Ghostly Hitchhiker Box Set

by Rodney Strong

  (I don’t want to die. Again.)

  ‘I don’t want to die for the first time.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to die today. Well, maybe the car,’ Amanda said.

  She jerked the wheel hard to the left and Oliver’s car slammed into the side of a parked car. Oliver’s head bounced off the side window and he tried to brace himself against the dashboard.

  The car slowed with the impact, but kept moving, so Amanda smashed into the next parked car as well, turning the wheel hard so they didn’t ricochet off, instead shuddering almost to a standstill. She finished by jamming the wheel in the other direction and they rolled across the road and gently into the side of the hill.

  ‘Well, that was fun,’ Amanda laughed, but he noticed her knuckles were bloodlessly locked onto the steering wheel.

  ‘I need to lend you my dictionary,’ Oliver said, over the deafening sound of his heart in his ears.

  ‘I have to hand it to her. Cutting your brakes was a bold move. And it explains why she was happy to confess. She didn’t expect you to be alive to tell anyone.’

  Amanda opened her car door and climbed out. Oliver tried to do the same, but his door wouldn’t open, so he clambered over the seats and out her door. They leaned against the side of the car and sucked in air that smelled of burnt rubber and tortured metal.

  ‘Of course, it was an amateur move.’

  ‘Seemed to work pretty well to me,’ Oliver replied, panting slightly as his heart struggled to return to normal.

  Amanda shook her head. ‘The roads here are too windy, you can’t get up enough speed to cause serious harm.’ They both regarded the badly damaged cars they’d hit. ‘Serious harm to you.’

  ‘I can’t believe I fell for her act.’

  ‘She must have been very convincing. Still, it might be worthwhile teaching you how to recognise a liar.’

  ‘The case is over and I’m never doing this again.’

  She patted him on the arm. ‘That’s what you said last time.’

  Oliver sighed at the memory. It had been naïve to think picking up a hitchhiker was a one and done thing. Maybe it was wishful thinking.

  ‘You better get out of here before the police show up.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly. Are you alright?’

  ‘Surprisingly, given the last two hours of my life, yes I am.’

  Amanda kissed him on the cheek. ‘You know how to find me.’

  Seconds after she had disappeared around one corner a car came around the other. It stopped in the middle of the road and Detective Wilson got out. He surveyed the mess and walked over to Oliver.

  ‘There’s a good explanation of course…’ Detective Wilson said.

  ‘Of course,’ Oliver assured him.

  ‘There always is,’ the detective replied.

  THIRTY SEVEN

  Three days later Jennifer drove a rental car to the cemetery and the family climbed out with various degrees of enthusiasm and energy. Oliver’s car was being repaired. He moved stiffly, still suffering a bit of whiplash from the wild ride.

  Claire had been formally arrested for the murder of Ashley and the attempted murder of Oliver. Detective Wilson never actually said I told you so, but it must have taken a lot of restraint on his behalf when he lectured Oliver yet again about leaving police work to the professionals.

  The rest of the McMurrys were in shock and not exactly grateful that Oliver had proven their son innocent by proving their daughter guilty. Oliver didn’t think Louise would be saying wonderful things about his books in the future.

  Amanda had called the previous day to check on him, and to tell him she was leaving the country for a while. When he asked if it was for work or pleasure she laughed and suggested he keep an eye on news coming out of Australia for the next couple of weeks.

  They located Angus’ tombstone and then Jennifer took the kids over to visit their grandmother’s grave. Reed rolled his eyes when Rose said goodbye to Angus.

  ‘He’s dead, stupid.’

  ‘Stupid’s a bad word. Mum, Reed called me stupid.’

  ‘I know,’ Jennifer assured her. ‘I’m standing right here.’

  (Well, this is it then, is it?)

  ‘It’s the way it worked last time. We’ve done what you came back for, we proved George innocent. There’s no reason for you to hang around.

  (Aye, no reason. Only I was getting used to it. Being back, sort of.)

  ‘I know it’s hard, but it’s time.’

  (I suppose. Oliver, you’re less of a waste than I thought.)

  ‘You’re welcome, Angus.’

  A cold blast swept through Oliver’s head.

  (One for the road.)

  Angus laughed. The sound cut off mid-laugh and Oliver knew he was gone.

  Oliver joined his family as they visited his mother for a few minutes, before he persuaded them to get back into the car with the promise of ice cream. They drove out of the cemetery and headed for the closest ice cream shop.

  ‘You know, with Angus gone, it reopens some options for us,’ Jennifer said, reaching across and squeezing his knee.

  ‘Oh? Oh, yes it does. It’s been so long I’ve almost forgotten what you look like naked.’

  (Eww. Why would you want to see her naked? Perv.)

  Oliver twisted around in his seat to explain to Rose that he was only joking, but she was engrossed in a book.

  A horrible feeling boiled in his stomach.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Huh?’ Jennifer said.

  (I’m Brigid, perv, and I’m nine. How old are you?)

  ‘Son of a…’

  THE END

  MURDER IN

  DOUBT

  ONE

  ‘You’ve got to be sh—’

  ‘Jennifer,’ Oliver cut in.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’ Reed asked from the back seat of the car.

  (She was going to say a bad word.)

  ‘Nothing, bub. I just… remembered something that I forgot to do.’

  You don’t need to get involved, Brigid, Oliver silently told the spirit in his head. It went straight to the top of the list of things he never thought he’d say in life. A list that had been constantly changing since the time he’d gone to the cemetery and picked up the first restless spirit.

  Oliver didn’t need to look in the rear view mirror to know his son’s face would be screwed up in concentration as he considered his mother’s words.

  ‘But how can you remember it if you forgot it?’ Reed asked.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening again, so fast,’ Jennifer said through tight lips.

  He shared his wife’s frustration. They had only just farewelled Angus, the grumpy old ghost hitchhiker at the cemetery. Oliver had never been a fan of cemeteries, even before this new phase in his life popped in out of nowhere. If he had his way he’d never visit them. But his mother was buried in this particular one, and family duty, and sometimes family nagging from the kids, meant they made regular trips. It was also the only way to get rid of the ghostly hitchhikers once they’d completed their reason for coming back from wherever people went to when they died. There’d been a long enough gap between the first and second spirit to make Oliver believe it was a one-off thing. Unfortunately, they had barely left the cemetery before Brigid made her presence known. To make it worse, this ghost was a nine-year-old girl.

  (Well, I’d rather be in Rose’s head.)

  ‘Oh yes please,’ Rose said. His seven-year-old daughter’s ability to hear the spirits in Oliver’s head complicated things that weren’t exactly simple to start with.

  ‘Reed, sometimes you remember things after you were supposed to. Rose, I don’t know what you asked for, but the answer is no,’ Jennifer said.

  Brigid, we can talk when we get home.

  (Sure, yay.)

  Her excitement should have been a red flag for Oliver, but he was too preoccupied with feeling sorry for himself.

  To distract Rose and Reed from asking more question
s, they were promised ice cream if they made it the rest of the twenty-minute drive home without talking. He chose to ignore the exasperated look on his wife’s face, belatedly remembering they’d already had ice cream at lunchtime.

  ‘Why can’t we get it on the way home?’ Reed asked.

  ‘Because this is a rental car and I don’t want to pay for extra cleaning charges,’ Oliver replied.

  (What’s a rental car?)

  ‘We’ll be careful,’ Rose promised.

  Oliver and Jennifer exchanged glances that said they’d heard those broken promises before.

  In the be quiet game, eight-year-old Reed lasted thirty seconds, a new record when he wasn’t sleeping or watching television. Rose, having just turned seven and therefore now knowing everything, lasted five seconds longer than her brother and declared a moral victory by sticking her tongue out at him.

  Oliver resisted his children’s attempts to get him involved in the argument about who was annoying who the most. He was pretty sure his answer would be different from theirs.

  (This isn’t home), Oliver heard Brigid say as they pulled into the driveway of a single-storey brick house.

  It’s our home. I don’t even know where you lived.

  (But you said we were going home.)

  Let’s talk about it inside.

  (I don’t want to go in there. I don’t know you. You could be a weirdo.)

  ‘It’s okay, you can come to my room,’ Rose piped up from the back seat.

  ‘Huh?’ Reed said.

  ‘What he said,’ Jennifer added.

  Oliver glanced at his wife. She gazed calmly back at him, but he wasn’t fooled. There would be some hard questions later.

  Inside the house the family split in different directions. Reed went to watch other people play video games on YouTube, Jennifer went into the kitchen, and Rose dragged her father down the hallway and into her bedroom.

  Technically, as someone who worked from home, it was Oliver’s responsibility to keep his daughter’s room tidy. In reality it would have taken a fulltime crew of ten to keep everything off the floor. He randomly picked up a tiny plastic tiara the size of his thumbnail. He had no idea where it came from or which toy it was associated with, and doubted Rose did either. Making sure she wasn’t looking, he slipped it into his pocket to be disposed of later.

  (He's throwing out your toys.)

  ‘Brigid!’

  Rose looked around. ‘What toy?’

  Reluctantly Oliver showed her. Predictably his daughter immediately proclaimed it vital to her toy collection and demanded it back.

  ‘I’ll return it if you can tell me when you last played with it,’ Oliver said.

  ‘I lost it.’

  ‘It was in the middle of the floor.’

  ‘Daddy!’

  With a sigh he handed it over. We need to set some ground rules.

  Before Brigid could reply, Oliver walked out of Rose’s bedroom and into his own, sitting on the edge of the bed. For a start, why are you here?

  (Because you brought me here.)

  Not here, he gestured around the room, but here, like back from the dead.

  (I don’t have to tell you.)

  No you don’t, but you need my help and I can’t help if I don’t know why you’re back.

  He felt the familiar headache that always arrived around the same time as a hitchhiker. Up until now he’d assumed it was stress-related, talking to spirits was enough to induce headaches, especially spirits with quirky personalities. Now he wondered if the headaches might be pointing to a more serious medical condition.

  (You’re not going to die are you? Only, I’ve never seen a dead body before, well there was this one time that the neighbour’s dog brought a cat home and that was dead — it only had half a head anyway, which was cool, except maybe if you were the cat, I guess.)

  ‘Brigid!’

  (What?)

  Why are you here?

  (Oh yeah. Well the thing is, I buried something in the back yard of my house and I need it back.)

  What is it? Oliver asked hesitantly, not sure he wanted to know what was important enough to bring a nine-year-old ghost back from the beyond.

  (Something I was planning to dig up again. Only I died.)

  Oh. I’m sorry. When did you die?

  (2.37pm on Sunday the tenth of December, 1978.)

  That’s quite precise.

  (Well, I only died once. I thought it was important to remember the details.)

  Fair enough. He looked over the mountain of unmatched socks that for some reason known only to Jennifer lived on his side of the bed. Picking up the basket they were in, he upended it on the bed and began poking at the pile to see if any matches miraculously leapt out at him. Why now? It’s been forty years.

  (Something is happening to my house. I don’t really understand it.)

  What is it? Oliver repeated his earlier question.

  (A present.)

  Can you be more specific?

  (No.)

  Oliver found two of Rose’s socks that looked mildly similar and folded them together.

  So where is your house?

  Brigid gave him an address which seemed vaguely familiar. He grabbed his iPad from beside the bed and did a search on the map app. He ignored Brigid’s sounds of amazement as the map materialised, which is when he realised why the street sounded so familiar.

  ‘So, what does our latest house guest want?’ Jennifer asked from the doorway.

  ‘The good news is this time there was no murder,’ Oliver said.

  ‘And the bad news?’ she asked, coming further into the room.

  He turned the iPad around so she could see the screen.

  ‘I need to do some breaking and entering.’

  TWO

  ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

  Oliver looked at the shovel he’d taken down from the garage wall. ‘Am I sure that driving to a stranger’s house and asking if I can dig a hole in their back yard is a good idea? No, not in the slightest. But all going well, I’ll find what Brigid needs, do a quick detour back to the cemetery and boom, everything will be back to normal.’

  ‘Boom?’

  ‘I was going for cool.’

  ‘Missed by a mile.’

  (I’ll say. Can we hurry up and go?)

  ‘I guess this is one more thing you can tick off your bucket list before you turn forty,’ Jennifer said.

  ‘I thought we agreed not to mention the f-word.’

  ‘It’s only six months away, Oliver. You can’t avoid it forever.’

  ‘No, but I can ignore it as long as possible,’ he muttered darkly.

  ‘Well, good luck with…everything,’ Jennifer said, before giving him a kiss goodbye.

  (Gross.)

  With renewed determination Oliver backed out of the garage and onto their suburban street. There were two weeks until Christmas, and the sun had baked the lawn brown. Water restrictions meant the only options to keep the grass alive were to put on a sprinkler early in the morning or early in the evening on every second day, or to stand there with a hand-held hose. Oliver was currently exploring an alternative option, which was to do nothing and focus his efforts on ignoring the disapproving looks from his neighbours.

  This year Oliver had finally given in to his children and put up lights on the front of the house. It wasn’t that he had anything against Christmas lights, but it was early summer in New Zealand and didn’t get dark until nine o’clock, by which time his kids were in bed. So far they’d only seen the lights going once, during the day, and were so excited Rose cartwheeled across the lawn and crashed straight into the wooden fence. After several cuddles and one ice block, she was back to watching the faint lights flashing in sequence.

  Oliver drove down the hill and paused at the traffic lights leading onto the motorway. A left turn would take him on a fifteen-minute drive into Wellington City. A right turn would head him up the coast, towards Brigid’s house.

  (Look a
t all those cars.)

  ‘What about them?’ Oliver said. He liked to talk to the hitchhikers out loud when he was alone. It was a ploy to convince himself he wasn’t just talking to a voice in his head. Even though that’s exactly what he was doing.

  (There are so many of them.)

  Traffic sped past so quickly his car rocked gently in their aftermath. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said.

  (Gee, thanks.)

  The light turned green and Oliver pulled across the motorway and merged like a broken zip. Brigid marvelled at the modern train that rumbled past next to the road, and the bright colours on the outside of the supermarket they passed. Having a son who talked all day, and sometimes into the night, meant that for Oliver it actually wasn’t the noisiest car ride he’d recently taken.

  There was a fraught patch in the middle of the journey when he accidentally changed the radio station to one playing songs from the 1970s and Brigid excitedly sang an off key rendition of ‘Last Dance’ by Donna Summer, ruining a tune that Oliver had liked up until that point. When he failed to stifle his thoughts quickly enough, she sulked for five minutes, until she realised he was actually relieved that she’d stopped singing. Then she ceased sulking and started singing again.

  As they neared their destination, Oliver began to see signs of roadworks on either side of the road, which quickly became a busy construction site stretching for several kilometres.

  (What’s going on?)

  ‘This is why your old house is being torn down. They’re building a massive bypass, and to make room, they’ve bought a whole row of houses and are going to demolish them.’

  (Whoa, bummer.)

  ‘We’re almost there. Do you remember exactly where you buried this present?’

  (Of course I do.)

  Oliver waited but there was silence. ‘Well?’

  (Oh, you want me to tell you. Why didn’t you just ask where I buried it?)

  ‘My mistake,’ he replied through gritted teeth.

  (It’s in the corner, by the fence, under the lemon tree.)

  ‘Sounds easy,’ Oliver replied.