by Sarah Dalton
“I’m bored,” she says eventually. “Give it up already, you’re not going to magically bump into him, okay? What’s so special about him, anyway? There are plenty of other fit lads in this place. What about him?”
“Acne. And he’s about fifteen.”
“Him then?”
“Jesus, Lacey. He’s old enough to be my dad.”
“Okay, then him.”
I sigh. Pointing at men through the glass window of a café is not my idea of fun. Not to mention the funny looks I’m getting. I keep forgetting that no one else can see her. I keep forgetting that she’s dead…
“You’re crap at choosing men,” I whisper, smiling. “Stick to girls.”
We give up on finding Seth and head back to the campsite. Lacey’s ghostly arms rub against mine as we walk, sending shivers down to my fingers. I end up hugging my body to keep the warmth in, even as the sun beats down overhead.
When we reach the car park, I notice the dark stain on the tarmac; the last remaining evidence of the dead boy. The last thing he left to this world.
“Where did he go, Lace?” I ask quietly.
“I don’t know.” Her voice is soft, lost in itself. “When I’m there, I don’t know I’m there. It’s like a hollow, a hollow of… energy, I think. I’m… I’m drowning in it, being pulled under.” She shivers and rubs her shoulders.
“Do you feel the cold?”
“No,” she says.
We stand there staring at the blood stain.
“I exist… and yet I don’t.”
“Limbo?” I asked.
She shrugs. “I thought that when I died I’d finally get to know if the big chief exists. Well, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t. Not yet.”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind the suspense,” I say.
We grin at each other. A pause hangs between us and the smiles fade from our faces. We both realise, at the same moment, that this is the first time we’ve mentioned the otherworld to each other. This is the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much left unsaid. Lacey, you should pass on. I could say that. I could tell her to find peace. But I don’t.
“You know how we faced the murderous doctor at Magdelena?” Lacey asks, her gaze redirecting to the stain on the ground.
“Yes,” I say. It takes me a moment to pull myself from my thoughts.
“Well, I think we have to do it again, but with someone even worse, this time,” Lacey says. “I think we have to go up against some sort of evil spirit.”
Chapter Eight
There are so many songs set in the heat of a summer night. Love songs about sex and romance; songs about the moonlight and soft waves lapping at the beach in the summer heat. Funnily enough, there aren’t as many about pining over a guy you don’t even know whilst sitting on the grass next to your dead best friend.
We’re on the lookout, but what we’re on the lookout for… I’m not sure. We decided to get high. No, not like that; we climbed a hill overlooking the campsite, the fairground, and the surrounding moors. Now we sit and wait. My chin rests atop my bare knees as my eyes search the area around us.
This time there aren’t any rainbow lights or blaring music. There are no screams as the rides screech through the dark night like runaway trains. The fairground has been closed down, for safety reasons. No doubt I’ve lost Seth his job as well as his friend.
Go away, Death. Take your evil spirits with you. Let me live a normal life, like a normal girl. Just leave me Lacey, alive and touchable. Huggable. Breathable.
It’s a warm and clear night, but the stars aren’t as bright as they were on the Ferris wheel. Still, the air feels soothing, not the kind of atmosphere you would expect for an evil spirit to go on a murderous rampage.
“Why the campsite and then the fairground?” I ask. “I mean, the two locations are quite far away from each other. When you watch ghost movies, they’re almost always about a haunted house, right? Not a haunted town.”
“Maybe she’s latched on to you. I mean, you’re a human who can see ghosts. That’s pretty special, right? It can’t happen very often. Or maybe she sensed me. I felt her reaching for me. I think she’s lonely.”
“We need to find out if she’s killed before,” I muse. “Or how long ago she died. If we’re going to go after her, we need to find out as much about her as we can.”
“Google it,” Lacey says. “And why don’t you Google Seth, at the same time?”
“Because that’s stalking,” I reply.
“Then what the hell did we do all day? What was with the traipsing around old-fogey town looking for random mechanics?”
I flip Lacey the bird and pull my phone out of my shorts pocket. “Huh, check it out. I’ve actually got a signal.”
According to Wikipedia, Five Moors Campsite has had a small amount unusual deaths in the last few years, enough to be noted, and enough to attract an odd group of Goths to the same place every year, a little bit like Whitby.
“So that’s why there’s that group of emo kids in the next van,” I say. “They’re here on some sort of ghost hunt.”
Lacey leans over my shoulder, reading the passage along with me, her ghostly form turning my flesh bumpy with the chill.
“Five Moors has been the site of suspected ghost sightings since the death of twelve year old Amy Willis, killed on the moors. They never caught the guy who did it,” Lacey reads aloud. “Yuk, that’s awful. No wonder she’s so angry. That was five years ago. And in the last five years there have been three accidental deaths—the kid from the other day makes four—”
“Damo makes five,” I add.
“Right,” Lacey says. “According to this, the first death occurred when a caravan toppled over on to twenty-five year old Matthew Waters, crushing him to death. Then, a year later, sixty-three year old Devendra Singh fell from the top of the camp office, plunging to his death on the car park—”
“Like the little boy.”
“There was Steve Grayson—he died parking his car. Apparently the vehicle lost control and crashed into a tree.”
“What?” I say. “How do you lose control parking a car?”
“Exactly. They thought it was suicide, but he… oh, this is sad… it was an hour before his wedding, he went out to move his car to make room in the car park, the next thing you know? It’s wrapped around a tree.”
“That’s terrible.” The temperature drops as I think of the poor guy’s last moments. Did he think of his fiancée? Did he cry out? Did his ghost fight as he was sucked into Lacey’s hollow, drowning in energy?
“So that’s the three. All men,” I say. “Do you think that’s significant?”
“Could be,” Lacey replies. “She was probably killed by a man.”
“She’s getting revenge. But the little boy… He didn’t deserve it. He’s a little kid—an innocent.”
“So was she,” Lacey notes.
I turn my phone back to the sleep mode. I don’t want to look at the screen anymore, I don’t want to see those names, to imagine the lives of the people she’s taken. It’s then that I remember…
“The Thing,” I say.
“What thing?” Lucy asks.
“I saw one of them. You remember in Magdelena, I told you about those creatures that I see, the ones that deliver warnings?”
“Yeah?”
“One of them gave me a riddle:
“Cloaked in shadow,
Cloaked in light,
She takes the lives,
To gain her might.”
“Cloaked. That could mean hiding, yeah? Cloaked in shadow, cloaked in light. She hides in the daylight and the night-time? That doesn’t tell us much. All ghosts do that. They hide on their different planes and come out whenever they feel like it,” Lacey says. “I guess it could mean that she’s as dangerous in the day as she is at night. When the sun goes down I get a little surge of energy. It makes me feel more alive.” Her eyes soften. I would have thought she were about to cry, if she hadn’t been a ghost. “May
be Amy is as strong in the daytime as she is at night. It would explain how she kills in broad daylight.”
I nod in agreement. “And the next bit: She takes the lives to gain her might. Killing people makes her more powerful.”
“If that were true, wouldn’t she keep killing all the time? There’s only been a handful of deaths over the last five years.”
“Unless something has changed.” I stare down at the lights in the campsite below. “We don’t know enough about ghosts. We don’t know how they change over time. You’ve been a ghost for a few months, but there are things she can do that you can’t. That means some ghosts are more powerful than others, and maybe they can become more powerful with practice.”
“I’m not an expert, but I reckon a car is harder to control than tipping a caravan. And a Ferris wheel is even harder, imagine all those levers and buttons. Plus she was strong enough to break the chains from your carriage, and disconnect part of the wheel.” Lacey’s eyes widen. “Her power is growing, and if she has just noticed that the deaths make her stronger, it might be now that she turns even more murderous.”
“That means more deaths.” My shoulders slump when I realise what we’re up against. “So, how do we stop her?”
“Umm, Google it?” Lacey suggests with an apologetic shrug. She waggles a finger at me. “But whatever it is, you’re not testing it out on me.”
I climb to my feet. “Deal.”
“Where are we going now?” Lacey asks.
I can’t suppress this groan. “Disco. At the campsite.”
Lacey doubles over with laughter. “You’re kidding me, right? A freakin’ disco? How old are you?”
“Mum reckons I might meet a ‘nice boy’ to take my mind off of Seth.”
“Wow, even your mum knows your love-life is dire. How does that feel?”
“If I could punch you right now, I totally would.”
“Gimme your best shot,” she says with a grin.
I roll my head and lift my shoulders to warm up. Lacey stands before me, seeming more solid than ever before. But I know my fist won’t connect with anything. I might get a chill and an electric shock though.
I retract my elbow, lift my arm, and plunge it forwards, smashing into Lacey’s face. Of course, my fist goes straight through her, throwing me forwards. It’s at that moment I lose my balance, and face plant into the grass, with the soft chuckles of my dead best friend as a soundtrack. My poor bruised body has had enough of me flinging myself to the ground.
“Urgh, that was worse than last time,” I say.
“Did you get a chill?” she asks.
“Ice cold.”
“Oh, mate, I wish I could help you up right now. But I wish even more that I could’ve filmed it.”
I drag myself back onto my feet. “Don’t ever let me do that in public.”
“Agreed,” she says.
On the way back to the campsite, I find myself almost transfixed by the dark moors around me. It must be a lonely place to die—a frightening place. As appalled as I am about the deaths over the last five years, my heart tugs when I think of that little girl, betrayed by someone in the worst possible way. It’s too horrible to even think about. It makes you lose hope in humanity, makes you wonder if there is any good in the world.
Lacey decides that the hollow is better than a DJ who announces song dedications in a “radio” voice and disappears for a while. It’s probably for the best, because it’s much easier to act normal in public when she’s not around, and I’ve noticed my mum watching me, every now and then, her brow furrowed as though she’s trying to suss me out.
Music blares out of the hotel function room and barbecue smoke wafts through the air. Pre-teen girls giggle and run around the side of the building, being chased by a boy holding his two hands together as though protecting something inside.
“He’s got a spider!” one of the girls shouts breathlessly.
When I smile at her, I think of the little girl ghost out there, alone and afraid and murderous. I pull my cardigan tighter around my shoulders as I make my way to a small patio area outside the function room. Mum and Dad stand outside chatting to an elderly couple, both holding drinks. They introduce me with an enthusiastic pat on the back and I smile and nod along until it’s over.
Dad and I make our way to the barbeque, the smell of almost-burnt burgers like a siren call. Mum has us on a healthy eating kick for ninety percent of the year. We’re always in cahoots when it comes to sniffing out the nearest treats.
“Cheese?” he asks.
“Load her up,” I reply.
“You okay, Mares? It’s a strange old holiday so far, isn’t it?” he says.
“Strange is one way of putting it. Not all vacations start with the death of a child.”
“If it bothers you we can go home, you know. Your mother feels awful about it. She would never say so, obviously…”
“No, it’s okay, Dad. I want to stay.” I nod and plunge my teeth deep into the burger, relishing the grease while I can. After a pause to allow me to chew, I add, “It’s not so bad, here.”
“We just want you to be happy. We want you to get out there and make friends, you know, after everything that’s happened this year.” He grins and pulls me into a one armed hug.
I roll my eyes. “Dad, I’m fine. And I’m too old for these hugs.”
“You’re never too old,” he replies. “Speaking of old, I’d better find your mother.” He points at me in mock seriousness. “Do not tell her I said that.”
“Secret’s safe,” I reply.
Dad melts into the crowd of holiday goers and I finish my burger while watching the people around me. There is one advantage to the disco—it’s brought out the Goths. Mum seemed quite perturbed when we got here. I think she imagined the place full of middle-class families with teenage children, not a sea of black eye-liner and piercings.
The doors of the function room are open and I stand, chewing on my burger, watching the tweens jump up and down to One Direction from the safety of the patio area. Most of the Goths stand together, drinking beer.
Mum is far more drunk than I’d thought. She has a bottle of wine in one hand and is pulling Dad towards the dance floor as Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed a Girl’ comes on. Apparently, she knows all the words.
“They your parents?”
I turn to find a guy with safety pins turned into a necklace standing next to me. He has black hair, a lip piercing and the kind of cheesy tattoos on his arm that make me long for Seth and his tattoo artistry. He has a hint of a brummie accent in his lilting vowels and low register. It has always amazed me how people from Birmingham have voices that almost sound like a piano out of tune.
“Yep. Kill me now.”
He smirks. “I think they’re sweet.”
“I think they’re puke-inducing.”
“You’re funny,” he says, though it sounds more like “yow’re funn-ay”. “And kooky. I like that.”
“Kooky?” I ask.
“Yeah, you know, your look. The dark hair and the pale. That faraway expression of yours. It’s pretty sexy.” He grins in a non-intimidating way.
“Oh, I have a boyfriend,” I lie.
“Yeah, me too,” he says. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Oh, well, thanks. You pretty well made my night.”
“Happy to oblige.” He lifts his beer in mock salute. “You want a drink?”
“Medication,” I reply. Technically, I’m not taking it, but it wouldn’t go down well with the ‘rents if I started drinking in front of them.
“Gotcha.”
“So what brings you to Five Moors? Seems like an odd spot for a Goth outing, no offense.” Of course I know why, but I want to find out if they know any more about Amy Willis and her ghostly murders.
“What? You don’t know?”
“Know what?” I shrug.
“This place is super-haunted. A little girl was killed by some psychopath killer about five years ago. Since the
n, she’s been killing off men in revenge.”
“Seriously?”
“According to the legend, if you see Little Amy and survive, you’re destined for good luck for the rest of your life,” he continues.
“Do you have to say her name three times in the mirror?”
He knocks me playfully on the arm. “Nah, nothing like that. Little Amy doesn’t need gimmicks, she’s real. Don’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?” I ask.
“The atmosphere, man. It’s fuckin’ buzzin’ with it. There’s the stink of death all over this place. We got here the same day that little lad died. Jesus, that was so harsh. I came here with the guys as a bit of a laugh, a bit of a blow-out. Then that happened and it all came crashing down, the realisation that this isn’t a joke. Little Amy is out there and she’s really killing people.”
“Then why didn’t you leave?”
“I dunno,” he says. “Why do people stare at car accidents, or watch Z-listers descend into a meltdown? Because we can’t look away. When it’s not happening to us, it reminds us that we’re alive, you know?”
“Unless she kills you,” I remind him.
“Yeah, there’s that. But the other bit is addictive.”
I nod. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. And that makes my stomach churn.
Inside, the disco continues. I ask the guy his name; Neil. Dad takes Mum back to our caravan. I decide to give them some privacy… just in case… vom.
The lights in the disco flicker on and off. Then the lights go out for about five seconds, causing everyone inside to do a wooooooo. When the lights come back on, for about a second I think I see a shape, right in the middle of the crowd.
A girl.
Dirty dress, messy hair, blood on the hem of her dress and dripping down her arms. Her hair hangs in her face, veiling her eyes. She’s a vision of chromatics in a scene of colour, except for the red of the blood.
She’s revealing herself to me. Why?