Ruby's Ghost Read online

  Her mouth dried. That wasn’t her imagination. Her heart bounced against her ribs as if trying to break free. There was a ghost in her room. If she turned on the light would he get mad, or leave? It was too late to do nothing since he knew she was there.

  Eloise turned on the light and hoped for the best—whatever that might be. The man looked pale and scared. His left arm hung limply by his side, dripping blood onto the carpet. His image shifted, and he became less solid, as if he was having difficulty being here. Please leave. She held her breath and hoped he’d fade away, but he didn’t.

  He was still looking around the room, puzzlement drawing his eyebrows down. Then he lifted his head like he could hear something.

  “What do you want?” she said, trying to sound brave. Could she reach her bedroom door or would he follow? If she ran, where would she go? She sat up and made ready to flee if he came any closer.

  He didn’t move. He just stood there looking lost and frightened. If he were real, she’d be wondering what was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t a vengeful ghost. The thought wasn’t calming. There shouldn’t be any ghosts in her room. “Who are you?”

  He looked at her, then vanished.

  Sirens filled the night. Eloise got out of bed and walked over to the window. She couldn’t see anything, but she could hear more than one set of sirens. Police and ambulance in multiple. There’d been an accident close by. Maybe the man who’d just been in her room was involved. She shuddered and glanced over her shoulder, but he hadn’t come back. Why come here in the first place?

  The noise continued. The wailing of sirens a reminder that life was fragile. Maybe he wasn’t dead yet and they’d be able to save him. She bit her lip and said a quick prayer that he was being looked after by the paramedics, then she got back into bed but left the light on and kept her back to the wall, just in case.

  Tate opened his eyes. More lights. Blue and red. Where was the dark-haired woman? Where was he? Was he outside? He could’ve sworn he was just in a bedroom. It had looked a lot like his old room, only different—the furniture was wrong. It had been the woman’s room. His head hurt. He closed his eyes again.

  “Tate, you’re okay. I’m so glad you’re with me now.” Ruby’s voice dragged him back and prevented him from sleeping. “Take my hand,” she urged, her voice only a whisper. She looked different, paler.

  “What happened?” He tried to lift his hand but couldn’t move. Everything hurt and he was tired. Too tired. Better to sleep here.

  “Tate, you need to come with me now.” Her words echoed and she glanced around like she was about to panic. What had her so worried? When he didn’t move, she pouted. “Tate, we can still be together. It will be okay.”

  The words jolted him. He didn’t want to be with Ruby anymore. “No.”

  They’d broken up. Didn’t she remember? He blinked then she was gone and there were other people moving around him, their faces blurred in the bright lights. What was going on?

  Someone bumped him, and rolled him onto his back. There was a howl like an animal in pain. Then he realized it was him making that noise and he couldn’t stop. Why wouldn’t everyone leave him alone? He needed to close his eyes and rest.

  “Tate Cooper?” Light shone in his face.

  He blinked and tried to turn away, but pain gripped his body and twisted, tearing like something was trying to rip his head from his body. Every jolt made it worse. People were doing stuff, pulling on his limbs. Ruby reappeared at his side. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear her—she was getting fainter. He tried to smile and tell her he was fine.

  He wasn’t fine. He couldn’t sit up. Straps held him down. Someone else was talking to him, but he didn’t understand a word. He tried to speak, but even that was hard as his throat was raw.

  “Ruby?” Where had Ruby gone? She was just there.

  “She’s being looked after. Is she your girlfriend?” the woman asked.

  “No.” He closed his eyes. She wasn’t. Not anymore. Everything hurt, and he felt raw inside and out.

  She touched his face. “Hey, buddy. Do you remember what happened?”

  Tate forced his eyes open. “Going home.”

  “On your bike?”

  He grunted. The woman squeezed his hand and then he was being moved again. Lights sped past. Faces loomed over him. Shadows formed and fractured as everything blurred, then there was only one bright light and they let him close his eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Tate jolted awake. He was cold, really cold, as if every cell in his body was slowly freezing. His teeth locked together as he tried to stop them from chattering, and his hands were clenched in fists as if he was getting ready to fight. Fight what? At the edge of his hearing was a buzzing just loud enough to be annoying but quiet enough that he couldn’t work out what it was. His memories were jumbled. He should remember something, but he didn’t know what.

  He eased up, expecting to be in his bedroom, yet knowing he wasn’t. Around him there was nothing. Well, not nothing, because mist was something, and there was ground beneath him. He stood up. The mist slid and solidified into vague shapes before scattering again. Through the mist he thought he glimpsed walls, or was it trees, or people? It kept changing. His chest tightened as he forced himself to be calm. This had to be a dream. All he had to do was wake up. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes he was still here and the mist had crept closer. Fear sent a spike of adrenaline through his heart, yet still he didn’t wake.

  “Hello?” His voice echoed back at him, but the mist shrank back. That was a good thing. A small part of him knew the mist was bad. He didn’t know why or how or what it would do to him, but he didn’t want to find out.

  He took a step forward. And the mist edged closer again, as if it were curious about him. It muttered and mumbled but he couldn’t understand a word. A tendril reached out, and he jumped to the side to avoid its touch. His chest hurt…his head hurt too. In the moment of distraction the mist closed up, tightening around him like a prison.

  “Boo!” The mist shrank back, but not as far as last time.

  It would get him. He knew that. If he stayed here he would disappear into the mist.

  Where the hell was he? He tried to remember what had happened. Lights and darkness, talking to a dark-haired woman. Thinking made his head hurt. He put his hands on his temples to stop the pressure from breaking open his skull, but it only got worse. His nails dug into his scalp, but the pain didn’t make him wake up. He was awake and trapped here.

  How had he got here? He’d been at a party. A party with Ruby. He blinked and thought he saw her in the mist.

  Where was Ruby? He was supposed to be taking her home. Had Ruby been taken by the mist? Icy sweat formed on his back; if she’d gone into the mist, he couldn’t help her. The same way he knew the mist was dangerous he knew that once it had taken someone it was too late. He turned as someone flickered past the corner of his vision, long pale hair catching in a breeze he couldn’t feel.

  “Ruby?” he whispered, not sure he wanted to summon anything out of the mist, but not wanting to be here alone either. He didn’t want to be here at all. He didn’t belong here. He wanted to go home.

  “Tate.” She stepped out of the mist, looking like he remembered…but something was different. “I thought I’d lost you.” She ran towards him, her arms outstretched and a smile on her lips. The one he remembered, all sugar and fun. Not the one she’d used at the party filled with half-masked anger and unspoken demands.

  He almost hugged her out of reflex, but at the last moment he twisted away. She’d walked out of the mist. How was that possible? Then he looked at her more closely. Was it really Ruby or a trick to lure him in and trap him?

  “What’s wrong?” She frowned and tried to touch his arm.

  He took a step back, then saw his arm hanging awkwardly by his side. The pressure in his head increased, pain stabbing down his neck. “I don’t know.”

  Tate tried to focus o
n Ruby and the mist, but the buzzing became louder and more insistent. As he stared at her, he realized why she didn’t look quite right. Her skin was pale—no, not just pale. She’d lost all color, like she’d just stepped out of an old black-and-white film. The mist had tainted her and changed her. He glanced at his own hands. They were skin-colored, but only just, as if he were also fading away. He looked at his arm and saw raw skin and blood through the tear in his jacket. The pain in his head increased…was he dying? Or dead?

  Screeching of tires. He remembered the impact and the sensation of being weightless before hitting the ground hard. The lights and voices. Was he hurting because he was alive? The pain in his shoulder and head became stronger, but he welcomed it. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live. He glanced at the strangely faded Ruby. Was she dead? He wasn’t sure he wanted to ask because the answer he was going to get would be too awful. He realized what the mist meant.

  “Where am I?” he said instead.

  “Where do you want to be? We can go anywhere.” Ruby pointed at something to her left. “How about our special spot on the beach?”

  The mist shifted and reshaped, but he saw nothing.

  “This isn’t right.” It was just endless mist and cold. He couldn’t see what she did because he wasn’t dead yet. The mist hadn’t claimed him. Was that what Ruby was here for? To draw him into the mist?

  No. She wouldn’t. She was just as lost as him…but he couldn’t avoid her odd appearance or the way she’d walked out of the mist and it had let her pass.

  The buzzing grew louder and was joined by voices. He glanced up as he heard his name. “Do you hear that?”

  “I can’t hear anything.” She crossed her arms and glared. “Are you still mad at me?”

  “I’m not mad at you. We broke up…” The pressure in his skull released. A wave of vertigo made him stumble.

  Ruby screamed and lunged for him. Then his body jerked like he was a puppet on a string and he was standing on a road. A real road, and there was no mist.

  Dawn was turning the sky pink. He grinned. Pink. Who’d have thought color could be so good. He turned around as he tried to work out where he was…the other question he had was more worrying. What was happening to him?

  Up the road there was a police car and officers in reflective vests. He started walking toward them, but his steps slowed as he realized what they were doing. They were measuring skid marks and distances to a motorbike lying on its side. He read the number plate, and his stomach bottomed out. For a moment the world seemed unstable, as if it were spinning too fast. The bike lying on the ground was his bike.

  Memories of the accident rushed back. He remembered the ambulance, the faces talking to him in the lights—they were explaining things. Surgery. He’d needed surgery for something. He looked at his arm, but it hadn’t been fixed. His head, they’d done something to his head. How could he be walking around if he was in surgery? Maybe he was dead. Maybe he’d died on the table.

  No. He was in pain—that had to be a good sign. But while he felt the pain in his head and down his arm, it wasn’t quite right. Like an ache instead of agony. He used his good hand to lift his dangling arm. The pain didn’t change. If he was injured, he should be in hospital, not walking around.

  So was he dreaming or a ghost?

  He walked up to the cops and they ignored him, they were busy with their notes and conversation. They couldn’t see him.

  “Hey, that’s my bike,” he yelled. No one looked at him.

  Strike two. He didn’t like where this experiment was going. Pain, yes. Alive…yes? Visible, no. He grabbed for the handlebars with his good hand but it passed right through the metal. He shivered. He wasn’t real. No, that wasn’t right. He was real, he just wasn’t in his body.

  Yeah, ’cause that made perfect sense.

  The other option was that he was dreaming…but the sunrise looked real and the leaves on the trees trembled in the breeze. There was too much detail for him to be dreaming it. And the mist? That had felt more like a nightmare that he had to break free of. If he was sleeping then there was nothing he could do. If he was temporarily separated from his body, he needed to get back to it.

  But how did he do that?

  He tried to imagine himself back together. Dizziness rushed through him, and his next step slammed him facedown into dew-damp grass.

  He pushed himself up with his good arm and found himself in the front yard of what had once been his family’s home. Back when they’d been a family. He dusted his hands off but found they weren’t wet or grassy. His jeans weren’t wet either. The dizziness was replaced by a slow crawling panic that started in his gut and crawled through his blood. What the hell was going on?

  “Tate!” Ruby swore and spun around as if Tate would magically reappear behind her.

  One moment he’d been in front of her and the next he was gone. He’d left her, again. There were so many things she wouldn’t get to do now; however, if Tate was with her, then being dead would be okay. They were meant for each other. All she had to do was convince him to let go of life.

  But Tate had gone back to his body, which meant he was still hanging on. And she wasn’t sure how to find him. As she thought of him, her location shifted around her; from the open air to bland hospital walls. She glanced around, confused for a second, then she saw Tate lying on a bed.

  Her throat constricted. He looked worse than when he’d been put in the ambulance. A bandage was wrapped around his head, and his body was connected to machines. On one side of him sat his father. He looked like he’d just come off shift, still in his fireman’s uniform. Tate’s father had tolerated her but had never liked her—not that he’d ever said anything, he was far too polite for that.

  She sat on the other side and reached out to hold Tate’s hand. Her fingers slid through him. She tried again, wanting to feel him and hold him, but there was nothing to grab onto. She was a ghost and that was his body.

  Her gaze flickered over him. He had tubes going in and out of him, and he looked pale, like he was a shell made of skin. She looked closer. Part of Tate was missing. The part she should be able to touch, his spirit. She’d spoken to him, but when he’d vanished, he hadn’t returned to his body.

  Ruby frowned. Where was his spirit?

  Tate walked down the footpath, not sure what to do. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, but he had no pulse when he searched his neck and wrist. His head ached, but he could find no reason why. Then there was his arm. He could use it fine, but it hung funny, and there was a hot pain in his left shoulder blade. Whatever surgery he’d been through hadn’t killed him. Dead shouldn’t hurt, and neither should dreaming, but he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  He walked up the footpath away from what had once been his home. The whole time he was dwelling on his predicament and the endless possibilities. None of them were good. He stopped walking and looked up. He was in front of his old house again. How was that possible? He’d been walking in a straight line.

  He walked away again and the same thing happened.

  Then he turned around and walked back to where the car had hit his bike. His bike was being loaded onto a tow truck. The road would be reopened soon and everything would go back to normal. Except him. He shouldn’t be like this, wandering around. People didn’t come unstuck…or maybe they did and they just didn’t remember so no one talked about it. He walked on. And ended up outside the house again.

  Great, he was stuck on replay.

  He hadn’t lived here for over a decade, so why did he keep ending up here? It didn’t seem to matter how far he walked—he either ended up here or at the accident scene. Tate shook his head and started walking again. He had to find his body. He didn’t like that he was separated from it. This time as he walked he kept his body firmly in his mind, hoping that if he thought about it he’d find his way back.

  And then?

  He didn’t know, but his body couldn’t be doing well if his spirit was wandering ar
ound lost. Maybe it was a bad sign and he was destined to end up in the mist. He had to get back into his body, but the farther he walked and the harder he concentrated, the worse the pain in his head became. He put his hands on his temples and forced himself to go another five steps before being forced to his knees by the agony. Thoughts of returning to his body scattered as he tried to fight through the pain, but once his mind was clear the blossoming headache receded.

  He stood up carefully and looked around. In front of him was his old house. Again. He’d rather be at his dad’s place. That he could understand. It was home. But it hadn’t felt that way when he’d first lived there. After his mother had left all he’d wanted was to come back here and be a family again.

  He glanced up the road toward the accident scene—the only other place he seemed to be able to go. Given the choice he’d rather be here. At least the house was filled with happy memories.

  But it wasn’t his home anymore. Someone else lived here, and he couldn’t just walk in, could he? He looked at his hands. He seemed real, but the cops at the accident scene hadn’t seen him. No one could see him. Maybe he could have a look around and see how the place had changed. It was that or sit out in front on the lawn.

  Tate hesitated then strode forward. He walked up the path and almost knocked, then he shrugged and put his hand against the door. It went straight through, so he followed with a small smile forming on his lips. No one could see him, so it didn’t matter what he did. He could drift in and out like a ghost, but he wasn’t, and it didn’t feel right to walk in uninvited. He was invading someone else’s home. That wiped the smile away. How would he feel if a ghost was wandering around his house? Would he even notice? Probably not, so was there any harm in a quick look?

  He walked through the entrance and drew in a breath as memories rushed at him like floodwater filled with debris of another life. He’d never seen anything wrong between his parents until the day they announced they were divorcing. He knew now it had been years in the making. His father claimed his mother had chosen career over family, yet she had never acted like she resented having a child. But she hadn’t wanted Tate to live with her either. Twelve months after the divorce she’d moved across the country. Now she lived in Germany.