Ghost Ahead

by Spike Black

  Juha high-fived him. “He’s back!”

  “Damn straight,” Garth said, lifting a ball from the rack for his final shot of the frame. He couldn’t remember feeling this good. He wondered if maybe he should come forward and confess to his part in the death of Eddie Serling. He’d done a great service to the community. He might even get a reward for stopping the killer.

  Focus, he thought. This is for the championship.

  Juha gave him a double thumbs up and pointed to the slogan on his T-shirt: My Mind’s In The Gutter, But My Balls Are Not.

  Garth approached the lane. Kept his eye on the target. I am invincible.

  The ball sailed down the lane and demolished the pins. A cheer rang out around the bowling alley as Garth raised his arms in triumph.

  ***

  He drove home, feel-good tunes blasting from the radio, the taste of victory sweet on his lips. As he turned onto Eldham Road he hit slow-moving traffic. It took ten minutes to move a hundred feet, and his good mood was gradually dissipating.

  “Come on!” he said to nobody in particular. “I’m almost home!”

  As he rolled over the hill into town he discovered the cause of the delay. One lane of the road was closed up ahead, and a police officer was waving people through.

  There had been an accident directly opposite the bus shelter. Exactly, he realized, at the spot where he had hit Eddie Serling. As he passed by, he looked over and saw the crumpled remains of a car being lifted onto a recovery vehicle. He winced - there was little chance of anyone surviving such a terrible crash. The body of the car was so mangled that he struggled to identify the make of it, but as the recovery vehicle swung around he managed to get a glimpse of the virtually unscathed rear of the car.

  He shivered. It was a silver Nissan Qashqai.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 8

  Pig carcasses passed down the production line, split open from from throat to rear. His mind elsewhere, Garth lifted out a mess of gray intestines and dropped them into a chute. Efficiently, he removed the liver, the heart, the lungs and kidneys, placing the offal on a series of hooks.

  He wiped his brow with the cleanest part of his arm. The brain hum had come on early today. Alternating night and day shifts messed with his health at the best of times, but with all the craziness that had been going on, he thought his head might explode.

  Something buzzed in the pocket of his smock, and it took a moment for him to register what it was. He reached in and pulled out his phone, wrapped in protective plastic. It was Chloe calling, and his heart lurched. She knew not to call him at work unless it was urgent. He gave a quick glance around, saw the coast was clear, and fumbled to answer it, the phone slipping in the grip of his blood-streaked gloves.

  “Hello?”

  There was a moment of silence on the other end, a silence that he automatically filled with all manner of horrors - flashing images whirring through the movie projector of his mind, mercifully all too fleeting and out of focus for him to examine closely. But they mostly concerned cars and crashes and serial killers named Eddie Serling.

  Finally, she spoke. “Dad?”

  “Chloe? Are you okay?”

  “Is everything all right, dad?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at work, sweetie.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “What? Why?”

  She was quiet for a moment.

  He turned and saw Boyd doing his rounds. “Look, this isn’t a good time. What’s up?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I’m driving to college and there’s just been an accident ahead of us. On Eldham Road.”

  Panic ballooned in his throat, almost choking him. “What? Oh my God, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we weren’t involved. But the car that crashed - it’s freaky. It’s a silver Nissan, just like yours.”

  The penny dropped. “Oh! Oh, right. Yeah, that happened yesterday. I drove past it.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re not understanding me. It happened just now. I watched it shoot off the road and crash into a tree. It exploded in a big fireball. We were, like, two cars back.”

  The blood froze in his veins. His lips moved but no words came out.

  “Dad? Dad, are you there?”

  “Uh, yuh-huh…”

  His vision swam. His head pulsed. This had moved beyond the realms of coincidence. Eddie Serling was hunting him down, he was sure of it. And the son of a bitch wouldn’t rest until he got his revenge.

  “What the hell, Harrison?” It was Boyd, marching toward him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Garth dismissed his foreman with a wave of the hand and spoke into the phone. “You saw it happen?”

  “It’s a wreck,” Chloe said. “Just awful. Nobody got out of that alive.”

  “You know the rules about phones,” Boyd shouted. “Now give me that.”

  He reached for the phone but Garth turned away, shielding it from his grasp. “Opposite the bus stop?”

  “Yeah,” Chloe said. “My heart stopped for a minute because I thought it was you.”

  She cares, he thought. She actually cares about her pig-slaughtering old man. “I’ve got the courtesy car.”

  “Still,” she said, “it shook me up. I just wanted to check.”

  “I know. But I’m fine, really.”

  “Harrison!” Boyd shouted. “Give me that bloody thing. Right now!”

  “Look, I have to go,” Garth said. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, dad.”

  He hung up, his mind swirling. There was so much to process. And he couldn’t remember the last time his daughter said she loved him.

  Boyd snatched the phone from his grip.

  “Hey!”

  “I’m confiscating this,” Boyd said.

  “It was an emergency.”

  “Is that right?” The phone started ringing again. “And I suppose this is an emergency, too?”

  Garth snatched the phone back and answered it. “Hello?”

  “Mr Harrison?” a voice said. “It’s Terry at the body shop. Just to let you know that your car is ready for collection.”

  ***

  “Here she is,” the mechanic said. “Just as you requested - good as new.”

  “Thanks, Terry. You’re a diamond.” Garth assessed the work. Terry was right - it was quite remarkable. The Nissan looked even better than it had before the accident. “Don’t suppose you want to buy her off me, do you?”

  Terry laughed. “A week ago, I’d have jumped at the offer. But now I’d be lucky to shift it. You’d best be careful in that thing, is all I can say.”

  “It was only two accidents.”

  “Three.”

  Garth locked eyes on the guy. “Really?”

  “Yeah. One a day for the last three days.”

  “Silver Nissans?”

  “Quashqais, every one of them.”

  “You’re kidding? I… I didn’t know that.”

  “Every time they reopen the road, it happens again. You hear about the latest one? Nasty business.”

  He was afraid to ask. “Oh?”

  “Family of four. Burst into flames when it hit the tree. Two little kiddies in the back were roasted alive in their car seats.”

  Garth’s hands flew to his mouth, suppressing a moan that had escaped his lips. He was suddenly so hot he couldn’t stand it. There was a pain in the back of his throat. An image flashed into his mind. The ursine man at the bus shelter.

  He swallowed hard. What had seemed ludicrous and impossible was now terrifyingly real: the ghost of a ruthless serial killer was out there, and it would keep crashing Nissans until it found the right one.

  “So,” Terry said. “You want to swap keys?”

  ***

  Garth burst in the door. “Wendy?”

  She entered the hall.

  “Wendy, I’m sorry I’m late, but I had to go the long way through the villages. You wouldn’t belie
ve…”

  “You’re not late,” she said, surprisingly chipper. She looked pretty in a flowery dress and apron, but there was something false about the look on her face, something a little Stepford Wives about it, and it disturbed him. “You’re just in time.”

  “I am?”

  “Here,” she said. “Let me help you with your coat.”

  “Oh. Okay, thanks.” He couldn’t understand why she was being so nice. “Something smells good.”

  Her fake smile widened. “We have a guest for dinner,” she said.

  Garth’s face dropped. “We do?”

  She motioned to the living room. Garth headed for the door, trying to make himself look vaguely presentable in the hallway mirror as he passed. He poked his head around the living room door.

  There was a man on the sofa, drinking coffee. He wore a jacket, shirt and tie and yet, Garth thought, he still managed to look scruffy. The man saw Garth and lifted his cup in acknowledgement.

  “You remember Keith,” Wendy said.

  Garth waved weakly at the guy. Keith? Keith…

  He shot Wendy a quizzical look. She looked back, the epitome of innocence, but he caught the waver in her smile, the hardness in her eyes, and suddenly it came to him.

  The guy was an old colleague of Wendy’s. He’d been at the Christmas meals with Trish and Brian and all the others.

  Detective Keith Erskine.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 9

  As he sat at the dining table watching Keith Erskine tuck in to his meal, Garth’s stomach churned and somersaulted, obliterating his appetite. The very last thing he wanted, however, was to look guilty, so he shoveled in his dinner anyway.

  “Gorgeous pork, Wendy,” Keith said through a mouthful of food. “Mmm.”

  Garth truly hated the man already.

  “Mm-mmm,” Keith continued.

  Garth’s fingers bunched into a fist as he imagined punching him in the face.

  Keith turned to him. “So, Garth, I hear you were in an accident?”

  Oh, you heard that, did you?

  Garth nodded. He looked over at Wendy, who dropped her head, suddenly incredibly interested in her plate.

  “He hit a deer,” Chloe interjected with disdain.

  “Really?” Keith chewed this over, along with another mouthful of food. “Unusual.”

  Garth waited for something further. Nothing was forthcoming. He sighed. “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just - it’s not rutting season, that’s all. It’s not very common this time of year.” He scooped up another big piece of pork. “You got unlucky, I guess.”

  “Sure did,” Garth said. “He smashed in the front of my car. Almost totaled it.”

  Keith paused to let the words sink in. “Did he?”

  Garth gulped his food down quickly and corrected himself. “It. It did.”

  “You must have been going pretty fast.”

  “I wasn’t breaking the speed limit.”

  Keith laughed so hard he almost choked on his food. “It’s okay, I’m not a traffic cop. I’m not here to arrest you for speeding.”

  Garth waited for Keith’s laughter to dissipate. “Then why are you here?”

  Wendy’s head snapped up. “Garth! Keith is our guest.”

  Garth shot her a look that said your guest, maybe.

  Keith casually waved it away with a swipe of what Garth thought was a remarkably hairy hand. He took a swig of beer, exhaling noisily in approval. “So, Garth, what is it you do for a living?”

  Garth paused. He had the distinct feeling that he was telling Erskine something he already knew. “I work at Wortham Meats.”

  “Oh, yeah? How long?”

  “Seven, eight years.” He thought about it. “Eight years.”

  “And what do you do there, if you don’t mind me asking? What are your duties?”

  “I do mind, actually.”

  Wendy eyeballed him.

  “What I mean is, I don’t think it’s appropriate dinner table conversation.”

  Keith chuckled. “Oh, I understand.” He smacked his lips as he finished his meal. Folded his napkin. “Did you hear we have our very own serial killer?”

  Garth almost choked on his vegetables. From one unpalatable subject to another, it seemed. He nodded.

  “Eddie Serling. Who’d have thought? You know, before he was landlord of the Blue Boar, do you know what he did? He worked on the kill floor at Wortham Meats. Isn’t that something?”

  “Not really,” Garth said. “Until recently it was one of the biggest employers in the town.”

  “Oh, I know. But I bet it’s a difficult place to work.”

  Wendy looked up and met Garth’s eye line. “You struggle with it sometimes, don’t you dear?”

  Dear? She’d never called him dear in her life.

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “Yes,” Keith jumped in. “I imagine it must do things to the mind. After all, Eddie got laid off with PTSD.”

  Garth feigned interest. “Is that right?”

  “Oh, yes,” Keith said, fixing him with a stare.

  “You do know,” Garth said, not liking that look in the detective’s eyes one bit, “that not all abattoir workers go around murdering people?”

  Wendy stared intently at her food.

  Keith nodded slowly. “You’ve been there eight years, you say?”

  “Give or take.”

  “Eddie got laid off seven years ago, so you might remember him?”

  Garth was genuinely surprised by this. “No, no. The first time I ever saw the guy was when his face flashed up on the news.”

  The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was the first time you ever saw him?”

  Garth nodded, resisting the temptation to be too over-enthusiastic about it.

  “You’d never seen him around town? Frequented his pub?”

  Garth shook his head. His face flushed as Keith’s eyes bore into him. Keep cool. Hold it together. He looked to Wendy for help. Not that he expected to receive any.

  “Garth’s not really a pub person,” Wendy said.

  And still Keith stared. What more could Garth say?

  At that moment Keith’s radio burst to life, breaking the tension. A woman’s voice. “Whisky Delta One-Zero, receiving.”

  Keith pressed a button on the radio attached to his belt. “Whisky Delta One-Zero, go ahead.”

  “Got an RTC on Eldham Road,” the voice informed him. “Are you able to attend?”

  Garth tensed as he heard this.

  “En route,” Keith said. “ETA five minutes.” He turned to Wendy. “I’m so sorry, I’ve got to go. There’s been another accident. Thanks for a lovely meal.”

  “It was my pleasure,” she said, and Garth thought she looked as sick as he felt. Was it because she regretted inviting Keith to dinner? Or because he had, in some way, confirmed for her what she already suspected about her husband?

  Keith held out his large, hirsute hand and Garth briefly shook it. Then this intruder into his home stepped over the threshold and was gone, Garth watching as he climbed into a scruffy old Ford that suited him down to the ground.

  He closed the door and turned to Wendy. “I think we need to talk.”

  “Do we?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Right, right. So he just came to dinner, did he?”

  Wendy’s eyes burned with an intensity he had rarely seen. “He’s an old friend.”

  He stared back at her. Blinked. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to continue this conversation, anyway. He grabbed his coat. “I’m going to see if there’s anything I can do to help,” he said, and slammed the door behind him.

  ***

  As he approached, out of breath, an ambulance, a fire truck and two police cars were already on the scene. Moving closer, he saw the wreckage of a vehicle, its position almost identical to the previo
us accident, having collided with the same tree opposite the bus shelter. The front of the car was wrapped around the tree trunk, the rest of the chassis mangled and twisted, as if it had impacted with incredible force.

  He knew, of course, that it had to be another Nissan Qashqai.

  He saw Keith Erskine, deep in conversation with a uniformed police officer. He watched, appalled, as firemen cut a body from the wreckage. He suddenly felt ashamed to be there, an onlooker to this terrible tragedy, and he wanted to turn back. But then, as he stopped on the periphery of the accident, he realized something.

  He knew that car.

  It wasn’t, as he had assumed, a Nissan Qashqai at all, but a Renault Kadjar. A similar vehicle to his own in many respects, but this car was white, and there was only one person he knew with a car like that.

  Please don’t let it be please don’t please god no — “Garth?”

  He turned. Keith Erskine was in his face.

  “Garth, you can’t be here. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to —”

  Garth bolted toward the car. He had to know. Keith gave chase, grabbing his shoulder, but he shrugged him off.

  Firefighters surrounded the body now. Carrying it from the vehicle. Laying it on a plastic sheet on the ground. He couldn’t see much of the victim through the throng of uniforms - a pair of shoes, maybe. A hand.

  He moved around the car, his heart pounding in his chest. A roar of anguish escaped his throat as he came to the rear of the vehicle. There it was, pristine, untouched - the one thing he didn’t want to see.

  The license plate. 5TR 1KE.

  He stumbled backward, his hands clamped across his mouth, the world spinning. Keith was there to steady him.

  “Careful.”

  “It’s my friend,” Garth cried out.

  “I’m sorry, but you need to stay back.”

  The firefighters were dispersing now, and he saw a brief flash of Juha’s face before a body bag was zipped up over him.