Ghoster

by Jason Arnopp

  I release the crank handle and scratch my elbows hard. “Okay, I did get a smartphone. Not feeling too proud of it, that’s all.”

  “Fuck me, girl, that was like pulling teeth. So have you got a new number, or are you keeping the same one?”

  That’s really her first question? I expected so much worse, considering what happened the last time I had a proper phone. No two ways about it: Izzy couldn’t have seen me messing about on my socials that night. She was too busy taking care of the dizzy guy at the top of the stairs, just like I should’ve been.

  Oh, do stop torturing yourself. Izzy should have waited for you.

  “It’s the same number,” I tell her. Why can’t I seem to stop lying?

  Izzy gets dressed, without bothering to cover herself. Just us girls here. “So what’s the latest on your Facebook thing, where you asked everyone to identify the horror movie those pics came from? Where did you find those pics in the first place – are they something to do with Scott?”

  Oh, this is ridiculous. There’s a whole bullshit explanation primed to launch off my tongue, about how I was asking for a friend, but should I really insult Izzy’s intelligence? The two of us, we’ve been through so much together. We’ve teamed up to deliver babies, to make hearts beat again and to shield each other from rocks slung off council estate balconies. We’ve made each other cry with laughter during night shifts that we thought might never end. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me, up on that ninth floor in Leeds, and now I actually have the temerity to try and feed her transparent excuses.

  I suck my explanation back off my tongue. “Could you do me a favour, and struggle to get those knickers on for a while longer?”

  “And… why’s that? You enjoying this eyeful you’re getting, Collins?”

  “It’s just… I’ve got stuff to tell you. And if your pants are still tangled around your ankles, you can’t run over here and slap me.”

  She listens so patiently. With such uncharacteristic centred silence.

  Seated on the garden chair, with me cross-legged on the living room floor in front of her, Izzy could be some all-powerful Boudicca or Buddha. At some point during my monologue, I get up and pace around, the defence lawyer to her judge. Whenever I feel particularly stressed, I yank the crank of the lamp handle.

  Taking in every syllable with her face neutral, Izzy hears how I found Scott’s phone abandoned on the balcony, then couldn’t resist breaking in. She hears how I used the phone to uncover the truth about everything from his favourite film to eating meat to his debts. How I found his TrooSelf app but can’t access it, but have seen worrying diary entry titles.

  Crank, crank, crank.

  Izzy hears how Scott was talking to other women behind my back while we dated, and even after we agreed to move in together, but I haven’t found proof that he’d slept with any of them. She hears how I found those horror-porn images which none of my Facebook friends, or even their friends’ friends, can identify. Lastly, she hears how I’ve now uncovered these insane, epic videos of people sleeping.

  Crank, crank, crank, crank.

  With every new detail I divulge to another human being, for the first time, the weight on my shoulders feels a little less crushing. And yet I can tell, from every barely noticeable twitch of her face and every slight heave of her bosom, that Izzy is stockpiling Things To Say. My best mate clearly won’t be as relaxed about these transgressions as she was about me simply buying a smartphone again. Honestly, people are so judgemental these days. So it’s fine to get a new phone, but suddenly it’s a crime if it actually belongs to someone else?

  Crank, crank, crank, crank, crank.

  “… and Gwyneth is among the people in the sleep videos,” I say, breathless by now in my drive to sell this whole thing. “So that’s the connection between her and Scott. But while you were in the shower, I got really freaked out. I’m worried that I might be in one of these videos too.”

  Izzy studies me for a few beats. Then she says, “You can let go of the handle now, hon. It’s pretty bright in here.”

  I step away from the searing white of the lamp. “Before you lay into me, can I please check to see if I’m in one of these videos?”

  Izzy says nothing, recognising the question’s rhetorical nature, because I’m already scrolling furiously down through the clips, searching for my own violation.

  None of the sleeping faces I’ve seen so far is my own, but there’s still another screen’s worth to check through.

  “You should sit down,” Izzy says, “just in case you’re on there. Guys are so weird. It’s not enough to fuck a girl, not any more. They need their pathetic little trophy too. A video of them fucking you from behind or summat, to show their mates. Oh my days, man: if this prick filmed you, I am gonna hunt him down.”

  Barely listening, I zip down to check the last video thumbnail. “Jesus! Thank fuck, Izzy, I’m not here.”

  “That’s great,” she says, as I check to see if Gwyneth has replied. Nope. “Now, put down the phone. We need to talk this through.”

  She nods to the balcony. Uh-oh. Here’s the part where she tears multiple strips off me. This is going to be like throwing up, isn’t it? You hate the process, but you also know it’s exactly what you need.

  Izzy pulls two glasses from her bag, followed by a bottle of vodka the size of a diver’s oxygen tank.

  Five floors down, a bunch of rowdy cock-heads yell themselves hoarse. Behind their racket and the ever-present seabird cacophony, the night is punctuated by classic beats from the DJ in the bar next door. Turns out the Scissor Sisters don’t feel like dancing today.

  Izzy’s on the garden chair, with her back to the sea. I’m on a box, facing her. We clink glasses, neck a shot and she very calmly says she loves me. For one long second, I’m stupid enough to think she might approach this whole subject with Zen calm.

  “But for fuck’s sake, Kate,” she snaps. Hard to tell whether this is the sea wind blowing my hair back, or the blunt force of her words. “You really can’t help yourself, can you?”

  “But I had to unlock Scott’s phone. Otherwise I would’ve gone the rest of my life without—”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ve already said all that, mate. Now it’s my turn.” As she steamrollers on, I pour myself more vodka and my hand shakes. “I remember how you justified stalking the Venezuelan guy. Some old bollocks about needing closure. Why can’t you learn to let go and move on?”

  “When I know the whole truth, I will move on. Promise.”

  “Mmm-hmm… until the next time. And what makes you think the whole truth will be knowable, anyway? You’re trying to water plants that have rotten roots.”

  I want to congratulate Izzy on her neat metaphor, but I’m finding this tough love harder to take than I expected. My voice sounds annoyingly meek as I say, “I could really do with your support here.”

  “Real friends ain’t always about support. Sometimes they’re about home truths, like telling you you’re a danger to yourself.” I try to speak but she cuts me off, the fire behind her eyes fanned higher by vodka. “When someone dumps you, who cares why? It’s over, Kate. You and Scott are done, finished, history. Doesn’t matter how far you search through this phone or what you find, because that basic fact is never gonna change.”

  I muster some fire of my own. Or at least a candle’s worth. “I know it’s over. I do know that, now. But there’s a hell of a lot more going on here than mine and Scott’s break-up. This feels serious. Dangerous, too.”

  Izzy gives me a careful, steady look. “Does it really feel dangerous, though?”

  Truth be told, I’m not sure. The word dangerous kind of surged out of my unconscious mind.

  That’s right. Scott’s a psycho and you know it.

  Please leave for your safety.

  “Come on, Izz, did you not hear all the things I said? Those weird pics on Scott’s phone, these videos of sleeping people? I mean, Scott filmed Gwyneth asleep for two whole hours, and now her f
amily can’t get hold of her, and I thought I saw her ghost. Does that not seem serious to you?”

  Izzy sniffs her vodka like it’s merlot. “The ghost might not have been Gwyneth. What if it only looked like her?”

  “That was her face,” I say, reliving the moment when Gwyneth reached out for me. Since this memory loosens my bowels and makes my brain recoil, this task requires a great deal of concentration, but I picture her in all the detail my mind dares to produce.

  Hey, here’s something. Gwyneth’s blue wrists were encircled by black lines, like intertwining vipers. Bracelets, maybe? No, these lines were too thin, and I’m pretty sure they did not move like bracelets would. Besides, would a spirit retain its jewellery? These things looked much more like…

  “Tattoos,” I say. “This thing had tatts on its wrists. But does Gwyneth?” On Scott’s phone, I revisit the only photos I’ve already seen of Gwyneth. None of these pictures show her wrists. With a surge of impulsive energy behind me, I fire off a question to Ali Cooper on Twitter.

  Izzy has that pitying look back in her eye. “Honey, you should probably let this go.”

  “Okay, you’re now saying probably, which means you know there’s something going on here.”

  “All right then, let’s cut to the chase. Are you honestly saying that Scott’s killed Gwyneth? And if he has, then how is she able to post cat memes?”

  I still feel stupid for entertaining the idea that I saw Gwyneth’s ghost, let alone Scott being a killer. But if I’m reaching here, it’s because instinct tells me there’s something to reach for. “If you were going to kill someone and wanted to make sure no one realised for the longest possible time, you might maintain their online presence, right? Facebook means never having to actually meet most of our friends. Instead, we see their posts and know they’re basically all right, even when they’re moaning about their life. But for all we know, someone else could be… puppeting them.”

  Izzy tips back her head to contemplate the balcony ceiling. Next door, Debbie Harry complains about being left hanging on a phone. “Have you checked up on the other people in these sleep videos? Are any of them ‘missing’?”

  “I only found the videos a minute before you arrived. But let’s take a look at them.”

  “Oh God, I’m such an enabler.”

  Excited by the new lead, I flick through the sleep videos.

  Wait… why is my pulse sky-rocketing? It’s not because I’m seeing these videos again. No, that’s a more insidious fear, whereas this… this is a primal, self-preserving rush that makes my heart thump.

  Stay calm and think. What’s going on? What’s changed?

  I can taste copper in my mouth, stronger and stronger.

  Oh no. Here comes Gwyneth.

  I’m fumbling for the words to explain to Izzy what’s happening, when she yells the word “Fuck!”

  I’ve never seen her look so scared, not even when we almost drove an ambulance through the front door of a charity shop.

  The heel of her good leg pounds the decking, trying to gain purchase with which to shove her chair back and away from whatever the hell she’s seeing over my shoulder in the living room.

  A faint blue light dances on her face.

  Climb down over the front of the balcony and get the fuck away.

  Desperate to see what Izzy sees, I swing around and duck down behind my box, like it’s a heap of World War One sandbags.

  Something incandescent and awful is jerking its way out through the balcony window towards us, with its limbs in constant spasm. The intense colour of its light makes the entire pane of glass resemble the sea on an August afternoon.

  Every muscle and ligament in my body has been sewn together, then pulled tight. I hear the feet of Izzy’s chair drag hard across the decking. She says “Fuck” again, several times.

  Even though this blue, dead-eyed face strobes hard and fast, I can see it does not belong to Gwyneth. This is the face of a roaring man, with a mouth full of shark teeth. Someone make him go away, please someone make him fuck right off.

  An ugly crash sends a shockwave along the decking and up into the cartilage of my knees.

  Izzy. She must have tipped backwards. Might’ve smashed her head open on the front wall. Might’ve snapped her fucking neck.

  Oh God no, I can’t let her down again, no matter what.

  Izzy lies face up with her eyes closed, her butt and raised legs still hugging the toppled chair. When I scurry towards her on my hands and knees, it means turning my back on the roaring shark thing. And when I imagine how cold those glacier-blue hands will feel when they grab me, the thought makes me crawl all the faster.

  Cradling Izzy’s head, I’m relieved to feel no blood on the braids. The back of her falling skull missed the front balcony wall by inches.

  My lightning-fast scan of the surrounding balcony and the living room suggests normality and sanity have resumed. The glass of the balcony door has shed all traces of crazed blue. Inside, the radio-lamp fills the living room with warm, steady light as if nothing amiss has gone down.

  And yet something did go down. Izzy saw it too. She. Saw. It.

  I swipe drool off my chin. The metal taste in my mouth may have diluted, but the frenzied hammer-blows of my heart allow only one syllable out at a time. “Izz… I’m… so… sorr… ry… are… you… oh… kay… can… you… move?”

  I’m horrified to see her face wrinkle into a pained grimace, until I realise she’s actually grinning from ear to ear.

  “That was a ghost, man. A fuckin’ ghost. Oh my days, this is the best. Thing. Ever.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  19 July

  I wake in the still of the night, like that guy out of Whitesnake, to find that Scott is no longer beside me.

  Still half-entangled in a nonsensical dream that fades fast, like candyfloss for the mind, I tell myself that he must have gone to the loo. So I wait for a while, keen to drift back off to sleep in his arms. And then I wait some more, and some more, until curiosity pulls me out of bed and into a T-shirt.

  This hallway never struck me as creepy before, but there’s a first time for everything. The puzzling absence of Scott lends the flat an edge that I would struggle to define.

  Behind me, the bathroom sits dormant. Up ahead, on the wall opposite the archway, there’s only the palest street-lamp glow.

  As I pass through the arch, my T-shirt billows up around me and I slap it back down over my hips. The whole Marilyn Monroe bit feels less sexy when you’re alone in the dark… but why am I alone? Where is he?

  Padding across the living room, my bare feet slap smooth wood until I see him.

  A fuzzy, yellow-tinged silhouette, rooted in the centre of the balcony outside.

  The closer I get to the open balcony door, the more this silhouette defines itself.

  The more bare flesh I see.

  The more apparent it becomes that Scott is buck naked.

  I’ve never seen him stand like this before and it makes me weirdly nervous. His shoulders rise and fall in a slow, deliberate, exaggerated manner. With his whole body arrow-straight and his tidy little butt clenched, he looks like a soldier standing to attention.

  Or a fucking weirdo standing nude on a balcony in the middle of the night.

  As I head past the sofa, another breeze tries to raise my shirt but I’m too quick. I want to call out to my boyfriend and bring this odd moment to an abrupt close, but something stops me – the sense that I’m catching him in a private moment. What do Scott’s private moments look like? Here’s a rare chance to find out.

  Framed by the balcony door, he’s as still as a photograph. I daren’t even breathe, in case it alerts him that I’m here.

  I want to see what happens next.

  Craving a closer look, I take two slow steps forward.

  Something tiny, but unforgivingly sharp, skewers up into the ball of my right foot, and now I’m hissing and hopping around like a cartoon character.

  A gasp p
unches its way out of Scott’s throat. He spins around with one hand outstretched, as if preparing for combat in the Vietnamese jungle, circa 1968. With the street lamps behind him, I can’t see his face and find myself hopping back away from him, without fully knowing why.

  Breathing hard, Scott slaps one palm against his chest. The sucker-punch severity of his tone makes me feel way smaller than it has any right to.

  “Fuck’s sake, Kate. Why didn’t you tell me you were there?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  6 October

  Once Scott had recovered from his shock, our jitters died and were reborn as near-hysterical laughter. He explained that he often wandered out there when he couldn’t sleep, but I’d already got over the whole thing. Then I literally got over him, riding cowgirl out on the cool, hard decking. His hands roamed up inside my T-shirt as we fucked the last remnants of weirdness clean out of our heads.

  Out of my head, anyway. Who knows what messed-up thoughts lurked on in his.

  So. What do you now think Scott was really doing out here that night – praising the moon, like a good little psycho? If he’d had a raging hard-on for some imagined lunar goddess, you wouldn’t have seen it in that light.

  Ugh. The intimacy we allow ourselves to share with people we know next to nothing about. Makes me cringe, to think that Izzy and I are sitting on the exact same spot where I may have cavorted with a killer that night. Am I going OTT with this? I have no clue.

  I’ve shoved my box over to the front of the balcony, so that Izzy is stationed reassuringly between me and the flat. She cannot stop buzzing, and I cannot stop trembling like a dog on Fireworks Night. Not only is there more than one entity in this flat, but the radio-lamp was super-bright when the roaring ghost attacked. This means my “water tank” theory of dealing with ghosts literally holds no water. Light does not deter these flickering blue nightmares after all.

  Yeah. If Izzy wasn’t here, I’d be spending tonight on the beach.

  “That was beyond awesome,” she says for the tenth time, using two fingertips to draw calming circles on my back. “So now you believe you’ve seen ghosts, right? Fuck holograms, man. The only other explanation is that we both have exactly the same brain tumour. And I really don’t think that girls who work together end up growing brain tumours in sync. It’s not like periods.”