The ghost climbed into my ambulance carrying a photograph of my funeral.
——-
Mara stared at the body lying on the ambulance stretcher.
Melanie was dead.
Of all the people Mara had expected to lose today, her closest friend hadn’t been one of them.
Melanie had worked beside Mara through countless emergencies, but nothing in their years together had prepared her for this. And now Melanie was dead because some lunatic had tried to destroy the sports coliseum.
Mara reached for Melanie’s hand, hesitating before wrapping her fingers around it. She had held the hands of dying strangers before, offering whatever comfort she could. But this time, there was nobody left to comfort.
“Oh, my friend,” Mara whispered. “I’m going to miss our long chats about everything. Men, music, and all that magic we were so convinced was real.”
The ambulance lights flickered.
Mara glanced toward the ceiling. The engine was off, and the vehicle had been perfectly still for several minutes.
Then something cold brushed against the back of her neck.
She turned.
There was nobody behind her.
“Great,” she muttered. “Apparently today wasn’t terrible enough.”
“You always did have terrible timing.”
Mara froze.
The voice had come from behind her.
A voice she knew better than her own.
Slowly, she turned toward the stretcher.
Melanie’s body hadn’t moved.
But standing beside it was a woman wearing the same bloodstained paramedic uniform.
Melanie.
She looked down at her own body, then back at Mara.
“Well,” Melanie said, “this is going to make our next coffee date a little awkward.”
Mara opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
She blinked once. Twice.
Melanie was still standing there.
“No,” Mara whispered. “No, this isn’t happening.”
Her gaze darted between the woman standing beside the stretcher and the lifeless body lying upon it.
“You’re dead.”
Melanie glanced down at herself.
“Yeah. I was hoping you’d have a slightly better explanation.”
Mara took an unsteady step backward, catching herself against the ambulance wall.
She had spent years believing magic might exist. She had even joked about ghosts with Melanie.
But believing in something was considerably easier than watching your dead best friend complain about being dead.
“Melanie,” Mara said, struggling to steady her voice. “What happened at the coliseum?”
Melanie’s expression changed.
The humour vanished from her face.
“That’s the problem,” she whispered. “I don’t remember.”
Mara frowned. “You don’t remember dying?”
“No. I remember the explosion. The screaming. You trying to keep me alive.”
Melanie glanced toward the ambulance doors.
“But there’s something missing. Something important.”
“Like what?”
Melanie hesitated.
“There was a man standing in the middle of the destruction. Everyone was running away from him.”
“And?”
“He wasn’t running.”
Melanie looked directly at Mara.
“He was smiling.”
Mara felt the temperature inside the ambulance drop.
“That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“It gets worse,” Melanie whispered.
“Of course it does.”
“I think he could see me after I died.”
Mara stared at her friend.
“You mean while you were lying there? After the explosion?”
Melanie nodded slowly.
“He looked straight at me, Mara. Not my body. Me.”
“Maybe you were imagining things.”
Melanie raised an eyebrow.
“I’m standing here having a conversation with you while my corpse is lying three feet away. I think we’ve officially passed the point where imagining things is our biggest concern.”
Mara couldn’t argue with that.
Then Melanie’s expression changed.
She was staring past Mara, toward the ambulance’s rear windows.
“Mara?”
“What?”
“Don’t turn around.”
Naturally, Mara immediately wanted to turn around.
“Why?”
Melanie’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Because the man from the coliseum is standing outside.”
Mara’s stomach tightened.
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
Melanie shook her head.
“He’s looking right at us.”
A soft knock sounded against the ambulance door.
Three deliberate taps.
Then a man’s voice spoke from outside.
“Mara Voss. We need to talk about your friend.”
Mara’s first instinct was to lock the doors.
Her second was to find something heavy enough to hit him with.
Unfortunately, neither seemed particularly useful against someone who apparently made a habit of chatting with dead people.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Silence.
Then the man answered.
“Someone who can explain what happened to Melanie.”
Mara glanced toward her friend.
Melanie shook her head.
“Don’t trust him.”
“That’s reassuring,” Mara muttered.
The man knocked again.
Three slow taps.
“You have questions, Mara. I have answers.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you because you knocked politely?”
A quiet chuckle came from outside.
“No. You’re supposed to believe me because Melanie isn’t the first person to die at that coliseum.”
Mara went still.
“What does that mean?”
The man’s reply was barely louder than a whisper.
“It means someone has been collecting souls. And tonight, they collected the wrong one.”
Mara turned toward Melanie.
“Please tell me you know what he’s talking about.”
Melanie’s expression had gone pale.
Which, considering she was already dead, Mara found particularly unsettling.
“I remember something,” Melanie whispered.
“Something useful, I hope.”
Melanie glanced toward the ambulance doors.
“When I died, there was a moment when everything went dark. I heard voices. Hundreds of them.”
Mara felt a chill creep down her spine.
“What were they saying?”
“They were calling names.”
“Whose names?”
Melanie swallowed.
“People who had died. People I knew. Some of them had been dead for years.”
The stranger spoke again from outside.
“Melanie. If you remember the voices, then you know what happens next.”
Melanie stepped backward.
For the first time since appearing beside her own body, she looked genuinely terrified.
“Mara,” she whispered, “whatever you do, don’t let him open that door.”
Mara stared at the handle.
It began to turn.
Mara lunged forward and slammed her palm against the door, holding it shut.
“Occupied!” she shouted. “And unless you’re bleeding to death, you’re going to have to wait.”
The handle stopped moving.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then the stranger laughed.
“You’re considerably more difficult than I expected.”
“You should meet me before my morning coffee.”
“Mara,” Melanie whispered, “this isn’t funny.”
“I’m aware of that. Sarcasm is what happens when my survival instincts start filing complaints.”
A sharp metallic click sounded from the door.
Mara glanced at the lock.
It had just slid into the unlocked position.
By itself.
“Oh, that’s cheating.”
The stranger’s voice lost its amusement.
“You cannot keep that door closed forever.”
Mara pressed her shoulder against it.
“Then I suggest you find somewhere comfortable to stand.”
Behind her, Melanie gasped.
Mara turned her head.
A thin black line had appeared across the ambulance floor.
It stretched from the rear doors toward Melanie’s body.
And it was moving.
“Mara,” Melanie whispered, “that wasn’t there before.”
“Really? Because I was just about to compliment the ambulance company on its exciting new interior design.”
The black line continued creeping forward.
It wasn’t a crack in the floor.
It was something beneath the surface, moving like ink through water.
Mara shifted her weight against the door, trying to keep the stranger outside while watching the darkness spread.
“What happens if it reaches you?”
Melanie didn’t answer.
“Melanie?”
Her friend was staring at the approaching line.
“I think that’s what took the others.”
Mara’s stomach tightened.
“The others?”
“The voices I heard after I died. I remember now. They weren’t calling names.”
Melanie looked at Mara, her eyes wide with terror.
“They were begging someone to remember them.”
The black line suddenly split into several thin strands.
They stretched across the floor like searching fingers.
One reached the wheel of Melanie’s stretcher.
The metal began to frost over.
Melanie screamed.
Not because the darkness had touched her body.
But because, for one terrible moment, Mara couldn’t remember her friend’s last name.
Mara’s breath caught.
She knew Melanie.
Of course she knew Melanie.
Eleven years of friendship. Countless overnight shifts. Bad coffee, worse jokes, and conversations that had lasted until sunrise.
But her last name?
Nothing.
“No,” Mara whispered.
Melanie stared at her.
“Mara? What’s wrong?”
“Your last name.”
“What?”
“I can’t remember your bloody last name.”
The darkness crept another inch across the floor.
Melanie’s expression twisted with fear.
“Don’t let it take that.”
Mara closed her eyes.
She pictured their first shift together. Melanie laughing over a spilled coffee. The two of them arguing about whether ghosts existed.
A name surfaced.
Then another.
Neither was right.
“Come on,” Mara muttered. “I’ve remembered every stupid thing you’ve ever said. I’m not forgetting you now.”
Something warm stirred beneath her ribs.
For an instant, the air around her hands shimmered with faint blue light.
The darkness stopped moving.
Melanie looked down at Mara’s hands.
“Mara?”
Mara opened her eyes.
The blue light vanished.
“Please tell me that was the ambulance lighting.”
Melanie shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
Outside, the stranger spoke again.
This time, his voice carried something Mara hadn’t heard before.
Fear.
“Mara Voss,” he said sharply. “Whatever you just did, don’t do it again.”
Mara stared at her hands.
They looked perfectly ordinary.
Which was considerably less reassuring than it should have been.
“You know,” she called toward the doors, “most people start with an explanation before issuing threats.”
“That wasn’t a threat.”
“Wonderful. Because your bedside manner could use some work.”
The stranger didn’t respond immediately.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter.
“You don’t understand what you’re awakening.”
Mara glanced toward Melanie.
Her friend’s ghost was staring at her with an expression Mara couldn’t quite read.
“Then explain it.”
“Not here.”
“Funny. I was just thinking this ambulance was the perfect place for a supernatural interrogation.”
“Mara, listen carefully. The darkness isn’t trying to kill your friend.”
Mara felt her stomach tighten.
“Then what is it doing?”
“Erasing her.”
Melanie took a step backward.
“What does that mean?”
The stranger’s answer came slowly.
“When the last person who remembers a soul forgets its name, that soul ceases to exist.”
Mara looked toward Melanie.
The thought of losing her once had been unbearable.
Losing her a second time, knowing she might disappear completely, was something Mara refused to accept.
“Then I guess forgetting isn’t an option.”
Outside, the stranger sighed.
“That’s what the others said.”
Mara frowned.
“What others?”
A long silence followed.
Then he answered.
“The three people who tried to save you before.”
Mara stared at the ambulance doors.
“I’m sorry. The three people who did what?”
“Saved you.”
“From what?”
Another silence.
Mara rolled her eyes.
“You know, for someone who claims to have answers, you’re remarkably committed to not providing any.”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
Mara glanced toward Melanie’s ghost.
“My dead best friend is standing beside her own corpse, and something resembling an angry ink stain is trying to eat her existence. I think my standards for believable have become fairly flexible.”
Melanie gave a nervous laugh.
Then her expression changed.
“Mara?”
“What?”
“Do you remember the accident?”
Mara frowned.
“What accident?”
“The one three years ago. On the bridge.”
Mara opened her mouth to answer.
Nothing came.
She remembered working that night. Heavy rain. A terrible collision. Emergency crews everywhere.
But the details were strangely blurred.
“I remember an accident,” she said slowly.
Melanie shook her head.
“You were in it.”
Mara felt the blood drain from her face.
“That’s impossible.”
“I was there, Mara. I watched them pull you from the wreckage.”
Outside, the stranger spoke again.
“And that was only the second time.”
Mara’s grip tightened on the ambulance door.
“The second time what?”
His answer came without hesitation.
“The second time you died.”
Mara laughed.
It wasn’t a particularly convincing laugh.
“Right. Of course. I’ve died twice. Anything else? Perhaps I’m secretly the Queen of England?”
Melanie didn’t smile.
That frightened Mara more than anything the stranger had said.
“Mara,” Melanie whispered, “he’s telling the truth.”
Mara turned toward her.
“You knew?”
Melanie lowered her eyes.
“I knew something happened that night. Something nobody could explain.”
“Then start explaining.”
Melanie hesitated.
“Your heart stopped. The paramedics worked on you for nearly twenty minutes.”
Mara felt the world tilt.
“Twenty minutes?”
“They were about to call it.”
Mara stared at her friend.
“And?”
Melanie swallowed.
“And then you opened your eyes.”
Silence settled over the ambulance.
Even the darkness crawling across the floor seemed to pause.
“That’s impossible,” Mara whispered.
“I know.”
Mara shook her head.
“People don’t just come back after twenty minutes.”
Melanie looked toward the ambulance doors.
“You did.”
The stranger spoke again.
“Because someone paid the price.”
Mara’s stomach tightened.
“What price?”
His answer came quietly.
“A life for a life.”
Melanie closed her eyes.
And Mara suddenly understood something that made her blood run cold.
Her friend wasn’t simply frightened of the stranger.
She was frightened of what Mara might remember next.
