Ghost

by Charmaine Ross

  He retrieved his badge and studied it, “I am, aren't I?”

  “Do you...have a gun?”

  His hand disappeared into his coat, reappearing a moment later with a dull black revolver. “Colt Police Department Centreforce Revolver Special, rifle round barrel, two inches long.”

  “Wow.” I tensed from my head to my toes as I strangled the phone, “How did you know all that?”

  Elliot shrugged, “It’s common knowledge. Usually, the barrel would be four inches long, but in nineteen twenty-six the shortened barrel was introduced for plain-clothed policemen. The detective special. Fits better beneath a jacket. It’s become a favourite.”

  “That’s old news, don’t you think?”

  His gaze was blank, “Is it?”

  “Well, yes, after seventy-odd years you’d think police revolvers would have changed significantly.”

  It was amazing a figment of my imagination knew so much, Surprising really. I would have thought figments would be limited to personal knowledge and I’d never learned anything about guns, especially specialised detective-issued guns of the early twentieth century. “What else does it say on your badge?”

  “South Fitzroy Precinct HO three-three-four.”

  “That confirms it, you are a detective,” I said, at least pleased that my imagination could be so thorough.

  He shook his head as though trying to dislodge something inside, “It sounds familiar enough, but I don’t know for sure. I can’t recall anything specific. Even my name is meaningless.”

  “Maybe that’s because I haven’t thought of more for you,” I reasoned.

  He centred his frown at me and I had the distinct feeling he felt as though I was being unhelpful. I’d think up a whole case for him if he’d just leave me alone. His presence was unnerving me. Talking to my imagination wasn’t good for my mental health.

  There was a knock at the door, “Cassie?”

  Thank God. Laura was here. I was still under the desk, “Here.”

  Laura walked straight through Elliot. Her long, unbound dark hair streaming around her shoulders like liquid silk. Elliot reeled backward, staggering against the wall, stretching out his arms as if to work out how Laura had walked right through him. Abject horror crossed his features, “Did you just see that? She walked right...through me.”

  “Yes. That’s likely to happen if you’re only my imagination,” I said.

  “I...I’m not real?”

  The look he sent me was one of pure torture. His face went a stark white as he patted his legs and torso, “I feel real. Solid. There’s no way she could walk right through me! What the hell’s going on?”

  I felt awful. Even for a figment, my heart reached for him. This was no way to treat someone, even if he was my invisible friend. But I didn’t have time to answer. Laura crumpled to the ground in a pool of flowing purple cheesecloth next to me, “What did you say?”

  “Oh, I’m just talking to the detective who's been following me around since I woke up from fainting in the morgue this morning. Detective Elliot Stone’s his name. He talks to me and I talk back and I know all along that I’m talking to thin air but it’s all so real. He’s a daydream, a creation of my mind, an illusion, a chimera, and he won’t leave my side.” That’s when the tears came. I couldn’t stop them. They streamed down my face, searing my heated cheeks in their wake. They clogged my throat and made my tongue thick. “I’m going insane...seeing people...people who aren’t there.” I gasped in the horrible truth. “I’m like Mum!”

  Laura choked off a strangled type of sound. I didn’t want to hear that from her. I wanted, ‘that’s impossible’, and ‘only Mum does that’. But she said nothing; just stared at me with large, horrified eyes.

  I grabbed her shirt and held her close. The scent of sandalwood enveloped me. I drew in a deep shuddering breath. “She had a breakdown and Dad took her to live in the middle of no-where just so she could survive. What, in hell, am I going to do? I can’t live out there. I just can’t. I’ll go insane if I haven’t already.” I swallowed the second nervous giggle that welled from deep inside.

  “Slow down, take a breath and tell me exactly what happened to you. From the start.”

  I took a moment, my gaze flicking from Laura to Elliot, “I came to work this morning to check on a patient of mine, Henry Davis. The next thing I know someone barrels into me and I’m flying head-over-heels into the corner of a trolley.”

  “You were knocked out?”

  “Yes, but...”

  “And you refused medical attention, I suppose.”

  “I’m a doctor, Laura. I think I know when I need medical treatment. I took painkillers.”

  Her brows rose over a pursed mouth before she said, “Okay. Go on.”

  “Good. I will. I was really only out for a second or two. I was fine when I regained consciousness. I went to check on Henry when I found out he’d died during the night which doesn’t make any sense. He’d recovered from his Angina attack. He was in perfect health. I only wanted him to stay one more night to make sure he would be alright by himself at home because of his age. I went straight to the morgue to make sure...”

  “Make sure..?”

  “To make sure they had the right body. You need to do that, you know. Anyway, I was checking his body, when Henry asked me to get his will!”

  “His body asked you? I thought he was dead.”

  “He is dead and it wasn’t his body, it was his...his spirit. He sort of jumped out at me from no-where. Said he needed me to help him. Then he...then he...”

  “Go on, Cassie. Tell me.”

  I didn’t want to say it out loud. That would admit I did have a problem. That maybe it wasn’t just my imagination, that maybe I had suffered a serious head injury, or worse, that I was turning into Mum. Seeing what she saw. She’d had the gift since she’d been a child. That was something I didn’t want to happen. That would send me to a place I knew I’d never come back from.

  My throat worked hard to fish out the words that came out like razors. “Laura, please tell me I’m just seeing things. Please. Don’t tell me I’m like Mum. I can’t be. Don’t tell me I’m seeing…ghosts.”

  But she didn’t say anything. She just looked at me in that way she always had when she knew a truth and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. She looked at me as though the worst fear in my life was now true.

  Chapter Two

  Laura wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and spoke, “Let’s just go over the facts. You're hurt. You hit your head hard enough to cause a concussion and you stayed at work. Not a good combination. I’m going to take you home to my house where you’ll have a rest before we get to the bottom of this.”

  I realised that while she’d been talking she’d stood me up and moved me across my office. We were standing by my closed office door with her hand on the door handle. My hand flew out and locked over hers. “I see them out there, too.” I whispered, as though saying it too loud would make it more horrible that it already was.

  “Doctor…I’m so sorry. If I am a figment of your imagination, please know I would do nothing to cause you harm.”

  The detective spoke. Who knew my imagination could be so…well, considerate. The detective, stepped towards me, started to raise a hand before thinking more of it. He stepped backwards and stood twirling his hat in his hands. My heart lurched. I never liked to cause anyone pain, emotional or otherwise, and he looked like his world had been swept away beneath his feet.

  “It’s quite alright. I’m sure I’ll be fine after a little rest.” My words were stilted, but so was my state of mind.

  “Who were you talking..?”

  “Never mind.” I cut Laura off and tried to ignore the hurt look on the Elliot’s face.

  I was grateful when Laura took her sunglasses from her bag and placed them on my face. “Close your eyes and I’ll walk you out. No-one will notice you’ve got them closed behind these.”

  I held her hands in mine and pressed them to m
y chest. “Thank you, Laura.”

  She hugged me, “If you are like Mum, we’ll work that out too.”

  I clutched her wrist, “But I can’t be. Neither of us can be. We’ve never been able to see...them. Have you?”

  “No. I haven’t. You know that. Just Mum can see them.”

  I hesitated, “Have you found anything that might help her?” If Mum was normal, she could come back to the city and live with us. We could have Mum back with us, instead of the woman who startled at every noise and sound.

  Sadness filled her eyes, “Not yet. I haven’t even come close, but it’s not as though Mum is open and willing to talk about it. Maybe, if you’re seeing...spirits like Mum...we can work together. Find a solution for both of you.”

  I hoped I didn’t have Mum’s problem. I hoped I had a weird concussion that a slug of alcohol and a good night’s sleep would fix, but if that jolt to my head had me seeing the same things as Mum, I’d do my best to help Laura find a solution. This was her area of expertise. Something she’d dedicated her life studying. At least I was in good hands.

  She knew all sorts of people who saw all sorts of supernatural things. Not just like Mum. I’d even met some of them and I was more than happy I’d never been afflicted. Healing the living was what I wanted to do. Death and all that came with it could wait.

  I shut my eyes, blocked off thinking about Elliot standing so still with his hat in his hands, and let Laura lead me through the hospital and into the car park. “We’re here.” I heard the sound of the car door opening and Laura’s grip on my elbow, “Here. I’ll help you in.”

  She positioned me in the seat and in a moment she was sitting next to me. “Are you sure that Henry Davis is one of your patients?”

  She was in practical mode now, but some questions were too perfunctory. Even for her. “Next question,” I said.

  I guess she heard the sarcasm in my voice as she said, “I’m just going through all alternatives. Don’t get testy. I need to cover all bases. Do any of the...people you see...have any auras surrounding them.”

  “No. I see them like I see everyone else. They aren’t transparent. No spiralling colours, no aura, no horns sticking out of their heads. No wings. No scythes. No tails. No fangs. No aliens either.”

  Laura huffed, “Have you got any idea why Henry would ask you to help with his will?”

  “He was a patient. I came in to send him home today. Well, as far as I remember, that’s what I did. He didn’t need his will. Not yet anyway.”

  “And why would this detective man come to help you and why hasn’t he left your side?”

  I cocked my head. I hadn’t heard from him for a while and I wondered if he had, in fact, followed me into the car. Maybe my delusions were only confined to the hospital. I hadn’t thought of that. I opened my eyes and found Elliot sitting mournfully in the back seat. His bleak gaze hit me with the force of a brick. Something hard landed in the pit of my stomach. He was so lost, so desolate. I wanted to wipe it away, make it better, but I didn’t know how. “Elliot...”

  Alarm flashed in his eyes. He reached to me over the back seat, “Close...”

  “...your eyes!” They both screamed at the same time.

  But it was too late. My eyes slid around with a mind of their own. I wanted to close them, but my lids had sprung open, my gaze riveted to a school-boy walking across the footpath on the opposite side of the road. He had headphones on and was lost in his own world, not bothering to look where he was going. “That kid!” I started to unclip my belt.

  “Where?” Laura yelled.

  “He’s about to cross the road. No-one is stopping! Can’t you see? Stop the car. Now!”

  I tugged the driving wheel from Laura’s grip. We screeched to a halt, our car coming up sideways onto the footpath. Behind us horns blared, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but the life of the boy. The bus on the opposite side of the road accelerated, aiming directly at him.

  “He’s not stopping!” I smashed the door open and tumbled onto the footpath.

  I crawled around the car, blind to skin scraping off my knees and palms. At the corner of the bus a black, formless shadow, no more than a deeper shade of the surrounding shadows wrapped itself on the front of the bus. The sides of the shadow stretched into arms and ended with sharp curving claws. A head formed, a shapeless mouth gaped open, as though to devour. It reached out to embrace the boy, claws curving around his body. A shaft of sunlight reflected off the front of the bus and the shadow disappeared as though it had never been there.

  I screamed as the bus crashed into the boy. I buried my head in my hands, crying into the ground. There were hands on my shoulders and Laura’s arms were about me and she was rocking me like a baby, just like Mum used to do when I’d hurt myself. I realised I was sobbing great big noisy gulps that made my body shudder with each racking motion. Laura stroked my head, smoothing my hair.

  I took her hand and made to move from her arms, even though I wanted to stay there forever, grief pulling lethargy into my limbs. I didn't want to go over and see the boy’s body, but I needed to be there. “I need to go over.”

  “No, you don’t.” Laura’s voice shook. I guess she was as shaken as I was.

  “I’m a doctor. There might be...something I can do.” What, I didn’t know. He wasn’t likely to have survived an impact like that. The driver hadn’t slowed down. Or even stopped.

  Laura pulled away, keeping her hands planted on either side of my face until I was able to concentrate on her eyes. “Honey. There’s no bus. No boy,” she said softly.

  She might as well as screamed at me, “What!”

  She bit her lower lip before saying. “Nothing happened here.” She pointed across the road. “It just happened...here.” She touched my forehead with her fingertips.

  I swung around to the scene of the accident and saw...nothing. Just traffic going in one direction, while on our side of the road there was a line of cars behind us. No bus. No boy. It was a regular ordinary street with lots of traffic pouring down the road and people waiting at a bus stop all staring at me.

  I looked back to Laura. Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. Then to Elliot as he crouched next to me. His face was shuttered, but solemnity leaked in etched lines. He silently nodded, confirming what Laura has said.

  Reality swamped me. I was blinded by tears. Tears for myself, tears for this situation and tears for my sister who was faced with it. I grasped her arms, “You’ve got to help me, Laura.” My voice was thick with desolation. Thinking it was one thing. Admitting it was something else altogether. Knowing Elliot wasn’t just flimsy imagination. He was all too real. As was Henry, and the boy, all the other’s I’d seen in the hospital and that...thing...I’d seen at the front of the bus.

  “It's happening to me. Just like Mum. Laura...I...I really am seeing ghosts.”

  * * *

  I’d slept like a log that only pure exhaustion can bring. Mentally and physically, I was wrung out. I rubbed my eyes, working the sleep away. I could almost believe that the past day hadn’t happened. That I’d only dreamed I’d seen Henry’s ghost. That I had never really met a detective called Elliot Stone. I hung my fingertips to that precipice of sleep, in the moment between waking and dreams where there were no nightmares or things to be afraid of, but when my vision focussed, my gaze fell directly on Elliot.

  He sat in the chair opposite me. As soon as he saw that I was awake, he leaned towards me, his face reflecting concern, eyes unwavering. The way he regarded me was more than a little…intimate. As though I was the only person in his world. A little flutter skittered through my belly. I wasn’t sure if I liked him looking at me like that, but then again, I didn’t dislike it either. “Do you feel better?”

  I huffed a laugh. This question coming from the dead man. “Shit, you’re not a dream. I was hoping...”

  Elliot’s frown grew deeper than it usually was and something like hurt registered in his eyes. I guess I’d insulted him by calling him a figm
ent again. I mumbled an apology as I rose from the sofa and stretched the kinks out of my muscles. As I stood, so did he.

  He seemed so—real. So intensely physical that I almost didn’t believe that he could be a ghost at all. His skin glowed with health, there was a day’s growth of stubble on his jaw, his face experienced, somewhere in his early 30’s — lined, yet still young, now ageless. The mouth that softened as he saw me.

  I was scared, my insides worked with sparking nerve ends alive with the flight-fight reflex, but I made my shaky legs somehow move towards him. Studying him now, he was much more than a ghost. Ghosts were half-things made of mist. He was a spirit. A person, just without the physical body.

  He remained motionless, his eyes were filled with intelligence, knowledge, as though he’d seen way too much, yet filled with questions, unanswered feelings. There was strength in those eyes which in turn inexplicably soothed me. We were both in the same equation, just on different sides. If he was brave enough to face me, then I could face him.

  He was taller than me and I tipped my head back a little to study his face. He removed his fedora, holding it to his chest. Such an old-fashioned gesture. That’s when it clicked. It wouldn’t be old-fashioned to him. It would be as much a part of him as me waking up in this day and age, starting my computer and checking my emails.

  It was obvious that he wasn’t from this time. Or even this century. Visions of black and white movies ran through my mind, vintage cars, glamorous women, and dirty mobsters. He epitomised that era. The era of my great-great grandparents, a world so far away from mine, he might as well come from the moon.

  “Oh, you’re awake. I thought I heard you. It’s Mum. For you.” Laura handed me the phone.

  She looked as though she’d been awake while I’d slept. Deep purple circles were beneath puffy, red-rimmed eyes. She was pale and her mouth turned down at the edges.

  “You look like hell.” I’d meant it in a more light-hearted way, but given the strain, it sounded as though we’d both fallen into the depths of it.