Ghost Ahead

by Spike Black

  Garth settled into his chair, ready to accept the consequences of his actions.

  Keith entered, carrying a tray of coffees. He whistled as he handed them out, then sat opposite Garth, placing a folder on the table. “You know, Garth… the Chalkstone Ripper was one of those cases every copper dreams about. It could not have been more clean cut. A dead guy in the road, the key to a container full of bodies on his person. We got the guy. End of story, right?” He sighed, rubbing his chin.

  Garth suddenly had a very bad feeling about this.

  The detective opened the folder. He took out a photograph. “We found him this morning.” He passed the photograph across the desk.

  Garth studied the picture. It took him a moment to make out what he was looking at. He gasped, instinctively moving away from the image.

  “He’d been dead a matter of hours,” Keith continued.

  The photograph showed Father Padraig, hanging upside down from the timber frame of a chandelier at his church. Naked and drained of blood.

  Garth’s world spun. He moved his coffee cup away.

  Keith leaned forward. “The thing is - the reason this pisses all over my entire case - is that the manner of death was incredibly familiar. The carotid artery was severed and then he was drained of blood. Killed, you could say, with factory floor precision.” He sat back and took a sip of coffee. “Except, of course, as we both know, the Chalkstone Ripper’s six feet under. Something of a puzzle, isn’t it?”

  Garth knew he couldn’t start telling ghost stories, so he had no choice but to agree.

  “See,” Keith continued, “we were starting to think that maybe Eddie Serling’s death wasn’t an accident. That maybe whoever killed him was in on the whole thing. An accomplice. Didn’t want to share the glory, so to speak. You with me?”

  Garth nodded.

  “But now I’m thinking, what if the key… what if the key was a plant?”

  He held the stare. Garth was uncomfortable, not knowing what to do with his eyes.

  Keith pulled a book from the folder and opened it to a ribbon marker. “I checked poor Father Padraig’s diary. Turns out his last appointment was with a Mr G. Harrison. You were the last person to see him alive, Garth. So tell me…” He leaned across the table. “Do you have anything you wish to confess?”

  Taking his lawyer’s advice, Garth remained silent.

  ***

  “I thought this whole custody block had been condemned,” Garth said, as a young officer unlocked a cell and waved him inside. The cell was functional, but basic - a window, a bunk, and, strangely, a file cabinet in the corner.

  “Oh, it was, back in the nineties. But Eldham’s got a full house tonight, so we’re putting you down here.” The officer noticed the file cabinet. “Whoops. Sorry. Confidential files.” He lifted the cabinet and struggled out of the cell with it.

  Garth examined his new surroundings. He must have had a worried look on his face, because when the policeman returned he offered a sympathetic smile.

  “It’s okay, we still use these cells on occasion. As long as somebody stands guard outside the door.”

  Garth froze. “Why’s that? Because of the ghost?”

  The officer exploded with laughter. “No, because of that.” He pointed to the network of pipes snaking the ceiling of the cell. “It’s the reason the place was condemned in the first place. They were worried offenders might take it upon themselves to - you know…” He mimed being lynched.

  “Oh, well I’m not quite there yet.”

  The officer guffawed again. It was a regular laugh riot, this place. “Give it ’til morning,” he said, “and you might be.”

  Garth froze. “What do you mean by that?”

  The officer’s cheeks flushed. “Nothing. I’m sorry, sir. It was just a joke.”

  “But this place is haunted, right?”

  “It used to be, or so I’m told. But they took care of that. It’s gone now.” He turned to leave.

  “No.”

  The officer glanced back over his shoulder.

  “They don’t go,” Garth said. “You banish them from a place, but they just move on. It’ll be out there, somewhere.”

  The young man smiled again, no doubt dismissing him as a loon. “Sleep well, sir.” He closed the cell door, then opened the flap so that only his eyes were visible. “I’ll be right out here if you need me.” He closed the flap.

  Garth lay back on the uncomfortable bunk and stared up at the pipework. An ideal place, he thought, to hang a body upside down to bleed out. But of course, Eddie wasn’t going to kill him. Not now. Not when he had him right where he wanted him.

  His young guard, however, now that was a different story…

  Garth shuddered. If he was Eddie’s ghost, that’s what he would do. But maybe, when Father Padraig performed his cleansing of the cell block, he didn’t just banish one ghost - maybe he banished them all. Maybe he created a ghost-free zone, an area off-limits to spooks, and Garth was now in the safest place in the whole of Chalkstone.

  With that at the forefront of his mind, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. It didn’t take long, however, for him to think about Wendy’s story, and he imagined what she must have seen - the look of fear on Kelvin’s face. The fear that had caused him to poke out his own —

  Garth’s eyes snapped open. In the dim light, the criss-crossing pipes looked like a mess of gray intestines. He listened for the sounds of the station, and heard… nothing. Not the hum of a generator, nor the whistle of the wind. Not even the building creaked. It was quite disconcerting. After a while he thought the silence even had a pulse. He dismissed it as the thump of his own heartbeat in his ears. He drifted off to its steady, throbbing rhythm.

  When he woke the next morning, the head of the young police officer was poking through the door of his cell. Thankfully, it was still attached to his body.

  “It’s your lucky day,” the officer said.

  “What?” Garth sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Why?”

  “You’re free to go.”

  ***

  Bewildered, Garth entered the lobby and saw Wendy catching up with Trish on the front desk. He caught her eye, and she wrapped up the conversation with a promise that the two of them would get together sometime. When she came over, he told her about the priest’s murder.

  “It’s all fun and games with you, lately,” she said. “They did a DNA test though, right?”

  “First thing they did when I got here.”

  “Exactly. And that’s why they arrested you. It’s also why they’re letting you go. Clearly, the test came back negative, and now they have nothing to hold you on.”

  “That makes sense. Given that I didn’t do it.”

  “To arrest you without proof, though.” She whistled through her teeth. “Keith must have really thought he had his man.”

  Garth turned and looked beyond the front desk. The detective was there, in a back office, watching him through the glass. “I think he still does.”

  Wendy waved to Trish as they exited onto the street. “To be fair, you are his only suspect. We wouldn’t get too far with a ‘dead guy did it’ defense. But yeah, he’s a stubborn one, that man. He won’t give up easily.”

  Neither will Eddie, Garth thought, and a shudder rippled through him. He had to do something before the ghost sliced up anyone else.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 20

  BURN IN HELL.

  Having applied a healthy dose of oven cleaner to the spray-painted letters, Garth got busy with a scrubbing brush on the word BURN. Ten minutes of fruitless work later, he started again with a cocktail of different chemicals. Before long, he began to make progress - patches of the original brickwork had started to show through.

  He heard voices, and stopped. Two young boys passed by on the road, bags slung over their shoulders, both wearing the uniform of the nearby village school. He watched as the pair turned around and came back, whispering conspiratorially and pointing at the Blue Boar
. They hadn’t seen him working on the wall at the side of the building.

  They came down the path toward him. “We should post cat poo through the letterbox,” he heard the biggest one say, and the other boy giggled.

  Garth stepped around from the side of the pub and startled them. “Hey, you two. Scram!”

  They stood their ground. The smaller one stepped forward, jutting out his chin. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I,” Garth growled, “am the Chalkstone Ripper.”

  He launched at them, hands raised in the air, fingers arced like claws. They whirled and bolted back up the path, screaming. Garth watched as they disappeared down the road. He turned back, a satisfied smirk on his lips, and jumped.

  Mrs Serling stood in the doorway.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just…”

  She considered him a moment. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  ***

  The bar lounge had seen better days, but it still retained some of its character and old-time charm. Stripped of the atmosphere of a busy pub, however, it had an eerie, abandoned feel. There were still beer mats on all the tables, awaiting drinks. A dart board mounted on the wall had three darts sticking out of it.

  Mrs Serling poured tea from a flowery teapot into matching china cups. “The question I get asked the most is, ‘how did you not know?’ But I was oblivious. I genuinely didn’t know what was going on directly under my nose, and for that I deserve everything I get.”

  “No, no,” Garth said. “That’s not true…”

  “People have attacked me in the street. They’ve sent threatening letters. I spend most of my days shut up in here because I can’t face the outside world.”

  Garth’s face softened. “Look, I can fix this place up. It will take a bit of time, but I can make it livable again. You can begin to get your life back.”

  “Thank you, but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to be terrorized for the rest of my days because I’m the wife of the Chalkstone Ripper.” She sighed. “I tell you, that bastard got away lightly. I’m the one who ended up with the life sentence.”

  Garth nodded, not knowing what more he could say. He drained his cup. Watched the swirling dust particles captured by a shaft of golden sunlight. “It’s coming off good out there,” he said, “but it looks like there’ll be some ghosting. I think I need to use a pressure washer.”

  Mrs Serling placed her cup gently on its saucer, the memory of a smile gracing her thin lips. “I’m grateful for everything you’re doing, Mr Harrison, don’t think I’m not, but… why would you want to help me?”

  Garth drew breath, his mouth falling open. He knew what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t find the words. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Because…” He rubbed the backs of his hands. “Because it was me.”

  She frowned.

  “I caused all this. I hit your husband with my car.”

  He looked away, then back to her, studying her face for any reaction. She sipped her tea.

  “I’m sorry,” he continued. “I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault. If he’d still been alive…”

  “Then another poor soul would be dead,” she said quickly. “Thank you for being honest with me, Mr Harrison.”

  He exhaled a shaking breath. “Please. Call me Garth.”

  Her lips formed a smile that warmed her face. “Let me show you something, Garth.”

  She led him out beyond the bar, through the kitchen to a parlor via a red curtain. The small room was lit by a row of candles on the mantel, and a lamp with tassels hanging from its shade. A board game was open on a small central table.

  She took a volume from a bookcase heaving with weighty tomes. “This is quite remarkable. Just take a look.”

  He moved farther into the room, craning his neck to see. It wasn’t a board game open on the table, he saw that now.

  It was a ouija board.

  As he came up behind her, Mrs Serling turned sharply, wielding the heavy book like a weapon. She cracked him around the head with it. Before he could register what had happened, he sailed backward, and everything went black.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 21

  A voice droned in the void. The occasional word filtered through to his unconscious mind: Bodies… for years… very careful… fault… hear me?… your fault…

  He dreamed of his daughter, swaddled in blankets, peering up at him with enormous eyes that were too big for her face.

  My beautiful Chloe. He wanted to stay here, in this dreamscape, forever. He didn’t yet know what, or why, but there was something terrible awaiting him when he woke. He just knew it.

  He came around some time later, groggy as hell. His cheek was throbbing, his neck stiff. His head, he realized, was in a wildly uncomfortable position, hanging over the back of a chair. He straightened up, his neck cricking, and as he lifted himself into a sitting position he discovered that his hands were tied behind him.

  What the…? It all came rushing back in a flurry of images.

  He lurched forward, his eyes snapping open, his vision blurry. As he bucked and flailed, the rope binding his hands only tightened. He tried to focus, but the object in front of him was too close, terrifyingly close, perhaps an inch or two from his eyeballs. It was shiny and metal and it reflected the red light of the lamp in the windowless room. It sharpened to a blurry tip.

  He gasped and jerked back, his eyes pulling into focus the blade of a knife. The same knife, he was certain, that Eddie had used to cut Boyd’s throat. And Mrs Serling was holding the handle.

  “He was meticulous,” she said, over-enunciating each syllable, almost spitting the word. “Every step of the way. Never left a trace, do you understand? No clue to his identity. Meticulous.”

  The blade jutted forward as she became more agitated. Garth flinched, already as far back as the chair would allow.

  “It’s why the police were stumped. Why he was never caught, all this time. Nineteen-ninety-seven, that first girl went missing. Twenty years! Twenty glorious years. And it was all undone because you hit him with your car.”

  He tugged on his restraints. The rope sheared painfully into the flesh of his wrists.

  “All that hard work, and now look at the mess. My life is a living hell. A living hell! And it’s all thanks to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Garth said, and already he hated himself for what he was about to say. “He just ran out. There was nothing I could—”

  The book swung into his field of vision and she hit him around the head with it once again.

  His nose made a horrible crunching sound and he reeled with the impact, the shock of the pain paralyzing him for a few moments. You deserved that, a voice in his head said, and he supposed he did. He blinked, his vision blurry, a second wave of hot pain rippling through his skull. Something cold touched the tender flesh of his throat, and when he could finally see clearly again, he realized it was the blade of the knife.

  “Oh, I want to end this right now,” Mrs Serling said. “Can I, Eddie?” She turned her head slightly, as if he was behind her. “Please?”

  “No!” Garth yelled. He struggled to breathe through his nose. Maybe she’d broken it. “Eddie could have killed me, but he didn’t. He kept me alive for a reason. What do you want from me?”

  Her eyes flashed with a mad joy. “Why don’t we ask him?” She turned and addressed the empty parlor. “What do you want from him, Eddie?”

  Her words hung in the air. Garth tensed. He leaned forward, expecting the temperature of the room to suddenly drop a few degrees, for the lights to flicker, and for Eddie Serling to materialize before him. Instead, something moved out of the corner of his eye, on the little round table. At first he thought it was a mouse, but then he saw the wooden pointer on the ouija board juddering. It swung suddenly to the left and jerked forward, pointing unmistakably to one of the letters spelled out in an arc across the center of the board: the letter C.

  For a moment Garth thought it might go on to spell out
Wendy’s least favorite four-letter swear word, the one for which he would be banished from the house if he ever dared utter it, and a laugh threatened to spill from his mouth. Then he realized that she had, of course, already banished him from the family home, and all traces of amusement died in his throat.

  He watched in wide-eyed wonder as the pointer danced across the board, picking up speed as it spelled out a word. Next O, then N. Somehow this little display was more awe-inspiring than actually seeing the physical manifestation of the man. It was certainly more entertaining. If Eddie ever got bored of offing the residents of Chalkstone, Garth thought, he could travel the country performing close-up magic.

  The pointer was whizzing across the board now. F-E-S…

  I hope she’s writing this down, he thought, because I’m struggling to keep up.

  Just then, the pointer swung all the way to the right, where there were no letters, then back to the S again. It juddered for a moment, then fell perfectly still.

  One word. C-O-N-F-E-S-S.

  “Yes, I’ll do it!” Garth shouted. “I’ll confess. I’ll own up to killing Eddie. If that’s what he wants, then I’ll do it.”

  Mrs Serling roared with mocking laughter. “No, Mr Harrison, I don’t believe that’s what Eddie means. You must confess to all of his crimes. You must become the Chalkstone Ripper.”

  Garth’s mouth fell open. He was too dumbstruck to speak for a moment. “That’s ridiculous! You’re crazy!” He rocked from side to side in the chair, desperately trying to free himself. Suddenly the rope slipped past his wrist bone.

  “Just think of it,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes. “All the good you’ll be doing. You’ll free the town of his wrath. I’ll be free to live my life. And at last, Eddie will be freed from the torture of limbo, able to move on to his eternal rest.”