Pretty Little Dead Things

by Gary McMahon

  She needed something from me – perhaps a lifeline, perhaps an indication that someone understood what she was going through – so I gave it, as best I could. "I know what it is to lose someone, and how your emotions can get tied in strange knots. Believe me, I know."

  She raised her eyes and they were clear: no tears, no grief, not a hint of turmoil. Clear as a deep blue ocean at midnight.

  "We should go. Will you be okay, honey?" Ellen stood and walked across the room. Her legs tensed in her tight jeans and when she knelt at her cousin's side I felt a shameful thorn of lust pierce my side. There were things she and I needed to speak of; a mess that needed tidying. I only hoped that I had the right tools to do the job.

  We left Shawna there in the darkening living room, cradling her cup and staring at the wall. Whatever was going on inside that woman's head, we had no business trying to get a glimpse of it. In my experience some emotions are just too private and painful for others to even begin to fathom, yet people still insist upon lining up to take photographs.

  We left the squat building and walked towards the car, the mood between us difficult to read. It had always been this way: we made things complicated simply by being in each other's company.

  I smelled smoke in the air. The clouds grumbled far above us. The lightning from before had not returned. Not yet.

  When the car came into sight, Ellen stopped and grabbed my arm. "Thomas."

  I looked over at the small vehicle and saw that a group of youths in dark hoodies were standing grouped around the bonnet. One of them had lifted the bonnet, and was reaching inside to interfere with the engine.

  "Hey!" I yelled, jogging forward and wishing that I was more of a fighter; that my skills lay in my fists rather than my broken mind.

  "Thomas – don't!"

  When the group turned as one, heads swivelling in my direction like mechanical toys, I wished that I had taken Ellen's advice long before it was offered.

  The black hoods showed only darkness; no features could be seen. These were the same figures that had chased me to the train station when I'd left Ellen's hotel – the same dark entities who had been the harbingers of a greater darkness, and this time they seemed bigger, wider, and brimming with more power.

  This time they were up for the fight.

  I stopped running and stood watching them, waiting for the first move. The figures stood and stared, blackness billowing within their black cotton hoods. Long, thin, pale hands slid from the cuffs of their arms. Sharp white nails glittered in the early sodium-tinted darkness. Then, one by one and all across the estate, the lights went out: house lights, streetlights, garden lights, wall-mounted security lights. Each was extinguished as if by a colossal hand passing over a series of tiny flames.

  Darkness flooded in, moving through the streets like floodwater. It surged towards us, sluicing through the narrow alleys and ginnels, washing over roofs and splashing against walls.

  The hooded figures raised their heads and arms, offering those blackened hoods to the even blacker sky, and then they began to wail. The noise was like sheep being slaughtered, or the screaming of cattle as they are herded over the edge of a cliff. I pressed my hands against my ears and turned around, looking for Ellen. She had already started to run, and she looked back at me as she flew towards the corner of a nearby high-rise.

  "Keep going!" I ran after her, following her across a car park and towards a fence that had been partially broken down at some point, probably by vandals. "Go! Go!"

  I was close behind her as she ducked through the gap in the fence, her jacket sleeve catching on a loose timber and ripping along the seam. She didn't stop; she kept on running, terrified of what was now in pursuit: the original members of the MT. Mathew Torrent's old playmates come back to hunt us down like dogs in the street. Or perhaps, as history might suggest, to pressgang us into God knew what kind of arcane rite or ritual.

  I gained on Ellen as she moved across a patchy area of grass, the haphazard remains of an old bonfire standing clumped at its centre. The charred timbers of old furniture, door frames, and what looked like the shell of a television, were still piled there like an offering to some obscure modern deity. We were almost abreast of the dead pyre when another group of dark figures stepped out from within the unstable tower of blackened detritus to block our path.

  They stood there, stiff and motionless, blocking our way.

  We halted, breathless and panting. The air clouded in front of our faces; faint ghosts giving up the chase. I stepped close to Ellen, and then in front of her, trying to protect her from these things. One of them hissed like a big cat; another giggled like a naughty child. Wisps of ash fell from the dark holes of their hoods, floating on the air like satanic tickertape. They passed their hands in strange patterns before their dark hoods, disturbing the air and conjuring something from the gathering darkness.

  The long white nails on their long white fingers carved long black strips from the night.

  "Thomas… what's going on? What do they want?"

  Before I had time to answer I was hit from behind: a sharp, hard blow to the back of the head. I went down onto one knee and tried to rise, but one of the figures ahead of us stepped forward and kicked me in the face. As I fell I saw the same figure approach Ellen. It pulled back a hand and halfslapped, half-punched her between the eyes. I heard the sound of her nose breaking, and felt it as if I had experienced the blow myself.

  I couldn't work out why they were doing this. Surely they could kill us with a blow, rather than beat us up like common street thugs on a violent spree. These were now powerful entities, and they didn't follow the rules that we so fiercely believed in – so why were they not simply ripping us to pieces?

  It made little sense, but unfortunately my head was hurting too much to think about it. A smoky darkness filled my mind, clouding my senses, and I barely knew where I was.

  Gaining my feet, I hurled myself at the nearest figure. It was an instinctive act – pure blind aggression. My hands sunk into the soft material of the hooded shirt, sinking deep into the spongy matter beneath the clothing. I struggled with the figure, trying to grapple it off balance, but its strength was far greater than mine and it simply flipped me and threw me to the ground.

  More proof that these things could kill us with ease, if that's what they chose. Or if that was what they had been sent to do…

  Maybe they had only been sent to warn us, or to weaken us to the point that we backed off. But why were our lives – or was it just my life – so important to the Pilgrim?

  Again I was up, raging now, refusing to allow these creatures to hurt Ellen. Two of them bore down upon me, the darkness at their core billowing forth and ash falling down like black snow, covering my face in a greasy layer that smelled of cooking pork, or burnt human flesh.

  They pressed me down into the ground, silent and unstoppable, and in my panic I managed to reach up and grab the side of one of the hoods. The sooty material slipped sideways, and then back, uncovering the soft-looking head beneath. At first I was confused, not understanding exactly what I was seeing, and then it registered that I was looking at the back of a head. Dark, greasy hair, all knotted and crawling with lice, the back of a skull where there should have been a face.

  A human head, but worn backwards. A head worn the wrong way round, like some hideous Halloween mask.

  I screamed, batting at the head and attempting to push myself backwards across the slippery grass. Sooty ash fell from the dirty scalp, dark dandruff drifting down towards me. The head flopped on its neck, moving like a stuffed toy: loose, almost boneless.

  Then, in turn, the rest of the figures calmly removed their hoods, pushing them back to reveal the dirty, tattered backs of heads.

  Ellen was barely conscious; thank God she didn't see what followed.

  The heads slowly turned in unison, pivoting on thin necks and rotating through one-hundred and eighty degrees to show me what was on the other side. They stared at me through eyes that I
knew far too well: my own eyes, wide and blinking as if emerging from a dark cave.

  My own eyes.

  Mine.

  My eyes looking right at me.

  Each of these awful figures bore the exact likeness of my own terrified face, reflected back at me like in some carnival sideshow of mirrors. I saw the pared-down image of my own fear multiplied – and surely there is no more horrible sight in this world than that of your own face filled with indescribable terror?

  My eyes looking right at me.

  I slumped, defeated. The ground held me like a desperate lover, unwilling to let me go.

  Mine.

  The figures replaced their hoods, reached down and grabbed Ellen, carrying her past the skeletal bonfire – lifting her above their heads (my heads!) like a trophy.

  They formed a grim procession, holding her aloft, and what came to mind was a heavily choreographed dance of death. I tried to crawl across the grass but bile rose in my throat and my limbs began to shake. I vomited and rolled over onto my back. I stared at the barely visible moon and the pallid stars, trying to perceive what hid in the spaces between the constellations.

  The darkness around me seemed to writhe, folding in on itself like a snake swallowing its own tail. A snake with my face: my own private Ouroboros…

  Then I saw nothing – nothing but a thin rain of black ash.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Awake? Unconscious? It was impossible to tell, but time bled backwards for a little while, showing me the past in a new way, and from a different angle. This past, these historical events, became as real to me as the present.

  At that moment in time, I doubted that I would ever see Ellen Lang again.

  Ellen is late. We meet in a small café in the centre of Leeds, where she often goes for lunch with colleagues from the surgery where she works. I sit nursing a cappuccino and watching the other customers, my leg shaking in a nervous palsy under the table.

  An old couple sit by the door, holding hands across the table. The man is wearing an eye patch and the woman keeps glancing at it nervously, as if whatever it is meant to hide might emerge at any second. A group of four women talk about politics at a corner table. One of them cannot keep her hands still; she says more with the movements of her fingers in the air than she does with her words. A mother sits with her small son at a table next to the toilet. The boy is slowly eating a huge ice cream sundae, and the mother gazes absently at the top of his head. She looks on the verge of tears, and I wonder what has pushed her to this juncture.

  A short, slim waitress dodges tables and clears dirty dishes. Her chestnut brown hair is coming free from the elastic band she has used to keep it back from her face; sweat shines on her forehead. Her eyes are so dark that they are almost black.

  The air around the waitress stirs, like a heat mirage. Ghosts follow her, not quite visible but present at her every move.

  I turn away, look down at my coffee. I did not ask for this ability. Is it a gift or a curse? Probably both. Wherever I look, whoever I am with, spirits writhe constantly in the background. Some of them step forth, wanting to be seen, but others remain on the sidelines, ignoring me. I can feel their hunger and sense their sadness. They are lost; every one of them is looking for a road to follow yet many of them choose to delay their journey even when that road is found.

  Most of them are looking for something… often they are looking for me.

  The strip lights buzz and flicker. The sky outside is dark with slashes of light carved into its mass where sunlight struggles to penetrate the clouds. It would be a nice day if only those clouds would clear.

  The waitress pauses by an empty table and reaches out a hand to support her slight weight as she stumbles a little. I am just about to rise and go to her aid when she moves on, heading towards the counter where she puts down the plates she is carrying. She wipes the sweat from her brow with her apron, picks up the plates, and takes them through to the kitchen. The door swings behind her, smooth and silent on its hinges.

  Ellen and I had met at a student house party in Headingley years before. I was missing Rebecca because she'd stayed at home with a bad cold and Ellen was accompanied by a languages student with a bad lisp. She ditched the languages guy that night, after realising that he was basically socially inept. Nothing happened between Ellen and me. Not that night. There was an attraction between us from the very start – that very first time we saw each other it was like someone had turned on all the lights in the room. Unfortunately the timing was wrong.

  The timing is always wrong.

  Even on the night we slept together, our timing was off. Rebecca was pregnant with Ally by this time and I was struggling to cope with it all. I had left Uni and was getting by working long shifts in a factory doing shitty work just to pay the bills. Ellen was still at Medical School, studying towards a future in which I knew I would feature less and less.

  I was weak; she was weak.

  It happened only once, and I spent every moment afterwards regretting what we had done. My regret was an insult to Ellen: she didn't deserve to be treated like that.

  Weak. I was always so very weak.

  "Sorry I'm late."

  I turn in my seat to see her standing there; looking for all the world like that ambitious young girl I'd first met at the party so many years ago. Her long hair frames a face that is pretty but never beautiful – not unless you get to know the person underneath. Then, and only then, does a woman like Ellen shine and by that time you are totally smitten without ever having realised it.

  "It's okay. I was enjoying the time alone. Just… thinking."

  "About the accident?" She slides into the seat opposite, brushing crumbs from the table.

  "A little," I say, not wanting to tell her the truth: that I have been thinking about her.

  It has been three months since we went to visit Ryan South in his little flat in Luton. We have not been back, but Ellen keeps pushing for it. Things have changed. I am beginning to come to terms with what happened (but never to accept it) and tentative plans are forming. For the first time since Rebecca and Ally's deaths, I allow myself to think that I might just have a future, but am unsure what form that future might take.

  I have Ellen to thank for this. She has given me a push right when I needed it.

  "How are you feeling? I haven't seen you for a couple of weeks. Sorry about that – been busy." She smiles, but it is a small, fragile thing that disappears just as quickly as it surfaces. She looks pale, drawn, as if she has not been sleeping well.

  "I'm… well, I think I'm fine. I don't feel like killing myself anymore, which is a bonus. I've also moved back into the house."

  "I need a coffee. How about you?" She turns around in her seat to signal the waitress, who has by now come back through from the kitchen. The air around her is still moving, but not nearly as much as before.

  "I'm okay," I say, swirling the dregs in my cup. It is my second cappuccino and I think it best not to order a third. I struggle to sleep at the best of times, and more caffeine would be asking for trouble.

  We don't say anything else until Ellen's drink arrives, and then she takes a long draw from the cup before looking me in the eye. "I have some news."

  "Yes," I say. "You mentioned that when we spoke. What is it?" There is a heavy weight in my chest, trying to drag me down. I am expecting something bad but am not sure how bad it might be. Has Ellen somehow guessed the thoughts that have been coalescing inside my head since she took me to Ryan South's place? But no; that is impossible. I don't even have a firm plan, just a series of unconnected thoughts that, when placed together, add up to form something stupid – stupid but undeniably appealing.

  "I've been offered a job in America. Florida. They called me a week ago and I've been dreading telling you since then."

  Somebody drops a glass on the floor and the waitress moves swiftly across the room to clear up the mess. It is the old man with the eye patch, and he seems more upset than he should be at such a clums
y act.

  "I see." I do not see. I don't see anything at all.

  "I applied over a year ago. A friend got me through the door and I had a telephone interview, then they flew me out there. I hadn't heard anything, so just assumed that either the vacancy had been filled elsewhere or cancelled altogether. Then, a few days ago, I got a phone call…" She stops there, looking away. Her eyes are wet.