[ WP ] You made friends with a ghost . Now you two are travelling across the country to find his/her murderer .

`` Are you sure?'' I glanced across to her, surprised. It had taken her nearly an hour to speak to me and the words she said were not the ones I expected. 
 
 The young woman clutched her arms around her as she nodded. `` I do n't want to hurt him. I just want to... see him.'' 
 
 `` The man killed you, Jess, no two ways about it.'' I furrowed my brow. `` Any sane person would want revenge.'' 
 
 `` And sane person would say talking to a ghost is fantasy, and yet here we are.'' 
 
 Jess had a point. I sighed and looked back to the dark Somerset roads, stubby hedges guarded both sides of the tarmac. 
 
 Jessica Campbell. Twenty years old. Single, working at a charity shop while she studies at college. Had the whole world ahead of her. Then she was hit by a car and left for dead, bleeding from the head with no voice to call out with and nobody to care. 
 
 When I found her body on the way back from work, she was already cold and stiff. I called the cops, the ambulance, I was freaking out. The night had been the longest in my life. I could n't help but think of my wife, only a few years older than Jessica; I thought of her like that young woman and... It's fair to say I had nightmares. 
 
 Then the morning came and... she was there. Standing timidly in my room, looking like a lost child. I could n't believe my eyes. I pinched myself, convinced I was in a nightmare. I washed my face, convinced she was a hallucination. But she stayed there and watched me and I felt like a fool when I asked if she was the dead lady I'd discovered the night before. 
 
 By God, it was. It was her, walking, talking, but... somehow faded, like the colors had been leeched from her. The first day I went out for a walk and talked to her, feeling like a complete idiot. Had I gone completely and utterly nuts? Ghosts did n't, could n't, exist, right? Well, I had the evidence before me. 
 
 That day I learned who she was and what she left behind and how she felt. I did n't expect the anger. It surged up from me. I thought of her left alone, thought of that selfish driver who wanted to save their own hide. I thought of all this and I acted brashly. 
 
 Jess had seen the man. He had gotten out of the car and freaked out seeing her body. He had gotten back in and high-tailed it outta there. I should have gone to the police, but instead... instead I wanted to get justice for Jess. Justice for this young woman in the prime of her life slaughtered without mercy. 
 
 Her description left no doubt in my mind of who it was. I worked at a bar and got to know the local drunkards. Her description matched one Tommy Drew, known for his drunken nights of quietly singing into his beer. The man had seemed harmless, but there could be no doubt. 
 
 Jess had n't said a word as I dived into my car and drove off, leaving behind a worried wife who no doubt had concern and suspicion on her face. Jess had sat in my passenger seat, quiet as a mouse. The first words she spoke were, `` Do n't confront him.'' 
 
 I wanted to walk up to Tommy and I wanted to demand answer. I wanted him to admit what he had done and I wanted to hand him over to the police. I knew there was a part of me smoldering, a part of me I was scared of, and I guess that was the part of me that Jess noticed and that was why she was warning me. 
 
 `` You wo n't do anything rash, will you?'' Jess asked when I did n't reply to her. I glanced at her pale face. 
 
 `` Of course not,'' the words sounded hollow even to me. I stared out into the darkness and thought of that image I saw the night I discovered Jess's body. Thought of my own wife, lying there, and I could feel that creepy-crawling feeling in my stomach again. 
 
 I had gone to Tommy's house already, but his girlfriend had told me he came home only to leave again, heading north. She had asked me what was going on but I had already left. There was one commonly used road north. The rest were farm roads that most people would avoid on normal trips. 
 
 I knew Tommy for the man he was. I knew he would be itching for a drink, especially after what he did... And I knew that once he started drinking, he would n't stop. It had been twenty-four hours. The chances of finding were slim, but I was n't thinking straight. I could n't think straight. 
 
 Jess could n't only look at me nervously. She was a timid one, that was for sure. Her quiet, almost shy, nature made it all the more of a travesty that she was run down like a common badger. 
 
 Lights bloomed in the darkness ahead and an inn approached. In the middle of the country like this, where cash could be paid and no questions asked, it was perfect. It was also the closest one north. The chances were slim, I knew it, they were slim... 
 
 `` There,'' Jess suddenly drew in her breath. She pointed a pale finger to a car parked haphazardly across two parking spaces. There was an ugly bump on the front of the car. I looked to Jess and could feel that strange urge within me once more. I grabbed the door handle but Jess put a hand on my shoulder. Her touch was ice-cold and I shivered. `` Please... Please, I do n't want anybody to get hurt...'' 
 
 I looked at Jessica's face. I looked at my own in the rear-view mirror, sweaty and disheveled. I closed my eyes and saw my wife, lying in the middle of the road, my nightmare vivid. After a few seconds I opened the door wide and stood out into the night-air. Jessica stood beside me, pleading with her eyes. I turned away and started to walk towards the inn. 
 
... I should've just called the cops. I should've said goodbye to my wife while I could. I should n't have played the hero. Now here I am, bleeding out on the floor, with only a sad pale face floating in front of me, holding my hand with those ice-cold fingers of hers. 
 
 At least I got justice for Jessica. 

