Young Writers Society

AN: I wrote this and it's pretty abysmal. But that isn't what you wanna hear when you're opening a piece of writing I guess. It's unbeta'd and I wrote it in a few hours but I hope you give it a chance and enjoy it, and if you don't I'm sorry. The name is a really bad joke about a ghost show from the 70s.

Reports coming in ,,, hit and run of the motorway bordering ______ southbound …. call in 11:58 Wednesday night onto morning ///////// locals gath ng question everyone is asking ,

why was he on the highway?

“Who died?” Austen joked when he saw the looks on his parents face on Saturday morning. His mother looked like she hadn't washed in a week, and his dad was staring off into space, kitchen silent. Austen had a hangover to rival the worst and a headache he was worried he'd never recover from, but he'd stubbornly made his way downstairs when he awoke because like hell was a Friday night hangover going to ruin his weekend, like hell.

It was when he went to put the kettle on ten seconds later and his hand sunk through the handle like it was liquid that he realized. He looked down at his dirty sweatpants and t-shirt stained with blood, and then back up at his hollow parents.

“Well, shit,” he muttered, “what now?”

As it turned out, being a ghost was pretty alright. At least, he comforted himself, he hadn't spent years thinking he was still alive, or something. He just sat in his room most of the time, hovering slightly above his bed covers and listening to the silence that accompanies death. No one ever came into his room, in fact he was pretty sure it was locked after the funeral and, since walking through walls hurt like a bitch, he never bothered to leave. It was when summer ended, and his younger brother came in to grab Austen's books to return to school, that he was finally released.

He found he didn't like it outside. Having to confront his death was, to put it lightly, awful. School was unusually silent and from his position next to his brother he could see every stare, hear every apology, feel the almost tangible mourning in the air. At night he could hear his mother crying, in the mornings he could feel his father coming apart at the kitchen table, unable to touch his food. His brother, only a year younger, had a head filled with venom following the even and at night Austen watched him sit in his room and do nothing but listen to music for hours until his cds reached their end and he would sit in silence for a few minutes before going to change the deck, unable to handle the silence.

Austen hated it. He loved the fact that every day his hair looked the same (which was, luckily, pretty good), he loved the fact that he could make spoons dance in the air (but nothing else, mind you), and he loved not having to worry about anything. But he hated the unfortunately eternal hangover, he hated hearing his mother cry, he hated the cold look in his brother's eye. Eventually he took to spending his days cramped up at the edge of his brother's bed, waiting for him to come home and sit in silence inches away from Austen's ghostly frame, completely unaware he was there.

He had been dead 27 days and already he was tired.

It was five months past his demise when someone finally spoke to him. He was curled up in the space between his brother's bed and bedside table, as usual, when his brother rolled over and said

“Can you fuck off, please?”

Austen was taken aback, to say the least.

“Did you just-”

“Yes and I want you to stop following me around, I want you to get out of my room and out of my life. I don't know what kind of fucked up hallucination you're meant to be but he's dead and I don't want to have to look at the corpse of my brother every day for the rest of my life so can you just kindly get the fuck out?”

Austen uncurled himself and drifted out, confused and scared. Once out in the hallway he strained to listen into his brothers room. The stereo clicked on and underneath it Austen heard his brother's low, deep sobs.

His brother had been a quiet kid when they were younger. Being called Harper didn't help, since everyone in their primary school seemed to think it was hilarious and, with the exception of Austen's parents, incredibly girly. It was for this reason that Austen was surprised by his anger, by the violence in his words. Harper had never said a bad word to anyone in his life.

For the next few days Austen entertained himself with the idea of his brother and he forming some sort of ghostly protection squad, where they hunted down and expelled other ghosts across the country, or something. Austen could be a kind of protector and overseer, a silent witness to his younger brother's dramatic and awesome life on the road. Then he remembered that his brother thought that a) he was a hallucination and b) had thoroughly hated him for pretty much all of their lives together. So it wasn't going to work out, probably.

He decided to try walking around again and found himself wandering anywhere he could go. Sometimes he'd find himself down in the parking lot facing the town hall where he and his friends used to knock around, or he'd go down by the river and wade into the water, still thrilled by the feeling of numb pain that the water going straight through him up to his knees brought. Nothing much changed and although he avoided seeing his friends, they always looked and acted exactly the same as they had before when he did chance by them. In fact, the only noticeable differences were the absence of Mike and the brief moment of confusion over whether to fill the empty seats left behind by both departures.

“How long have you been able to see me?” Austen asked slowly one night, it still hurting to even talk. His brother had just gotten out of the shower and was crouched on the bathroom floor with fear in his eyes, a shampoo bottle in hand. Upon realising it was just Austen he stood up and shuffled around him and into his bedroom.

“Talk to me, Harper, I'm not here to hurt you.” Austen covered his eyes as his brother dressed, trying to give off the impression of being disarming and gentle, “I just want to talk is all.”

His brother flopped down onto the bed, pulling the duvet up over himself. Austen floated down to sit next to him and tried to nudge him, only for his hand to go straight through his younger brother and send the other man crashing to the floor.

“What the fuck was that?” his brother finally said, pulling himself back up, “Who are you?”

“Dunno what you mean, it's me. Sorry, by the way, I didn't know that'd hurt you.”

“It was just cold. Shocked me.” His brother was now pressed against the wall, as far from Austen as he could get without leaving the room. They stood in silence for awhile before Harper finally started laughing. It was quiet at first, but grew hysterical.

“Are you okay?” Austen moved over to him, only for Harper to jump away, crashing into his desk and knocking over a stack of books in the process. Prospectuses scattered the floor.

“Yeah I'm fine,” He wheezed, “I'm just. Look at this. I'm talking to my own brain and it's talking back. I thought you were gone, that night, and I was fine and then. I dunno. I went into your room to get your books that time and you were just fucking THERE. Right there on the bed just hangin out like nothing had ever happened like you hadn't been dead for two weeks and I knew right there and then that I was going fucking crazy.”

“You're not going crazy,” Austen moved to pick up the books, but his hands naturally slipped right through, “I'm a ghost.”

“Ghosts aren't real, Aus', you know they're not real. You'd always tell me I was stupid for thinking they were real when I was a kid. Do you know what is real? Post grievance hallucinations, I looked it up you know, I've had a lot of time to think.”

Austen couldn't meet his eye.

“A long time, but nothing helped. I didn't want to tell mum or anyone because I didn't want to get put on medication or something. We both know that sucks. And the further away you got the easier it got, people went back to normal, dad moved out. So I told you to fuck off that night and you did and everything was fine for two goddamn years, so why are you back now?”

Austen felt himself going cold. His brother was still rambling on, but he wasn't listening any more. When Harper finished his tirade he started to pick up his books and stack them on the table. He then climbed back into bed.

“Did you say two years?” Austen asked softly, “pull the covers off your head. I don't care that you think I'm some hallucination, please answer me.”

His brother pulled the covers from his head and Austen realised that, yeah, he did look a lot older. He was no longer soft in the face nor did his eyes droop with what Austen had always joked was his 'eternal emo sadness'. He was crying and his eyes were red and puffy but he was undeniably 18.

“Yeah,” Harper's voice cracked, “you've been dead two years.”

Austen's mouth broke into a grin, “I guess you kinda lose track of time when you're dead.”

Harper's brow furrowed, “Fuck off. Just because you're dead doesn't mean you get a free pass to being a smartass.”

“I think it does mean it. Do you believe I'm a ghost?”

“No.” And with that, Austen's younger brother rolled over, “goodnight, glorious figment of my imagination, I hope I never see you again.”

But of course, he was there the next morning.

Austen learnt a lot in the following weeks. While he'd been on a year-and-a-half hiatus that past like a week for him, his parent's had gotten divorced. His room had been left completely untouched besides his mother making the bed once a week, and his brother was on the brink of graduation. Apparently his father only came to visit twice a year – on Harper's birthday and on Christmas. When Austen asked why he didn't come to visit on his birthday, his brother's reply was simple.

“Because his child his dead, and he's probably trying hard as fuck to pretend you never even existed in the first place.”

Austen followed his now-older brother obediently through his remaining month in school and found that, besides Harper's eyes occasionally flickering to meet his in the common room, everything was completely mundane and he was ignored. His brother worked shifts at a takeaway most nights whilst Austen waited outside because, despite being on earth for 17 years, he apparently never personally went to buy pizza from the one pizza takeaway in their small town and therefore was forbidden to enter. A lot of places were like that.

“How am I meant to prove to you that I'm real?” Austen asked one night as his brother made spaghetti. He'd since mastered the art of picking up small kitchen utensils, and talking for long lengths of time was only mildly uncomfortable rather than outright painful. He slid the pepper along the counter he was hovering over.

“You can't.” Harper replied quietly, waiting to hear if their mother paused the television.

“Oh! Wait, how about I tell you something you don't know about me?”

Harper didn't reply.

“Um. Hm. Let me think.” Austen could see his mother through the doorway between kitchen and living room. She was watching a documentary and rubbing her feet, and she looked just like she had before Austen's death.

“I've got it,” he said eventually, “I slept with Jenny Saunders last Autumn.”

“Wow, really?” Harper said in monotone, “because it's not like everyone, including our parents knew that, or anything. It was pretty obvious. And it was two Autumns ago, dick, get with the times.”

“When did you turn into such a smarmy little bitch?” Austen asked jokingly.

“If you actually paid attention you'd know that I've always been a smarmy little bitch, big brother,” Harper strained his spaghetti out, “Maybe in the next life, huh?”

Austen folded his arms and frowned. The television paused. His mother called through asking who Harper was talking to and Harper replied with no one. That night Austen watched his mother sleep and noticed she'd taken all the pictures of him down from the bedroom.

It was like he'd never existed.

“Okay I've got it,” Austen tried it again the following day as his brother watched a Sunday morning cooking show, “but you have to promise not to tell anyone ever that I showed you this.”

“Who am I gonna tell?” Harper snorted, picking at his nails, “I wish I could talk to you using my like, mind or whatever. I feel like a fucking idiot.”

“You are an idiot. Follow me.”

Austen made his way to his room with his brother in tow. Once inside he pointed to the bookcase and motioned for Harper to pull it forward. Harper pulled it back to reveal a moderate hole in the wall.

“You do know that if Dad ever found out you ruined his beautiful and expensive plastering he would've killed you. How did you do this?”

“I fell over. But that's not important. Put your hand in it.”

Harper gave him a look like he'd asked him to murder his first born child, and then jammed his hand into the hole. Austen watched him feel around, before a look of surprise crossed his face. After a minute or so he jimmied a tin box out of the hole.

“What is this?” Harper fumbled with the lock, only for Austen to move the box away an inch or two.

“Please don't open it, it's private.” Austen dodged the question, “But you didn't know it was there, right? Which means you didn't get that from your head or whatever. Only I knew about this.”

“I could've plausibly seen you moving the bookcase at one point and forgotten about it, though,” Harper replied, running his fingers across the cool metal surface of the box, “it doesn't really prove anything. And you not telling me how to get into it kinda, what's the word?”

“I don't know, I'm not you.”

“It proves you are me, I mean. Because I don't know how to open it, so neither do you.”

Austen frowned. “I'm sorry. I just. I dunno. Put it back before mum notices you're messing around in here.”

Harper returned the box to his hiding place, and then went to shower. Austen sat on his floor staring at the bookcase. Truth was, he couldn't remember where the key to the box was. There were a lot of things he couldn't really remember any more.

Harper's graduation was anti-climatic, with him going to collect his exam results and then going out for a meal with their mother. Austen, having assumed graduations were lavish and exciting like on TV, was gravely disappointed.

“You do realise we live in England, right?” Harper asked him whilst they stood outside after the meal, their mother still inside paying the bill, “You just go in and get your results and you're done, pretty much. Bam.”

“Yeah well, I never- you know.” Austen jammed his hands into his armpits, despite not being able to feel the cold, and waited with his younger brother, “Guess what's weird, though.”

“Why do I have the funny feeling you're just going to tell me?” Harper's face was lit up by his phone as he texted, “Go on.”

“You're taller than me now.”

Harper hummed in reply, ignoring any attempts at conversation after that point. Their mother eventually came outside and shoved some notes into Harper's free hand.

“Go out, have fun,” she smiled, and Austen was once again filled with the familiar feeling of sadness at his own mother being completely unaware he was there, “You might as well. And with everything that's happened these last- well. I think you deserve to have fun.”

“Thanks,” He said, “But I doubt the Rifleman's is gonna be a great source of entertainment on a Thursday evening, mum.”

“Don't be so bitter,” she teased, “I'll leave the back door unlocked for you.”

And with that she was gone.

The two brothers looked to each other, before Harper crammed both phone and money into his pocket.

“Don't follow me.” He said.

Austen watched his brother slump into a chair in the living room 5 hours later.

“Have fun?” He asked.

“Go away,” Harper mumbled, his face pressed into a pillow, “I'm busy.”

Austen moved to an armchair, pretending to rest his elbow against the arm of it in a pose that would look casual and cool if anyone but he could see it.

There was silence.

“Aus'” Harper said, “I'm sorry.”

“What for?” Austen asked, but Harper had begun to shudder. The pillow helped to muffle his crying, but not much, “You're really drunk, dude.”

“No you don't understand. I'm so sorry.” Harper sat up, “I'm so, so sorry.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Austen said, but that only seemed to make his brother cry harder, “It's fine, you're fine, don't worry. I'm, uh, I'm right here, you know.”

“That's the worst part.” Barely a whisper, “You're stood here right in front of me, you're here all the fucking time. You still try insult me and you still listen to your trashy indie music and you still go down by the river and throw rocks in, except now I have to put the music on for you, and I have to open the doors for you, and I have to just. It's like, fuck. You're dead, Austen, you fucking died, but you won't leave me alone. It doesn't matter if you're a hallucination or if it's actually your spirit trapped between realms or whatever, because no matter what I do you're just there. And I'm sick of remembering, your face is a reminder of the police coming to our fucking house, I can see mum breaking down in your eyes. Every time you say something it's like they're getting divorced all over again.”

Austen took a chance and ran his hand through his brother's hair.

“Stop it. That's cold.” Harper was still crying, and it was getting worse, “just, oh my god, I miss you so much.”

“I'm right here,” Austen soothed, “and you should probably be quiet, I think I heard the kitchen light go.”

“I don't even care. I'm so sorry I was so horrible to you for years, I'm sorry we never were really close or whatever. I miss you so much.”

“You weren't horrible, man, don't sweat. It's cool.”

Harper went to grab his brother's shoulder, before remembering he couldn't.

“Do you remember what happened that night, Aus'?” He asked quietly.

“What, when I died? No I. It's all really blurry. I remember coming home and going to bed, and that was Friday, and then I woke up the next morning and I was dead. I guess.”

Harper laughed, and it was the kind of choked and broken laugh that chills you, “No, you've got it wrong. Let me tell you.”

“Do I even want to know?”

“I don't care. It was Wednesday night, and you had a fight with dad with something. They didn't like that you were slacking in school, I think, and you were really upset. So you come upstairs and- and you're walking through the hallway and-.” Harper broke off, “Aus', you have to understand you had this big problem and-”

“What are you talking about?”

Harper ignored him, “And no one noticed we all thought you were just, being. Fuck it doesn't matter. I came out into the hall and I remember it really well because you were crying and I'd never seen you cry, even when we were kids. So I asked what's wrong and you tell me that- oh shit. I'm so sorry.”

“Get on with it.”

“You tell me that no one cares about you, you tell me that you can't even cope with getting out of bed let alone going to school, you tell me that you're going crazy and living is killing you and you wish you were dead. And I'm really pissed off because we spent years taking you to doctors and to therapists and everyone tried really hard but you just wouldn't get better. I mean, I get now that it's not your fault, but at the time. I don't know.”

Austen felt truly numb for the first time since he'd become a ghost.

“So I tell you that you might as well just kill yourself, because you're killing our family.”

Harper's voice was nearly inaudible, “So you turned around and left. Then three hours later there's a knock on the door. 'Mr and Mrs Avery? You might want to sit down.'”

At that point the living room light clicked on and their mother rushed over, sitting down directly on top of Austen, who scrambled to get out of the way.

“Harp, what’s wrong? I'm here, its okay.”

But Harper just ignored her, his eyes fixed on Austen.

“I miss you.”

Austen left, and he didn't go back.

He found himself by the river, his favourite haunt. It was getting bright fast and he was beginning to feel more and more like he didn’t exist. Which, he guessed, he actually didn’t. Austen sat there for an eternity that lasted 20 minutes before he heard the sound of the boots hitting the pebbles lining the river.

“What're you in for?” Someone asked, kneeling to sit next to him. She pulled her skirt up to avoid it getting caught.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, why're ya dead.”

Austen chuckled. “I thought you weren't meant to ask a ghost how they died.”

“Well, sir, I'm not like the other girls,” the woman leant back on her elbows, a cigarette dangling from her lips, “for once, I have considerably more stab wounds in me. But that's not important. What're ya in for?”

Austen lay down next to her, and she quickly abandoned her position to put her arm around his shoulder.

“I – I got hit by a car. I think. I can't remember.”

“Ah, young blood. It'll come back to you. Sorry for bothering you, by the way. I see you coming here most nights, and I figured it was about time to introduce myself.”

“So you're a ghost?” Austen asked.

“As ghostly as can be. You look sad, young blood, what's up?”

“I think I made my brother really sad,” He picked up a pebble and held it against the light. The woman next to him smelt of cigarettes and blood, “I don't know what to do.”

“Death always makes people sad. Why do you think there's so many books and shows and films and shit about it? Mourning, etcetera.”

Austen fumbled for words, “do you think its, um, wrong to haunt people?”

“I think it's pretty bad. Like, I assume your brother knows you're ghosting all over his continued existence, right? Or whoever you're ruining the life of, I assume it's him as you mentioned him.”

Austen nodded.

“Okay, coolio. Well, you're dead, and that sucks. But he isn't dead. He needs to keep living, and he can't keep living if you're moving curtains and, I dunno, writing 'you're next' in steamed up mirrors or whatever you're doing. Who gets hit by a car and doesn't pass on, anyway?”

“I stepped in front of it, I think.”

“Yeesh.” She woman offered him a cigarette out of a bloodied, crumpled, and very ghostly packet, “that blows. Are you okay now?”

“I don't really feel much any more.”

“Me neither. Regardless, I think you need to leave him alone. You love him?”

“Sure, he's my brother.”

“Well then let him go. I get this all the time, people refusing to leave their homes and shit because their family needs them, or whatever. Really all you're doing is hurting them.”

Austen turned to look at her. She was pretty, in a weird way, but it was slightly overpowered by the blood matting her hair and covering her face. Some knife fight.

“Are you God?” He asked.

She burst out laughing, “Am I fuck. I have a proposition for you though. Whats your name?”

“Austen.”

“Pretty name! Come with me, Austen, and we'll sort this out. You're probably gonna be stuck in this limbo hell for the rest of eternity, but I can make it really nice.”

“Thanks but, I think I want to spend the rest of the time with my family.”

She stood, brushing invisible dirt off her skirt, “Fine. But remember, they'll be dead very soon, and then you'll have no one, Austen.”

He ignored her, putting his head in his hands, and when he lifted it again it was night once more and she was gone.

And then, finally, Austen wept.