Hunt the Haunted

It’d been three years, seven months and two weeks since I saw my first ghost. Now, that might seem a bit farfetched, and I know you’re probably thinking that I’m crazy, right? No one really sees ghosts. Well, the thing is, I do. And I’m supposed to help them, apparently. Help them to go to the ‘other side’. But that’s a lot easier said than done, especially for a nineteen year old girl who’s just trying to make her way in the world.

Right, I should probably introduce myself, right? Hi, my name is Amelia Stone, and I was born on the 19th of May. I live in the middle of nowhere, Wales, which suits me just fine, considering what I have to deal with on a daily basis. I don’t know if my location is something you’re told when you die, but I have people appearing on my doorstep all hours of the morning, and it’s just not fun.

From what I’ve learnt from my many Google searches, I’m what is known as a ‘mediator’. We’re supposed to help dead people to finish their business, so they can move on to the ‘afterlife’, wherever that may be. That’s all I know. It’s not like I woke up one day, and someone was there with a speech and various leaflets that gave me all the information I needed.

One other thing is that, apparently, you become a mediator when you suffer ‘great trauma’. So when, on my 16th birthday, my dad burnt my house down with my mother, my sister and himself inside of it, I started seeing ghosts. Most of them have little problems that are easy to solve, like telling someone where something was hidden. The worst problems are when I have to solve family feuds, because I’m not an awfully sympathetic person.

Yeah, I’ve been called bitter, and I suppose I am, but wouldn’t you be? If you rarely got a good night’s sleep because you always had people demanding you travel halfway across the country to make sure their goddamn cat went to a good home, I doubt you’d be all sunshine all the time.

Generally, I help the people, the people leave. That’s how it works. So when, one sunny summer day, I was helping a rather large lady to make sure that her ickle parrot Polly flew into freedom, I was surprised to see a young man standing there, laughing at me.

At first, I thought that he couldn’t see the lady stood next to me, but then I noticed the slight shimmer to the air around him, and I realised he was dead. Which upset me in two ways. A) I’d probably now have to help him with his petty problems, and B) I had to admit that this guy was cute. Like, really cute. It was depressing that he was dead. Even though, if he was alive, I probably still wouldn’t stand a chance, because most guys didn’t stick around when they worked out you could speak to dead people.

I narrowed my eyes at mystery guy, and I turned to say farewell to my female friend, only to find that she’d already gone. I sighed in annoyance - I hated it when people didn’t thank me. The guy chuckled again, so I whirled around, my eyes wild with anger.

‘Can I help you?’ I snarled at him.

‘Nope. Just thought I stand here and watch you fight with a parrot.’ His voice was melodic, and posh. I’d guess he was from Surrey somewhere. I was good with pinpointing where people had come from, what with all the people I had to deal with.

‘Well, the parrot is gone, which, unfortunately, means your show is over. So how about you leave too?’

‘Hey. I just died. Show some respect.’ Ahh, he was one of those guys. The ones that played the sympathy card to get me to do what they wanted.

‘You know, if you have something you want me to do, just say it, because all I really wanna do is go home, crawl into bed and sleep. So can you please not keep me waiting?’ This guy was really starting to try my patience.

‘The thing is, I don’t actually know. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know why, or even how, I died. But I do know one thing. I want to find out.’ He didn’t know how he’d died? Well that was new. Most people didn’t just die and not know why. Usually, when they died they could work out what happened.

‘You serious? You actually don’t know how you died?’ I queried, confusion scrawled across my features.

‘That’s what I just said, isn’t it?’ He was cocky. I did not like cocky ghosts.

‘Look, I’m sorry, but most people know how they died.’

‘Well, I don’t.’

‘I can see that.’ I wasn’t gonna stand around and argue with the guy all day, so I span on my heel, and stormed off. If he followed me, fine. I’d help him. But I was well aware that anyone could walk past and see me arguing with myself. When I reached my car, I glanced over my shoulder and saw that he hadn’t moved. Well, it was upsetting that cute guy wasn’t gonna follow me, but it meant less work for me, so I couldn’t complain.

That was, until I got into the car. Sat there, fiddling with the radio was cute guy. Hang on. He actually turned the radio on. The only ghosts I’d met that could actually touch stuff were people who’d been dead for months, even years. I voiced this concern, and he looked at me, some unfathomable emotion in his eyes.

‘I’ve been dead for like, a week.’

‘Well then, you’re developing fast. Now, where are we going?’

‘What?’ He questioned, his eyebrows furrowing in this oh so cute way. He really was adorable. All big blue eyes and messy brown hair.

‘If you want to find out why you’re dead, we should probably go to where you died. So, where was that?’

‘Oh, so you’re gonna help me?’ He laughed. ‘I think our best guess is my house in Weybridge.’

‘Surrey? I knew it.’ Before he could question what I was on about, I’d already started driving. I guess that was one good thing about being in this tiny town that was so far from my house, we were only around an hour or so away from Weybridge.