“Your advert said I might be entitled to compensation!”
“Yes, sir, but not if you exorcise the ghost yourself.”
“Is that in the fine print, is it?”
“It’s in the very rapid speech right at the end.”
“Well, I’ll be taking my business elsewhere.”
“We’re a bit of a monopoly, sir.”
“Oh yeah? And how did you get that?”
“Deal with the devil, sir.”
“Humph.”
“Have a good day, sir.”
Nick hung up and sighed. He had two hours left for this shift, but two hours in the call centre felt like two years. He was pretty sure that was in the devil’s fine print, too.
He went to the kitchenette. The window was open, and three gargoyles had come in. They were clustered on the kitchen counter, looking through the biscuit options.
“All right, Max?” Nick asked, “Still pretending you can win the pigeons’ love?”
“You’ll see. They’ll stop.” Max said.
“How old are you, Max? About 400? Has a pigeon ever stopped pooping on you?”
“We’ve never tried them on the chocolate digestives before.” Max said. “Let’s go, fellas.”
They climbed back out the window, taking the digestives with them. Nick fished through the tray, found a lone Jammie Dodger, and sat down to eat it as slowly as he could. It was stale, sticky even by Dodger standards, and somehow tasting of nothing, not even of red. Through the still open window he could hear the cars idling at the light, muted music and engine noises and the slow roll of tyres inching forward. The kitchenette, company grey with a surprising splash of colour where the Bring Your Kids to Work kids had decorated the walls, felt warm but damp, safe but fishy.
“No fish in the microwave. Is that so hard?” Michelle said, walking in and heading straight to the coffee machine.
“People need to eat, Michelle.”
“They don’t need to eat fish. Hot fish.”
Nick shook of a sudden revulsion and wrinkled his nose.
“So.” Michelle sat down at his table. “This lady calls. Her ghoul isn’t working right, right? And she puts him on the phone to explain himself – her words, not mine – and turns out he’s a ghost.”
“Just a ghost, doing ghost things?”
“He says this woman is depressed and delusional and needs help, so I give him the only number I can think of – Samaritans – and she starts screaming in the background that she wasn’t thinking of killing herself but maybe now she will, and he says ‘let’s hope she doesn’t stay as a ghost’ and she starts shrieking!”
She paused for a laugh, so he chuckled. Michelle was his supervisor and housemate, a combination she weaponised to get out of every household chore, and he couldn’t afford to antagonise her on either front.
“How’s your shift going?” she asked.
“Three callers in a row complaining about things we don’t cover. But my first call was a lady whose resident vampire had installed shutters and she thought blackout curtains were enough, so she took the shutters off but forgot to draw the curtains and he got a burn all down his left side.”
“He’s burned and she’s the one calling?”
“He moved out. She said his contract stipulated she wasn’t responsible for any injury, so he has no right to break the contract.”
“Did she sound even a little sorry she got him half burned?”
“Do they ever?”
Michelle shrugged and stood up. He had to stand up to and follow her back to the desks.
“Paranormal Inactivity Bureau, my name is Nick. How may I help you today?”
At home he decided – wisely, in his opinion – not to heat up his fish leftovers. Jack, their werewolf, was out. Judging by the fur and discarded clothes on the sofa, he’d transitioned at home. Michelle hated when he did that, but it was technically within his rights. Nick put the clothes away and vacuumed the fur just in time to pretend to Michelle that nothing happened when she came in from Waitrose with her weekly treat.
“What did you get?”
“Cake. Enough for four, though honestly I’d prefer it if Jack didn’t bring his friends round on a full moon.”
“He’s already out; might not be back until human.”
“Excellent.” she made tea while Nick tried to get their dumbass smart TV to connect to WiFi. Jack worked at John Lewis and was trying to score a better TV from the display discounts, but until then whoever got home first in the evening had to spend a good ten minutes reentering passwords and restarting various apps.
Michelle came back with the cake and tea. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.” she said as soon as he’d stuffed his mouth full of cake.
“Nnnn.” he shook his head.
“She’s great. You’ll love her. Vampire, but very young.”
He washed Michelle’s excellent cake down with Michelle’s average tea. “No. No vampires. No non-humans. I like humans.”
“She’s your age! She only turned a couple of years ago.”
“Oh, great. Then I have the existential crisis stage to look forward to.”
She finished her tea in sullen silence; she put so much milk in it it wasn’t even warm. “Your turn.” she said.
“I’m still drinking mine.”
“So don’t make yourself one.”
He’d gotten the TV to connect, so he tossed the remote to her. “Don’t eat my cake.”
Three days later it was raining, cold, windy. But it wasn’t a full moon, so Jack was home and making dinner. “Who’s this friend Michelle’s bringing?”
Nick was helping him by crying over the onions. “Probably the vampire she’s trying to set me up with.”
“You don’t want a vampire.”
“Michelle doesn’t seem to care.”
“Have you noticed she’s not very nice to you?”
“She’s my boss; she doesn’t need to be nice. Anyway, she probably thinks this is nice. Setting me up with the love of my life or what have you.”
“Where did Michelle meet her?”
“Probably at work.”
“So she’s someone a customer called to complain about?”
“Michelle likes the basket cases. At least for the role of Nick’s Future Wife.”
“Well, I know vampires, and I’m telling you: she’s not dating you unless you’re willing to be bitten. What’s she going to do with a mortal? Watch you age?”
“Exactly! And I’m sorry, but I’m not interested.”
“Although, be honest: don’t you want to leave forever?”
“In the dark, drinking blood? I’m barely happy now, living a normal human life with sunlight and food.”
“When was the last time you went out in the sun?”
“I could, is the point.”
The front door opened. Nick sighed and went to great his date.
“Shit.” Nick said, from the bottom of his heart.
“Well, this is awkward,” the vampire took her coat off and held it out to Nick. “Hello, brother.”
… to be continued …
Arkin Prose 
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