Dead Girl Walking

by Sant, Sharon

  ‘Are you sure the court case will be ok?’ I ask.

  He nods slowly. ‘As sure as I can be. The truth of the matter is that you were being chased by a killer and you were defending yourself. Dante followed and got in the way. You thought you were stabbing your attacker but it was him. I’ve spoken to Dante and he’s more than willing to testify for you.’

  ‘Were his parents there at the time?’

  ‘They were.’

  I bet they loved that,’ I mutter.

  Karl gives me a wry smile. ‘There were some choice swearwords peppered into that conversation and none of them from me. But the important thing is that you have the evidence on your side. The only thing that might be a bit sticky is how you came to be racing around a derelict bus station with a six inch carving knife in your bag. We need to be creative with that one.’

  ‘Perhaps I deserve to go to jail,’ I say, looking down at my drink.

  ‘Cassie, the prisons are full enough as it is. If you get put away, that’s one less spot for someone who actually deserves to be in there.’

  ‘Maybe the world would be safer that way, though.’

  ‘How are you in yourself?’ he asks. ‘About all the other things that have happened too?’

  ‘I’m better,’ I say. ‘I can’t say the flashbacks have gone, but they’re not as frequent and not as bad. I think I’m on the road out of this nightmare.’ I’ve said this before, so many times when it wasn’t true. But I think I mean it this time.

  ‘You might not think it, Cassie, but you’ve been incredibly lucky.’ I raise my eyebrows and he smiles. ‘Someone wants you to survive, for whatever reason. You came back from the car crash – however it happened nobody understands, but it did – and you were the only girl to survive the clutches of a very dangerous man. If that patrol car hadn’t already been in the area, you and Dante would very likely be dead. Our killer was injured, but someone that crazed wouldn’t have let a little thing like blood loss stop him from hunting you till he dropped.’ He puts down his cup. ‘The officers in the car have been commended for their actions. I was personally very proud of our force that night.’

  I think about what he’s said. I survived for a reason. But Dante survived too, he came back from the dead like me. We’re the same, we both survived. There has to be more to it than coincidence.

  Right now I’m in Tish’s room, surrounded by boxes. It’s hard going trying to pack with one good arm but there’s only me to do it so I make the best of things. Strangely, for every item that is packed away, the guilt lessens a little. Tish would be happier to see her stuff go to a worthy cause than for it to rot in the bottom of her wardrobe and I have to keep reminding myself of that. Maybe, by the time I get to Mum and Dad’s room, this task will be a simple chore instead of an emotional wringer.

  I close the lid on a stack of flowery notebooks my phone bleeps a text.

  I miss u.

  My heart stops. It’s a cliché, but it does, just like that. I stare at the message. My eyes burn hot and I suddenly need him near, I need to feel his warm embrace, the smell of him on my skin, I need to gaze into those dark eyes and lose myself. But I can’t ever see him again; his parents have made that perfectly clear. Despite this, I consider going to the hospital and trying one more time to get into the ward.

  Before I know it I’m at the front door. I rip my jacket from the peg in the hallway and sling it around myself before unlocking.

  I step out onto the street. The sun is warm on my face, for the first time this year. The air smells sweet and fresh and even the sounds of distant traffic can’t mask the chirruping of nest-building birds and the lazy hum of newly-hatched insects. There’s something vaguely fairytale about it. I look across at the fence of the park along the road. A small group of council gardeners are out, working in flowerbeds that are now shimmering green and bold spring colours. Spontaneous laughter and a raucous song suddenly erupt from them.

  That’s when I see him sitting on the wall. Dante, like the painter, sloping script, high-crossed T. He looks at me and smiles as he pushes himself to stand awkwardly. I freeze at the door and watch as he crosses the road, still not quite believing he is here. His movements are slow and careful and he seems weak, his cheekbones painfully stark in his pale face. But his eyes are beautiful and dark and as he takes me into his arms we say nothing because we both know that this is all there is and all we need.

  We’re the same.

  Here is a sample chapter of Sharon’s number one best-selling paranormal ebook,

  The Memory Game

  One: The End

  The sky shows the first pink light of a freezing dawn. I should go somewhere, but I can’t seem to leave my corpse alone. It looks so… vulnerable. Stupid, I know – it’s just a body now, after all. And where am I supposed to go? In films they tell you there are tunnels of light and other dead people you loved waiting for you. It’s not like that. One minute you’re alive, lying under the mangled steel of your wrecked bike, the next you’re looking down at the mess trying to understand what happened.

  I take a seat on the roots of a bare tree that overhangs the roadside. I’m not doing anything, of course. Or at least my body isn’t. There’s something strangely fascinating about it though. I must be cold by now, I suppose. The ground of the ditch is black with my blood and I can smell the metallic tang from here. My head is sort of cocked to one side at a funny angle and my leg is twisted backwards under the buckled wheel of my bike. I suppose it would have hurt pretty bad. I think it did at first, but time seems to be robbing the memory already. I don’t want to stop remembering. It feels like the minute I forget the pain I’ll be dead for real.

  I hear a rustling coming from behind the tree. I listen for a moment, the sound intermittent but coming closer all the time. A fox emerges from the dewed grass and then stands perfectly still as it sniffs at the morning air. It sees the dead me. Then it picks its way over, slowly, nervously through the long grass and down into the ditch and pushes its black-tipped snout to my face.

  ‘Get away from me!’ I jump up and shout, trying to scare it away but it just looks startled and stands exactly where it is. After a while, it trots off. I watch it go and then sit again, head in my hands. I couldn’t even chase away a fox. I’m nothing, already in the past.

  I look up and see that the sun is rising, a blinding white disc behind the bare trees. I can’t sit here for ever. Perhaps I could try to tell someone where I am. Mum must have done her nut when I didn’t go home last night. Roger probably threw a party though, he always hated me.

  I stand and look up and down the lane. It’s still deserted, as it has been all night. ‘I have to go somewhere,’ I say. ‘I have to get help.’

  I don’t even know why I’m talking as there’s no one here but me. My dead self just stares. I wish I could close my dead self’s eyes but I tried and my hand is made of nothing. The films got that bit about ghosts right. I wonder how I’m not sinking into the earth beneath my feet.

  So, where do I go now?

  I suppose I’d better go home.

  Mum is pacing up and down with the phone clamped to her ear. Her eyes are all puffy and she has an old cardigan pulled tight around her. ‘Yes, David Cottle. He’s fifteen… dark brown hair – sort of floppy fringe – brown eyes… um, how tall? Oh my God, I can’t remember… I can’t even remember how tall he is…’ Mum’s voice starts to crack. I want to hug her and tell her where I am but she can’t hear me. ‘Sorry…’ she squeaks out a sob and takes a deep breath to stop it. ‘I’m fine. He’s been missing since teatime yesterday. I thought he was at his friend’s house… we had an argument but I thought…’ The crying takes her again and she can’t speak.

  Roger comes in from the kitchen. He hands her a mug and takes the phone from her. ‘Sorry, officer, it’s a difficult time, as you can imagine. Yes, we can sort out a photo… about five-foot-six… What was he wearing? I’m not sure, my wife might be able to tell if she goes to the wardrobe and sees what’
s missing. Will you send someone round? Ok, thanks.’

  Roger ends the call and gives Mum her phone back. She sticks it into her cardigan pocket and Roger puts an arm around her. Even though I could smack his big mono-browed face in every time I look at it, I’m glad he’s trying to make her feel better. I suppose things are going to get a whole lot worse for her when the police find me in that ditch and she’ll need someone to make her cups of tea and stuff because she’ll be crying too much. I hope it doesn’t take them a long time; that road is pretty out of the way and I might start decomposing before she has to come and identify me – that would be horrible. My mind goes back to the fox. What else is out there that might start eating me? What about bugs and microscopic stuff that no one can see, steadily devouring my body even as I sit here watching my mum and Roger discuss where I am? I shouldn’t have even been on that road but I thought it was a clever shortcut. Go me.

  The thing is, hardly anyone uses that road because of some old story about it being haunted. They say the Black Death came to our village and Yarrow Lane, the road that I was on, was the border where nobody from the village could go beyond until the plague outbreak had ended. But this boy from another village nearby where they had no plague and this girl from ours used to meet there in secret. Eventually she caught the plague, then he caught the plague and gave it to his whole village, then they both died and people say their ghosts hang around on the lane at night. The irony of this story is not lost on me. Although it still amazes me that people are so freaked out about it that, even now, they refuse to use that road. Except for the car that hit me, of course. Oh yeah, he used it alright.

  Roger pulls her into a hug. ‘Don’t worry about him, love. He’ll turn up; he’s probably just sulking somewhere.’

  ‘All night? Where would he have been all night?’ Mum turns her swollen face to him. ‘I’ve phoned every one of his friends and nobody has seen him.’

  ‘Someone could be covering for him. I’ll bet you his year’s pocket money that he’s holed up in Matthew Spencer’s bedroom without his parents knowing. It wouldn’t be the first time.’

  Tit. What would he know about it?

  ‘I phoned there,’ Mum says. ‘They hadn’t seen David at all.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he’s not there. Matthew’s mum is so dopey she could have Elton John in concert in her son’s room and she wouldn’t notice.’

  Mum tries to smile. ‘I suppose,’ she says. He thinks she’s agreeing but he doesn’t know her like I do. I’ve seen that look before, a hundred times with my dad – she doesn’t think that Roger is right at all, she just doesn’t know how to say it. And I don’t want her to agree, I want them to come and look for me.

  In my frustration, I shout at Roger. ‘Don’t tell her that! Don’t you want me to be found?’ It’s pointless, of course, I worked out pretty quickly that neither of them can hear me, no matter how loud I shout.

  Mum sniffs and wipes her nose on the tissue Roger has given her. ‘I’d better go and see what’s missing from his room.’

  ‘A quick check in the wardrobe should be enough,’ Roger says, ‘You should take it easy, especially now. Maybe I could go and see.’

  ‘I’ll know his clothes better than you, I do iron them after all…’ she gives him a tiny, strained smile. ‘Besides, I want to see if anything else is missing.’

  Roger’s eyes go wide. ‘You think he’s run away?’

  I don’t like the way Roger looks as he says this, there’s something a bit too close to hope in his expression.

  Mum shrugs. ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you really think he would, though?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘I don’t feel like I know him at all anymore. But I should check because the police will probably ask us that.’

  ‘Want me to come and help?’ Roger asks.

  She shakes her head. ‘Wait by the phone. Somebody might call.’

  Roger looks like he might argue for a moment. Then he gives her a short nod and flops down on the sofa. I swear I just heard a spring bust.

  I follow Mum upstairs. She’s walking in this really wobbly way, gripping the handrail like she can’t quite remember what her legs are for.

  She opens the door to my room. Now that I look at it, I’m a bit ashamed. She spends, like, hours every day telling me to clean it and I ignore her. The curtains are closed but hanging off the rail at one end where I pulled it down and couldn’t be bothered to fix it. There’s a strange damp, sweaty smell like there are wild animals being kept in there. My Radiohead t-shirt is screwed up on my unmade bed. I nearly put it on when I got in from school last night, but it didn’t smell that good when I pulled it from the drawer. Dad bought it for me, the last time he went to see them in concert. I wanted to go with him, but Mum said I was too young. When he gave me the t-shirt, I pretended I didn’t like it because I wanted to go and see them so bad. Mum told me I was an ungrateful brat but Dad just smiled; he knew that I did really. It was way too big, of course, when I first got it because they only had adult sizes. Three years on and it fits ok.

  Mum almost trips on my school shoes as she walks in, but she doesn’t say a word, she just moves them out of the way. The rest of my uniform is on the floor and strewn over the bookcase, which does not house books as they’re all on the floor in a pile next to my bed. I keep all the ones I’m reading out and I seem to be reading all the ones I own at once. The TV has greasy marks on the screen and there are chocolate wrappers on top of it. Mum doesn’t seem to care today though. I suppose she’ll care even less when she finds out I’m dead. She goes to the wardrobe and rifles through. Half my clothes are missing, though, mostly stuffed into various crevices around the room, and I can’t imagine how she’s going to figure out what I’m wearing. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember what I’m wearing. I look down at myself. Jeans, blue checked shirt, one of the really soft, fleecy ones, with the sweatshirt underneath to keep me warm that Mum nags me to wear every time I go out to do the papers, and my battered trainers. When I look up again Mum is sitting on the bed with her head in her hands and her shoulders sort of heaving.

  ‘Mum…’ I sit down beside her. I never hug her or anything anymore, but right now I really want to. But when I try to put my hand on hers, I can’t, it goes straight through, just like it did before. ‘I’m ok, Mum, please don’t be upset.’ Of course, I’m really not ok, but I suppose this is as good as it’s going to get now.

  ‘Oh, David… where the hell are you?’ Her breaths are hitching and she can’t speak without stammering. I wish I could put my arms around her and tell her I’m still with her. But maybe that would freak her out anyway. It probably would have freaked me out if it had been the other way around.

  So I sit and watch her. I want to cry myself now, I feel so bad for her. I don’t think I can stay here after all. If she’s like this now, imagine what she’ll be like when the police come and tell her that they’ve found me, imagine what she’ll do when she has to go and see me at the place where dead bodies are kept, imagine what the funeral will be like. I’ll be like a wreck seeing all that crying. But I don’t know where else I can go. I feel like an empty crisp bag on the wind, blown around, useless and unwanted. So I sit next to her on the bed; I listen to her cry quietly and stare at the mess in my room and wonder what is happening to my body now. Your joints go stiff; how long does that take? Do you turn a funny colour? When do you start to smell bad? We saw a film once in biology, a speeded up film of a dead rabbit rotting. I can’t stop thinking about that film now, only it’s me with all the flies and stuff coming out of me.

  There’s a knock at the front door. I can hear Roger talking to someone in the hallway and then the door clicks shut.

  ‘Lisa…’ Roger calls up the stairs. ‘The police are here.’

  She’s only just phoned them so I’m guessing this visit can only mean that they’ve already found me. Mum takes a huge breath and wipes her face. I wonder if she’s thinking that too
. She stands up, takes a last look at my room, her eyes skimming over me as I sit on the bed, and goes downstairs.

  ‘You might want to sit down, Mrs Smith.’ The policeman has a nice voice, gentle, that bad news voice that they have on detective dramas. But I don’t like the way he says her name, because her name shouldn’t be Smith, it should be Cottle like mine, like it used to be before bucket-faced Roger arrived in our lives. Hearing her called Mrs Smith doesn’t stop making me angry, just because I’m dead.

  She glances at Roger and then sits on the sofa. Roger joins her and takes her hand.

  ‘I haven’t figured out what he’s wearing yet…’ Mum begins. ‘But if you give me a few more minutes I should be able to.’

  The second policeman glances at the first one and then hands her a wallet. ‘Is this David’s?’

  Mum takes it from him and turns it over in her hands as though she doesn’t quite believe it exists. ‘Yes,’ she says in small voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, but we found this on a boy matching David’s description at the scene of a road traffic accident. He had a bag on him from Village News, we checked with the proprietor and he said David never returned after his round yesterday, although he hadn’t been unduly concerned as, apparently, he often goes straight home when he’s finished –’

  ‘Oh God, we didn’t ring the shop,’ Mum says. ‘We thought he was sulking at a friend’s house – he’s done it before – we’d had an argument and…’ she can’t finish and I can tell she feels gutted now that she didn’t ring the paper shop when I didn’t come home.

  We did have a massive row and I suppose she thought I was staying out of her way. I was pissed off alright but I wouldn’t have done that to her, I wouldn’t have given Roger the satisfaction. Maybe she was sulking more than me. The thing is, if she had looked for me straight away I’d probably still be alive; it took me ages to die. I hope the police don’t tell her that.

  ‘Is he alright?’ mum says in a panicked voice. ‘What’s happened to him?’