by Amy Cross
"There has to be a way out of here," I continue. "Maybe I can't do it alone, but you know this place inside out. You've been here a while, and you know how Simeon operates. If we work together, we might be able to somehow trick him into letting us go."
"I don't think he's doing anything to keep us here," she replies. "It's ghost 101, babe. You can't leave the place where you died. At least, that's how I understand things."
"There's a way," I say firmly.
"Fine. What is it?"
"I don't know yet," I continue, "but I just know there's a way for us to get out of here. I can feel it."
"Where?" she asks. "In your heart? Are you still all hung up on that cold, dead thing in your chest?"
"You said you want to feel your pulse again," I continue. "Your heartbeat... What if, when we get out of here, it comes back?"
"Now you're just making shit up as you go along," she replies. "Hearts don't just miraculously start pumping again, Katie, not after a few days and definitely not after a decade or two. You're living in denial, but at some point you're gonna have to accept that -"
"I accept it," I tell her, "I just don't like it, and I want to undo it."
"You want to bring the dead back to life?" she asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
"I know it sounds crazy," I continue, "but then so does everything else that's happening to us. This whole situation is insane, so who's to say that we can't make some good crazy stuff happen to counteract all the bad things that have happened?"
"I admire your optimism," she replies, heading to the doorway and slipping past me, "but you'd do better to just accept the situation. It's really not so bad, and like I told you earlier, eventually your mind'll kinda sink back and you won't be so bothered about things. The first few days are the hardest, but you've just gotta push through and eventually you'll be okay, babe. All this fighting talk's gonna fade away."
"And then I'll be like you?" I ask. "I'll just let myself be used every day, and I won't even care? I won't give a damn about other people being drawn here?"
She shrugs.
"You could have saved me," I continue, trying to hold back my anger. "You knew what he was going to do to me, and you could have stepped in and helped me before it was too late. Instead, you let me walk right into all of this, and you just stood aside and watched, and then you helped him."
"What can I say?" she replies. "I'm an awful person."
"Were you always like this?" I ask. "Were you as much of a bitch when you were alive as you are now you're dead?"
"I grew up fast," she says firmly. "Dying kinda helps you to mature."
"So you're happy to just hang around and let this go on forever?" I continue. "You don't care that Simeon's going to keep doing this to more and more girls?"
"It's not like I can do anything to stop it," she replies. "You've gotta accept that there are some things you can't fix, Katie. There are some doors that, once you've walked through them, you can't ever go back. That's true when you're alive, it's true when you're dead, and it's especially true when you're talking about the threshold. Sure, it'd be nice to have a big old reset button, but rules are rules. When you're dead, you're dead, and there's nothing and no-one in the world that can ever help you go back." She pauses. "The sooner you accept all of this, the better."
"So you won't help me?"
She shakes her head, but there's definitely a hint of sadness in her eyes.
"Then I'll do it alone," I reply.
"And what if I tell Simeon?"
"Do it," I continue. "I don't need your help anyway. It might have been useful, but I'll find a way to get out of here, and when I do, I'll ask you again if you want to come with me."
Without waiting for an answer, I turn and head out of the room. I genuinely believed that she'd eventually come around to my way of thinking, but I guess she must have given up all hope a long time ago. I still don't have a clue how I'm going to get out of this mess, but I'm convinced that eventually, somehow, I'll come up with an answer. I just hope that it's not too late, and that Izzy doesn't do anything to try to sabotage my efforts.
Chapter Four
Rachel
It takes me a couple of hours to get down to Tower Hamlets and then through the crowds that, even here, are lining the river. Police have long since given up trying to stop people going down onto the mud, and now are just trying to ensure that things don't get out of control. To be honest, the few police officers I spot on my journey look just as bewildered as anyone else, as if they can't believe what has happened to the river.
The worst thing is the stench. It's a sunny day, and the mud smells fouler than ever.
Checking the map I printed out before leaving Alexander's penthouse, I see that I still have a little way to go. I make my way along the side of the river, and to my relief I realize that there aren't quite so many people past the next bend. I keep glancing at the map every few minutes, just to make sure that I'm not going too far, and finally I reach the exact spot that he indicated. Looking down into the mud, I spot a few old relics dotted about, but nothing that looks too out of the ordinary. Still, figuring that I need to find out for myself, I head along to a nearby ladder and climb down onto one of the jetties, and from there I lower myself into the mud.
My legs start to ache pretty quickly as I wade through the knee high riverbed, and I'm immediately struck by the realization that this is like looking for a needle in a haystack. My time would be better spent searching for Katie, and yet I know that it'll take Alexander a few hours to get the information about that IP address, so I figure I might as well come down here and take a look. I pass old pieces of wood, rotten mattresses and all manner of other items that people have dropped into the river over the years. It's pretty clear that the Thames has been used as a kind of all-purpose garbage facility, and most of the things tossed into the water have been pretty mundane. I can see people with metal detectors up ahead, desperately searching for treasures.
And then I spot what I'm looking for.
Reaching up from the mud, there's a rotten arm, its skin partially discolored and sections of flesh having been eaten away, probably by eels and other creatures that frequent these waters. As I get closer, I see that the arm is bare, which I guess fits with the fact that I was naked when I died in Alexander's bed. Rather than immediately try to pull the arm loose, I wade around it, examining it from all angles. The hand is slightly curled into a kind of semi-fist, and the fingernails are too far gone to be able to tell whether they were painted. Still, as I hold my arm up for comparison, I realize that there's definitely a similarity: the same thin wrists, and the same length and shape, even the same thick scar running along one part of the forearm to mark the spot where I fell off my bike as a child.
I stand completely still for a moment, trying to work out if I really want to do this. Finally, however, I reach out and grab hold of the arm; giving it a gentle tug, I find that it's stuck fast in the mud, so I pull harder and eventually, with a kind of slopping sound, I pull the corpse's entire torso loose. Covered in mud, it's barely even recognizable as a human, but somehow I just know that it's my body. The lower half has been badly chewed away, and there's a rope around the waist, attached to a weight that Alexander tied to me because he wanted to make sure that I'd sink fast. I feel strangely calm as I start wiping mud off the corpse's face, even though I know that -
Suddenly I stop.
Having removed some of the mud around the eyes and mouth, I can finally see the dead body's expression, and there can no longer be any doubt.
It's me. It's my head, or at least it's my head from before I started being reborn.
I take a deep breath as I stare at my own dead face. My eyes are closed, but my mouth is hanging open, and there seems to be something moving in the back of my throat. I lean closer, but suddenly a small eel comes slipping out with a piece of my flesh between its teeth; the creature writhes for a moment, before falling onto the mud and flailing desperately in a shallow pool of
water. It can't survive for long, but I don't bother to help it. Wiping more mud off my head and neck, I feel a strange kind of peace land on my shoulders. I assumed that I'd be shocked or horrified by this sight, but instead I'm overcome by a sense that somehow this is how things are supposed to be.
After all, I've known for a while that I'm basically dead, so the discovery of my corpse is really just confirmation. It's been a few months now since the night when Alexander killed me; over that time, I've become more and more determined to wash my hands and keep myself clean, and now I guess the reason is clear. Somehow, I could tell that my body was down at the bottom of the river, covered in dirt and grime.
"Poor bitch," I mutter, before pulling the rest of my corpse out of the mud and starting to drag it over to the river's edge. It's not an easy job, and to be honest I'm not even sure that I know why I'm doing it, but somehow I feel as if I can't leave myself in the mud and silt of the riverbed. At some point, the river's bound to get refilled, and my body deserves better than to be allowed to just sink deeper into the depths. I've never been a religious person, or the kind to get sentimental over something so stupid, but at the same time I feel a kind of honor-bound duty to pay some respect to my own corpse. It's just a bundle of meat and bones, but it's my meat and bones.
Figuring that I don't really have many options, I take a firm hold of my corpse's head and start pulling it up onto the jetty. Before I get too far, however, there's a tearing sound and the head becomes detached from the body. I stare for a moment at the stump of my neck, with part of my spine jutting out, and then I look down at my head. Realizing that a head is much easier to carry than a whole body, I turn and try once again to get up onto the jetty. From there, I'm able to get myself back up to the embankment, where I set the head down before wandering over to a small memorial garden. It feels like a crazy idea, but I guess it's better than nothing, so I get down onto my hands and knees next to a flower border and finally I start using my bare hands to dig a small hole, just a few feet deep, and then finally I grab my dismembered head and set it gently at the bottom of the hole.
"Rest in peace," I whisper, unable to think of any words that might be deeper or more meaningful. "Something like that, anyway," I add, before starting to fill the hold back in with soil.
Once I'm done, I sit with my back against the wall and stare at the spot where I just buried my old, rotten head. I still don't quite understand how I ended up being resurrected with a new body, and there's a part of me that wonders if now that I've been given a proper burial, I might start to fade away. To be honest, I can't help thinking I'd welcome an end to all the pain and misery of life, but in the end I guess I have to stay alive, even if it's only for my sister. Taking a deep breath, I glance back down toward the riverbed and try to imagine how many other bodies there must be down there, most of them completely hidden by the mud. Am I the only ghost who's using this opportunity to right a few wrongs, or are there more of us about? If all the ghosts of London got together, they'd outnumber the living many, many times over.
Looking down at my hands, I see that I've got mud and gunk all over my fingers. My first instinct is to wipe it away, but then I realize that there's probably no point. My old body is down there in the mud forever, so I guess I'll never be clean again.
Chapter Five
Katie
"You'll love it here," Simeon says as he leads the girl through the door. "Lovely place, and you can kick back and relax for a while until you've found a job."
"It's really nice of you to help me out like this," she replies with a smile. "I didn't think people were so nice in London."
"What can I say?" Simeon continues, bringing her into the kitchen but stopping suddenly when he sees me sitting at the table. "We, um..." He pauses, clearly lost for words.
"Hi," I say with a faint smile. "I'm Katie."
"Hang on, Gemma," Simeon says, grabbing the girl's hand and leading her over to the stairs. "How about I show you where you'll be sleeping first, yeah?"
I listen to the sound of them talking as they head upstairs. I guess Simeon's trying to get another recruit for his dirty little business, and he probably assumed that Izzy would keep me out of the way. Above, I can hear them entering the bedroom, and I'm sure Simeon's telling this Gemma girl the same things he told me when I arrived. I feel sorry for her, but at the same time I'm fully aware that there's no point in rushing up there and trying to do something to save her; Simeon won't hurt her yet, not for at least a day, because he needs her to be psychically linked to the building before she dies, so that her ghost is unable to leave. I have a little time to play with.
Above, I can hear Simeon and Gemma laughing about something.
"Another one?" Izzy says.
Turning, I see that she's standing in the doorway, having apparently been watching me for a while. "You wait years for him to bring a new bird to the house, and then two turn up in the space of a week. How's that for industriousness, eh? At this rate, he'll have the place packed again pretty soon."
"Her name's Gemma," I reply calmly.
"Nice," Izzy replies, heading to the fridge and taking a look inside. "I know ghosts don't need to eat," she mutters after a moment, "but on, like, an emotional level, I can't stop feeling hungry a few times every day. I thought it'd fade over time, but here I am, looking for cheese and ham, the same as I used to do when I was alive." She reaches in and pulls out some small sausages. "Sometimes," she adds, "I wonder if I can really taste them at all, or if maybe I'm just remembering the taste. I guess it doesn't matter, does it? You want some?"
Before I can answer, there's the sound of more laughter from upstairs.
"I guess he'll kill her tomorrow, then," I say after a moment. "Will you help again?"
"You're really hung up on that, aren't you?"
"On murder?" I reply. "Yeah, kind of, especially when I'm one of the victims."
"And you really can't see that life is easier now?" she continues. "The lack of fear -"
"Lack of fear?" I ask, getting to my feet. "We're dead!"
"Exactly," she continues, "so it's not like anyone can hurt us anymore. Well, not most people, anyway. We can't ever starve, or be homeless again, or be cold or hungry or any of those things we felt before. Maybe you didn't experience it properly, Katie, but when I first came to London, I nearly froze to death out there. I remember shivering on the pavement with ice crystals in my hair, hoping that I could just die without any more pain. And now none of that can ever happen to me again. This is the opposite of homeless."
"We're trapped in this place," I point out.
"I'd rather be trapped inside without pain," she replies, "than trapped outside and going through agony."
"Alright, girls," Simeon says as he hurries back through. "Izzy, love, can you go up and work your charm on our new arrival? I need to have a word with Katie."
"Fine," Izzy replies with a sigh, slamming the fridge door before heading to the stairs. "It's not like I had anything else to do anyway."
"You look pretty confident," Simeon says with a smile. "If I didn't know better, Katie, I'd think you were planning to piss me off."
"I won't let you do this," I say after a moment, fixing him with a determined stare. "There's nothing you can do to stop me. I'm going to warn that new girl and I'm going to make sure she gets as far away from you as possible."
"And why would you do that?" he asks, with surprising confidence.
"Because I don't want to see anyone else get trapped here like this," I tell him, "and because I happen to think that murderers shouldn't get away with their crimes."
"But what is murder, really?" he replies. "I mean, if the so-called victims actually end up better off, is it so fucking awful?"
"You won't get away with any of this," I continue. "You might have bent Izzy's head around to your way of doing things, but -"
"Oh," he says suddenly, interrupting me, "I'm quaking in my fucking boots. Let me explain something to you, Katie. I don't think you kn
ow all the rules, and there's some stuff you really need to know, such as..." He pauses, and finally a broad grin spreads across his face. "If you really want to leave this place," he continues, "you can. You just can't use the front door."
"What do you want me to do? Climb out the window? If there's -" Before I can finish, I realize that my legs are getting hot; looking down, I see flames bursting from the lower half of my body, and as I turn to run, I'm engulfed completely. Unable to see anything and with my body filled with pain, I stumble across the kitchen until the flames die down and I drop to my knees, still feeling a kind of ringing pain in my chest.
"So there you go," Simeon says after a moment, sounding very pleased with himself. "If you wanna leave this place, you can, but the only way is down. If you really wanna burn up, I can tell you exactly how to make it permanent, although I should warn you, the pain lasts forever."
Getting to my feet, I turn to him. Although I want to reach out and rip that grin off his face, I can't handle the thought of feeling so much pain again.
"There's something to be said for it, isn't there?" he continues. "Existence without pain. I can promise you one thing, Katie. If you get on my wick, I mean if you really piss me off, I'll make sure you burn in hell forever." He pauses. "I hope I'm making myself very clear."
Still feeling echoes of the pain in my body, I stare at him.
"Excellent," he continues. "I think we're more or less on the same wavelength. Izzy and the other girls didn't just hang about and work for me 'cause they thought it'd be a blast, Katie. They all started out like you, full of anger. The thing is, they learned the hard way that I'm offering a decent opportunity. I'll admit, there were a couple who never figured it out, and they burned up completely. Hell, they're still out there somewhere, burning and screaming and probably wishing they could take things back. They're the unlucky ones, but you've got a chance to do things right."
"I'll never work for you," I say firmly as I get to my feet.