A Long Way Down

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

I survived? Daw shook his head in disbelief. He saw the street, looked up, and saw the edge of the roof where he’d been seconds before, and then looked down again. In front of him was a body, bloody, broken, the arms and legs bent at impossible angles—and he knew in that instant that he hadn’t survived.

“What the f**k? No way.” He held up his hand, and he could see through it. “It can’t be. I don’t believe in…in ghosts?”

Then he realized someone was screaming. A woman, obviously homeless from the look of her, in the alley across the street. He heard footsteps racing toward him, saw a man with a phone pressed to his ear. “Yeah, he fell from the roof,” the man was saying. “No. No way is he alive. Yes, sir, I’ll wait until the cops get here.” He pocketed the phone and took off running.

“Scared they’ll blame you?” Daw spat out, even though he knew no one would hear him, even if anyone was around other than the screaming woman.

Slowly he began to assimilate the fact that he must be a ghost. He took a couple of steps back, away from his body. He meant to lean against the door behind him to wait until the cops arrived. It didn’t happen. He went through it, ending up inside a shop filled with women’s clothing.

If that doesn’t prove I’m dead, nothing will. Now what? I’m stuck here forever unless they find my killer? Lots of luck. They’ll put it down to…to suicide or a fatal accident, like with the others.

He reached for the door handle, wanting, needing to be back outside when the cops showed up. Two things happened at almost the same time. First, he found he couldn’t grip the handle, even though he used both hands. They went right through it. Second, he discovered his wrist didn’t hurt. He rotated it to be certain. One perk to being a ghost, if that’s what I am?

It took a second to put two and two together. I moved through the door to end up in here. I should be able to leave the same way. He did, returning to the sidewalk just as a squad car and an ambulance came screaming around the corner, pulling up to the curb next to his body.

Men piled out of both of them, the EMTs hurrying to examine the remains.

“Dead as a doornail,” the male EMT stated, as if it wouldn’t be obvious if he hadn’t pointed it out.

“Looks like he must have fallen from up there,” one of the cops said, pointing.

“What was your first clue?” Daw muttered, not expecting a reply. He didn’t get one.

“My bet is, at this hour, no one saw it happen,” the cop continued. “The guy who called it in probably saw the body and did his civic duty before taking off.”

“A homeless lady over there might have,” Daw said, even though he knew they wouldn’t hear him. Besides which, she was long gone from what he could tell.

By then, the EMTs were putting his body onto a stretcher, which they shoved into the back of the ambulance. “We’ll drop this off at the morgue,” one of them told the cops.

Daw wanted to shout, “It’s not a ‘this.’ It’s me. I was alive until…until…” He didn’t. Why bother? He watched the ambulance pull away. The cops spent a few minutes checking the area and taking notes, probably to file some sort of report on the death of another homeless person, Daw figured.

One of them did go up to the roof, returning a couple of minutes later to tell his partner there was nothing that indicated if the ‘the victim’ had jumped or fell accidentally. “Probably an accident,” he said. “Had too much to drink, although there’s no bottle, or was drugged up.”

“I don’t drink, and I wasn’t on drugs. I was thrown off, you i***t,” Daw said angrily, but of course they didn’t hear him. Moments later, they returned to their squad car and drove away.

Now what do I do? Hang around here until the cows come home because I’m stuck where I died? I’ll die again, from heatstroke. Or not. He realized, along with no pain, he didn’t feel hot, and he wasn’t sweating. That didn’t solve his problem, however. He sank to the pavement beside the store, thankful that he didn’t go through it, although he wasn’t about to lean back and end up inside the store again.

I wonder what the chances are of getting back on the roof. My stuff is still up there. Okay, it should be, if the guy who threw me off didn’t steal it. Not that it’ll do me any good. If I can’t open a door, for damned sure I can’t pick up my backpack. Still…

He got up, walked around the corner to the alley, and down to the fire escape. Getting onto the first step meant jumping to catch it as it was above arm’s reach. He’d done it more often than he liked to think about. “Here goes nothing,” he said under his breath, bent his knees, leapt—and ended up halfway up the first section. “s**t! Are you kidding?” He expected to go through the step, and didn’t, which was a relief. Staring up, he thought about making it to the next level and seconds later he was there. “In for a penny, as someone said.” Squinting at the edge of the roof, he willed himself up and found himself floating a few inches above it. He sank down until his feet were on the roof.

“Maybe this ghost thing ain’t too bad, other than the dead part.”

“It has its perks,” someone replied.

Daw turned slowly, looking for the source of the voice, and saw a man wearing worn jeans and a muscle shirt. He appeared to be in his early to mid-thirties.

“You can hear me?” Daw asked in disbelief.

“Yep. Comes with being a ghost like you.”

“f**k, are you serious? You? But you look…human.”

“So do you, to me. My name’s Brody, by the way, and you are?”

“Daw, well, Dawson, but everyone calls me Daw. Why are you here?”

“I was heading home and saw you.”

“Don’t suppose you saw who killed me, too?”

Brody shook his head. “Sorry, just got here.” He looked thoughtfully at Daw. “So someone did what to you?”

“Threw me off the roof. I think it was supposed to look like suicide or an accident. At least that’s the cops take on it. It wasn’t.”

Crossing his arms, Brody looked hard at Daw. “You sure it wasn’t suicide. One reason we hang around, well some of us anyway, is we can’t admit we killed ourselves.”

“f**k that! I know damned well I didn’t.” Daw gave him a look as hard as the one he was receiving. “That why you’re still here?”

“Nope. I was murdered, seven, hell, eight years ago, now.”

Aghast, Daw said, “And you’re still here? They didn’t find out who did it?”

“Oh, they…we found out, although only recently.”

“Then why haven’t you…?” Daw waved a hand toward the dark sky.

“There’s this guy, another one of us. He couldn’t move on so I stuck around. That’s changed, but…It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” Daw said, his anger rising again.

“At least until they catch your killer.”

Daw shot him a disgusted look. “The cops don’t think there is one. Homeless guys don’t get murdered. Okay, some of us do, by punks who take a beating too far.” He stared morosely off into space. “We’re fair game to people who don’t like us around. That or we’re ignored, like we don’t exist. And then there’s the cops who do their best to hustle us out of sight. Wouldn’t want the good people of the city, or the tourists, to see us.”

“Hey, go easy on the police, okay. I was a cop. So’s the man who helped find out who killed me. I get where you’re coming from, but not all of us are like that.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Daw looked up at the next roof, where he’d left his backpack, walked over and jumped.

“You’ve got the floating thing down already,” Brody said from beside him.

“I jumped,” Daw retorted.

“Look down.”

Daw did. The roof was two feet beneath him. He willed himself to go down and did. Glancing at the parapet, he was relieved to see his pack was still there. Of course what he’d feared would happen did. When he went over and tried to pick it up his hand went through it. “Guess the next guy up here’s going to get lucky and add to his wardrobe, for what that’s worth,” he muttered.

“The clothes you’ve got in there won’t do you any good, anyway,” Brody said. “You can’t change what you were wearing when you died.”

Daw looked down at his well-worn jeans and T-shirt and grimaced. Then he barely smiled. “Good thing I didn’t decide to sleep in just my briefs, because of the heat.”

“It could be worse. Kurt was nude when he died.”

“Ouch. Umm, who’s Kurt?”

“He’s part of what Mike calls the ghostie boys. There’s six of us, now. By the way, Mike’s not dead. He’s the detective I told you about.”

Daw frowned. “He can see you?”

“Nope, but Sage can. He’s Mike’s life partner and a medium.”

“Oh.” Daw worried his lip with his teeth. “Could you tell him…?” Then he paused when a question hit him. “How come you’re here, not where you died?”

“We’re not stuck in one place, some people’s ideas to the contrary. Yeah, we can’t move on until there’s some sort of resolution to our death. Admitting we killed ourselves, if that’s what happened. Or proving who killed us and bringing them to justice if that’s possible.”

“What if it’s not?”

“Apparently proving it is enough. It’s great if they get caught but sometimes that’s impossible.” Brody tapped his lip thoughtfully, and then asked, “Would you like to meet the rest of my friends?”

“Umm, sure. But how do I get there?”

“You fly, the same way I was when I spotted you.” Obviously forestalling Daw’s next question, Brody said, “Think it, and you can. Another ghost thing.”

Daw gave him a doubting look but did as he said. He pictured himself several feet above the roof. Moments later he was hovering above Brody.

“You want that?” Brody asked, gesturing toward the backpack.

Daw lost his concentration and dropped to the roof. To cover his embarrassment he said snarkily, “Like you can pick it up.”

“Yep,” Brody replied as he did. “The longer you’re around, the easier it gets to move things. Okay, ready? I’ll be right beside you, just in case. We’re heading that way, for starters.” He pointed.

“What if someone down there sees the backpack?”

Brody chuckled. “It’s late, and dark, so not too likely. If they do, they’ll figure they’ve had too much to drink, or are dreaming, or something.” He held out his hand, and after a second, Daw took it, shocked that he could.

“We’re ghosts, so we can touch,” Brody said as he lifted off.

With no choice, Daw concentrated and rose into the air, too. Then they were off, flying across the city. Once he felt he had the hang of it, Daw took a chance and looked down. “Wow,” he whispered.

“Pretty impressive, huh? Half the fun of flying is seeing the city spread out like this, especially at night with the lights.”

“Better than from the top of a building by a long shot.”

“Yep. And we’re almost home.” Brody drifted down with Daw right beside him, to land in a yard behind a house. At the back of the yard was what Daw thought was a two-story garage. He found out differently when Brody said, “Come on in,” and walked through the front door.