Haunt

by Curtis Jobling

  For the first time since the night of the accident I suddenly felt a sickening feeling hit me in the pit of my stomach. I’d found the whole business of fluttering around, eavesdropping on people’s conversations and watching how my family dealt with their loss quite surreal. I’d been dipping in and out of the living world, as if awaking from naps to witness key moments as my body made its way inexorably down the home straight. The hospital, the church, the funeral home: I’d turned up in time to watch proceedings, a spaced-out spectator who was forbidden from joining in. The closest thing I could liken the sensation to was when I’d foolishly raided my dad’s drink cabinet with Dougie and Stu. I guess I’d felt drunk up until the moment the coffin moved. Now I just felt sick.

  I didn’t want to go. It was too soon. I hadn’t had time to say goodbye to anybody. There was so much more I was going to do. I was going to learn how to speak French, to visit Paris. I was going to buy a Mini Cooper when I was old enough to drive – you can blame The Italian Job for that one. I was going to grow a bloody moustache!

  I ran forward towards the front of the room as the head end of the coffin began to disappear into the wall, the tiny curtains rustling as the wooden sides brushed past. I tried to take hold of the polished brass handles, to slow the coffin’s progress and buy a little more time, but my hands simply trailed through it, connecting with thin air, the box and my body continuing on their way. I started to panic now. I looked back at the room; nobody could see me . . .

  Except Dougie.

  Every face in the room was forlorn and tearful, seeing me off on my final journey. All except one. I could swear Dougie was staring straight at me. His jaw was slack and his eyes were wide, and his elbow was hammering into the ribs of Andy Vaughn at his side. He whispered something frantically into Andy’s ear, our friend following Dougie’s gaze and squinting as he looked straight at me. He shook his head: negative. Whatever Dougie was looking at – that is, me – Andy couldn’t see. Dougie’s face drained of colour. I might have rushed over to him, if not for the pressing business of preventing my coffin from being swallowed up by the wall.

  But then the curtain fell back into place with a pathetic whoosh, and I was left locked out, separated from my body. I could hear people rising from the pews behind me, going to speak to my parents and pass on their condolences. The stupid classical music kept playing on the funeral sound system – who chose that track anyway? More tunes flew through my head that I would have preferred: Good Riddance from Green Day perhaps? If I’d had my way I’d have been shuffling off the mortal coil to the accompaniment of The Clash – Should I Stay Or Should I Go. Though right now, it looked like I was staying, whether I wanted to or not.

  FOUR

  Thick and Thin

  If you had to choose a location to live, there are a few places that would naturally make the top of the list. The flat above Domino’s Pizza and the house across the street from Lucy Carpenter are givens, but a more imaginative mind might conjure up fancier settings. Swanky penthouses on top of skyscrapers, a house in the Hollywood Hills; those kind of things would be top of the heap. Next door to a graveyard would feature somewhere near the bottom, below a slaughterhouse but above a sewage farm.

  Dougie had lived his entire life beside St Mary’s cemetery, his bedroom window overlooking a sea of gravestones. As the crow flew, there was a shortcut I could take to Dougie’s house from my own that would take me past our school and straight through the field of the dead. I never took it. I’d seen and read too many films and books to know that it was a risk not worth taking. It made far better sense to take the long route round, pretty much negating all possibility of being attacked by zombies. It added five minutes onto the journey but I’d always arrive in one piece.

  Dead or alive had ceased to be a concern of late. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact time I’d awoken after the funeral – the trauma of witnessing my own cremation had caused me to somehow black out – but I became slowly aware that I was at home again, my parents and brother having returned there after the wake. Mum had gone to bed early and Dad was downstairs, staring at the television, flicking mindlessly through the channels. I’d walked upstairs to Ben’s room. He was online, chatting to his mates on Faceache. I hung over his shoulder for a moment, watching him reply to the sympathetic posts of his friends. He was having a private message conversation with his best mate, Sam. I felt like a bit of a snoop, spying on him as I was, but opportunities like this hadn’t come around too often in life. I watched as Sam let Ben know he was thinking about him. I watched as Ben told him he loved him. Loved him? What the heck? When did this happen? How long had they been an item? Scratch that: how long had my brother been gay?

  I was overwhelmed by guilt. Not just for eavesdropping on something as private as Ben and Sam’s conversation, but for the fact that I truly didn’t know my big brother at all. Had I ever known him?

  ‘Ben,’ I whispered, my lips millimetres from his ear, hoping for some kind of response. His fingers tapped away on the keyboard, his face showing no recognition or reaction whatsoever. I stepped back, retreating from the room and creeping into my parents’ bedroom. Mum was trying to sleep. Her brow was knitted and furrowed, despair etched on to her face as she struggled to find refuge from the day’s events. In her knuckled hands she still held my scarf, alongside my knackered old teddy, the one I’d had since I was born. He was missing an eye and his nose had worn away many years ago, but he’d always been the most precious toy I’d ever owned. Of course, I’d never have owned up to this when I was alive – this was a teddy, for flip’s sake – but somehow he always managed to find himself on the foot of my bed. I’d been wearing the scarf the night I’d died. Mum had knitted it for me because I loved Doctor Who. She mistakenly thought that meant Tom Baker, the scarf-wearing fourth Doctor from the Seventies. It was still a groovy scarf. I glanced at my chest and there it was, oversized and overlong, still tied about my neck, trailing down to my knees. Mum never had been good at knitting, but it was the thought that counted.

  Why was I still here? I moved away from Mum, not knowing where to turn. Surely I should have ‘moved on’ when my body went up in smoke? If I was stuck here, trapped in the living world, I needed to find out exactly how being dead worked.

  I’d heard of ghosts having to stay in one place and haunt their own house for ever, but there was no way I was settling for that. I paused to look at my bedroom for one last time before heading out. Tatty posters on the wall, a cluttered bookshelf full of fantasy miniatures, books and CDs, an open wardrobe that looked like a bomb had hit it. Mum hadn’t even bothered to make my bed. It was as I’d left it, a shrine to all that was me. I felt a strange, nagging sensation that I didn’t belong here. I knew where I needed to go, where I belonged. I stepped through my bedroom wall, phasing through the brickwork, seemingly leaving my stomach behind in the process. I was learning fast – it seemed as though passing through solid objects made you feel as though you were going to throw up. If ghosts can throw up.

  I took the route the crows flew, in the direction of Dougie’s house. He had seen me, hadn’t he, back in the funeral home? What are best mates for, if not to be there for you when you’re dead? I pushed on through every obstacle that stood in my way – tree, gate, fence and phone box – battling through the nausea that came with it.

  I passed our school, Brooklands, and thought of all the years I’d spent there, japing with my mates, fawning after Lucy Carpenter, fleeing from bullies. Beside the school was Red Brook House, the predecessor of Brooklands. I paused to look at the monstrous mausoleum to a time long gone. Neighbourhood kids had always said the old condemned building, known locally as ‘the House’, was haunted. I’d scoffed at the notion. Until now. I stared at the ancient red brickwork, choked by dark ivy, creepers crawling through glassless windows. Although I felt no cold, I shivered. I left it behind, flitting across the playing fields as I raced into St Mary’s cemetery.

  There was nothing to scare me in the graveyard any more,
so far as I knew, nor provide any obstacle. I found myself slowing, considering the words and epitaphs on the graves as I wandered between headstones and carved monuments of marble. There was the war memorial, the bright red garland of poppies at its base where old servicemen had placed it. I’d come here countless times with my local scout group, but never truly considered the sacrifice those lads had made decades – a century – ago. I traced my fingers over their names. I might have felt no physical connection, but something stirred in my heart. I walked past the memorial to the wall of remembrance, where the wreaths of the recently passed were placed. I recognised mine from my funeral instantly, my gurning portrait placed dead centre. There was a note from Mum and Dad attached: Our beautiful boy, so sorely missed. I choked up. Couldn’t help myself. I needed to be out of the graveyard now. I set off at a pace.

  I ran straight through the fence at the rear of the cemetery and skidded to a halt in Dougie’s back garden. I paused for a moment to gather my senses and my stomach: the passing-through-solid-objects thing wasn’t getting any easier, but I was sure as dammit going to master it. I could see the light on in Dougie’s bedroom, could hear the hypnotic beat of his stereo. What was that he was listening to? One Direction? This had to be a cry for help. My hand wavered over the back door handle. What was I thinking? I stepped clean through it.

  I passed the glass-panelled door to the living room, catching sight of Dougie’s dad through the mottled glass, slumped in his armchair. Dougie’s mum had passed away when he was little, his dad now the only family he had. Mr Hancock had always struck me as a sad soul, working awful hours as a driver for a local businessman and struggling to bring up his son alone. It was a miracle Dougie had grown up to be so well-rounded, and that was in no small part thanks to the love of his father. All the while the sound of Dougie’s (disturbingly poor taste in) music drew me closer, my feet creeping up the stairs towards his bedroom. I stepped into Dougie’s den, trying to ignore the odd sensation as I passed through the door.

  He lay flat on his bed, feet hanging off the end and balancing on his drum-kit stool. His eyes were closed, hands resting on his belly, fingers drumming along to Teenage Kicks. He was still wearing the grey suit he’d worn at the funeral home, the tie yanked loose into a knot around his throat. I stood over him for a moment, trying to decide what to do, what to say. Had he really seen me earlier? Was I just wasting my time?

  I opened my mouth to speak. ‘Best mates through thick and thin?’

  Any lingering concerns I’d had about whether Dougie had seen me vanished in an instant when he flicked open his eyes. He shrieked once – a sound familiar to anyone who’s ever been suddenly and horribly surprised – before rolling off the bed, hitting the floor with a clumsy thunk. His stool tumbled forward, clattering into the drum-kit and sending his cymbals toppling over with a clash. When Dougie emerged from the other side of his bed he held his drumsticks in each hand, crossed over one another in the sign of the crucifix.

  ‘Get back!’ he cried, his face white with horror.

  ‘This isn’t Buffy, you idiot,’ I said. ‘I’m not a blood-sucking vampire.’

  ‘Look . . . look at you!’

  I lifted my hands, turning them over before my eyes. They were pale and deathly white, and with each movement they left a phosphorous blue shimmer trailing in the air. I looked like Ben Kenobi’s spirit in The Empire Strikes Back, only instead of being aglow with Jedi magic it was the cold chill of death.

  ‘Is everything all right up there, son?’

  It was Mr Hancock, calling from the foot of the stairs. I stared at my best friend and shrugged.

  ‘Your call, mate: is everything OK?’

  Dougie chewed his lips, the drumsticks rattling against one another as he held them before him, warding me away.

  ‘Fine thanks, Dad!’ he called over his shoulder. He smiled, throwing me a hopeful look as if asking if he’d said the right thing.

  ‘Dougie, I’m still Will. I haven’t changed that much.’

  ‘Haven’t changed?’ gasped Dougie, killing the stereo with a flick of a switch. ‘You’re dead.’

  ‘But I’m still me. Anyway, you can talk about change: One Direction? What’s with that?’

  ‘It was on the radio.’

  ‘I can see the CD box, dude!’

  Dougie glowered at me as the thumping of footsteps on the stairs warned us that his dad was on his way up to investigate.

  ‘You’re a flippin’ ghost, Will!’

  ‘You saw me this afternoon, Dougie, back at the funeral home. You’ve got to see; I’ve nowhere else to go.’

  ‘Your folks live over the way: can’t you go there?’

  ‘You don’t understand, mate. I’ve been there, but it just felt wrong. They were all so sad, so miserable. I couldn’t be near them.’ I shrugged. ‘I’d rather just hang out.’

  The door opened and the haggard face of Mr Hancock appeared around the corner.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Douglas?’

  I was standing directly between father and son. Ordinarily, this might obscure the line of sight of one to the other, but that wasn’t really a problem any more. Dougie looked straight through me towards his dad as his old man smiled back sadly.

  ‘Yes . . . thanks, Dad,’ whispered Dougie. ‘I’m just tired.’

  ‘It’s been an exhausting time, son, for you as much as anyone. Don’t make it a late one, eh? You’ve got school tomorrow.’

  Dougie’s dad’s pale face was etched with concern, the worry lines more pronounced than ever. He didn’t look well at all, clearly my loss and its effect on his son having hit him hard too. Mr Hancock was Dougie’s sole caregiver and still treated him like a kid, though his heart was definitely in the right place. Now he pulled the door closed, leaving the two of us alone once more.

  ‘I completely forgot it was school tomorrow,’ I said, sitting down beside Dougie on the end of his bed.

  ‘I know: double science first thing. I hate Thursdays.’

  ‘You’re not alone,’ I sighed.

  Dougie did a double-take suddenly.

  ‘This is insane, Will. You’re a ghost! Why are you here?’

  ‘I thought that once they’d shoved me in the oven at the funeral home I’d be on my way, but I appear to be stuck here.’

  Dougie laughed.

  ‘The oven. I like that.’ Then as he remembered the gravity of the situation he added: ‘Sorry, mate.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘So how does this ghost thing work? Are you not destined to haunt your own family for all eternity?’

  ‘No, thank God, and I can’t say that’s not a relief! It’s not much fun there right now.’

  ‘How about the graveyard? Surely that’s where you belong?’

  ‘Nope, apparently not. I didn’t get stuck there either.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Dougie, shaking his head, still struggling to believe the strange turn of events.

  ‘Well, for starters, you’re going to go to school tomorrow.’

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘Reckon I’ll start the day with double science.’

  ‘Huh?’

  I smiled and shook my wrists, jazz-hands stylee.

  ‘I’m coming with you!’

  FIVE

  Design and Technology

  ‘He’s standing next to you right now?’

  Stu Singer’s face had never been more animated. His eyes were wide and his grin looked like it might tear his face in two. Dougie nodded as Stu slapped a hand to his brow and shook his forehead.

  ‘This is mad!’

  ‘Are you sure you can’t see him?’ asked Dougie.

  Stu pointed directly at me.

  ‘He’s here?’

  Dougie nodded again, as Stu threw his hand out, his fingers passing straight through me harmlessly. Stu sent a punch my way next, the fist disappearing into where my stomach should have been but connecting with nothing. He threw a few more punches and
karate chops as Dougie and I looked at one another, unimpressed. I stepped away, walking round the other side of Dougie, leaving Stu to knock lumps out of thin air.

  ‘So nobody can see me except you?’

  ‘Seems that way,’ whispered Dougie as he watched Stu effortlessly unbalance himself with a high kick that sent him tumbling to the floor of the wood-store. Mr Russell, our design and technology teacher, was oblivious to our presence in the storeroom. So long as he had a bit of wood to whittle away at on the lathe in the machine-room, he was happy.

  ‘Did I get him?’ asked Stu from the linoleum.

  ‘Yeah, you got him,’ lied Dougie, turning away.

  I stepped past Stu, who was clambering back to his feet, and joined Dougie by the window that overlooked the schoolyard. Clouds of dead leaves swirled through the air, tiny twisters of red, yellow and brown whirling across the playground.

  ‘They’re going to think I’m mad, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘All these conversations I’m having with myself. I look and sound like a proper nutter. Cheers for that, you div!’

  ‘They can’t see me; they can’t hear me. You’re the only one who’s paying me any attention. You’re the special one, D!’

  ‘So special that I get to be haunted by my best mate? Winner!’ he said, punching his fist feebly in the air.

  ‘You know what, Dougie,’ said Stu, having now righted himself, ‘my dad could take care of this for you. He’s a vicar, remember? Man of the cloth and all that. He knows stuff.’ Stu stepped up and whispered, possibly trying to ensure that I couldn’t hear him: ‘He can make Will go away.’