by Luke Walker
‘Jesus Christ,’ Karen whispered. Exhaustion and grief made rational thought close to impossible. ‘All right. You’re safe with us.’ She glanced at the stains on the girl’s jeans. The girl saw her gaze and spoke with a terrible matter of fact tone that sent spasms of horror through Karen.
‘It’s all right. The bleeding’s stopped now.’
Karen cleared her throat. It was too dry and the stale stink of blood and dirt in the flat had impressed itself deep into her nose and mouth.
‘What happened after Andy came in? After you …’
‘I ran. The other man, he’s in a flat down the end. I ran upstairs.’
‘Is he dead?’ Will said.
‘Yes.’
‘Then what? You heard us?’ Mick said.
The girl flinched at the aggression in his voice.
‘I was going to run downstairs. Had to come past here to get to the steps, but then you with the bat, you …’
‘It’s okay. We didn’t know who you were,’ Karen said and the girl appeared to relax.
Karen cleared her throat again and wished for fresh air even if it was cold. ‘Listen. I know this will sound weird but we don’t know where we are. This town, we know it. It’s called Dalry but we don’t know it like this. It’s not like this.’
‘You’re from the other place, aren’t you?’
Cold horror touched the fine hairs on Karen’s arms. ‘What? Where?’
‘Where the sun shines.’
A moment of silence filled the flat. Karen’s anger had become a block of ice in her chest. Now coupled with her grief and exhaustion, fear closed in.
‘Yeah,’ Will said. ‘I think we are.’
Thirty Six
‘I’m at the cemetery off Gullymore Road,’ Kirsty said and Jo’s reply was immediate.
‘What the hell are you doing there?’
Kirsty tightened her hold on her mobile as if afraid she might drop it. ‘I know it’s mad, but there’s some weird stuff going on here. I just need to do this and I’ll go to the police.’
‘The cemetery. Jesus. I thought you were going to stay where other people could see you.’
‘It’s okay.’ Kirsty studied the few headstones she could see. Phil had passed them a few minutes before and she hadn’t seen anyone since. ‘I’m still in my car. Phil had his. I followed him here and he’s gone to his sister’s grave. I’ll wait in my car until he gets back, then I’m going to call the police about Stu.’
‘Christ, Kirsty. Why did you need to go there in the first place? Why not just listen to him, then call the police?’
Kirsty rubbed her forehead. The desire was there; the words weren’t. How to tell Jo something that didn’t make sense was happening here; how to say she’d needed to do this. If Stu was simply missing, then that was one thing, but there was more going on here. If that meant ghosts and visitations, then that changed all this into something new and unknown. She knew her actions made no sense. Coming here with a man she didn’t know to visit the grave of someone she’d never met was mad. And yet, here she was parked outside the cemetery on a Saturday morning while the rest of the world carried on as normal.
‘This guy is okay. If he was a nut, I’d know it by now. He’s just upset about seeing his sister or thinking he’s seen her. I don’t know.’
‘Kirsty …’
‘If Stu went out last night without telling me what he did, I wouldn’t be here. But this guy’s sister and him seeing her as well has got to be something to do with Stu, right? Why else would Stu and his friends have seen her or heard from her or had drawings of her in their house?’
Jo spoke in a quieter voice. Kirsty could picture her using the same voice with difficult children. ‘I just don’t like you away from other people with some random guy.’
‘It’s fine. I’m in my car. The doors are all locked. As soon as he comes back, I’m starting the car.’
She heard crying children in the background, then Rich’s voice. It sounded as if he was singing.
‘Are they okay?’ she said.
‘Fine. Just a bit grumbly.’
Kirsty summoned Lucy’s face to her mind. Picturing her daughter brought an easy smile to her face.
‘Don’t let Rich sing for too long to her. Don’t want her to have nightmares.’
Jo laughed but it was a simple dutiful sound. ‘Just be careful,’ she said.
‘I will. I’ll call you as soon as I speak to the police.’
She let Jo speak for another minute, telling her to be careful, to not get too close to Phil. Kirsty agreed with the right words and eventually hung up.
She studied the entrance to the cemetery. Nothing moved there except the bushes that lined it. Phil had said Geri’s grave was a few minutes from the entrance but he’d be quick. Kirsty checked her watch. It was twenty past nine. He’d been gone about fifteen minutes. She tapped on her mobile.
‘Come on, Stu.’
She hadn’t known she was going to speak. The undercurrent of panic in her voice scared her and she pocketed her phone.
Stu. What the hell is all this? Where are you?
Her mind repeated the moments before he’d left the night before, telling her about his dead friend and how people he’d lost touch with had seen her or heard her voice. Not believing him last night hadn’t occurred to her. Even if it was a joke, it wasn’t his style of humour at all, and he wouldn’t make it up for no good reason.
Where are you?
She couldn’t even take a guess. Just as it wasn’t Stu’s nature to make stuff up about ghosts and dead friends, it wasn’t his nature to stay out literally all night and definitely not to do that without calling her.
She checked the mobile despite it remaining silent, and movement from directly in front caught her eye.
Kirsty’s breath froze in her lungs. The steady beat of her heart became a terrible pounding in her ears and all the warmth inside the car vanished in an instant to be replaced by a burst of bitter cold.
A figure had come from the opening to the cemetery. They moved as fluidly as water from the gates to the edge of the pathway beside the road. Sunshine shone on their hair. The red glinted in the morning light. And that same light shone through their body.
Kirsty stared through the woman beside the road. She stared at a ghost.
A wordless shout began to form in her mind, bellowing at her that this couldn’t be real; it was imagination; it was tiredness and stress and worry.
The ghost remained exactly where it was, facing the road, its face in profile to Kirsty. Daylight moved through her body, her body faint like steam. The white form of her body tapered down to nothing below the waist and …
Not nothing, Kirsty saw. A pulsing redness shone below the figure’s waist, roughly at her centre. Something red, breathing in and out.
Movement above the light as the ghost began to turn. Kirsty’s breath refused to come and the thud of her heart drowned out all other sound. Some horrible force dragged her eyes upwards, passing over the ghost’s mid-section, over the shape of her breasts and up to her face, to her eyes staring directly at Kirsty.
The roar of her heartbeat vanished. Everything around her vanished and there was nothing but the dead girl looking at her.
The ghost’s face blazed with a shocking red light; Kirsty closed her eyes, tears leaking from the corners and sound returned: her panicked breaths, tight and painful in her chest. She rubbed at her eyes, managed to open them and stared ahead, vision still blurry with tears.
The ghost had gone.
No ghost. No ghost. Wasn’t a ghost.
Yes, she was.
‘Stu, what’s going on? Where are you?’
The sound of her voice shocked her. It was the voice of a child, abandoned by a parent. She coughed and blew her nose and reached for her mobile.
Phil appeared at the cemetery entrance. He sprinted to her, eyes staring, mouth open.
Instinct awoke. Kirsty’s hands dropped; she turned the key and checked th
e door lock at the same time. The car was secure.
Phil stopped close to her car, panting hard. She unwound her window down an inch.
‘Are you all right?’ she said, marvelling at the change in her voice from child back to adult.
His words were lost below the noise of the engine. Kirsty leaned close to her window.
‘What?’ she called.
He flapped at the hand towards the cemetery. ‘I saw her. She was there at her grave.’
The daylight seemed to fade and Kirsty’s mouth opened. She licked her teeth.
‘What?’ she said.
‘At her grave,’ he shouted. ‘Jesus Christ. We have to go. We have to go.’
‘Phil, calm down.’
‘We have to go. My old house. It’s just off Audley Road. We have to go there.’
He ran to his car; Kirsty unlocked her door, opened it and leaned out to call after him.
‘Why?’
He glanced back as he opened his own door. ‘She’s taken them there. They’re all in my old house.’
He threw himself into his car and started it. As he sped from the cemetery, Kirsty slammed her door closed and followed, not aware she was saying Stu’s name over and over, thinking only of the ghost beside the cemetery gates.
Thirty Seven
Stu pressed his back against the window. Karen was still squatting beside the girl and as much as he wanted to join her, he knew he’d only scare the girl by moving closer.
‘Are there others here like us?’ he asked and the girl murmured a no. ‘What about you? Do you live with anyone?’
She shook her head. ‘There are people here. I see them sometimes,’ she said.
‘People like him?’ Mick said and kicked the corpse.
‘Yes. And others.’
‘People like you, you mean? People that men like that hurt?’ Karen said.
‘Yes.’ It was barely a whisper. ‘More of them than us.’
‘Shit,’ Stu muttered. ‘Where are they?’
‘Around. They’ll know you’re here.’
‘What?’ Stu jerked forward and relented when Will put a warning hand on his arm.
‘They’ll have been watching you,’ the girl said. ‘Since you got here.’
‘We haven’t seen anyone,’ Karen said and the girl shrugged.
Stu chewed his upper lip and asked a question to which he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘I don’t know. A long time.’
‘So you’re not from here?’
‘No. I’m lost. Like you.’
‘Wait a second,’ Will said. ‘We’re not lost. We’re …just …we’re in the wrong place. That’s all.’
‘So am I.’
Stu stared at Will, then Karen. They shared the same look and Stu knew it was on his face, too. He glanced at Mick and there it was—the realisation of their mad situation.
This wasn’t Dalry. It was the lost side of Dalry. Something had brought them here and because they didn’t know what it was, there was no obvious way of getting back to the real Dalry.
‘We should go,’ he said in a thick voice. ‘How far away do you live?’
The girl considered. ‘Not far. You can come with me.’
Stu strode towards the door; Will followed.
‘Wait a second.’ Mick pointed to Andy’s prone shape. ‘What about Andy?’
Stu struggled for the words and found none. Karen rose and spoke quietly.
‘He has to stay here for now. When we can, we’ll come back for him.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ. This is a fucking nightmare. Andy, he didn’t deserve this,’ Mick said, voice thick with tears.
Nobody replied.
Crying, Mick stood close to Stu and Will at the doors; Karen extended a hand to the girl who eyed it, then stood without taking it.
‘You’ll take us to your home?’ Karen said and the girl nodded eagerly.
They grouped at the door and the gloom in the corridor stretched to either end. Stu stepped out, paused and spoke without looking back.
‘Wait,’ he said and entered the kitchen.
The shape of Andy’s body lay below the curtain. Stu held his breath and pulled the curtain away. Andy’s head was facing the opposite wall.
‘Andy,’ Stu said. The others were behind him; he didn’t turn around.
‘Andy. Sorry, dude.’
Stu inhaled sharply, pulled Andy’s sticky hand from the blade of the knife and moved before he could think about it.
Stu yanked the knife; the hard flesh around it parted and it slid free from Andy’s stomach.
Mick let out a sob and that was all. Stu stared at the weapon, blade thick with his friend’s blood. He pulled the curtain back over Andy and rose. The others looked back at him as he held the blade up.
‘Good plan,’ Will said.
They returned to the door, then the corridor. Will offered Mick the bat. Wordlessly, Mick shook his head, leaving Will to hold it awkwardly.
‘We’re going to your house, right?’ Stu said to the girl.
‘I have food,’ she said and Stu forced a smile. God knows how long it had been since he’d eaten. Even so, eating was the last thing from his mind.
‘What do you do for food here?’ Will said. ‘And water?’
‘We find it.’ The girl shrugged as if it was not a big deal and a brief urge to laugh madly struck Stu. It passed and he stepped into the corridor.
‘Downstairs, out and to the left, all right?’
The others muttered their agreement. Stu looked at the girl.
‘You okay to lead us?’ he said.
She responded by walking a few paces ahead of him.
‘Thanks,’ Stu said.
Conversation stopped until they were outside. Karen and Will huddled together; the girl watched them and Stu wondered how long she’d been here. After a moment, he decided he didn’t want to know.
‘Which way?’ he asked her.
‘The river.’
She headed towards the field. Stu glanced back at the others.
‘We don’t have a choice,’ he said.
‘Suppose not,’ Will replied.
They followed the girl, their grief and fear walking beside them.
Thirty Eight
‘So, you really don’t know how long you’ve been here?’ Will said and wished he’d kept silent. The question tasted clumsy. Worse than that, it sounded patronising. It made him think of talking to an elderly relative, not a terrified girl who’d survived horrors he couldn’t imagine.
‘No,’ she said without turning.
They left the grass of the park, found a pathway and followed it over cracks and shallow holes. Will felt Karen’s eyes on him. He glanced at her and she nodded, encouraging him.
‘You live alone?’ he said.
‘Yes.’ Again, she spoke without facing him and without much emotion.
‘I …’ Will began and the girl whirled around to stare at him.
‘Too many questions. You need to look and listen and nothing else.’
Only a little of her face was visible: one eye, a cheek and half her mouth set in a firm line. As she stared at him, it was impossible for Will to believe she was no older than twenty. This was an old woman staring at him in the dark.
‘We’re scared,’ he said, forcing the words out. ‘We need to know what’s going on.’
‘You’re lost.’
‘We know that.’
‘This is lost.’
The girl pointed to the ground and the nearby buildings that formed the rear of Cathedral Precincts.
‘This is another version of Dalry, isn’t it?’ Stu said. ‘Like in another world or dimension or …’
‘What? This isn’t Doctor fucking Who,’ Mick said.
‘Doesn’t matter. It’s real,’ Will muttered. ‘She’s lost. This park’s lost. Andy’s flat is lost. The whole city is lost and that makes us lost, too. It doesn’t matter whether you call this another ver
sion of Dalry or another side, it comes down to us being lost.’
‘Dalry has a lot of sides,’ the girl whispered and a nameless fear crept up and down Will’s back.
She moved and Will pulled Karen to jog after her before she had gone more than a few steps.
‘Who are the people here? The people who want to kill us? The people we saw in the pub? They were eating dead bodies, for fuck’s sake.’
‘And who chased me near the school?’ Stu said.
‘Bad things,’ the girl said to him. ‘There are bad things everywhere.’
Stu shook his head, muttering. Will reached for the girl’s arm and Karen blocked him before he reached her.
‘Who are they? We need to know. Everyone here wants to kill us. Who are they?’
‘They’re not people. They’re not ghosts. They’re just bad.’
Mick laughed and the bitterness in the sound hung low around them.
‘Bad? What are we talking about? Evil spirits? Demons? What?’
‘Bad. Bad things,’ the girl told him. ‘They’re not people. They’re from outside.’
‘Outside?’ Will echoed.
‘Yes. Where it’s dark. They came here a long time ago. They’ve always been here.’
A voice spoke to Will. He wanted to believe it was Geri but it wasn’t even close. There was a terrible age in the voice, age that went far beyond Geri.
Outside, Will. Outside love. They’re forgotten by love and by everything inside. They live in the void. They hate the inside even though they’d do anything to get back to it. They don’t know what being human is. They only know the outside of being human. They only know they’re forgotten.
‘They’ve always been here? Now what the shit does that mean?’ Mick said and Karen waved a hand at him to quieten him.
The girl didn’t appear to hear Mick. She stared at Will. ‘They’re not people. We are. They’re outside us and they’ll kill you if they can.’
‘We’ve all gone fucking nuts,’ Mick said and Karen whirled to face him, her hand spinning out of Will’s grip.
‘Is what happened to Andy nuts? You need to accept this, Mick. It’s real and that means we’re in trouble.’
Mick stared at her and Will discovered something horrible. Karen’s outburst had robbed him of his voice. He looked from his wife, to his friend and back again and couldn’t speak. His gaze moved to the girl who was watching them, face unreadable. Will stared at her, unable to blink.