Part One (633 KB) - Whoa is (Not)

which weren’t good ones. And even though his name had been cleared regarding the series of serial
killings that had gone on two years before, he still attracted occasional hostile stares.
But over here, he could start again. Here he was just known as the weird-new-guy-from-America, which
he figured was better than being known as the weird-guy-who-thinks-he-can-see-dead-people-andkilled-his-girlfriend-when-his-half-built-house-fell-on-her.
Frank had come determined to act as normal as possible whenever he ventured out into the public eye.
To be honest, a haunted house wasn’t the best choice of residence for someone hoping to make a
decent first impression, but it was cheap and that was what mattered.
The house was well worth it. Enormous, fully furnished, cheap, with its two friendly resident ghosts, and
not to mention the tidy little packet of money he could make by selling bits of unwanted furniture off on
eBay. And there was a lot of unwanted furniture around. There were also a lot of unwanted rooms
around, which could be rented out…
If that wasn’t a good deal, Frank didn’t know what was. Besides, he didn’t think too favourably on the
idea of splurging what little was left of his unexpected inheritance on a house with a better reputation.
He had known poverty for the past few years; through it he had learnt to be thrifty, and sudden riches
weren’t going to change that.
Almost a year ago, some obscure relative of his had passed away and left him quite a substantial
amount of cash – way more than the little he might manage to earn in several good years. Maybe it had
been a downright foolish idea to spend the bulk of it migrating to New Zealand, but he had wanted so
much to get away from it all.
The moving van guys weren’t all too keen to stay any longer than necessary. They’d heard the rumours
about this place. Fortunately for them, there wasn’t much to move into the house: mostly boxes of
personal belongings and the odd piece of favourite furniture. Frank paid them, and they drove off
thankfully.
Frank watched them go, giving them a small farewell wave that went unacknowledged. The wind blew
through the trees in his new garden, rustling up the leaves and causing several to drop off in annoyance.
Whistling, Frank strolled through the main door of his house, used a leg to kick the door shut, and gazed
causally at the boxes of stuff lying around the entrance hall. To his right lay the open kitchen; an
archway lay on his left with rooms beyond; before him the hall went on a while before leading up a
staircase. Down this staircase now floated a semi-transparent dead man, glowing with blue ectoplasm.
“Hi,” Frank greeted. “Are you Bob or Eddie”
“Bob Alkies,” the ghost replied. “Eddie’s the psycho with the sofa, remember”
“Oh, yeah.”
Frank had loved the opportunity that the movie The Sixth Sense had given him. Now, he could truthfully
inform people that he could see dead people, but instead of freaking out like they used to, most just
laughed and assumed he was joking. Which was just fine with him.
From above floated down strains of Eddie’s voice.
“Sofa… my sofa… my precious, oh my sofa, yes my sofa, ohhh… sofa… sofa…” There was a
contented sigh as Eddie spread himself out on his blue Chesterfield sitting appliance.
“You’ll get used to it after a while,” Bob assured Frank.
Bob Alkies couldn’t have been more than twenty-five when he’d died. He was a fairly skinny fellow,
slightly taller than Frank (most people were), with tousled fair hair and an almost perpetual spaced-out
look on his face. Now he sat down on the bottom stair, sunk through it, and stayed there.
The doorbell rang.
“Freddy,” Bob said in response to Frank’s unanswered question.
“Who” Frank opened the door to catch a brief glimpse of a ghost in pizza delivery uniform leaving
through the outer brick wall. On the doorstep lay a box of piping hot pizza.