Is the first chapter of my comedy paranormal who-dunnit catchy enough to make you want to read more?

Question by scifiwriter: Is the first chapter of my comedy paranormal who-dunnit catchy enough to make you want to read more?
This is a new genre for me, and I’d like to know if it’s working so far. All constructive criticism welcome.

Chapter 1

Friday nights were always bad for Tess. For as long as she could remember, the same old thing had happened every Friday without fail, consequently waking her from her sleep.
It started with the screaming, distant at first, then growing louder as it approached across the landing. Then, in she would burst, the young woman with her dress all torn, desperately trying to escape her invisible attacker, only to be shot in the back and lie sobbing and wailing for half an hour or so until the life blood finally ran out of her and she perished, disappearing into the blackness of her room.
Unfortunately, Tess was not in the mood for it tonight. She’d had an awful day at the office, what with computers crashing and photocopiers chewing up her documents. Then Ben, the cute guy from accounts, had stood her up for their cinema date. Determined to make a night of it, she’d gone into the cinema anyway, and then endured the most awful cheese fest of a film she’d ever seen, while sitting beside everyone’s idea of the worst cinema companion. Mr Body Odour had insisted on leaning on her throughout the entire film, repeating all the dreadful one-liners from the appalling script while laughing out mouthfuls of popcorn and spit, and snorting back throatfuls of catarrh between belches caused by drinking his bucket of coke too quickly. The mere recollection of it made her shudder even more than the icy temperature drop of Mary’s entrance, and now the sound of that snorting and whooping echoed over in her head, keeping her awake. Exhausted and embarrassed by Ben’s rejection of her, she had reached the end of her normally lengthy tether. So, on this occasion, when Mary entered stage left through the now bricked up doorway, she met with a less than sympathetic welcome.
‘Oh, keep it down will you, Mary. Some of us are trying to get some sleep.’
After wailing and moaning for a couple of seconds longer, Mary lifted her head from the blood soaked floor and gave her a sour look. ‘Well, I’m sorry, missy. Don’t let my painful and lingering death keep you from a good night’s slumber.’
That was all she needed, attitude from a girl who’d been dead for over two hundred years. Things were bad enough without having to shoulder Mary’s troubles, too, especially when there was nothing she could do to help her.
‘You’ve been keeping me from a good night’s sleep every Friday for the past ten years. Why stop now?’ she spat back, tugging her duvet up to her neck and rolling over to face the wall. In truth, the cold alone was enough to wake her, even without all the noise. She hated being cold.
‘Has it been a bad day, then?’
This was a turn up for the books. Mary had never shown any interest in anything but her own demise in the ten years Tess had slept in that room. She’d dithered about buying an eighteenth century house, knowing the longer a building had stood, the greater the chance of restless spirits roaming the passages. However, Mary had proved one of the least upsetting sights she’d come across in her house hunting, so she’d plumped for it after all. After viewing eight houses before this one, all of which had held disturbing stories of their own, she’d realised she was going to have to deal with the spiritual occupants no matter where she went, so picked the one that would make her life the easiest, or so she’d thought. Had she known that Mary repeated her death on a weekly basis, she might have made a different choice.
Since it was such an old property, the couple selling up had joked with her about the ghosts, but Tess had known they had no real clue who they shared their home with. They remained happily unaware of the four trapped souls who wandered among them every day; not everyone was “privileged” enough to see them.
Mary’s death had proved the most violent in that house, and her killer had unfortunately escaped capture, thus she was doomed to relive her death repeatedly. At least, that was what she liked to tell the others. She was fundamentally a repeater, but over the years, she’d learned to control her short timeslot of visibility to enable her to communicate with the current occupier, leaving Tess with the suspicion that this particular spirit repeated so regularly for no better reason than she liked the attention.
‘Would you like to tell me about it?’Mary asked, shocking Tess even more. She peered over her shoulder and found Mary’s sunken eyes looking sincerely back at her. For once, the ghost seemed genuine in her desire to help. In the absence of anyone more substantial to moan to, the repeater would have to do.
‘It’s everything really,’ she said, sitting up and pulling the duvet in tight again to keep out the chill. ‘Work is crap at the moment. Everything needs to be done today and I don’t have enough pairs of hands to do it all, the IT system is useless, and the telephone doesn’t stop ringing lon
long enough for me to even think –’
As she spoke, it occurred to her that half of what she’d said in that sentence would mean absolutely nothing to Mary, who had no clue what IT or telephones were. Regardless of that, the spirit nodded understandingly, sending small atoms of the ethereal aura surrounding her tumbling through the air. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘And the coffee machine ate my money without giving me a drink, so I was gasping all afternoon.’
Now, coffee was something even Mary understood, not that the concept of a coffee machine would make much sense to her. Tess watched as her companion’s imagination went into overdrive, no doubt conjuring up some great wood and iron contraption that boiled a huge kettle of water over an open fire, and then conveyed it via a winch and pulley system to pour into waiting cups.
‘It’s awful being thirsty when there’s so much work to be done,’ Mary sympathised. ‘I always found it easier to work after a stout cup of tea.’
‘And then Ben didn’t tur
turn up for our date – that’s what you used to call courting.’
At last, a topic Mary truly understood. Men. Tess saw her face literally light up as she joined in on the subject. ‘Men are unreliable and unpredictable at the best of times. You’re better off without them. I should know; look what happened to me.’
Through a few weeks of research, Tess had discovered that an over amorous suitor had shot Mary after she refused to give up her honour to him. So, there was no doubt she was eminently qualified to comment on the nature of men. Compared to her violent and lecherous beau, Ben looked positively saintly.
‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ she said with a sigh, but her heart ached at the thought of spending the rest of her life alone. Although she was only thirty, she felt like life was passing her by, and she was destined to be left on the proverbial shelf.
‘Seems to me that there is very little wrong with you, but a great deal wrong with everything around you,’ Mary said, pretending
pretending to put her arm around Tess’ shoulders. ‘Perhaps you should look at things from a different point of view. Perhaps, you should just be glad you are so good in a world so full of problems.’
That was a refreshing standpoint. All of her life, she’d been made to feel like a freak or a failure because of her abilities, which, admittedly, often overtook her everyday life. Apparently, most people didn’t want to know that their old granny was watching over them every minute of the day. In fact, the thought of granny keeping an eye on them made going to the toilet and other more “intimate” activities very difficult, so they told her. Well, so what if they had a problem with it? She wasn’t a freak; she was special. If they couldn’t see that, it was their loss.
‘You’re right, Mary,’ she said, a broad smile breaking out. ‘I don’t have a problem, everyone else does. And I’m going to make sure they all know that come Monday morning. Next week, it’s all change!’
‘Good girl, that’s the spirit…if you’ll excuse the pun.’
Tess groaned; now the ghost had a sense of humour, too? Well, she was only human, or at least she had been once. Bad jokes obviously survived beyond the grave.
‘Now, if that’s all sorted out, you should get some rest,’ the ghost told her.
Slipping back down under her covers, Tess took Mary’s advice, closing her eyes and snuggling into her thick feather duvet.
‘Do you want me to finish my visitation or should I just give it a miss for tonight, then?’
‘Skip it – please.’
‘Right you are. See you next Friday.’
With that, she disappeared back through the non-existent doorway, leaving a faint residual glow that gradually faded away and left the room dark once more.
Tess tried to sleep, feeling better about her situation now she’d spoken to someone about it. But, despite her life changing moment of revelation, something still didn’t feel quite right. She hated it when she got that feeling. It hadn’t been there when she’d woken, but it hit now with the force of a kick to her stomach. It happened to her a lot, and signified that something momentous had happened to someone she knew. Looking at her alarm clock, she made a mental note of the time – 4:11 am. Something had happened somewhere, and eventually that something would jump up and bite her, probably when she least expected it.

Best answer:

Answer by craig l
Stephen King watch out.

What do you think? Answer below!