‘He’s a boy. A boy like me,’ replied Sam.
‘You are a boy like you.’
‘He looked like me. Looked exactly like me.’
‘You look exactly like you. Perhaps your friend hides in mirrors? Some creatures Between prefer the world of mirrors to the world of this reality. They say the lands there are so much larger.’
‘No, he wasn’t in a mirror. We met in this forest. Then he came to my house. My Awake house. He grew from an egg until he looked just like me.’
‘Identical,’ said the Tall Man, nodding. ‘I know the creature you speak of. They are clever and like to play.’
‘Do you know where I might find him?’
‘What it knows, you know. What it can do, so can you. You are connected. Identical,’ said the Tall Man.
Sam grew agitated; the faceless man was talking in riddles.
‘Where is he? Please just tell me!’
‘Think well of yourself, Sam Ward,’ he replied.
Sam, angry, tried to ask further questions, but the Tall Man said something about having to meet an invisible girl, and was gone in the time it took to blink.
~Chapter Twenty-One~
The next week passed so slowly it felt as though time occasionally stopped altogether. The brightest colour was grey and the laughter of others was sharp fingernails dragged across Sam’s skin.
‘Why’ve you got to look so miserable all the time?’ asked Mum. ‘I mean, just look at you, moping at the table like you’ve just been told your favourite dog’s been put down.’
‘He never actually looked that sad when we did have the dog put down,’ said Dad. ‘Anyway, you know he gets that from your side of the family. Your parents were both miserable sorts. Never had a kind or happy word to say to me.’
‘They had a hard life! You wouldn’t be jumping for joy either if you’d had half the life they had.’
School resumed its familiar oppressive, alien texture. Sam found himself once again skirting round the edge of the school yard to reach the building entrance with as little interaction with the noise as possible.
It was like it had never happened. Like that one right, shining spot of happiness and not-lonely had been circled, snipped out, and the two bits either side joined together. It was almost dreamlike, as he attempted to think back on his and his friend’s weeks together. Perhaps it had been a dream all along. And now he had woken up.
‘Hey, Sam.’
Sam looked up to see Finney stood over him. He looked back at his feet without answering. Finney scuffed his shoes on the ground before deciding to sit next to Sam on the wall.
‘Weird about Mark, hey?’ said Finney, half laughing, before stopping. Sam nodded.
‘Police still don’t know nothing. My Mum says it was probably a burglar. Or something.’
Sam said nothing.
‘Look….’ Finney twisted as he forced the uncomfortable words out. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t … I tried to stop Mark, you know. I did try. Ask anyone.’
‘We were friends.’
‘Yeah, for a bit, but … with what happened to my sister, I suppose it just….’ Finney stopped.
Sam felt his head growing hotter.
‘Maybe we could, you know, hang out some time, or … up to you. We could go throw things in the river like we used to.’
‘He’s my friend. Not you. Just him.’
‘Who? You don’t have any friends.’
Sam stood and turned on Finney. ‘You’re not my friend!’
He lashed out, half surprised, half exhilarated as his fist met Finney’s nose and sent the boy tumbling backwards off the wall.
‘You’re not my friend! You’re not!’
Sam sat atop Finney and hit out again and again until his knuckles bled.
~Chapter Twenty-Two~
Sam’s friend returned that night.
Sam was laid in bed with his eyes closed, hands throbbing, unable to sleep, unwilling to move. He thought only of his missing friend and of Finney crying in a ball on the ground. How could he have done that? That wasn’t him. It wasn’t. He didn’t want to hurt anyone ever. Did he?
Knock-Knock-Knock
Knuckles on wood, echoing around the bedroom.
Sam sat up sharply, eyes blinking. ‘Hello?’ He reached over and fumbled the bedside lamp on.
Knock-Knock-Knock
Beside his bedroom door, that led to the upstairs corridor beyond, was now another door. This door had not previously existed.
‘Hello?’ said Sam.
Knock-Knock-Knock
‘Is that you?’ Sam stepped out of his bed; he could feel a cool draft snaking across the carpet from under the new door and washing over his bare toes. Sam’s heart began to beat fast. Was his friend coming back? Surely it was true; he could feel it. He ran to the new door and threw it open to reveal a room.
Inside the room was the forest.
Sam recognised it as the Between forest. He stepped inside, onto the carpet of twigs, grass, and fallen leaves. Looking up, he could see a ceiling, but the trees paid no mind to that, breaking straight up, through and beyond.
‘Are you in here?’
Sam’s friend stepped out from behind one of the trees. ‘Boo.’
Sam grinned hugely and ran to his friend, embracing him tightly; the boy returned the favour.
‘You came back,’ said
The boy nodded. ‘Well, of course. I’m your best friend.’
‘Am I still asleep?’ asked Sam, releasing the boy and looking around at the tree-filled room.
‘No. Since becoming Awake, I can come and go Between as I please. I can open doors that lead from one to the other, and back again.’
The trees rustled their branches; Sam got the impression they were sniggering at him. He ignored them and walked back through the new door with his friend, back into his bedroom.
‘What happened to your hands?’ asked Sam’s friend, touching the red raw.
‘I did something very bad,’ replied Sam.
‘You get that from me.’
‘Why did you leave? Is it because we argued?’ said Sam, closing the new door that led Between.
‘No. Partly. I just came back to say goodbye.’ And the boy let his face droop with self-pity.
'What d'you mean? For how long? Where are you going?'
'I can't stay forever, can I?' said the boy, sadly.
'Yes, you can; you're my friend!'
The boy shrugged. 'But I'm not from here, from Awake. I'm from Between. The Between doesn't allow people to just leave it so easily. It will want me back, in the end. Unless….'
'What? Unless what?' Sam’s heart beat fast and desperate. He knew he would do anything to keep his best friend. Anything, anything, anything.
'We have to make the blood contract,' replied the boy.
'Yes, okay! What is that?'
The boy pulled a piece of sharp plastic from his pocket and pricked it into the palm of his hand. Dark red blood bloomed from the tiny wound. 'Now you.' He held the plastic out to Sam, but Sam dithered, holding his own hand protectively.
'Did it hurt?'
'Yes. Only a very little. Don't you want me to stay?'
Sam took the plastic, breathed in and out twice, closed his eyes and jabbed it at his hand. When the skin was pierced, he did his best to muffle his sharp cry, so as not to rouse his slumbering parents.
'Is that it?'
'Now we shake hands so our blood meets and mingles and joins, signing the blood contract.'
Sam’s friend reached out his hand, the red smeared across it. Sam reached out his own bloodied hand and the two met and held tight.
The boy smiled after a second and released Sam's hand.
'You can stay now?'
'I can stay.'
The new door was now just a wall again.
~Part Four~
Ally, the babysitter
~Chapter Twenty-Three~
Ally wiped the water from her eyes and looked into the mir
ror. Today was a green sort of a day, and the newly toxic hair colour shone brightly in agreement.
‘Ally was a punk rocker,’ she snarled at her reflection, lip curled, before breaking down in giggles.
She made her way downstairs to find her Mum making eggs. ‘Hey, honey,’ her Mum said. ‘So which of my towels have you ruined this time?’
Ally smiled and held up a much-stained towel. ‘Same one I ruined the last four times.’ She tossed the poor towel (which bore the faded scars of four previous hair colours) into the washing machine and grabbed some toast.
Ally’s Mum was a police officer. Her Dad, who lived in the next town, managed a florist shop. Most people assumed she’d got that the wrong way round when Ally told them. ‘That’s because you’ve got the man’s sexist gender roles seared into your simplistic prole mind!’ Ally would yell at them. She did enjoy yelling at idiots; it was more or less her favourite pastime.
‘Here you go.’ Ally’s Mum slid a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her, which Ally doused liberally with brown sauce.
‘So,’ Ally began through a mouthful of food, ‘any news on the crime of the decade, Mummy dear? Enquiring minds want to know.’
‘First of all, how many times do I have to ask you not to speak with your mouth full?’
‘At least another couple of hundred times,’ Ally sprayed.
‘And second, you know I shouldn’t, can’t, and, most importantly, don’t want to talk about that sort of thing with you.’
‘Aw. Still no clear perp to finger, hey?’
‘Not a one,’ Mum replied, dropping the frying pan into a sink full of lukewarm water and heading out to work. ‘Wash those for me, would you?’ she called back over her shoulder.
‘Yes, mein Fuhrer!’ Ally yelled, throwing in a salute for good measure even though her Mum was already out of sight. Mr Pooch, Ally’s elderly Boxer, used his snout to nudge open the door separating the kitchen from the front room, and waddled over.
‘Hey there, little dude, want some eggies?’
Mr Pooch sat expectantly at her feet. Ally shovelled a few more spoonfuls of egg into her mouth, took the remaining piece of toast, then placed the plate at her feet. Mr Pooch eagerly chowed down on what was left of the scrambled eggs.
Ally grabbed the morning paper and started flipping pages, looking for any sign of Mark’s case. It was weird to think that someone she knew, no matter how slightly, had gone missing. Been murdered, probably. Though everyone seemed to have a different idea on what had actually happened. Some said that Mark’s body had ever been found. Others that it had been found several time; little pieces of him scattered in every room. Gross.
Ally stopped on page eight, a small article in the bottom left corner. A picture of Mark at the top, obviously taken several years back. The young boy who smiled out at her bore only a passing resemblance to the violent little snot she was aware of.
Ally was several years older than Mark had been, so she knew little of him other than by sight and reputation. The only time she’d spoken to him was when she was yelling at him as her boot connected with his ribs and sent him packing. How weird that only days later he’d be on the receiving end of a much worse, and very final, violent episode. His ribs were probably still bruised from her boot.
‘Police say they are following several promising leads, but are still appealing for anyone who thinks they may have seen or heard anything.’
An empty piece. Nothing new, just filling up some blank space on the page. No doubt it would drop out of the press altogether if there was nothing new to toss on the fire soon.
Mr Pooch barked once, softly, to indicate he was all finished with the eggs. ‘Well done, Mr Pooch, you hungry little swine.’ Ally ruffled his head, then retrieved the plate, now slobbered clean, from the kitchen floor.
~Chapter Twenty-Four~
Ally slouched in a chair watching some old horror film on the telly, sipping one of Sam's Dad's cans of beer. Sam was sat cross-legged on the rug. A man with a mask was sticking a large knife into screaming teenagers.
'This is the best bit, this bit right here,' said a gleeful Ally, as the masked man picked up a chainsaw and stuck it through two teenagers at the same time. 'Ha! Yeah, kill those idiots!' Blood splattered the back wall, the giant masked killer finally pulling the chainsaw free of their flailing bodies, followed by a waterfall of blood and uncoiling intestines.
‘Now, if you wake up screaming tonight, do not tell your parents I let you watch this. A grass has a terrible time of it in prison you know.’ She winked at Sam, who smiled and nodded back happily.
A few more dead teenagers and half a can of cheap lager later, Ally got around to Mark: ‘So, still no news about that dead bully, hey?’
‘No. I don’t think so. People aren’t talking about him so much at school either.’
‘It’s fallen down the chart from what’s hot to what’s not. Damn this MTV generation and their short attention span … ooh, hello, can number three.’ Ally crumpled her empty can into the bin and grabbed the next, which was sat on the floor beside her. She cracked it open, froth bulging out and over her hand. Ally laughed and quickly covered the drinking hole with her mouth, sucking up the escaping foam.
‘We even played a trick on him!’ said Sam suddenly, grinning widely.
‘Oh yeah? On Mark?’
Sam paused. To Ally, it seemed as though he was debating with himself whether or not to go on. He snapped to a decision and nodded eagerly.
‘Right on. You and whom? Who’s the ‘we’?’
‘My best friend. We got him good. He ran off like he was going to wet himself.’
‘Nice one. Colour me impressed, boyo. So which best friend is this? I thought I was your best friend. Way to break it to a girl gently, ya jerk.’ Ally poked her tongue out at him, making him giggle. ‘Well? Who is he? Or is it a she…? Does my Sammy boy have himself a lady friend? Ooh la la….’
She watched the boy turn red and squirm. ‘No! No, it’s a boy, not a girl.’
‘Well, okay, so I’m still in with a shot; now I don’t have to kill myself.’ Ally inhaled, then unleashed a deep, long belch, finishing it off with a little bow. ‘I’m quite the catch, you know.’
Sam laughed as he stood up. 'I need the toilet.'
'And then off to bed. Just 'cos I’m obsessed with you, it doesn't mean you stay up past eleven, all right?'
'Okay.' Sam headed out, leaving Ally alone in the room.
'Oh, gross!' Ally cackled as an axe took the top of some poor blonde girl’s head clear off in a Technicolor splurge of blood and gore. 'You fool around, you get killed, you know the rules.'
Ally turned to put her can down and started slightly as she saw she wasn't alone any longer.
'What are you doing sneaking back in? Off to bed with you, Sammy boy.'
He said nothing.
'What's this? The mean and moody type, hey? Fully Marlon Brando? You really know how to turn a gals head, mister….' Ally fluttered her eyelashes then broke down in semi-drunken giggles.
He said nothing.
‘Go on, then, stop pissing around. Off to bed with you now, or me and you? We’re over.’ Ally stuck her tongue out.
He still said nothing, didn’t blink even.
'Hey, all right, come on, break character,' said Ally.
He remained silent and still.
Ally shifted slightly, feeling strangely uncomfortable under the unblinking gaze.
'All right, enough, get to bed now.'
He took a single step towards her. Ally shrank back despite herself.
'Didn't you hear me? Now. Go on!'
He took another step forward.
Ally stood and staggered back a pace or two from the couch, turning slightly as a shrill scream blasted from the TV set behind her. Ally wanted to stride forward and whack the little idiot across the top of the head for making her feel so stupid and worried.
'One more step and I will smack you so hard you'll be peeing blood for a month.'
Why did she feel so scared all of a sudden? It was just Sam. Sammy boy. Her little pal. He only came up to her chest and his arms were like pipe-cleaners.
But those eyes.
She'd never seen his eyes like that. There was something new in them. Something … strange. 'Well?' She said, shuffling forward slightly.
He stepped forward, smiling now. The smile made a shiver race up Ally’s spine.
‘Stop it. Stop smiling.’
He stepped forward once again, that awful smile still on his face, and crouched down out of sight behind the couch that barred the path towards her.
'Stand up.’
He remained out of sight behind the couch.
‘Oi! Did you hear me? Sam. Come on, Sam, enough already.’
No movement, no sound.
‘Sam, stand up, you little—' Ally stood on tip-toes to try and spot him crouched in a ball, but she was too far away. She took a step forward and tried again. Then another step. Finally she reached the couch itself and peered warily over the beck.
There was no one there.
~Chapter Twenty-Five~
A week passed before Ally found herself approaching Sam’s house once again.
She stopped a little way from the front gate and pulled the earphones from her ears. The strange event from last week still played on her mind. The strange, disquieting atmosphere that had surrounded Sam as he’d stepped back into the room. Several times since, as she tried to sleep at night, his eyes had seeped into her mind. She had never seen his eyes like that. Never seen anyone’s eyes like that.
She’d actually considered turning down the chance to babysit this week, but then the idea of pockets empty of money scared her much more than that weird incident. ‘Pull it together, dummy.’ Ally flicked a cigarette into the road and headed for the front door. It was just one weird moment. Sam was her little pal. Cute little Sammy boy. She’d known him forever. It was probably just because she’d had those beers, that was all. The booze and the scary movie, joining forces to give her the creeps.
The Identical Boy Page 7