Dead Man Running (Raised Book 1)

by Stevenson, Sharon

  Dead Man Running

  (A Raised Novel)

  SHARON STEVENSON

  Copyright

  Sharon Stevenson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Copyright © Sharon Stevenson 2012

  All rights reserved. Thank you for buying an authorized edition and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning or distributing any part of it in any form without permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction set in an alternate reality independent Scotland ruled over by a monarchy. This book contains strong and frequent adult language and sexual references.

  Cover Design by Your Next Book Crush

  http://yournextbookcrush.com

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  http://www.polgarusstudio.com

  To Graham

  Table of Contents

  One – Pete

  Two – Pete

  Three – Pete

  Four - Pete

  Five - Pete

  Six - Pete

  Seven - Pete

  Eight - Pete

  Nine - Pete

  Ten - Pete

  Eleven - Pete

  Twelve - Pete

  Thirteen - Pete

  Fourteen - Pete

  Fifteen - Pete

  Sixteen - Pete

  Seventeen - Pete

  Eighteen - Kit

  Nineteen - Kit

  Twenty - Pete

  Twenty-One - Pete

  Twenty-Two - Kit

  Twenty-Three - Kit

  Twenty-Four - Pete

  Twenty-Five - Kit

  Twenty-Six - Pete

  Twenty-Seven - Nick

  Twenty-Eight - Pete

  Twenty-Nine - Kit

  Thirty - Mickey

  Thirty-One - Nick

  Thirty-Two - Kit

  Thirty-Three - Mickey

  Thirty-Four - Pete

  Thirty-Five - Kit

  Thirty-Six - Mickey

  Thirty-Seven - Nick

  Thirty-Eight - Mickey

  Thirty-Nine - Kit

  Forty - Pete

  Forty-One - Nick

  Forty-Two - Kit

  Forty-Three - Nick

  Forty-Four - Pete

  Forty-Five - Pete

  Forty-Six - Kit

  Forty-Seven - Nick

  Forty-Eight - Pete

  Forty-Nine - Kit

  Fifty - Nick

  Fifty-One - Mickey

  Fifty-Two - Pete

  Fifty-Three - Pete

  Sample: Death Magic Rules

  Also by Sharon Stevenson

  About the Author

  One – Pete

  What was that damn noise? Stupid, shrieking alarm clock. Groaning, I rolled over and thump! my head cracked into something solid. I cringed, expecting excruciating pain, but my tired brain told me the bump hadn’t hurt, not even a little bit. I opened my eyes tentatively and sucked in a weary breath. Still no pain, but the sight of the kitchen floor was a shock. Had I gotten black-out drunk last night? That’s when I realised the high-pitched sound doing my head in wasn’t an alarm, it was Dave, and man was he freaked out.

  “Shut up!” I hauled myself up and away from the kitchen units I’d just bumped into. There was a dark substance that looked and smelled suspiciously like blood splashed all over the place: on the units, on the floor, on me. “What the hell…”

  Jumping up, I hauled up the bottom of my sticky, wet t-shirt. There was something more shocking than bloody splashes under my clothes. Either I’d taken a bath in blue paint last night or my skin tone had changed dramatically overnight. My arms and legs were tinted blue-grey as well. I didn’t check inside my boxers. That would have been more than I could take.

  “Pete? Pete, are you… are you okay?” Dave sounded petrified. He can sound anyway he likes, including like a wailing siren, apparently.

  “What the…” I rubbed at my arms, but the paint wasn’t coming off.

  “Are you okay, Pete?” Dave yelled, sounding as freaked as I felt.

  “What’s going on?” Not only was the paint not coming off, but apparently I’d been rolling around in the thick puddle at my feet too. I rubbed flecks of the dried-in liquid off my knee, grateful that at least the blood was coming off my skin.

  “Angie stabbed you,” Dave said, catching my attention.

  “Angie? Shit… I didn’t!” Didn’t I? She’d been at the bar. I remembered that much, at least. Then the second part of what Dave said sank in. She’d stabbed me? I felt about, checking idly for stab wounds and unsurprisingly coming up empty-handed. Dave wasn’t exactly a reliable eye-witness, so I didn’t dwell on his little mistake. Though it did make me wonder where the blood I was soaked in had actually come from.

  “I think she’s still in the flat,” he said, lowering his voice.

  Before I even had time to process that little groan-inducing thought, DJ Dave was blasting what he deemed an appropriate song choice for the situation; Rockwell’s ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’. Colour me creepified. I had half a mind to yank the radio cord out the wall, but Dave hated when I took his voice away. He’d just about set the house on fire turning all the hob rings up full-pelt the last time I didn’t notice the cord had been pulled. He could talk and listen through the radio, and he could only ‘see’ things through the reflective surfaces in the kitchen appliances, at least as far as he tells it. Even he can’t explain where his sense of smell comes from, and I have no idea how any of that ‘ghosts trapped inside appliances’ stuff works. He’d somehow branched out and was free to move about from appliance to appliance through the kitchen wiring.

  One poorly placed bet he had no way to settle had resulted in this weird death curse. The Japanese salesman had been passing through and he hadn’t taken Dave’s apologies as good enough. One curse—Dave swears blind he was only muttering about Tamagotchis—and two weeks later my roomie was found stone-cold dead on the kitchen floor with a half-eaten bacon double cheeseburger in his hand. When he started talking through the radio, I very nearly shat my pants.

  I supposed I should check for Angie. My foot slid when I made for the door. My arm shot out to grab the counter, and I noticed another dried in fleck on my arm. Pulling myself back up, I noticed the handprint above the door handle. That bright scarlet mark gave me more shivers than Dave’s creepy song choice. It got even more disturbing when he started to sing along to the track.

  “Shut up, Dave,” I said, hauling the door open.

  He didn’t shut up. That selective hearing of his was a major pain in my ass. I grabbed a tea towel from the counter and wiped my wet feet before I went out into the hall. I shuddered at the thought of what I’d been standing in, lying in, for hell only knew how long. I took my time with it. The lino would be easy enough to clean but the thought of trekking bloody footprints down my hall gave me the shudders. Things were crime-scene enough.

  “Angie?” I didn’t get a reply. It didn’t totally surprise me. She was so far up her own precious arse she couldn’t hear for shit.

  I couldn’t keep my eyes off my blue skin as I headed down the hall. I really didn’t understand how I’d gotten myself this stupid colour in the first place. I didn’t think it was just a side effect of one too many blue lagoons down the pub, but you never knew. Stranger things have happened.

  My bedroom door was wide open. A sparkly red dress was crumpled up on the carpet. She was still lurking about somewhere, then. It was the last thing I needed. A one night stand who doesn’t know when to leave has to be the worst thing about getting too drunk to be more careful about the type of trash you pick up.

  I’d already noticed the living room
was empty when I left the kitchen. That left the bathroom. And what do you know, there’s another bloody mark on the handle. Bingo.

  I knocked on the door. “Angie?”

  She didn’t answer. I really hoped she wasn’t passed out over the toilet. The kitchen was going to be enough of a pain in the ass to clean up. I wondered again where all the blood had come from but right now getting Angie out of my flat was the priority. The mess in the kitchen was a problem for later, when I could be bothered actually cleaning.

  “Come on!” I knocked louder, repeatedly.

  She was still ignoring me so I tried the door. It was locked, so I grabbed my keys from the rack between the front door and the bathroom door. The bathroom lock is one of those old ‘safety first’ locks. It just takes something small enough to fit into the slot in the handle, one quick turn and it’s unlocked; a pain in the tits when you’ve got arsey friends around, but right now I was kind of grateful I didn’t need to break the door down.

  “You’d better be decent in there.”

  Still no answer. My sense of foreboding was amped up by Dave’s suddenly brutally enthusiastic crooning over that eerie chorus. I pushed the door open, and it swung back swiftly. She was passed out on the floor, then. I didn’t know how the hell I’d get her back in that dress and out of the flat if she was unconscious, but I knew it would be a chore. Sighing, I pushed the door until it met resistance, then I squeezed through the gap. Talk about instant regret. My feet got soaked in blood a second time. The crazy bitch was staring intently at the ceiling, one of my kitchen knives in her right hand. Her left arm was slashed wide open. My tiny bathroom was splattered red. This was a whole lot worse than I’d imagined a night with Angie could ever be. My hands flailed at the door. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  I stumbled down the hall to the phone and dialled with shaking fingers. The next few minutes passed in a blur, my brain working over-time to claw back memories of the night before. Where was I? The pub; I remembered that, anyway. I remembered Angie coming into the pub and then… nothing. A big blank spot containing sweet fuck all. I couldn’t remember a damn thing after she sat down next to me.

  I waited for someone to pick up the phone, all the while contemplating hanging up. I couldn’t think straight for agonising over what was going to happen. Was I going to be done for murder? Was it obvious she’d killed herself? Shit, should I have tried to get rid of the body?

  I paced the floor as I explained my situation to the police. Dave could back me up if they’d believe for one second he wasn’t just A.I. technology. Any evidence he gave would be ignored. It was all down to me, and I couldn’t remember a damn thing.

  Two – Pete

  It took all of twenty minutes for the police to show. Honestly, what if I’d been in serious trouble? I’d done nothing but pace around the entire flat waiting on them, minus the gore-spattered crime scene, of course. The guy barely glanced at me as he walked in and started checking my flat out, nosy bastard. His female partner did all the talking.

  “Peter MacDonald?”

  “That’s me.”

  She nodded and wrote something down on her tiny notepad. It was impossible to tell how good her body was under the bulky uniform jacket but she had a nice face, she wasn’t quite pretty enough to pull off the make-up-free look she was going for but she’d be do-able with a smile and a bit of slap on. I realised I was staring when she glanced up and threw me a glare that vanished a second later. She was a complete professional then. I nixed the thought of asking her out for a drink.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said, putting the notepad away. She tugged at her shirt sleeve and weirdly her fingers seemed to glow faintly red. When she looked back up at me she had her hands balled into fists at her sides, but I could still see that strange glow. Can fingers blush? She coughed to catch my wandering attention, not speaking until my eyes locked on hers. “You’re going to come with me. You’re not going to say a word until I say so. You’re not going to stop following me until we get to the car and then you’re going to get in the back, sit down and belt up. Got it?”

  I tried to open my mouth and found I couldn’t. Weird. I tried again, but my mouth apparently didn’t want to work so I just nodded and followed her. I don’t usually go for the bossy domineering type, but there was something about this cop I found strangely attractive.

  The car was a standard blue and white ford junk-bucket. I got in and did as she said, just realising my feet were still bare, and I was still in my blood-stained t-shirt and boxers. I couldn’t stop looking at my blue-stained skin. It was kind of bizarre that it hadn’t stained my clothes, I thought. I rubbed at my arm, hoping it might flake off.

  The cop got in the driver’s seat and started the car. Something wasn’t right. Surely this wasn’t usual police procedure for an obvious suicide. I wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t form.

  “You have questions,” she told me, driving away from my flat. “They will be answered, but that’s not my job.”

  I frowned at her. The whole thing was starting to freak me out. Did they think I killed Angie? Was I about to be locked up to await a murder trial? Bloody hell. I could be about to get the chair for something I didn’t even do! Angie, you complete psycho-bitch, what the hell were you playing at bloodying up my flat? Couldn’t you have at least waited until you got home?

  The cop was deadly silent for the rest of the drive. The police station loomed. I felt like my heart should be beating out of my chest, and that’s when I realised it wasn’t at all. I felt for a pulse in my wrists, nothing. I went for my neck, still nothing. Was this what a heart attack felt like? Holy shit had it actually stopped beating in panic?

  I felt like I should be hyperventilating or something. I put a hand on my chest, but I still couldn’t feel any movement in there. I wanted to shout to the cop to pull over and help me. She glanced at me in the mirror, but she didn’t appear to notice my horror.

  “They tell me breathing helps,” she said in a bored tone, pulling into a parking spot close to the building’s back entrance. “Try it.”

  I’d stopped at some point, maybe the same time my heart stopped beating. Surely by now it should have started or else I’d be dying right now. I sucked in a breath and blew it back out. Thankfully that worked. I took another breath and tried not to wonder why my heart still wasn’t beating.

  “You’re going to get out the car and I’m going to walk you to the Re-Integration Officer’s room. You’re going to sit in that room and remain still and quiet until he arrives and allows you otherwise. Get it?”

  I nodded, too freaked out by my unresponsive heart to do anything else. She blew out a sigh and got out the car.

  She muttered something under her breath, but I heard it clearly enough. “Fucking dumbass Animate fuckers.” She closed her door and opened mine. I wanted to talk, but I was still under her stupid orders and for some reason I was respecting them. Getting out, I let her manhandle me into the building.

  The cop behind the desk glanced up from a football magazine and raised an eyebrow at my dominatrix.

  “Starting to think you’ve got a fetish for dead guys, Derry.”

  “Shut up,” she snapped.

  “What is he, like the fifth one this week?”

  “It’s my job, asshole.”

  I glowered at the desk cop as he picked up his donut and bit into it. Custard filling, I could smell it from where I stood. Fuck me, I wanted a donut. My heart had stopped, and I was breathing like a sex pest and now all I could think about was icing-coated pastry with a creamy centre.

  Derry hauled me down the corridor. My thoughts lingered on the donut. Maybe they’d bring me some for my last supper. You get whatever the hell you want if you’re headed for the chair. I could ask for deep fried guinea pigs and they’d have to find me some. Not that I would. As last suppers go I’d be pretty happy with a plateful of donuts.

  “Hey, Der.” A typical beefcake cop stopped us in the hall. He looked
like some airbrushed movie cop, equally prepared for a camera close-up or a car chase.

  “Hey, Bri,” she said, going all twitchy and red about the face. Oh, she fancied this one and let’s be honest, who wouldn’t? He was built like a tank! The urge to flex came and went. I could still smell donuts.

  He walked on by and Derry opened the door I’d just noticed was there. She walked me in and sat me down. The room looked like a doctor’s office; there was an examination bed and everything. She looked me right in the eyes.

  “Do not move a muscle until he tells you any different.”

  He who? I felt like saying but didn’t for some reason. She frowned at me and walked out of the room. Damn it, I didn’t like this. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t feel my heart-beat and I’d stopped breathing again. More than all of that I really wanted a fudging donut!

  Something more than my less than exemplary will-power was stopping me from running out into the hall and tracking down the box the desk cop’s snack had come from. I couldn’t move a muscle; believe me, I tried.

  It took ten minutes from the time I started counting them for the short, stern-faced, middle-aged guy to walk in and stand in front of me. I couldn’t even blink under his scrutiny. I wondered if I’d stopped blinking, too, along with everything else.

  “Peter MacDonald?” He sighed after a moment of looking at me expectantly, flicking his fingers at me. They had that same red glow Derry’s had before. “I allow you to move and speak of your own accord.”

  “Allow me?” I felt like punching the air. I could talk again, finally.

  “You’ll be wondering what’s happened to you. Well, there’s no gentle way of putting this. You’re dead. You died. You were raised by a User. Wouldn’t happen to know which one, would you? It would make things simpler.” He leaned against his desk, picking up a clipboard and pen.