Leaving, he let out another long sigh.
The rain had stopped, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. He crossed the road and climbed into his car. Glancing over at his house, he thought about how different it seemed to him now, as if the house belonged to someone else. Not the exciting first-owned home of five months ago, or the place where their children might play and grow up. Now it was a darkened place of terror where the dead dwelled.
He hated it now with all his heart.
He pulled off and headed into town to use the library computer, hopeful of finding out once and for all if Christina Long actually existed.
He stared ahead at the damp, glistening road. Someone must know something. Anything. A clue. Something to put me on the right track.
And he couldn’t think of a better place to find out the truth.
Sitting at the library computer, Richard began to surf the Internet. Despite everything that had happened, his first thought was to check his e-mails. No. Got to stay focused on this. Can’t get distracted. I’ve got too much to do.
He typed the name “Christina Long” into the search engine and waited. Thousands of results filled the screen. Sifting through the first few pages he discovered only businesses, government workers, and various other organizations with the name Christina Long attached. So he broadened his search. Next to her name he added the word “Bristol” on the search engine. The thousands of results became less, but still high in the hundreds. Scrolling down the page, he saw the name attached to a small cleaning company. He clicked the link and entered a website. Clicking on the title he saw “about us”, a picture of a Christian Long beside a profile came up. He clicked the photo to enlarge it. Leaning in close to inspect, he quickly moved away when he saw that the woman looked nothing like his ghost. Deflated, he returned to his search results and tried again.
His next attempt was to find out whether or not a Christina Long had in fact died. He entered the words “Bristol deaths,” and a variety of sites popped up, each with details on how to order death certificates. He typed her name into the site’s search bar and waited; he got no results. The same happened with the other sites. Frustrated, he entered the words “missing persons Bristol.” Various newspaper sites filled the screen, none with the name Christina Long included. A few sites were dedicated to missing persons, but yet again, none with her name listed in their databases.
Still sure that the name was of importance, he contemplated the fact that the Internet would not be able to show every death or missing person. Perhaps the woman had no loved ones to report her disappearance. And what if her body had not yet been found? What if her message was just to lay her to rest? Should I give up on the name—or even the search? Maybe there’s an easier way to get rid of a ghost. Maybe there’s some kind of machine out there, or a spray that can ward off spirits. Or even one of those plug-ins like the ones that keep out rats and bugs.
Probably not.
A million thoughts and possibilities raced through his head, but none seemed to help, so he decided to continue his online search.
After nearly two hours of failed attempts with various social network sites and different combination search keywords like “Old Hall Road” and “Clifton”—even the words “dead” and “ghost”—he decided to call it a day.