FicWad

It was a stunning looking house, by far the grandest, most expensive looking in the entire neighbourhood. All but one of the six double bedrooms had a magnificent view of the icy grey blue sea. It had a large front and back garden, that was neatly trimmed and littered with large, brightly coloured flowerbeds and plants. It was a pretty house, like something off of a postcard. I really shouldn’t have resented it in the slightest. My best (and only) friend, Alexandria, or Alex as I often called her, would have loved it. It looked like the perfect family home, and yet when my Mother says, “C`mon Mikey, let’s go and see your new room,” I can`t help but shudder a little, despite the chill in the sea air.
The inside of the new house was just as lovely as the outside. The walls were professionally painted a rich, snowy cream and neatly framed images of sew views at sunset and flowers hung tidily on them. I recognised a few of my mother`s belongings, such as one of her many, oak bookshelves, piled to the top with her many cook books and celeb gossip magazines, all of her plants and the familiar glass and wood coffee table stood proudly in the centre of the spacious living room.
But there were also many things that I didn`t recognise. Like the electric fire hung securely on the far right wall, underneath a large reddish brown wood mirror. Cosmetics were littered randomly around the downstairs, Cds and electrical chargers of all kinds were dotted around, and strange items of clothing were hung over the boiling hot radiators (mainly rather frightening, constricting and sometimes lacy bras of all different colours).
This really was going to take some getting used to.
My room was upstairs; a converted attic room that Mom had promised me was the nicest in the house. The walls were painted a black with random lyrics from a handful of my favourite songs scrawled in mum’s italic print carefully written on top. The built in wardrobe was not only big enough for all my clothes, but for at least three more people`s, and was covered in all of my posters and even some of Gerard`s sketches I had salvaged from his untouched room before the move. The high ceiling was a perfect replica of the night`s sky, James had even attached tiny little star shaped light to it, as well as the main black, gothic chandelier. A king-sized bed with an incredible soft mattress that you could practically sink into stood proudly in the centre of the room, my bass guitar sat next to it. A single, long bookcase made of painted wood took up nearly all of the back wall, and all of my comics sat neatly in it. The remaining wall space was occupied with a shelf of similar material that housed my extensive Cd collection.
It was amazing, just the way I had always imagined my dream room, only so much nicer. Alex would have loved it.
Maybe it would be alright, I mean just because this house was really old didn`t necessarily mean that someone had pegged it in here. It was a lovely looking house, any previous occupants surely had a pleasant time in it. And even if they had died inside these ancient walls, I was sure that they had died naturally, and had no unfinished business to attend.
My half-hearted, foolish hopes were shattered when I glanced over at the charcoal sofa that was sat overlooking the large, open window. Sitting comfortably on it, with their feet up was a person, a boy possibly a little younger than me.
I turn to face Mom and James, to see if they had seen the intruder. They hadn`t, even though he was sat less than a metre in front of them.
However, seeing a familiar frown on my face, my mother groans and sighs. “Oh no Mikey. Not again.”
I should probably explain. I wasn`t a normal sixteen, nearly seventeen year old boy. Okay, so I had a different taste in clothing and music to most of the other kids at my last school. Despite popular belief, it didn`t make me abnormal.
Being able to see and converse with the dead however did.
I probably should rephrase that, they talked to me. It wasn`t like I went out purposefully trying to contact them, they were always the ones who contacted me. It was pretty annoying to tell the truth. You would be walking around a store, just minding your own business, hoping to buy a soda or something, when suddenly…POOF. Some random dead guy shows up and wants you to tell his sister that he is really pissed at her for something she did after he died or whatever. And all you wanted was a freaking drink.
Or you go to the library to return an overdue book-Oops, the ghost of some dead librarian has a wee job for you.
And that was just the few that actually knew they were dead, and why they were still hanging around on good old earth, bothering the hell out of me. a good lot of them didn`t know why they hadn`t passed over to the other side yet, and a handful of them didn`t even know they had died at all. I had once met this ghost a few years back on holiday who had been a teacher in his past life, he just couldn`t understand it when there had been a substitute in his class of unruly second graders.
Which was irritating, to say the least, because I`m the poor, unlucky bastard who has to help them get to the other side. Why?
Because I`m the fucking mediator.
I can honestly tell you this, with no conviction, that it was a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Not even on that guy who gave Anthrax a bad review in that magazine article.
I don`t even get paid for my services. Not a single penny. The only reward was the warm, fuzzy feeling you got after you did a good deed for a dead guy. But more often than not, it wasn`t pleasant, or rewarding. Ninety percent of all ghosts were rude, and the other ten percent were just plain dickheads. They were normally the ones that actually wanted to stick around earth, causing trouble for us living people by slamming doors and scaring our pets. I think that it where we got the stories about Poltergeists from.
Normally, after a careful bit of persuasion and quick thinking on my behalf, these ghosts went on to the other side with very little complaints. But occasionally they did get nasty and quite violent, which made me more than a little bit mad. I mean, I was only doing my job, I didn`t ask for this gift. I`d gladly return it if I could, unfortunately I seemed to have misplaced the box and the receipt. So it was then that I usually felt the need to kick some ghost ass. That was what mum had meant when she said, “Oh Mikey. Not again.”
You see when I had to kick some dead guy’s ass, things around me tended to get a little bit messy. Expensive vases lying broken on the floor, shattered windows, torn curtains, that sort of thing.
Not that I had any intention of messing up my new room, I loved it too damn much.
“Never mind Mom. It`s fine, I love it.” I tell her, plastering on a smile that was only half fake.
“Well I`m glad,” she kisses me, then leaves me alone in my new room to unpack…sort of.
“Okay.” I snap at the presence on the sofa. “Who the fuck are you and when are you gonna get off your ass and leave?”
Oh and just for the record, no I am not crazy.