Hunt the Haunted

A week after the incident with Josh, I was at home, and all was suspiciously quiet. I hadn’t actually had to deal with anyone since that day in Weybridge, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to complain. I was curled up in my favourite armchair, reading a book. I loved to read, it was my escape from the messed-up world that was my life.

The rain outside was beating down against the rattling windows of my farmhouse. The place I called home was big, but it was old, run-down and very, very cold. That’s why I’d gotten it so cheap. I’d fallen in love with it, and I had big dreams of doing it up, painting it, and making it magnificent again. But I hadn’t factored in just how much time mediating took up.

I was living off of the money that my parents had left me, and my grandparents sent me some occasionally, but I never spoke to them. I missed them, on some level. But I knew I couldn’t bring them into my world. And that was okay. We spoke on the phone every Sunday, and they told me about their days, and I told them about whatever book I was reading. It was a strange relationship, but it worked.

Anyway, back to the rain. It was storming outside, lightning lighting up the room and thunder shaking the houses foundations. It was angry outside, but that was how I liked it. It always made me feel safe, in the quiet house with the storm raging outside.

I don’t know how long he’d been stood there before I looked up, but when I did, I nearly dropped my tea. He was stood there, soaking wet, his hair flattened and his teeth chattering. I think I should clear up some common misconceptions here. Ghost get wet, ghosts get hot, ghosts get cold, etc. They can feel everything that us living folks can feel. They just can’t die, so pneumonia and stuff doesn’t affect them.

‘Jesus, Josh. You scared me.’ I still hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d said to me in the alley, but if I hadn’t said something, this could’ve been extremely awkward. I placed my tea on the table next to me as he mumbled something.

‘Sorry? I didn’t quite catch that.’

‘I’m sorry, Amelia. I was bang out of order.’ I looked at him. He was seriously apologising? Well.

‘Yeah, you were. But I don’t blame you. You were right, I don’t know how any of that feels. Now, I propose we move on, and forget that ever happened. Come on I’ll get you a towel, and some clean clothes.’ I smiled at him, and led the way up the rickety stairs to my candy-stripe bathroom. What can I say? I like pink.

I offered him the towel, and he took it, rubbing at his hair with it. Another misconception. If a ghost is advanced enough to be able to pick things up, like Josh was, then the things the interacted with would do their proper job. So towels dried ghosts. And ghosts could drink, eat, even swim. They didn’t need to eat, but some of them still enjoyed it.

While he was sorting his hair out, I walked across the hall to my room, and grabbed some clothes I had from one old boyfriend or another. I didn’t not date, it’s just my ‘relationships’ didn’t last long, so I had built up a stash of hoodies and sweats over the four years I’d been living on my own. I took some things that looked like they might fit back to the bathroom, and handed them to Josh, before walking away again, telling him to leave his wet clothes in the bathtub, and that I’d be downstairs.

I curled up in my chair again, and I’d barely read two pages of my book before he appeared again, looking adorable in the Fall Out Boy hoodie I’d given him. He sat on the sofa opposite me, and we just looked at each other. I started to fidget beneath his heavy stare, so I decided that conversation would be welcome right about now.

‘So, what’ve you learnt since we last saw each other?’ I questioned.

‘That no one knows why I died. And I still don’t know what my ‘unfinished business’ is.’

‘It can take time. Don’t worry about it, honey. We’ll find out eventually.’ He looked up at me, a strange look in his eyes.

‘You called me honey.’ He started laughing.

‘Hey. I call everyone honey. You’re not special.’ He looked up at me, and I stuck my tongue out at him. Then I cracked, I started laughing just as hard as he was, and we both fell on the floor in out hysterics. Eventually, we both stopped, and we just lay there, staring at the boards that were my ceiling. He sighed, and I instinctively grabbed his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. We turned our heads towards the other simultaneously, and we just looked at each other.

Once again, I was the first to look away, and I sat up, wrapping my arms around myself. He followed suit, and I rested my head on his shoulder, and we both just looked out of the floor length windows, marvelling at the storm as it unfurled over the countryside.

‘Can I ask you a question, Amelia?’

‘Course you can.’

‘Will you answer honestly?’

‘If you want me to. But bear in mind, the answer might not be what you want to hear.’ I looked up at him through my dark eyelashes, and watched as the lightning cast mysterious, yet fascinating shadows across his face.

‘Who was your hardest ghost?’ Now, if it’d been any other situation, I would’ve burst out laughing at his way of phrasing the question, but there was a tense atmosphere settling over us, and I just knew that this wasn’t the time for laughing at childish things.

‘You don’t mess about, do you? I like that.’ I chuckled slightly, before lifting my head from his shoulder and taking a deep breath. I guess I owed him this. He knew nothing about me.
‘When I was sixteen, well, it was on my sixteenth birthday actually, my dad found out that my mother had been cheating on him, so he took a can of petrol and a lighter to our house. He died pretty much instantly, as did my mother, but I had to stand there and listen to my little sisters screams. She was seven, and all I could hear was her crying out for dad, for mother, for me. But they wouldn’t let me go back in. I fought against them, but I had some pretty strong friends. They knew if I’d gone back to get her, I wouldn’t have come back out again. And looking back at it now, they saved my life, but at the time, I hated them. She was my baby sister. I had to save her. She faded eventually. Suffocation they said.
'After that, I stayed with my best friend, and I was like a zombie. I woke up, ate, slept. And repeat. Until the day of the funeral. I sat in the front row, three caskets in front of me, when I heard the crying. The room was full of the sounds of sobbing, but these cries stood out. They were completely heartbreaking, choked cries. The sounds of someone who doesn’t really know what’s going on, but only knows that they are afraid. I looked up, and in the corner, by my mother’s coffin, was Andy. She was so small, but she looked the same. Her blonde curls, her green eyes. I was confused, but I went over to her, and I pulled her into my arms, and I held her as she cried, and for the first time since her death, I cried too. The room looked at me like I was crazy, and I guess, deep down, I knew that they couldn’t see her. No one tried to drag me away though. They knew that I was pretty fucked up.
'Eventually, the ceremony ended, and I had to leave, so I picked her up, and I carried her to this secluded bit of the courtyard, and I spoke to her, I told her she was dead. I don’t really know how I knew that what I was seeing was her ghost, and not simply a hallucination, but I did. She stuck around for a little while after that. But about two weeks later, I woke up, and she was gone. I like to imagine that her business was to spend more time with her older sister, but I think that it was just to give me some sort of closure, to make me realise that it wasn’t my fault she was dead. Her. She was my first and my most difficult ghost. Andrea Stone.’

There were tears flowing freely down my face now, and I was shocked that I’d been able to remain coherent for the whole story. That I’d been able to tell it without breaking down. That was the first time I relived the story out loud. I made a choked sound, and Josh wrapped his arms around me, and I looked up at him. There were tears in his eyes as well. But, as usual, they never fell. He placed his hand on my cheek, and looked into my eyes. He leaned forward, and then his lips were on mine.

Our lips danced together, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, bringing him closer to me. Then I realised who I was kissing, and I shoved him away, as if he’d burnt me. He looked shocked, but I didn’t really register that. I bolted to the other side of the room, rapidly wiping away my tears.

‘What’s up, Amelia?’ He genuinely sounded concerned.

‘We can’t do this.’

‘What, why not?’ He sounded upset now. I couldn’t look at him, so I just kept staring out of the window.

‘Why not? Josh, you’re dead. Dead. Not living. I am living. You see why this could never work?’

‘I know I’m dead, Amelia. I’m not stupid. But it’s not like you have to tell anyone.’

‘Josh. You are not fucking alive. I am not desperate enough to get with you.’ I knew I was being a bitch, but I couldn’t stop. I had to make sure that he knew this could never happen and that it would never end well.

‘You’d have to be desperate? Fuck, Amelia. That hurts. I guess you are just a lonely bitch then.’ I didn’t have to turn around to know that he’d left me. Again. I guess it was a habit of his. Not that I could really blame him, because what he’d says was true. I was a bitch who was destined to die alone.

I sat back in my chair, and though about what’d just happened. I mean, if he wasn’t dead, then yeah, I probably would’ve, and we could have been happy together. But he is dead. But does that matter? I mean yeah, he’s not breathing. But he’s still solid, he’s still human. At least to me. And he’s right. It’s not like I have to tell anyone. But it’s the thought that a relationship like that could never go anywhere. We couldn’t get married, have kids, anything like that. And I’d only known the guy like, a week, and most of that week we hadn’t seen each other. That wasn’t enough time to cement strong enough feelings to warrant attempting a relationship.

Was it? I wasn’t going to deny it, I liked the guy. He was cute, he was funny and he had an amazing personality. But it’s not like I loved him. That was too strong. And it was too soon, anyway. I dwelled on this for a while longer, fighting myself on the matter. When I failed to actually reach a decision, I headed up to bed. Maybe sleeping on it would help. The tears started falling as soon as my head hit the pillow, and I thought about everything. What I’d screwed up with Josh. What had happened with my family. The fact I never spoke to anyone anymore. And the fact that I’d have more ghosts waiting for me to help them.