A New Ghost In Town

A Noble Profession

Kevin and John took it in turns to get out of the truck and tip the bins in the back to be crushed.
Both of them actually liked that job, so to avoid any childish arguments they chose to just take it in turns, one of them on the job each week.

They enjoyed going to this particular house on their rounds, as well. It was huge, and rather famous. About a year ago there was a popular rumour of it being haunted, but that quickly cleared up after the owners of the house staged paranormal activity during a group investigation.

Kevin wasn't really one to believe in ghosts. He'd had a few people pass away in his lifetime, grandparents and one of his close friends, but he hadn't seen them since they went underground. He thought they'd at least pay him a visit if they did still exist beyond the grave.

John believed in them. He swore on his life that he was once pushed into a swimming pool by an invisible force when he was preparing to jump in. Kevin said it was most likely just some stupid kid running past, but John insisted that it wasn't.

Anyway, that day it was Kevin's turn to get the bins. John nodded to him and put his headphones on as he hopped out the door.

Alison and Mike Cooper, the couple who owned the house, had - and with immense difficulty - pushed their two bins round to the front of the house so they would be easier to access. They were like the huge bins you see outside schools or restaurants, so there was a lot to throw in.

Kevin pushed the first bin a little closer to the van, and started heaving out the contents in piles and dropping them inside the truck, the noise of the crusher humming loudly in his ears even through his ear defenders. His thick black gloves were already dirtied by the time the first bin was empty, and as he dragged the second one over to the truck he prepared for worse.

Looking inside, he noticed that there was a whole sofa in the second one.

Great.

As he struggled to lift it out, tipping the bin over in the process and making the contents spill out on the gravel, he sort of wished that it was John's turn that day. He rarely had to lift furniture other than the odd rickety wooden chair, and he always hated it.

For this, he had to step up on the ramp and haul it over into the truck from there. He left it sitting there for a moment when he sighed in relief.

It was when he tried to step back off the ramp to push the sofa in that he realised he had somehow got the sleeve of his jacket stuck on one of the arms.

He took his ear defenders off and put them around his neck with his free arm, exhaling deeply.

"Crap," he said under his breath, but he chose not to panic about it too much. It wasn't like the sofa was slowly gliding down toward the crusher. Whether he could pry himself free or not, nothing bad should happen.

Besides, John would notice that he couldn't see him out the window soon enough.

He leant down a little and tried to pull his arm away, his other hand gripping the sofa tightly. No matter how hard he pulled, the fabric wouldn't budge.

Just as he decided to pull off his jacket with his free hand, his sleeve ripped and he was free.

But only for a moment.

In the shock of the sudden pull away from the sofa, he lost balance and tripped onto his back, hitting the arm of the sofa on the way down of his fall into the truck. He wanted to move away, but his body just decided this would be the perfect time to stay paralysed with fear. He felt like he can do nothing but watch the rubbish being crushed ahead of him, his breathing rushed.

"John," he choked out as loud as he possibly could. "John!"

The crusher sank into his leg like teeth.

---

*cue Ghosts theme*

---

"It's a noble profession," Pat commented, looking out of the window.

All the other ghosts surrounded him, having nothing better to do than to simply stare out into the front garden at the truck parked in motion by the gate.

Robin loved it when this truck visited. He saw the day the bins were collected as a holiday, close in his heart much like his Moonah Ston ritual. He didn't know the names of the two men that came round and poured Alison and Mike's rubbish into their truck, but he thought of them as his best friends. It was like when the builders visited to fix up the house when the couple first moved in. He never did see them again.

"What?" the Captain replied, his eyebrows furrowing as he switched his gaze to Pat.

"I said it's a noble profession," Pat repeated.

"How so?"

"Well," he said, shrugging. "Who would do it if they didn't do it, y'know? Cities all over would just be piled up with rubbish if they didn't take their own time just to clean it all up for us. I know they're getting paid for it and all that, but still. Not everyone would wake up and go out to do something like this. It's-"

"Do you know somebody who's a bin man, by any chance?"

"My father was," he replied immediately.

"Thought as much."

"It is a brave thing to do, though," he insisted. "I mean, they're cleaning up the whole world if you really think about it, and- ohhhhh no."

With this exclamation he dragged on the two syllables for a few seconds, and when everybody saw why his sentence suddenly stopped, a few more oh nos and oh dears were shared throughout the group. In fact, Mary was so distressed when she saw why Pat stopped that all she could say as the ghosts hurried outside was "oh dear" hundreds of times over.

As they ran past Alison, who was drinking a coffee while wandering around in the library, she stopped and turned to look at them all, quickly gulping her drink down before speaking to save a lecture from Fanny (and also to save a large spill down her clean shirt).

"What's going on?" she asked them.

"The bin man outside has been crushed!" Kitty shrieked.

"Wait, what?!"

"Come on!" Kitty called back to her, following everyone ahead.

---

John, upon hearing his friend's screams, jumped out of the truck and ran to help.

He quickly pulled him free of the crusher before it could do him further damage, and dragged him down onto the gravel. Thick blood streamed from his right leg, which was basically hanging onto him by a thread, onto the ground. Kevin knew he was losing too much blood too quickly, and if he didn't get to a hospital soon he'd be a goner.

"I'll get someone inside to call an ambulance," John said hurriedly, and he took off towards the front door of the house, running faster than Kevin had ever seen him go.

When he reached the door and knocked, Alison opened it immediately with a panicked look that mirrored his plastered on her face.

"I heard- I saw what happened. I'll call 999," she told him quickly. "Stay with him, don't let him fall asleep."

As she said this, the ghosts ran through the door past Alison and John, a couple of them accidentally running right through them and then gagging as they pressed on.

"Tenner says he's dead," Julian muttered.

Robin smiled. "You're on."

"Oh, grow up, you two," Alison snapped, turning back inside the house.

John was so panicked that he didn't realise how weird what she just said was.

Kevin stayed waiting on the path, not aware that he was being watched by seven ghosts and the body of an eighth.