Sunday Short: Murder at the Séance Soirée

A Rotting Mystery Featuring Zombie Hercule Poirot

They say The Hollow House on Penang Hill was built crooked so the spirits would never feel at home. The floors slanted ever so slightly to the left. The mirrors didn’t reflect what they were supposed to. And no matter how many times you exorcised the ballroom, someone would always end up screaming near the phonograph.

But tonight, the screams came earlier than usual.

It was the Séance Soirée—an invitation-only gathering of mediums, witches, skeptics, and spirits. The ghost of a British colonel played the piano in the corner. Transparent aristocrats danced through each other in waltzing loops. A banshee argued with the bartender over the freshness of her virgin’s blood martini.

And seated at the head of the candlelit séance circle was none other than Dorian Lestrange—celebrity psychic, charlatan, and all-around fraud. His hair was too dark to be real, and so were his “visions.” But the rich loved him. Especially the dead ones.

“We begin now,” he announced, placing his palms dramatically on the planchette of a Ouija board. “Open thy veil, spirit world. Dorian seeks you!”

A gust of cold air swept through the room.

And then—his mouth opened wider than it should have. His head jerked back.

And he started burning.

No flame. No smoke.

Just... heat. From the inside out.

Dorian Lestrange incinerated before their very eyes, collapsing backward with a final, theatrical “aaarghhhhhh—” that no one clapped for.

Someone whispered, “Too much cayenne?”

Then came the voice. Raspy. Disgusted. Familiar.

“Non. Murder.”

Everyone turned.

From the far corner of the room, half in shadow, stood Zombie Hercule Poirot—his greenish skin covered in mold patches, his eyebrows singed, and his famous mustache now more wiry than wavy.

He adjusted his rotting bowtie.

“This soirée,” he said, “'as just become… a crime scene.”

Poirot surveyed the guests with one raised brow (the other had fallen off in 1994).

There was Madame Vianka, a bitter medium with eyes like wet marbles and a grudge against Dorian for undercutting her business with fake ghost sex readings.

Countess Suriya, a vampiric socialite who once accused Dorian of stealing her late husband’s urn and selling it as "haunted artisanal ash."

Pastor Greg, a washed-up televangelist with suspiciously twitchy hands and three lesser demons living rent-free in his spleen.

And then there was Faris, a mortal blogger there to “debunk spiritual frauds,” who kept muttering things like, “This is just colonial trauma with candles.”

All of them had reason to want Dorian dead.

But who, Poirot wondered, had the audacity to kill him… while summoning ghosts?

He began with the board.

The Ouija was scorched. Melted slightly. One letter still visible.

“R.”

“R for revenge?” he muttered.

He moved to the candles—thirteen, though the spellbook specified twelve. One was hidden behind the goat skull centerpiece.

Poirot grimaced. “An extra candle changes ze intent. This was not to contact the dead… it was to bind them.”

And bind they did.

Madame Vianka gasped. A ghost had vanished mid-conversation. Simply blinked out of existence.

Another one dissolved while sipping its ghostly tea.

“Ghosts,” Poirot said quietly, “are being harvested.”

It was all Dorian’s plan.

The séance wasn’t a party trick—it was a ritual. He had discovered a forbidden method to absorb spectral energy, fuse it with flesh, and resurrect himself as an immortal medium. One soul at a time.

But something went wrong. The spirits resisted.

Instead of becoming a god, Dorian became a vessel of their rage.

He burned from the inside—devoured by those he tried to exploit.

“Justice,” said Madame Vianka softly, “is rarely clean.”

Poirot gathered the surviving guests in the foyer beneath a chandelier made of rib bones.

“The séance,” he declared, “is not over.”

“Excuse me?” Faris said.

“You see, Dorian succeeded… just not as planned. He transferred a soul. One soul. And it 'as found… a new home.”

He stepped back. Everyone else looked around.

Then, slowly, everyone looked at Poirot.

He felt… warm.

Too warm.

He looked at his hand.

It was pink.

Not green.

His nails were clean. His mustache, restored to full fluffiness.

“Non… c’est impossible...” Poirot whispered.

He turned to the mirror on the wall.

It wasn’t his reflection.

It was Dorian.

Smiling.