I heard what he said, but for a moment I thought the Liverpudlian had missed it. His reply told me otherwise.
‘What’ve you been saying, George? You been spreading nasty rumours?’ Mr Hancock sobbed as Bradbury loomed over him. ‘You just can’t keep your mouth shut, can you? Your lad, the coppers; anybody else you’ve been flapping those fat lips to? You let some good men down last night. Good thing I let Monty take my place on the job or it could’ve been me banged up with those poor saps.’
I closed my eyes as Bradbury struck Mr Hancock, a volley of blows clattering the man in the chair. Punches rained down, each one smacking home with a sickening crunch. I was frozen, the most hideous feeling descending. On previous occasions, when faced with such emotional situations, I’d been spurred into action, able to add my strength to Dougie’s fight. That talent had escaped me. I was Samson after a trip to the barber. Whatever powers I had were gone, and I could feel the life being choked from me all over again. I was a ghost; I didn’t need to breathe. Yet somehow, the longer I remained in Bradbury’s presence, the more I seemed to fade. Impossibly, I was gasping for air. I looked at my hands, vanishing before my eyes, the essence dissipating, the blue glow dying.
‘Leave him!’ shouted Dougie, his voice cracking where he lay prone. ‘He never told the police! I did!’
The attack abruptly ceased, Bradbury’s bloodied fists wavering motionless above Mr Hancock. The man turned slowly, looking down at my pal. While I was fading, Bradbury was growing stronger.
‘You what?’ he whispered, but Dougie didn’t answer. He was looking at me from where he lay on his tummy, face peppered with studs of mirror.
‘Will,’ he gasped.
My connection with the living world was weakening, as was my hold over my phantom form. My hands were losing their integrity, wisps of smoke peeling away as I struggled to keep myself together. I cast my mind back to our old friend Phyllis, the phantom girl who had befriended me when I’d first become a ghost. In her killer’s presence she’d gone through the same thing, unable to fight back. History was repeating, only this time it was me having my un-life choked from me.
‘You told the cops?’ hissed Bradbury. He gave Dougie a prod with the toe of his boot. ‘I’ve got you to thank for this? My world turning to crap?’ He nudged him again, harder now. ‘What’s up, sport? Cat got your tongue? Not so cocky now, eh?’ He kicked Dougie, my mate doubling up into a foetal position.
‘Fight back, Dougie,’ I said, my voice almost lost on that same strange wind that was causing my fragile body to break apart. I tried to focus my mind, concentrate on keeping my shape, but it was hopeless. I was going. This was the end.
‘Here’s what’s gonna happen, George,’ said Bradbury as he kicked my friend. ‘You’re gonna watch me beat your boy to a pulp. Then I’m going to beat you to a pulp. After that, I’ll have your keys, lock the door and take that nice car.’
He wasn’t even looking at Dougie, too busy goading Mr Hancock. I could hardly hear the words, my body barely present, my mind holding on to Dougie’s world by the most slender of threads.
‘Maybe they’ll find the two of you in a few weeks. Your next-door neighbour will notice the whiff, eh? You ever smelled a dead body, George? They make an awful stink in summer. Especially two of ’em.’
Dougie rolled over on to his back after the last kick. In one hand he held his mobile phone, but it was his other hand that drew my attention, hauling me back from the brink. It flew through the air, up and towards Bradbury. The dagger of splintered mirror sank deep into the killer’s right thigh as Dougie dragged it down, separating fancy black suit and the flesh beneath. His own fingers were bleeding but he paid them no heed, releasing his hold on the blade when it would travel no further. He scrambled clear, screaming into the phone.
‘Are you getting this?’ he shouted between ragged sobs. He was a mess, a beaten-up replica of his poor father. ‘Please, come quick! It’s Bradbury. We’re at 18 Woollacombe Close.’
Bradbury screamed as he collapsed on one leg, hauling himself upright as his hands scrambled across the mantelpiece. Bloodied fingers found Mr Hancock’s keyring, snatching them up and curling them into a fist. The other hand reached down and tugged the jagged blade out of his thigh. It came away with a wet squelch and a gurgled cry from the killer. He laughed hysterically before lifting his head up, glancing into the fractured remains of the mirror. The laughter stopped instantly, his face going terribly slack as he caught sight of his reflection.
As Dougie had sprung into action, the change had occurred. Perhaps his valiant stand gave me the strength, I’d been inspired by him; we’d never know. At that final moment, about to blink out of existence, I’d arrived at a crossroads: burn out or fade away. I’d gone with the former. Fear of Bradbury had changed to outrage, nerves giving way to confidence. It wasn’t revenge I sought for the man’s wickedness. If this was to be my final act, I wanted justice. I wanted him to know that there were consequences to his actions. I wanted him to know what he’d done to me. I shone like a bright blue sentinel. I kid you not, I was a superhero. I was Doc Manhattan from Watchmen.
Bradbury saw me behind him in the broken mirror. If I’d expected a grand stand-off between myself and the man that killed me, it never came. That stuff ’s just in the movies. This is the point when the hero says something really cool and clever, a few well-chosen words that make you punch the air with glee. I had no such banter in the locker. I simply stood there and looked at him. And my God, did he ever see me. As sure as Dougie could, Bradbury saw me in all my ghostly glory. I think he might have peed his pants at that moment, judging by the dark strain that spread through those ruined fancy trousers. He hurdled Mr Hancock and the armchair, taking a circuitous route around the lounge, climbing the walls to keep distance from me.
And that was when she finally arrived. She certainly picked her moments.
‘Dougie?’ asked Lucy as she walked through the hall from the open front door. ‘Are you there? You’re right. We need to talk . . .’ She craned her head into the lounge.
‘Get out of here!’ shouted Dougie from where he lay in a beaten heap, but Bradbury was already moving. He bounced off the lounge door, shattering the marbled glass as he ricocheted into the hall. Lucy was running, crying out as the killer went after her. But I was already crouching over Dougie, wondering what I could do to help him.
‘Get up, numbnuts,’ I said. ‘You need to go after him. You have to stop him!’
Dougie shook his head, a bloodied hand clutching his stomach, the other still holding the mobile in a kung fu grip. We could hear the police on the other end, asking questions, trying to keep him on the line. His head lolled, bouncing back off the sofa as he fought to stay conscious.
‘Dougie! Stay with me! Lucy needs you! I can’t do this without you!’
I heard more screaming outside, followed by the Bentley’s engine gunning into life. Mr Hancock slid from his chair, crawling across the floor to his boy. He couldn’t hear me, couldn’t see me, but he knew his son was in pain. I stood to one side as he cradled his boy in his arms.
‘You can,’ whispered Dougie, managing one more word before he passed out. ‘Muppet.’
I stepped away from the Hancocks and turned directly toward the front windows of the lounge. I saw the Bentley pull away down the road, speeding off into the summer night. I walked away from Dougie, through the wall and the window pane, out into the street. I slowed, taking tentative steps. I walked on, wincing, waiting for our bond to catch me about the belly, pull me back like a bungee. It never happened. Where had the umbilical tether gone?
I was running now, down the street, through the darkness. I was the T-1000. Unstoppable. Dead I might have been, but I’d never felt more alive. Then I was flying, straight as an arrow, closing in on my quarry.
My world had turned on its head. I was connected to Dougie no longer.
I was tied to Bradbury and the Bentley that killed me.
TWENTY-FIVE
Crime and Punishment
The Bentley might not have been driven for eight months, but it still ran like a dream and purred like a lion cub. I followed in its wake as it tore up the road, reeling myself in like a demented water-skier. For every metre of tarmac the car covered, I stole two, closing the distance relentlessly. I flew along after it, drawn inexorably like a moth to the flame. My whole being was aglow with strength and purpose – head and heart, guts and glory. Houses and trees blurred in my periphery, cars and pedestrians fading away until only the Bentley was in my sights.
Freshly awakened from its grim hibernation, the car was king of the road once more, a majestic beast roaring through the night. Streetlights bounced off the polished black paintwork, flickering like fireflies as they danced over bonnet, roof and boot. The rear bumper vibrated as I approached, its curved chrome a shining scimitar, the car as connected to me as the killer who drove it. I spied the figure in the back seat, her head slumped against the left passenger window. My hands extended, bright blue and burning with urgency, reaching out as the road rushed by beneath me. Before I could connect, the Bentley took a hard right, switching direction down St Mary’s Road. I charged on, out and away from it, hurtling headlong into a row of terraced houses at the top of the street.
I didn’t slow down. Instead, I rode the corner, taking a curve of my own like a speedway racer whilst remaining aware of the disappearing Bentley. I hit the first house and phased through its wall, riding through and into the next house, again and again, room after room, scene after scene flitting through my vision. One home after another zipped by; a family watching the television, a babysitter on the phone with her boyfriend, a bachelor eating his meal alone, an amorous couple on a sofa, a dog licking its bum. The mutt barked at my brief cameo; something else to add to the Rules of Ghosting perhaps? That one could wait. I emerged out of the end terrace, back into the night, riding the bend and briefly traversing the street.
I rocketed through the graveyard, parallel to the road, never more in tune with my powers. I felt jacked up on spook juice, a supercharged supernatural. Stirred by my passing, the occasional never-before-encountered phantom shimmered into view, rising from the grave like a spectral somnambulist. As much as I would’ve loved to stop and chat, pick their brains about the afterlife, now really wasn’t the time. My current strength was drawn from Bradbury and the Bentley. I had only one appointment this night, and that was with the stone-cold, very alive killer who held my best mate’s girlfriend hostage.
I emerged from the graveyard, catching up with the Bentley once more as it approached the crossroads at the bottom of St Mary’s Road. Somewhere nearby I could hear the wail of police sirens, but there was no sign of the accompanying blue lights. The traffic signals were changing, green shifting through amber to red. The Bentley gunned it, tyres screeching as it accelerated into the junction. The car leapt across the intersection, cutting up the traffic that was already proceeding across its path. Horns blared, cars swerved and collided as Bradbury hurtled through the stream of vehicles, regardless of the chaos he caused. He would kill someone else at this rate, of that I had no doubt. I closed the gap; three metres, two metres, my hands reaching once more as I sought to connect with the fleeing Bentley. I felt a bolt course through me, an electric shock as my fingers brushed the chrome, and then I was inside the vehicle, shifting through the boot before emerging in the rear passenger seat.
Lucy’s head bounced off the window, her neck crooked where she’d been flung into the car. She was concussed, unconscious, her body tangled in a seatbelt Mr Hancock had fitted. Her body jiggled as the Bentley bounced along, its driver oblivious to the condition of his passenger. I brought my attention to Bradbury, his wiry body hunched over the wheel. He looked up into the rear-view mirror and, not for the first time that night, didn’t like what he saw. Neither did I.
The world could have stopped at that moment for all I knew. I saw him utterly for what he was, his eyes as black as the Bentley’s bodywork. They were the dull, dead eyes of a shark, a killer’s gaze. The shark got a bad press; it killed to eat. Bradbury shared no such honest compulsion. They say the eyes are the window into the soul; Bradbury didn’t have one.
‘You,’ he said, dark eyes blinking. ‘But . . . I killed you!’
‘So you did, sport,’ I replied. ‘Seems you did a poor job. How’s that leg holding up?’
‘You . . . you can’t be there. I’m having a . . . a . . . hallucination or a vision.’
‘If this is a vision then it’s a bitch, isn’t it?’
‘I’m dreaming,’ he said, choking on the words. ‘This is a nightmare.’
‘A nightmare, for sure, but one of your making, you murdering swine.’
Bradbury had heard enough. He swerved the wheel suddenly, as if he could send me flying from the car. The Bentley lurched from side to side, yet I remained seated, connected to the car as if it were Dougie. Lucy bounced about once more, her head banging off the window again. I was worried for her; who knew what he’d done to leave her senseless in the back seat.
‘Give up, Bradbury,’ I said, cutting the banter. My voice came out as a hiss, cold breath chilling his neck. I saw the goosebumps race across his skin, my murderer twitching and flinching with every icy word. Over his shoulder, I could see the keys swinging in the ignition.
‘You’re not getting away. The police are after you. How far do you think you’ll get?’
He blinked, wiping his eyes with the back of a bloodied hand. He was muttering to himself now, his speech fast and fevered. If I reached forward, could I grab the keys? Rip them out? It wasn’t the same as the push I could do on Dougie, those rare moments when we could physically connect, but then again this was no ordinary situation. I felt every ounce of righteous rage coursing through my body. I was convinced I could do anything. Slowly I phased through the driver’s seat, beginning to slide through his twitching body. The sensation was nauseating for me; the devil knew how hideous it was for Bradbury.
‘Turn yourself in,’ I said, my voice echoing in his head. ‘Let the girl go. Stop running.’
‘This can’t be happening,’ he was saying, hitting himself in the temple with his fist. ‘This can’t be happening. I’m dreaming. Wake up, fella. It’s just a dream. If I jolt myself enough, I’ll wake up.’
I was reaching forward, through him, towards the keys, but I could sense he was grinning. The side of his face curling up as I slid through, contorting into a hideous Joker smile. He whispered the last words before I could grab the keys.
‘Wake up.’
He turned the wheel hard and held it fast as we were approaching the incline towards the railway bridge. The big old oak on the right-hand side of the road was suddenly illuminated by the Bentley’s headlights. I changed my tack, seizing the steering wheel instead, my hands fitting over his, blue fingers closing over his white-knuckled grasp. I yanked hard, back the other way, every ounce of will and determination pouring into the deed. The wheel spun left, our hands fused together as the Bentley lurched back the other way as it rode across the bridge. Now it was the stone wall that was lit by the lamp’s beams, as we crashed into red brick and out into the space beyond.
Ordinarily, one’s life flashes before one’s eyes in a near-death moment like this, freezing people into inaction. I was hindered by no such sense of mortality. I turned and leapt into the back seat, phasing through a screaming Bradbury and his seat as the Bentley began nose-diving through the air over the wall. We were accompanied by a shower of broken masonry as we plummeted toward the railway line below. Lucy was a ragdoll, a loose collection of flesh and bone that would be pulverised at the moment of impact. I threw myself over her as the Bentley rolled, hitting the embankment once, twice, before bouncing and grinding to a screeching halt on the tracks.
I slowly brought my face up and looked around the wrecked car. The Bentley had been transformed into a mass of twisted metal and splintered wood, interiors buckled and broken. Steam hissed from the radiato
r, sparks spluttering from the exposed engine beyond the shattered windscreen. Bradbury was folded over the wheel, lifeless, his thick mop of curly black hair matted with blood. I looked down at Lucy, the door that she’d rested upon now missing, torn off in the crash. I had enveloped her body with my own, protecting her as if my life depended upon it. I had felt her heartbeat, heard her breathing, could have sworn blind that I could smell her hair. That was how strong the emotions were that had surged through my body at that moment.
I heard the train before I saw it. The wreck was straddling the tracks, and those thick lengths of steel now hummed into life, singing with the train’s approach. The light appeared, through the bridge’s dark arch in the distance, dim but growing fast. With no more thought I seized hold of Lucy and channelled my energies, ‘pulling’ instead of ‘pushing’, dragging her from the vehicle. The Bentley had been the death of me; I wouldn’t let it take her life as well. Ghostly power coursed through me as I dragged her clear of the wreckage and up on to the embankment.
Then I heard him sobbing.
Bradbury was alive! I drifted back to the busted car, peering through the cracked windows and ripped upholstery. His head lolled as he looked up, dazed and confused. The approaching train lights bounced through the night toward us. His cry was pitiful, and I couldn’t help but reply.
‘Get out of there,’ I hissed, urging him to free himself.
He looked my way through the tangle of metal. ‘My belt,’ he whimpered. ‘It’s stuck. Please, you have to help me!’
As quandaries go, it was the biggie, but my dear mum had raised me right. Torn I might have been, but not half as torn as if I’d left him to die there. I shifted through the wreck and spied the problem. The gearbox had been ripped out of the engine block, spearing him to his seat through a frayed strap of belt.
‘It won’t come loose,’ he cried, shaking the worn leather frantically, his grip slippery with blood.
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