Into the Ether

Final version of the previously 'untitled' installments... Considering trying to make this into a full-scale novel now!

Into the Ether

 

It’s the screech of the tyres that haunt me, and the sickening crunch of metal splintering bone. What puzzled me most was that everybody else carried on, life was still happening around us. How could that be, when life had just ended so brutally in front of me? I know that I tried to run out; I, like many others around me, desperately needed to know if she was okay, but my feet were locked to the ground, holding me there. All I could do was look on, watch the events unfolding before me. It wasn’t until the ambulance came that I realised I was crying.

 

A thread of crimson spilled down her porcelain face, forming a pool in her dark curls. I watched as her lips pursed, and her last breath escaped from her mouth in the softest of sighs. She seemed broken. A gust of wind was playing with her, snatching her blouse before dropping it back onto her small frame. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

 

I still couldn’t move. I wanted to be there instead of her.

 

I didn’t understand.

 

It felt like my life was ending alongside hers.

 

She was gone...

 

This thought hit me just as my world went black.

 

 

 “It’ll be okay, you know.”

I whirled around, trying to locate the voice that was reaching out to me. All I could see was a silvery shadow lurking in the gloom, everything else hidden in a thick cloud of velvet darkness.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, bewildered, desperately trying to catch a better glimpse of the shadow.

“Don’t be. You’re new to this game,” the shadow replied nonchalantly.

“What game? I don’t even know where I am!”

The shadow laughed, and dissolved into the darkness that was surrounding us. I squinted in an attempt to see something other than blackness, but failed. I couldn’t even see my hands properly �" they too appeared to be hidden by a strange silvery shadow. Unable to get a grasp on my surroundings, I realised that my head was pounding. A truckload of elephants hammered at my skull, and my whole body felt battered and bruised. When I spoke, my throat was scratchy, my voice no more than a strangled whisper. Perhaps I’m coming down with a cold, I mused.

 

 

All of a sudden I was back by the side of the road, all memories of the mysterious shadow in the dark momentarily forgotten. The crowds of people had been moved away, and the ambulance men had covered the girl, ready to move her into the van. Police tape had been wrapped around the section of the road, blocking the pavement from any onlookers. It took me a moment to realise that I was within the boundary made by this tape, on the very outskirts of the action. No-one seemed to notice me though. I could see a young man kneeling on the road, bent over, face hidden. His dark moleskin coat was flapping around him, its buttons left unfastened despite the bitter wind. He didn’t seem to notice, he was too focused on the broken body before him. A medic was covering him with a foil blanket, crouching beside him. The young man was clearly very upset, though I struggled to identify him. I wondered whether he was the driver of the ghastly yellow car a few metres away: the door was left open, the bonnet slightly crumpled. It was surrounded by policemen; clearly this was the car that had hit the girl.

 An eerie cold fell around me, and I shuddered, wanting to go home. My head was still pounding, and my body still ached. I longed to be asleep, to forget this awful scene. I just couldn’t seem to shift the feeling that I knew these people, and it was beginning to be quite unsettling.

Just as I began to walk away, the man stood up. He had his back to me, so I still couldn’t see his face, but he felt familiar. Unable to help myself, I stopped walking. His cropped hair, dark and slightly curled, was damp with sweat. I wanted to reach out and comfort him, but stopped myself just in time. I still wasn’t sure who this man was, although I was becoming convinced that I knew him well. He turned slightly, so I could see him in profile. My heart stopped.

It was Alex.

My Alex.

My boyfriend, Alex.

I couldn’t believe it. Why was he with another girl? He was supposed to be on his way to my house before we went out again; a table was booked at our favourite restaurant for later that evening... My rambling thoughts stopped as he approached me. His face was red and tear-stained, his eyes kept firmly on the ground. I smiled at him hopefully, wanting him to see me so I could smooth his tearful frown away with kisses and hold him until he stopped crying. Or at least that’s what part of me wanted to do; the other part of me was fuming. Who was that girl? I moved to be in front of him as he was ushered into a police car, the medic who was crouched beside him grasping his arm. He killed the girl? I leant out to touch his arm, but I couldn’t reach across the policewoman bustling past.

“Alex! Alex, it’s me! What’s happened? What have you done?” I cried, running towards him.

He ignored me. But, then, nobody turned round, seemingly oblivious to the scene I was creating.

Could they see me?

“ALEX!”

My last attempt at getting his attention fell on deaf ears as he shut the car door behind him. I spun round to take in what was happening. Behind me, Alex was driven away. The ambulance followed. I expected to hear sirens and see the lights illuminate the dusk that enveloped the street, but it was deadly silent.

 

 

“Have you not worked it out yet?” a familiar voice scoffed from behind.

Slowly, I wheeled round. A boy, not much older than me, stood before me. A flat cap was crammed over mousy brown hair, and his pale blue eyes stared back at me mockingly. I took in his threadbare waistcoat, his stockings and dusty shirt. My nose couldn’t help but wrinkle in disgusted wonder.

“Who are you?” I shot, wincing as my words scratched my throat.

“Freddie,” the boy replied smartly.

I gave him a withering smile, exasperated, “Have I worked what out yet?”

The boy, Freddie, grinned, and leant lazily against one of the police cars that was yet to leave.

“The girl,” he nodded, in the direction of where she had lain.

“I don’t know who she is,” I admitted. I was tired of everybody else knowing who she was when I didn’t, especially when I felt as though I knew her. I could feel myself bristling at the boy, annoyed that he was teasing me.

“I thought not.”
I glared at him, angry that he was withholding the information I wanted to know so desperately. I kept my gaze for a few moments, hatred bubbling inside me as he stared back, his left eyebrow raised cockily. I exhaled noisily, and folded my arms tightly across my chest, clamping my white blouse to my skin. The sudden movement of my shirt alerted my attention, a blur of white skirting my vision. The breeze snatched it from my waist slightly, and suddenly everything fell into place.

I looked down at my blouse gasping in the wind, and swallowed hard. Freddie’s eyes lost their laughter as they met mine, and his mucky face softened with concern.

“Freddie?” I whispered.

He didn’t reply but kept his gaze on my face as I uttered the words I never thought I’d say.

“Am I dead?”

 

 

“Oh, God. Oh, God. How do I tell my mum? How do I tell her mum? Oh, God.”

“What’s that, dear?”

He looked up. A short, plump nurse was peering at him, her silvery grey perm cut close to her face. Her blue uniform was pulled tight around her, emphasising the curves created by years of cuddles and home-baking with her grandchildren.

 “You were mumbling. Speak up,” she smiled, busying herself with the trolley she was pushing.

I bet he didn’t realise he’d said anything aloud, I thought from the other end of the corridor. The rims of his eyes burned red from within his drawn, white face, his long eyelashes catching tears that glistened in the harsh light of the overhead strip lights.
“Now, now, dear. What on earth is the matter?” she bent towards him, concern misting her soft features.

“Nothing,” he replied gruffly, though I could hear the wobble in his voice.

“That girl in there is yours, isn’t she?” she asked gently, nodding towards the door beside him.

He shut his eyes, leaning his head against the wall. She placed her small, wrinkled hand on his and my heart broke as I watched him fight to stop his shoulders from shaking with sobs. She sat beside him on the hard plastic hospital chair for a long time, until he had no energy left to cry. Slowly, single tears found their way down his cheeks and fell to his shirt. The agonising scenes of the evening left me numb and I realised that I too was crying. I felt Freddie place his hand on my arm, and I cried harder, unable to peel my gaze away from my mourning boyfriend. His eyes were red raw, his nose pink and shiny. His skin was ashen with sorrow and his face looked thinner, almost skeletal.

“How long has it been?” I whispered to Freddie, my voice catching in my throat.

“A few hours,” he murmured back, watching me as I watched Alex. We were stood a few metres away, and had watched him for the last half an hour or so. All he had done in this time was alternate between staring at his fingers and cry silently, and it was breaking my heart. He looked broken. It felt as though someone was ripping my heart out, I wanted to rush out to him and hold him, to tell him everything was alright. The unbearable hollowness that left my insides cold made me choke on the sobs that I was trying to control.

A loud clatter and raised voices broke this sombre spell. The nurse and Alex whipped round to see my parents burst through the heavy doors at the end of the corridor at the same time as I heard them: “Martin, don’t give me that, I just want to see if she’s alright!” my mother was yelping, scurrying towards the door of my room with an anxious frown. Behind her my father was crying, visibly wincing against the haranguing my mother was flinging at him. This didn’t surprise me; I’d always been much closer to Dad than I had to my mother. They didn’t see Alex sat by the door until he stood up in front of them.

“Mrs Green, Mr Green, I am so sorry...” he tailed off as they brushed past him, leaving him dazed in their wake.

Alex dropped back onto the chair, fresh tears falling from his eyes in a flurry. The nurse hurried back to her trolley and handed him a tissue before she bustled through the doors behind my parents. I turned to Freddie.

“What’s happening? Why can’t I speak to them? And who even are you?” The questions tumbled from my mouth before I could stop them, and he looked at me, eyes wide in startled confusion.

“Come with me,” he said, gesturing towards the doors leading out of the corridor.

I cast a glance at Alex again, who was resting his head against the pale green wall, eyes closed. I didn’t want to leave him.

“We can’t talk here,” Freddie urged me again, and, reluctantly, I followed him out of the hospital.

 

We sat on a high red-brick wall in the staff car park, legs dangling below us. By this time I had stopped crying, and instead was staring numbly ahead of me. I fixed my eyes on the battered dark green Peugeot in front of us, trying to forget what was happening. Beside me, Freddie’s intake of breath brought me crashing down to reality.

“It’s not quite the end for you yet,” he said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

“What do you mean? I’m dead, aren’t I? I can’t talk to anyone; I can’t talk to my family. It’s over for me,” I snapped, fresh tears hurrying down my face.

“Well... Yes, you are dead, and no, you can’t talk to them. But it’s not over just yet.”

“What do you mean?!” I demanded, angrily scrubbing at my nose with my sleeve.

“You were taken before your time, and you can’t move on until you’re ready to.”

I turned to look at him, incredulous.

“I’ve just died. I don’t want to move on and leave them all behind! I need to know who it was... who it was who killed me,” I hissed, these words feeling strange in my mouth. It still hadn’t quite sunk in that I was dead, that somebody had taken my life from me.

“Exactly, you’re not ready!” he exclaimed, a hint of excitement shining in his eyes.

Internally, I fumed. Not only had my life just been taken from me by a complete stranger, and I had just witnessed the people I love the most sob over me in a hospital corridor �" my mother excluded, though we’d never been close �" but I was still being told what to do. By a boy who had been dead for.... Wait.

“So what are you doing here?” I asked curiously, forgetting my irritation for the moment.

“Same as you,” he sighed.

“You’re dead too?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Hit by a tram. 1886,” he answered softly, his pale blue eyes meeting mine.

“Oh.” A wave of empathy surged between us.

“So how come you haven’t moved on?” I frowned, confused.

“Same as you,” he smiled ruefully.

“You’ve been dead for over a hundred years! How can you not have moved on?” I asked, my earlier anger dissolving into the night around us.

“Well... I like watching the world,” he admitted. “It’s changed a lot, you know. And I like watching the new-comers,” he added, grinning at me again.

“So how do I move on? If I want to, I mean,” I added hurriedly, my eyes pricking at the thought of Alex and my father looking at my bruised body, never knowing who it was who did this.

“You’ll know when you’re ready.”

 

 

Linda Simpson unlocked her front door, hands shaking. She needed a drink; it had been an awful day. That poor girl... She hadn’t seen her run out into the road; she was too busy worrying about the rumours of redundancy that were flying around the office. She knew she was going to be considered for the sack: it was true that she hadn’t been up to scratch recently, what with her son going off to university and her finding herself all alone... and now this. More time needed off work, another black mark against her. Stumbling into the kitchen, she poured herself a large glass of red wine from where it had been left on the side the night before, too busy knocking back the wine to notice the answer-machine’s green light blinking.

 

 

“We need to find out who did it,” I decided, jumping off the wall we had been sat on.

“Really?” Freddie asked, frowning slightly.

“Yes. My parents, Alex... they need to know who’s to blame. I need to know who to blame.”

Freddie grinned at me, his pale eyes twinkling in the ghostly mist of his breath in the cold weather of the night.

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that for hours!”

He leapt off the wall beside me, and tugged at my arm.

“Where are we going?!” I exclaimed, tripping over my feet as I hurried beside him.

“The police station: they’ll already have started to look into the vehicle, what with your modern technology these days!”

 

 

“No answer, Bob. Not in,” the gruff voice of the assistant came floating through the doorway.

Bob Johnson sighed heavily. It had been a long day.

“Maybe she’s avoiding the call? We should go round,” Bob decided, getting up from behind his desk.

He walked into the main office of the police station and picked up the pile of documents left on the front desk. Shuffling through them, he selected the crisp sheet of paper that held all of their prime suspect’s details. He sighed heavily, rubbing his scalp. The events of the day had left him emotionally exhausted: a hit-and-run case, with a child. Thankfully, for him at least, the driver of the awful yellow car had left the vehicle at the scene, and so tracing them had been as easy as typing the registration number into the database, and... Linda Simpson. His wife’s best friend, Linda Simpson. He knew that the woman would be driving herself mad with guilt, and she’d be devastated when she found out that the poor girl had died.

“Come on then, let’s get this over with,” he sighed again, and pulled his jacket on. His assistant, Tony, followed suit, and they left the office in a sombre silence.

 

 

A sharp rapping at the door shook Linda from her drink-induced daze. She was sat slumped at the table, wine glass still in her hand, silently sobbing in her stupor.

“Mrs Simpson?” a voice rattled through the letterbox, “Mrs Simpson, can you open the door?”

She covered her ears, crying harder as she heaved herself up from the table.

“Mrs Simpson! We need to speak to you,” the voice called again.

She staggered to the bottom of the stairs, and started to drag herself up them, ignoring the banging behind her.

“Mrs Simpson, we need to ask you a few questions concerning this evening.”

Reaching the top of the stairs, Linda Simpson took one last glance at the front door, watching the shadowed figures of two policemen stood behind the frosted glass.

 

 

It felt unnatural, sneaking around a police station in the dark. Freddie had gone in front of me, silently picking his way across the desks and flicking through different piles of paper as he went. I wasn’t much help, standing in the centre of the room and glancing nervously around at all of the cases that were still in progress. I’d found at least one perk of my new-found phantom-like state: invisibility, meaning confidentiality was no longer off-limits to me... which would be a great help in my quest to find out who was driving that car!, I thought happily.

“Why isn’t there anything here?!” Freddie growled crossly, his brow furrowed as he flung papers across a desk.

“Maybe they’ve not had chance to look at anything yet?” I offered unhelpfully, still mesmerised by the inside of the police station, papers and post-it notes stuck all over the walls, arrows drawn across them all, linking the crimes together.

“You’re a child; of course they will have looked at it!”

This woke me from my momentary awestruck bewilderment, and I too began to search the desks for anything connecting to my death.

We continued to scan the desks for clues, before starting on the smaller, much tidier office tucked away at the back of the main room. There, on the desk, were photographs of the scene I had been standing in only hours earlier, including a photograph of that ghastly yellow car...

“The registration number,” I said, the cogs in my head whirring.

“Excuse me?” Freddie laughed, relieved to have found what we were looking for.

“The registration number of the car �" type it into the computer, and it’ll tell us who did it!” I explained excitedly, wiggling the computer mouse that was lying on the desk.

The screen burst into life, a lock screen demanding a password beaming back up at us. Behind this message I could see the database open, teasing us with the knowledge I so desperately needed. I exhaled angrily, my heart sinking.

“Shall we do it the old-fashioned way then?” he suggested, gesturing towards the door.

Frustrated, I followed him, feeling at a loss of what I would do if I couldn’t provide the answers I believed would save both my family, and me, from an eternity of torment.

 

 

We arrived at the crime scene just as dawn was breaking, the weak sun bathing the street in a lugubrious light. The area inside the police tape was empty now, aside from the broken glass glittering across the surface of the tarmac like morning frost. All I knew was that the car that had hit me was yellow, and there was nothing left on the road to help us with our quest in finding the driver.

“What do we do now?” I sighed, exasperated. Who knew that ghosts could still get tired?!

Freddie surveyed the road, biting his pale lip thoughtfully in the morning sun. I too looked along the street, taking in the tired shop fronts and police tape dancing in the soft breeze. A shiver ran through me, and I shuddered against the cold of the dawn.

A newspaper blew past in a breath of wind, catching itself on the scuff of my shoe. I bent to look at it, and gasped at the headline: ‘Hit-and-Run Driver Linda Simpson Found Dead At Her Home’. Shocked, and amazed at how quickly news spreads nowadays, I scanned the rest of the article: it was her. The policemen had found her when they went to her home late last night: she’d drunk too much, and had fallen down the stairs; it was not yet known whether it was an accident or not. Our names flitted across the page as my eyes filled with tears: it was over.

Freddie suddenly jabbed me in the side, ripping me from my silent mourning of the loss of my life, and for the vile woman who couldn’t even face up to what she had done...

“Ouch!”

“Look over there,” he replied, ignoring my complaint and gesturing across the street.

I looked.

It was Alex.

He was kneeling on the other side of the police tape, silent tears running down his cheeks. His dark hair was sticking up in peaks at odd angles; clearly he had been running his hands through it. His eyes seemed so much greener in the pale light of the morning, piercing through the glittering glass of the street. My heart tugged at the familiarity of it all. It was like seeing your faded and threadbare childhood comfort blanket after a night away from home, only to have it held far out of the grasp of your pudgy little fingers. I silently begged him to look up, the anger at my killer dissipating in seconds. Eventually, he stood, and his eyes met mine. I don’t know if he could see me, but a shot of ice soared through me as his emerald eyes pierced mine. I could see the soft yellow and brown flecks around his pupils, his long lashes sweeping across his cheekbones. He kept his gaze on me for a long time, both of us standing in the street. His pale pink lips moved slightly, mouthing my name.

My breath escaped me in a rush, and all of the images of the last twenty-four hours span past me as I looked into Alex’s eyes. The broken body shrouded in a shock of white; the cold scuffed walls of the hospital corridor, reeking of disinfectant and sorrow; bowed heads and long embraces, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. I saw the pain in his eyes, the loss, the love.

“I hope you’re doing okay up there,” he whispered, his eyes not leaving mine. “I hope you know how much I love you.”

I suddenly reached out, my fingers grazing his cheek. I could almost feel his touch, the soft warmth against my skin. My heart fluttered as he kissed the tips of my fingers, then he turned and walked away. I don’t know if he could see me, but I know that he knew I was there. I watched his retreating back, waiting until he disappeared around the corner.

I turned to Freddie, looking directly into his pale blue eyes. He nodded back at me, encouragement filling his face. All of a sudden, I felt at ease.

I had said goodbye.

“I’m ready.”

 

Author's Note

any feedback would be useful!:)