My father always told me that the art of sales was to find out what people want, and then sell them what they need.
His customers may have stayed loyal, but he never could afford the car he always talked about and never did get to see the world. He died in the same modest house in which he’d been born. Truth was, he was just too damned nice to make a killing.
Me? I’m an entirely different kettle of fish.
#
I hadn’t planned to stop in Denton. Didn’t even know its name. But some crazy fool stepped out right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, already feeling sick from the thud that never came. I was still sat there, trying to work out what had just happened, when there was a rap at my window.
A duffer in a tweed cap, a shirt with too much collar, and an old-fashioned walking cane. For a moment I was relieved, but it was a different old coot to the one I’d almost run over. I lowered the window.
‘You alright there, fella?’ he asked. ‘Only, you’re kinda blocking the street?’
I glanced in the mirror, clocked his station wagon: also decades out of date, but well looked after. I hadn’t seen or heard it pull up.
‘I thought I’d hit someone…’ I muttered, shaking my head.
He peered along the empty street, brown and yellow leaves the only things moving. ‘Might have been a dust devil.’
I stared at him, mouth agape. ‘A what?’
‘A mini vortex, picking up leaves and litter, making them look like a person.’
‘I guess…’
‘Why don’t you park up?’ he suggested. ‘Diner just across the way. Take a moment to settle your nerves?’
I thanked him and drove the half-dozen slow yards, leaving the echo of my tires behind. As I entered the diner, just shy of noon, I had the sensation the joint was surprisingly busy. The feeling you get when you walk into a locals’ bar; heads turning and conversation pausing to size up the interloper. But when I looked around, my eyes adjusting from the hazy sunshine outside, there was no-one except the retirement aged, grey-haired waitress, wiping glasses steaming from the washer.
‘What can I get you?’ she asked, dropping the cloth to the counter.
I rubbed my jaw, feeling stubble, feeling adrift. ‘Guess it’s too early for whisky. Coffee, black, please.’
‘Comin’ right up. Though it’s never too early when you see your first ghost.’ There was a ripple of amusement from the empty tables and booths around me, from the customers who definitely weren’t there. ‘You’ve not been to Denton before?’
‘Well, no,’ I admitted.
‘Most folk avoid it, and us. Drive miles out of their way. We haven’t had a proper visitor in months. Been wondering how long I can keep this place open.’ She put a mug of coffee in front of me. ‘Welcome to the most haunted town in America.’
‘That so?’ I croaked, cradling the cup in my hands, the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention. ‘Not… dust devils?’
The waitress frowned. ‘Some people don’t like to admit it, but it seems the Denton dead refuse to move on. Like George; a perennial jaywalker even when he was alive.’
I stared at her, but she just nodded. ‘I heard the screech, saw how pale you were. So yes, they linger, maybe following the example of all the others. Gets quite crowded, at times.’ She waved a liver-spotted hand around the diner. ‘Most of my tables are taken, many times over, and no-one wants to share a seat with a ghost. Even though most people can’t see the ghosts, they sure can feel them, and that’s enough to run them right back out of town.’
On the street, the sun dipped behind a cloud, and as the light in the diner dimmed I glimpsed them out of the corner of my eye. Not only filling the tables and booths; a half-dozen phantom waitresses hovered around my table, and beyond the serving counter. I began to understand the strange route this live one had taken, manoeuvring around things that weren’t there. Or were, but weren’t visible, to me.
‘I’d have thought the place would be heaving,’ I said, a bead of perspiration trickling down my neck. ‘Tourists, and reporters, and… paranormal investigators?’
She barked a laugh. ‘Would be, if we just said we were the most haunted. But being it, that’s somewhat more disturbing. Even at Halloween. The ghosts are too cantankerous to play along. Too damned other for it to be any fun. Town’s dyin’ as a result, just us old folk left, waiting our turn to join the unquiet dead.’
‘You know,’ I mused, ‘I have something in my car that might rid you of your ghosts. For the right price?’
#
It took four hours of negotiation, during which I picked uneasily at a burger and fries and drank far too much coffee. At times I was alone, at others yet another of the town’s worthies–tradesmen, sheriff, even the mayor–would pop by to grill me. They were all there at the end, when the deal was finally struck. And then I bid farewell to Denton, making a mental note to never return.
The art of sales is to find out what people want, and then sell them what you have. And all I had when I rolled into that ghost town was an empty car with suspect brakes.
As I backed out of the diner’s parking slot, I met the legion of solemn grey eyes in the rear-view, nodded at the three spectral sheriffs and two mayors who had called shotgun on the passenger seat. At least none of them wanted to drive.
‘Well, then,’ I said, polite as could be, ‘Where do you folks want to go first?’
Liam Hogan is an award-winning short story writer, with stories in Best of British Science Fiction and in Best of British Fantasy (NewCon Press). He’s been published by Analog, Daily Science Fiction, and Flame Tree Press, among others. He helps host Liars’ League London, volunteers at the creative writing charity Ministry of Stories, and lives and avoids work in London. Find Liam at @LiamJHogan and happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk
Photo by Hans Vivek on Unsplash.
