Page 118 of Unalive On Air

Stove turns to me. “It’s such a shame we can’t really feel pain anymore. It still hurts, don’t get me wrong, but it’s nothing compared to the agony when you were alive. A few hundred kicks to the nuts oughta sort him out for a while.”

“Oh wacko, Stove, what an excellent idea,” Magnus says, grinning from ear to ear. “Peter, your punishment for the murders of—”

“What about my trial?” he whines.

“What about my trial, what about my trial,” Magnus repeats back to him in a crybaby voice. Peter instantly sobers. “How’s this for a trial? A three‑thousand‑year‑old omnipotent deity has witnessed you slaughtering innocent human lives and possessing bodies for purposes other than consuming biscuits and caviar and cheese fondue, et cetera. You have caused unimaginable suffering to hundreds of people. There is no way for you to know this, but two months ago Josh’s parents finally donated some of his things to charity. Josh’s mum sat in his room and cried for an hour. You deserve to suffer in the multitude of untold ways they have.”

“Kill him all over again,” Pixie says, her voice so quiet, so venomous that it’s almost a whisper.

“Your punishment, Peter Roskelly.” Magnus isn’t really shouting, but his words are so heavy that they silence everything else. Even the electrical humming has stopped. “You will be brought back to life for an indefinite period of time, and you will feel pain again, as pain was intended to be felt. The people you have wronged may punish you in any way they choose to see fit. They will be able to touch you once more, physically hurt you. You will not be able to touch them. Then, once your victims have been satiated, you will be returned to ghost form, and your boundaries will be redefined to a three-foot‑by‑three-foot square. Everyone in agreement?”

“Sounds fantastic,” Pixie says, sideways glancing at Jeanie.

Jeanie nods and cracks her knuckles. The moment would’ve been hilarious if it weren’t for . . . you know, everything.

“Where should we place your new bijou boundaries?” Magnus asks everyone besides Peter.

“A hundred metres into the ocean,” Camille suggests.

“How about the septic tank?” Stove asks.

“Good one,” Pixie says.

“I think, for Helga’s benefit, it should be somewhere out of the way from the hotel’s main activities,” I say. “But somewhere she can easily get to if she chooses to visit him.”

Jeanie places her hand on my shoulder. “He doesn’t deserve that kind of humanity.”

“I know,” I agree. “But Helga does.”

Jeanie opens her mouth, closes it again, and nods.

“The first part of your punishment will begin momentarily and will end . . . I dunno, when everyone’s bored, I guess, and the second part of your punishment should last . . . gosh, I suppose if everyone you killed had an average life span of eighty-five years, minus the years they’d already lived, that gives you an imprisonment of . . . two hundred and ninety‑five years. Eh, let’s round that up to a nice even three million, shall we?” Magnus turns to me. “Gary, d’you want first dibs?”

Without anyone moving, all the furniture in the room and all the cabinets zoom noiselessly to the walls, creating a large empty space in the centre.

“This is ridiculous,” Peter argues.

“Shut your motherfucking murdering mouth up,” Jeanie spits, and Pixie nods in agreement.

Magnus holds his hand out in invitation, but I shake my head.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I’m not about to thank Peter for what he’s done because he is literally despicable, but without him killing everyone he did, I would never have met Trystan. I would never have fallen in love.

In death I’ve found a happiness life couldn’t provide.

“Fair play,” Magnus says, obviously having read my thoughts. “Trystan?”

Trystan looks over at me and takes my hand in his. “Maybe later. I need some time to process it and think about what feels just. Right now, I want to spend some time with Gary, if that’s okay?”

Magnus smiles softly and shoos us out of the room.

As we leave, I hear Stove say, “Can we use weapons?”

“Oooh, what have you got in mind?” Magnus chirps.

When we get to the end of the corridor, Josh is standing there. He has that teenager‑about‑to‑be‑in‑trouble look on his face. “I listened,” he says. “To the podcast. I know it was Peter.”

“And you’re still here,” I say, holding my arms out like it’s a miracle.