Ghost Ahead

by Spike Black

  He picked up his pace, pushing on through the pain. His feet felt like they were encased in concrete boots, his kneecaps like buoys of bone bobbing in vast seas of lactic acid. He navigated a tight bend and as the road straightened, stretching out for a mile ahead of him, he stopped in his tracks.

  The flashing lights of two police cars were reflected in the glass of the bus shelter where he’d hit the guy. A cop was bending down in the road, examining the body.

  Garth surveyed the scene for a few moments, spun around, and vomited into the long grass.

  ***

  “Is everything okay?” Wendy asked as he closed the garage door. He’d hoped she’d be back in bed by now.

  “Yeah, sorry. It’s the deer. I guess it got to me.”

  A short, sharp laugh exploded from his wife’s mouth.

  “Great,” he said. “Thanks for the sympathy.”

  “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t expect it to be such a problem for you, given… you know, given what you do for a living.”

  He sighed. “Well, maybe that gets to me too, sometimes. You ever think about that?” He immediately felt bad for snapping at her, especially because it wasn’t true anyway - he was fine with his job. Perhaps that was the thing with lies: now that the floodgates were open, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

  Wendy’s face hardened. “Then maybe you should go ahead and quit if it bothers you that much.”

  Yeah, he thought. Because that’s an option.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “this is a conversation for another day. Come on up to bed. A good night’s sleep and you’ll be over it by morning.”

  “Sure,” he said. He didn’t mean it to sound as sarcastic as it came out.

  Her face softened. “Look, don’t let it torture you. You did what you thought was right, right?”

  His mind rushed back to the scene of the crime. Thinking about Wendy and Chloe, and how this would affect them. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

  “Well then. That’s all that matters. Now change out of those clothes and come to bed.”

  She left, and he glanced down at the dried blood stains. A shiver of disgust rippled through him. He tore off his jacket, hurling it to the floor. After a moment of indecision he took off his top and jeans, too, wrapped them in the jacket and threw the bundle into the trunk of his car.

  ***

  Garth lay awake for the rest of the night, images of the dead man’s face and watery eyes haunting him. The picture in his mind was astonishingly vivid - he seemed to remember details he wasn’t even aware that he’d processed at the time. The unkempt eyebrows that joined up in the middle to make one long unibrow. The pockmarked cheeks that served as pillows for the heavy bags under the man’s eyes.

  Who is this guy? he wondered. Did he have a family? He was in his mid-forties at a stab, so it was likely. Was his wife, like Wendy, staying up and wondering why he hadn’t returned home? And what the hell had the guy been doing out on Eldham Road at two in the morning? There were no buses until at least five. When it came down to it, though, he was most likely an ordinary family man from Chalkstone, just like him.

  And he had left his body out there to rot.

  He wondered what was happening now. If the body had arrived at the morgue. Police officers were probably still studying the scene, identifying marks on the road. Collecting debris. Little pieces of his car. It was possible, he realized, as a chill juddered through him, that they could already be on his trail. Questioning possible witnesses.

  No, there were no witnesses. It had been too dark, too isolated, and if anyone had seen the accident then, surely, they would have come over to help?

  He settled down. His heart was beating too fast for sleep, but he tried anyway.

  Ten minutes later, his eyes snapped open.

  Oh, God. What have I done?

  * * *

  CHAPTER 3

  The low winter sun slanted through the kitchen blinds, causing Garth’s tired eyes to scream in their sockets. He sat at the table reading the morning paper in his robe, cereal balanced on his spoon, the events of the night before playing like a stuck record in his mind.

  He pictured the scene of devastation he must have left when he drove away. One dead man, of course, embedded with tiny splinters of windshield glass, and surrounded by other incriminating debris. Pieces of the plastic covering from his smashed headlight, no doubt. And a large chunk of his front bumper was missing, so that had to be out there somewhere. It was just a matter of time, surely, before the police came for him.

  “It must be real good.”

  Garth looked up. “Huh?”

  “That news article,” Chloe said from the breakfast bar. She was seventeen and pretty in a fresh-faced way, like her mother. “It must be real good. You haven’t turned the page in half an hour.”

  Garth snorted and changed the page. He watched as her little dog, Ray, hopped onto the stool beside her. She gave it a cuddle and patted its head. He hated that bloody dog. “Netball tonight?”

  “No, it’s tomorrow. And I already told you, it’s canceled.” She fed Ray some of her toast, then took a bite. Garth felt queasy.

  You know, he thought, not really listening to his daughter’s reply, it is a Nissan Qashqai - just about the most popular car around these parts lately. It seemed to Garth that as soon as he had bought a Qashqai, every bugger in town had got one. That used to piss him off something rotten, but now he was beginning to see the benefit.

  “So, what’s the deal, Dad?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t usually have breakfast with us when you’re on night shift.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Can’t sleep?”

  He groaned irritably, dropping the spoon into the bowl. As much as he loved his daughter, right now he wished she’d just leave him alone with his thoughts. Still, he didn’t want to arouse suspicion. “It doesn’t matter. One more night and then I’m on days, so I’ve got to turn it around, anyway.”

  She eyed his cereal bowl. “And you’re not hungry, either. What’s wrong?”

  Jeez. What was it with the women in this family? Did Chloe harbor hopes of one day being a police officer, too? “Nothing.” He felt her eyes on him. “It’s nothing, okay?”

  “Fine. Whatever. But something’s bothering you.”

  “Yeah. My annoying teenage daughter.” He noticed his thigh was jittering against the table leg, and stopped it. He glanced up as Wendy entered the kitchen. Her eyebrows were raised, the words already tumbling from her mouth.

  “Did you hear?”

  He froze, his heart in his mouth. “Hear what?”

  “They found a body on Eldham Road.”

  Garth was struck dumb. Chloe answered for him. “No way.”

  “Yeah, just around the corner, by the bus stop. A hit and run, apparently.”

  “Oh, gross,” Chloe said. “When did that happen?”

  “Last night sometime. Can you believe it?”

  Garth took a mouthful of cereal. His hand was beginning to shake, the spoon clattering into his front teeth. He looked up, milk dribbling down his chin, and saw Wendy staring down at him. He mumbled through a mouthful of Cheerios. “What?”

  “Where exactly did you say you hit that deer?”

  Oh, great, he thought. Officer Harrison’s still on the case.

  He swallowed and wiped his chin. Opening his mouth to speak, he hesitated as he realized he was not at all sure what he was going to say.

  At that moment there was a knock at the front door.

  His initial relief at the interruption quickly gave way to panic. “Who is it?” he asked, as innocent as he could muster.

  They’ve come for me. This is it. It’s over.

  “I don’t know,” Wendy said, heading out to the hall. “I failed my psychic exams.”

  He watched her leave and leaned over the breakfast table, holding his breath, trying hard to listen as she unlocked the door. His heart pounded in his chest.

 
“You didn’t, did you?”

  He jolted and looked up. Chloe was scowling at him.

  He blinked hard. “Didn’t what?”

  “How could you do that?”

  “Do what?” A yawning creak as the front door opened. He strained, almost toppling off his chair. He heard chatter.

  “You hit a deer?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He couldn’t make out any of the words in the hallway. “But it’s okay, it was one of those ugly ones.”

  Chloe gasped. “You murderer!”

  He cringed, motioning for her to keep her voice down. “Listen, there was nothing I could do about it, okay? It just… it came out of nowhere.”

  He knew there was very little he could say to appease his daughter on this issue, given that she was both an animal lover and a vegetarian. A stance she had taken soon after he had foolishly taken her to the abattoir on Bring Your Child To Work Day.

  “So that’s it,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I knew you were being weird.”

  He listened intently. “I’m always weird.”

  “True dat. Don’t you think, Ray-Ray?”

  Garth was losing patience. “Ssh, ssh.”

  “What?”

  “I’m trying to hear.”

  Chloe rolled her eyes and groaned, in that way teenage girls did when dealing with their idiot parents. “It’s just Shannon.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah.” she slid off her stool. “I’m giving her a lift into college. I did tell you. Not that you ever seem to listen to me anymore.”

  Garth relaxed. He was relieved and yet, at the same time, sick to his stomach. He pushed the cereal bowl aside.

  Chloe kissed her dog on the head. “I’ll miss you, my little Ray of sunshine.” The dog lifted its head and licked eagerly around her lips.

  Garth winced. Ugh. Leave my daughter alone!

  Chloe glared at her father as she handed him the dog. “Do me a favor, yeah? Try not to kill him.”

  Garth glanced down at Ray. Why, he wondered, were ugly little dogs deemed such essential fashion accessories? When he looked back up, Chloe was already gone.

  “Wait - drive safely!” But he was too late. He looked back at Ray, who stared up at him accusingly, as if the rotten little mutt knew everything.

  Oh, how he hated that bloody dog.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 4

  That first moment in the body shop, as the mechanic silently inspected the Nissan, was agonizing. Garth feared the guy had seen enough mangled vehicles in his time to know exactly what had happened. This damage, he imagined the guy saying, could have only been caused by a collision with the body of an overweight adult male.

  The mechanic, a grizzled old-timer called Terry, sucked the air in through his teeth, wiped his hands on a greasy cloth and turned to him. Every muscle in Garth’s body stiffened.

  “Doesn’t look to me like there’s any structural damage,” Terry said, and Garth relaxed so much that for a moment he thought he was going to wet himself. “But I’ll be able to tell you more once we’ve stripped away the damaged parts.”

  Garth nodded. “You think it’ll ever be good as new?”

  “Well, that depends, but I’d say it looks promising. We’ll strip her back, pull the frame square if needed, then install and paint the new parts…”

  Garth tried to take in what Terry was saying but he was distracted. He imagined a police officer, a detective perhaps, sauntering into the body shop a few days from now, flashing a picture of him.

  Recognize this guy? the detective would ask, and Terry would rub the stubble on his chin and study the picture and say sure, I remember him. Shifty, nervous guy. Looked sick with guilt.

  “So here’s the key to your courtesy car,” Terry said. “Little black Fiat, out on the forecourt.”

  Garth took the key. “Perfect.” He was suddenly acutely aware of how nervous he looked. He tried to instill some confidence into his expression, but suspected he looked constipated instead. “Thanks for this. So, you’ll give me a call when it’s ready?”

  “Absolutely. Mobile the best number?”

  A police siren wailed in the distance. It was getting louder, headed his way. “Er, yeah.” His stomach churned. He struggled to control his breathing. He had to get out of there, fast. “Well, thanks Terry. Take care.”

  “All the best.”

  Garth exited onto the forecourt. The siren was louder now.

  They’re coming for me. This is it. The end of the road.

  He picked up his pace, unlocked the Fiat, climbed in. The police car appeared on the street ahead of him, siren blaring, lights flashing. It passed by, on its way somewhere. The siren faded into the distance.

  Garth exhaled a deep, shaking breath and started the engine. As he peeled out of the forecourt and joined the flow of traffic on the main road, he became convinced that even if the police didn’t come for him, then the men in white coats soon would.

  ***

  On the surface, the killing floor at Wortham Meats shared remarkable similarities to other factories Garth had worked at in the town - the clattering, hissing and screeching of industrial production, the stainless steel machinery, and the general air of professionalism: all employees focused on completing their tasks as efficiently as possible. The element that made it markedly different was the blood.

  It was everywhere - smeared on the tunics of the workers, pooling in collection troughs, flowing in rivulets down the center of the floor. His first day on the job, it was all he could think about - that, and the screaming of the hogs. By the end of his first week, he barely noticed any of it.

  He waited as his colleague Juha placed the electrodes of a pair of scissor tongs on the sides of a hog’s skull and stunned the creature. It fell, like they all did, as if its life had been turned off with a switch. Garth crouched and ran the edge of a knife along its throat, severing the carotid artery and opening up a huge, gushing wound. Its spasming limbs jerked violently as Garth shackled its hind legs. A machine lifted the carcass into the air, where it hung upside down, the life flowing out of it in a steaming purple gush. Garth felt a hot and horrible pang of empathy for the animal, then dismissed it. He turned around to do it all again.

  The next hog was not a hog at all, but a man.

  A wide, bloated, naked male was ushered in on all fours, and as Juha lifted his head and placed the electrodes on the sides of the man’s skull, Garth recognized the vacant stare and blubbery face and pockmarks and unibrow and oh no don’t do it Juha, please, just stop, don’t kill him again —

  With a buzz the man slumped to the ground, lifeless, laying there just as he had in the road. Garth straddled him, his knife to the man’s throat, feeling the full, hideous weight of what was now expected of him and knowing, as the blade twitched in his grasp, that he would never be able to go through with it.

  The body of the slain man began to spasm beneath him. He glanced up at his colleague. Juha nodded, his eyes wide, urging him to finish the job. Don’t make me do it, Garth wanted to say. Please! I’ll do anything!

  Two hands clapped together in Garth’s vision, causing him to jump. He looked up and saw his foreman, Boyd, glaring down at him.

  “Let’s go, Harrison. Two thousand hogs today.”

  It suddenly struck Garth that Boyd, with his overweight physique and scrunched up face, looked oddly porcine. He returned his gaze to the hog but it was still a man, the man, except that now his eyes were not the dead, staring, rainwater-filled eyes that haunted his dreams but the wide, pleading eyes of a terrified person begging for their life.

  The knife trembled in Garth’s grip. He pressed the blade to the pink flesh of the man’s throat, horribly aware that time was running out. If - as every rational fiber in his being was telling him - the man before him was indeed a hog, then there was only thirty seconds from the moment the animal was stunned before it would regain consciousness, and then it would feel every moment of its agonizing death.r />
  How long had it been, now? A bolt of panic caused him to grip the man’s head tighter, and even though he knew the man simply had to be a hog, cradling its jaw he felt what seemed to be the bristles of an early beard beneath his fingers…

  Boyd appeared alongside him. “Give me that.”

  He snatched the knife and plunged it deep into the neck of what Garth saw now was a hog, and nothing more. Blood gushed out of the creature in a huge stream, and for only the second time in eight years on the job, the sight of all that claret made Garth’s stomach turn.

  “Get your goddamn act together,” Boyd said, thrusting the knife back into Garth’s hand. He stormed off, leaving Garth staring at the bloodied blade.

  “Dude, you okay?” It was Juha.

  Garth broke from his stupor. “Yeah, totally. Of course.” He even forced a smile, just to labor the point, but it felt false on his face, and Juha’s brows knotted in response.

  Garth shackled the hog’s ankles, letting go as the pulley system hoisted the carcass into the air. He looked down at his blood-stained gloves and shuddered, wiping his hands down his smock.

  Instantly, the opening drum beat from Superstition sprang into his mind.

  ***

  Garth opened the trunk of his courtesy car and took out a trash bag. He crossed the factory parking lot, his usual end-of-shift headache seeming to press down on his brow as he walked. Reaching the furnace, he opened the bag. Inside were his blood-stained clothes. He emptied the contents of the bag into the furnace and watched as they burned.

  The radio burst to life as he turned on the car’s engine. I Feel Good by James Brown. Must be the new early-hours favorite, he thought, and switched off the radio before the song could infect his mind. He peeled out of the parking lot, waving to Felix in the gatehouse. The old fella opened the barrier for him. Garth’s relief at having escaped the place for the night dissipated as he turned the corner and was assaulted by chants.