find anything?’

  ‘The usual cobwebs in the corners, that’s about it. Humdrum, she said, if I remember correctly. She passed over what had to be passed over, and did a cleansing. The place is a blank slate now, an atmospheric, perfectly placed, blank slate. Filming there is going to be fucking awesome.’

  ‘Is she still there?’ Stacy was nodding her head, looking at the photos, feeling the first frisson of excitement for the new project. Darryl might have been something of a showy bastard but he knew how to get the ratings, all right.

  ‘There and waiting for us,’ he said. ‘The place is about ten kilometers from the nearest town, which is really just a bit of dogshit on the bottom of your shoe, but it’s got a grocery, petrol station, and a pub. What else would we need?’

  Jeremy nodded. ‘As long as there’s a pub, I’m good.’

  ‘So, which of these do we turn from imagination to reality?’ Darryl had lowered his voice and spoke in the tones he used for filming, all deep and masterful, calm in the face of any supernatural crisis.

  Stacy flicked through the shadows. ‘It would be good if it was something that came in the house, right? Make it easier on us.’ There were nods all around the table. ‘So what even are these?’

  ‘Well, that’s up to us, isn’t it?’ Martin was scratching his nose and peering at the photos. ‘We make up the backstory as well, right?’

  ‘This one’s out then, if you want an inside monster,’ Jeremy said, laughing at his own wit. ‘It’s some sort of cross between Bigfoot and the Dogman from hell.’

  ‘Its claws are enormous.’ Stacy shook her head and minimised that one. ‘It’s out on both counts – an outdoor apparition, and it has claws the size of Tasmania.’

  ‘Excellent. So that leaves us these three beauties.’ Darryl was looking at his watch again.

  ‘Somewhere to be, Boss Man?’ Stacy asked him.

  ‘You better believe it. Lunch with the Network Man.’ They might call Darryl Clayton Boss Man, but he called Nigel Seaton the Network Man, and kowtowed to him like the guy was the next messiah. Stacy didn’t understand the fuss. Their ratings were sky high at the moment, and even if the network wanted to drop them, they had enough of a following to go solely Internet-based.

  ‘I’m going to pour enough pinot noir into that man today to convince him that we should do a massive pre-season spotlight show.’ Darryl said, looking around at all of them. ‘In which we shall appeal to our loyal viewers for their assistance in downloading this monster from their minds to our haunted house.’ He grinned. ‘Is that brilliant or what?’

  Stacy didn’t know whether to be appalled or impressed. So she sat there like a stunned mullet instead.

  ‘It’s going to be huge,’ Darryl carried on. ‘Massive. We’ll give our whole fabricated history and deets of the dude we choose, and show them on the programme where to imagine it, and how, and Martin here will put together a whole bunch of stuff for them to access on the Net – and share. You watch, it’s going to become a world-wide phenomenon, people, and the programme’s going to be picked up in the good ole U. S. of A. I guarantee it. Watch out gentlemens and lady, we’re going to be rolling in the good stuff before you can count to ten.’ He stretched and got to his feet, tugging the suit jacket closed across his stomach. ‘All you need to do now, is choose the monster. We’re leaving tomorrow.’ He gave a little salute, a wink, and left the room.

  Chapter Two

  1.

  A bird took wing in a startle of black feathers, and Stacy clutched a hand to her chest, leaned forward, and laughed.

  ‘Wow,’ said Martin. ‘We haven’t even started yet and you’re all freaked out.’

  ‘Ha ha, up yours Funny Boy,’ Stacy replied.

  Martin grinned at her, then turned his attention to the house. ‘Hope the wifi is good here.’ He looked wistful a moment. ‘Sure wish we could have a big travelling bus like the Ghost Pro dudes.’

  ‘I hate those guys,’ Stacy said. ‘Our show is much better.’

  ‘Yeah, but you gotta admit, they’re well equipped.’

  ‘They’re still a pair of idiots.’ She opened the van door and
stepped out, peering up at the house and smiling. ‘This place is amazing, Martin.’ She shook her head. ‘We might be able to make something of this, after all.’

  The front door opened, and Marcia stepped out, a welcoming grin on her face. ‘Hey guys! I was starting to wonder if you’d gotten your good selves a teensy bit lost.’

  ‘We had a GPS,’ Martin said, always one to take things literally.

  ‘Of course you did,’ Marcia said. ‘I was just hoping you’d get here a bit sooner.’

  Stacy looked at her. ‘Why? Anything wrong?’

  A head shake. ‘Nope. Wait until you see inside – this place is perfect. Jeremy’s going to be thrilled. It’s going to look really atmospheric on camera.’

  Exchanging the view of Marcia for the house, Stacy shaded her eyes and peered up at it. ‘Looks a bit like it should topple over, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Three stories, plus an attic, it reminds me of a castle tower. Minus the battlements. Yeah, it’s a strange design, all right.’ Marcia stood beside her and squinted at the house as well. ‘Most houses around here sprawl out across the ground. This one climbs upwards instead.’

  ‘And it’s all clear inside?’ Stacy could smell the warm scent of Marcia’s peach shampoo.

  A short hesitation as Marcia continued to peer at the house. ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘There wasn’t much there to begin with, would you believe? Remarkably clear, in fact. No resident spirits at all. Some residue, imprints rather than spirits. Nothing a good cleansing couldn’t get rid of.’ She frowned and Stacy was quick to notice the slight falter in her voice.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, sharper than she’d intended.

  Marcia just shrugged. ‘Nothing. It’s just a bit odd to find a house this age so, well, empty.’

  Stacy blinked in the strong midday light. ‘Do you think there’s something off about it?’

  It took a moment for the other woman to answer, but when she did, Marcia’s voice was throw-away light. ‘No. I should be pleased there wasn’t much to do. It must have been a happy place to live.’ She laughed, and Stacy wondered if she was really hearing the tiny edge of unease in the sound.

  When she turned to look at Marcia, the medium’s eyes were clear and shining again.