Perspective

Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

The dead girl beckoned to me from the other side. At first, I thought it was the reflection of somebody stood behind my left shoulder, but when I glanced behind, I saw the room had emptied of all but me. Chills raised the hairs all over my torso, and my neck prickled. Where did everyone go? Just me with the Piranha for company. Through the thick aquarium glass, their sharp, jagged little razor teeth seemed to mock and threaten.

In and out of the vegetation, the golden-hued fish darted in a school, as though on the hunt. The dead girl waved. Afraid and not wanting to offend the ghost, I waved back. Only when she turned—or, rather, swirled—away from me did I understand she occupied the inside of the giant tank and didn’t, in fact, stand on the far side of the aquarium. Her jade hair fanned out to either side of her head and shoulders like a frayed, dark halo.

My ghostly friend drifted away for a couple of seconds and paused to regard me over her shoulder. She looked both bemused and impatient. What did she want from me? Did she want me to follow? I couldn’t, however—not until I’d located my granddaughter. By now, she’d be wondering where her granddad had got to. More to the point, where had Carla gone? Why had she left me in here alone? Each time I tried to focus, my brain blurred and shifted, and the essential recall escaped my grasp, which grew ever more frantic.

Instead of clarifying, my vision grew steadily darker and adopted a decidedly crimson hue. The dead girl swirled through a 360-degree turn and drifted further away. Desperate for answers, I lurched forward and reached out an arm. Only at the last moment did I remember the clear wall in front of me, and I flinched in anticipation of the impending collision of soft flesh and cold, solid glass.

The impact never happened. I floated through the deepening murk, and the dead girl smiled and made a ‘come hither’ motion with two crooked fingers. Surprised, I jerked to a stop, and my mouth fell open. Contrary to expectations, water didn’t pour in nor spill down my gullet. And neither did I cough, gag, or choke. From the base of the tank, a stream of dark red swirled upward in a parody of wet smoke. When I looked downward, I wished I hadn’t.

At my feet lay a freshly perished corpse. Eyes bulged from stretched sockets, and wrinkled flesh hung grey and slack around an open jaw. A perfect, maroon circle punctured the centre of the forehead, and a mess of pink flesh, white bone shards, gloopy brain matter, and red gore danced in the water around the remains of the man’s skull. A familiar skull. My skull.

Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

Aghast, I gaped at my ethereal companion. The girl shrugged and her smile morphed into an aggrieved frown. She held out a hand toward me, and I floated forward and grasped her fingers. As soon as we made physical contact, my brain fog evaporated.

Total recall punched me in the guts, and an anguished wail burst from my essence. The Piranha darted in groups to and from my water-logged cadaver. Each time they withdrew, more jagged bites and torn flesh appeared. The fresh-water vultures feasted on my mortal remains. When I tried to shoo them away, they took not one bit of notice and continued with their macabre feeding frenzy.

From rooms distant, scattered screams sounded in short staccato bursts of fear and panic along with the discordant pop-pop-pop of gun fire. Before I could go with the dead girl, I had something yet to accomplish.

Quiet gurgling and trickling noises impressed themselves upon my … consciousness? … Good enough for now. A glance at the tank wall showed bullet holes puncturing the glass and wide cracks and fissures splintering from the breaches. Only my dead body stopped the ooze from becoming a deluge. Above the corpse and vulture fish, one wall of the tank stood jagged and cracked where the bullets had propelled me into and through the glass. Cruel translucid stalactites depended from the ceiling and shuddered in an unseen and unfelt breeze—lying in wait for the unwary to make an offering of their vulnerable necks.

Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

We two ghosts shared a look, and with our hands clasped firmly, we pressed our fingertips to the damaged aquarium wall. Blue light pulsed in one spectacular explosion of silent energy, and the jagged shards of glass stalactites and stalagmites shattered into crystals and dust. A wall of water filled the breach and swept away all in its path. The Piranha appeared joyful as they surged on the crest of the wave, sharp little teeth glinting in the dimmed lighting of the visitor area.

‘Useless old fart,’ was what the lone gunman had called me before he’d put the bullet through my brain. I’d stood in front of Carla and squared up to the man when he’d barged into the cavernous space, encircled with tanks, which held various creatures from the deep such as ghost-knife fish and puffers as well as the shudder-inducing Piranha.

Now, a determined grin lent me a visage somewhat reminiscent of the flesh-eating fish, and I murmured, ‘We’ll see who’s useless now.’

My ectoplasmic form followed the watery wave, and blue pulses of electromagnetic energy danced above, below, and through the surging water. In the next chamber, dozens of hostages crouched around the walls with hands on top of their heads. In the middle of the space, the gunman stared wide-eyed at the wall of water as it headed right for him but, miraculously, left the frightened civilians dry and unharmed.

Both water and Piranha, puffer, and ghost-knife fish knocked the man to the floor, and his silent shock exploded into a cacophony of agonised screams when the fish attacked and tore at his skin and flesh. One of his eyes popped and burst in a viscous squirt, and two of the water vultures sped into the open socket and locked on with their razor teeth. Golden tails flashed back and forth as they burrowed ever inward. The man thrashed and bucked for another twenty seconds, and then his remaining orb glazed over and his body stilled.

After his death throes faded and ceased, a faint, opaque echo of my son-in-law locked eyes with me, and he nodded in recognition.

‘I told you I’d see you in hell,’ I said. ‘You took my girl. No way was I gonna let you take Carla too.’ Full of anguish that I hadn’t done more, hadn’t acted sooner, I flicked my hand away from me and commanded, ‘Go where you belong.’ The opaque echo deliquesced and collapsed into the escaped liquid from the aquarium, which lapped against the enclosing walls.

In the corner, my granddaughter rose to her feet unsteadily. Her aunt Lilla stood too and pulled her into a hug. In the distance, police sirens ululated. Stunned hostages unpeeled themselves from the walls and tiled floor and gasped at the knee-deep sloshing water while casting uncomprehending gazes around at the carnage.

In life, I had failed to protect my daughter from her abusive, unhinged ex-husband. The legal system and the ridiculous red tape had helped us both murder her. What an irony that I’d achieved more as a retired police officer, and the newly dead, than I ever had in the pursuit of honesty, goodness, and upholding the letter of the law. Even though things hadn’t gone, exactly, to plan, I took this as a win.

If not for my deranged son-in-law, the brain tumour would have taken me within the next three months. And if not for the tumour, I would never have been able to see and speak with my dead girl. Couldn’t have hatched this plot with her to ensure Nick wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Who knew what horizons would open up when you volunteered at your local aquatic centre and learnt all about the weird and wonderful neurotoxins from puffer fish and other sea creatures?

Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

At peace for the first time in two years, I took hold of my ghostly companion’s hand and smiled into her loving eyes. Kind, emerald orbs that had inherited the best attributes of my wife and I. My daughter smiled back at me and tugged me with her as she headed for the welcoming white light, which grew brighter until it obliterated everything but the two of us—father and daughter reunited at last.