Sarah’s Ghost (Part One: Heaven is Waiting): A Supernatural thriller

By Ben Kavaliro

Ray Pearlman is a successful lawyer, who has just been told that his wife (Sarah) is expecting a baby. This is fantastic news, as they have been trying without success for years. Unfortunately, on the day this news is revealed, Sarah is also run over and killed by a car.

Ray struggles to continue with his life, but he endures constant visions of his dead wife. The barriers between fantasy and reality soon break apart, and Ray battles both the natural and supernatural in a final showdown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Kavaliro
• Release date: Jun 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781980421061

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Chapter 01

THE SMALL PORTABLE RADIO on the window ledge blasted out a golden oldie that would only be familiar to those over the age of forty. The shrill brass overture bounced off the smooth white tiles and ricocheted out of the bathroom like the cantankerous steel ball from a pinball machine.

This daily ritual was not welcomed by the neighbors upstairs, yet Ray Pearlman did not care. It was satisfying revenge for all those nights of DIY undertaken at ridiculous hours of the night/morning.

Ray occasionally imaged what it would be like to hammer nails through the palms of his neighbors into their precious wooden laminate flooring. That would teach them a lesson!

Ray put thoughts of his troublesome neighbors aside as he strode into the bathroom wearing just a towel wrapped around his waist. He slipped the knot and allowed the towel to fall.

A not-so cursory glance in the mirror confirmed that Ray looked tousled and weary from a hard day’s work. Unimpressed, he tried to shake the lethargy from his body.

The bathroom was suffused in a mixture of fading golden sunlight, and the off-white glow from overhead LED bulbs inlaid in the ceiling. Ray’s illuminated profile told him what he already knew. At the age of forty-two, Ray had reached that epoch in his life where specific changes in lifestyle were necessary to avoid imminent disaster. Luckily, Ray had already taken these changes to heart. Now at the age of forty-three, he had defied convention and had managed to look better now than he did some twenty years earlier, which accounted for the glint in his blue-gray eyes.

He pivoted on the spot and observed his internal and external obliques so that his muscles and ligaments were stretched taut. Ray snorted, replete with self-assuredness.

Ray reached out for the shower curtain and pulled it open in one fluid and graceful movement. The swoosh of cold air prickled the hairs on his arms. Ray turned on the shower, and an unexpected torrent soaked his arm and shoulder, eventually ending up on the patterned vinyl floor. He would deal with that later.

Ray nimbly stepped inside the bath and placed his feet carefully on the rubber mat before closing the curtain around him. He felt the hot needle points of water jabbing at his torso, and this invigorated him. Steam billowed out of the shower and escaped from behind the shower curtain to fill the bathroom.

Ray picked up a body wash (a generic Christmas present from an anonymous cousin). The smell of ylang-ylang and juniper began to fill the air.

Ray’s timing was impeccable as always. He launched into the song’s chorus and competed with the crooner on the radio for ownership of the tune. He was only beaten into second place because Ray was forced to sing with mouthfuls of water, which caused intermittent choking. An outside observer would be unable to determine whether or not Ray was enjoying his shower, or if he was in the process of being water-boarded.

Ray could not hear the sounds of his own raucous racket. He was blissfully unaware that his voice sounded as though someone was strangling a cat that was attempting a poor impression of Elvis Presley.

Everyone else seemed like a thousand miles away. They evaporated as easily as the steam from the shower. However, Ray was sure that if his upstairs neighbors could hear him, they would cast nothing but contemptuous stares in his direction.

Ray was recalcitrant. He was like a conductor of a magnificent symphony, waving his arms around with fierce determination – yet in an abstract manner that bore no relation to the actual rhythm or tempo of the music. Ray did not care. He was the emperor of his domain.

Ray was mesmerized by the music. His movements would periodically reach a crescendo, and then he would return his attention to fastidiously washing like it was an act of genuflection.

Thankfully, Ray’s movements were limited by the unreliable rubber mat he was perched on, and his dodgy dancing was restricted to mere hip swaying. Any casual observer would have been forgiven for thinking that Ray was auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent as a silhouette dancer.

Ray blinked myopically through the lather on his face. The ephemeral swirl of steam that surrounded him was like a claustrophobic gray blanket.

Ray washed his short-trimmed hair with shampoo, for whatever it was worth. Ray was a member of that sad fraternity who had painfully endured the bitter disappointment of early thinning hair. While the intention of this style was patently obvious, it actually suited him. Because he was in good shape, he looked more like Jason Statham nowadays and less like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family.

The radio continued to coax some response from Ray. The mixture of Ray’s voice and the radio left a cacophony of sound hanging abusively in the air. Unperturbed, Ray continued.

Ray glanced down and imagined the five colored rubber ducks on the bath sill as his backing singers just in time for the next chorus. Ray performed a rapid staccato of bizarre movements. He stuck an arm outside the curtain and waved it around for the benefit of no-one in particular.

All this time, water and shampoo continued to flow down the plug hole under the direct supervision of the Donald Duck novelty sponge.

Chapter 02

SARAH PEARLMAN STOOD in front of the large decorative mirror that hung over the radiator in the hall. Who was this woman staring back at her? She had high-arched eyebrows and large green eyes, a thin nose with a cute tip and full lips that she had stolen from Angelina Jolie.

Sarah often wondered about her genetic heritage. Was there something Latin American about her? Perhaps her chiseled face and sharp cheekbones were a consequence of an Anglo-Eastern European alliance some thirty-five years ago? Of course, this was all useless conjecture because Sarah had no idea where she had come from. She had no parents. At least, none that she knew of.

Sarah yearned for nostalgic childhood memories of her parents, but she had none. There were no silver linings, just hollowed-out dreams. She had nothing but elusive fragments of family and belonging, cruel delusions... and a lot of paranoia.

But paranoia usually resulted in unwanted attention from the professionals that littered her past. As a result, Sarah’s emotions were now like glacial icebergs: ninety percent of them remained hidden.

Sarah laid bare her features to the mirror. She told herself the convincing lie that she was looking okay. Okay in her mind meant Goddess to everyone else. Sarah had a knack for understating her own odalisque beauty. She was humble and self-effacing, judging her beauty at a discreet distance.

Sarah blithely disregarded Ray’s constant remonstrations of her intoxicating beauty. Sarah received such comments with an awkwardness that was palpable. She did not want to be lulled into a false sense of security because of Ray’s exaggerated platitudes. Of course, her husband would be biased.

Ray was often frustrated by Sarah’s lamentations. He thought her attitude was a form of emotional self-harm. However, Ray knew that Sarah would not change. She was stubborn in her resoluteness. In fact, she was stubborn about a great many things.

Sarah inspected her reflection and made final adjustments to her make-up. She brushed the long brown hair off her shoulders and straightened the white and gold trim blouse she bought from House of Fraser in a recent sale. Sarah liked the way the gold trim matched the stitching in her black leather-effect trousers. She was time wasting really because she had been ready ten minutes ago.

The sound of Ray’s bad singing carried from the bathroom door a few feet away. He was incongruously joyful. His musical caterwauling would test the patience of a saint, yet his enthusiasm had to be admired. Ray’s singing was the musical equivalent to being encircled by a clan of hungry hyenas.

It was not that Sarah possessed supreme mental fortitude to be able to put up with Ray’s singing; it was more like she had simply become immune to it. She shook her head in amused apathy.

Hey, Elvis Presley? Hurry up, or we’ll be late.

Sarah waited for a response, but there was only more garbled singing. Sarah rolled her eyes.

Sarah’s phone rang. It was the ring-tone she had allocated to Rachel at work (her boss). Sarah was an estate agent, and it was not uncommon for her to be asked to show a property at short notice.

Sarah crouched down to pull her phone from out of her Dolce & Gabbana handbag.

Hello?

Sarah, it’s Rachel.

Hi, Rachel. What’s up?

Oh, nothing much. Just checking my e-mails before I leave the office. Would you be okay to show the Mason house again tomorrow?

Who wants to see it?

It’s that retired couple again.

Sarah’s sense of disappointment was acute, and she frowned. The MacGregors. Sarah felt a twist in her sobriety. It was an occupational hazard to deal with such people – impossible to please and never able to make up their mind.

Sarah’s riposte was full of suffocated anxiety. Oh, come on. This is like the fourth time!

Well it shows that they’re interested, chirped Rachel.

No, they’re time wasters. I already told you that.

Rachel said something that Sarah wasn’t quite able to comprehend, due to the commotion coming from the bathroom.

Sarah pulled a face. She left the mirror, moved a few steps down the hall and strolled into the kitchen. It was a modern galley kitchen with a narrow passage situated between two parallel walls. It had sandstone laminate flooring with beige built-in wall cabinets and matching gray speckled worktops. On the far wall, a single large window overlooked the private parking lot outside.

Once inside, Sarah pushed the door closed, so that she could hear Rachel more clearly.

What was that, Rachel? I didn’t quite catch that.

I said, think of the commission, continued Rachel. It’s an expensive property. It would be great if you could sell it.

Well, I’m not going to sell it to the MacGregors, you mark my words. They’ve already been round with a camera taking hundreds of pictures. They have enough images for their own 3D virtual tour. They don’t need to see it again.

Sarah, come on. Don’t make my life difficult. You’re my best agent. It’s in the diary for ten-thirty. Say you’ll do it. I don’t want to have to give it to Ryan.

Bloody Ryan! He had started at their office just six months ago as a favor to one of Rachel’s friends, and he was already on the verge of being fired. Ryan was Sarah’s subordinate and interminable companion whose every transgression was worse than the last. Ryan was like a rotten seed that kept avoiding the gardener’s squirt of weed killer.

Sarah had tired of feigning civility toward him. His very existence had become as irritating as the scratching of nails on a blackboard, or bugs crawling over her skin or the dying of her phone battery during an important call. As far as Ryan was concerned, Sarah’s patience and sympathy were fast running out.

Estate agents often had famous personal rivalries, yet Sarah refused to think of Ryan as a rival. Rivals compete to do better, whereas Ryan acted like a teenager in a constant sulk, someone for whom life itself was tedious. His face was always twisted into a sneer of contempt. Sarah would very much like to crush him under her stiletto heels.

The author Simon Sinek referred to Ryan’s generation as The Millennials - an entire generation of young people who had grown up being told that they were special by their parents, a whole generation of young people who had got the exam results they wanted, not because they deserved them, but because their parents would have complained if they hadn’t – an entire generation of young people who had been told that it was not the winning, but the taking part that mattered (and were awarded participation medals for coming in last).

Of course, soon after starting work, Ryan had realized that he was not special, his parents could not get him a promotion, and you get nothing for coming in last. Ryan had become disillusioned and lazy.

Giving the MacGregors to Ryan was not in anyone’s best interests. Sarah couldn’t afford to be philanthropic, and she was not going to let Ryan side-track her burgeoning career.

Sarah put a restraining order on her response and skipped on the admonishments. Okay... but I’m only doing half the day tomorrow, Sarah responded.

Is there a problem?

Sarah grabbed her stomach and rubbed it cautiously. I dunno. I don’t feel too good. I think I’m fighting something off.

That would be your husband!

Sarah laughed, Not this time.

In a moment of unconscious distraction, Sarah found herself at the sink and picked up the cups left on the stainless-steel draining rack. She then moved back over to the other side of the kitchen to put the cups away in an overhead cupboard.

Please don’t tell me you’re coming down with the flu, too. There’s enough of that going around.

Sarah felt a scrimmage of perplexity because Rachel’s tone was hard to determine. Was she concerned for Sarah, or was she more concerned about being left with Ryan?

Sarah stopped tidying up and stared through the net curtains at some activity in the car park outside. "Maybe. I’m not quite sure. To be honest, I could