Halloween Horror Themes 2013: Sleeping With Ghosts - 1. Sleeping With Ghosts

For the first couple of weeks he can’t even return to the house. He stays with his brother Aidan, putting off going back because everything in that bloody place reminds Jonah of him. Jonah has always been meticulously tidy, so every mess in there is his mess. And his scent is still everywhere. All over.

For almost a whole day, Jonah doesn’t really believe it. This isn’t the way people die. Not in real life. Not in suburban Greater London. People get hit by buses, they die in car crashes, they get sick—cancer, liver failure, heart disease. They don’t get stabbed walking home from a party with their lover.

They don’t get stabbed jumping in front of said lover to shield them from the knife of some pasty, pockmarked teenager who thinks he’s a fucking gangster.

The kid had never meant to stab either of them. He just wanted their money, maybe their mobile phones. But he’d gone too close, and Shashi had to step in with his stupid nobility and protectiveness. The boy had stood there in horror. He never ran, and when Jonah shouted at him to call a fucking ambulance for Christ’s sake, he did what he was asked. He went with the police quietly. When Shashi died in the ambulance twenty minutes later, practically on the front steps of the hospital, and the paramedics and doctors were unable to revive him, the boy accepted the charges without a fight.

Shashi’s family had disowned him when he came out. (‘It’s so stupid,’ Shashi had said at the time. ‘Homosexuality was totally acceptable in India before the British came along with their anti-sodomy laws . . .’ He tried to explain this to his family, but they wouldn’t listen.) Only his father came to his funeral. Sat in the back, staring darkly at the secular send-off his son was given. He never said a word to Jonah, and left without speaking to anyone. But Jonah saw him. Saw the look in his eyes when they very briefly made eye contact, and it confirmed what Jonah himself had been thinking. That this was all Jonah’s fault.

As far as Shashi’s family’s concerned, Jonah corrupted him, dragged him away from his family kicking and screaming and made him gay. That’s not true, of course. Shashi was always gay, and Jonah wasn’t the first boy he shagged. He was, however, the first boy he loved, the one who made him want to come out and stop lying about who he was. Shashi told Jonah that one night, after a bit too much wine. Then he smiled, and kissed him, and thanked him.

But sitting here in his brother’s back garden, fag held tight between quivering fingers, there is not a doubt in Jonah’s mind that he’s to blame for Shashi’s death.

He hasn’t cried yet.

He can’t.

* * *

His hands are shaking, and the key misses the lock several times. When he finally gets it in, he just stands there for a moment, resting his forehead against the green front door. It still smells of the fresh coat of paint they applied just a week before it happened. He probably spends a full minute there, waiting for his courage, which never comes. In the end, he turns the key and pushes the door open anyway.

He’s greeted by what he used to refer to as the Welcome Home smell. That distinct scent of dust and slightly stale air that you always get when no one’s been in the house in a while. When you get home from holiday. It used to carry with it a promise of cuddles on the couch and, ‘No, I’ll unpack it tomorrow’, and usually takeaway for dinner because you’ve got nothing in.

Now it just smells of emptiness and nothingness.

He makes it as far as the kitchen before his knees seem to stop working. He wonders briefly if he should have taken Aidan up on his offer of coming with him. Then he realises what it is turning his legs into jelly and collapses into one of the kitchen chairs.

On the whiteboard on the fridge is scribbled, in Shashi’s messy handwriting, Love you, Premi! It’s followed by a silly smiley face.

Jonah slumps forward over the kitchen table. He’s sure the tears will come now, but they don’t. His whole body is shaking, but he still doesn’t cry. He stays like that for a while, the shakes subsiding. The wood of the table top feels cool against his forehead and sunlight spills in through the kitchen window, causing dust motes to glimmer and dance in the corner of his eye.

Then there is something, like a cool breeze fluttering over his back, and he sits up, rigid. The feeling is gone again, and he shivers. He looks, once again, to the whiteboard on the fridge door.

He can’t bring himself to erase the message.

* * *

Jonah can’t sleep. Not that he expected to be able to, of course, but it’s somehow worse than he imagined. This bed . . . Ten years they slept in this bed together. That’s not quite true, because the bed they had when they first moved here was retired a couple of years ago and replaced, but this bed is in the same place, and these are the same bedsheets, and the wall is the same shade of blue, and Jonah almost can’t stand it.

Ten years . . . There are ghosts in this house, Jonah thinks. Memories. Too many of them, pressing in on him, and he curls up under the duvet in the foetal position, in this darkened bedroom that he shared with the man he loved for so long. And he still doesn’t cry. He lies there with eyes wide open and waits for sleep.

He hadn’t realised he’d fallen asleep, but he must have, because suddenly he feels two cool arms encircling him from behind, and Jonah leans into the touch.

‘Shh, Premi, it’s all right. I love you. I won’t ever leave you.’

Then Jonah wakes up, and for a moment he can’t move. He feels cold, like icy, clammy hands are holding him down, and he whimpers, trying desperately to sit up. He’s shaking again now, panic enveloping him, and then the warmth returns to his limbs and he can sit up. He turns on the bedside light, and as he does it looks as though a shadow vanishes into a dark corner of the room. Jonah blinks. He’s groggy and frightened and newly awake, and maybe that’s why he says it.

‘Shashi?’ he breathes. Then he shakes his head. Shashi is dead. Shashi is never coming back. He will never see Shashi again.

The light flickers, and Jonah hears a faint rustling, though he can’t tell where it’s coming from. Then the light flickers again and goes out.

All Jonah can hear is his own breathing. The room is drenched in darkness, and he is suddenly, irrationally, afraid of that darkness. Like a child, he curls up into a ball and pulls his duvet over his head, hugging himself and whispering a silent prayer to fuck knows what, because Jonah has never believed in any gods. He must have fallen asleep eventually, because the next thing he knows it’s daylight, and he can’t remember having dreamt anything more.

* * *

The house feels eerily quiet. Jonah has always been the quiet one, while Shashi would frequently play music, watch sports on telly and shout loudly at the referee, sing in the shower or while cooking (not while cleaning, but that’s because Shashi hardly ever cleaned, and if he did he did it in demonstrative, noisy silence, huffing and puffing and slamming the hoover around). Jonah keeps expecting the stereo to turn on. He keeps expecting Shashi to shout from upstairs. He keeps expecting to see him come into the room.

But the house is quiet. And yet, he doesn’t really feel like he’s alone.

Sitting in the front room with his laptop, Jonah immerses himself in news stories. He reads something amusing in The Guardian and begins to say, ‘Come look at this, love—’ before he looks up and realises he’s alone and everything comes rushing back in stark reality.

He cooks a simple dinner for himself, just pasta with tomato sauce from a jar. It’s gone dark outside. It’s October, it’ll get darker earlier and earlier now. How wonderful wouldn’t it be to get S.A.D. on top of all this? He stirs the sauce, and suddenly hears a noise from the front room. Switching off the hob, he runs to see what’s going on.

It’s just the radio. BBC Radio 3, the Sunday Feature. Jonah stares at it for a few moments, then goes over to switch it off. The room is once again silent. Did he leave it on? Has he even listened to the radio today?

* * *

‘What’s it like being back home?’ His psychologist stares at him over the top of her glasses, expression mild and unreadable.

Jonah shrugs. ‘Strange, I guess. It’s almost like he’s still there . . . Sometimes it feels like he is. And I’m having these . . . dreams. Where I’m in bed and he’s just holding me, whispering to me that everything will be all right, and then I wake up and feel really cold, and for a moment it’s like I can see him, or sense him or something.’ He pauses, gathering his thoughts. ‘God, I sound like I’m mental.’

The psychologist shakes her head and smiles gently. ‘This is a perfectly natural and normal reaction to loss. Many people dream about their loved ones, or think they see them everywhere. It’s just part of the process. You’re doing well. Now, let me just ask, are you talking to him?’

Jonah raises an eyebrow. ‘What, are you asking if I think the ghost of my boyfriend is actually living in my house? No, I’m not talking to him.’

‘It’s not about this being something supernatural. But a lot of people find closure in speaking to deceased loved ones.’

‘Well, I’m an atheist,’ says Jonah. ‘I don’t believe that the spirit lingers on or whatever. When you’re dead, you’re dead.’

‘It’s not about that. The important thing isn’t whether he can hear or not. The important thing is that you get to express yourself.’ She glances over her notes. ‘Now, you are going back to work tomorrow, correct?’

They sent Jonah to her so she could assess how the trauma of seeing his boyfriend stabbed had affected him. This is his third session. Jonah thinks it’s probably a waste of time, but he goes anyway.

* * *

‘Honey, I’m home.’ Jonah picks up the mail on his way in. Nothing but bills. He dumps them, and his keys, on the table under the mirror before heading for the kitchen. ‘How was your day? Mine was shit. My shrink thinks I should talk to you, so . . . But you’re not really here. It’s not about that, though. It’s about giving me closure.’ He spits the word like it’s poison. Then he goes to put the kettle on. ‘I’m glad we had this chat,’ he murmurs as he fills it.

Shashi would make spiced, milky chai. He’d boil it on the hob, with a stick of cinnamon and whole cardamum seeds. Then he’d sieve it into cups and they’d drink it in front of the telly before bed. Jonah watched him do it a million times, but he doesn’t know how to make it, and even if he did . . . He just couldn’t.

He makes himself a cup of Ceylon and sits down at the kitchen table to read the paper. Occasionally, he comments out loud on the stories. Tories fucking things up, controversy with the EDL (‘As if there’s ever not, eh?’), the situation in Syria.

He’s sitting in the front room with the telly on when he suddenly feels the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. The ceiling lights flicker briefly and then die. So does the TV. So does every other light. Power outage. Fantastic.

‘Your ghost is a real prick, Shashi,’ Jonah says sarcastically, and gets up to go check the fuse box. When he’s halfway there, the lights go back on of their own accord, though, and he returns to the front room. ‘Can’t even haunt me properly,’ he mutters.

Suddenly, halfway through the hall, he feels cold, and he freezes where he is, unable to properly move his legs. A cold dread seems to seep in through his skin, and his heart begins to race. The lights go out again, and Jonah, who is a rational human being and has never been afraid of the dark, feels cold dread turn to searing terror.

Then, a scent just barely touches his nostrils. Sweet, a little spicy. Like chai, and sandalwood. Shashi’s scent.

His mobile rings in his pocket, and all at once the cold feeling is gone, the scent evaporated, and the lights come back on. In the front room, the telly springs back to life, announcing the next programme. Jonah sinks to his knees. Then he realises that his phone is still ringing, and he picks up.

‘H—hello?’ His voice sounds shaky even to his own ears.

‘Hey, little brother!’ says Aidan’s voice. ‘How are you holding up? You sound weird.’

‘No, I’m okay,’ says Jonah, getting to his feet. His knees feel like jelly. ‘I’m just . . . I think I’m going slightly mad.’

‘You know, if It’s too soon for you to be back home, you’re always welcome here.’ Aidan’s voice is serious and earnest. ‘Any time you need to, right?’

‘Yeah, I know. Thanks. I’m . . . I’m okay.’ Jonah makes his way into the front room and collapses in a chair. ‘Aidan?’ he asks softly. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’

There’s a brief silence on the other end. ‘I don’t know,’ Aidan admits at last. ‘I don’t believe in white sheets rattling chains or anything. But there’s a lot of weird shit in the world, you know? I guess I’m not excluding the possibility.’ There’s a pause. ‘But you don’t believe in that stuff, do you, Jonah? I mean, when I was five and you were three, you were the one who told me there was no Father Christmas.’

‘I don’t,’ says Jonah. ‘I just . . . Feels like he’s still here. Like this place has his smell. Like it’s in the walls and the furniture. You know?’ He doesn’t quite have the guts to tell Aidan what he just experienced. He’s not entirely sure he believes it actually happened.

* * *

Being back at work is strange. Everyone seems to give him a wide berth, after they’ve put a comforting hand on his shoulder and asked him (with a pained expression that looks more like irritable bowel syndrome than actual sympathy) how he’s coping and if he’s okay.

Shashi always said that it was such a great blow to people’s cultural stereotypes that Jonah worked in IT while he was a secondary school teacher. Jonah finds himself wondering how his pupils are doing. It’s half term now. They’ll all be at home. Do they miss him? He knows Shashi was fairly popular, as teachers go. He taught arts and crafts. He was cool. How long before those pupils forget him?

Jonah doesn’t speak to Shashi when he gets home. He cooks his dinner and watches telly in silence before going to bed. But he has the same dream again, the one where Shashi is lying next to him, holding him, only this time he starts kissing him with cool, soft lips. ‘Oh, Premi, I’ve missed you . . .’ Shashi rolls on top of him, caressing his body with featherlight fingertips, and when Jonah wakes up he’s hard. He can’t quite bring himself to get off to dreams of his dead lover, though. Then he tries to figure out whether the Shashi in his dream was alive or dead, and whether the latter implies that he’s having necrophilic fantasies, and that kills his hard-on stone dead.

He goes through the motions at work like a zombie, and on his way home he realises tomorrow’s Halloween. He received an invitation on Facebook to a fancy dress party about a week ago but completely forgot about it. Not that he really wants to go, anyway. He’s been avoiding people, and he’s not sure he’s actually ready to go out there and face his friends yet. His friends who knew Shashi, and loved him, and will want to talk about him and ask if Jonah’s okay. The thought makes him angry. All those people at the funeral, sobbing and crying when he hadn’t been able to shed a single tear yet. What right did they have to cry? Shashi wasn’t their boyfriend, their lover, their partner, their entire world.

Lather, rinse, repeat. He cooks a dinner so bland he can’t remember what he ate, and then goes to sit in the front room. He falls asleep in front of the telly.

* * *

Jonah wakes with a start, though he can’t tell what woke him. The phosphorous digits on the stereo proclaim it to be exactly midnight. The telly’s showing a repeat of some chat show.

There’s a noise, somewhere, and Jonah tenses in his seat. Then the lights begin to flicker again, more violently than before. The stereo turns on, blasting loud music interspersed with static, and then, as suddenly as it started, the power is cut, plunging the room into silence and darkness.

Jonah sits completely still. The only thing he can hear is the sound of his own breathing and his heart hammering in his ears. By the light of a streetlamp outside his window he can see vague shapes in the darkness, but not much else. He shudders. And then it happens again, that cold feeling, like he’s being plunged into ice water, and he can’t breathe.

He gasps, drawing a laboured breath, and desperately hisses, ‘Shashi?’

The cold feeling lifts slightly, and he can breathe normally again, but he’s hyperventilating, and he’s sure now that he’s definitely, without a shadow of doubt, going mad.

Well, then. In for a penny, in for a pound.

‘Shashi, are you there?’ he whispers into the darkness. He thinks he sees a shadow move, but then it’s gone. ‘Please, if you’re there . . . Can you talk to me?’

It’s like a soft wind, at first. No actual sound, more like a feeling. Jonah shuts his eyes and concentrates. Thinks about Shashi, conjures up an image of him in his mind, and dear God, that hurts. Tries to remember what his voice sounded like.

‘. . . Try to talk to you, but you just ignore me. I mean, first you leave me alone for two weeks, and now you won’t even speak to me? The only time you pay any attention to me is when you’re asleep and I just don’t understand!’ The voice sounds like it’s coming from far away, or like it’s going through a PA system with low volume and a faint reverb effect.

Jonah opens his eyes, and there, before him, he sees Shashi. He looks slightly translucent and a bit faded, like an old photograph, and he’s glowing faintly. He looks exactly the same as the day he died, still dressed in the same clothes. Still beautiful.

‘You . . . You can’t be here.’ Jonah shakes his head. ‘This can’t be fucking real.’

Shashi blinks. ‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts!’

There is a long silence. Then Shashi’s eyes narrow. ‘Ghosts?’ he whispers.

‘Shashi, you can’t be here! You’re . . . You’re dead.’

Shashi stares at him for a moment. Then he shakes his head violently. ‘No. No, I’m not, I can’t be. I am not dead!’ But Jonah can see the realisation dawning on him, can see it in his brown eyes, and then Shashi buries his face in his hands. ‘No, no, no! I . . . I . . .’ He looks up at Jonah. ‘I remember.’ He takes a step closer, gets to his knees and reaches out, tries to touch Jonah’s hand. He goes straight through, and Jonah winces at the icy cold feeling, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘It’s my fault.’

‘Of course it’s not,’ says Shashi emphatically. ‘I’m the one who stepped in. I’ve only got myself to blame, I—’ He touches a hand to his own face. ‘I can’t cry,’ he whispers. ‘I haven’t got any tears.’

‘You’re a ghost. I guess that makes sense.’ Jonah blinks. Then he laughs out loud. ‘This is absurd!’ he says. ‘I mean, this is, things like these aren’t real, I just . . . I wish I could touch you.’

Shashi removes his hand, staring at it. ‘At night, when you’re asleep . . . I can touch you then. Why not now?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Jonah truthfully. ‘I’m not exactly a ghost expert.’

‘Close your eyes.’

Jonah does as he’s bid, and then he feels the cold envelop him again, but it’s more solid now. It’s impossible to describe, because it’s not like any substance he knows of, more like a kind of pressure. Like concentrated, controlled hard wind, and he can feel the familiar shape of Shashi’s lips on his own.

It takes his breath away. Quite literally. He can’t breathe, feels the cold seep in through his skin, fill him from head to foot. It’s as though Shashi is taking away his warmth, his breath, his life, and he tries to push him off, but his hands go straight through. Shashi can touch him, not the other way around.

Finally, Shashi releases his lips and moves on to his neck, and Jonah manages to gasp, ‘Stop! Please!’ He opens his eyes again, and Shashi is straddling his lap. ‘Please!’ he tries again.

Shashi pulls back, and Jonah can breathe again, though he’s still shivering with cold. His eyes are open, but Shashi can still touch him.

‘What’s wrong?’ Shashi asks him.

‘When you do that, it feels like—’ Jonah takes a deep breath. ‘This isn’t right. Shashi . . . Love . . . You’re dead. And, fuck, for all I know this is just my mind playing tricks on me.’

‘Oh, Premi, no. I’m really here, I promise.’

‘How do I know that’s true?’

Shashi looks thoughtful. Then he says, ‘In the bedroom, in the back of the wardrobe, there’s a shoebox, under that pair of shoes that’s so fancy I only wore them once. In the shoebox is your birthday present. I mean, it’s only six days away. You told me once that your mum used to say you must have been meant to be a revolutionary, being born of Guy Fawkes Day. She stopped when it became clear that you were just a socially awkward, introverted computer geek . . . Anyway, I bought the present a couple of days before—you know,’ he finishes lamely. ‘I hid it so you wouldn’t find it.’

Jonah swallows. ‘I didn’t find it,’ he murmurs.

Shashi smiles. Then he leans forward and kisses Jonah again, and once more his body is plunged into ice water, and he begins to panic. He grasps for rational thought, searches his mind for a centre of calm. If Shashi can touch Jonah, there must be some way Jonah can touch him back. If he could remember Shashi into visibility, maybe he can remember him solid, too.

He wills it. Remembers Shashi’s hands, palms rough from working with clay and wood and using alcohol to get paint stains off. His lips, full and soft. Warm and smooth skin, and thick hair. And then he pushes, as hard as he can, and Shashi tumbles off him and onto the floor.

‘When you do that,’ Jonah gasps as soon as he has breath, ‘I feel like I’m about to die.’

He doesn’t like the way Shashi’s eyes seem to light up then. ‘That’s it!’ he says. ‘If you die too, we can be together! We won’t ever have to be apart. You won’t feel this sad, and I won’t feel this sad, we can just be together! Always.’ He stands. ‘Come with me.’

For a moment, Jonah is tempted. If there are ghosts, if there are souls, then they really could be together forever. Maybe the pain would stop. All of this grief would be over. But then he comes to a sudden and stark realisation: Shashi, his Shashi, would never ever have asked him to die for him. Jonah gladly would have, but Shashi would never have asked it of him, just as Jonah would never have asked it of Shashi.

Jonah shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says softly. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that. And you would never have asked that of me when you were alive.’

Shashi stares down at him for what feels like an hour, but is in reality only a few seconds. ‘Oh, God . . .’ he moans. ‘You’re right, I’m so sorry, why would I—Being dead, it does weird things to you. I don’t want you to die! Of course not. I want . . . I want you to live, and be happy again, and maybe . . . I guess I don’t like the thought of you finding someone else, but I want that for you too. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ There’s a pleading look in his eyes as he whispers, ‘Please, help me? I’m stuck here, and I’m not supposed to be, but I don’t know how to move on!’

In a moment of sudden clarity, Jonah knows exactly what to do. He stands up, and offers Shashi a hand. He takes it, and it sends a cold jolt through Jonah’s body, but he doesn’t let go. He leads him out of the room, through the hall to the kitchen. The electricity’s still out, but the glow that Shashi emits is enough to see by. He leads him to the refrigerator, on which is the whiteboard with the last message Shashi wrote him still on it.

Love you, Premi!

Premi. Hindi for boyfriend. Shashi always said it was the most special nickname he could give Jonah, because Jonah was the only real boyfriend he ever had.

‘In ghost stories, there’s often a physical tether,’ Jonah hears himself saying, and he can’t believe he actually remembers this stuff from his childhood. ‘Something that binds a spirit to the mortal plane. Sometimes it’s a person’s remains, but you were cremated, or an artefact that’s important to them. Mostly it’s just a person or place that’s important to them, but . . .’ He points to the whiteboard. ‘When did you write me that?’

‘Just before we went out,’ Shashi tells him. ‘On the night I was killed.’

Jonah turns to him. ‘Shashi . . .’ He hesitates. Swallows once. ‘I love you. And I miss you. But you’re not supposed to be here, and the longer you stay, the more likely I am to want to—you know.’

‘I know.’ Shashi nods weakly. ‘I love you too, Premi. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but whatever it is . . . It’s the next great adventure, isn’t it?’ He smiles. ‘I’ll miss you. But wherever I go, I’ll try to watch over you. Okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Jonah places a chaste kiss on Shashi’s cold lips. It sends another jolt of cold through him. Then he reaches out and slowly begins to erase the text on the whiteboard with his fingers.

Immediately, he loses his grip on Shashi as he becomes less solid again. Shashi raises his hand and it hovers next to Jonah’s cheek, a cold breath of air on his skin. As Jonah erases the text, Shashi begins to fade, and he slides out of focus as Jonah’s eyes well up with tears.

He releases a desperate sob, tears streaming down his cheeks, and Shashi’s ghost tries to smile bravely, but Jonah knows if he had tears he’d be crying too.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jonah whispers. The text is nearly gone now. Only Premi remains. ‘I love you!’

‘I’ll see you around,’ says Shashi, and then he’s gone, faded from existence, and Jonah drops to his knees and buries his face in his hands, and weeps.

* * *

Jonah wakes with a start, though he can’t tell what woke him. According to the clock on the stereo, it’s one in the morning. There’s something buzzing in the back of his brain, like he’s forgotten something, and then he remembers everything. He shivers, though he doesn’t feel cold. Did he dream all that?

He gets up and switches off the telly, flicking the light switch on his way out of the room. He walks to the kitchen. The whiteboard on the fridge is blank.

Then he remembers the shoebox. Jonah takes the stairs two at a time and heads for the bedroom, dropping to his knees before the wardrobe and rummaging through the bottom. He finds the shoes, a pair of glossy ones in Italian leather, and under them is the shoebox, just as Shashi’s ghost told him. He opens it slowly, almost reverently. There’s a note and a parcel wrapped in shiny silver wrapping with a green bow.

Turn back, Jonah Steventon!!! This is not for your eyes! You’re a nosy twat, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Now, pretend you didn’t see this and act surprised on your birthday. x

Jonah smiles, and then the tears come again (again or for the first time? He still can’t tell whether he really saw Shashi or not) and he hugs the gift to his chest. He puts it back in the box with the note, resolving to retrieve it and open it on his birthday. Then he crawls into bed, exhausted, and doesn’t dream of anything at all.