Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood)

by Wendy Maddocks

“For God’s sake… yeah, okay, but we all say stuff without really thinking. You call me bitch, I don’t like it but it doesn’t upset me.” Much. “They’re only words.”

  “Only? Like your cuts are only blood. Like this place is only killing us. Like you were only raped.”

  “Yeah, like that.” Katie took a gulp of her drink and slid her chair across the carpet to draw the curtains across her partly-boarded up window. No-one would be able to see through that sheet of plywood and she couldn’t see out but it felt a bit more like normality to do something just because. “Can we get over that now? There are more important things.” Oh God, so many of tem.

  “But it’s not over. It’s happening all the time.” The voice didn’t seem far away now, like it was being muffled by walls and air and furniture. It sounded right behind Katie and sure enough, there Leo was, leaning with his arms folded against her open door. “Why won’t you talk about it?”

  “There are more important things,” she said again.

  “My theory? Jack needs to come into this world by drawing living energy from the closest body. He’s been doing that to you, not asking permission, not giving you a choice, just taking what you have for his own benefit. You can’t tell me that’s not rape.”

  “It’s not like that.” Leo waggled his fingers in a come on gesture. “He does what he has to do to be with me.”

  “Including making you suffer.”

  “What do you think you’re playing at? Trying to blame Jack for all this… that’s low, even for you.”

  He shrugged. “When did this all start?”

  “About the time –“ - Jack started showing up. “He took my memories away without asking. He didn’t even think my memories might be important. Oh, God.”

  “Huh, guess you deserve that one,” he grumbled.

  “He only did it to protect me.” Why was she defending Jack? It wasn’t as if this whole protection thing had gone to plan. “He cares about me and wants to help me.”

  “Uh-huh.” He shifted position but didn’t try to take a step into her room, casually but exactly hovering on the carpet line between hers and the one in the landing. Katie had to give him some credit for at least staying out of her space if not her business. “I don’t think you want the case dropped or just to forget it ever happened. I think you want to find whoever did this to you and make him feel a hurt as long as it lasts for you. And then a bit longer. Just because he deserves it.”

  “Revenge? That’s not very Christian of you.”

  “This is what you want, not me.”

  “And what makes you such an expert on my mind?”

  “I see you flinch every time one of us gets within touching distance wondering if he’s going to hurt you that way. People don’t do that when they’re over things.”

  “Fine, I haven’t let go of it.” And she wasn’t planning to. “I want some-one to pay for what they did but it has to wait.”

  “Don’t think it’s ever okay, Katie.” Leo looked away for a second, cleared his throat and kicked his heels against the edge of the door. It looked as though he was thinking about something. The boy thought. You learn something new every day. “You sort of floated away earlier. Explain.”

  “Points for asking politely.” No-one said a word for a while. Leo just kept drumming his heels on the door. It was a horribly familiar beat. “Stop doing that.”

  “You mean this?” He brought his foot down harder, a louder rhythm.

  “I hate you so much.” For a young man nearing the end of his teens, Leo was surprisingly juvenile in some of his behaviour. Katie knew, though, that she would do exactly the same thing if she hit on something that annoyed the crap out of him. She just wouldn’t be so obvious. A grin crept onto her face – one of actual amusement and, even though it felt tiny and strange, it was something of an achievement. For a few seconds Katie felt as if she was relaxing.

  “You’re going running? Now?”

  Katie paused in the act of strapping her trainers on and reached under her desk for her rucksack with gym clothes in. “It’s only just gone eight. Still an hour of light.” Well, an hour of not-night anyway. “When I’m busy and active, I‘m fine. But the minute I sit down, I’ll fall asleep. We both know that’s a bad idea.”

  “You don’t have to sleep for him to find you. And you don’t have to bleed for him to hurt you.”

  “I’m only going to the track. I’ll be fine.” Pounding the streets sounded much better. She could vent her frustration much more easily and quickly on hard gravel than on a springy red circle. But the professional ground drew her to it, promising glory and passion and races she would never forget.

  Laces tied in rough but loose knots and a Velcro bar stuck over the topp, Katie shouldered her bag and walked up to him. Leo thrust an arm out, blocking her exit.

  “You don’t have to let him.”

  She stood on tiptoe to give herself the extra inch she needed to meet his gaze. “Forget I ever told you anything. I never asked for your help. Things were simpler when I didn’t like you and you didn’t like me. Don’t pretend you care.”

  “You’re right. I don’t care one way or the other. But if this can happen to you, then it can happen to me too.”

  “Ooh, let’s trade places… see if I really wanna stick around.”

  “You need to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Going out.” Katie batted his arm out of her way and shot him the middle finger.

  She had no idea what she was going to do once she got outside. No plan. Now she was getting to know her way around, Katie knew it wouldn’t take long to get to the deserted sports stadium in the north of the town. So she did a 180 and headed downtown instead.

  The streets weren’t as busy as in the daytime but couples wandered around on dates, teenagers loitered on corners, older people came out of random shops – no laws on opening time and no worries about conducting their business in the growing dark. So much life down here. So much life and so much energy. Not the pulsing mass she’d felt on the waste ground like a heavy storm cloud just waiting to burst but more like a million tiny purple-black threads. They were barely there on their own but together they were strong and unbreakable and untested. Katie spread her fingers by her shoulder straps, wanting to feel all that energy tickle her skin. Once or twice, an invisible strand touched her. They mostly missed her. It’s not meant for you. Not yet. Then she stopped walking, stopped trying to reach for dark threads, and stared up at the night sky. A gang of students - they looked a few years older than her – crossed the road to her right and filed down an unmarked street towards the buzz of conversation. A red-haired boy turned an assessing look her way a few yards down the road. It felt like she was being inspected for damaged parts. Well, there were certainly enough of those. Fumbling her new student ID card from her wallet, Katie flipped the lock on the door to her left the way Jaye had shown her and shut herself in the cavernous building. “Hello?” It echoed around. The place was as empty as when she, Jaye and Dina had staged their little break and enter last week. Only that wasn’t entirely true. Some-one had tidied up and filled the pool.

  Katie had really only come in to the college pool to get away from all the staring eyes. All those silent questions were burning her up. She breathed in deeply – the cool, slightly chlorinated air instantly making everything easier. It was dark. It was quiet. It was the closest thing to Paradise she had seen in a long while. The water was just there though. Just begging to be splashed in. mind made up, Katie headed for the lifeguards office to steal a t-shirt and a towel, stashing her clothes and bag in the corner. Swimming fully clothed was a stupid idea and skinny dipping, even alone, brought out the goose pimples.

  In this dark building, the water seemed as black as oil. It shone in slices where the moonlight caught it. No breeze shifted through the air but the water seemed anything but still. And, just for tonight, it was hers. The diving platforms looked inviting and, before she knew what she was doing, Katie clambered onto the fi
ve metre, bounced to the edge and-

  And then she was falling. Time slowed to a crawl but the water’ looking solid and sharp, rushed up at her forever.

  Falling, floating, flying, whatever people wanted to call this sensation of cutting a hole through the world, Katie didn’t want any more of it. Not tonight. She gulped in a last lungful of oxygen and crunched her eyes against the water inches from her face and crashed down.

  The pool sucked Katie down like wet cement. She blew her cheeks out and waited for the bottom so she could push herself back up. When her lungs were just starting to ache, she wondered vaguely why she hadn’t bothered to check how deep it was. The thought was funny in its now pointlessness and Katie began to giggle. Only the stinging in her throat as her lungs began to take on chemical water instead of oxygen stopped her. She commanded her left arm to reach up and try to break the surface. She floundered then gave up. Pain was exploding in her head, deadening her right arm, threatening to make her lungs collapse in on themselves. It was so much easier to let go of everything. No more warring instincts – one telling her she had to breathe, shrieking at her to keep her lungs inflated; the other shouting not to let any more of this foul liquid in. She had been lying in the water, eyes closed, muscles heavy, brain disconnected, for hours. Why had no-one come for her yet?

  Maybe this is how it’s meant to happen.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lights blazed on overhead, striking painful red flashes behind Katie’s eyelids. There was a splash and a hand on her shoulder. Weight. Grabbing her, holding her still.

  My green eyed cowboy...

  Can’t save me now…

  She floated a hand out. There was no-one within reach.

  And then there was nothing at all.

  BREATHE!

  Yeah, breathing was good.. Breathing was important. Breathing was impossible. There was air all around for once. And it was doing Katie absolutely no good. She clawed at the cold tiles underneath her but couldn’t get a grip. Hands gripped her shoulders and nudged her onto one side. Convulsively, Katie coughed and spluttered and spat up as much of the poison bubbling around her respiratory system. The shock of it made her back arch and eyes fly wide. The fluorescent lights stabbed straight through her eyes and made the already present headache blast into fireworks. Tears that didn’t come from pain sprang out of her. Katie struggled to sit up but she never quite made it.

  “You’re okay.”

  Okay was quite a strong word for how she was feeling but it was close enough. More important – who the hell was speaking? Water in her ears was making her own voice sound robotic. Katie raised her head and moved to slap it out, decided her head hurt enough already and lay back down.

  “One down, one to go.”

  Craning her head a few more inches to the right – an oh my God, that fucking hurt! – to track down the voice showed Jaye sitting on the floor with her back to the wall and wrapping as towel around her as tightly as a second skin. Barely a drop of water clung to the girl but her eyes were red rimmed and mascara streaked.

  “Jaye?”

  “Don’t move yet. Your muscles won’t be working right.”

  As if there was any danger of doing that without pneumatic joints and marionette strings on every limb. A memory of a half-remembered biology lesson at school sparked. Re-oxygenation. Blood, muscles, organs – no part of you functions properly without a good supply of oxygen. And, following that, a completely not-listened to physics class: everything needs energy and everything has energy. Even nothing. It sounded important. Nostalgic for the school days she had been so glad to leave behind? Not bloody likely! Remembering a time when things were simple. Back when the worst of her worries was overdue homework.

  “Hey! Stay awake Katie!”

  The sting of a firm slap on her already sore cheek broke Katie out of her thoughts. And woke up the pain crashing through her. She felt it like an earthquake deep inside, trying to tear her apart. She wished she had enough energy to cry about it. Instead, she touched her left cheek and felt it all scratched and abraded.

  “Yeah, your knees are all messed up too. I think you caught the wall on the way down.”

  Finally. An injury that could be easily explained. If that was what – yes, that was what happened. “I tried to get out.”

  “Well, you weren’t gonna do it from the foetal position. That’s what they call it, right?”

  “I thought you were at the hospital.”

  “I went for a while. Couldn’t stay. They’re doing more tests.”

  “Why didn’t you come home?”

  Jaye shrugged. The towel fell to the floor and she knee-walked over to Katie. “I love hearing you call it home. It took me months.”

  Katie used her elbows to push herself up and ran a hand through Jaye’s hair and then traced her cheekbone – tear stained but not tear wet. “You’re bone dry.” The pool was most definitely wet so how-

  “It’s a Shade thing. Water just goes through ghosts if we concentrate. Forces of nature can’t act on things that shouldn’t really be here.”

  Katie left her hand up. “You should be here, Jaye. Uh, clothes?” she was sitting ther in dripping underwear, suddenly aware that she was freezing, the borrowed t-shirt floating around the pool somewhere. Jaye returned with her rucksack, a pile of clothes and a clean towel. Between them they managed to mostly dry and dress Katie without jostling her too much. Every expected – and unexpected to be honest – movement made something else hurt or go alarmingly numb. “I’d’ve drowned without you.”

  “I don’t know. It was a pretty good distraction.”

  Katie used both hands to grasp the metal runner of the ladder by her head and pulled herself up, holding on longer, until the world stopped turning cartwheels. She didn’t trust herself to let go or to open her mouth and ask for help without throwing up. Luckily, she didn’t have to risk it. Jaye tucked herself under one shoulder, braced to lift the heavier girl and supported her all the way home. Luckily, although her feet were still lazy, Katie was just about awake enough to take most of her own weight. Tiny Jaye would have been squished like strawberry jam otherwise. It was nothing short of a miracle that enough lights were on in the house to get the door open without some interesting key-related disaster. Surprise, surprise, there was a welcome party waiting by the stairs when they got in. Jaye tried to ignore Lainy and propel Katie up the stairs at the same time.

  “Don’t ask!”

  “Think I’m gonna have to sweetie. She looks trashed.” What was going on with the poor girl? It was the strangest, if not the quickest, self-destruct of a student she had ever watched. Not that there wasn’t a good reason.

  “Drowning has that effect.” Lainy sent Jaye a sharp look. “Later, okay? I’ve got to get her to bed.”

  Katie shrugged away and gripped the banister, swaying slightly. Up was hard. “I’m going. I’m fine.” Must work on convince face.

  “Babe, you are so very not fine. Let me help you.”

  “Okay, get her to her room but we need to talk, Jaye.”

  “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

  “This isn’t about you, Katie.” Lainy put a hand over hers. She looked up at the too-young face hovering above, fearing this was another Dina, speeding towards the edge but not knowing quite why. “You sure you can manage the stairs?”

  No. “Sure.”

  “Okay then. Bed. Stay.”

  “Nothing I want more.”

  “God, your dad’s gonna kill me when he sees you in this state.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t.” Katie gave her a tired smile and hoped it didn’t look it. She turned to Jaye, remembering she hadn’t thanked her, but she had already vanished into the front room. “Night.” Her phone beeped midnight – it had been doing that way too often of late – reminding her that it was almost as close to her regular getting up time than to bedtime. Katie enjoyed the touch of a friend, not just some-one whose house she lived in, looking longingly towards her room
and let Lainy take the hint.

  “We need to talk about how you got like this. Later, I know.” Yes the girl was legal. Yes the girl was mature and independent but, Christ, she was still a child. Who looked as though she had been chucked through a plate glass window. A hospital bed would have been more appropriate than the one Katie was heading for but Lainy put that right at the top of the PROBLEMS FOR TOMORROW list. “Now, about Dina.”

  For some reason, Katie wasn’t surprised to find Jack sitting at her desk when she got there. “I don’t want you here,” she told him. “I need a pee. Don’t be here when I get back.” It didn’t provoke any strong emotion to see him – not anger or lust. If Katie had to sum up her feeling, she’d go with absent. Her body hurt but she didn’t feel it as much as be academically aware of it. Her brain was at a temporary standstill but she didn’t mind as long as the bad thoughts couldn’t get in.

  When she came from the bathroom, Jack was still sitting at her desk, his eyes half closed in concentration and his body was just starting to mist at the edges. His breath was coming shallow and fast. She’d never seen him try to leave and didn’t know how it was meant to work but surely it wasn’t meant to be this hard. Jack held onto the edge of the desk and groaned low in his chest. A pained moan, Katie could tell. He looked up at her and put his head in his arms. Something was stopping him moving. Wisps of mist blurred Jacks’ fingers and slowly the rest of his hand began to fade into black tinged fog. But that was all, and after a second, the process stopped and Jack was left half solid and half ghosted away. Katie stepped forward, plunged her hand into the mist and grabbed something solid. There was a jolt of energy between them and Katie froze. Nothing should ever feel like that. The pain, the red-hot pain, the complete void, empty of anything else but that bright agony. And it wasn’t hers this time. This was his. This was what Jack felt every time he had to go back into his own world. Where-ever that was. No wonder he had wanted to share that with some-one. It couldn’t be easy knowing you only had this endless agony waiting for you when the time came to leave the living world.