Ghost House (Soul Mate - Book One)

by Richard Crawford

  Soul Mate

  by

  Richard Crawford

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  Richard Crawford

  Soul Mate

  Copyright © 2011 by Richard Crawford

  Kindle Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  * * * * *

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THE END OF BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  The police car glides through the back streets of Oxford, past colleges guarded by leering gargoyles. Slumped in the backseat I leer back and serenade them with a jumbled, out of tune rendition of the 'Bear Necessities'.

  The cop driving is middle aged with curly ginger hair, cut short so it kinks against his skull. "Get him to shut up," he says. His face is sour, as if it's been a long night already.

  The other cop is young, mid twenties, maybe a few years older than me. He's built like a rugby player, a back-row forward with cabbage ears and muscled shoulders. He leans round from the passenger seat. "Shut the hell up!"

  The car turns onto St Aldates. We head downhill, past the Town Hall and Christ Church's medieval bulk. I keep singing partly to annoy the cops, but more to drown out the murmur of voices in my head. Somehow I have to keep the ghosts away.

  It's close to midnight when we arrive at the police station. The ginger cop holds the door, the other one shoves me through; inside the lights are bright, like a slap. I blink and stare around. The young cop still has hold of my arm. He tugs and the handcuffs bite. "What's the deal, dude?" I say, all injured innocence. "Don't lock me up." It comes out plaintive, but I'm thinking of Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch.

  The young cop's pissed at me. He tugs hard and I stagger dramatically, ending up with my face buried up against his sweaty neck. He really doesn't like that and shoves me away, but keeps hold so it's only to arms length like we're doing the Rumba. It would be funny but the voices are getting louder. The ghosts are calling my name; they won't be able to make me do anything if I'm locked up. But there's not much time left now.

  "Hey." I grin at the young cop, hiccup, swallow and let my gaze slide away from him across the wall, unfocussed.

  "Sarge, can we get this tosser sorted!" The cop has seen it all before. He doesn't want me puking on his trousers. He holds me at arms length, like he's picked up something unpleasant and can't find a bin.

  The reception desk is built high and solid, like a fortress. The counter is level with my chest so I have to look up. The sergeant looks down at me. The buttons on his shirt are near bursting; his bloodshot, boozy gaze sweeps me up and down and he wrinkles his nose. "What did you do, son, take a bath in it?"

  I stare at him, wide-eyed and innocent, like the question is too difficult. But he's not wrong. Before I nearly caused a fight blundering about among the Friday night crowds, I chucked most of a can of Stella down my front. Hard to waste booze, but nothing compared to drinking half a can and then stopping. No way I could have done that before the ghosts. It's not much of a choice, the ghosts or alcohol. Thinking about it the voices in my head get stronger, it takes a moment before I realise the sergeant is still staring at me.

  "You look familiar," he says. "I never forget a face."

  "That's nice." What do I care? He thinks we're playing out a scene from a soap opera but I really don't have time for this.

  "He's a local pisshead," the ginger cop offers, helping unintentionally. "Usually we just move him on but tonight he was really making a nuisance of himself."

  The sergeant is still eyeballing me, "Name and address?"

  "Tommy, Thomas Curtis."

  "And…"

  "No fixed address." I don't know why it's hard to say. I'm standing in a police station apparently pissed and stinking of booze, and this isn't even a low point. The sergeant is tapping stuff into a computer using two fingers. It takes a while, he stares at the screen and then at me. I know what's going to happen and wonder why I didn't think of this before.

  "I remember now," he says. "You were there when that lad fell off the roof."

  "Danny." I see his face the moment before it happens: an expression of surprise, then his arms windmill twice and he falls. A moment later the smack of flesh against gravel. I'm not sure if that is real or something I made up, a sound effect borrowed from a movie. "It was an accident." It's a Pavlovian response, which has long since ceased to comfort. Probably because it's a lie.

  The sergeant nods. "Bad business," he says. "Young lad like that."

  I hardly hear him. I can't get Danny's face out of my head. The voices in my head are getting louder and that feeling in my brain starts up, a fishhook tug of compulsion. The ghosts want me. I take a couple of deep breaths and try to keep it together, but it's all mixed up now, Danny's face, the ghosts and the stabbing pain.

  "Calm down," says the copper standing nearest me.

  I tug against the cuffs over and over. The ginger cop puts a hand on my arm and I lurch away from his touch. "No!" The ghosts turn up the volume and roar. Pain rips through my head. The cops close in but their faces are a blur. "This was a mistake. I have to go…" The door is somewhere behind me. The young cop brings me down before I get anywhere near it. One of them has his knee on my back.

  "What the hell," he says. "Calm down, before someone gets hurt."

  I know what he means but the ghosts are calling. I have to go.

  Footsteps pound as more cops arrive. I thrash and twist trying to throw them off. There are cops everywhere. It's mayhem. For a moment my head clears and I realise what a huge mistake this was.

  "No, please. I'm not drunk." It's hard to get the words out. "You can let me out. I won't be any trouble."

  The ginger cop laughs. "Yeah, we've heard that one before."

  The sergeant leans over the desk, a purple faced deity. "Get him locked up and call the duty doctor."

  The cops peel me off the floor. They grunt and curse as I kick. One of them shouts at me. "Calm down." The ghosts shout louder.

  Metal gates buzz and clang. Someone is yelling like a maniac. The cops carry and drag me along a brightly lit corridor lined with puke green metal doors. One door stands open, waiting for me. But I can't be locked up. I try to tell them but the cops won't listen. I did a good job of pissing them off and now there's no taking it back. "Get him inside," one of them says.

  The ghosts howl their fury. As if they know. I try to tell them it's not my fault. There's nothing I can do. It's a stupid lie. The ghosts scream with rage, louder and louder, a jet engine inside my skull.

  The moment the cops s
et me down inside the door, I try to make a run for it. A mindless rush to nowhere. As if I can prove something to the ghosts. Hands reach out to grab me; a fist catches me in the face and I stumble up against the edge of the door and back into the cell. Hands everywhere, pushing me down. Voices shouting, I know they are shouting warnings. But none of it matters.

  "Jesus, what set him off?"

  "Watch his head."

  "How long before the Doc gets here?"

  The ghosts go ballistic. It feels like my skull is going to burst and splatter like a dropped tomato. On the floor I struggle and twitch, every muscle spasms tight. But the cops hold me down and it's no good.

  The next moment I can't see anything. The cell, the cops are gone. I try to breathe but it's an effort to drag the air in as my throat closes. Tighter and tighter, until the world disappears fading to a pinhole of light. I'm nowhere.

  I don't know how long it lasts.

  When I can feel again, the floor is cold beneath my back. My head's tilted and a cop kneels by my side, holding my chin. "He's breathing," he says.

  The cuffs are gone. Above my head there's a drone of voices as the cops talk to each other. One by one the hands let go of my arms and legs. A cop crouches beside me. He says something but his words echo, a meaningless and painful sound. I twitch away and roll onto my side, gasping shallow breaths. The ghosts are a lurking threat inside my head.

  "Please, don't," I say. The cop leans closer. His face is near mine, but all I see is a blur.

  "Take it easy, son." His voice sounds distant. "The doc is on his way."

  "I'll do whatever you want." I say the words aloud. The cop mutters something. But I'm not talking to him. Blood trickles from my nose and drips softly to the floor.

  ###

  I wake surrounded by blue. Everything is blurred. I feel linen against my back, pyjama bottoms, no top. There's a murmur of voices close by. After a while blue curtains come into focus. A few more moments before I can figure it out, it's a hospital ward. I was in a hospital after Danny. I hate hospitals. When I move pain roars through my head. I groan and lie back, the pain settles to a relentless throb. A moment later I feel a rush of fear as fragments of memory return. I stare at my bruised wrists and try not to panic.

  I don't even want to think about the ghosts in case I wake them.

  I really hate hospitals. But that's not my biggest problem. If I stay here, when the ghosts come back it will be like the police station all over. I try to roll out of bed but there's an IV stuck in my arm; the metal trolley rattles against the bed frame. Within a minute a nurse appears between the curtains. She disappears for a moment and returns before I can struggle free of the blankets.

  "Good to see you're awake." Maybe there's a hint of sarcasm. She lifts my wrist, ignoring the bruises, and smiles. Her streaked blond hair bounces in a ponytail. She glances at the watch pinned to her uniform. I read it upside down and see that it's 5.20am. "Lie back," she puts my wrist down gently. "The doctor will be in to see you in a moment."

  I stare at her like she's from another planet, speaking a language I don't understand. She says, "How do you feel?"

  I really hate hospitals. That's how I feel. "Can I go now?" I ask.

  Her smile gets a bit tight, and for a moment a glimmer of whatever she's heard about me shows on her face. "The doctor is right here." She says it too loud and a moment later a doctor dives through the curtains. He's young, wearing a check shirt and tie, under a rumpled white coat with a stethoscope shoved in the pocket. He's flicking through the pages of a patient chart. I'm betting it's mine and he's never seen it before.

  "I feel fine," I say, trying to stay calm. "I'd like to go now."

  The doctor hangs the chart on the bed. "I don't think that would be wise," he says. "It seems you had a seizure of some kind. Everything is stable now, but we'd like to run some more tests."

  "No thank you." It's important to remember how this works. "I want to leave. I'm going to leave." It's a statement. No cops appear so that's one less worry. The doc glances at the nurse, but she's blank faced. "Is there something I can sign?" They exchange glances. From the look on their faces, I'm not their highest priority.

  "A moment please," he says and they disappear between the curtains.

  My stuff is in a black bag by the bedside locker. It takes me a moment to pull out the IV. My head pounds when I stand up and I have to lean on the bed and take deep breaths. Blood drips on the floor from the IV hole. I empty the black bag. There's old blood on the front of my shirt. A reminder. I have to sit down to finish getting dressed. None of this matters. I need to get out of here before the ghosts...

  The thought nearly shuts me down, so I concentrate on tying my trainers. When the doctor returns I'm all done. It's time to stand up, to look in control. To convince them it was all a misunderstanding. One look at the doctor's face and I know that's not going to work.

  "I'm fine. Get the form and I'll be on my way." I say it with attitude, like it's no thanks to you. "That's what everyone wants, right."

  "Mr Curtis," he says. "I really don't think it's wise for you to leave."

  The nurse appears at his side and nods agreement. "Just a little longer, so we can finish the tests."

  "I'm fine." I glare at them. "Or I was fine before the cops started on me." It's an asshole thing to say.

  "The police brought you here so we could take care of you." The nurse looks like she wants to slap me. "You should thank them." She folds her arms and takes a step forward, but before she can say anything else the doctor caves.

  "Very well, Mr Curtis, it's against medical advice but it's your decision. We'll need you to sign a form." He disappears between the curtains.

  The nurse watches me and then turns away. I sit on the bed and try not to think about the ghosts. Before I can form any sort of thought, she's back.

  "Here," she takes hold of my arm, bleeding where I pulled out the IV. She presses a wad of cotton wool over the wound and tapes it down. "If you leave and something goes wrong, they don't have to treat you."

  "Fair enough," I say. I don't know why she cares.

  "We can get someone down to talk to you."

  And that's what this is all about. It's not hard to work out. She thinks I'm nuts.

  I shove myself off the bed, fight my way through the curtains and out into a side ward with two rows of beds. The beds are full, each holds a motionless body; it's like a morgue. I wonder if there's a chance any of the bodies are dead. Ready and waiting to become ghosts and get on my case. I stand frozen, staring at the bodies.

  The nurse comes up beside me. "What's wrong?" she asks.

  I nearly yell at her to be quiet. Instead I bite my lip to keep the panic inside and search for the way out. The place is a maze. She trails me until I reach the doors. Other nurses and doctors watch. No one tries to stop me.

  I follow the painted trail of footprints to get out of the hospital. Outside, beneath a watery sun, I flop on the grass and try to take deep calming breaths. But I'm not calm. The morning air is chilly and my chest is tight.

  Down the hill, Oxford is hidden beneath a sea of mist with a few spires and domes poking through. A ghost town. The thought slips into my head. The ghosts are linked to Oxford. To what happened. What if I leave? The thought feels like a betrayal. Danny can never leave.

  I start walking. This town, is coming like a ghost town. The words echo in my head. The rhythm blocks everything else out. This town, is coming like a ghost town.

  It's a long way back to town. I make it as far as Magdalen Bridge. It's still early, buses rumble by leaving cyclists in their wake. Dew lays heavy on the meadows beyond the river. Magdalen Tower stands silent watch over it all. I lie down on a bench. Before I close my eyes a crocodile of boys go by in ankle length black capes and mortarboards.

  Oxford: sometimes it doesn't feel like the real world.

  Chapter Two

  Summer in Oxford: beneath the dreaming spires, punts glide past colleges and girls trai
l fingers in the Thames as their golden lads sway to the rhythm of the river. Sunlight shimmers through the leaves; bees drone among the honeysuckle. The crack of bat on ball, croquet and cricket, men in blazers and boaters, ladies in feathered hats; champagne garden parties, opera in the park and Shakespeare in the gardens…

  Yeah, right.

  "'Big Issue'?" says Mickey.

  I watch as he offers a passer-by a rumpled magazine and smiles, hopefully. The commuter in the wrinkled shirt tucks his head down and hurries past, too knackered for charitable thoughts. The next target market is a grey-haired lady with bags of shopping. Red faced and sweaty she gives Mick an apologetic smile and shakes her head. The smile disappears when she glances at me; almost imperceptibly she clutches her handbag closer.

  Too knackered to be bothered, I lie on a bench and enjoy the evening sun. I'm wondering where to sleep tonight, bench, doorway, bus shelter. As far as future plans go, it's about as optimistic as I can get.

  Mickey holds up a 'Big Issue' and stands at the edge of the pavement where it narrows down by the walls of St John's College, helpfully funnelling pedestrians towards him. He shoots me a look.

  "You okay, T?" he asks. I'm probably not helping his sales, but Mick's a mate and he's not going to say anything; I guess he's heard what happened at the cop shop, or a version of the story. He's not heard it from me. I'm pretending it never happened, or trying to. Did the ghosts try to kill me last night? Every now and then, the thought creeps into my head. But I won't think about the ghosts. I won't make them real.

  "Are you sure you're okay, T. Cos you sort of look washed out … like shit."

  I don't know why he would think this is helping.

  "You've got blood on your shirt, T. And a badass bruise–"

  "Thanks, Mick."

  "Just saying, dude, if you want to talk about it." Whatever he's heard, Mick's got the idea that he has to look after me. This turns the world upside down, and I stare at him wondering how it could've happened. It's usually me looking out for him.