Tia Ramelan was awakened by the sound of a toilet screaming.
Not flushing. Not gurgling. Screaming.
She sat up in bed, blinking groggily at her haunted ceiling while Mr. Floofers hovered inches above her face like a fluffy ghost drone.
"I'm not caffeinated enough for this," she muttered.
Ellis appeared in the doorway holding a wrench and a sign that read:"The upstairs bathroom is… emotionally unstable."
After calming the toilet down with lavender oil and a surprisingly heartfelt apology from Lady Eugenia ("We all overflow sometimes, darling"), Tia checked her guest log. Four new reservations were set to arrive that evening.
Four. At once.
She panicked so hard she briefly forgot how her limbs worked.
DJ Deadbeat tried to help by playing motivational music. It was mostly ghostly beatboxing and remixes of Gregorian chants.
"I can't run a four-guest operation!" Tia yelled, pacing through the living room as a portrait followed her with its eyes and occasional snarky comments. "I only have three working rooms! And one of them smells like embalming fluid and sadness!"
"We can convert the séance chamber into a guest suite," Lady Eugenia offered, floating beside her. "Assuming we remove the pentagram rug and vacuum the ectoplasm stains."
"Ellis already moved the cursed dolls into storage," DJ Deadbeat added.
Tia blinked. "We had cursed dolls?"
"Oh yeah," he said cheerfully. "One of them used to recite stock tips in Latin."
By late afternoon, the house was semi-clean, semi-haunted, and 100% about to host a social media storm.
Because the guests? Influencers.
First came Tad & Rad, a paranormal bro-duo who livestreamed ghost hunts using night vision filters and an unreasonable amount of protein powder.
"Welcome to SpookTok, y'all!" Rad shouted as he kicked open the front door, filming himself with a ring light. "We're here at the most haunted B&B in the tri-state area!"
"Smash that follow button if you want us to summon a demon," Tad added, flexing.
Tia nearly passed out.
Next was Lana Graves, a gothic lifestyle vlogger with a voice like velvet and eyes like she hadn't slept since the lunar eclipse of 2017.
She arrived in full Victorian mourning garb and handed Tia a business card made of pressed flower petals and regret. "I'm doing a weeklong vlog series on haunted femininity. Your wallpaper has amazing trauma energy."
And last: Gary, a quiet accountant with a coupon.
"I saw your ad on Craigslist," he mumbled. "It said, Come for the ghosts, stay for the vibes. I like vibes."
Tia stared. "Are you… an influencer?"
Gary shrugged. "I left a Yelp review once."
Lady Eugenia whispered, "I like him."
That night, Ramelan House transformed into a haunted hospitality hurricane.
Tad & Rad filmed everything, from Ellis levitating salt shakers to Mr. Floofers hissing at shadows. DJ Deadbeat provided a soundtrack of whisper-core remixes and distant screams. Lady Eugenia gave Lana Graves a guided tour of the crying wallpaper and the haunted chandelier that sobbed in French.
"This is exquisite," Lana whispered, caressing a bloodstain on the bannister. "So haunted. So raw."
Even Gary was impressed.
"I slept better here than at my mom's house," he said the next morning, munching toast. "The moaning helped me relax."
Tia couldn't believe it. No one died. The guests were happy. The breakfast only tried to levitate once.
Maybe—maybe—she was getting the hang of this.
And then Ba'zaroth showed up.
He didn't knock. He never did.
The demon materialized in a cloud of black glitter and sarcasm, holding a clipboard and a cursed latte.
"Let's see how the doomed little inn is doing today," he said, tail flicking like a cat with something to ruin.
"We've got guests. Positive reviews. Lana's vlog hit 10k likes before breakfast," Tia snapped, pointing at her screen.
Ba'zaroth narrowed his eyes.
"Fine," he said. "But how's the infrastructure?"
He snapped his fingers.
Every pipe in the house groaned.
The walls sweated.
The downstairs faucet spat fire.
Tia ran to the kitchen to find her brand-new plumbing bleeding tomato soup.
"What did you do?" she shrieked.
"Nothing illegal," Ba'zaroth said smugly. "Just a teensy plumbing clause you overlooked in the original deed: 'All water fixtures must be spiritually calibrated or suffer occasional combustion.'"
Lady Eugenia screamed in horror. "You mean… this house needs ghost plumbing?!"
DJ Deadbeat was already Googling 'spectral plumber near me'.
Ellis handed Tia a cursed business card that read:
"Slippy Pete – Ghost Plumber & Exorcist (Part-Time)"No leaks, no screams, no extra charge for souls.
Tia groaned. "I'm going to need a spectral business loan."
The rest of the day was chaos.
Slippy Pete arrived around noon, gliding in with a toolbox full of screaming wrenches and pipes that bit. He fixed the flaming sink with what looked like holy duct tape and sang sea shanties in Latin while banishing a vengeful shower spirit named Sheila.
Meanwhile, Ba'zaroth watched with popcorn made of ash and despair.
Tia stood in the hallway, exhausted, flour on her shirt (from haunted pancakes), glitter in her hair (from Tad & Rad's "Demon Dance Challenge"), and ghost cat fur stuck to her socks.
"I hate you," she told Ba'zaroth.
"That's how you know it's business," he purred.
By evening, the plumbing was stable, the guests were posting glowing reviews, and the house—against all odds—was holding together.
Tia collapsed onto the couch, sipping tea that might have been haunted.
Lady Eugenia floated nearby, fluffing a pillow that whispered compliments.
DJ Deadbeat spun lo-fi ghost beats. Ellis reorganized the bookshelf by emotional trauma. Mr. Floofers snored from the chandelier.
"Okay," Tia said, "we survived influencer week. We fixed the pipes. We didn't explode. That's progress."
The house creaked in agreement.
Ba'zaroth hadn't reappeared since the soup-faucet fiasco, but Tia knew better. The demon was lurking, waiting to pull another cursed string.
But she had something he didn't:
A team of misfit ghosts who refused to be evicted.
And, also, a very positive Yelp review from Gary.