Ghost Hunting

Jimmy was out hunting ghosts. How do you hunt ghosts? Well, that’s easy, if you know what to look for.

Unfortunately, Jimmy did not know. Were they represented by a glowing ball of light, a transparent afterimage of what the person used to look like, a feeling of coldness in their presence? He had gotten these ideas from movies but had not been able to confirm or disprove any of them.

He was not deterred though since he had come up with a plan. As far back as he could remember people were having accidents on the corner of Booker and Grove Street. Most were minor fender benders, but there had been seven fatal accidents in the past year alone. It would seem unlikely for him to be there at just the right time to witness one of these fatal accidents, but then you would be underestimating the boy’s patience and determination.

His plan was as follows, when a bad accident occurred, he would rush onto the scene before any adults could interfere and if someone was injured badly enough to die on the scene he could witness their spirit leaving their body. Then he would know what to look for to find other ghosts, simple as that.

Usually, he would spend his holidays playing basketball with his best friend Andrew in front of his house, or they would go out riding there bikes looking for anything interesting to do in the neighbourhood. When it got too hot outside they would just lie on the floor in front of the couch watching cartoons or playing video games.

Not anymore though, ghost hunting was his new obsession. He had tried to do some research at the library, but it was difficult to get his hands on the books he needed and even then they didn’t have any good pictures and used long words he didn’t understand. A much better research method he had found was sneaking into horror movie screenings. His mother was very strict when it came to what he was allowed to watch, and horror was out of the question.

 In these movies he had learnt some tricks like looking for ectoplasm left behind, objects moving by themselves, flickering lights, and that ghosts can disrupt electromagnetic fields which you can detect with a special gadget. They had also used something called a weegee board in one of the movies to talk to a ghost, but Jimmy wasn’t interested in talking, he wanted to see one.

He had spent some nights around and, when he worked up the courage, inside the graveyard to try and catch a glimpse of some spirits. His mother was of course completely unaware of these adventures since he had snuck out through his bedroom window which bordered on their garden. It wasn’t very difficult, these days she was closed off in her workroom every night sitting in front of the machines she used for her tailoring until very late.

There was nothing to be seen at the graveyard though and also not in the old museum which was supposed to be haunted. Somewhere he had seen that some ghosts were attracted to large groups of people so he had checked the mall on a Saturday, but still nothing. A suspicion had started growing in his mind that the movies might not know what they were talking about.

Suddenly there was a screech of tyres and a loud bang as two cars collided. His attention was instantly focused and he was poised to run onto the scene, however, he could by then clearly see that this was just a minor accident. He relaxed back into his observation post under a tree, only slightly disappointed. This was at least a good sign.

He had noticed during his weeks of observation that accidents seemed to cluster together, it didn’t really make sense since it seemed obvious that it was less likely for two accidents to happen on the same day versus on separate days, but he had seen it happen multiple times.

The second accident was also usually worse. The other day he had seen someone drive into the stop sign one block up Booker Street and only half an hour later a car sped over the red light at the crossing slamming into a lorry which had just pulled away. That had been a close call for the lorry driver, he was badly injured but due to the lorry being higher than the car his injuries were mostly limited to his lower body and he survived.

Maybe it was wrong to feel that way, but Jimmy had been disappointed.

Four hours later he was still under the tree and getting restless. He had a gut feeling that today might be the day he would finally see a ghost, but he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. That was when he saw Andrew coming down Grove Street on his bicycle, he was still too far away to wave, but Jimmy knew that there was only one person with a bike that bright shade of yellow in town. Maybe even in the world.

He and Andrew had been best friends since kindergarten. It started when Jimmy lost his favourite toy dinosaur in the sandbox and Andrew happened to find it. Most kids would have just taken it for themselves, but Andrew had given it back and they were inseparable from then on. Of course, it had helped that he liked basketball as well. Jimmy realised that it had been weeks since he had invited Andrew to his house for a game.

Andrew was close enough to the intersection now that Jimmey could see he looked sad and wasn’t really paying much attention to people around him. At that moment his attention was pulled to the roar of an engine as someone sped to cross the intersection, the traffic light had just turned amber. The car was still a hundred metres away down Booker Street when the light went red, and Andrew started to pedal across. Jimmy wanted to scream, to run, to do anything to prevent the inevitable.

The car hit the bicycle going 80 km/h, Andrew was flung 30 metres away and hit the ground hard. Jimmy had come unstuck and was by his side in seconds. He looked into his friend's eyes and saw some faint recognition. Blood bubbled out of his mouth from multiple fractured ribs puncturing his organs. The Andrew went still, a light went out in his eyes, and there was no ghost to see.

Jimmy ran home crying, he burst through the front door and the door to his mother’s workroom to find her sitting alone with a bottle of gin. He started telling her all about what had happened as he bawled his eyes out. When he looked up he saw that she was also crying, but softly. She didn’t respond to him though and wouldn’t even look at him.

He begged and pleaded, but she just continued to drink her gin straight from the bottle and ignored him. You see, as far as she was concerned her only son and the light of her life had died in a tragic accident five weeks ago. He had been playing basketball with his friend when the ball went into the street. He must have seen the car coming but it was still far away. He couldn’t have known how fast it was going or that the driver was trying to find the right song on his playlist, a tragic accident. Unfortunately, she also did not know the trick to seeing ghosts.

Jimmy’s grief turned to anger, why couldn’t she just acknowledge him, why couldn’t she hold him, why didn’t she love him anymore, he had done nothing wrong.

He tried taking out his rage on objects in the room but his hands kept passing through them. Then he felt something, a small resistance. He put all his energy and focus into it and managed to get the sewing machine to tip over. It landed on the floor with a crash as the cables yanked out of the wall and his mother jumped out of her chair in shock, spilling gin over the carpet.

After that, it was easier for him to grasp the physical objects and everything he could get his hands on went flying.

“Jimmy is that you?”

He froze, could she really see him? She was looking right at him. He noticed the full-length mirror against the wall and saw that he could see himself, or at least a very faint afterimage of himself. Could he speak?

“Yes, mama it’s me.”

The first time they tried to embrace he went straight through her, but then he focused and they tried to only touch lightly and it worked. His mother held him. They sat like that on the floor for what felt like a very long time. Then he could feel his mother's touch start to fade, he could see in her eyes that his appearance was also starting to fade.

“Mama, I’m scared.”

“It's okay, everything is going to be ok. Mama loves you so so much.”

“I love you too mama, but I don’t wanna go, I wanna stay here with you.”

“I know baby, mama wants you to stay too, but the angels are waiting for you up in heaven and you can’t be late. There you are going to play all the time and have so much fun, and before you know it mama is going to be there by your side again.”

Crying, embracing till the end, Jimmy’s soul faded away as it should have all those weeks ago.