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Born

She'd been sick for so long, and her body already seemed like it belonged to a stranger: thin and bald and splotched angry red. She tore herself free of it like picking off a scab. It felt great.

She had dreams of flitting around the globe, but discovered she was anchored to a single city block. It's not so bad, though. Now she knows everyone inside and out. She reads over shoulders, waiting for somebody to turn the page.

And just when she thinks she has read every book and knows every secret, another baby is born. They're brought home, swaddled tight, and she's first in line to meet them.

Hello, little one, she always says, smiling. What's your story?

Upstairs

He slammed the door on his way out. One hundred and thirteen families, and none of them felt right. He trudged to the next house and let himself inside. He found a mother, a father. Late night dinner in front of the TV, light-hearted banter during the commercials. They seemed happy together.

He sighed with such force it caused an neighbourhood epidemic of sighs.

But then he looked upstairs, and he found the boy. The boy who wheezed as he breathed. The boy who woke himself with nightmares, tangled in sheets and sweat. The boy who jolted up, heart racing, at the slightest sound.

Yes, he thought, this boy would do nicely.

Up

It wasn't the quiet or the loneliness. It was the cold. He'd been shivering for years, down in his grave. His teeth chattered, grinding dirt. He wondered if it was because he died in winter. He should've held on a little longer, until spring, no matter how much it hurt.

But today would be different. He'd been testing the length of his invisible leash, forcing himself up to read his own tombstone, or to stand with only his feet buried in the ground. Today he worked himself free of his grave just like uncorking a bottle. Nothing held him here any more; maybe it never did.

He drifted higher and higher into the sky. He finally stopped shivering. Soon he'd be sitting in the heart of the sun.

Static

Static always sang to her.

She used to wrap herself in it over radio, but soon came to prefer TV. She lived between channels, finger-painting with the fuzz on the inside of the screen. Sometimes her distorted laugh would seep out through the speakers. No one noticed, but she didn't mind. The static mirrored her thoughts and made her feel alive again; when someone snapped off the picture, it was almost like falling asleep.

Until the new televisions arrived. There was no static between their channels: just a flat, uniform blue. She pried at its corners, scrabbled up against the flat screen. It was like throwing herself against the sky.

Now she waits, mute, desperate for just a hint of her reflection in the glass.

Worthwhile

You can do it, he whispers as she sleeps. Believe in yourself. He knows he was a monster while he was still breathing, but now he's doing all he can for her. All day, every day, he prays to whatever's listening that she'll be happy.

And for what? He's still here, isn't he? She seems absolutely fine but he's still stuck trailing after her like cigarette smoke. He has to believe that if he can make her smile enough, maybe he'll be allowed to leave this earth behind.

You are beautiful, he hisses into her ear. He tries to grab her by the shoulders; he tries to shake her until she understands. Do you hear me? You are beautiful and you are worthwhile.

Blood

It was a ragged hole, the flesh torn and puckered, and it never stopped bleeding. She tried to hold its edges together but her fingers would slip and it'd gape open again like a mouth without teeth.

No one would help her; no one could see her. They could feel her blood, though. She watched the living shiver if they touched it. It pooled at her feet and anyone walking through it forgot themselves and stood there, lost. She was surrounded by smeared red fingerprints only she could see.

Emergency rooms calmed her. She'd watch doctors stitching wounds together, the needle plunging in and out of skin. She'd close her eyes, let out a shaking breath, and imagine she was in one piece again.

Family

He died painlessly and surrounded by family. He doesn't quite know what he expected after that - rushing tunnel, bright light? - but whatever it was, it never came.

His brother and sisters are dead now, too, as are their children. He died young, and later so did they; he wondered if his presence induced bad luck but couldn't make himself stay away. Family meant everything to him.

He sat vigil beneath the earth, watching them rot away. No ghosts appeared.

The last of his family to die was his nephew's daughter. She was sixteen, bright, again unlucky. He felt her last breath on his face, and followed her all the way to the crematorium, sitting with her in the flames until there was nothing but ash.

Born

Hospitals provide too much temptation. All those newborns, clustered together, crying and wide open? How could she resist? She picked one - a boy with a thatch of dark hair - and nestled herself inside.

That was thirteen years ago.

Thirteen years of hearing that boy's voice mumbling to itself in the dark. It took great focus to keep him locked away at first, but his spirit must've since been broken. She doesn't think about him, most days. She's too busy living his life.

At night, however, his jealousy seethes like hot oil. He claws at whatever he sees in her dreams, and he screams the screams of one who's never learned to speak. She promises herself she'll let him go free, one day. Whatever's left of him.

Name

When the house was closed to the public, the only one there was the cat. He'd make her jump, chase her from room to room. It made the nights less lonely.

During the day, though, he held his breath. He was careful not to creak floorboards or drum his fingers on a windowpane. The tourists shuffling through were desperate for him, and the more they wanted a haunting, the less he wanted to give it to them. He still had his pride.

Some arrived with expensive cameras, babbling about "infrared" or "ultraviolet". Sometimes they claimed to know his name. His real name. It would make him so happy to hear it again, spoken by wet tongues and warm lips, but they were always wrong.

At least the cat knows.

Time

The watch hasn't been wound in fifty years but it keeps perfect time. That's because she lives inside it. She sliced away long, tattered pieces of herself until she'd fit - memories, mostly, gone - and she curled herself between the gears and springs.

All she wants is time to keep moving. Her life hadn't been a happy one (she still remembers that at least) and now she's obsessed with eternity. She swings her hands around the dial, counting each second as it falls away into the past.

It's all that keeps her sane. If she feels her face tilted up towards someone's gaze, she wants to whisper that one day, soon, this will all be over. Whatever she has instead of a mouth just says tick tick tick.

Rage

He liked to enter men once their blood was already boiling. He'd watch until an argument spiked, then he'd ride their breath inside and coil himself around their thudding hearts.

He wouldn't stop until the target of his rage was cowering before him, whimpering like a beaten dog. Afterwards, once he'd been breathed out again, the men he possessed would break down and cry. I don't know what came over me, they'd say.

He'd hum with adrenaline for hours afterwards. He was doing them a favour, anyway. After his visit at least they knew they were alive. They had blood and broken bones as proof. He only wished he'd been able keep his scars.

Hum

The lyrics were lost decades ago. The tune lasted longer. It was a slight, charming melody, one she'd written as a child, and all she wanted was to keep it. But every time she heard new music, it ate away at the memory of her song.

She let go of everything else to hold onto it. If all she had left was her soul (not that she'd ever believed in such things while alive) then she twisted that soul into quavers and rests.

Eventually all that was heard of her was a quiet, three-note hum. It still stuck like a splinter, though. Men and women carried it home, and it helped fill the silence.

Between

Whenever they embrace, she's between them. She flits between their lips when they kiss. In bed, if the couple lie face-to-face, she drinks in that intimacy too.

They wonder what happened, though they don't speak of it as that would make it real. Aren't they the same people who met, years ago? Hadn't they only become closer? Now when they tell each other I love you, she's there, invisible, to suck all the truth from their words.

Once their love is gone, she'll move on to another young couple. They'll look into each other's eyes and not notice the ghost between them, trying to remember what it was to be loved.

Questions

Staring at his own dead body, still in its pyjamas, he feels embarrassed more than anything. Like he's listening to his voice on tape, or hearing himself snore. Heart attack, he guesses. It doesn't hurt anymore.

He remembers his meds. Two green, one pink, like clockwork. The last time he stopped taking them was hell. He can't even think about it - the things he did and said - without feeling its gravity again, its marrow-deep despair. Who is he without his meds? Will he be that way forever?

And without the meat and electricity inside his head, who is even left asking these questions? He sits down beside his corpse, wishing he could close its eyes. He waits for someone to find them.

Henry

Henry, he says, day after day. Henry, I’m here. He writes it with his fingers on mirror-steam and knocks it on the furniture they bought together and whispers it like wind. So far, Henry hasn’t noticed. Instead he lies in bed and stares at the ceiling. Friends call but are mostly ignored. He has long showers and he cries and cries. Every day’s meant to get easier, but it looks like it’s getting worse. It has been like this since the funeral. (He didn’t attend, just wafted outside and waited.) It breaks his heart to see Henry like this. I love you, he says. He knocks it and writes it and whispers it and he swears he’ll do nothing else until Henry hears him. I’m right here.

Christmas

He'd been dead a long time, but what was under the tree never changed. The same thoughtless junk. He tore ineffectually at the ribbons and wrappings, fingers fat and insubstantial; then he frayed at the gaudy lights until he exposed the wiring.

Upstairs, the family slept. Smoke woke the mother first, and she woke the father, and together they snatched the children from their beds. They were all soon out on the front lawn, ashen and weeping, staring at the roaring fire. They were holding each other so fiercely they'd be bruised come dawn.

This was his gift to them.

Merry Christmas, he said, though no one could hear him.

Fall

She has killed seven, all from heights. First she'd tried strangulation. Her hands were perpetually numb, though, and at a certain pressure they'd slip through her victims' necks and into their mattresses.

But even as a ghost - when every movement is like in a syrupy dream - she can manage a quick, brutal shove.

Her victims began, years ago, as men who looked like her killer; then men who mistreated their wives. Now they're any man stupid enough to lean out over a railing, staring down at the city, listening to the soft song of traffic. Anyone who feels his stomach churn and the soles of his feet itch.

No one knows why they jump.

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