The Lifers - A Ghost Story Read online

  “You saw him take it?”

  “It was so obvious the case was going to go, I mean, the guy telegraphed his moves so demonstrably he should have been wearing a stripy top and mask, and carrying a sack marked ’swag’.

  He edged toward the guy, almost tiptoeing, and the man, like most people, was paying no attention to anything at all, just yabbering onto whoever was on the other end of the line.

  This went on for what seemed like ten minutes, although when we gave the tape to the sheriff’s office afterwards it was less than sixty seconds before the guy in the Cincinnati Reds t-shirt made off with the case.”

  “Did he chase after him,” Cassie asked, fascinated, “the shiny suit man?”

  “Didn’t even see him go,” I told her, “he was crawling around under the table looking for the case when the police arrived to explain what had happened.”

  Cassie giggled again, then paused, “did they catch him, the thief?”

  “No, he was long gone.”

  “Was there much in the bag?”

  “A laptop and a chicken salad sandwich. Nothing entirely irreplaceable, but it might teach shiny-suit has to keep a closer eye on his stuff next time.”

  “It’s not right though - someone takes what isn’t theirs and never pays for it.”

  “True.”

  “Someone, should, pay, if they do wrong.”

  “True,” I repeat, hearing a new tone in her voice.

  The silence hung there for a moment and I wondered if it was now, if she was going to tell me.

  “They really hurt me you know.”

  She had alluded to this so many time, but always refused to be drawn, allowing it to hang back behind the conversation, the ogre of those who mistreated her. I’d assumed it was a man. I’d assumed it was an ex-boyfriend or boyfriends, dark figures who continued to be present for Cassie even in their absence, but I had avoided bringing the topic up myself.

  “Was it a boyfriend? Was it,” I struggled for words, “was it something, someone else.”

  “It was all of them.”

  “Who?”

  “Them.”

  Then she added, “Steve, Todd and Irene. You call them The Lifers. It was them.”

  ***

  Returning to my desk I viewed my workspace anew.

  I wasn’t the first to sit at my desk it seemed. Wasn’t the first to put up with the bullying or unpleasantness of The Lifers, and when I reached them I returned their black looks with force, as one by one they averted their eyes.

  She had worked here before me, she told me, the ideal fit for her, what with her penchant for gadgetry and obvious insomnia. “Even before what they did I struggled to sleep,” she told me.

  “Go on.”

  “Steve seemed nice at first, trying to romance me a little, and though he wasn't really my type, well, the attention was nice," Cassie hesitated here, needing to explain, "I didn't lead him on though - I don't think I did, but Irene and Steve, they said I did, they called me a little..."

  "What?"

  Cassie sat silent at the other end of the line for the longest time, "they called me a little prick tease, told him I was asking for it, just needed a little persuasion."

  I didn't know what to say, hated to think about the question I had to ask next.

  "What did they do?"

  Cassie told me her story.

  ***

  “I was late for my shift that night, had hit traffic down on Main Street where there'd been a big crash - a car and a truck had smashed into one another, and there were police and ambulances. There was this guy standing beside the road with his shirt covered in blood and he was weeping whilst another woman held his hand.

  Everyone in town was gridlocked in the same trap, as they wheeled blanket covered bodies passed the jam.

  Eventually they managed to shift some of the debris and a lane was gradually cleared and I was able to move past the carnage and leave it behind, rushing up to the office, to the Island as you call it.

  It's funny you call them The Lifers because for a time I was going to be one of them. The job wasn't a summer thing like it is for you. It was the best I could get. It was a good job. Really.

  I know it might seem laughable to a college girl like you, but the pay isn't bad and you kinda get used to it. My Daddy is an exterminator, killin’ bugs and rats, and my Mom is a housewife mostly, aside from a couple of afternoons a week waitressing down at Deek’s so a nice little office job and having enough money to rent a little apartment of my own was just heaven.

  Each night I went in and I enjoyed the chat and the laughter, politely edging Steve away from talk of romance and dates. I gave him the friend speech one night in the break room, and he seemed to accept it, grudgingly, except, it turned out he didn’t.

  The others, I don’t think I ever truly knew them, and I think they got into his head.”

  ***

  Cassie continued.

  "The atmosphere was unusually frosty when I arrived.

  I knew something was up straight away. I had the sense of being watched. Scrutinised. Irene was eying me like a hunter sighting a deer and I saw something in her eyes akin to hunger.

  "You're late," Todd told me. We were all graded more or less the same on the night shift, but Todd was the unofficial Supervisor by dint of longevity.

  "I know, sorry, there was a big accident down on..."

  Irene cut across me, and when she rose she stood taller than I remembered.

  "Oh, you think you're so special," then spitting the curse, "little bitch. Think you've got it all going on. I saw you leading on poor Steve. Little bitch. Prick tease little bitch."

  I stepped back from the pod, instinctively raising my arms as though the insults were physical blows; I couldn't understand what was going on, let alone why my friend Irene appeared to be leading the attack.

  “Irene,” I pleaded, “I don’t think there’s any call for that-“

  “Prick tease - little bitch,” I couldn’t believe it of him, as Steve’s voice joined hers and rode into me like a freight train, “why, why would you mess me about like that?”

  Edging slowly backwards towards the door I looked around for something heavy to defend myself with, but drew a blank and instead spun round to run, crashing straight into Mickey the doorman, who had clearly been waiting in the darkness for the show to begin, the smell of menthol cigarettes clawing to his uniform.

  You’re right about working nights; you're your own community. Day workers don't get it. A nocturnal tribe is about right. You grow very close and all the rules and policies which drive the day mean nothing in the dark heart of the night.

  Daytime managers seldom show up during the dark hours, so we're left to develop our own strange rhythms and behaviours. Our own laws and traditions.

  It appeared this autonomy ran deeper than I could have imagined. The court of my peers had tried me it seemed, and found me guilty.

  Steve spoke first, the nervous energy which I usually associated with his voice had gone, replaced by icy calm.

  “Hey hon,” he called to me as he rose, revealing a half drunk quart of vodka, held loosely between his fingers, “we here been chattin’ and we agreed you’ve been doin’ me wrong. Time for you to pay up, dar-lin.”

  I could see he was wearing his new shirt, the same orange check one which he’d been showing off the night he’d asked me out on a date. Clearly he thought this night would go more to plan.

  Irene’s face glowed maliciously in the cool strip-lit glow, while the other two moved to block access to the exit and fire escape.

  “Steve, hon,” I implored him, if only I could get him back on side then the others might see sense, “you need to think straight hon, whatever -”

  “Honey,” he cut me off, gesturing to the vast darkness of the office, “we can do this out here, in plain view of these here folks, or there’s a nice warm staff room in there, we got a soft blanket and some Buds. I know which I’d rather, although I reckon Irene
and the folks here would be amenable to a little show.

  “Take that little bitch,” Irene shouted, “take her! Take her! Take her!”

  All women are not sisters.

  I can only guess at the motivation for her rage, as prior to this night Irene, Moonface as you call her, I like the name Moonface by the way, it suits her, well, Irene had appeared to be my friend.

  Most nights she was all “hello Dearie, and, my how beautiful your skin looks tonight dearie, I wish my daughter had skin like yours dearie, you’re so lucky, dearie,” but tonight I saw beneath the mask, as the others took up her battle cry, “take her! Take her! Take her!”

  I decided I had only one chance.

  With mock coyness, I smiled at Steve, “Steve, honey, it shouldn’t be like this. How about Sunday night, when we’re both off, we go down to the Big Bang, and hang out properly, get to know each other away from all this,” I removed the vodka bottle from his hand and took a small sip, wincing at the chemical sharpness of the cheap liquor, then spoke to him gently, trying to ease him round, “not like this though Steve, I-”

  I broke off as he cracked me across the face with an open palm. A look of rage reddening his cheeks.

  “They told me you’d try and pull shit like this,” he bawled at me, almost crying, “they told me you were a weaselly little prick tease slut who’d do anything to get outta paying her dues, well, tonight you pay up.”

  It’s not like that you know.

  Or I don’t think it is.

  I didn’t lead Steve on, or I didn’t mean to. He might think I did, but some men are just like that aren’t they? You smile at them and they think you’re offering them sex. Laugh at their joke and they assume you’re sweet on them. Most men leave it at that, but Steve had vicious, jealous little Irene pouring all her own bitterness into his head; goading him, telling him he was being made to look like a fool by a prick-teasing little whore.

  “Take her!”

  They were his chorus; urging him on. There was a dark co-dependency in their voices. Like alcoholics, each urging the other to revel in their bad behaviour in an effort to neutralize their own base desires.

  The chorus demanded he continue, demanded he take her, but judging by the faces of the chorus I knew it wouldn’t stop there. They were hungry for more than his revenge.

  “Steve!” I begged him, “not like this, it’s not right, you’re better than this.”

  For a moment I saw a flicker of doubt in his face, which vanished as the chorus began chanting louder, “take her! Take her! Take her!” like he was a boxer taking to the ring, and his hands moved to the golden buckle of his tan belt.

  “Ah, well honey,” he announced with a rueful voice and an extravagant wave of his hand. “We’ll just have to use that desk over there.”

  ***

  Bang! Bang Bang!

  Moonface was rapping on the window, ripping me from the world Cassie had created, and I nearly screamed myself as her pox marked visage glared at me through the dusty glass, Cassie still weeping in my ears.

  “They did this to me,” Cassie sobbed, “they made me like this.”

  As I rose to return from my break I saw The Lifers anew. Whereas before I had just seen them as sad and bitter, losers, no better than the world they’d created for themselves, now I knew: they were dangerous; monsters in the light at the heart of the darkness.

  ***

  Next night, Cassie is my first call of the evening and she sounds brighter than usual as I take her into the coffee room to converse, ignoring the dirty looks this provokes.

  “I feel a lot better,” she said with a slight lift in her voice, “I’ve never talked to anyone before about that night, I’m really grateful I found you. I needed to talk about what happened.”

  I could see Moonface and the others watching me through the doorway as I poured my coffee, but I tried to take my time.

  “You didn’t go to the police then?”

  “I couldn’t, not then,” Cassie’s voice suddenly sounds flat, “I couldn’t tell anyone except you.”

  “You must,” I urged her, “you mustn’t let them get away with it. You said it yourself. People should pay for their crimes.”

  There was silence for a moment, then I heard a new tone in her voice.

  “Oh - I didn’t let them get away with it,” a short shrill laugh, which surprises me somewhat, “I didn’t.”

  Yellow called across to me, "come on, stop slacking, get back on the job," so I approach them, glaring, returning their scathing looks, disgusted at what they had done to my predecessor.

  "You too special to start on time?" Yellow asks me, his eyes piercing, or trying to pierce my calm.

  "Don't start," I snapped "I know what you did - I know what you did, what you did to Cassie."

  This didn't seem to faze them, so I persevered.

  "From the moment I walked in here you've acted like I'm not fit to clean the shit from your shoes, yet what you all did, to that poor girl. I know what you did. She told me. Yet you have the gall to sit there giving me dirty looks."

  The two men looked down at their desks, and left Moonface to respond.

  “We weren’t looking at you,” her mouth pursed to a tiny bitter point, “you stupid bitch, we were looking at her: the slut. She won’t leave us alone.”

  ***

  It is strange to turn and see the world through the eyes of another, but as I moved round I found myself looking into eyes which may have once been blue, but which were now gray, almost transparent, and found poor, dear Cassie standing there, alone, where she had clearly been standing all along. Whispering into my headset. My friend Cassie who couldn’t sleep.

  She stood maybe five foot two and had pale blond hair bobbed down to her shoulders, her skin so pale as to be almost colorless. I saw what could easily have been a ghostly image of myself. We could have been sisters.

  The waves of hatred I assumed were directed at me had in fact been fear, focused instead at the angel upon my shoulder; their toy, their article of abuse.

  My voice scratched as I spoke, “Cassie, oh Cassie, they killed you,” then to them, my voice rising, “you killed her, you bastards you killed her…”

  “Stupid little slut killed herself,” Moonface answered defiantly, “stood right in front of us, right where you’re standing now and used her Daddy’s gun to plaster her brains over the floor, all because she felt guilty about the little party she had with the boys…”

  Moonface glanced nervously at Cassie as she said this.

  Cassie shook her head at them, eyes piercing them, tearing them down.

  Yellow looked up and grinned at me suddenly, malevolently, “you’ve got her headset on, you know? Do you like to party? She did.”

  Steve let out a deep boyish sob, and pleaded with Moonface and Yellow to stop.

  Moonface spoke again.

  “Listen honey, if you don’t want to share dear Cassandra’s fate,” she said, Moonface was clearly wretched under Cassie’s gaze but trying to make a show of boldness, and held her courting finger erect in defiance, “then you might want to keep your trap shut about this. No-one knows why she shot herself, least of all us, and I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.”

  Yellow, who was visibly trying to avoid Cassie’s gaze, took a gentler tack, “look, we’re sorry alright, it’s horrible, truly horrible, working every night with her watching us, well, could you,” he looked at the group for reassurance on his next question, “could you say sorry to her and ask her to leave us be now?”

  “I didn’t mean it,” Steve broke in, weeping loudly, tears streaming down the folds of his face, “I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry, please let us be -”

  I looked back at Cassie, this was her decision after all. God might be in a position to offer mercy, but it wasn’t my place. It might be hers though.

  She mouthed two words.

  "No forgiveness."

  ***

  I walked with her to the stairwell, where we said o
ur goodbyes.

  “Do you think the guilt, the haunting, is punishment enough?” I asked her.

  Cassie smiled.

  She had a pretty smile, and I could have imagined us being girlfriends in another time. Though, I suppose we were more than girlfriends anyway now.

  “It’s more complicated than you think,” she responded.

  “Do you want me to tell your Mom and Daddy why you did it?” If nothing else they could then call the police and stir up the nest, I thought.

  Her face lit up, and I realized this had been her plan all along, for me to explain why their seemingly happy and beautiful daughter had done this terrible thing.

  “They think I committed this terrible, awful sin for no reason, and I need them to understand.”

  A door slammed on the floor below, and I heard footsteps nearing, and I thought of the slimy doorman, the other party to the crime, coming to deal with me maybe, but it wasn't, it was Tom, the gentle middle-aged man who’d originally interviewed me for the job and had been absent even since calling from below, his voice bouncing off the concrete in ripples.

  When I looked back towards the office Cassie had gone, although I knew where she was, back standing guard over her prisoners. Would she ever set them free?

  “Hello you,” Tom said, a quizzical look on his face, “what are you doing up here?”

  Now it was my time to look bemused.

  “I work up here,” I spoke slowly to him, wondering if he was mad or enchanted.

  “Wrong floor, honey,” he laughed, “we don’t work up there, haven’t for a year now, not since that business,” then seeing my bafflement, grimaced at having to explain in detail, “damn, college kids - worse than employing out-of-towners.” He touched my arm gently, “the old night shift, last year, one of them went mad and poisoned all her co-workers, then shot herself. It was in all the papers. Damn, even at NYU you’d think this stuff would reach you.”

  I got it. I understood.

  No forgiveness.

  They were being punished. Eternally.

  “Anyway, Elizabeth, you’re currently an hour late for your very first shift, which honestly isn’t ideal, although if you’ve spent your time here wandering round that place,” he juddered his shoulders theatrically in a creeped out shake, “then I’ll forgive you. Come on, I for one have a home and a bed to go to. Come with me, and I’ll introduce you to the rest of the crew, they're a friendly bunch.”