Ghost Ahead

by Spike Black

  “I’m serious. Whatever it is that you want from me, just take it. You want revenge, then kill me. You want my soul, then tear it out.”

  Eddie remained motionless. A clear fluid oozed from his mouth and nostrils, leaving a puddle at his feet. Then, to Garth’s astonishment, he turned and limped away.

  “Hey!” Garth shouted, a little too loud for the time of night. He hushed his tone. “Get back here!”

  The ghost stopped at the curb, looked back over his shoulder and slowly lifted his arm in a beckoning motion. Dumbfounded, Garth didn’t move. Eddie continued on around the corner, until he was out of sight.

  This is ridiculous. Garth followed, traversing the corner that led onto the neighboring street, but the ghost was gone. He gritted his teeth with rage, resigned to failure, then saw him: a distant figure, two streets away, on the opposite side of the intersection.

  Once again, Eddie raised an arm and beckoned him on. Garth picked up his pace. If I lose sight of him, he thought, it’ll still be okay. I’ll just follow the puddles of ooze and trail of teeth.

  He plowed ahead, through the eerily quiet streets of Chalkstone, Eddie’s ghost always there, in the distance, slowly waving him onward. Eventually he came to the town center. What had once been Chalkstone’s bustling heart of commerce was now a mostly deserted street housing a sorry collection of betting shops, cheap clothing stores and boarded-up facades. A shuffling drunk guy mumbled something unintelligible as he crossed his path.

  An idea sparked, and for a moment Garth thought he knew where Eddie was taking him. But as he stopped alongside the police station he saw Eddie again, on the crest of the hill, motioning for him to follow. He glanced into one of the station windows as he passed, wondering if Keith was on duty tonight, and what he would think if he were to look out and see him wandering by.

  He made his way onto the back roads of the decaying industrial area, past derelict shops and boarded-up pubs that once thrived on the trade from surrounding factories. He crossed an area of waste ground and found himself on the Steeple Hill estate, a concrete jungle-style housing development with a long-held reputation as the roughest part of town. It was not somewhere Garth imagined he’d ever feel safe in daylight, let alone at this ungodly hour. What business did Eddie Serling have here, of all places?

  He entered a courtyard of badly maintained council houses, and for the first time Eddie was not in sight. Garth looked around, frantic, his heart sinking. Had Eddie lured him here to be attacked by the unsavory residents? Or had he simply dragged him a long way from home so that Garth couldn’t be there to protect Wendy and Chloe?

  Then, with a gasp, he saw him, standing on a garden path that led to one of the most rundown homes on the block. Eddie lifted his hand, pointed to the house, and then vanished.

  Garth approached the house, its small square of garden hideously overgrown, its front door weathered and in urgent need of a lick of paint. There were no curtains or nets at the windows, no signs at all, in fact, that anyone lived there. Garth walked up the path and rang the bell. No response. He rapped his knuckles on the door.

  This time, to Garth’s surprise, the hall light came on. He watched through the mottled glass of the front door as a figure approached. The door creaked ajar, only as much as the chain would allow, and a pair of tired eyes peeked out.

  “What the hell?” A man’s voice, groggy with sleep. “Garth? What are you doing here?”

  The door closed, then opened again without the chain. An overweight, middle-aged man stood there, his belly hanging over the elastic of his ill-fitting underpants, and at last Garth recognized him.

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Boyd said. “What is this? Round two?”

  Something moved in the hallway behind Boyd, blocking the light.

  A hulking shadow rose above him.

  Boyd was oblivious. “Jeez. If you’ve got something to say, Harrison, then bloody well say it.”

  Garth tried to speak, but his tongue palsied, the words trapped in his throat.

  He lifted a finger, pointing hopelessly.

  The now monstrous, swollen form of Eddie Serling, a whole head taller than Boyd, reached around, a huge knife glinting in his hand. In one swift, expert movement, he severed Boyd’s carotid artery and jugular vein, spraying Garth in the face with a geyser of blood.

  His eyes stinging, Garth wiped away the blood and tried to see again, an appallingly bitter tang in his mouth. Through blurred vision he watched, helpless, as a pulsing jet of crimson pumped from the huge, gaping wound in his old foreman’s neck, continuing around in an arc like a sprinkler system, hitting first the doorframe, then the wall.

  Boyd jerked against the immovable body of his assailant, taking giant, gasping breaths through his severed windpipe. He bucked and flailed in Eddie’s grip, his hands launching instinctively at his gaping neck. A fountain of claret gushed through his fingers, pooling on the hallway’s wooden floor.

  The door began to close, slowly, obscuring Garth’s view of the horror. He heard a rattling sound as Boyd gargled blood, and the last thing he saw through the wedge of light was Eddie Serling’s moon face, flush with glee. His once cloudy eyes drilled into him, now alive with a burning intensity, and his shriveled lips pulled up into a grotesque grin.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 17

  He had reached the stretch of waste ground on the far side of the estate by the time he stopped running, and as he keeled over, panting, a voice rose above the leaping terror that had consumed him and ordered him to go back, to help, to do something, for God’s sake. It was Wendy’s voice.

  I thought you were a better person than that.

  And he was. He knew that. Except, of course, he had failed his first test quite spectacularly. But here was a chance to prove, if only to himself, that he was a decent person. One of the good guys. All he had to do was go back to Boyd’s house, and —

  And what?

  He was already dead, he heard his past self whining. There was nothing I could do.

  Ugh. He detested that guy. He was not that guy, not anymore. He really was a better person than that.

  It’s decided, then. His hands bunched into fists. He swiveled on the spot and headed back to the estate.

  Wait.

  An authoritative voice.

  Just wait. Think about it. The guy suspected of being the Chalkstone Ripper is dead, right? Now a fresh body turns up, same M.O.

  Garth came to an abrupt stop.

  What’s that scruffy son of a bitch Erskine gonna think? Oh, sure, he might blame it on a copycat for all of two seconds, but then he’ll consider the statistical improbability of two serial killers in the same small town, and he’ll come to the same conclusion you already have.

  Garth felt like his head was going to explode. He cradled it in both hands. Had this been Eddie’s plan all along?

  His body tensed, his muscles seizing, his mind ballooning with panic. He pressed his palms to his eyes, seeing stars, wobbling for a moment on the uneven ground, then righted himself. He dragged his hands down his face, feeling the crusted lumps of dried blood on his skin.

  Then, in a flash of perfect clarity, he saw exactly what he had to do next.

  ***

  His stomach bubbled with dread as he pulled up at the factory gates. He waved to Felix in the gatehouse, aiming for casual but worried that the gesture had come off as stilted, unnatural. He held his breath for a moment.

  The old fella didn’t blink, waving straight back. The barrier lifted.

  Maybe no-one told him yet, Garth thought. He drove through without hesitation, parking the car in his usual space. Once inside the building he slid on a smock, hat and work pants. A couple of guys entered the changing room just as he was leaving, old colleagues whose faces he knew but names he didn’t, and he thought he was rumbled. But they just nodded an acknowledgement, and he nodded back.

  Garth burst onto the factory floor, marching to his destination, trying not to look any of his former night
shift colleagues in the eye. The cocktail of blood, shit and ammonia hit his nose and he flinched. He wasn’t going to miss this place.

  “Garth!” a voice called out, from some distance away. It was Nathan, the simple-minded chap. Garth tensed, lifting a hand in acknowledgement, offering a weak smile. He looked about, convinced now that he must have been rumbled, but the Wortham Meats employees were too busy with their work to care. He slipped into the storage room.

  He scanned the shelves, ticking off his mental shopping list as he went. Cleaning products - check. Bone saw - check. Set of knives (sticking, skinning, and boning blades) - check. Masking tape, plastic sheeting, mop and bucket - check, check, check.

  Keeping his uniform on, he carried his bounty to his car, walking with purpose to avoid suspicion, expecting a tap on the shoulder that never came. He loaded up the vehicle and pulled up to the gatehouse, where Felix waved him through.

  He drove directly from the factory to the Steeple Hill estate, managing to park on the narrow road behind the house, and when he arrived at Boyd’s doorstep, he found the front door slightly ajar. Tentatively, he pushed the door and it swung open with a creak, revealing a scene of such overwhelming horror that he dropped everything and buckled, vomiting into the overgrown weeds of the front lawn.

  Gathering himself, he looked again, this time to assess the extent of the work ahead of him. Boyd was hanging upside down from the light fitting, shackled by his ankles like a hog. A steady stream of blood ran from the tip of his head to the hallway floor, which was now a lake of red, deep enough that it had submerged half of the baseboard. Its still surface reflected the light from the streetlamp behind him.

  Hurriedly, Garth prepared with a few last minute additions to his outfit, sliding on boot covers and gloves. He collected the rest of his things and stepped inside, closing the door. His boots squelched through the unspeakable liquid (it’s water, that’s all it is - there’s been a flood) as he made his way to the foot of the stairs, where he set out the items he had procured, like a doctor preparing for surgery. He tried arranging them into some kind of order, but really he knew that this was just a delaying tactic.

  I’m at work, he told himself, when he felt ready to proceed. Just another day at the factory.

  He began by laying down the plastic sheets and pinning them to the walls. It seemed futile given the amount of blood already, but there was about to be a whole lot more, and a few minutes of prep would speed up the cleaning operation immeasurably. He studied the body for a while as it hung there, the stream of blood that ran from Boyd’s hair turning to a steady drip as Garth contemplated the sheer hideousness of the job ahead of him. There was only one way he was going to get through this, and that was to imagine that Boyd was not a person at all, but a hog.

  Taking a deep breath, he placed a pair of goggles over his eyes and went to work.

  He made a deep incision from the clavicle to the navel and then, taking the bone saw, cut lengthwise through the sternum, demolishing the rib cage. The amount of blood was incredible, and he found that he had to stop several times to wipe down his goggles. With this done, he made an interesting discovery. The internal cavity of a human, it turned out, was remarkably similar to that of a pig in terms of its layout, which made the next part straightforward enough. He removed the heart, the liver, the lungs, and the kidneys. Using the bone saw again, he split the body (the carcass, for goodness sake, the carcass) in half lengthwise, from the genitals to the nape of the neck, a long and exhausting process that sprayed blood everywhere that it wasn’t already, including the ceiling.

  Then, just as he placed the saw down on the bottom stair, the doorbell rang.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 18

  He knelt there, tension clogging his veins. Terrified to move or even to exhale. Eyes glued to the front door.

  They’ll go away. Surely they’ll go away if I don’t answer.

  The doorbell chimed again, and his stomach lurched. Who the hell…? The square of glass that made up the top half of the door provided no clues - all he could see through it was the black of night.

  They banged on the door, now. A heavy, impatient series of thumps. Garth knew they were not going to give up. It’s the police. It has to be. And if he didn’t answer the door, they were going to burst in here anyway.

  Erskine. It’s Erskine. He followed me.

  He stood, straightening his smock as he did so. Yeah, his inner voice scoffed. Have to make sure you look presentable.

  He edged toward the door. The person (or persons) on the other side would be able to see the silhouette of him, just as he had seen Boyd through the mottled glass, and it was too late to go back now. He caught his reflection in the mirror mounted on the wall by the door. With his blood-streaked face and stained smock he looked like a nightmare surgeon from a cheesy horror movie. He removed his goggles and thought he looked even freakier, if that was possible, with white encircling his eyes.

  He slid on the chain, opened the door a crack and peeped out.

  An overweight, middle-aged woman stood there in her robe, her face contorted into a scowl. “Could you keep it down? It’s the middle of the night.”

  Garth stared back, stunned. “Sure.”

  The woman rolled her eyes and moved off. “Honestly.” She muttered something else that he didn’t quite catch, but it might have been an insult sandwiched by swear words.

  He closed the door and stood there in stupefied silence for a moment. “O-kay.”

  Fortunately, he didn’t have much sawing left, so he finished off the noisy stuff first, removing the head and limbs. He had to at least try and be respectful to the neighbor - he didn’t want her calling the police, after all. He proceeded to break the remains down into cuts of meat, just as he would with a hog carcass in the cutting room. This time he wasn’t dealing with a chilled carcass fresh from the cooler, however, so everything he did was rough, messy, and incredibly slippery.

  Still, he figured. At least I don’t have Boyd breathing down my neck, telling me I’m doing it all wrong.

  He couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

  He wrapped the limbs in plastic, taping up each parcel. Packed and tied the cuts of meat - a belly, a rack of ribs, a shoulder - and chunks of remaining torso. Stuffed Boyd’s head in the bowling ball bag he’d found in the trunk of his car, fragments of his recent bowling alley nightmare flashing through his mind as he did so.

  Now that the body was dealt with, he looked around, assessing the next job to be undertaken in hell’s hallway: the gore-streaked walls, the river of blood, and the mess of entrails that decorated the plastic sheeting. Now the hard work begins, he thought, only half joking.

  ***

  Exhausted, and with the kind of headache he used to have without fail at the end of a busy shift, Garth returned to the factory and parked. He sat in the car for a few minutes just to gather himself, then carried out the final part of his plan. He disposed of the limbs and head (still in the bowling ball bag) in the furnace. He took the packets containing the offal and cuts of meat and threw them into the waste disposal bin - the stuff they churned into animal feed. He returned the cleaning products, bone saw and knives, all meticulously cleaned, of course, to the storage room, then dropped his uniform in the laundry and made use of the shower facilities at Wortham Meats one final time, washing away what remained of his old foreman.

  Giddy with the thrill of having gotten away with it, he pulled out of the parking lot and waved to Felix, who lifted the barrier. I’ll miss the old guy, he thought, even though he realized at that moment that he’d never actually spoken to him. He turned the bend, preparing himself for what always came next.

  The chant echoed through his mind: Mur-der-rah! Mur-der-rah!

  To his surprise, there was only one protester tonight, blocking the road ahead. No banners this time. No placard. Just a tall, hairy guy. Scruffy, like the rest of them. Garth edged forward, but the guy didn’t yield. “Come on, dude!”

  The protest
er just stood there. He wasn’t even bothering to chant. Garth blasted his horn.

  The man came around to the side of the car and motioned for him to wind down his window. Garth did as he was told, ready to give the guy a lungful. As he saw the protester clearly for the first time, the blood froze in his veins.

  It was Keith.

  “You must really love this place,” the detective said, peering into the car. “You turn up for work even after you’re fired.”

  It took a moment for Garth to engage his brain. “I… I was returning some stuff.”

  Keith nodded. “Anyway, you’re just the person I’ve been looking for. Would you mind exiting the vehicle please, sir?”

  Sir? The formality struck fear into Garth’s heart. He climbed out of the car, and stopped dead when he saw Keith removing something from his waistband.

  A pair of handcuffs.

  “Garth Harrison,” Keith announced, “I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 19

  “They don’t have anything on you,” Garth’s lawyer assured him, before Keith had entered the cell-like interview room. “They’re just fishing. Don’t say anything unless you’re specifically asked a question, and even then, check with me first. Let them do all the talking.”

  Garth nodded, but his plan was to go against everything he had just been advised. Clearly, this had to be about Eddie - Keith wouldn’t know about Boyd yet. They must have found evidence, Garth reasoned, debris in the road, something that tied him unquestionably to the crime, and he intended to confess. The ghost might even leave him alone if he admitted his part in Eddie’s death, and half the town would probably be in his corner anyway, given that he had slain a serial killer.