The Last Days of Jack Sparks Page 5

  Maddelena’s face falls, as if this is the final straw. Father Di Stefano begins to pray out loud, on his stretcher.

  The effect is disorientating and I don’t know how to react. We’re now all so accustomed to being able to replay moments over and over again that my first instinct is to reach for a non-existent rewind button.

  I’d previously thought of Tony as a third party unconnected to the trickery here. So how did Maria’s voice come out of him – and how did she know my name? Di Stefano never spoke it. When telling Maria and Maddelena why I was here, he only described me as ‘a journalist from England’.

  Salvation soon comes when I remember that Di Stefano’s office recommended Tony in the first place – and Maria’s knowledge of my name only hastens the return of that Truman Show feeling. She and her mother are Vatican glove puppets after all. This whole thing really was an elaborate set-up. What the hell was I thinking there, for a while? Given the Catholic Church’s wealth, the ultra-convincing illusion of a nail spat into a leg is both achievable and relatively subtle. Making a young girl’s voice come out of a man’s mouth? Child’s play.

  This whole thing has been organised religion to a T: the use of man-made lies to try and make people feel small, protected and grateful.

  I award everybody the slowest, most sarcastic handclap I can muster, before getting in my car.

  This time, no amount of further dicking around will make me look back.

  * * *

  During the long, dull drive back to civilisation, I mentally run through the SPOOKS List. Today’s experience clearly does not require any further possible explanations to be added. At some point during the exorcism I’d believed Father Di Stefano was ‘trying to deceive others’ (Explanation #1) while Maria and Maddelena were in turn ‘being deceived by others’ (Explanation #2.) By the end, it had become obvious that only Explanation #1 was required. Everyone, to their eternal shame, was acting. Lying their heads off.

  A call comes in from an unknown number. The word ‘Unknown’ doesn’t pop up as usual: the screen is completely blank except for the options to answer or reject.

  When I answer, a piercing electronic shriek crashes out of the speakers. Warped digital feedback: the kind of thing Aphex Twin used to put on his records (Eleanor: I know you’ll ask me to update this reference and make it a more current band. Sorry, but it sounded like Aphex Twin. Not my fault you’re too young to remember him.) And it’s loud. So loud. I had no clue my phone was capable of such decibels.

  The sheer physical shock makes me cover my ears with both hands. Which is bad, because I’m negotiating a tight bend.

  The Romeo hammers along the middle of the dirt road. If something hurtles around that bend towards me, there’ll be a head-on smash, no survivors.

  Clutch. Brake. Steer. Terminate call with built-in steering wheel button. Pray.

  I sail around the rest of the bend, sick with adrenalin, ears ringing. Edging the Romeo back to safety.

  The noise sounded demonic. It was the natural, or unnatural, soundtrack to Edvard Munch’s Scream. And afterwards, however fleetingly, I find myself pondering how this call might be connected to Maria Corvi and her internal lodger. Which is ridiculous. Completely batshit. But it gets me thinking about the supernatural and how damn seductive that world can be. Because such connections are insidious. Once you start making them, it must be so easy to become seduced. To get sucked right in. Connections would lead to endless others: a vast social media network of belief. Before you knew what was going on, you’d be dragging your daughter to meet one of the Pope’s right-hand men at a knackered old church in the back of beyond.

  By the time I’m propping up a brutally impersonal Rome airport bar, the outside world is studded with coloured runway lights. My ears still ring and my phone holds more surprises. When I’d asked, ‘Where’s the EVIDENCE?’, hordes of people took this to be a genuine request for EVIDENCE, or at least their interpretation of what constitutes EVIDENCE. So my feed is now jam-packed with helpful links to recommended ghost videos.

  ‘Check this one out, Jacky boy! [Link]’

  ‘Oh yeah? Try THIS video on for size! [Link]’

  ‘Fuk u watch dis. [Link]’

  At first it all looks overwhelming.

  Then I decide I’m going to watch these videos. Every last one of them.

  If all these followers truly believe that a YouTube video provides evidence of life after death, then the least I can do is humour them by taking a look.

  I post as follows: ‘All right, all right, thank you, guys, for the spooky YT links. I will have a look at this vital EVIDENCE and get back to you. Cannot WAIT.’

  I slip my earphones’ jack into my handset. The bar atones for its lack of character with good Wi-Fi. Watching a whole row of videos will help pass the two and a half hours before my delayed flight, as will a whole row of large Jack and Cokes.

  For the sake of my sanity, I discount the clips that are patently rubbish. People giggling while filming their partners with white sheets over their heads going ‘Wooo!’ You can see these clips coming a mile off, from titles like ‘What lurks within my shed? LOL!’ or ‘Danny’s ass is haunted – hear what it has to say!’

  Frankly, I don’t think the people who sent me those particular links were taking the whole thing seriously. Skipping these (all right, I was curious about the pronouncements of Danny’s ass – and there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write) removes half of the list.

  The videos I do watch embroil me in a world that knows no boundaries when it comes to lame attempts at scaring the viewer. A world that never settles for just the one exclamation mark and knows nothing of the apostrophe’s correct function. A world that owes Mark Snow, the composer of The X-Files theme tune, millions of royalty dollars.

  I suffer through photo slideshows with voiceover narration, none of which convince. Photographs have, after all, been doctored since their early-nineteenth-century inception. Double-exposure shots may have retained their power to alarm the gullible, but only then at a pinch. Photoshop and similar programs have equipped fakers with more advanced tools, while simultaneously making their work all the more obvious. One video from user WooWooWooo, boldly entitled ‘Scariest Photographs of 2014 – DO NOT Watch Alone!’, does not make me glad to be surrounded by businessmen, depressed tourists and camp baristas. I’m bored stiff by the time the third old family photo appears with a ‘chilling’ cymbal crash, a circle superimposed around the alleged spectre peeking from behind Aunt Maude’s skirts. Over one million people have been suckered into watching this thing. A nice chunk of advertising revenue for the video’s creator.

  ‘Thanks for watching. Please comment and subscribe. A’

  I endure videos that – gasp – actually do feature moving pictures. Most of these betray their lineage from Oren Peli’s successful ‘found footage’ movie franchise Paranormal Activity. The clue tends to be the word ‘Paranormal’ in their titles. Shot in people’s houses, generally in America, they show someone clowning around or presenting a video about some random topic, before a door slams shut in the background. Whereas Paranormal Activity did a good job of convincing the viewer that its stars might be real people, the protagonists here are less gifted in the fields of acting and improv.

  ‘Thanks for watching. Please comment and subscribe. A’

  I somehow sit through clips that push the boundaries of taste by exploiting celebrity death. You might glimpse the terrifying ghost of a film star who specialised in fast-car movies (Eleanor: See? I can self-censor. I didn’t use the guy’s name. Anything to stop you and those lawyer guys quacking on about libel or whatever it is) walking away from his real-life fatal wreck. The dumbest example I see is a video from user HiggsBassoon4 that claims to show Princess Diana’s ghost on his own wedding day. We see the same few looped seconds of the happy couple cutting their cake, magnified closer and closer. We screw our eyes ever tighter in a vain attempt to see something in the window behind them that plainly isn’t there
.

  ‘Thanks for watching. Please comment and subscribe. A’

  I growl at videos that instruct you to keep a very close eye on static CCTV-style footage of a room or corridor. After thirty seconds, they attempt to jolt you with a sudden jump-cut to a close-up of a hideous face overlaid with a screech. The finest specimens manage to make you jump even when you’re blithely expecting them, but of course as evidence of the supernatural they leave everything to be desired.

  ‘Thanks for watching. Please comment and subscribe. A’

  If you ever start to get suckered in by a video that claims to show a ‘super-white ghost’ during a school nativity play, abandon it. After replaying user ScalpLaughs65’s video several times, unable to see the ghost, I finally realised the whole thing was a joke at the expense of an unusually pale boy.

  ‘Thanks for watching. Please comment and subscribe. A A A A A Don’t forget to collect your brain on your way out. A A A A A LOL PMSL ROFLCOPTER’

  J J J J J

  The further I trudge through this shit, the more I drink, the more I bemoan the lack of creativity. I swear I could do better myself. None of it is remotely unnerving, scary or – most importantly – convincing. My jeans remain unsoiled. My heebies are jeebie-less. There are no willies up me.

  As I tried to explain to people in the first place, if a genuine ghost video came along, we’d know all about it. The damn thing would be on BBC News and bounced around the planet faster than a Barack Obama sex tape.

  To couch this in SPOOKS List terms, all these people are filming fake ghosts, whether trying to deceive others or being deceived themselves. No third explanation is required.

  Confident that the people of social media have wasted my time yet again, I do battle with my phone’s autocorrect function, which seems so much less helpful when you’re drunk: ‘Okay, guys! I’ve watched this ghost video “EVIDENCE” of yours. These videos are all – and I mean ALL – idiotic fakes. NO MORE.’

  I’m satisfied this has put an end to the matter. I can give scary videos no further thought. And then I check my feed. Big mistake.

  While I’ve been watching the last thirty videos, lots of people have messaged me with variations on ‘Did you make this one yourself, then?’ or ‘This is actually pretty scary!’ Others have posted to their own followers, saying things like ‘Creepy new video from TheJackSparks!’ These posts have two things in common: they’re all spreading fast and they all feature the same clickable YouTube link.

  It confuses the balls off me.

  I click on one of these identical links and am surprised to be taken to my own YouTube channel. This is where I post sporadic videos, talking to a whole ocean of fans about whichever burning issue springs to mind. Usually something about science, technology, music or my books. Since entering rehab, I’ve let it slide, and three whole months have passed since the last post.

  Or at least that’s how long it’s been since the last post by me.

  There’s now a forty-second video on this page that I did not post.

  It has no title or accompanying details, other than the date and time it was posted. Today, about half an hour ago. It appears that I posted it myself, although this patently isn’t the case.

  I stare at the page. At this video, waiting to be watched. I frown, hit the ‘Back’ button, then reclick the link. Surely the presence of a completely alien video on my YouTube channel was a random glitch that is about to repair itself.

  Except I know others have seen it too.

  Yep. The video’s still there.

  All forty seconds of it.

  My forefinger hovers over the ‘Play’ button. My stomach clenches, mainly because I’m worried that a complete stranger has dumped something obscene and incriminating on my YouTube channel.

  Several thudding heartbeats later, I press ‘Play’.

  Alistair Sparks: ‘The following are words written on a napkin with biro pen, found on 21 November 2014 in a compartment of a suitcase in a room booked under the name Jack Sparks at Los Angeles’ Sunset Castle Hotel. The napkin has been verified as originating from the Rome airport bar that Jack claimed to have visited.’

  Notes on vid:

  Feet/legs, black

  Fade in, fade out. Weird

  Dark space. Basement?

  Something on ground. Human?

  Slowly turns [unintelligible word on napkin].

  Around corner – argh!

  Three long words – mean same thing?

  CHAPTER THREE

  White fire scorches one side of Bex’s face, making her look even more radiant. Behind her, a million dust motes hang in suspended animation, showcased by the broad rays of sun invading Victoria’s Bar.

  Blinking and pushing on her shades, she says, ‘So it wasn’t paedo porn, I take it.’ As usual, she says this far too loudly. She’s banned from every library in East Sussex. ‘Because if there was paedo porn in that video,’ she continues as I shush her, ‘I’d have heard about it by now. And you’d be chased off the pier by locals.’

  Many large, heavy random objects hang from the bar’s ceiling, including a tuba, a pram, a model plane and a limbless dressmaker’s dummy. I know that when I’ve finished telling Bex about the video, she and I will play our traditional cool game, whereby we nominate which of these objects we’d prefer to fall down and kill us. Best game ever, yes?

  Fine, suit yourself.

  Bex is especially lively today, a crack-addled Tigger, and we argue more than usual. We waste half a pint bickering about whether I pocket-dialled her yesterday from Italy. She insists I did, even after I scroll back through my outgoing calls and show evidence to the contrary. I can’t decide whether such intensely petty squabbles indicate a brother-and-sister relationship or latent sexual tension.

  ‘So what was in the video?’ she finally says, agonised, torn between relishing the moment and really wanting to know. ‘Actually, no, don’t tell me, show me.’

  She nods at my phone, but I sigh. ‘Wish I could.’

  ‘You dropped that thing in the toilet again, didn’t you.’

  ‘No. It’s just that . . .’

  ‘What-what-what?’

  And I tell her what I’m about to tell you.

  So I’m in that Rome airport bar. Pissed. In both the sense of being drunk and the American sense of being angry. I’ve had a great deal of Jack Daniel’s, and some weirdo has gained access to my YouTube channel.

  I’ve watched the video two, three, four times. I’ve also posted this: ‘If anyone knows who posted this video on my YT channel, I’d REALLY like to hear about it. Because it wasn’t me (no, seriously): [YouTube link].’

  The damn video’s hard to absorb, what with it having been shot in near darkness and my eyes often seeing two of it, until I concentrate and refocus. I order a quadruple espresso, then check my feed. There’s lots of ‘WTF?!?!’, ‘:-O’, ‘O_o’ and ‘OMG that’s creepy!!!’, as well as the inevitable variations on ‘Er, is that supposed to be creepy or something?!’

  While I naturally belong to the latter camp, this video already has me fascinated.

  My espresso is plonked down beside me, its bitterness stroking my taste buds via osmosis. I chug it down and hit ‘Replay’, finding it easier to keep my eyes open. This time, I want to pay more attention to this freaky little clip. There’s just something about it. Something so very different from all the rest.

  Something.

  This time, a message pops up: ‘This video is no longer available. It has been deleted by user.’

  Now, in my head, I’m saying ‘No! Fuck you – I’m the user!’ inwardly, to myself. Turns out I’m actually bellowing it while pointing at my phone and making everyone flinch. Lots of hard stares fly my way, but seeing as I’ve already incurred the wrath of Father Primo Di Stefano today, they may as well be fragrant rose blooms caressing my skin. These fuckers are amateurs, all of them. Still, I apologise, to buy myself some time. I need to stay here. Yes, I must stay here and change my YouTube account p
assword. I must keep hitting refresh until that stupid message disappears and the video returns. Where the hell has it gone? Why has the ‘user’ deleted it, so soon after posting it? Thousands of fans are asking the same thing. They’re trying to work out what I’m playing at, and I’m trying to tell them I’m not playing at anything.

  A bald and bespectacled barista lumbers over and gets right in my face, telling me to calm down and keep quiet. I tell him to calm down and keep quiet, which neither calms nor quietens him. So I tell him to get fucked, figuring that this reverse psychology might work instead.

  I post this: ‘Nope, it REALLY wasn’t me who made/posted that video. And neither was it me who remo—’

  Before I can finish typing the word ‘removed’, I’m bodily removed from my chair by Baldie and another barista. I accidentally hit ‘Send’, which makes me look like the kind of plum who thinks nothing of ending sentences with ‘who remo’, without so much as a full stop.

  As the bastards kick me out, an agitated voice announces my name over the tannoy. Apparently I’m the last passenger Flight 106 is waiting for. Everything becomes a blur as I run for my gate. Corridors, confusing signs, conveyor belts inconsiderately not designed for drunkards . . . and people, far too many people. Zombie sheep, milling around.

  I’m blinded by it all, then dizzied by a massive head rush. Everything flashes green. I stop running, close my eyes and centre myself.

  When I come back to reality, the first thing I see, clear as day, is the face of Father Primo Di Stefano. Several of him, in fact.

  Even in my inebriated state, I soon register that it’s his face on the cover of multiple copies of the same book, lining a promo rack at the front of a shop. I don’t recognise the title: The Devil’s Victims. Must be brand new. Without stopping to think how I’ve already bought three of this guy’s books as research and probably don’t need the latest collection of reheated dogma and anecdotes, I grab one from the English language row and ferry it to the cash desk. The tannoy crackles into life again and demands that Jack Sparks come to the gate immediately.