Ghoster

by Jason Arnopp

  I consider the bathroom door, my only way out of here. But if I approach that door, there’s always the danger that incorporeal Gwyneth might float back in through those two inches of corporeal wood.

  Got to haul myself together. Got to stand, nice and easy. Got to walk across the room with all the fearless dignity I can muster, find the sink mirror and switch on the light. Fuck toughing it out in the dark any longer. I want these bulbs to fizz and spark and usher safety back into the night.

  I can do this.

  I. Can. So. Fucking. Do. This.

  I launch myself away from the toilet, then fall straight over.

  One side of my face slams into the floor. I’d totally forgotten that my jeans were bunched around my ankles and I’m drunk.

  My skull drones and throbs as I crawl across the expanse of cold, sticky lino.

  A wave of nausea damn near flattens me as I locate the sink bowl, use it to haul myself upright, then feel around the edges of the mirror for the light switch.

  Come on.

  Come. On.

  I’ve never been so happy to find a switch in my life. With a gorgeous filament buzz, the mirror floods with light that toasts my retinas and kickstarts my heart.

  That is… until I remember to check the mirror for anyone, or anything, in the room behind me.

  There’s nothing and no one. Gwyneth really has gone.

  I pull up my jeans, then stoop to grab Scott’s phone. My throat clogs with relief as I haul open the bathroom door and throw myself outside. I dash along the full length of the hallway, then out of the front door.

  Revelling in the auto-triggered light of the communal corridor, I can finally draw down a full, unfettered breath.

  What I need to do, more than anything, is think.

  I need to reactivate my rational mind. How could this possibly have been a ghost, let alone Gwyneth Cooper’s?

  More than anything, I need to talk to Izzy. God bless her insomnia.

  IZZY

  sorry to break it to ya mate but ghosts are real so u probably did see a ghost… lucky you were already sittin on the toilet

  KATE

  You’re not helping! You’re supposed to be the big voice of reason who tells me I was drunk, or I’ve gone mad.

  IZZY

  well both those things are true… but u probably also saw a ghost… we saw ghosts all the time in my nans house when I was growing up… aint no big deal haha

  KATE

  You saw a ghost?

  IZZY

  yup more than 1

  KATE

  What did they look like?

  IZZY

  spose it was pretty classic ghost stuff… like a person but you could see right through them… one time at nans i woke up on a sofa n saw this woman across the room

  KATE

  Was she blue? Did she flicker, with black holes for eyes?

  IZZY

  no none of that shit she was old skool… and i could even see the colour of her eyes bright blue

  KATE

  Hmmm. Doesn’t fit the description of mine, then.

  IZZY

  well ya know… this wuz the 80s… ghost fashions change

  KATE

  What was your ghost doing when you saw her?

  IZZY

  just standing there looking at me… dressed up like a victorian or edwardian or summat… like the very sight of a dick would make her faint

  KATE

  Were you scared?

  IZZY

  nah she seemed all right had a nice feel about her… and ya know… me n mum lived near the chapworth estate so we were loads more worried about getting stabbed up than spooks… whats so scary about some fuckin echo of a dead person compared to getting killed yourself

  KATE

  How about a dead person that might kill you? I mean FFS, this one reached out for me. She had this terrible grin like she wanted me dead, and I can’t get that out of my head. I have NO IDEA WHAT TO DO.

  IZZY

  get the leccy company to put the power back on for a start… u need lights

  KATE

  I’d have to start a new contract and it’d be days before they put the lights back on. I don’t even want to be here ONE more day.

  IZZY

  then find somewhere else to live… scotts place aint doing ur head any good

  KATE

  Can’t afford a deposit and all those fees. Don’t even know anyone down here, so I have no sofas to sleep on.

  IZZY

  in that case make friends with the ghost

  KATE

  I’d much rather not see her again. God, this is like seeing a fucking huge spider that disappears. Then you know it’s there, but you don’t know where…

  IZZY

  oh man dont talk to me about spiders… we had two big ones in the bathtub last week… fucking brown they were… fluffy brown spiders man

  KATE

  Fuck, Izzy. What am I supposed to make of seeing a “ghost”? While we were on the job, did you ever feel like anybody’s soul was drifting off into the great beyond?

  IZZY

  yeah… mine lol

  KATE

  But seriously…

  IZZY

  hmm… dunno yeah maybe… just cuz u cant physically see a soul go somewhere else, dont mean it dont

  KATE

  What’s another explanation for this besides a ghost? What if this was a hologram? They’re super-advanced now.

  IZZY

  seriously??? nah babe…

  KATE

  What about a hallucination?

  IZZY

  people dont hallucinate seeing faces… not to that extent… unless you have a brain tumour

  KATE

  Thank you for that suggestion, nurse. Soooo kind. Actually – fuck, please tell me the taste of metal isn’t a tumour signifier.

  IZZY

  um i think it is yeah… but everything is these days… hey if u hallucinated this ghost then u might have hallucinated Scott as well

  IZZY

  … too soon? Soz… u srsly dont have a tumour

  KATE

  Hmm. Weird thing is, I recognised this thing I saw.

  IZZY

  who was it

  KATE

  She’s a sort of… missing person.

  IZZY

  shit… did u see her on a poster or summat

  KATE

  Not exactly. It’s complicated.

  IZZY

  aint it always with u babe

  KATE

  She seems to have disowned her family, but now… I don’t know, she might be dead. But if that really was her ghost I saw, then why would it appear in Scott’s flat?

  IZZY

  ok is there any connection between him and her

  KATE

  Yeah, sort of…

  IZZY

  n what would that be

  KATE

  This girl’s called Gwyneth. And her sister is

  IZZY

  her sister is what

  KATE

  Well, she’s connected to Scott.

  IZZY

  how

  IZZY

  u still there… how u know theyre connected

  KATE

  Oh, someone told me.

  IZZY

  look mate i dont know why but i feel like ur losing a marble or 2… want me to come down there… got a coupla days off

  KATE

  Don’t be silly! I mean, thanks, thanks so much, but honestly, I’m fine.

  IZZY

  u sure… was a genuine offer

  KATE

  Seriously, thanks, but I’m working loads of hours anyway.

  IZZY

  is there owt ur not telling me tho

  KATE

  No. You’re getting the full exclusive here, practically live! Now go back to sleep, honey. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Later! X

  IZZY

  u never say later like that so now im really worried X
>
  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  6 October

  I wake on the roof, buffeted by wind and with a head like a rotten pumpkin.

  The Van Spencer terrace offers impressive views over the city and coast. Over by the Marina jetty to the east, light has broken cover from the horizon. The sun bathes a cluster of new-build apartment towers, turning every window into a lantern. Should be safe to return to the flat now, but I’m in no hurry. Especially as there are now even more scratches on the inside of the door.

  I came up here in the dark, to get away from the flat and chat to Izzy. After we spoke, sheer fatigue made me lie down across one of these benches. When offered no sleep, the brain tends to take what it needs by force.

  Breathless and frozen to the marrow, I check the time. Okay, I only slept for two hours, long enough for me to have a new dream about the zip-wire tower. I remember hanging from the wire and hurtling along, but there was something really odd and disturbing about the whole thing. Something so wrong. Even as I try to remember what, the memory self-destructs.

  Why did I have to go and stupidly turn down Izzy’s offer of company? I’ve never felt more alone in my life, but I still don’t want her to know about me having Scott’s phone. The people who know you best… well, they know you best. Izzy would definitely be of the opinion that I’m on a bad path.

  My hangover only compounds the fear. As if trying to ease that fear, my rational mind demands an explanation for what happened in that bathroom. I’d only ever half-believed the paranoid idea that Scott was filming me, but what if I really am slap-bang in the middle of the world’s most elaborate hidden-camera joke? Or how about an experiment, designed to see how long it would take to make an agnostic paramedic believe in the supernatural?

  I picture myself on YouTube, immortalised by infrared cameras in the bathroom. Doomed to perch on that toilet forever, as the comments and cry-laughter emojis pile up.

  Feels like a very modern misconception, the idea that the whole world revolves around you. Surely no one’s going to build an elaborate hidden-camera prank show around Kate Collins – not even a weirdo like Scott. Are they? But what if I really am getting suckered here?

  I’m finding it so hard to discount the evidence of my own eyes. This apparition felt like no trick of the light, or of my mind, or any kind of hologram. It was just fucking there. I even tasted this thing before it showed up. But who knows what insanity, true insanity, might be like, until you’re drowning in the deep blue sea of it? I’ve seen so many people who’ve tumbled down between the cracks of social services and barely even know what’s up and what’s down. Did those people ever consciously pass a threshold that led them to that state of mind, or did every stage of their descent feel like the most natural thing in the world?

  Blinking against the molten glare of sunrise, I chew the whole thing over. No matter how real the ghost felt, I need certainty. Either I literally saw someone who’d come back from the dead or I didn’t, so how can I nail down the truth?

  Until then, I’m going to stay neutral on the whole ghost thing.

  Neutral, my arse. You already know that you really saw Gwyneth and she really is dead. What if she used to live in Scott’s flat, or elsewhere in the Van Spencer? What if she came to his flat and he killed her?

  Whoa there, brain. Killed her? Where the fuck did that come from?

  The man’s a loon. Remember that night you woke in his bed and he wasn’t there? Haven’t thought about that since, have you, you big airhead. You haven’t thought about how he looked when you finally found him…

  Enough! I need to focus and get proactive. I need to settle all of this soon, for my own peace of mind, and so I’m taking Scott’s phone to work. This is a temporary measure for today, and I’ll only use it during breaks.

  See? All I’ve done is swap one pledge for a new pledge. Surely there can be nothing wrong with that.

  Now. Before I do anything else, I need to throw up my guts.

  Hidden away inside the toilet cubicle, I tap the top of my bare foot until a suitably prickable vein presents itself. Then I go in with the needle, just under the skin.

  God knows, I’m not proud of this, especially as it’ll mean writing up today’s drug administration incorrectly to cover my tracks. But if I don’t dose myself, I may end up making mistakes. All things considered, I’d rather abuse drugs than risk lives.

  Any member of ambulance staff would spot a recently cannulated vein within fifty yards, so the foot is my best bet. This way, the IV paracetamol, saline and glucose I’m about to give myself will be a slow release. There’ll be no risk of a crash later on – only a slow burn to make me human again and get me through the shift.

  For a fleeting moment, I was tempted to rejoin the small legion of staff who take uppers to keep them going, then temper the buzz with diazepam. But do I really want to add another bad gateway to my collection? Nope, not again, so this is the most effective means to make sure I can do right by my patients today.

  When the foul deed is done, I spend ten whole minutes polishing my boots. No matter how low or exhausted I feel at the start of any given work day, I will always polish these bad boys. When a stranger invites me into their home on one of the worst days of their life, the very least I can do is appear clean, calming and professional.

  While making these boots gleam, it strikes me that one proactive thing I can do is find Gwyneth. If she’s alive, then I can’t have seen her ghost after all. Along the way, I can explore any further links between her and Scott. What else might connect these two people, besides Scott having Gwyneth’s photo of Ali on his phone?

  Only when I’m on my way out of the cubicle do I remember that I’ve clean forgotten to do my morning gratitudes. No time – will have to do them later.

  I hurry to join Tyler, so that we can load up the ambulance, check the tyre pressure and carry out all the other chores. All goes as normal, until the part of our Vehicle Daily Inspection when Tyler sits in the cabin and works the outer lights so that I can walk around and check that they all work. Confronted with several pale blue strobes, I’m mentally yanked back to being cornered in Scott’s bathroom.

  Gwyneth’s blue grin jerks towards me, relentless, and my lungs fold in on themselves.

  You can breathe, Kate. You really can, I swear; it’s fine. You’ve just been triggered, that’s all. Now get in the cab and start your shift.

  During this first half of our twelve-hour stint, I wait for opportunities when it’s one hundred per cent safe to scour Scott’s phone for more info. If Gwyneth’s ghost was real, then there must be a Scott/Gwyneth connection beyond that mountaintop pic, because otherwise her materialisation in Scott’s flat would be way too much of a coincidence.

  Unless she came to visit you. She may have homed in for some reason…

  Why would the ghost of a random person I’ve never met come looking for me?

  She may have had something to tell you… such as Scott having killed her…

  Brain, I do wish you’d stop trying to turn this mystery into the supernatural version of some 80s thriller starring either Michael Douglas or Jeff Bridges. Do I really, seriously, believe Scott to be capable of murder?

  Do you really, seriously, think that your brain is somehow distinct from you? If I suspect Scott of being a proper psycho, then so do you.

  Here’s another item on my overall agenda: finally open WhatsApp and discover whether he actually slept with those other Tinder matches. This feels like too big a task to undertake while I’m working, so I stick to smaller missions.

  Once I have the ladder-fall builder Malcolm and his broken leg safely strapped to a trolley-bed and hooked up to the IV drip, and Tyler’s driving us to hospital, I Google for Scott Palmer Gwyneth Cooper. This search produces nothing of note.

  Once we’ve conducted various observations on the elderly Mr Sharma, who fell without injury at home, and we’ve referred him to a Falls Team, a brainwave leads me to message her on Facebook. Wondering if she’ll
even see my words there, since we’re not friends, I tweet at her for good measure. Both times, I ask her to recommend animal charities around Brighton. Let’s not scare the girl off.

  Yeah, we wouldn’t want her dying of fright.

  Once Tyler and I have established that young Sally’s toothache doesn’t justify an A&E visit, and we’ve booked a dental appointment on her behalf, I check to see if Gwyneth has replied. She hasn’t, so I take a closer look at her recent Twitter output. Once I’ve got over how much her grin in the profile pic reminds me of that grin on the face of the thing I saw in Scott’s bathroom, I see tweets protesting China’s annual Dog Meat Festival among other animal abuse atrocities… and the most recent was posted at seven-thirty this morning.

  What the actual fuck? Unless ghosts really can tweet, this has to mean she’s still alive. I need to see her in person. Today.

  While Tyler gruffly persuades Sally to take paracetamol and gargle aspirin, I use the UK electoral roll to track down a history of Gwyneth’s home addresses.

  Clearly, she has voted before. According to this list of three addresses, she has never even lived near the Van Spencer, let alone inside the building. When I take a screen grab of her allegedly current address, impatience sinks its claws into me. How I hate the idea of having to wait until tonight to pay her a visit.

  Yes, because if you can find Gwyneth alive then you no longer have to be shit-scared of her haunting Scott’s flat, right? Wouldn’t that just wrap everything up with such a delightfully reassuring little bow?

  Never gonna happen.

  She’s dead and she’s evil and she wants to fuck you up.

  Tyler’s gaze burns a hole in the side of my head. “Kate? You ready to leave, or…?”

  With a fully unreasonable stab of resentment, I shove Scott’s phone back in my pocket, then grab my bag.

  As we leave Sally and return to the suburban cul-de-sac where the ambulance is parked, Tyler has another question. “So what’s with the two phones? You a dealer?”

  “Yes, that is correct. Listen, would you mind if we actually do take our half-hour break today? Got something I really need to do.”

  “Hmm, I don’t know, mate…”

  The question of whether or not to take the optional break is always a bone of contention among crewmates. These days, if we decide to go without our break, we get extra cash and get to leave half an hour early. Tyler’s obviously keen on achieving both goals.