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Sammy Stevens is tall, much taller than Ben is. And the ghost that follows him around has a couple inches on him, so Ben is mildly intimidated. But then Sammy trips over the threshold and spills cold coffee on his own chucks, which negates any fear Ben might have had.
“We’re about to go on the air,” Ben says, a little haughty, because everyone knows you should always be early to your first day—or night, rather—on the job. To his credit, Sammy does look ashamed and wastes no time heading to the recording studio, tossing his stuff on an empty chair and sitting down.
“Sammy Stevens,” he says, as if Ben doesn’t know his name.
“Ben Arnold,” Ben replies anyway, and shakes his hand. “You must be the new personality.”
“Yeah, I spoke to, uh, Merv?” Sammy says. “I’ve been emailing him about the position. Are you the producer?”
“That’s me,” Ben says. “And we’re live in about two minutes, assuming Chet doesn’t just keep the Jazz Corner going, so we should probably get ready.”
“Yeah, of course,” Sammy says easily. “It’s nice to meet you, by the way.”
“You too,” Ben says, mostly genuine. The ghost trailing behind Sammy settles as he does. It doesn’t look like most Ben has seen, but they’re all unique in their own way, so he doesn’t think too much of it.
Ben slips on his headphones and hears Chet sign off just in time to transfer the audio and hit play on the new King Falls AM theme music. Sammy starts talking and Ben knows immediately that he’s good for the job. Cool, collected voice, easy-going, friendly.
He doesn’t believe in ghosts, which Ben finds funny. He looks at Sammy’s ghost and it cocks its head at him. Which is also funny, but funny weird, because usually ghosts don’t look back.
Tim Jensen gets abducted by aliens about five minutes later though, so Ben has bigger issues to deal with.
The first ghost Ben saw was his mother’s. It was a tall man, far taller than her, and it stalked more than floated. However, it stayed constant at her side. His mom leaned into it sometimes, unconsciously. Ben tried to touch it once and obviously, his hand passed right through it, but he became very cold.
He asked her about it. He was young, maybe seven, and she sat him down and told him about his father. His father, who left when he was even younger. A bad man.
Ben told her that he could see him. That some days, he was behind her every step, hovering. Betty Arnold, a very sensible woman, told him that her ex-husband was very much alive, and therefore had no way of becoming a spirit.
This made sense to Ben. He let it drop. But he kept seeing the ghost.
The King Falls spirits prefer to be called apparitions, but these are something else entirely. Everyone older than twenty has at least one. Most have two or three. Mrs. MacDonald on Third Street has five—Ben is pretty sure she has one for each of her sisters. Some people’s ghosts are alive, some are dead.
Ben has two, he knows, but one is infrequent and the other doesn’t really matter. His first ghost is his mother. She comes and goes depending on when he saw her last. Sometimes when he needs it, she wraps her arms around him. It’s cold. It’s comforting.
The second, a laughing young girl, is dead. He hasn’t been her for years.
She’s been showing up less and less, lately.
Miss Potter, the new librarian, has ghosts. A small boy peeking around her skirt, faint. An older woman carrying what is presumably a ball of yarn, fainter.
Miss Potter is young, his age, and she’s carrying a stack of books Ben knows she won’t need for a radio interview. Miss Potter—Emily— meets his eyes—brown on brown—and smiles.
Right on cue, Ben feels more than sees a new ghost behind him. It is taller than him, with round-rimmed glasses. Right on cue, Ben sees more than feels a new ghost behind Emily. It is shorter than her, with brown curls.
It’s love at first sight.
(If Ben had looked to his left at Sammy Stevens, he would have seen a ghost leaning over his shoulder, curling into him like he’s a second skin. He would have seen Sammy lean into it in turn without even thinking about it.
He would have seen Sammy think about it and stiffen and sit up straight. He would have seen the ghost almost sadly settle next to him a foot away.)
“Mary,” Sammy says, “I’m so sorry about Tim.”
“Oh, it isn’t your fault, boys,” Mary says kindly, and opens her door wider to let him and Ben inside. “I know you are working hard to try and find him, too. It was mighty good of you to go hunting down that body at the Lake last week.”
“It was the least we could do,” Ben says. He means it. Mary’s husband went missing while they were on the air. He sees Tim hovering next to Mary, his shoulder brushing hers. Mary shrugs her shoulders as if she can tell something was there.
Right on cue, little Bella comes running down the stairs like there’s a fire on her heels—and maybe there is, because Tim Jr. comes running after her. She stares up at them with those big eyes of hers, the ones she definitely got from Mary. “Who are you,” she says accusingly to Sammy.
Ben snorts. Mary chides, “Bella!”
“I’m Sammy,” Sammy says. “Sammy Stevens. I just moved here a couple weeks ago.”
“Are you on the radio?” TJ asks suspiciously.
“I am,” Sammy replies.
“With me,” Ben adds.
“Can you show me the radio?” Bella asks.
Sammy looks at Ben. Ben shrugs. “I don’t see why not,” Sammy tells her.
“Oh, don’t listen to them,” Mary starts, but the kids are already laughing and running back upstairs, presumably to find shoes. “You don’t have to take them anywhere, they’re just excitable. You know how kids are.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Ben says. “Nothing wrong with taking them up to the station, as long as you’re okay with it. Help them keep their minds off… you know.”
Mary sighs. Looks away. Her ghost puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s been hard,” she says, as if admitting defeat. “If you wouldn’t mind- well, it would be good for them to get out of the house.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Jensen,” Sammy says. Ben looks at him curiously. Sammy’s ghost is bright, standing behind him. “I know- I can imagine it’s hard, doing it all on your own. But you have a community here, and while I may be new in town, I’d like to support you.”
Mary smiles wearily. Ben’s known Mary for years. She’s ten years older than him and a King Falls native which means she babysat him at least once when he was a kid. She’s one of the strongest people he knows.
Bella and TJ come thundering down the stairs again, dressed and shoes velcroed. “Can we go now?” TJ asks.
“Are you two going to behave?” Mary asks, all traces of weariness gone. Her ghost flits to the children, gesturing as if to fix their ruffled shorts or lopsided collars.
“Yes, mom,” they say in unison.
“To Sammy’s car!” Ben declares, and they both laugh and follow him, piling into the backseat. Sammy follows them. Sammy’s ghost lingers for a moment, looking at the house. Looking in the window at Mary.
Ben has been building his mini King Falls out of cereal boxes and toilet paper rolls for years now, updating buildings as renovations happen and measuring out the scale. He does it when he can’t sleep, which is often, or when he needs to be doing something with his hands, which is even more so.
His ghost, the tall one with the round-rimmed glasses, has been watching him lately. Or maybe he’s been watching it. Deciding what to do.
Of course, Emily Potter can’t see ghosts. She doesn’t know. But Ben does. And Ben— well, something about her fits with him. Like he can relax after he talks to her. He thinks it’ll be love, eventually. The second he met her he knew it would be love. Something in him carved out a space in his heart for her, let her follow him around during the day.
In the King Falls Public Library, he’s following her around too. It could be love. It will be love. Eventually.
One morning he’s polishing up the miniature library and he decides to call her. She answers after two rings with a bright “King Falls Public Library, how can I help you!”
“Hi, Emily,” Ben says. “It’s, uh, it’s Ben? Ben Arnold, you know, from King Falls AM?”
“Oh!” she says. “Oh, hi! I thought- well, with your work schedule, shouldn’t you be sleeping right now?”
Ben smiles. “Probably,” he says. “But I was wondering if you, I don’t know, need an extra set of hands at the library this afternoon? I’m great with the Dewey Decimal system.”
Emily laughs. “That would be great, actually,” she says. “But get some sleep first!”
“Alright,” he says. “Can I come by around three?”
“I’ll see you then,” she says, and he can hear her smile.
“See you then,” he echoes, and hangs up.
Something in him settles. The ghost across from him dims.
The thing about Sammy is that he talks a lot but doesn’t say much.
Ben notices it more and more as he gets to know the guy. He’s funny, and kind, but Ben doesn’t really know much about him at all. He moved from LA where he was a host on Shotgun Saturday Nights. No family came with him. He likes Indiana Jones and Lost. He’s thirty.
Sammy has one ghost who’s always with him, the tall man with short curls. Another one comes and goes, a shorter woman with locs and maybe a nose ring. If you look at them closely, the two look oddly similar. Not that you can see real features, but.
There’s something about the one ghost, though. Something that just… isn’t right, maybe. Ben doesn’t know what to make of it. And he doesn’t pry as a rule. When he can see something about people’s hearts, he doesn’t want to violate their privacy any further.
Also, he’s too embarrassed to say, “Hey Sammy, someone you clearly care about looks weird to me. What’s up with him?”
But beyond the weird ghost and the other normal one, Ben still doesn’t know much about him. Doesn’t know what Shotgun Saturday Nights were like, beyond that it was somewhat inappropriate. Doesn’t know where he went to college, despite Sammy coming to Ben’s graduation a week after they met. Doesn’t know his middle name. Doesn’t know his hometown.
Sammy has his secrets, and he has his ghosts. Ben lets him have them. He’ll talk about them soon enough, he thinks.
Emily disappears, is the thing, and she’s taken by the same lights which took Tim Jensen. Sammy looks at Ben and he looks so, so sad. The ghost is bright behind him. The ghost is smiling. Ben wants to punch it in the jaw. Ben wants to punch Sammy, too, and Mayor Grisham, and Mary, and his mom, and himself, for good measure.
He’s going to get Emily back, is the thing, because he can’t live with her ghost following him around for the rest of his life when she isn’t really there. He won’t. Ben won’t be Sammy, with a ghost behind him at all times to keep him company. Ben is going to get her back.
Except Emily’s ghost is being weird too, is the thing. Like the one trailing Sammy. She’s looking at him, sometimes. It’s getting worse.
Ben is going to get her back. And he’s going to ask Sammy about his ghost, too.
After the tree-lighting ceremony, Sammy looks at Ben really strangely.
Emily comes back and she doesn’t have his ghost anymore. She doesn’t have any ghosts, not the old woman or the little boy. “Who are you?” she asks. Ben doesn’t answer, just calls an ambulance and lets her go.
That night he goes home to his apartment. He sits very quietly in his living room. Emily sits on the couch beside him, brighter than the fluorescents shining into the room from the kitchen.
She puts a hand on his knee. Ben knows she isn’t there, not really. And the ghost isn’t behaving like it did before. But it’s still comforting.
Sammy says, “Dude, you need to shower,” and guides him to the bathroom. Ben doesn’t know when Sammy got there. How he got in. He can’t bring himself to care, because Sammy’s seen him at his best, and he’s earned the right to see him at his worst.
Ben struggles to get his shirt off because his hands and shaking and buttons aren’t easy on good days. Sammy undoes them for him. Grabs a towel. Leaves clean, comfortable clothes on the sink for him when he’s done.
When he comes back into the kitchen Sammy has a plate. He says, “Here, you’ve got jack shit in your cupboards but I threw together some mac-n-cheese.” It’s delicious. Ben feels like he hasn’t eaten in days. Sammy has some too, sits with him and talks about nothing and everything.
Ben doesn’t have a brother but he thinks this must be what it’s like. To have someone to take care of you when you’re sick, or sad.
In the living room, Emily is still sitting on the couch. Sammy’s ghost is with her. And also—if Ben looks carefully—
There’s a facsimile of himself sitting at the dining room table, in a chair beside a facsimile of Sammy.
Huh, he thinks.
People keep going missing and turning up in Perdition Wood. Every time, Sammy takes a vested interest in the story. Every time, his ghost glows a little brighter.
Lily Wright pays for an ad. Ben is flabbergasted. He accepts immediately, to Sammy’s unwarranted chagrin.
Lily Wright calls for an interview and Sammy drops the call. Steps outside when she calls back.
Lily Wright is a phenomenal journalist, Ben knows. She’s hard and mean and cool and he wants to be her, a little. He wants his own podcast named after himself. He wants to be world-renowned. He wants to be famous.
He’s never seen her in person before, but something about her is familiar, he thinks. She’s beautiful, all dark eyes and smirk. And then he sees Sammy and Lily in the same room and he sees— well.
Well, Sammy’s ghost—not that one, the other one—alters a little. Loses the locs and gains a sharp shoulder-length cut. The face fills in a little. And Lily, well. Ben hadn’t seen any ghosts at first, but he thinks he might see one, faint, defined by the edges. Tall, lanky, hair piled in a bun.
Ben looks back and forth, and back, and forth. Sits quietly while Lily is supposed to be interviewing them.
“You paying attention, short stack?” Lily asks shortly, raising an eyebrow. She says to Sammy, “I thought he was the one in charge here, but he can’t take his eyes off me.”
“Don’t worry,” Sammy says, “He only has eyes for one woman, and she would never run a podcast.” But he looks confused too, raising an eyebrow at Ben.
Lily and Sammy snap at each other for another five minutes. And it’s like they know each other. Like they’ve known each other for years.
Lily says snidely, “If you’re finished with your little fit, please allow me to retort.” Sammy shoots back, “Nothing if not professional.”
“One of us has to be!” Lily says, and Ben knows they know each other. That they’ve known each other for years.
Later, Ben says proudly, “I’m his producer and cohost.” And Lily, for the first time, appears to break character. Her perfectly calm expression drops. Her mouth falls open.
“What? Really?” she asks, looking closer at Ben. And Ben notices the ghost between her and Sammy. Is it hers or his? Or- oh.
“Yes, really.” Sammy sighs. “Look, we’ve obviously started out on the wrong foot and-”
“What?” Ben says to Lily, cutting him off. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Why do you and Sammy have the same ghost?
Carefully, Lily says, “It’s just you... you remind me of someone.”
The ghost sitting between her and Sammy, the tall one with curls, smiles.
Lily stays in town and Ben tells himself not to research. He’s the lore guy, the smart guy, but he won’t . He could have back when Emily was missing. He could have when he first met Sammy. He won’t now. He respects Sammy’s privacy.
And Emily comes to the station. Which makes things better. And if he looks closely, he sees a hint of a person trailing behind her with the old woman and the little boy. He hopes.
And then Emily punches Greg Frickard in the jaw and he hopes even more.
The Lily thing spirals. Sammy breaks the radio station.
Ben thinks, oh. Oh, that’s who it is. Jack Wright.
Six days after, Ben gets tired of running KFAM alone. He drives to Sammy’s apartment. He’s never been inside, but he’s dropped Sammy off and waited to make sure he got in the door enough times that he knows which apartment is his.
He knocks on the door. Sammy doesn’t answer, the same way he hasn’t been answering his phone. Ben’s ghost, the one who looks like Sammy, gestures to a potted plant by the door.
Ben grabs the spare key and lets himself in.
The apartment is—empty. A couch and a television and a table in the dining room but. No life. No light streaming in from the windows.
Ben finds Sammy in his room, lying on top of a red comforter. His ghost—Jack—is sitting on the edge of the bed. He waves at Ben.
“Sammy,” Ben says.
“Hey, Ben,” Sammy says.
“You should really hide your spare key in a better place,” Ben tells him. Sammy doesn’t react. “Dude, I broke into your house.”
Sammy asks, “Do you need something?”
Ben scoffs. “My best friend, dude,” he says. “That’s what I need. I can’t keep running the show without you. And I don’t want to, either. I miss you.”
“Lily called,” Sammy says. “Told me she sure as hell heard me on the air and is pissed I never told her about… everything. Which is bullshit because I did tell her, and she didn’t believe me.”
“C’mon, Sam,” Ben says. “Let’s go sit. Chill in the living room.”
“Sammy,” he corrects. Doesn’t move.
That’s the thing about them, Ben thinks. Sammy pushes him, calls him Benny and teases him. Ben thinks it’s funny, more like a bit than anything else, but he never returns the favor. He never calls Sammy Sam . He only teases what he knows is safe.
And of course Sammy knew about Emily being gone. He helped Ben fight back and get her. He helped support Mary while Tim was gone, helped watch the kids and keep her stable. Sammy is always pushing others to be more and no one knew he needed it just as much as they did.
“Sammy.” Ben says. “We’re going to go sit at your dining room table. We are going to watch The X-Files until I see you crack a smile. And I’m going to make us some fucking hot chocolate.”
When Sammy doesn’t stir, Ben grabs him by the arm and tries to literally drag him out of the bed. It doesn’t work, but it makes Sammy annoyed enough that he gets up himself, glaring.
“Leave me alone,” Sammy snaps. “You broke into my house and now you’re dragging me around? Jesus, Ben, could you be a worse friend?”
Ben shuts his eyes. Remembers the ghost following Sammy around. Remembers how he was when Emily disappeared.
“Not gonna work,” Ben says. “C’mon, Sam.”
“Don’t call me that,” Sammy says shortly.
Ben looks at the ghost on the edge of the bed, who seems to be unruffled despite the chaos. “You’re not gonna push me away,” Ben says. “You know what? Fine. We’ll watch Lost instead. I know you like it better than X-Files.”
Sammy still looks pissed. But he also just looks sad. And really gross, if Ben is being honest, but he’s a good friend so he doesn’t say anything.
They go sit down in the dining room. Ben makes some hot chocolate. He puts the Lost season two disc in the DVD player because the first episode is Sammy’s favorite. The opening beeps make Ben smile.
After the episode Sammy gets up and mumbles something about taking a shower. Which is probably for the best. While he’s gone, Ben puts clothes he sees lying around on Sammy’s floor in the wash. He cleans dishes in the sink. He’s not typically one for cleanliness, but he knows Sammy is.
When he hears the water stop he tosses a blanket in the dryer for a couple minutes so it’ll be warm when Sammy comes back. Then he laughs to himself about Sammy coming out.
Sammy comes back with clean clothes and combed hair. Ben gives him the warm blanket. “Next episode?” he asks.
Sammy says, “Sure.”
Ten minutes in, Ben says, “Holy shit.”
“What?”
“I know why you were so confused about Ron calling you homophobic when you first met.”
For a second, Sammy just stares at him. But then he smiles a little. And Ben laughs out loud.
“I thought you must have been some liberal who didn’t want to be accused of homophobia,” Ben says, giggling, “but you’re just gay!”
“I think Ron clocked me the second he saw me freak out about it,” Sammy replies. Ben laughs louder. Sammy smiles a little more.
Another ten minutes later, Sawyer is shirtless on screen. Ben asks if Sammy thinks he’s hot. Sammy says that it’s Josh Holloway, he’d think he was hot even if he was straight.
They talk. Not about anything of substance, but they talk.
But Sammy’s ghost is still bright in the station when he comes back. Brighter when Sammy starts wearing the ring. And Sammy isn’t looking any happier.
The Ben Arnold show runs for one night. It doesn’t continue.
“I see ghosts,” Ben tells Sammy.
Sammy stirs from where he’s sitting on the couch. Looks up at Ben. His hands are covered in dirt and there’s blood under his fingernails. “Frankly, I was expecting a Ben Arnold pep talk,” he says.
“I’ve got one scheduled for later,” Ben replies.
When Ben had picked him up from the side of the road, Sammy’s ghosts weren’t there at all. It felt like seeing Emily after the crash. Just a person, dirty and shaking.
Ben took Sammy to his apartment to get his stuff. Had Emily go to his own place and take all the knives and razors.
“I noticed it when I was little,” Ben says. “My dad— he left my mom and I. You know that. But I would see this thing following my mom around that looked just like him.”
“But he didn’t die,” Sammy says. His voice is still hoarse, like he hasn’t used it since the show.
“No,” Ben says. “As far as I’m aware, he’s still alive. Wherever he is now.”
“So.”
“I see ghosts,” Ben says. “I see them following everyone. I don’t know why. I don’t know who they are, usually. But I see them.”
“I thought they preferred apparitions,” Sammy says, and Ben’s so glad he’s making jokes that he laughs.
“These aren’t apparitions, I don’t think,” he says. “They’re more like… part of someone.”
Sammy asks, “Who are yours? Do you have them?”
Ben nods. “Mom,” he says. “Me, when I was younger. Before I, you know.”
Sammy raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know?”
“Before I transitioned, Sammy,” Ben says dryly.
“You what?” Sammy asks. And then his eyes widen. “Oh, my God. You- you’re-”
Ben takes a deep breath. Meets Sammy’s eyes.
He snickers. Then he laughs. Then he laughs harder. And then Sammy starts laughing, too, which just makes Ben laugh even harder.
“I thought you knew!” he gasps out. “I wasn’t hiding it!”
“How would I have known?!” Sammy replies.
“I was gone for two weeks after I got top surgery!” Ben exclaims. “I literally told you!”
“I didn’t want to assume!” Sammy says, and Ben starts laughing all over again.
Eventually they catch their breaths. Calm down. Ben doesn’t know how he’s laughing on a night like tonight, when his best friend tried to kill himself, but God, if it means Sammy starts to feel a little better. Ben doesn’t know what else to do. He isn’t an expert in suicide watch.
“So your ghosts,” Sammy says. “Your mom and yourself.”
“And Emily,” Ben admits, and Sammy smiles again, like he’s proud. “And you.”
“Oh,” Sammy says.
“You’re my best friend, dude,” Ben says. “I kinda— I think of you like my brother. I love you.”
Sammy’s bright smile fades and a more real, small one replaces it. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. You know that I- you know, right?”
“I do,” Ben says, because Sammy looks like it pains him to say anything real. “I can- well, I can see it. Myself. As one of your ghosts.”
Sammy nods, stiltedly. “And… my other ghosts?”
“Lily,” Ben tells him, “and Jack. But I didn’t know- I didn’t know it was Lily until I met her in person. And I didn’t know it was him until the night at the radio station. But he looks just like her. His ghost, at least.”
“Identical twins,” Sammy says. “Can you see- what can you see? How do you know who the ghosts are?”
Ben glances at Jack, who’s sitting nicely at the table with Lily. “He really looks like Lily,” Ben says. “He’s tall. Curly hair on the top. He smiles a lot. The feature are… blurry, I guess, but I can see other stuff.” He thinks. “Wait, I thought girl-boy twins couldn’t be identical.”
“Jack is— was— like you, Ben,” Sammy says, with a dry smile. “And he was my producer and cohost on Shotgun Saturday Nights.”
“Oh,” Ben says. He thinks about Lily staring at him the first time they met.
“I’m sorry,” Sammy says. “I should have told you.”
“Dude,” Ben says. “It’s okay.”
He stands Sammy up and takes him to his kitchen. Turns the tap on hot and leaves Sammy with a box of band-aids and peroxide. He goes to grab some clean clothes from Sammy’s suitcase and comes back to find Sammy still standing there, staring at the running.
Ben puts his hands under the water and washes them, like he did with paintbrushes in elementary school art class. Rubs off the dirt and grime and dried blood. Puts band-aids and peroxide on the cuts. Sammy needs to shower, but that’s a task for tomorrow. Tonight, Ben hands him pajamas and offers his bed.
Of course, Sammy won’t take the bed, so Ben warms up a blanket and fluffs up pillows on the couch. And then he curls up in the armchair in the living room and puts the TV on, scrolling through channels.
“Aren’t you going to bed?” Sammy asks quietly.
Ben looks around the apartment. Looks at the ghosts. Jack is sitting on the floor, propped against the couch. He reaches and puts his hand on Sammy’s hand. Sammy doesn’t notice.
Ben doesn’t tell Sammy that Jack’s ghost is weird . He doesn’t tell Sammy that he’s already started researching the Void. He doesn’t tell Sammy that he wants to be asleep in his own bed but that he doesn’t trust him to stay and not do something stupid. He doesn’t tell Sammy that he would do anything though, if it meant keeping his best friend safe.
“I’m not tired yet,” Ben tells him. “You know how messed up our sleep schedules are.”
They’ll go one step at a time.