Page 27 of Unalive On Air

“Maybe it’ll catch up to me,” I say with a shrug, but I know full well, in order to grieve the loss of something, there has to be “something” there to begin with. How could I possibly miss a life I never had? I’ve never had a lot of money. Never had a loving family. Never had a spark of a love life. No real friends to speak of. No kids, no pets. No fancy house or car or any belongings I would bother rescuing from a fire. I lost the only job I cared about by being absolutely shit at it, and I have no other prospects or even hobbies to fall back on. What’s there to grieve?

I say none of this out loud, though, because one, I’m not about to make this occasion—my death—all about me, and two, I have learned from a lot of personal experience that most folk do not enjoy being dragged into the murky depths of my despair.

The idiom “misery loves company” is wrong. I don’t love company. I don’t even like people. I’d much prefer to stew over my failures all by myself, thank you. So I’ll save my bellyaching for when no one’s listening.

Jeanie sidles up next to me and places her hand on my bicep.

So . . . ghosts can touch each other.

I hate that the first thought to travel through my mind is that I wish it were another ghost touching me. I stare determinedly at Jeanie so that I don’t give Trystan even a fraction of eye contact and thereby spill all my newly formed perverted thoughts into public awareness.

“It’s not all bad,” she says. “Being dead, I mean. You’d think it would be a lot worse than it actually is. Sure, you can’t travel any more, or eat food, and your options for a romantic dalliance are pretty much limited to the other spirits around you . . .”

I don’t look at Trystan. Definitely don’t look at him, even though my eyes want to pull in his direction. I’m also aware that everyone else is looking right at me, staring into my thoughts and no doubt reading my mind.

Jeanie continues, apparently unaware she’d said anything incriminating. “But living—or unliving—gets a lot more fun when you suddenly don’t fear death. There’s a whole manner of possibilities that are open to you now you can’t die again. For example, cliff diving.”

For a moment, ten or fifteen seconds, I’m entirely speechless. Of course, Imogen—Jeanie—was only thirty-five when she died. And her ghost looks thirty-five. Sort of. She’s younger than me by four years or thereabouts, and yet, in my head she’s forever how my six‑and‑a‑half‑year‑old brain remembers her. Old.

Older than me, at least. Or more mature, or more . . . wise, I don’t know.

But there are barely any wrinkles creasing her skin, no loss of that youthful fullness to her face, and there’s not a single strand of silver mixed in with the black piled atop her head. In contrast, I must look like a crypt keeper.

“You can also haunt people,” a small voice from behind me says. Josh. He doesn’t glance up from his phone screen. “That’s always fun.”

“By drawing willies on steamed‑up bathroom mirrors?” I ask.

Josh finally looks up from his device and stretches out his tech-neck. “That’s not me what does that.” Pixie and Trystan giggle. “It’s actually them ‘grown‑ups’ over there.”

“What?” Pixie says in her drawn‑out US accent. “Can’t a girl have any hobbies these days?”

And now I’m feeling what I’m pretty sure is envy bubbling away in my ghost stomach. It’s not like living Gary would ever have entertained finger-painting knobs for funsies, but maybe that’s why. Who’d want to hang out with the boring old guy afraid to let loose and be silly?

Jeanie cuts in. “Might I add, yes, it’s all such a lark, drawing genitalia in people’s rooms, but it’s detrimental to the hotel. You’re frightening away our guests. Folks don’t spend hundreds of pounds a night to stay here and find mysterious ejaculating penises on every surface.”

This sends Trystan and Pixie into a fit of giggles. He’s holding on to her barely clothed shoulder like the mirth might shoot him into the sky. They’re young, though. Trystan was what, twenty-six when he died? And Pixie would have been almost twenty-three.

I will forever be thirty-nine. Eternally six weeks shy of forty.

Did I ever have that much fun at their age when I was living? Probably not. Any sense of whimsy I may have possessed left with Mum and Dad. Off to live in the land of sun and sangria. I was fifteen—Josh’s age—when they packed up their belongings and buggered off. Apparently, that was mature enough to look out for myself.

I peek over my shoulder at the pimply ghost half leaning through the wall. What the fucking fuck were my parents ever thinking? That kid’s barely old enough to tie his own shoelaces.

“Oh, the guests don’t mind the dicks,” Trystan says, finally composing himself. “It’s the constant threat of dying that scares most of the paying patrons off. And that’s not me or Pix.”

Damn, he even has a cute nickname for her.

“That’s what we were hoping you’d sort out for us,” Jeanie says, turning to me. “Solve our murders. Killer either goes to jail or the east wing. Finally, our guests can rest at ease knowing they won’t get crushed to death in their sleep by a giant antique chandelier.”

Everyone else in the room grimaces.

“Too soon?” she asks.

I shrug.

“Again, I don’t see why death should stop Gary uncovering our killer,” Pixie says.

I cut in. “Actually, I agree. If Imogen Savona can go cliff diving, why can’t I solve a puzzle or . . .” I count the number of ghosts currently standing around in my suite and include myself in that total. “Eight?”