Ghost Ahead

by Spike Black

  The uniformed officer was taking a statement from a male witness nearby. “I was behind him,” the guy was saying. “I saw him swerve, as if he was avoiding something in the road. But I tell you, there was nothing there.”

  Garth broke from his trance-like state, his head snapping up. He looked over at the bus stop and there, clear as anything, was Eddie Serling. Ursine Eddie, his massive body and short limbs giving him the appearance of a bear standing on its hind legs.

  Eddie stared directly back at him. He looked fresh from the accident, soaked through with rainwater, even though the evening was dry. His hair was matted to his scalp with blood. His forehead was crushed in.

  Garth was struck by a cold terror. This was more than merely a figment of his guilt-ridden imagination. The bastard was actually standing there. He really was seeing a ghost.

  The ghost of a serial killer.

  A slither of innards slipped from a hole in Eddie’s gut and plopped onto the pavement. He didn’t even notice. His black eyes were fixed on Garth, the hard, unwavering glare communicating its message clearly.

  I know who you are.

  All this time, Garth thought Eddie had been hunting him down, crashing cars identical to his own in the hope of finding him. But it was clear, now, that Eddie had known who he was all along. The Nissans were just to get his attention.

  And by killing Juha, Eddie Serling had upped his game.

  This is personal, he was saying. Welcome to hell, you son of a bitch.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 10

  With trembling hands, Garth poured two fingers of whiskey and lifted the glass to his lips. He hesitated, closing his eyes in anticipation. Wincing, he gulped it down, the liquor burning first his throat, then his stomach. He repeated this unpleasant ritual until he had drained the glass. He grabbed the bottle and poured himself another.

  He went over to the window and looked out. Nothing but the empty street. In the twenty-four hours since Juha’s death, Garth had done much soul searching, and had come to one conclusion. He was a murderer. A serial killer, of sorts. No better than Eddie Serling.

  His mind had repeatedly taken him back to the roadside following the accident, the rain-spattered phone in his hand, the number for emergency services punched into it. If he had only made that call, had only crossed that point of no return, then none of this would have happened. All those innocent people - Juha, the Nissan drivers, the young family - would still be alive.

  And how many more were to come? After Juha, was the ghost going to move on to those closest to him? No, this had gone far enough. He couldn’t live in fear of what the ghost had planned for him. If Eddie Serling desired revenge, then there was only one thing for it.

  Garth was going to give him exactly what he wanted.

  ***

  The silver Nissan Qashqai tore along Eldham Road, fast approaching what was now the town’s accident blackspot. The vehicle’s drunk driver slammed the steering wheel with his fists.

  “Here I am, you meat loaf son of a bitch,” Garth yelled. “Come and get me!”

  The bus shelter hurtled toward him on his right. It appeared to be empty. The enormous and now - locally, at least - infamous tree, the base of its trunk blackened from the recent collision, was farther up the hill to his left.

  He slammed his foot down on the gas until the pedal hit the floor. “What are you waiting for? I’m right here! I’m the one you want!”

  He saw tire tracks ahead of him, parallel marks that swerved sharply off the carriageway. There were still random pieces of debris on the roadside. If it was going to happen, it would be now. He braced for impact.

  Approaching the bus shelter, he saw a figure standing there. The unmistakable shape of Eddie Serling. Garth’s stomach rolled. His knuckles whitened as he gripped tight to the steering wheel. Chloe flashed into his mind, and he smiled. He wanted his last thought to be of her.

  Incredibly, Eddie Serling’s hand slowly raised into a wave as Garth passed him.

  He continued on until the tree was in his rearview mirror. “What the…?”

  He stamped on the brakes. Checking there was no-one around, he U-turned into the opposite lane and headed back the way he had come. He slowed to a stop at the bus shelter.

  It was empty.

  Garth threw the door open and lurched out of the vehicle. He staggered around to the bus shelter and stepped inside. Eyes darting left and right, he scanned the empty shelter and the road, searching. He was standing, he realized, in the exact spot that Eddie’s ghost had been moments earlier. Goosebumps rippled his flesh. He spun around, expecting him to be there, inches from his face, his head bloated grotesquely from decomposition, his eyes sunk deep into rotting sockets.

  What he actually saw was the back of the shelter, its glass smeary and decorated with mud splatter. A half-ripped flyer announced the upcoming dates for a ‘Display of Incredible Psychic Power’ at Chalkstone town hall.

  Now what? He had offered himself, and been rejected. A feeling of intense despair pulsed through him, slackening his muscles, his head tipping back, his eyes arcing up to the roof of the shelter. He raised his arms, palms facing heavenward, and cried out. “What do you want from me?”

  As if in response, a sharp breeze rushed through the shelter, collecting all the dead leaves and depositing them at his feet. He looked down, almost expecting the leaves to have arranged themselves into letters, spelling out a message from the other side.

  Alas, no.

  He trudged out of the shelter, his shoes crunching on gravel as he wandered to the bus stop. He saw something and came to a stumbling halt. A rutted dirt track branched off the main road, carving a path through the trees. Intrigued, he followed the track a short way until he came to a clearing. What he saw stole his breath clean away.

  He was standing before a large, corrugated storage container, the steel cargo doors slightly ajar and bound loosely with police tape.

  He shuddered as he realized what he had found. Now he knew what Eddie had been doing out here at two in the morning on that fateful night.

  He moved toward the container, his breath quickening, his heart thumping in his chest. The police tape was already broken, their work here long done. He levered one of the doors open and stepped inside.

  The smell hit him first - a foul stench of rotting meat that hung in the air, hitting the back of his throat and causing him to retch. He reeled, spat, and took a moment to compose himself, his head spinning. The smell was unlike anything he had experienced on the kill floor, where death was fresh and wet and reeked of ammonia.

  The container was bare, the refrigeration unit at the rear switched off. Streaks of crusting blood decorated the corrugated walls, hinting at past horrors and sparking Garth’s imagination. He transposed memories of the factory onto this new location, only now they were not pig carcasses hanging from hooks, but people, or the remains of what had once looked like people. He saw bodies piled up in the corner, naked and emaciated, like in old back and white photographs of concentration camp victims.

  He turned to go. There was nothing for him here, no ghost, no redemption, only the lingering memory of murder, and he had to leave.

  As he stepped forward, a gust of wind swept a smattering of dead leaves into the container, and he thought of the shelter, of standing in the footsteps of Eddie’s ghost. He felt his presence near. As the panic rose in his throat, the cargo doors swung inward, coming together, reducing the world outside to a wedge of light, and then, as the doors sealed shut, plunging him into darkness.

  An involuntary scream burst from his lungs and he jerked forward, his hands pressed against the doors, his fingers groping for a latch, for a bar, for any means of escape, and as he fumbled in the full, silent nothingness of the container, visions of dead people blooming in the black, he was suddenly convinced that he knew why Eddie had kept him alive.

  This was, and always had been, his plan for him - to trap him here. Garth was destined to become Eddie Serling’s final v
ictim.

  He pressed his full weight against the door, his palms locked against the cold steel, the only sound his own frantic, panting breath, but it was futile. The doors, he was convinced, had been locked from the outside. Chloe and Wendy flitted into his mind, and he wanted nothing more than to hold them, to apologize for the way he had been, to tell them everything, and to let them judge him for his crimes. But that was never going to happen, because this was it. This was the end.

  “No!” he yelled out. “Please, no!”

  The left side door yawned open even before he had finished, choking the scream in his throat. The disbelief rooted him to the spot for a moment, until he had fully registered what had happened, and he stepped gingerly through the gap.

  The moon winked at him between gently swaying trees. The beam of a car’s headlights passed by on the road up ahead. He let out a huge sigh of relief and dropped forward, his hands sliding to his knees, his lungs taking in large gulps of cool night air.

  He had never felt so glad to be alive.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 11

  His hand shook so violently that the cereal kept falling off the spoon before he could get it in his mouth. Maybe it was for the best, anyway. His stomach felt so delicate that he might throw up if he swallowed anything.

  Predictably, the front page article of the Chalkstone Echo was about Eddie Serling again: PORTRAIT OF A MONSTER, the headline screamed. Newsworthy events happened so rarely in this town that he wouldn’t have been surprised if they ran with this story for the rest of the year.

  He skimmed the article. They were calling Eddie the Chalkstone Ripper now. Garth dropped his spoon back into the bowl and pushed it away.

  “What’s wrong?” Chloe asked from the opposite end of the table.

  “Nothing.” Her little dog was staring at him again. He curled his lip at the animal but it continued to stare. Garth opened the newspaper and continued reading. KILLER’S REIGN OF TERROR, read one headline. CONTAINER OF DEATH, screamed another. The only article in the first few pages not to feature the Eddie Serling story ran with the headline, ROAD OF DEATH CLAIMS MORE LIVES.

  He threw the newspaper across the table and it hit the dog in the face. That hadn’t been his intention, but it gave him so much satisfaction that he almost whooped.

  “Hey!” Chloe shouted. “What did you do that for?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, stifling a smirk. “It was an accident.”

  “What? Another one?” She kissed the dog, asked if it was okay in a simpering voice, answered for it, then shot her father a look that said you’re insane.

  And maybe he was. The state of his mental health was something of a mystery to him, too, lately.

  There was a knock at the door. Garth sprang to his feet and ran into the hall, opening it.

  “Hi there!” Shannon said. “Is Chloe around?”

  Garth grimaced. “Uh, yeah. Look, I’m afraid she won’t be able to give you a lift into college today.”

  Chloe appeared behind him. “Yes I can. What’s wrong with you? Don’t listen to him, Shannon.”

  “I don’t want you driving,” he said, turning to her. “It’s too dangerous. You know about all the accidents lately. I mean, God, you were almost in one.”

  Chloe groaned. “Dad, don’t be a total freak. I’ll be fine.”

  “No, I’m not having it.”

  “We’ll stay away from Eldham Road, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  He studied her look. “You’ll go the long way round?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Through the villages?”

  “Yeah.”

  He considered her a moment longer. “I don’t believe you.” He snatched the car keys from her grasp.

  “What the hell!” she screamed. “Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m your father. And I say you’re not driving for a while.”

  “You’re crazy, you know that? You’re absolutely crazy!”

  Wendy entered the hallway. “Garth, I’m sorry about your friend. We all are. But life goes on.”

  “Wait…” He couldn’t believe it. “You’re taking her side? Are you not at all concerned for the safety of our daughter?”

  He caught Chloe signaling to her mother that he was loopy, but he didn’t say anything. After all, she was probably right.

  “Yes, yes, of course I am,” Wendy said, “but if she says she’ll go the other way, then I trust her.” She looked at Chloe. “Right?”

  Chloe nodded impatiently. “Yes.”

  “Oh, right, well,” Garth blustered, “that’s okay then. You seem to have this matter all sorted. I mean, do you even think she’s ready to be in control of a motor vehicle? She is only seventeen, you know.”

  Chloe turned to Shannon in wide-eyed disbelief.

  “She’s old enough,” Wendy said.

  “But is she sensible enough? I mean, honestly?”

  Wendy laughed. “She’s more sensible than you ever were. You’re just jealous because you didn’t pass your test until you were twenty-one.”

  Chloe smirked, and this angered him. Wendy snatched the car keys and held them out to Chloe.

  Garth snatched them back again. “No. I’m not letting her drive, and that’s the end of it.”

  “Fine.” Chloe turned to leave. “Whatever. Come on, Shannon. We’ll get the bus.”

  Garth watched as Chloe marched up the street and Shannon struggled to keep up. A little horror movie played in his mind: it featured Eddie Serling’s ghost running out in front of a bus full of people and causing it to crash.

  “Wait!” He ran after them. There was only one way that he could guarantee they’d get to college safely. After all, Eddie didn’t want him dead, right?

  “I’ll take you.”

  ***

  The journey to college was mercifully lacking in drama, with Eddie Serling nowhere to be seen as they passed the bus shelter. Chloe refused to speak to him the whole time, and he didn’t blame her, really. He appreciated that to others, his recent behavior must have seemed incredibly strange, bordering on insanity. But his reasoning was sound. If Eddie Serling really was keeping him alive just to make him suffer, then surely his family were prime targets?

  After dropping them off, Garth headed back home, but he had a little detour planned first. Less than a mile before the bus shelter there was a turning, and he took it. He drove along a narrow country lane, headed toward a cluster of small Suffolk villages. A few hundred yards farther on his left he came to a squat, red brick building set back from the road. He pulled up in front of it.

  A rusting metal sign swinging gently in the breeze announced the name of the establishment - The Blue Boar. Beneath the legend was a picture of a winking, snaggletoothed boar wearing a trilby. The building was in a state of disrepair - the walls daubed with graffiti, some of the windows on the ground floor broken, their cracks held together with masking tape. It had always been a controversial building - the design had not exactly met local expectations of a cozy country pub - but now, frankly, the place was an eyesore.

  As he watched, a small woman approached the front door and rummaged in her bag for a key. His stomach churned - this had to be Eddie’s widow. She was gaunt, hollow-eyed, frail. In her mid-to-late forties but looking at least two decades older. A thought struck him: was this why Eddie had kept him alive? To help Mrs Serling? If it meant keeping his family safe, Garth figured it was worth a try.

  He hopped out of the car and approached the pub. As he moved closer, he was able to read some of the graffiti daubed on the brickwork: KILLER, read one message, and BURN IN HELL screamed another.

  Hearing his approach, the woman turned and jumped when she saw him.

  “Mrs Serling?”

  “We’re not open,” she said, her voice reedy, her gaze shifting to the pavement.

  “I know. My name’s Garth Harrison. I was a… a friend of Eddie’s.”

  Her eyes flashed with fear.

  “I’m an ol
d work colleague,” he said quickly. “From way back. I’m terribly sorry, I can’t imagine what you must have been through, but I want to help, in any way I can.”

  She considered him for a moment. “No, thank you.” She unlocked the door and went inside.

  He burst forward. “Wait! Tell me what I can do. Anything. Anything at all. You need money? Grief counseling? Help around the house?” He was clutching at straws now. “Please, tell me.”

  “I need my life back,” she said, her voice breaking. “Can you give me that?”

  He looked back at her, struggling for words.

  “I thought not,” she said, and slammed the door.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 12

  “Wendy?”

  He called up the stairs, but there was no response. After a brief period of panic he found her in the bedroom, packing a suitcase.

  “What are you doing?”

  She closed the case and locked it. “What does it look like?”

  “Seriously… you’re leaving me? Why? Where would you go?”

  She snorted. “This isn’t mine, you idiot.” She held out the case to him.

  The realization hit him like a Nissan hitting a serial killer. “Whoa. Wait, what did I do?”

  Wendy dropped the case and folded her arms. “Yeah, okay, let’s discuss this. What did you do, Garth?”

  He stared at her in wide-eyed horror for a moment. “Look, everything I did, I did for you and Chloe. For us.”

  “I just want to hear it, Garth. Be honest with me for once. Go on. Tell me.”

  “Well, that’s rich. You lied to me, remember? I know why you really quit your job.”

  Wendy raised an eyebrow. “How?”

  “Trish told me.”

  “Trish? Trish at the station?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why were you at the station?”