Short Story: Ghost Story

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“This short story was written in 2009. At the time, I wanted to raise my profile by doing competitions as getting published in magazines would help. I didn’t get published. It didn’t help.”

Ironic that the taunting only stopped when she was flattened by the number eighty-four to Broadbottom whilst buying more cigarettes.  That was three months ago and he hadn’t got around to cleaning the bathroom yet.

            ‘How could they do this to me?’ he mumbled to his golden reflection.  ‘And today of all days…’

Taking a deep breath he smoothed a length of hair back across his shiny pate, thrust his glasses back up his nose and turned the handle.

As he made to enter the bustling office, he was nearly knocked off his feet by Kyle, the office junior.

            ‘..and there’s police and everything!’ said Kyle, looking back at someone  as he hurried out of the door without even noticing Colin.  ‘I’m gonna’ have a look!’

  Kyle had the annoying habit of making anyone not born within five years of him feel like they should go and queue for their bus pass.  Other than that – and a slightly overdeveloped sense of the morbid – Colin had no issues with him.  It was just the others…

            ‘Oh, you’re back,’ said Jennifer, the superstar wannabe who was clearly suffering the indignity of being a receptionist whilst looking for her ‘big break’.  Colin wanted to tell her that her face was the biggest break she had but resigned himself simply to calling her ‘Jen’, something that annoyed her intensely and pleased Colin greatly.

            ‘Yes, yes.  I’m afraid so, Jen.’

She stared at him whilst twirling her peroxide blonde hair and blowing a bubble from her gum; it could not be clearer that Colin was the scathing judge on the X-Factor panel of her life.  Colin was sure that had they not then been momentarily plunged into an eerie darkness, she would’ve strangled him with the reception headphones.  Giving the lights a wary glance, he moved on.

He passed unheeded through the office, rounded a corner and saw his desk looming up before him.  He approached it like a man walking to the gallows.  And there it was, still sitting there where he had left it an hour ago: a new organisation chart – with the most conspicuous gap where his name should be; where it had been for the last twenty five years.

                ‘That’s right, Windle,’ Ms Gilforth, the section manager, had said.

                ‘Erm, Wimple,’ said Colin, apologetically.

                ‘You got the letter from HR, right, Windle? ’ she said, not bothering to even look at him through her Dolce and Gobanna glasses. ‘Company cutbacks, what with the credit crunch and all that.  I’m sure you understand – your kind always do.  Just remember to return your stationary, Windle,’ she added as she shooed him out of her office.

Colin looked up from the traitorous chart and his eyes fell across his desk calendar.  “My Birthday!” was written in today’s square.

                ‘It’s your birthday, Wimple?’ said a slick voice from behind.  Colin turned to see Guy, the over preened and over pumped office stud smirking down at him.  The brightness of his teeth threatened to burn out Colin’s retinas.  ‘Let me guess – sixty five?’  Guy’s smile widened at his own comic genius, heightening Colin’s visual discomfort.  No, that’ll be your IQ, was the retort on Colin’s lips, but he licked them away before they escaped.

                ‘I’m forty-five actually,’ sighed Colin.

                ‘Who’s asking – I was talking about your waist measurement, Wimple!’  There was a simpering guffaw as Liz, the leggy blonde from marketing materialised draped over Guy’s shoulder, striking their usual catalogue pose together.  Their affair was the worst kept secret in history; even the bloke on the bagel stand five streets away knew – and he was both short-sighted and deaf.  How Guy’s wife remained ignorant, despite only working around the corner, was a complete mystery to Colin.

                ‘I replied to your text,’ said Liz, stoking the side of Guy’s head.  ‘Six thirty at Rendezvous  – I’ll be there.’

Guy moved in for the inevitable kiss.  To Colin’s tremendous relief he was spared the spectacle by his own name.

                ‘Colin!’

At the sound of his name being barked, Colin spun around to see his colleague marching up to him.  Sue had only been brought in a month ago to work alongside him but for some reason the little box with her name on had remained firmly attached to the org chart like a limpet.

                ‘Colin!’ she repeated.  ‘Just because you’re leaving today doesn’t mean you can’t get that taxation report to me!  Where is it?’  She stood and stared at him, her hands folded firmly across her chest.

Just when her stare threatened to burn straight through him there was yet another violent flickering of the office lights.  As they dimmed, brightened and flickered, Colin had the strangest feeling that someone or something was moving in his peripheral vision, but when he turned there was nothing.

                ‘The lights are going to trip again,’ said Guy, appearing nervous.  ‘It’s your turn to flick the trip switch in the cellar, Wimple.’

The cellar.  It had a folklore all of its own.  It was said that the malevolent spirit of an old asylum patient floated around the vaulted ceiling, looking for victims to terrorise.  Colin had never been too frightened by it; after all, it was no more than Ms Gilforth had been doing for years.  He looked over at her office – she was tearing strips off of someone over the phone whilst gesticulating pointlessly at the lights.  A smirk born of sudden clarity curled his lips.

                ‘Are you even listening to me, Colin?’

He turned to Sue.

                ‘Certainly.  I’ll go and get it for you now,’ he smiled and strode away.  A short walk later and he was knocking on the doorframe of the I.T office.  Getting no reply he entered, humming a happy tune.  Having located the drawer marked “Do NOT use!”, he deftly removed a USB memory stick labelled “docu-shredder virus” and made a hasty exit.

                ‘About time,’ said Sue with scorn as Colin handed her the de-labelled memory stick. 

Colin merely smiled and made for Guy’s vacated desk.  With a chirp of triumph, he picked up Guy’s abandoned mobile phone, opened the incriminating text reply from Liz and clicked the ‘Forward’ button.  He hummed to himself as his eyes flicked down the contact list, until he found exactly what he wanted under ‘W’ – ‘Wifey’.  With a ‘ta-da!’ he clicked the ‘Send’ button.  Replacing the phone, he then hummed his way to the reception desk.

                ‘Yeh, what?’ said Jennifer as she haughtily removed the reception headphones and checked the state they had made of her hair in a compact.

                ‘Oh nothing, Jen,’ replied Colin amiably, pushing her copy of Vogue off of the desk.  As Jennifer bent to retrieve it Colin leant over the desk, pocketed the emergency torch and pressed the call button for the MD’s office.

                ‘What the hell is it with you, Wimple?’ she roared.  ‘I’m so sick of this dump and this stupid job – I’m a model, for God’s sake!  Hey, what’s that light blinking on the MD’s line…?’

With a buzz and a pop, the next stage of Colin’s plan came to fruition – the lights finally went out and they were plunged into the gloom of emergency lights.  The panic in the office was palpable and Ms Gilforth’s emergence from her office made it worse.

                ‘Right, who’s going to the cellar?’ she demanded.  There was no reply from the ashen faces staring at her.  ‘Oh, great!  Don’t all offer!  I’ll go.’

                ‘I’ll help,’ said Colin, smiling.  Gilforth tutted.

Having failed to locate the torch, they trod carefully down the dark, damp stairs to the cellar by flickering candle light.  Colin could hear her teeth chattering, and it was not just because of the cold.

                ‘W…what’s that noise, Windle?’ she stammered as they reached the bottom.

                ‘Don’t know,’ said Colin and blew the hair on the back of her head.

                ‘Agh!  What was that?’

                ‘The ghost?’ suggested Colin.  Gilforth whimpered.

                ‘M…maybe it was just a bat?’

                ‘Oh no,’ said Colin darkly, his face lit by the candlelight, ‘the rats ate all the bats…’

                As Gilforth screamed, he blew out the candle.

Emerging alone from the cellar, Colin walked back into a scene of pandemonium.  Liz was having her hair pulled by an irate woman, who was also kicking Guy in the shins, a wild-eyed Sue was screaming at the I.T manager whilst holding her dead laptop and Jennifer was cowering behind the reception desk, under fire from a furious MD.

                ‘Ah, my work here is done,’ smiled Colin.  ‘Goodbye, everyone!’

As he made for the door, it swung open and Kyle, the office junior, charged through with a stunned expression.  He failed to spot Colin as he ran passed.

                ‘You’ll never guess what…’ Colin heard him say as he himself walked out through the door but a towering, cloaked figure cleaning its scythe with a copy of the Daily Mirror made him stop in his tracks.

                ‘At last,’ said a deep and sonorous voice from beneath a hood.

As the door began to close, Kyle’s words drifted out.

                ‘…it was a suicide – Colin jumped in front of the number eighty-four to Broadbottom!’

The tall figure of Death turned to Colin and sighed.

                ‘You’re not the first and you’ll not be the last, Wimple.’

Colin shrugged sheepishly.

                ‘Better go,’ said Death, ‘your mother’s making quite a scene “up there”.’

                ‘She made it “up there”?’ said Colin incredulously.  Then he rolled his eyes.  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t have cigarettes where she’s gone?’

                ‘Nope.’

                ‘Oh dear.  Is it too late to go to the other place instead…?’

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