Page 2 of Unalive On Air

Do I simply wait for something to happen? For someone to come and meet me? The Grim Reaper? My guardian angel? Lucifer? Or perhaps a tunnel will appear with a light at the end.

Wait, is this purgatory?

Of course it’s bloody purgatory. Being imprisoned between a mortal and immortal existence for an indefinable amount of time in a place with five‑star facilities but no physical ability to make use of them seems exactly like something British Death would make me do.

In the increasing likelihood that I’m trapped in this mid-realm for a while longer, I decide it might be worth learning how to interact with my surrounds. Or if I can.

First obstacle: sitting in a chair. Turns out that being corporeal plays a big role in the outcome of said activity. After several unsuccessful attempts to place my bottom on the blood‑smeared desk chair and falling straight through, I give up. Because if at first you don’t succeed, try again, but like only once or twice more. Don’t piss away your precious time when you’re terrible at something.

Good advice for life. Good advice for death.

Though, come to think of it, is my time really that precious any more? Perhaps I have endless hours now. Perhaps hell is actually an eternity of learning how to sit in a goddamn chair.

The clock on the wall tells me it’s nearly midday, and the dried blood on my slack face and the livor mortis below my shoulders suggests my TOD may have been a good six to eight hours ago. Right after my radio show aired.

Is it weird that no one’s found me yet? Didn’t anybody hear the inevitably cacophonous implosion when the solid metal eighteenth‑century light fixture annihilated the probably even older hand-carved mahogany bed? And doesn’t anyone care?

“Uh, hello?!” I yell, figuring out for the first time since dying that I can still speak, despite the fact that other me is missing his larynx.

Nobody answers, but I never expected them to. Never expected to wake up dead either. Maybe I should start expecting more unexpected things.

Other shit I’m discovering about my new questionable mortality status include the ability to touch myself as though I’m a whole solid person. I pat my face, head, and body down. Everything seems to be where it belongs, including my junk. I plunge my hand into my overalls and cop a decent feel. Dick and balls exactly as they were. Same size, same squish, same amount of hair. I’m not sure if those are all good things or not.

“Do you still get hard?” I whisper into the valley of fabric.

I glance around the room. I’m alone except for dead me, so I could just . . . give it a quick bash about. Though, I don’t want Azrael to reap me mid-wank, so I pull my hand out again.

My reflection is absent from the mirror, and when I stand beside the window, I have no shadow. So, I’m vampire Peter Pan, then.

My passion is puzzles, riddles, solving the unsolvable, but sometimes the correct answer is the one right in front of your face, no matter how ridiculous it seems.

I’m a ghost.

Twenty-four hours ago, I was on a train to Cornwall’s most haunted hotel.

Forty-eight hours ago, I was being recruited into a semi-professional ghost extraction organisation.

Seventy-two hours ago, I would have laughed in the face of anyone who tried to tell me ghosts were real.

It’s been . . . a journey.

At some point, who really knows when, my soul might get carted off to another realm. My final destination. But from what Gerald Pickett CEO extraordinaire of ExorSquad explained about ghosts, they tend to be stubborn bastards confined to a single location for a looooooong time. If an exorcism won’t remove them, or this godforsaken PolterPulse gun that the crazy old git gave me to pew pew them with doesn’t, I highly doubt walking through walls would do it for me.

Even still, I’m . . . too frightened to leave.

What if I can’t come back?

I could probably handle not seeing my bloated, smashed-in, blue-tinged corpse again, but what if I never get to solve another murder mystery? What if I’ve already solved my last mystery, and I didn’t realise it at the time?

Come to think of it, antique chandeliers don’t just drop from the sky without so much as scratching the elaborate plaster ceiling rose. The moulding’s still perfectly intact. Not even a whisper of a crack.

Odd.

There are no broken chain links, no splintered metal, and no pulled electrical wires. In fact, on closer inspection, it looks as though the cable’s been cut clean through.

Very odd.

This could suggest deliberate action.