by Cross, Amy
“I won't speak!”
“No-one's going to make you speak, Lizzie. You can just listen if that's what you prefer. There are other people at the group who lost loves ones in the Hexley disaster, remember? You're not alone, and -”
Before she could finish, the phone suddenly filled with static and then let out a piercing screech. Pulling the phone away from her ear, Natasha stared at the screen in shock for a moment before the sound suddenly faded.
“- just don't know,” Lizzie was saying, as if she had no idea about the interruption. “On the one hand, I think I'm fine. On the other, it's so hard to say for sure. I feel like I'm trapped, like a yo-yo, bouncing from one thing to the other.”
Natasha cautiously put the phone back to her ear, poised to pull it away if the noise returned.
“Sometimes,” Lizzie continued, “I even feel like someone's here with me. Even when I'm supposed to be alone, I feel like someone's in the room, right behind me. I feel it now. Just a moment ago, I even felt like someone touched my shoulder. It shouldn't be like that, should it? Not after ten years. Doctor Douglas, do you think I'm losing my mind?”
“I think you should really try to come to tonight's group meeting,” Natasha told her, still shaken by the noise she'd heard a moment earlier. “I think it'd be good for you. Please try, Lizzie. I would really, really like to speak to you in person tonight. It's a very important part of the healing process.”
“Nat?”
Turning, Natasha saw that one of the receptionists was trying to get her attention. Signaling that she'd be there in a moment, she quickly finished talking to Lizzie, before carrying her files through to the main office.
“There's a drop-in to see you,” the receptionist explained. “A man. Says it's urgent.”
“Is it one of my usual clients?” Natasha asked.
“No, but he said he'd heard you'd dealt with clients who'd lost people in the Hexley disaster. He said that's what he needs. He was very insistent.”
“Can you get him to make an appointment? I'm rushed off my feet right now.”
“He was very insistent,” the receptionist replied, before leaning closer and cupping a hand next to her mouth. “A little weird, too,” she continued, lowering her voice. “Intense, if you know what I mean. Freaky eyes. And I think he has a lot of tattoos. Not on his face, but I saw some poking out from his shirt sleeves, and from under his collar too. He's waiting in the reception area.”
“I don't think we should be using words like 'weird' and freaky' here,” Natasha pointed out, before sighing as she checked her watch again. “I'll go and tell him to make an appointment. When he comes through, try to fit him in tomorrow, okay?”
With that, she headed out into the reception area and looked for the man. Spotting no-one, she walked to the main door and peered outside, but there was no-one there either. Turning, she saw that the receptionist had emerged from the office right behind her.
“Huh,” the woman muttered, turning to Natasha. “I guess he must have changed his mind.” She shrugged as she went back into the office. “Maybe he decided he doesn't need help with his grief after all.”
Natasha looked back out the window, just in case there was any sign of the man, before heading to her meeting.
***
“James Clarke? Mr. Clarke, would you mind if I have a word with you?”
The old man glanced up from his beer in the corner of the pub.
“You are James Clarke, aren't you?” David continued. “I'm sorry, I've been asking around all morning, trying to find you. You don't know me. We've never met, but are you the James Clarke who used to work in the refueling department at Hexley Airport?”
“That depends,” Clarke replied. “Who wants to know?”
“Can I sit down?”
Without waiting for an answer, David sat on the nearest seat.
“Your hands are shaking,” Clarke pointed out. “What's wrong with you?”
“Sorry.” David set the rattling cup and saucer on the table. “My name is David, I'm the manager of the duty free perfume shop at Hexley, in the departure hall.”
“I can see that from your name badge. So why aren't you there right now?”
“I took the day off.”
The old man rolled his eyes. “Typical bloody manager.”
“I need to talk to you about Old Eve. About the woman people claim to have seen at the airport. I need to get some things straight in my head.”
“If you've come to take the piss,” Clarke replied, sipping from his beer, “then I'd ask you to kindly skip that part and just bugger off. I come to this pub for peace and quiet in the mornings, not to go raking over the past. If I wanted to be nagged, I'd stay home, wouldn't I?”
With that, he lifted his pint glass with two scarred, trembling hands and took a long sip.
“You've seen her, haven't you?” David asked.
Clarke lowered the glass and set it down. “Aye.”
“At the airport?”
He nodded. “Aye. Why, have you seen her?”
“I don't think so,” David replied. “What I saw was...”
His voice trailed off for a moment.
“Hang on,” Clarke muttered, getting to his feet.
“Where are you going?”
“Just hang on a moment. Don't be so impatient.” As he stepped away from the table, the old man picked up David's untouched cup of coffee and carried it to the bar. Half a minute later, he returned with a pint of beer, which he set down on the exact spot where the coffee had been. “You'll be needing something stronger than coffee,” he explained. “Besides, I don't want to be spotted sitting with someone who drinks coffee. I've got a reputation to keep up.”
“Old Eve has been seen at least three times in the past two weeks,” David explained. “Maybe even five, maybe more. Now, I know she's supposed to be seen more frequently when something bad's about to happen, but I don't know whether this counts.”
“Three times in a fortnight?” Clarke took another sip of beer. “Aye, that would count as often.”
“So something bad is going to happen?”
“Why are you here?” the old man sighed. “I'm not some kind of oracle, I don't know everything about what happens at that airport.”
“No, but as far as I can tell you're the one person who ever stood up and said he really believed in Old Eve.” David paused. “I don't have anyone else to ask. I'm not even saying that I believe she's real, I honestly don't know what's happening, but last night I had this experience. I saw things, things I can't explain, things I can't quite accept were just figments of my imagination. Either I'm going mad, or something's happening at the airport. I need to know. Please, you're my only hope right now.”
“Where's she been seen?” Clarke asked cautiously.
“The departure hall, I think.”
“Which gate?”
“Seven, maybe.”
“Anywhere else?”
“Possibly near the deicing pad.”
“Huh. That doesn't sound so good.”
“What does it all mean?”
“It might mean that some rather bored people are pulling your leg. People do lie, you know, especially about ghosts. It's perfectly possible that three, five or more people at that airport are simply making up stupid stories to freak each other out.” He took another sip. “Especially if they're women. Women are the worst when it comes to this sort of thing.”
“When you worked there, did you know Mark Naylor?”
“From the deicing team?” He hesitated. “He's a straight-up chap. Why, he's not one of them that reckons they've seen Old Eve, is he?”
David nodded.
“Right. Well, that's a turn-up for the books. Mark Naylor's a good man. Definitely not the type to go around making things up.”
“And I saw something last night,” David continued. “In the forest, near the memorial that was put up for the victims of the crash. Until then, I never even entertained the possibility that
any of this could be real. I mean, I'd heard gossip about Old Eve and all that stuff, but I just laughed it off. And then last night I saw a man in the forest. A man who I know is dead. He was right in front of me, and then he ran, and then...”
His voice trailed off for a moment.
“Go on,” Clarke replied.
“I saw the plane go down,” David explained. “I know that sounds crazy, but I swear, as clearly as I see you right now, I saw the plane crash into the forest just a few hundred meters from where I was standing. I saw the flames, and I heard the screams. The forest was burning and -”
“Let me stop you there,” Clarke replied, interrupting him. “Now, you're talking to someone who was at Hexley when the accident happened. I was working a shift, and I saw that plane go down with my own two eyes. I saw the flames, and I was one of many people who heard people crying out from the wreckage as the flames spread. Believe me, the things I saw and heard that night have stayed with me. There's not a day that's gone by since, when I haven't thought about it. Some nights I'm scared to go to sleep, because I know I'll have more nightmares.” Keeping his eyes fixed firmly on David for a moment, he seemed lost in thought. “All of which means,” he added finally, “that I would take a very dim view indeed of anyone who lied about something like this.”
“It happened,” David continued. “I mean, it didn't happen, that's the point, not last night. But I still saw it. I even smelled the smoke, and I felt the heat against my face.”
“The smell was awful,” Clarke told him. “Even from a couple of hundred meters away, the smell of that burning plane was something I'll never forget.”
“It was like thick, burning oil, but there was something else, too. My nose starting stinging, and my eyes were watering, and I could smell something like rotten eggs, except it was a thousand times worse. There was something sweet, too. I don't even know how to describe it, but there was a very strong, very sweet smell in the air.”
“Aye, I remember,” Clarke replied. “I always wondered if that was the...”
He hesitated.
“Well,” he added, “maybe it's best not to think about that. There was more than just the plane and the trees burning that night.”
“It seemed so real,” David continued, “and then suddenly it was gone. In the blink of an eye, the whole inferno vanished and there was no sign of it at all. I swear, though, I remember the smell and I remember the sight of the flames.” He held his hand up again. “And I remember the feel of that cold little hand touching mine.”
Instead of replying, Clarke took another long drink from his beer, while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on David.
“I'm not lying,” David added, his voice trembling now with a hint of fear. “I might be insane. I haven't discounted that, not by a long shot, but I'm certainly not lying. You have to believe me.”
Clarke set his beer back down.
“Aye,” he said finally. “I do believe you. At least, I think you believe what you're saying. But this man you said you saw... Is there any chance that he might have really been there?”
David shook his head.
“That's the past that worries me most,” Clarke continued. “It's one thing for people to see Old Eve, but there are other ghosts at that airport, and I happen to believe that they become more noticeable whenever Eve herself is around more, which means it's a bad sign if people are starting to see them.” He paused. “I still feel her sometimes, you know.”
“Eve?”
He nodded. “I haven't set foot on that airport's property for several years now, but I remember how I used to feel when she was watching me. Even if I couldn't see her, I'd sometimes know she was there. I still get that feeling from time to time, even at home or in the street or in the pub. In fact, I don't mean to unsettle you, but I feel it right now.” He paused. “Sometimes I think it's not just the airport that's still haunted by the people who died that night. Sometimes I think it's the whole of Hexley.”
David looked around at the rest of the gloomy, empty pub, before turning back to the old man.
“If Eve's making her presence known,” Clarke continued, “it means she wants to stop something from happening. The other ghosts are just dragged along with her, they don't know what's going on, but Eve has always been very clear. She'll be giving signs, she'll be trying to warn people about some kind of danger. You said she's been seen near departure gate seven?”
“I think so.”
“Then maybe something's going to happen to a flight that leaves from that gate. And she's been seen near the deicing pad?”
David nodded.
“Maybe it's a flight that'll have its wings deiced before it takes off. In which case, whatever's going to happen, it'll happen when the temperatures are low.”
“There's supposed to be another cold front coming through in the next day or two,” David pointed out.
“No-one'll listen to you,” Clarke continued. “No-one at the airport, anyway. No-one in any kind of position to do anything. They'll laugh you out of the building, and then they'll have you fired so you can't upset anyone with all your talk of warnings and ghosts. You know, they say she tried to warn about the disaster ten years ago, and no-one paid any attention. She was supposedly seen seven or eight times in the week before the crash. And do you know what? No-one took the idea seriously. Even now, they'll dismiss the whole thing as a joke.”
“But if she's being seen again -”
“That would be very bad news,” Clarke added, taking another sip of beer, “but short of grounding every flight that's due to take off from Hexley, I honestly don't know what you can do about it. I'm not a religious man, but if you are, then maybe you could try praying. Because nobody's gonna pay a blind bit of attention to a bunch of ghost stories.” He leaned forward and jabbed a finger against the table, as if to emphasize his point. “I was fired because I spoke up about this. Do you have a family?”
“I do.”
“Children?”
“A little girl. Girls. It's complicated.”
“The way Hexley Airport is run, no-one wants to hear about anything that might cost them money. If you breathe a word of this to anyone, and if it gets to the higher-ups, you'll be out on your ass. And trust me, that kind of mud sticks. People talk around these parts, and they blackball certain types of worker, and -”
Before he could finish, he broke into a coughing fit that lasted several seconds.
“Then what am I supposed to do?” David asked. “Nothing?”
“That depends,” Clarke replied once he'd managed to get his cough under control. “If you keep your mouth shut, and if something bad does happen at the airport, would you ever be able to live with yourself?” Raising his glass, he took a long sip before setting it down and wincing a little, as if he was in pain. “Because let me promise you. That's the kind of guilt and regret that can ruin your life forever. Either way, it seems to me that you've got a choice to make. But if you're expecting me to tell you that you should stand up and say what you know, then you're out of luck. I stood up once, and look at me now. So if you want my advice, you'll accept you can't do a goddamn thing and you'll keep your mouth shut.”
Chapter Nine
“It's not just the airport,” Natasha muttered after taking another sip of coffee. “If you ask me, the whole town is haunted. The whole of Hexley. But the ghosts aren't the ones who died. The ghosts are the ones who're still living with what happened.”
“Isn't that a bit melodramatic?” Sophie replied, with an amused smile. “Anyway, you don't believe in ghosts.”
“I know, I just...” She sighed. “You know what I mean. It's just a thought experiment, I guess. There were two hundred and eighteen people on that flight, weren't there? And something like forty of them were from Hexley and the surrounding villages. You're right, I don't believe in ghosts, at least not in the traditional sense. But you don't have to believe in ghosts, to see that a town can be haunted.”
She stared into her coffee
for a moment.
“I don't know what I mean, exactly,” she continued finally. “Maybe I'm over-thinking things. Or maybe with the tenth anniversary of the disaster coming up, I'm letting my patients' concerns get to me.”
“You've got one of those grief counseling sessions tonight, haven't you?”
Natasha nodded.
“Well,” Sophie continued, rolling her eyes, “I'm sure that'll be a barrel of laughs. Are you sure you don't want to cancel and check out a movie instead? We could get dinner first, have a few drinks after, really make an evening of it.”
“I can't cancel!”
“Why not? They do it to you all the time!”
Natasha checked her watch.
“You're dreading it,” Sophie pointed out. “I can see it in your eyes. All those moaning people who can't get over something that happened ten years ago -”
“That's not fair!”
“It's true. It's blunt, but it's true.”
“These people are really struggling,” Natasha explained, before gulping down the rest of her coffee and grabbing her phone from the table next to the sofa. “Most of them lost loved ones in the accident. How do you get over the death of a husband or a wife? A kid? Especially when they died in such a horrible way. I do my best to offer these people hope, but...”
Her voice trailed off for a moment.
“But some of them are beyond hope?” Sophie suggested.
“My training didn't prepare me for this.” Giving her a kiss on the cheek, Natasha got to her feet. “I'll see you later.”
“You won't admit it, but I'm right,” Sophie continued, reaching up and brushing her hand against Natasha's waist. “If any of the people at that support group are really still grieving after ten years, they're screwed. You're just helping them prolong the agony. I know you believe everyone can be helped, but sometimes people just get broken and there's nothing anyone can do to put them back together again. Your support group is filled with a bunch of sad-sacks who are all like Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the king's men, and all the king's therapists, can't put any of them together again. And do you know why not?”