Biscuits for the Dead

It was a dark and stormy night, the kind that made shadows flicker and cupboards groan. Bea was quite sure the power cut had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with her landlord forgetting to pay the bill again. Still, the wind howling around her block wasn’t helping her nerves.

She sat at the kitchen table, clutching a mug of rapidly cooling tea, when she heard a sound.

Not a moan. Not rattling chains. Just... someone clearing their throat politely.

“Absolutely not,” she muttered. “I am not being haunted during a blackout.”

The throat-clearing came again, nearer this time — just behind her left shoulder.

Trying not to panic, she became aware of another worry: drip… drip… drip on her head. Her ceiling shouldn't be leaking in three different places.

Squinting into the darkness of the kitchen, she heard a third sound: a rhythmic, determined munching. Someone in her flat was eating the biscuits she had heroically avoided for fourteen days.

As her eyes focused, she stood up from the chair and stared at the half-empty packet.

“Right,” she said into the room. “If I’m being haunted, at least have the decency to haunt my laundry basket — not my chocolate digestives.”

A chair scraped behind her.

Bea froze. “Wonderful,” she muttered. “A ghost with a carb habit.”

And then Ginger appeared through the wall.

Not the door.

Not the window.

The wall.

She’d accepted Ginger’s death last spring — “accepted” being generous — but she still wasn’t used to the spectral paw prints he left on the sofa. Tonight, however, Ginger wasn’t alone.

Oddly, she wasn’t scared. The blackout, the leaks, the missing biscuits, Ginger’s casual disregard for physics — it should have caused her to run. Instead, she mainly felt annoyed.

“You brought another one home?” she hissed at him.

Ginger purred more loudly, thoroughly content with himself.

“Where do you keep finding these people? Were they all cat lovers in their lives?”

His emerald eyes shone with smug satisfaction.

She sighed. “So — who’s the friend?”

“Hello,” said a deep male voice behind her, still chewing. “Sorry about the biscuits. Excellent choice, by the way. Ginger said I should meet his best human friend.”

“Ginger,” Bea groaned, “you can't keep dragging stray humans home or letting them eat all my biscuits. This is the third one. And why the blackout every time? Can’t your rescue missions happen at noon?”

The man-shaped shimmer stepped forward, brushing crumbs from his lips. “For the record,” he said, “the blackout wasn’t me. That was him.” He pointed at Ginger, now settled on Bea’s foot like a smug, purring paperweight.

“Brilliant,” Bea sighed. “My cat is vandalising the national grid.”

Ginger purred even louder.

“I’m Tom,” the ghost said.

“Tom,” Bea repeated. “Where exactly did Ginger find you? Loitering between dimensions? Haunting bakeries?”

Tom’s translucent face was tinged with embarrassment.

“Well… I suppose I’ve been nearby for a while. Ginger kept coming to where I ended up.”

He gave a small, awkward smile. “He sat with me. Wouldn’t leave. Eventually, I followed him home.”

Bea’s irritation eased. Ginger had always been stubbornly loyal — in life and apparently in death.

“So you’re his rescue project?”

“Something like that,” Tom said. “He told me you were the kindest person he knew.”

“He did not.”

“Twice. Bit me the second time — affection, I think.”

Ginger pressed his head more firmly against Bea’s shin, confirming it.

Despite the storm, the blackout, the leaks and the vanishing biscuits, the kitchen felt warmer for the first time all evening.

“How long are you planning to stay, Tom?”

He winked. “Depends on the biscuits.”

Outside, the rain eased. The gloom lifted. Ginger meowed importantly.

“What now?” Bea asked.

“He wants dinner,” Tom said.

“Ginger always wants dinner. What about you? You’re a ghost and you’ve eaten half my pantry.”

Tom winced. “I know. They’re too good. Let me make it up to you. I’m a decent cook — let me cook.”

Bea hesitated, then started unloading ingredients from the fridge. Tom accepted them with calm confidence. Within minutes, the kitchen was filled with a warm, fragrant aroma.

She found herself watching him: the shoulders, the arms, the V-shaped waist, the distractingly plump bottom.

“Ginger is in trouble”, she thought. “He knows I’m hopeless with men”.

How Ginger Chose Her

Bea and Ginger met by chance. She worked a thankless administrative job in the city, often being the last woman in the building, trudging home to an empty flat.

She didn’t realise how lonely she had become.

But Ginger did.

He was a local stray tom who kept to himself — except for Bea. Every night, he watched her arrive, weary and alone. One evening, as she slid her key into the lock, something warm brushed her leg.

“Well, hello. Aren’t you handsome?” she murmured.

Ginger purred like a small tractor, then marched past her into the flat as if he owned it. From that night on, he never really left.

Bea started coming home earlier just to be with him — the two of them curled up on the sofa, Bea whispering her secrets, Ginger replying in steady purrs.

She remembered burying her face in his neck and sobbing over failed dates, especially the man who talked about triathlon training for two hours straight. Slamming the front door afterwards felt like burying a coffin.

Snuggling into Ginger, she’d whispered, “If I stay single forever, it’s your fault for ruining me for all other creatures.”

And she remembered — or imagined — the promise he’d made:

“I’ll never leave you. I’ll find you someone good.”

Dinner with a Ghost

Tom laid the plates on the table. Steam drifted up from them — yet Bea sensed no warmth.

He pulled out a chair for her. She sat down too lightly, causing the chair to catch her more slowly than it should.

She paid no attention to it.

Ginger jumped into her lap, purring loudly.

“This is delicious,” Bea said. “How come you cook so well?”

“I trained as a chef. Only worked for a year, but… I liked cooking for people”.

“What a lovely thing to say. Ginger and I appreciate it.” She drummed her fingers on the table, hesitantly. “Can I ask… what happened?”

Tom’s expression sobered. “I was run over on my way home. Instant, they said.”

He took an unnecessary breath. “I kept to myself afterwards. Until Ginger wandered by, he sat with me, night after night. And one evening… I understood him.”

“What did he tell you?” Bea whispered.

“That he adored you. That you deserved company. That you and I would get on. I wasn’t sure at first.” He smiled. “Then I tasted the biscuits.”

They laughed, Ginger butting her arm proudly.

Tom’s smile faded into concern. “Bea... maybe eat first. We can talk afterwards.”

She lifted her fork — and noticed the faint shadow beneath her wrist. Barely there.

Later, mid-sip, she froze. “You… talk to him?”

“Of course,” Tom said. “He found me. Cats choose who they save.”

Her throat tightened.

“He said you were lonely,” Tom continued softly. “That you needed someone who listens.”

“Ginger said that?”

“Every night.”

Her hand moved through Ginger’s fur — and somehow still felt warmth.

“You stubborn, wonderful creature,” she whispered. “You really did promise me.”

Realisation

After dinner, they talked until a gentle silence settled. Tom shifted.

“Bea… can I ask you something?”

She smiled. “Go on.”

“Do you… still pay rent?”

She opened her mouth — "of course I—"

And then paused.

“I… don’t think so.”

Tom nodded softly. “Do you send messages to your friends?”

Another pause. “I… no….I don’t.”

Silence spread across the room.

“Oh,” she whispered.

She looked down at her hands — the faint shadow of them — and Tom reached across the table. She took his hand, surprised by its firmness.

The blackouts -

The storms stopping unnaturally quickly -

Ginger slipping through walls -

Tom, feeling strangely solid -

The leaking ceiling she’d never actually felt.

“I ought to have realised sooner,” she murmured.

Tom’s voice was gentle. “Are you alright?”

She waited.

And then — yes.

A gentle easing swept through her, as if an old ache had finally lifted.

“I’m not frightened,” she said softly. “I thought I’d be.”

Tom nodded. “Ginger told me you became very ill. You died in St Stephen’s. He stayed with you the whole time.”

Bea blinked hard.

“When it was over, he followed you to the crematorium. And when your ashes returned here, he came too. He sat in this flat for days, waiting for you. When you reappeared… he thought you might be lonely. So he went searching”.

Bea let out a shaky laugh. “And dragged home every stray ghost he could find.”

“He was determined,” Tom said softly. “And then he found me.”

She gazed at Ginger’s gently glowing form. “You stayed,” she whispered.

Ginger purred smugly.

Tom nodded. “He promised he would.”

Bea stroked Ginger’s shimmering fur. “And he kept it.”

“If you’d like,” Tom said softly, “I can stay too. As long as you want.”

A smile appeared on her face. “So dinner wasn’t a one-off?”

Tom grinned. “Not a chance.”

Ginger jumped onto the table, knocked over a candle with a firm flick of his tail, and sat like a little magistrate delivering a verdict.

“Right,” Bea said, brushing away wax. “Democracy has spoken. Ginger says yes.”

Tom chuckled — a warm, lively sound in a home without electricity.

Bea reached for both of them — one ghost man, one ghost cat — and felt the weight of loneliness lift.

“Fine,” she said. “You can stay. But tomorrow I’m choosing the biscuits.”