He watched his electric piano go with sadness. He could play the guitar too, but it was the piano he’d always wanted to master, always intending to practise more. Just like many things when he had been alive, he was always going to do it tomorrow.
Finally, all that was left was the furniture that came with the flat, a bed, a large chest of drawers and wardrobe, sofa and armchairs, dining table and chairs and a large, chunky wooden coffee table. It looked the way it had when he’d moved in. Bare, soulless and not his.
John did one last check to make sure they’d got everything while Trish put on her coat, picked up the little wooden Christmas box then stood and looked around while Denny stood beside her.
He could see her tears threatening again. His own were already falling. Not caring how it felt, just knowing he wanted this last contact with his sister, he reached out and brushed his hand slowly through hers. She gasped and looked at it, holding it with her other hand then looking around as if searching for something.
He smiled through his tears. “I love you, Trish.”
She looked at her hand again as John walked up to her.
“You ready?” he said quietly.
She sniffed and nodded and they walked to the door. Turning back one last time, she looked around.
“Goodbye, Denny,” she whispered, so softly only he could hear it as he stood beside her. “I love you.”
For a few seconds, Denny couldn’t move. He tried to breathe past the unbearable tightness in his chest as he felt his heart break. Trish turned to walk out, pulling the door shut behind her. Not wanting to miss the last few precious minutes he had with her, Denny gasped in a breath and stumbled through the closed door after her.
He followed them into the lift, watching them together as it travelled down. John had his arm around Trish, tears in his eyes.
“Look after her, John,” Denny said. “You are a good man and a good friend and I’m so grateful she and Jay have you. So take care of her. Don’t let her...” he stopped, his voice breaking, “...don’t let her stay sad. Help her to move on. Make her happy. I want her to be happy.” He looked at his sister. “Thank you, Trish, for always being there when I needed you, for supporting me even when I screwed up.” He tried to wipe the tears away from his face, but more replaced them. “Thank you for being the best sister I could ever have wanted. I love you.”
The mild bump as the lift reached the lobby made his stomach twist. Heart rate rising, he followed John and Trish towards the door to the street.
He suddenly began to panic.
“Don’t go, Trish,” he pleaded, his voice rising. “I can’t do this on my own. Please don’t go.”
John pulled the door open for Trish and stepped through after her. Denny pushed uselessly against the invisible barrier as the door swung shut behind them.
“No!”
In desperation he threw himself at the door and was thrown back across the lobby, landing in a heap on the tiled floor. By the time he’d scrambled up and run back to the door, they were already in their car. He pressed himself against the glass and watched the car pull away, straining to see it until the very last second when it turned a corner and was gone.
Trish was gone. His big sister, the person he loved most in the world, was gone.
He turned around and slumped back against the glass door. Sliding down to the floor, he put his head in his hands and wept.
Four
“Hey.”
Denny ignored the man’s voice. Whoever it was wasn’t talking to him anyway. He stayed where he was, where he’d been since Trish had left, sitting on the floor, back against the door. He didn’t know how long he’d been there and he didn’t care.
“Hey, dude.”
This time the voice was followed by three soft, hollow thuds somewhat like knocking.
Just go away, Denny thought. Whoever you want obviously isn’t here.
“Hey you, on the floor, in the white checked shirt with the wing embroidery stuff on the back. Cool shirt, by the way.”
Denny frowned, lifting his head. He was wearing a white checked shirt. He twisted his head round and looked up.
“He lives! Well, so to speak.”
A man was standing outside the door. He looked around Denny’s age and was wearing sunglasses which he pushed up onto his head, pinning back his shoulder length thick, layered dark hair. He was wearing faded, ripped jeans and a battered black leather biker jacket over a blue t-shirt.
And he was looking straight at Denny, grinning.
“You can see me?” Denny asked in surprise.
“Of course I can see you,” the man said, seeming amused.
Denny scrambled to his feet. There was something odd about the man. He frowned, trying to put his finger on it. Then he realised. He was glowing with a soft greyish light. It was subtle, but it was definitely there.
“I’m Oliver,” the man said. “I’d shake your hand, but...” He shrugged and banged on the invisible barrier a couple of times, making the hollow, echoing thuds Denny had heard before.
“Uh, Denny,” he said.
“It’s a pleasure, man,” Oliver smiled. “I haven’t seen you here before. How long you been awake?”
“Awake?”
“Yeah. How long have you been gracing the realm of the dearly departed, as ‘twere.”
“Um, I woke up yesterday morning.”
“Ah, a newbie,” Oliver said, his face filling with sympathy, “no wonder you were crying like a baby wrenched from its mother’s breast. Don’t be embarrassed. Happens to the best of us. I did a bit of that myself, at the beginning.”
“You’re dead too?” Denny felt a twinge of disappointment. He had hoped, just for a moment, that Oliver had been an angel or something, come to help him. Although he didn’t look like any angel picture Denny had ever seen.
“I prefer differently manifesting,” Oliver said, “but yeah, dead.” He smiled.
“Is there any way for me to get out of here?” Denny asked hopefully, thinking if Oliver was outside, maybe he could get out too. “I can’t get out of the building. I need to get out.”
“Sorry, man,” he replied, “but you’re stuck wherever you died. Don’t ask me why. I’ve been differently manifesting for over a year and I still don’t know. It is what it is.”
“But you’re outside.”
“I died out here. Had my accident just down the road. I have about a half mile wide circle I can move around in, but that’s all. Then I come up against another one of these.” He tapped a finger on the barrier. “I can’t go inside any buildings though.”
Denny sighed, looking at the floor.
“Got someone somewhere?” Oliver asked.
He nodded. “My sister. And her husband and my nephew. They think I’m gone.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you are gone. To them at least.”
Denny was suddenly seized by a burst of anger.
“Damn it!” he shouted, hitting out at the door with his fist.
Oliver took a step back.
“Sorry,” Denny said, glancing at him.
He raised his hands. “Hey, man, if you need to vent, vent. We’ve all been there.”
“It’s just, it all feels so unfair,” Denny said. “One minute I’m living this normal life, nothing special, but you know, it was pretty good. Then I wake up dead. I don’t even know how I died.”
“That will come back. Believe me, when it does, you may wish it hadn’t.”
“Maybe I died peacefully in my sleep.”
Oliver chuckled. “What are you? Thirty-ish?”
“Thirty-three.”
“What would you die peacefully of at thirty-three? Besides, if you had you wouldn’t be here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look around out here,” Oliver said, spreading out his arms. “Any more like us?”
Denny looked past him at the street. He lived in a fairly busy part of town and people were walking by all the time,
but he couldn’t see any with the telltale grey glow that would mark them out as a ghost. He shook his head.
“That’s because most people who die don’t differently manifest,” Oliver continued. “Only people like us who have come to some sort of unspeakably ghastly end can become ghosts. And not always then either. We spooks are pretty rare, really.”
“What happens to the rest then?”
He shrugged. “Beats me. Heaven, hell, some sort of blissful nirvana full of vestal virgins. Who knows? Personally, I was hoping for the last one myself.”
Denny smiled, despite himself. “Yes, that would have softened the blow.”
Oliver laughed. “Oh yeah.”
A few long moments of silence passed as they both mulled over the entertaining thoughts brought on by the idea.
“So, you had an accident?” Denny said.
Oliver looked down at the tiled floor outside the door. “Yes.”
Denny suddenly felt awkward. “I’m sorry, that was rude. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, man, it’s water under the bridge now. It was a traffic accident, car and motorcycle, and a bus was involved.”
“Wait, I remember that,” Denny said, thinking. He’d been out when it happened, but the police and fire service were still around when he got home in the early hours of the morning. “Wasn’t it that drunk guy on the bike who ploughed into a car, pushing them in front of a bus? I remember he died and two people in the car were badly injured. You were in the car?”
Oliver looked away. “No. I was on the bike.”
Denny stared at him. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking ashamed. “I was the imbecile who thought it was okay to walk out of a pub and get straight on his bike because it was only a short ride home and ended up injuring two people, one of them so badly he ended up in a wheelchair, and killing himself.” He looked back at the street behind him. “So now I’m here, outside, all weathers, day and night. It’s no less than I deserve.” He looked back at Denny. “As far as this whole circus of being dead goes, you’ve got it made. You have a whole building to hang out in. Believe me, it can get pretty lonely out here.”
Denny felt sorry for him. Oliver had made a huge, stupid mistake, but he was suffering for it. It wasn’t his place to judge.
“Well, whenever you want to talk, it looks like I’m not going anywhere.”
Oliver looked at him and smiled slightly. “Thanks, man. Look, I have to go. The school up the road gets out soon and I always make sure I’m there to screw with any dealers who try to target the kids. But I’ll be back later. Which flat are you in? I’ll buzz you. The intercom won’t pick up my voice, but I can buzz.”
“Okay,” Denny said, relieved he would be returning, “that would be great. I have lots of questions. I’m in flat twelve.”
“Twelve, got it,” Oliver said, backing away. “Later!”
Denny watched him jog away then stood and watched the people on the street for a while. He searched for any more like him and Oliver, but there were none. The pain of losing Trish was still a ragged, gaping wound in his heart, but at least he had someone to talk to now, someone who knew more than he did. Suddenly he didn’t feel so alone any more.
He turned and started up the stairs. He had a lot of questions for Oliver, not least of which was how he was going to press the intercom button when Denny couldn’t touch a thing. He went back to his flat. He realised he could go anywhere else in the building, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. At least for now, he wanted to be alone.
Denny looked around at the bare rooms. Only the furniture that had come with the flat was left. Everything else, everything that had made it his, was gone. Like his whole existence, erased, scrubbed out, as if he had never been there. Everything but the patch on the floor.
He walked through to the bedroom to look at it. He’d noticed it this morning, but hadn’t wanted to think about it then. It was right where he had woken the previous morning, an irregularly shaped area on the floorboards that was now a slightly paler tint than the rest of the wood. He knew it hadn’t been there when he was alive and he guessed what had been there. Blood. His blood. He knew he hadn’t died peacefully, in his sleep or anytime else. He had no memory of what had happened at all and part of him, most of him, wished it would stay that way. He was glad he hadn’t been awake when they’d found him, taken away his corpse, cleaned up his blood. That would have been too much.
He hoped more than anything it hadn’t been Trish who discovered his body.
He turned away and walked to the window to look out. It was a nice day, the sun shining, the sky blue with a smattering of fluffy white clouds. He wondered what day it was and made a mental note to ask Oliver when he returned. If it had been one of his days off, he would have gone out and enjoyed it. Maybe taken Jay somewhere fun after school. He knew his nine year old nephew would soon be at the age when he wanted to spend his time with his friends rather than his family, but right now he still seemed to love hanging out with his uncle.
Denny shook his head. Thinking about Jay was too painful now. He’d had enough of crying today. He went back to the bed and lay down on his back on the bare mattress, closing his eyes and considering what he would like to ask Oliver. The last thing he thought before falling asleep was would he need to shower, and how was he going to clean the one set of clothes he had.
***
The buzz of the intercom jerked Denny back to consciousness.
He grimaced. He’d been dreaming. He, Trish and Jay had been having a picnic in the local park and it had felt wonderful. Waking up didn’t. He was groggy and sleepy and all over again he felt the stab of loss and loneliness.
Sighing, he sat up and rubbed his eyes then got up and made his way downstairs to the lobby.
Oliver was sitting to the left of the door when he got there, back leaning against the glass of the window, watching the world pass by on the street. Denny tapped on the glass, or rather the barrier beyond the glass, to get his attention. He sat down cross legged on the floor on the other side of the window from his new friend.
Oliver turned to see him and grinned, pushing his sunglasses up onto the top of his head.
“Hey, man.”
“Sorry,” Denny said, “I fell asleep.”
“Oh yeah, I did a lot of sleeping when I first woke up. Like a newborn baby, I guess. Your soul is adjusting. You’ll need less of it after a while.” He chuckled. “At least you have a bed. The first few times, I used that bench down the street. Not too uncomfortable, but believe me, you never want to know what it’s like to wake up with your head in someone’s butt.”
“So where do you sleep now?” Denny said, baulking at the image that brought up.
“The park mostly. It’s just in my zone. Well, some of it. The grass isn’t too bad to lie on and it’s nice waking up to the birds singing, even when it’s summer and they’re getting you up at four in the morning. Kind of like camping without a tent.”
“Don’t you get cold in the winter?”
“Not if I keep metaphysical.”
“Metaphysical?”
“Yeah, you...” He stopped, looking at Denny. “Okay, maybe we should begin at the beginning, or you’re going to get all this stuff all swirling around in your head all mixed up. You have questions. Fire away.”
He sat up straight, giving Denny his full attention. He was reminded of Cassie, a girl he dated when he was twenty-six who was a primary school teacher and had developed a habit of listening to him intently when he spoke, staring straight into his eyes as she would with her pupils. It could be a little disconcerting, especially during foreplay.
His brain was still feeling a foggy from the sleep and he struggled to remember what he had wanted to ask, wishing he could have written it down.
“Okay,” he said, “first, what day is it?”
Oliver laughed. “That’s your first question?”
Denny shrugged.
“It’s Thursday.”
He
nodded. “Will I need to shower? And how can I wash my clothes?”
“No and you won’t have to.”
“What, never?”
Denny raised an arm and sniffed. He didn’t seem to smell bad and he’d been wearing the same clothes for a day and a half, but still, he found it hard to believe that could last indefinitely.
“From what I can gather, this,” Oliver waved his hands up and down at himself, “this is like a memory of our bodies, like it’s etched into our subconscious mind what we should look like, so we do. But all the usual stuff isn’t really going on inside. So we breathe because we’re used to it, but we don’t have to, there are no lungs working and we don’t need the oxygen. We don’t need to eat, which is handy because we can’t anyway. We sweat, but it’s not real so we don’t get rank. And when we, shall we say, indulge in some self gratification... Well, you get the picture.”
Denny did. He had wondered about that. He was relieved to hear he still could and that he hadn’t lost all of life’s little pleasures.
“Will I be here forever?”
It was the question he’d been most afraid to ask, not really sure what he wanted the answer to be.
Oliver suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Short answer, no. Long answer... are you sure you want to hear this?”
Now Denny was nervous. “No. But tell me anyway.”
“Okay. I’ve spoken to quite a few spooks since I left the land of the living, the ones who have zones around mine, and this is what I’ve been able to learn. We have a certain amount of time here, how long is different for everyone. Can be anything up to around five years. But when our time is up, we start to... fade.” He winced as he said it.
“Fade?”
“Yeah. I saw it happen to this woman, Rachel, whose zone just butted up against mine. She’d been there for over four years and we used to chat a lot. She liked to hear the gossip.” He smiled. “Or maybe I liked telling her it. Anyway, one day she showed me her hand. It was, like, flickering in and out. Really weird. She said it didn’t hurt, but it was creepy. It got worse and worse until it was happening to her whole body and then, one day, about two weeks later, she just disappeared altogether. Faded away right in front of me.” He shuddered.
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