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Misty stares at the box, the red light blinking on and off, on and off. It reminds her faintly of a siren.
Van's words run through her head. We would be so completely fucked if she wasn't here.
The red light blinks. She stares at it. The forest is silent.
Then: "Smash it."
It's a voice, a voice Misty doesn't know, a man's voice with a British accent. She looks up and nearly screams.
A man stands in front of her. A half transparent man, wearing nothing but gray pajamas, knee-high leather boots, and a tattered dark coat that hangs far too large on his small frame. There's remnants of blood coming down from his mouth and mixing with his beard — the same ginger as his chin-length hair.
The thing that mostly catches Misty's attention, though, is the fact that he's fucking semi-transparent.
Misty covers her mouth with a hand and stumbles back, but has the self control not to scream, as not to wake the others. He tilts his head at her curiously. She grabs a twig and throws it at him. It passes straight though his torso. He stares down at where it passed through him.
"Hey," he says, annoyed, still in that accent.
"You're …" she trails off, not knowing what to call him. Either ghosts are real or she's dreaming. Or maybe some of Nat's drugs had gotten into her handful of airplane Chex Mix.
He squats down to be at her level, sticking out a hand over the flight recorder. "Cornelius Hickey."
Weird name. "Misty Quigley." She hesitantly puts out a hand to return the handshake, but when she tries to grasp his hand, it goes straight through. An odd chill passes through it, like a cool breeze on an otherwise windless day. She stares at it for a moment. "Are you…"
He cuts her off. "A ghost?"
She nods quickly, pushing her glasses up her face.
Cornelius smiles, though it reminds Misty less of an expression of joy and more of a cat stalking its prey. (A small part of her is a little jealous at how easily he pulls off the expression.) "You could say that."
Seems to me you either are or you aren't. She doesn't say that. Instead, she says, "Are you haunting me? Wait. Wait, oh, are you to herald my death? Or something?"
He laughs, and it sounds genuine enough. "Nah, none of that. I'm here to help you."
"Help me?"
"I think we're gonna be good friends, Miss Quigley."
No one's ever called her Miss Quigley before, outside of the receptionist at the dentist office that always smelled like stagnant air, and letters about college admissions. No one's ever called her that like it was just her name. She's not quite sure how she feels about it.
She does like his certainty about her, though. There's no hesitation in his eyes, no silent judging.
"Friends? Do you mean it?" He nods, and she grins.
The red light still blinks, on and off. She watches his eyes dart to the box, and she follows his gaze. "What's this?"
She picks it up. It's slightly heavier than she expects. "Flight Recorder. Do not open." She looks up at him. "Shauna said it's probably sending out an emergency transmitter signal. They'll know where we are. To rescue us."
An odd expression flits across Cornelius's face. Misty can't read it. Envy, maybe? Or maybe just plain confusion.
"Take you home," he says, and she nods, not meeting his eyes. She just stares at the blinking red light. On, off, on, off, on, off.
We would be so completely fucked if she wasn't here.
"And what is home for you?"
Misty frowns slightly. Back at home, she was forgettable. No, worse than forgettable, she was disliked. Looked down on. Here, they need her. No one had ever needed her before.
The light blinks, sending out a scream in all directions, a scream that rips at her eardrums and tears at her skin.
She looks back up at Cornelius, who looks back at her expectantly. Misty grins, wide and devilish. He does too, moving out of the way, and Misty nearly bursts out laughing. She lifts the flight recorder high above her head and brings it crashing down on the rock.
It hits with a loud thud, and it's like music to her ears.
"Attagirl," Cornelius says. The light still blinks, and she hits it against the rock again and again and again. There's a wild look in Cornelius's eyes, and Misty can only imagine what she looks like, covered in dried blood and grinning as she was.
They need me. Thud. They need me. Thud. They need me. Thud. They need me. Thud.
But after the tenth or so time she smashed it against the rock, that cursed light still blinks.
"Cornelius, it's not turning off."
He makes a little noise of surprise (and perhaps disgust?) at the use of his name. Oh, was he one of those adults that hated when Misty called them by their first name? It was just a name, wasn't it?
"Calling me by my Christian name, ey? You're a cheeky one."
She squints at him. She's not exactly sure how ghosts are supposed to act, especially British ghosts found in the Canadian wilderness, but this isn't quite what she had in mind. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Cornelius."
"Would you rather I call you Mr. Hickey?" Now that's an unfortunate name. If it were her, she'd much rather go by Cornelius.
He shrugs. It's a sly motion.
"Mr. Hickey it is, then." She turns her attention back to the box in her hands. It's badly dented, but the light still blinks. She looks back at the words on the box. Do not open. A corner of it is coming off, revealing the wiring and circuits within.
Misty grabs a piece at random, yanking it free.
There's a small explosion of sparks as the piece comes free in her hand. Hickey swears. But the blinking has stopped. The box is dead.
She lets the box clatter to the ground, the thud it makes softened by the dirt and old fallen leaves. The part of electronics is still in her hand, and she leans back against a tree, staring at her handiwork and grinning. Oh, they're going to love her.
Hickey chuckles. "I was right. We are going to be good friends."
Misty catches his eye, and they both laugh. She drops the electronic part to throw a hand over her mouth. Maybe this plane crash is the best thing to happen to me.