Charlie
an excerpt

Jacob entered reluctantly, after deciding that if he were losing his mind, perhaps a good nerve shock of cold water would wake him up. He placed a hand on each side of the white porcelain sink, and looked into the silver drain. He followed the rivers of rust beginning to set in, the ring around the bowl, and the calcium build up around the faucet. He preoccupied his mind, before turning on the cold water as far as it would go. It made a strange noise for a few seconds, then a brownish water started to come out. Jacob waited patiently until the water went clear.
He took it up in the makeshift cup that was his hands, squeezing them together as tightly as possible so as not to let any drops loose from his fingers. Jacob brought it up towards his face slowly, and at the last moment looked into the mirror.
The water from his hands dropped into the sink in one large glob.
There on his cheek was a bloody handprint. Distorted from destroyed fingers touching his unblemished pale skin. He stared at it in awe for a few seconds, while his heart rapidly took up in pace. And in an split second, his demeanor changed. He drew up some more water in one cupped hand, and brought it to his face swiftly, following the action with furious scrubbing with his fingertips, scratching with his fingernails, and rubbing with his thumb. The blood seemed unfazed. It stayed there stubbornly, like it had a mind of it’s own.
Or as if it were in his head alone.
“It’s not going to come off that way, Doc.” Came a deep, raspy and wheezing voice behind him. His heart froze with terror. He knew that voice. Jacob grabbed the bar of half used soap in hand, wielding it like a dangerous weapon in his minds eye. Slowly, determinedly, he turned around.
Jason Quinn’s dead body sat on the white painted radiator by the window. Jaw connected, and clothed in his stripped prison uniform previously missing in the examination room. He held an unlit cigarette in one hand, crossing the other around his midriff. Jacob raised his bar of soap, meaning to use it as a projectile weapon.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Doc. Put that away.” Jacob did not comply. “Honestly, think about it. I’m an insane man who committed suicide with shards of glass and a stone wall. Your better judgment should be telling you I’m not real.”
Jacob struggled to find his voice. “Y-you can’t be real.”
Jason gave a little laugh. “I know, right? For all you know, I could be an actual ghost. In which case I’d get the opportunity to rattle some chains and go all ghost of Christmas past on you. Or you could be as crazy as the people you take care of here. Then you’d get a stylish uniform, and weekly enemas. Which is it, Jake?”
Jacob lowered his throwing arm a little bit, relenting slightly to the speech. “But you don’t seem insane…” This brought a laugh from the dead man.
“Neither did Hannibal Lector. Don’t worry, I won’t eat your brain. Had plenty of mine for breakfast.” He gave a wheezing laugh at his own joke, which Jacob saw no humour. He shook his head once the laughter had subsided. “What god would torment a man and force him to be insane for the rest of his eternal existence?
“Though I probably deserve it.”
Jacob was confused. Here was the supposed ‘ghost’ of the patient he was supposed to be investigating the death of… And he was rambling as if he were a friend in the cafeteria. “J-Jason?” He asked, his throwing arm down to a mere thirty degrees in coil.
“Hmm?” Was the reply, as the dead man in the stripes examined the radiator below him. His blue eyes, not missing the ring of blood around the iris, shot back up, causing a chill up the man’s spine.
“Why are you here?”
Jason had to think for a few seconds, then he answered.
“I’m not.”
And he was gone. Along with the red stain on Jacob’s cheek.