Ghosts the complete seri.., p.5
Ghosts: The Complete Series, page 5
I'm not sure what to say. "Are there?" I ask eventually
She nods. "I hear them. Sometimes I almost see them." She rolls back away from me. "I hope they don't scare you."
"I'll be okay," I say. "And we can talk in the morning. Is that acceptable?"
I wait for an answer, and finally she starts to snore.
Leaving the room and pulling the door shut behind me, I head downstairs. Laura has a nice house. It's quite large and spacious, though it seems very neat. I go through to her front room and find an empty cocktail glass. Then I head through to her kitchen and -
"Hello," says a child standing at the fridge, reaching in for something. It's dark in here, but the light from the fridge bathes the child in its glow. He looks to be about nine or ten years old.
"Hello," I say, surprised to find him here. "Who are you?"
"I'm Henry," the boy says. "Laura's my Mom."
"Your mother?" I ask, shocked. "I..."
"It's okay," Henry says, taking a bottle of juice from the fridge and shutting the door. "I've seen her drunk before." He walks over to the doorway and stands next to me. "Are you her new boyfriend?"
"I... no, I'm not her boyfriend."
He nods. "That's okay. You're better looking than most of her boyfriends, but I wouldn't mind if she didn't have a boyfriend for a while either." He goes over to the stairs.
"Henry," I say. He turns to look at me. "I'm sure your mother didn't mean to let you see her in that state."
Henry smiles. "She's drunk every night," he says, walking up the stairs. "There are some spares pillows and duvets in the cupboard under the stairs. I hope the ghosts don't bother you."
I walk to the stairs, hoping to go up and talk to him some more, but there's a sudden knock at the front door. I turn and see, through the little glass window at the top of the door, a dark figure waiting outside,
"Laura!" the figure calls out with a dark male voice. "Sober up and open the door. I can hear you breathing."
I walk over and open the door to find an older man, maybe 40s or early 50s, waiting outside. He has short dark hair and deep blue eyes. "Who are you?" he asks.
"My name is Kal," I say. "Who are you?"
He stares at me for a moment. It's as if he's studying me, trying to understand me, trying to work out how to gain the upper hand. "Lucas," he says eventually, as if he's not sure whether or not he should even tell me his name. We shake hands. "Lucas Everard. Are you a friend of Laura's?"
I open my mouth to reply, but then I pause for a moment. Am I a friend of Laura's? I've been on this planet for less than a day. I barely know Laura and have spent only an hour or so in her company, yet I feel that I know her quite well. And now that I've seen her drunk and met her son, I feel that I understand a little about her life. Could it be true? Have I already made a friend?
"I see," says Lucas, smiling at my failure to give him an answer. "You're that kind of friend. Well, that's a wonderful thing to be, and I wish you all the greatest of luck in the world. I take it Laura is drunk as usual?"
I frown for a moment. "She is unable to receive visitors," I say, preferring to be diplomatic and not discuss the lady's unfortunate state with a man who, as far as I know, could be a complete stranger.
Lucas nods. "Well, when she sobers up, please tell her that I came by at my usual time." He checks his watch, and he seems annoyed for a moment. "And tell her I'll be back tomorrow and we can make up for tonight with a double session." He regards me curiously for a moment. "I trust you'll be gone by then."
"I don't know what will happen tomorrow," I say flatly. It's true, and I don't want to commit myself.
Lucas gives me a cold stare, as if I'm standing in his way, and then he turns and walks away. He has a slight limp and there's something decidedly sinister about him.
I shut the door.
"Thank you," says Henry.
I turn to find him standing at the top of the stairs, watching me.
"For what?" I ask.
"For not letting him in," he says, before turning and going off to his room.
I stay where I am for a moment. There was something about Lucas Everard that unsettled me. A sense of... not evil, exactly, but something worrying. It's like with Beth and Tammy's house: I'm picking up the sensation that there has been evil in the vicinity. Just as an evil creature was in that house, so too an evil creature has spent time with Lucas Everard. I take a deep breath. Pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together, although I feel that there's still plenty to uncover. I walk through to the front room and look at the sofa. I suppose this is where I'll be sleeping for the night.
Beth
"I have to find my sister!" I say firmly the next morning. I actually managed to get some sleep last night, but now I'm starting to panic. I can't just sit around here feeling sorry for myself all day. I have to get out of this house and start doing something. "You can't stop me," I continue. "She must be terrified! She needs me!"
"No-one wants to stop you," Tammy says, following me to the door, "but maybe you should consider other ways of going about this. After all -"
"My fucking bastard of a faster is still out there," I remind her.
"Don't swear!"
"I'll swear if I fucking well want to, okay?" I take a deep breath. "You heard what Kal said last night. My father might have been talking to the devil himself. Do you really think I can leave my sister out there when my evil fucking father is on the loose?"
"At least wait for Kal," Tammy urges me. "Please, Beth. In the long run, your chances of finding your sister will only be helped if you -"
"Sit around on my ass?" I stare at her for a moment. "I'm dead. There's not a whole lot I can do to help, so I might as well do what I can, right?"
"And what can you do?" Tammy asks. "You can't touch anything. You can't talk to people. So how are you going to help her?"
"I'll..." I pause. "I can move things."
"Wait for Kal," Tammy says. "Having him with us will be so much more useful."
"Yeah, well -" I stop speaking as something flashes against me, and I realize that a man just walked into the house, passing straight through me. "What the fuck?"
Tammy frowns at the swearing, but this time she doesn't say anything about it. "You have to calm down," she says.
Another man walks in. They're wearing gray overalls and carrying cleaning supplies. "Who the fuck are these people?"
Tammy smiles sadly. "They're probably here to clean up," she says. "This house is going to have to be fixed and then one day it's going to have to be sold."
"No way," I say. I watch as one of the men kneels by the patch of blood on the wall. He opens up a tub of bleach. "No!" I shout, and I rush over to him. "Leave it!" I shout.
Unable to hear me, he starts scrubbing at the blood on the wall, while the other man goes through to the kitchen.
"Stop!" I shout at them. I try to push one of the men out of the way, but my arms just go straight through him. I turn to Tammy. "How do I hit him?" I ask. "I've seen you touching things. How do I do it?" I try to move the tub of bleach, but my hands just seem to pass through all types of solid matter.
"It takes time," Tammy says. "You have to practice."
"Fuck that," I say. "Move it for me." There's a pause as she stares at me. "Hit him!" I shout. "Hit this man. Make him stop!"
Tammy shakes her head. "No, Beth."
"They can't do this!" I shout. "It's like... It's like..."
"It's like the world is moving on," she says.
I look down and see that the blood is almost gone from the wall. "They can't... They can't have other people move into this house," I say. "They can't do that."
"And what do you think they should do instead?" Tammy asks. "Preserve it as it is? Leave it empty for a couple of ghosts? Turn it into some kind of museum for the Keneally family?" She comes over to me. "I felt the same thing fifty years ago. I felt the same thing when your family moved in. But the world can't be preserved just as it was when we died."
"It's disrespectful," I say quietly.
"It's really not," says Tammy. "If every place a person died was kept the same, if all the blood spilled in the world was never cleaned up, there'd be no room for the living."
I open my mouth to argue with her, but I can't. "I'm just a ghost," I say, "so what's the point of me?"
"What do you mean?"
"I can't talk to people. I can't live a normal life. I can't touch anyone. So why am I here? Why am I a ghost, and what the hell am I supposed to do? Am I just stuck here, wandering around forever?"
Tammy shrugs. "I have no idea. None of us do. Those of us who have been chosen to remain behind like this have been unable to determine a reason for our existence. We're just here, and we have to hope that our purpose becomes clear at some point."
"I'm not religious," I say. "I don't believe in God or destiny or any of that bullshit."
"You met an angel last night," she says.
"No," I say. "I met a... man last night. An odd man, but just a man."
"A man who says he's here looking for God and the devil."
"Maybe he's mad," I say. "Maybe he escaped from some loony bin. Or maybe..."
There's a cough nearby. We turn to see Kal in the doorway.
"Can I help you?" asks the cleaner, looking over at him.
"No," says Kal. "I think I've got the wrong house." He glances quickly at Tammy and me, and then he turns and walks away.
"You and me both," mutters the cleaner.
Tammy and I go outside and find Kal waiting on the sidewalk.
"Can I ask you something?" he says as we reach him. "If someone has drunk a large quantity of alcohol the previous night, is it normal for them to still feel the effects the next morning?"
"You mean a hangover," I say.
"I don't know," he replies, "but she seems to have a headache, and she seems to be very much opposed to bright light."
"That's a hangover," I say. "It's kinda normal." I pause for a moment. "Who, anyway? Have you got a girlfriend?"
"No," he says quickly. "No no no, just a friend. Someone I know."
I start walking away from the house. Kal and Tammy follow. "We should -" Kal starts to say.
"Find my sister," I say, interrupting.
"Find your father," Kal says.
"Probably the same thing," I say. "He's probably lurking around, waiting to finish her off when he gets the chance. He's probably polishing his fucking ax right now!"
"That won't happen," says Tammy. "I'm sure the authorities have been very careful to place her in protective care so that no-one can get to her."
"I still need to see her," I say.
As we reach the center of town, I lead Kal and Tammy to the police station. I stop outside, and then I turn to Kal. "I can't go in and ask them. You'll have to."
"Ask them what?" Kal says.
"About my sister. I need to know where she is. I need to know that she's okay."
Kal looks at the door. He seems uncomfortable. "I'm concerned that by asking about your sister, I will inadvertently arouse suspicion."
"If you don't ask," I say, "you'll inadvertently arouse my fist in your face."
He seems shocked. "I don't believe you're physically able to hit me," he says.
I walk over and push my hand straight through him. "I'll find a way," I say. "I'll haunt you forever if you don't get in there right now!"
He looks at Tammy for a moment, and then he goes inside.
"I'm sorry," I say, taking a deep breath. "She's my sister. I've got to make sure she's okay."
Tammy nods. "I understand. I had a sister too."
"What happened to her?" I ask.
She shrugs. "She lived out of state. I can't leave to check on her. Besides, by now she must be dead."
"You can't leave?"
"None of us can," she says. "As a ghost here, you're confined to the limits of the town."
"Great," I say. "At least when I was alive, I could dream of getting out of here. Are there any benefits to being a ghost at all?"
"A few," Tammy says. "I'll give you a training session some time if you like."
The door opens and Kal comes back out. There's a concerned look on his face.
"Is she okay?" I ask.
He pauses. "Your sister Elise was taken into protective guardianship by the town immediately after the incident," he says, "but... she became concerned that she would be returned to your father, and yesterday evening she escaped from the care center and she hasn't been seen since."
I stare at him for a moment, a sense of panic filling my body. "She's alone?" I say. "She's running around alone? She's eight fucking years old!"
"The police are trying to locate her," Kal says.
"Fuck that," I reply. "We have to find her."
"Is there anywhere she might have gone?" Tammy asks. "Anywhere she might consider to be safe?"
"If she's hiding from our father," I say, "she could go anywhere. She..." I pause for a moment as a thought strikes me. "When we used to play, we often used to go to the woods near our house. Dad never used to go out there, he hated nature and dirt so we used to play there because we knew we wouldn't bump into him. That's where she'll go."
"We'll find her."
"Wait," Kal says. "My mission here is not to find your sister. My mission is to find two other very different people, and perhaps your father -"
"My father will be looking for my sister," I say. "He'll be after her, and maybe he'll have the same idea I've had. So if you want to find him, maybe you'd better follow me." I turn and start walking, and then I look back to see Kal and Tammy standing there, watching me walk away. "No pressure," I say. "I can do this by myself."
I turn and continue walking straight across the road. I suddenly hear a roaring sound, and everything goes dark for a moment, and then a load of people fly past my face, and then everything's back to normal again. Stunned, I watch a bus driving away.
"That can happen," says Tammy. "Some ghosts find it exhilarating, but I find it rather tiresome."
It takes me a moment to really understand that a bus just drove straight through me. That's... not something that has ever happened to me before. I take a deep breath. "If you're coming," I say, "we have to get going." I start walking again, and after a moment, I sense both Kal and Tammy walking behind me, but we're not moving fast enough. I start running.
Kal
It's very clear to me that Beth is acting entirely based on emotion. She isn't using logic or rationality at all; she simply runs on her emotional reaction to the situation, and right now she's scared that her sister will be hurt by her father, so she's rushing to the one place she believes her sister might be hiding. This is not necessarily the best course of action, but on the other hand I'm very much aware that emotion is something that causes me problems. I have emotions, of course, but they're very much kept under wraps. If I let my true emotions show, I would risk destroying everyone I meet, so perhaps it will be useful to stick with Beth for a while, to benefit from her emotional responses. In the absence of any other leads, this would seem to be my best option.
Sometimes, I think I over-analyze these things...
We head to the woods and start walking between the trees. This is truly a beautiful place, with large, tall oak trees soaring up to the sky. The ground is covered with dirt and moss, and the whole forest seems to be remarkably untouched. I do not understand why humans have such a strong desire to destroy places like this and cover them with concrete. If I lived on this planet permanently, I would certainly choose to stay in a place like this rather than to pay for a house or an apartment in town. The air is so much fresher out here, and the world seems so much calmer. Why do humans ruin their planet?
"This is a big forest," Tammy says. "She could be anywhere."
"She'll be hiding," Beth says, "and there are only a few hiding places we used to use. She'll be in one of those."
"I'm not sure I understand," I say. "You and your sister used to come out here to play in order to get away from your father?"
"Uh-huh," Beth says, still walking fast ahead of us.
"Why?" I ask. "Surely children should want to be with their parents?"
"Depends on the parents," Beth says. "If the parents are good and honest, then sure, the children want to be with them. But if the parents are assholes and future ax murderers... not so much."
She leads us to a small river that runs through the forest, and then along to a little wooden bridge. She looks under the bridge, but finds nothing. "I thought she might be there," Beth says. "That's always one of her favorite hiding places."
"She might not be here," I say. "Your father might not be here, either. He might not even be looking for her."
"He's right," Tammy says. "If he has any brains at all, he'd have got out of this town hours ago."
"I can't take that risk," Beth says. "We should split up and keep looking. Just in case."
"That won't -" I start to say.
"Please!" Beth shouts at me. "Please, help me. I have to find her. She's the only one who survived and I can't let him kill her too. Don't you understand?"
I nod. "I'll help you look."
"Thank you," she says. "I'll go and look over by the old gardens. Can you look over there?" She points in the opposite direction. "If you see anything, just call me, okay? She might be too scared to talk to either of you, but she'll take to me."
"She can't even see or hear you," I say.
"I'll find a way," Beth says. "I'll find a way to get through to her, and I'll... I'll make her hear me. She's my sister." With that, she turns and walks away.
"She's so scared," says Tammy.
"Her plan has many flaws," I add.
"But we have you with us," Tammy says. "That's good. You can actually help."
"Maybe," I say, and we head off in the opposite direction.
"The young girl must be terrified," Tammy says. "She saw her entire family being murdered in front of her eyes. I was there, I witnessed it all. She only just escaped. And her own father was the one responsible."
"I imagine that creates a certain amount of fear," Kal says.
