27. The End is Nigh
twenty-seven
The End is Nigh
“Hello ghouls, gentleghosts, and people who have yet to cross the River Styx. Welcome to the latest, and possibly last, episode of Unalive on Air. I’m Gary Runcorn, and I have an incredible lineup of topics for you today. Full disclosure, this may run longer than a couple of hours.
“So, if you possess the ability to ingest food and drink, use this time to make yourself a cup of tea, fix yourself a sandwich or a bowl of popcorn, and get comfy. That is, if you know how to sit yet. I’m still figuring it out.
“Many of you are familiar with the story of Imogen Savona so far, and if you’ve been watching the news, you’ll be aware someone’s been arrested for her murder.
That someone is Kelsey Cobbledick, and today, I’m here to prove he didn’t do it.
Not only that, but I want to explain who the actual killer is.
“If you’ve been paying attention to the local headlines, you will’ve heard something else, something impossible, but true. Jean’s murderer also happens to be my murderer.
“It sounds so far beyond anything even the wildest imagination could conjure, but hear me out. I, Gary Runcorn, was killed almost a month ago when someone shot a ghost?repellent gun at the cable of an antique chandelier, sending it falling onto my sleeping and very much alive body. One of the pointy downward bits of the chandelier, and yeah, I probably should have looked up the technical name for it, pierced my carotid artery, causing me to bleed out within a few minutes. The responding police officer, Sergeant Dave Davies, dismissed it as suicide so he wouldn’t have too much paperwork to file and he could get to his snooker game on time.
“How do you know this, Gary? I hear you say. Well, I know exactly what happened because my spirit was still in the room watching him make all these terrible decisions.
“Okay, I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I am a ghost, and yet I’m presenting this podcast from the afterlife.
You can choose to believe me or not. You can choose to imagine I somehow recorded these episodes before I died.
Maybe I had a time machine, and that’s how I have all this information.
Maybe I was clairvoyant. Or you can choose to believe someone with my exact voice and speech patterns is pretending to be me.
Though I don’t know what the purpose would be in doing that.
There’s no cash to be made in a small?time podcast like this one, and since I’m dead and I have nothing to spend money on, it’s rather a moot point anyway.
You might think I’m some sort of AI deep fake.
“Let me tell you, if you’re clinging to any of those scenarios, then I have bad news for you. You won’t enjoy today’s episode, or the outcome.
“Ultimately, the reason we all listen to true crime podcasts, or watch dramatized murder mysteries, is because we all crave the same thing: closure and justice. I’m not sure either of those things will be served this week, but that’s not for lack of want or trying.
“But I do have quite a lot to get through tonight, so let’s hop to it.
I have not only Jean Johnson’s and my murder to solve, but also the murders of a few people who I’ve recently grown to call my friends, and yup, they’re all ghosts too.
They’re actually all here with me as well. Say hi, everyone.”
“Really?” Pixie says. “Uh, hi.”
“Hi,” Stove and Trystan say.
“Hello, darlings,” Jeanie says.
“Bonjour,” Camille says.
Only Peter remains silent.
It doesn’t matter too much anyway. I’m not sure how well Stove’s microphone can pick up their voices from their assorted trophy room locations.
“But they’re not the only special guests we have today,” I say, continuing the podcast. “By a stroke of luck, we also happen to be graced by none other than the person responsible for these various crimes. My murder, Jean Johnson’s murder, and as it goes, everyone else’s.”
The rest of the ghosts gasp. I turn away from my mic and look over at the door. One second later, it opens inwards.
“Evening all!” booms the Grim Reaper.
Well, not quite the Grim Reaper. It’s just Magnus in a Grim Reaper costume complete with scythe, but at least he’s wearing clothes today.
“Thought I’d dress the part,” he says.
I lean back over to the microphone. “For the benefit of those listening on their phones or radios, a man has entered the recording studio. He is not, in fact, the killer, but he is here to make sure the real killer can’t leave the room unexpectedly.”
Everyone looks at me, then looks around at their fellow ghosts.
“That’s right, you’re not going anywhere, Peter,” I say, pointing to the magician. It’s cheesy as fuck, but I grew up watching cosy murder mysteries. I’ve always dreamed of delivering a line like that.
There’s only silence in the trophy room.
“Don’t be shy now. Step up to the mic, Peter. Say hello.”
Peter says nothing. He folds his arms and stares at me, but I notice he won’t look at anyone else. His tongue seems to trace something under his top lip, his eyes flick to Magnus, and then to the opposite wall. He’s going to make a run for it.
But suddenly, Magnus leans against that wall, effectively obstructing the magician, or at least letting him know there’s nowhere for him to run to. He didn’t even cross the space, he just appeared there. “Go take a seat, Peter Roskelly,” he growls.
Next to me a chair appears, and I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure it’s the toothpick-toupee monstrosity from Prestwich’s office.
Peter hesitates, staring at the chair for half a minute, maybe longer.
I lean over to the microphone. “For the benefit of the folk listening at home, our suspect is currently deciding whether he should move closer to me or take his chances with a literal four-hundred-and fifty-year-old demon summoned straight from the depths of . . . somewhere very weird and formidable, probably. Okay, now he’s moving towards the mic.
That’s what I’d do, in all honesty. Peter, say hi. ”
Peter licks his lips, glances at Jeanie, but remains silent.
Jeanie shakes her head. “Oh, Peter, what have you done?”
“Peter doesn’t feel particularly talkative at the moment, but hopefully we can change things for him a bit later.
Let’s get into explaining his multitude of wrongdoings, shall we?
Now, my apologies go out to Jean Johnson and Peter’s wife, Helga.
I previously promised Jean I wouldn’t mention anything about this particular event, but for the rest of the crimes to make sense, I must explain this occasion. ”
I look over at Jeanie for forgiveness, and she nods encouragingly.
“It’s okay, do what you need to do,” she says.
I walk the listeners through the night of the sword?box illusion, though I leave out the parts where the women colluded to switch the roles of glamourous assistant and magician, and I make it seem like a happy accident Dalton had called for the swap.
I pause the tale just after Peter’s corpse falls out of the trunk.
“Here’s where I’m going to lose a few listeners, if you haven’t already tuned out yet.
Peter Roskelly is lying in a bloodied heap on the floor, or at least his body is.
His ghost is standing idly beside it watching the chaos unfold.
Peter had planned to murder his wife, and it backfired, but he’s dead now and he’s out of the woods.
Or so he thought. There is something left to protect, and that’s Peter’s reputation.
He’s spent a decade and a half carving the fantasy of The Remarkable Roskelly, and it’s one thing being known as the guy who died when a trick went awry, it’s another being famous for attempting to kill your wife but accidentally killing yourself instead.
“As a ghost, Peter watches his nineteen-year-old wife get placed in handcuffs. He overhears her telling the officers that she was certain he’d switched the swords beforehand. Am I right so far?”
Peter grunts in acknowledgment. It’s as good as a confession.
“Only it was Helga’s word against the evidence, and he couldn’t risk that sword being discovered, so he had to hide it.
Here’s the tricky part. Ghosts can’t touch or move objects.
You have to be an extremely powerful entity or have been deceased for a very long time to do those things, and having been dead only a short while, Peter hadn’t yet gained those skills.
So he panicked and did something that in the ghost world is a bit of a moral no-no.
He possessed somebody. Took control of their body.
“Possessions can last a few seconds, a few minutes, or as we will find out later, a few days. But Peter, being so new to the afterlife in that moment, had seized control of the nearest living person. That person just so happened to be Jean Johnson herself.
“He stole the sword, ran out of the hotel, down Jacob’s Ladder, and onto the beach. He then stashed the weapon in a tiny nook inside a cave.”
“Ohhhhh!” Stove says, like a light bulb has flicked on over his head. “I always wondered how that got there.”
I want to bop Stove over the noggin with his own microphone, but I’m using it at the moment, so that’ll have to wait.
“I called it Excalibur because it’s literally a sword in the stone,” he adds.
“Wait, okay . . .” Trystan says, but he shakes his head and doesn’t finish his sentence.
“Are you kidding me?” Pixie asks. “Excalibur is a real sword? Dude, every time you asked me if I wanted to come into your cave to look at it, I assumed you were talking about your wiener.”
“Honestly, same,” Trystan adds.
“The voices you’ve just heard belong to Stove MacLeod, Trystan Retallack .
. .” My heart skips a beat at saying his full name out loud.
“And Pixie Maynard. I’ll make introductions as we go if I need to.
So, after using Jean’s body to hide the sword, Peter’s spirit leaves her a little bloodied and bruised on the beach for her long-term boyfriend to find her.