by Sarah Dalton
Dad steers the car around a tight bend and I find myself thrown against the glass. The hot, still air wraps around me like a stifling duvet. What if we’re about to be in a car accident?
“Dad, slow down,” I say, a tremble in my voice.
“Honey, we’re running late. I told the campsite we’d be there by—”
“I don’t care. You’re going to kill us! Slow down.”
Mum’s disapproving eyes appear in the rear view mirror. “Don’t you dare speak to your father that way. Have some respect, young lady.”
I grip the arm rest by my seat. “Please. Slow down.”
“All right,” Dad says. The car slows and the landscape outside no longer blurs. “If it makes you uncomfortable I will.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Dad.” My palms are slick with sweat and I shift in the back seat to let my legs get some air. Outside, the sun beats down on the crumbling tarmac of the old road. My eyes search the landscape for any more Things hidden in the surrounding moorland. I pull in a deep breath to steady my breathing. Everything seems back to normal. I lean back against the seat and close my eyes. It’s a mistake; that skull face seems burned onto the backs of my eyelids, its grinning face mocking me.
Unease spreads over my skin.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the car mirror: little more than a tangle of black hair against pale skin. I’m even paler than usual.
Dad pulls the car off the road and onto a track and I let out a sigh of relief. Surely we can’t have a car accident on a single track at five miles per hour. Mum jabs her finger at the sign by the verge:
Five Moors Campsite
Five moors. The middle of nowhere. How did she even find this place? It was probably on one of those discount sites she likes, the ones where they tell you it’s 50% off a five star hotel, but it’s only that cheap because they overcharge all year, and reduce the price to make it seem like a bargain.
The gravel crunches beneath the tyres as we move along the driveway into the campsite. On either side the moors stretch out as far as the eye can see. They will be bleak in winter. I think of how the wind must howl and how the rain will fall unhindered onto the grass. I wonder about grass snakes lurking between the reeds. Today the sky is bright blue above the smudge-brown and green carpets. The sun is bright enough to make me squint as I stare out of the window. Up ahead, the static caravans come into sight, with a wooded area behind them. The trees line up in the distance.
Aside from the countryside and glinting white caravans, another sight catches my attention. In between the trees and the campsite there are tall, metal sculptures encased with blinking lights. I know what that means: a carnival.
At least there will be something to do here. Lacey’s gonna love it.
Dad pulls the car into the tarmac car-park and guides it into a space. When the handbrake goes up, he glances around him, as though waiting for the round of applause. In the middle of the campsite is a tall building that looks a lot like a small hotel.
“Why are we staying in a caravan when there’s a hotel here?” I ask Mum.
There’s a click and a zzhup as we undo our seat belts.
“The hotel is expensive, honey,” Mum replies. “It’s one of those sorts that specialise in corporate retreats. There are lots of conference rooms and what-not. They do team building out on the moors, apparently. I think there are some guided walks and orienteering for holiday goers. You should have a go at that, get some fresh air and exercise.”
I meet Dad’s eye in the rear-view mirror. I can tell he’s smiling without even seeing his mouth. When we’re alone we sometimes make fun of Mum’s obsession with how fresh air and exercise will cure everything.
“Maybe,” I mutter, hiding my face from her gaze so she doesn’t notice how I’m trying not to laugh.
When I climb out of the car, the warm summer air hits my bare arms and legs, making me forget all about the Thing in the field. I stretch out my muscles, enjoying the little clicks your shoulders and knees make after being cramped in a car for hours.
Mum rifles through her handbag, mumbling about travel documents, while Dad gets the bags from the boot. I notice a strange group of teenagers standing near the entrance to the hotel, holding battered old holdalls and rucksacks covered in badges and iron-on patches. They aren’t the kind of people I’d expect to holiday in Nettleby, North Yorkshire. They look like the Goths that descend on Whitby every year, the kind obsessed with Dracula and vampires. A tall guy with a lip piercing nods to me and I nod back, feeling it would be rude not to.
“Come on,” Mum says, waving us on. “I’ve found our confirmation email so we should go and get checked… oh.” I supress a giggle as Mum reacts to the Goths outside the hotel. She has her back to me but I can imagine her frozen expression of disapproval. She turns back to us and whispers, “Oh, I don’t like the look of them at all. I hope we’re not near their caravan.”
“Stop worrying yourself, Suzie Q,” Dad says, grinning at her.
Mum is Susan to everyone except Dad. Quirke is her maiden name and Dad finds it hilarious to call her Suzie Q; sometimes it even stops her fussing over whatever the latest crisis is.
“I’m just saying that it seems strange that this place attracts that sort.”
I roll my eyes.
Dad sighs. “Let’s go and check in. It’s late, we need to eat, and we need to unpack.”
By the time we get to the hotel, the Goth kids have dispersed somewhere into the campsite. Some of them clutch cans of lager, and one attempts to ride a skateboard over the grass. When it fails to move, the kid falls off and a bunch of his mates jump on top of him. The others stand around laughing and pointing.
Mum tuts. “Look at that. They’re drunk already. Some of them can’t be eighteen, surely.”
“It’s not our place, Su,” Dad reminds her. He ushers her through the door to the hotel.
The woman behind the counter has set curled hair in a short do. Her face is powdered, and she wears a string of pearls around her neck. She must be about fifty. Her smile is fixed and there’s tiredness in her eyes. I drift away from my family as they check in, wandering across to the leaflets on display, telling us all about Nettleby and the surrounding area.
One leaflet catches my eye. On the front cover a man stands leaning on a cane. His face is tilted down and a superimposed skull shines over his features. With a fright I think that it’s another vision of mine, that the Things had started appearing on informative stationery as well as in fields, through windows, and at school. But then I see the title: Igor’s ghost walk. I take in the top hat, the waistcoat and the old-fashioned cane. The caption reads: ghosts, ghouls and grisly murders. Igor will take you on a tour of the nastiest crimes in Nettleby.
How many nasty crimes can there by in Nettleby? It doesn’t strike me as having a seedy underbelly of corruption. Nevertheless, I fold the leaflet and push it into the pocket of my denim shorts.
When Mum and Dad are done checking in, we follow Mum around the campsite, looking for our caravan. The static white vans are lined up in grids, each with a little plot of grass around them. Elderly couples relax on deck chairs, their veined legs peeking out of pastel coloured shorts. Potted plants are dotted around the doors of some vans and it hits me that people live here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but moors and the occasional forest. I have a mild anxiety attack even thinking about stepping out of my front door and not being within walking distance of a decent café or a supermarket.
“Here we are,” Mum says. “Oh, it’s quite nice.”
Our van is larger than I had imagined, and as we get inside, it’s also pretty spacious; one of those large, mod-con types, with small flat screen TVs and a bedroom each. There are little floral curtains on elastic at every window. The kitchen sink has a surface that folds over to become a chopping board.
I wander into the small single bedroom which will be mine for the next seven days. Our van is on the edge of the moor, and if I l
ook through the small window, I can see the countryside extending for miles. Even in the bright sunshine the sight of the moors gives me a chill. For some reason it makes me think of the people who have been here before. It makes me think of the history of the world, and of all the feet that have trodden down the grass. It’s almost ageless; a small patch of untouched world.
“Have you taken your medication?” Mum’s sharp voice pierces through the silence, startling me from my thoughts.
“Yes,” I lie. I’ve been throwing my pills away for weeks. They make me groggy and disinterested in life. It’s like walking around inside a pillow case. I want to feel the world around me, even if it means seeing the Things, and if that makes me crazy, then I guess I’m crazy.
Outside the van there are a few “whoops” and lots of laughter.
Mum places one hand on her hip. “I asked the woman not to put us near that rowdy lot,” she says.
“The holiday will be what you make of it, remember,” I say, unable to stop the grin spreading along my face.
Mum lands a playful slap on my shoulder. “How did I raise such a cheeky daughter?” She smiles, and then her eyes mist over with tears. She sniffs, and shuffles out of the room.
I unpack, listening to the lads outside in the campsite. They’re laughing and shouting, and being young. Part of me wants to join in with them, to feel like I’m in a gang. I’ve never had a lot of friends. At school, I have one good friend, someone who stuck by me after the incident. I had some not so good friends who didn’t. In Magdelena I had a group of friends, but—aside from Mo—we didn’t stay in touch. Now I just have Lacey.
They sound so alive out there. To Mum’s ears they must be intimidating, a pack of young, untamed people; dangerous types who could be criminals. I wonder if I could walk outside and slip unnoticed into their crowd. Maybe.
As I hang up my cardigans and t-shirts, the noises from outside change. Instead of the general whoops of laughter and fun, a terrible high-pitched, real scream tears through the air. I drop my clothes to the floor.
Chapter Three
“Wait here,” Dad says, rushing out of the van.
Mum and I share a glance. We can’t just wait here. We hurry out after him, moving along with the flow of people heading towards the noise. There’s a heavy feeling in my gut.
As we get closer, my skin begins to prickle. There is a group of people standing near the entrance of the campsite office, some of whom hold a hand to their mouth as though in shock. The air is thick with a tense silence. Even the group of Goth kids have quietened. A girl about my age hides her face in her boyfriend’s chest.
“Oh my,” Mum says in a breathy voice. “What on Earth could have happened?”
The wind whips up my hair as I turn to the entrance of the campsite. Somewhere in the distance is the faint sound of sirens. A yellow blur of an ambulance whizzes along the main road in the bleak vastness.
A woman wails. The grief stricken note chills me to the bone. I turn back to see her red face, wet with tears, lifted to the sky, her hands on either side of her face, clutching her cheeks.
“Why?” She sobs. Her shoulders shake as she cries, uninhibited, no longer able to form words. She’s taken into the arms of a tall man, but she struggles, trying to break free. The sight is shocking, the kind of thing you see in faraway countries on the news.
I shoot a glance at Dad. His mouth is set in a worried line.
I step back away from the group, trying to free up some room. My legs are so shaky that I almost trip and fall onto the tarmac.
The sirens are louder now, and I pull my eyes away from the grief-stricken woman to see the ambulance travelling up the path. It stops and paramedics surge out. The crowd parts to let them through and it’s then that I see what has happened. It makes me wish that I’d listened to Dad, and stayed in the caravan. A young boy, perhaps ten years old—it’s hard to tell—lies crumpled on the ground, with his arm and leg stuck out at angles that your brain tells you is wrong. Dark blood pools beneath him like spilled wood stain. His skull is smashed.
I step back, tripping on my heel. My stomach lurches and lunch almost heaves all over the ground. As I try to steady myself, I see an image that I will never forget for as long as I live. The boy—not the crumpled version of him flat out on the cold tarmac but the boy as he should be— stands over himself, with tears running down his cheeks. He crackles, like intermittent television reception, and lurches backwards. His hands reach out to his mother, the woman who doesn’t see him, who is staring at his broken body instead.
“I don’t want to go,” he says. “I don’t want to.”
The boy disappears.
One of the paramedics asks his mother what happened.
“He jumped from the roof.” Her eyes drift to the top of the hotel. “He jumped.”
I think of the boy’s last words. I don’t want to go.
A chill seeps through my veins.
*
Death seems to trail me like the train of a wedding dress. I am the corpse bride and my loyal funeral procession nips at my ankles. Or perhaps I am the Pied Piper and the rats are ghosts, dancing to my music as I walk through life. But if I am the Pied Piper, where am I leading the ghosts?
The things I see are like a stink that you can’t wash away. I will never have the luxury of forgetting the sight of that boy. My heart twists as I remember his pained face, the tears wetting his ghost-pale skin as he is pulled away from this mortal coil, this plane of existence, this universe, whatever you want to call it. He’s gone.
If you think I’m crazy, you aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last. The visions began one day in school. I thought I was going mad. One moment I’m copying notes from the whiteboard, and the next I see a strange zombie-like creature, writing me a cryptic message. But then, later on, a fire in the gymnasium killed five pupils and maimed three others. I got out almost unscathed because I’d had that warning. I had cuts and bruises that healed. The nightmare left a scar.
They called me Scary Mary at school. I made the mistake of telling a therapist about the Things, and then an even bigger mistake of telling a friend. Everyone thought I was crazy, and that’s how I ended up in Magdelana Ward.
I hate hospitals, but I hate them even more when there’s a psychopath doctor killing off cancer patients with lethal injections, especially when he comes after me and then murders my friend. Oh yeah, and because I’ve attracted so much death in my life, I can see ghosts. The problem is, ghosts can be tricksters. They are bored and sometimes they toy with me. They come to me in that precarious space between life and death and mess with my head. They can be bitter, trapped in some plane of existence they shouldn’t subsist in.
But no matter how twisted they are, I owe them. In fact, I owe them my life. Without ghosts, I would be dead. So maybe it’s time for me to pay them back. Maybe it’s time for me to help them.
Why would a ten year old boy jump from a high roof? Maybe he was playing. Kids think they’re superheroes all the time. They play at being Superman. But most kids know not to go up five storeys.
“Mary, are you going to unpack?” Mum asks. She sniffs and her eyes have a slight red tinge around them, but she injects a breezy tone into her voice.
Since we got back to our caravan she has been rushing around in the small space, fussing over our belongings, banging cupboards open and shut. Dad is back at the hotel, seeing if he can help. I’m sitting on the little sofa cushion behind the small dining table, watching my mother become a blur.
She’s in overdrive with cheery overcompensation, as though a ten year old boy hadn’t been taken away in a body bag. There’s nothing like a stiff upper lip to get you through a holiday that starts with a death. There’s nothing like sweeping something like this under the carpet, so you can enjoy the two days of sun we get in the whole year in the north of England.
I pull myself from my thoughts and back to the present, wiping away the dew of tears that collected on my eyelashes.
/> “Are you okay?” Mum plonks down next to me and the cushion deflates with a hiss. She’s not fat, she’s not even chubby. It’s just that she throws around what little weight she has at high speed. We share the same hair, but Mum has pale blue eyes. Mine are dark, like Dad’s.
She puts an arm around my shoulders and squeezes me tight. “You can’t let it ruin our holiday. It was tragic… I’m sorry that you saw it.” She lets out a sigh. “The poor woman. If I lost you… I’ve been so close to it before.”
She looks at me and the weariness in her eyes exhausts me and tugs on my heart at the same time. There’s a suffocating feeling constricting my chest, one that makes me feel like I’m guilty for everything that happens around me. I bring them death. I bring my loved ones death.
“Okay, I’ll unpack.”
“Good girl.”
I stand up to leave and my shoulders feel a little lighter than before. A sudden impulse takes me over. I have a desire to go out and do something that makes me feel alive. I want to be surrounded by people.
“If I can go to the fair later,” I say.
“Sure,” she says with a nod.
“Alone,” I add.
Mum’s eyes darken for a fleeting moment before she says, “That’s a good idea. You need to make friends.” Then she reaches out and grabs my hand. “But be careful.” Her eyes are focussed on the faint white scars on my neck.
I nod. “I promise I will be.”
She lets me go and when I walk away, I realise her chin is wobbling. I think of how she had to decide to put me in a psychiatric ward for a week, to find out later that a doctor had been killing patients in the neighbouring ward. My last day in Magdelena had ended in murder and fire. The guilt shines in her tear-filled eyes. She blames herself for what happened to me, but I don’t blame her at all.