“Patrick?” she continued, sounding even more aggrieved now. “Did you hear a word I just said?”

  “Yes, of course,” he replied, not even bothering to look up at her. “You have to drive to Bruton to pick up...”

  He paused for a moment, furrowing his brow before finally sighing.

  “Ah, nuts,” he added with a sigh, “I don't think I caught that last bit.”

  “You're impossible,” she muttered, drying her hands before heading through to the hallway. “I don't know how long I'll be, but I'll probably stop for lunch while I'm there. So you'll have to fend for yourself. Do you have any online clients this morning?”

  “I do not,” he murmured.

  “Then perhaps you can finally look at the leaky roof in the shed,” she added, opening the front door and heading outside. “It's been a pain for ages. Just see what you can do, okay?”

  The door slammed shut, leaving Patrick sitting in silence. He continued to tap at his phone as he heard his wife's footsteps hurrying across the gravel driveway, and then he listened to the sound of her car starting up; next he heard the car slowly making its way toward the gate, followed by the engine pottering away along the road. He waited until that sound was entirely gone, and then he savoured perhaps a minute of silence before finally setting his phone down and looking up at the ceiling.

  He listened, but he heard absolutely nothing.

  As he got to his feet, the chair's feet scraped against the floor. He made his way around the table and into the hallway, and then he paused at the bottom of the stairs. Feeling slightly dizzy, he paused for a moment and waited for that strange and unexplained sensation to pass. Once he was sure that he still couldn't hear anything, he made his way up the staircase; his slipper-less feet padded softly against the carpet as he reached the top, and then he crossed the landing and stopped at the door leading into one of the back bedrooms. He paused yet again to listen, before reaching out and knocking gently.

  “What?” Grace's panicked, terrified voice called out – almost as if she'd been expecting the intrusion, as if she'd heard his careful progress up the stairs.

  “Are you okay in there?”

  “I'm fine!”

  “It's almost lunchtime and you haven't come downstairs yet.” Reaching down, he tried the handle, only to find that the door seemed to be locked. “What's going on?”

  “Don't come in!” she blurted out.

  “Apparently I don't have a choice in the matter,” he told her. “There's no lock on this door, at least not usually. So how -”

  “I'll be down later,” she continued. “I'm just... reorganising my room.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, with his hand still resting on the door, and then he winced as he felt a sharp pain in one side of his head. The dizziness returned too, and his vision briefly blurred.

  “Okay, fine,” he murmured, stepping back and reaching up to touch the side of his face. “Just don't be too long, alright? I want -”

  Before he could finish, he let out a gasp of pain and stumbled back, bumping against the wall. Wincing again, he felt as if the pain was rippling up to the top of his skull. He turned and headed over to the stairs, but now he was feeling increasingly weak. Reaching out to steady himself, he looked down toward the hallway and realized that the entire world seemed to be swaying all around him. He tried to take a deep breath, before hearing a door clicking open somewhere nearby. Turning, he found that his vision was blurred once more, but after blinking a couple of times he was just about able to make out the sight of Grace standing in the doorway leading into her bedroom.

  “Welcome to the club,” she sneered. “I don't think it's gonna be quite as much fun as you're expecting.”

  “What -”

  In that moment he toppled back, letting out a shocked gasp as he tumbled down the stairs and smashed into the carpet at the bottom. Except the carpet wasn't carpet at all; somehow it was now concrete, and he instantly felt the back of his head cracking open to let all the light in.

  ***

  “Grace!”

  Startled, Patrick sat up and winced again. He was sitting on the concrete floor at the bottom of the large, high-ceilinged and now very dark storage room in the warehouse, with just a hint of orange light breaking through a few windows near the top. For a couple of seconds he wasn't quite sure what had happened, until he looked up and saw a series of open doorways near the top of one of the walls, and in that moment he remembered falling.

  “See you in a few minutes, I guess,” he remembered saying to his daughter's ghost. “This might actually be fun. And the reward will be us. Together. Forever.”

  The fall itself had been quick. He recalled tipping back in the air and seeing the concrete racing toward his face, followed by a sudden crack – and then everything had ended. He'd briefly gone home, back to the house in Somerset, and he felt as if he'd experienced the most vibrant, most vivid dream of his life. And now...

  Feeling more than a little dizzy, he began to get to his feet as he tried to work out how he could possibly have survived the fall. He took a couple of stumbling steps forward and stopped again, and then he turned to look down at Grace's body. His vision was still blurred and he had to blink several times to clear it, and then to his surprise he saw that there were now two bodies on the ground, and that a pool of fresh blood was leaking out from the smashed head of the closest figure.

  Telling himself that he was experiencing double vision, he blinked several times before accepting that – no – there were actually two corpses now.

  With a slow sense of dread starting to ripple through his gut, he stepped around the new corpse until he could see his face, and then he froze as soon as she saw his own bloodied and partially obliterated features. He saw one dead eye that he been almost forced from a shattered socket and a jaw that had been smashed almost completely away, and then he took a step back.

  Outside, another siren raced past, but it sounded almost as if it was in another universe.

  Slowly Patrick held his hands out. He watched them for a moment and saw that they were trembling, and then he moved them closer until they touched. Once he was sure that they could touch, he looked down at his own dead body again and realized that he still felt a little dizzy, and then he looked over his shoulder just as he heard footsteps racing down a set of steps.

  A moment later Grace ran into view, stopping in the doorway and staring at the two bodies on the ground. It was only now that Patrick realized he'd heard her footsteps ever since waking up, that he'd heard her rushing from the top floor.

  “Grace,” he stammered, stepping around the corpses. “I did it!”

  Seemingly not hearing him, she watched the bodies for a few more seconds before slowly stepping into the storage room. Patrick pulled back to let her past, and he watched as she made her way toward the two crumpled figures and began to slowly walk around them.

  “I did it!” he said again. “And do you know what? You were right. Your description, I mean. Of how it felt. Well, there were a few differences, but there really wasn't much pain at all.”

  He waited for her to reply, and then he watched as she slowly crouched down and reached out to touch his corpse. Her hand moved closer to his broken neck, and he realized after a moment that she seemed to be searching for a pulse.

  “I'm dead!” he told her. “Grace, I'm right here! Can't you hear me?”

  Figuring that he perhaps needed to make himself a little more obvious, he hurried over and dropped to his knees, and then he reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

  “Grace, I -”

  Clearly startled, she gasped as she turned and looked straight into his eyes.

  “Grace -”

  Suddenly she pulled away, falling back and staring as if she still couldn't believe what she was seeing.

  “Grace, it's okay,” he continued, forcing a smile as tears ran down his face. “I did it for you. For us. Don't you get it? I couldn't leave you here, no father could do that to their daughter... and especially not a father who has such a special bond with the girl he loves more than anyone in the entire world. I could never have left you here, not even for a second, so I chose the only option that was left to me.”

  His smile grew as he reached a hand out toward her.

  “I joined you! Now I’m a ghost too!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Don't touch me!” she gasped, pulling back so that he couldn't quite reach her with his outstretched hand. “Stay away!”

  “Don't act so surprised, Grace,” he purred, still on his knees next to his own dead body. “Did you really think I'd leave you alone? I don't care what happens to my body, it can rot here until someone finds it. I couldn't care less if I tried. But now we're going to be together forever, and we'll find a way to make it work. We can explore this whole new way of existing together. If you think about it, Grace, we're going on an adventure.”

  He paused, waiting for her to reply, before starting to crawl toward her again.

  “I -”

  “Don't touch me!” she shouted, once again scooching away on her backside, staring at him with a shocked expression on her face.

  “I get it,” he went on. “It must be overwhelming. To be honest, so far I think I'm adapting pretty well. Was it the same for you? Then again, if you weren't expecting it, perhaps it was scarier for you. But you told me how it feels so for me it's not so shocking.”

  He looked at his hands again, before pressing one of them against the rough, dirty concrete floor.

  “It is different,” he added. “In some ways. The world feels a little less... stable. Like it could fade away at any moment, but it's not going to. I feel as if I'm anchored here. I can feel my own body, and I can feel the world around me but...” He paused again, before crawling toward Grace once more with an outstretched hand. “Let me see whether -”

  “No!” she screamed, pulling back against the wall. “Stay back!”

  “Grace -”

  “You're really dead!” she sobbed. “You actually... you jumped!”

  “For you,” he told her. “I can't believe I'm saying these words, but now I'm like you. I'm a ghost. And if we're stuck here forever, in this abandoned old warehouse, then so be it. But is that really true? Can we not even go outside, not even for a short while?”

  She stared back at him, but slowly the sense of shock was fading from her face.

  “You can't leave, no,” she said finally, although her voice was trembling with horror. “Don't ask me why, but it has something to do with the energy of the place. It's true of most places, but this building is particularly strong. Again, I don't know why, but any ghosts that are created here... are trapped here forever.”

  “Okay, fine,” he said, still managing a smile. “But we can watch the world from a window, right? When we want to. We can still watch the sunset and the sunrise.” He waited for an answer. “That's possible, isn't it?”

  “Probably,” she told him.

  “Then that'll have to be enough for us,” he continued, with tears rolling down his cheeks now. “I've got a feeling we won't care too much, though. Now that we can devote ourselves to each other, with no worries about other people finding out or interfering, we can truly be together. Doesn't that sound good, Grace? Isn't it what we always wanted?”

  She hesitated, before using her left hand to pick up a piece of broken glass that had long ago been left on the floor.

  “Isn't it perfect, Grace?” he went on, smiling through the tears now. “Does it matter if anyone discovers our bodies eventually? That wouldn't change things, would it?”

  “I don't think so, no,” she whispered, keeping her eyes fixed on him while turning her right hand over to reveal the palm.

  Her fingers were still damaged and twisted, and the hand itself was shaking again.

  “Then no-one can ever come between us again,” he pointed out. “There'll be no more sneaking about. No more... hands over your mouth to stop you in your weaker moments. No more whispers. No more fear that we might be interrupted. No more doubt. No more nerves. Just...”

  His voice trailed off as he saw that she was dragging the jagged piece of glass across the palm of her injured right hand. He tried to say something, but at the last moment he furrowed his brow as he saw a cut forming on her skin, and then he watched as blood dribbled from the fresh wound and splattered down against the dusty concrete floor.

  “How are you doing that?” he asked cautiously. “Grace? How... how are you able to bleed if you're... if you're dead?”

  He watched the dribble for a moment, before looking up at her face and seeing that any sense of horror had now been replaced by something more like grim determination. And perhaps also a faint smile.

  “Grace?” he mouthed silently.

  “Boo,” she replied, letting the blood splatter for a moment longer before tossing the piece of glass aside and slowly getting to her feet on legs that were still shaking with fear. As she did so, the fabric of her clothes uncrumpled and rustled slightly until she was towering over her father in the near-total darkness, staring down at him with a determined glare. “What's it like being dead? Go on, tell me. I'm really curious to know.”

  He looked back up at her with a confused expression, and he almost spoke before finally he turned and slowly looked at the two bodies on the ground nearby. He swallowed hard, and then he scrambled across the floor on all-fours until he reached the body next to his own. Reaching out with a trembling hand, he touched the red coat and gripped the shoulder beneath, and then he carefully rolled the body onto its back until he could make out the battered, broken face.

  Of somebody he'd never seen before in his life.

  “How?” he whispered. “This was you. It was your body. Grace, I don't understand what's going on.” He turned to see his daughter still watching him calmly from over by the wall. “Grace!” he shouted angrily. “Who is this?”

  ***

  A few hours earlier...

  Wearing her red coat, with her backpack over her shoulder and another bag bundled in her arms, Grace climbed through the window, not noticing as her coat caught on a metal spike. The fabric tore slightly, leaving a strand of red fabric hanging on the spike, but Grace was too busy looking around the room as she stepped down onto the wooden floor.

  She waited, hearing sirens outside, and then she began to make her way across the room, heading toward an open doorway at the far end.

  “Looks... kind of okay for now,” she whispered cautiously. “It might be fine, at least for one night, just while...”

  Reaching the doorway, she looked through and saw a stairwell.

  “I don't hear anyone,” she added. “That's crazy, but maybe it's a slice of luck for once. I just need time to think. To work out what to do next. I need to come up with a better plan.”

  After taking a deep breath, she headed to the top of the stairs and began to make her way down. She was convinced that at any moment she was going to hear footsteps, but as she reached the bottom she was starting to believe that maybe – just maybe – she'd lucked into a safe place for at least one night. She spotted a black door in the corner, and then she continued her journey down the stairs until she reached the bottom. Still clutching the bag in her arms, she stepped through another doorway and found herself in another nondescript and mostly empty room, with just a few rocks and pieces of broken glass on the dirty concrete floor.

  “Hello?” she called out, although she was immediately shocked by how small and fearful her voice sounded. “Actually,” she added under her breath, “maybe... maybe I shouldn't announce anything.”

  For the next few minutes she made her way from room to room, trying to figure out where she should set everything down. She was starting to think that she should go higher up in the building, although at the same time she also wanted to be able to escape quickly. Eventually, stopping in another doorway, she spun around as she heard a brief scrabbling sound. She waited; the sound had stopped already, but she was starting to worry that perhaps someone else was around after all. In her mind's eye, she was imagining some kind of murderous drug addict suddenly lunging at her from the shadows.

  “Hello?” she said again. “Is someone there?”

  Once she was sure that she was alone, at least for now, she turned and continued to make her way through the ground floor of the warehouse. Late afternoon light was shining through the tall windows, casting lengthening shadows as she finally reached yet another doorway, and then she froze as she spotted something ahead.

  Looking into a large, high-ceiling old storeroom, she was shocked to see what appeared to be a crumpled corpse on the ground. She stared for a few seconds, barely able to believe her eyes, before turning to run – and immediately slamming into a woman who had silently stepped up behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A few hours later...

  “I found her just after I got here earlier,” Grace said, watching her father's horrified expression as he remained on all-fours next to the two bodies. “She hasn't been dead for long. I met her ghost, she's not sure who killed her but it seems there's some asshole going round slitting the throats of homeless people. She briefly saw that he had a butterfly pattern on his knife but -”

  Pausing for a moment, she rolled her eyes.

  “But you know what?” she continued. “You don't need to know that. She told me some interesting things, though. Everything I explained to you about this building is true. Ghosts do seem to be trapped here. If you die in this place, as a few people have over the years to be fair, there's nowhere else to go. You're just stuck here forever, unable to leave. Which is why, when I realized that you and Mum were on your way to London, I figured that I might be able to come up with a plan.”

  “You're dead,” he stammered, looking at the corpses again. “Your coat -”

  “It only takes a couple of seconds to drape a coat over a corpse,” she sneered. “The arms aren't even in the sleeves, but I guess you didn't notice that. I just had to keep distracting you earlier, making noises and putting in appearances so that you wouldn't get a chance to look too closely. And I had help, because one or two of the other ghosts here quickly decided that they were on my side. Especially Skinny Tom, he really went above and beyond. You'll get to meet them all later, I suppose. You'll certainly have plenty of time, although I'm not sure they'll be too chatty. After all, I very quickly filled them in and told them what kind of monster you are.”