“I thought you were smart,” I scolded. She thought I was a brainless prat. I wasn’t going to freak out that she might be right. That was exactly what she wanted.
“I am. That’s why I tossed my nephew’s birthday cake in the bin when I noticed you’d defiled it with some part of your dead anatomy.”
“Your nephew’s birthday cake?” All right, now I felt bad about it.
“You didn’t seriously think it wasn’t for something? Who keeps massive cakes in their fridge for no reason?”
I got a feeling the obvious answer would earn me a slap, so I kept my painted mouth shut. The door opened in the hall. I thanked god Mickey was back. He stopped in the kitchen doorway and nodded, admiring Kit’s handi-work.
“Nice,” he said, appreciatively.
“She thought I should cut my hair,” I complained, taking the contacts when he passed me them.
“The contacts should do,” he said, “wouldn’t want you looking exactly like me.”
The resemblance was creepy enough. “I suppose I should go poke these into my eyes.”
So off I went to the bathroom. I closed the door and listened to Kit and Mickey talk in the kitchen. She was all giggles, and he was talking like he was oblivious to her sexy, breathy flirting. She didn’t sound like that all time, only with Mickey. It was weird the things my enhanced brain was pointing out for me.
I took the contacts out their pack and paused with one on my finger, the same finger that had swiped through Kit’s nephew’s cake. She wasn’t right about the disease thing. I knew she wasn’t. I wasn’t some decomposing corpse walking around with bits falling off. My body was animated by magic; it was kept frozen in the state it was in.
It took a few tries to get the contacts in. I’ll admit I’m averse to being poked in the eye. Hey, who isn’t? They added to the Mickey disguise, kicking it up a notch or three which I’ll admit was a shock. Kit would most likely cream her pants. And that was maybe why she decided to go down to the bar while I was still safely squared away in the bathroom. Two of him would be more than her excitement could handle.
When I walked back into the kitchen, Mickey was standing with a mug of coffee. He raised his eyebrows at the same time as the mug.
“Good looking guy.”
“Ha ha.” I felt weird about the whole thing, all of a sudden. The stack of notes on the table hit that final coffin nail on the head. I was really doing this. I was honestly going to run.
“So this is it then,” he said, taking a drink.
“I suppose it is.” Although, I wasn’t going out until it was dark. Maybe five-ish. It was a typical November, night came early. I had about five hours to piss about, less if it got cloudy.
“Pulp Fiction?” He named our jointly favourite movie of god only knew how many years. I think we’d stumbled across it the summer before I went to high school, if my memory was right. He took the Blu-Ray out his pocket and waved it at me. He’d planned our last day together. I might have attempted to tear up if it hadn’t been for fear of losing the damn contacts I’d just spent ages putting in.
“Awesome.”
“Pizza?” He put his hand on Kit’s cat. The bright orange phone was a big plastic sleeping Garfield. I started to wonder if all the cutesy stuff was a cover for the hidden demons her bedroom had revealed. There had to be a reason she kept that horror junk stashed behind closed doors.
I shook my head. “I can’t eat.”
He frowned and then it dawned on him and he made a soundless ‘o’ with his mouth. “Oh, hey, what about your hands?”
“I’ll wear gloves.” I made it sound like I’d thought of it. I honestly hadn’t, not for a second.
“Okay,” he said with a nod. His hand inched towards the cat again. “You mind if I call for pizza? Kinda skipped breakfast.”
“If you really must,” I said with a deep dramatic sigh. I’d just have to learn to control my oral urges. I didn’t want people pointing and staring at my weird eating disorder. He called for his pizza. I retreated to the living room and fired up the TV.
“So, I read up on some things,” Mickey said, sticking the DVD in and taking a seat next to me, but only after frowning at my own choice of chair. Maybe he was around here more often than I thought.
“Are you actually seeing Kit?” I had to wonder. He scowled at me, so I shrugged.
“Listen to what I’m saying; it’s important,” he told me off, reaching across and snatching the remote from the arm my chair. “Americans have slightly different ideas than Scots, or even Englishmen, to magically animated corpses. You’re going to have to be careful.”
“I’m going to have to be…” Crap. I got it, all of a sudden. Creationists make up something like seventy percent of the population of the United States these days. It’s God country out there, and there’s nothing God hates more than an abomination like me.
“Stay in Vegas, is what I’d advise,” he told me. “They might not like you there, but you won’t just be hung, drawn and quartered on general principles.”
“I thought it was supposed to be the land of the free?”
“Well, this is the true home of the brave so man up, Bro.”
My plan started to feel idiotic. My brain laughed at me. It had been idiotic from the get go, but here I was clinging onto it for dear life or something like it. “Freedom!”
He snorted at me. I slumped back in my chair. We watched the movie. He ate the whole damn pizza while my acute sense of smell begged for a mouthful of tangy tomato, congealed cheese and thick-baked crust. The sounds of it disappearing were almost too much to bear. I breathed an audible sigh of relief when he eventually closed the box and put it down on the floor. I could still smell the leftover crusts, but I wasn’t quite enticed enough to snatch the box up to suck on them.
When the clock hit five, I took my medicine as stoically as I could. It was better than the alternative. Checking my bag, I figured the one thing I was missing was the gloves I’d boasted about planning. I bemoaned the fact and Mickey checked his jacket pocket and passed me his good leather pair.
“Thanks.” I stuffed the cash inside and put his passport in my pocket. My zip-up hoody went on. I was ready to go, sort of. “This might be it,” I told him.
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Mickey scoffed.
“I could get killed by a bunch of Bible-bashing racial stereotypes.” I insisted on clinging onto my melodrama.
“Or you could get a job in a live show,” he said, smiling at his own stupid joke.
“How’s my face?”
“Almost as handsome as mine,” he told me with a grin.
“Eat shit and die, Bro.” I’d stopped calling him Cuz when he’d moved into my bedroom at ten years old, but I’d never been entirely comfortable with the brother tag. Not like he was.
He smiled sadly at my effort. “I’d say it back, but it looks like you already did.”
“Right then, time to run. I’ll call you in a day or so. Let me know if Nick finds anything out.” I was still curious about my User. Not enough to stick around, but I wanted to know who’d go to all the trouble and what the hell for?
Mickey cleared his throat and nodded. “Speak soon, Bro.”
Fourteen - Pete
I was going to a hell of a lot of trouble to escape a fate that terrified me. I realised that when I saw the queue for passport control. The long winding line was chock-full of people going for a night out or a mini-break. It was strictly hand-luggage only. You want to take a suitcase? Go take a nine-hour flight and go through several hours of security checks.
It occurred to me that I might face harsher penalties for running than I would if I just faced up to things and went back to my flat to wait for the inevitable draft into the Guard.
I just couldn’t do it. See, I had a friend in first year. Timmy Wallace. He was a total shit. I mean he’d spread nasty rumours for no other reason than he was bored. He’d trip anyone he ever got the chance to, particularly if there was a nice muddy puddle on the ground.
He’d once snogged the face off a girl I said I liked and then told her she had cock-breath. He was just that kind of guy.
So, what happened should have been funny. It really should have been. Call it kharmic payback times a thousand. We were in his kitchen one dreary rainy Saturday and he was talking about dipping his junk in a glass of cola his sister had left unattended on the table. ‘No-one wants to see that’, I was protesting. He ignored me as usual, standing up and unzipping his jeans. And that was when it happened.
The back door swung open and banged against the wall. I swear to god there was a crack of lightning at just that precise moment. The thing that staggered forward was bruised and bloodied and huge. It took me a few wild-eyed seconds to realise it was Timmy’s dad. He groaned loudly. The ripped up bloodied clothes were nothing; it was his face that shocked me immobile. Half of it was hanging off, revealing bloody mulch and bone far more graphic than any horror movie I’d ever been forced to watch. I screamed. Timmy pissed on the floor and then he fainted.
The King’s Guard weren’t long in following the zombie into the house. I knew Timmy’s dad was dead. I mean his head had been reshaped to something incapable of housing a brain. There was a massive hole on top, and I saw the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’d thought catching sight of Timmy’s junk was going to be bad? Maggot infested head-wound tops that any day. Christ, I didn’t sleep for months. The soldiers grabbed him as he lunged at Timmy. They were efficient, I’ll give them that. Some of the zombie-thing’s brains leaked out. The one on the right scooped the mess up straight out of Timmy’s piss and stuffed it back in his dad’s head hole. I threw up right on the table. That drew a bit of attention.
The two soldiers turned and stared at me. Their eyes bored through me, blank and glassy in their blue-grey faces. Their expressions were just as unreadable. Terror gripped me. I didn’t know what they might do. I stopped breathing. That’s when I realised I knew one of them, or I had done. Mum’s old boyfriend, Frankie. Hadn’t seen the guy in months and here he was staring right at me with blank eyes that remembered nothing of the countless days at the park and nights playing stupid board games. Suddenly, Mum’s silent tears over their break-up took on new meaning. My head started to spin, so I forced myself to suck in a breath. My eyes refused to leave Frankie. I willed him to show some spark of recognition, but his expression never changed.
They both turned back to Timmy’s gargling dad and hefted him out the back door, no explanation uttered. Weeks later, when Timmy was allowed back to school, he started calling me puke-breath and telling me his dad was asking for me, for my braaaiiiins! I hadn’t even told people he’d pissed himself. So not only was I still being haunted by the horrors of that night, I also got to feel like a total twat for being nice to the prick.
I shiver at the very thought of that night. Timmy’s dad got enlisted. The User had raised him a little later than he strictly should have, so there were some wasting ‘issues’ that needed taken care off. They called a Healer and that was that; one more dead guy drafted into the Guard. I never did see Frankie again. Not that I’d ever want to, now that I knew.
The line rumbled forward slowly. I folded my arms. Anything had to be better than that. At least right now I still felt like myself more or less. If I was a little more limited in some ways and enhanced in others so be it, I was still me. I still liked the same things. I still just wanted to get through the day and come home to watch shit on TV and pull drunk girls in night clubs on the weekend. Was that so much to ask?
I’d heard good things about Vegas. The queue had always put me off. Waiting hours to get into a club had never been my thing. I’d rather turn up early and get in without waiting. Boring but effective and you get to watch the girls arriving before they’ve had a chance to get wasted. It’s easier to pick the quiet ones out. They always get the wildest and leave with the least amount of fuss in the morning. Mouthy bitches just aren’t worth it, take my un-dead word for it.
Fifteen - Pete
I thanked my User for my inability to sweat. The Mickey make-up was intact in-spite of the agonising wait. I flashed my passport. They waved me through, the sweeping detector not finding anything suspicious in my bag. And then I was standing in a completely different country and marvelling at the thought of it.
The portal first opened in the parking lot of The Excalibur about ten years ago. They renovated to make it a second lobby, hoping to cash in on the flood of arriving tourists. I took in my new surroundings with a smile. The lobby was huge. I couldn’t even see the exit. The banks of slot machines and rows of croupier-run tables seemed endless. I eventually discovered an exit sign and headed outside. I didn’t know if it was the time difference or what but it was warm and sunny outside. It felt great. The strip was like I’d always pictured it, only bigger. Everything was larger than life. A freaking rollercoaster whizzed around a New York themed hotel.
My plan suddenly seemed much better than I’d thought. Who’d want to go back to Edinburgh after this? I hadn’t even seen a nudie-show yet, and I was sold. I walked. Mickey had given me a shitload of advice I’d idly listened to while we were watching TV. I was to find a cheap motel off the main strip. They were less likely to ask for ID, apparently. I also had the make and shade of the make-up Kit had slapped on me so I could buy more when I needed to. I was kind of thinking I might just not wash my face; tinky maybe, easy definitely.
My phone rang when I was walking past the New York hotel. M&M’s World caught my wildly wandering attention across the road; there was a costumed yellow M dancing outside to entertain kids.
“Hey,” I picked up, my mouth wanting badly to water. Never in a million years would I have predicted salivating at the sight of a moron in a bright yellow costume gyrating on a street.
“Hey, Bro, I just checked in with Nick. He said no-one’s been around. Just thought I’d let you know.”
“Okay then,” I said. It was a little weird that no-one was showing up to claim me. “I’m in Vegas.”
“Already? Thought that would have taken longer.”
“Two hours, I think.”
“Cool. So, Kit wanted to talk to you.” That sounded delightfully ominous. The rustling noises told me he was passing the phone over.
“Miss me already?” I asked, quickly hijacking the conversation before she could start it.
“No, but I’m missing something else,” she said, sounding pissed.
“My sweet cheeks?” I couldn’t help it.
She made a disgusted noise.
“All right, your sense of humour then, maybe?”
“What have you done with him?”
“With who?” She’d gone mental, clearly. I really should have warned Mickey about the stash of stalker photos.
“William,” she hissed. “You were in my room.”
“I was not.”
“Don’t lie. What did you do with him?” She was worried, under the raging.
“Okay, I had a peek in your drawer. I didn’t take him.” I wasn’t mentioning the flush-threat.
“Bullshit!”
And then Mickey grabbed his phone back, I assume. “What do you know about this, Bro?”
“Fuck all,” I told him.
“Seriously?”
“Are you siding with psycho-brains? I didn’t touch the stupid owl.” I wasn’t totally surprised. Mickey was just weak-willed enough to side with her to avoid an argument. She was the one he was standing next to right now, after all.
“Well, he’s gone.”
“Maybe he ran away? How the hell should I know,” I said, annoyed all of a sudden. Kit had pissed on my sunshine. Damn it, even when I ran to another country she still had it out for me. “Mickey, how sure are we she didn’t have anything to do with what’s happened to me?”
I kept my voice low in case she had good hearing. I could picture her standing close to Mickey, invading his personal space but not quite enough for him to notice and back off. She was a crafty one, all right.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said, brushing my apparent stupidity off without even a hint of anger. He clearly didn’t suspect her for one second. It only made me warier. She really had him fooled with her innocent act.
“Look in her bedroom when you get a chance,” I started.
He made a noise. “No way, Bro.”
“Did you know she’s into horror? Ask her if she’s read the latest Hellraiser…” I couldn’t quite make myself bring up the drawer-full of stalker photos.
“If you’ve done anything to hurt William, I swear…” Kit’s anger was practically making my phone vibrate in my hand. The line went dead before she could finish up threatening me. Just as well. I might have had to remind her she couldn’t actually kill me.
I walked down the street; I suppose I should call it a sidewalk, shouldn’t I? The first side street I liked the look of I went down. Sleazy motel, here I come.
Sixteen - Pete
I’d wasted a good two hours walking around before I came to the suitably cheap-looking ‘Midas Inn’. Again, my lack of a working sweat gland was proving an invaluable asset given the heat. I forked over a few twenties for the night. The locals started accepting Scottish cash about two weeks after the portal first opened. The funny thing is the English still don’t accept it, never have. You’d think they were trying to keep us out of their country, as if our people were so anxious to go there. King David never would have built that wall if he’d wanted a working relationship with their country.
There was a vending machine down the hall from my room. I put some money in and got myself some American ‘soda’ and sweet-treats. My eating disorder could safely be indulged in. The thought made me smile. I ripped open the Twinkie the second after I kicked the door shut behind me.
A recent memory flashed through my head; the smell of Kit’s perfume as she hovered over me hours ago. I felt my tongue swell in my mouth. The cream filled sponge cake tasted like sugary sweet heaven. I almost forgot to spit it out again. Locating the bin, I continued eating and discarding until the packages from the machine were empty and I was left with a bottle of Mountain Dew in my hand and a scattering of crumbs in my mouth. I picked up the bin. It suddenly made more sense to flush the evidence rather than leave anything suspect in the room.
Dead Man Running (Raised Book 1) Page 6