The Revenants

by Alec Dunn

  He sat in silence, shocked, suddenly afraid that Gregor would notice him. He remained in silence until the opportunity came to escape the library and Gregor.

  What had Gregor done?

  How had he done it?

  What was going on?

  They were all different questions, but the same question and the question eclipsed everything else.

  Tristan was driven by fear, fear and curiosity, driven by a need to know more. What had happened to Joshua? Was he alive? He didn’t deserve that. Not that.

  The reading group took on a different dimension in Tristan’s mind. The reading group was linked to Gregor and Gregor was unnatural. He had power that could not be explained.

  What was going on?

  Tristan had to remain part of the reading group to stand a chance of answering the question. This was serious now, somebody had been killed and, he hated to admit it, things were becoming exciting.

  Nine: The Search for Answers

  What do you do when you’ve watched someone die? When you’ve seen a murder? When you know the murderer? When you can’t explain how they killed them? When it wasn’t even possible?

  Questions built inside Tristan like a scream. They chased around his mind, one after another: reading groups, smelly, shuffling, slipper wearing old men; violent, threatening, dangerous and damaged boys; beautiful, manga comic, boot wearing, Egyptian eyed doll-girls pulling his strings, and murder, unexplained, unjustified, impossible murder.

  Tristan could not sleep. His usual nightmares took a backseat; questions filled his dreams. He closed his eyes and the gasping, blue face of Joshua loomed out the darkness. His mind replayed the whole event, the choking, straining, pleading face, the bulging, bloodshot, desperate eyes, the trickle of bubbled saliva. But what was worse, what really haunted him, was what he hadn’t seen. His mind tried to fill in the blanks. His imagination fed upon it: the empty questions, the unexplained horror, the impossible unknown. And always the face, smothered in darkness, bobbing beyond his understanding in the frozen water of his subconscious like an iceberg, hidden and ominous, and always, always Gregor’s back, blocking his view. And then the whisper as quiet as a knife sliding through silk, “Come to me.”

  He could not concentrate on school work. Visions of the murder kept repeating.

  For Tristan the school was no longer a school. It was a crime scene, where someone had been murdered. Meanwhile, the whole of the rest of the school was muted, caught up in the grief of a young boy’s death. Weeping students adorned corridors and there were fights between those who claimed to have been his ‘best’ friend.

  The story of Joshua’s passing were legend: he had asthma and this doctor gave him the wrong drug in his inhaler, yeah; nah, it was his heart, the breathing was just, like, a symptom, but his mother had the same thing, in the family, ain’t it? That’s rubbish. He had three packets of chewing gum in his mouth, ‘cos the canteen put a shit-load of onions on his burger an’ his breath smelt like the wind from the devil’s own arse, an’ all that chewing gum made this massive lump that got stuck in his throat an’ that was it. Goodnight sweet prince.

  While others made up foolish stories or squabbled over what might have happened, he knew.

  It was a dark secret, buried within him. He had seen. He had watched the boy die. He had watched him die and had done nothing. It was his dark secret and his shame and it festered and rotted inside him, destroying his sleep, eating away at his peace of mind, leaving only questions, little nibbling questions, crawling like maggots through his brain.

  It was three days after the death of Joshua and Tristan was sitting in Form, silent, staring at the wall. Thoughts spiralled through his mind, leaving only darkness and emptiness.

  A voice called his name.

  The voice saying his name was quiet, calling from the distance of another shore, a distant world in which there had been no murder, just a tragic medical complication.

  The voice called, washing up on his consciousness, “Tristan… Tristan.”

  He looked towards the strangely familiar sound, “Eh?”

  “Are you blanking me?” The voice was sweet, playful.

  Tristan’s eyes focused and he found himself looking straight into the oval eyes of Stephanie, “What? Sorry?”

  Her face was close to his.

  Tristan’s senses gathered slowly, his mind was still lost in questions, but now he was gazing into the beautiful eyes of Stephanie. She was so close that he could see the depths of her eyes. It was like looking at the aurora borealis; he couldn’t make out a single obvious colour. There were flecks of blue, green, grey, even what looked like orange and gold? Her golden hair filled his vision and she filled his senses.

  Tristan felt dizzy, lost, his mind was lost in questions and his heart was lost to Stephanie.

  “You’d better be sorry, blanking me. I come all the way across the classroom without being caught by Miss and you don’t even want to talk to me.” She pretended indignant anger, but her smile widened playfully and her eyes shone.

  He tried to ignore the maggot questions wriggling in the back of his mind, “Yeah. I mean, no. I’m just distracted.”

  Her face was sympathetic, listening. “Is that tosser, Sankey, chasing you on his crutches?”

  He grinned briefly, “Nah, it’s… something else.” He wanted to tell her; he felt that he could tell her anything, but where would he begin? There’s this really old, slightly smelly librarian who killed this year seven, called Joshua, and the weird thing is, besides killing someone for throwing a book, the weird thing is, he didn’t even touch him. He would sound like a freak.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” She was serious, concerned; her eyes stared deeply into his.

  “Nah…” he changed his mind. “Yeah…” But how could he tell her about it. “Maybe… I don’t know.” The questions squirmed around his brain.

  Stephanie smiled slightly, “Mmm, I can see that. But listen,” her hand reached out to rest on his, “if you do want to talk, I am a really good listener.” Her voice became brighter again, “In fact, you should ask my English teacher. I got an A grade for my latest speaking and listening task, so you would get some quality, A grade listening skills for the bargain price of absolutely nothing.”

  Tristan looked up into her eyes and felt the weight and warmth of her hand. What was going on here?

  Whatever it was, it was a good thing. The maggoty questions were barely noticeable now and the golden glow from Stephanie was blocking out everything else.

  He smiled at her. “Thanks, Steph. You’re a real friend.”

  “Yes I am. The best friend you’ve got and don’t you forget it. Now, just to prove it, I’m going to cheer you up even more. Some of us are going out this weekend to the cinema and you are coming with us.”

  Tristan was smiling even more now. They were both smiling and they were somehow holding hands. “Me? To the cinema? With you? Like a date?”

  She flicked her hair and replied coquettishly, “Something like a date. Anyway, we have to do something to bring you back to the land of the living, don’t we? You look like a ghost.”

  The bell rang and in the mayhem of people scrambling for bags and coats she leaned across the final small distance between them, brushed a kiss to his cheek and was gone. And it was a soft, tingling sensation that was the trigger, the plunger to the dynamite, his mind exploded and he sat there stunned.

  You look like a ghost.

  A ghost.

  A date.

  A ghost-walk.

  A date – with Stephanie.

  A secret ghost walk where he would find the answer.

  A kiss – from Stephanie.

  He knew what to do. Stephanie had given him the answer. A grade? She should get bloody A stars.

  Mrs Parks looked at Tristan, her wrinkled leather skin expressionless, “Tristan, you’re going to be late for lesson if you just sit there… Are you alright?”

  “I am now, Miss. Thanks for asking.
” And, he was gone.

  Tristan walked down the corridors towards his first lesson on autopilot. His thoughts were elsewhere. The latest ghost walk was tonight, the last ghost walk that he wasn’t allowed to go on, the ghost walk that he wasn’t ready for. Well, we’ll see who’s ready, old man. I’ll see what’s going on.

  Tristan had heard Gregor arrange the meeting spot for the ghost walk. It was a cemetery. When he had heard it he had thought, ‘Very creepy, just like some old horror film. Get with the times Gregor,’ and the name… the name had rhymed and he had laughed at it. No not the name, the place, the gate, the cemetery gate at eight.

  And the name?

  The name?

  Damn it!

  Tristan turned around in the corridor and started to walk to the library – a map – that was what he needed, look at all the cemetery names in the area. He knew he would recognise it when he heard it.

  Gregor! Damn it! Gregor was in the library.

  Tristan turned around in the corridor again and started to walk back to his first lesson. He couldn’t go to the library and look for the place with Gregor there. But if he didn’t find the place in time he couldn’t plan how to get there and then he might be too late. He couldn’t exactly just turn up and say, ‘Hello, you didn’t invite me, but I believe you are a murderer and need to find out more about how you killed that boy.’

  No, he needed time to find somewhere to hide and see what was around the area. They could go anywhere. It was meant to be a walk after all. Would they go in the cemetery? Around it? In fact, he needed a lot of time to get an idea of what was around.

  God damn it!

  He turned around in the corridor and stood uncertainly.

  He turned around again.

  He was almost outside the door to M3 where Mathematics, Mrs Flaherty and James Garner making paper planes with obscenities drawn on the wings waited for him. What he needed was the internet, a library, and time.

  He turned for the final time and decisively made his way to the exit. Maths, Mrs Flaherty and paper planes with pricks drawn on the wings could wait for today. Today, he was going to truant.

  One push through the fire door and a quick scrabble under the school’s surrounding metal fence later, Tristan was out and walking towards the Hillcrest public library.

  By ten o’clock, he knew the name of the cemetery: Netherscar Cemetery, that it was out of town a distance of three miles, the number of the bus that went past the cemetery and that buses were twenty minutes past every hour until ten o’clock when the bus service stopped.

  He stopped off at his aunt’s house, smelling his uncle’s cigarette fumes, dashed upstairs, grabbed a dark hoodie from the floor of his room, tied on his running shoes, and pulled a beanie low over his head. The spell of sunny spring weather had ended and winter had taken hold. It was cold out and he might be there for some time. He grabbed some food and jogged down to the bus stop.

  The bus dawdled its way to the cemetery and the cramped dull houses of the estate were replaced by flat cold fields, dead trees and mud. Over everything hung a flat, grey sky. It looked solid, heavy like a sheet of lead. Tristan looked through the film of dirt and pollution which covered the bus’s windows and felt the bitter, lifeless winter engulf him.

  Death waited.

  He shivered. Where had that thought sprung from? He smiled inwardly, death waited! He was going to a cemetery, of course death bloody waited.

  Eventually, Tristan saw the dull stone monuments of a cemetery, irregular edifices to reflect the style and tastes of the dearly departed. The cemetery was surrounded by a high stone wall made up of rough and jagged stones.

  Who are you defending? he wondered. There’s nobody here, they’re all dead.

  Tristan got off the bus and took note of the different areas. The cemetery was big, much bigger than Tristan would have thought for such a small, out of the way place. On one side was a road, the road the bus had come, and gone, by. On the other were dipping fields, hedges, ditches, trees and over the fields some woods.

  Were they really meeting here?

  He walked around the surrounding streets. Houses, less dilapidated than Hillcrest, but not nice. There was nothing: an off-license, a corner shop, houses, pebble-dashed, red brick, overgrown lawns, moss-covered roofs - nothing worth walking around to look at.

  He nodded grimly.

  That was good.

  That made it simple.

  That meant it was odds on that the cemetery was the location for the ‘ghost-walk’. So the cemetery was the place to hide.

  Tristan took his time looking about the cemetery. The sun was setting and he didn’t want to get confused in the dark. He took note of the different entrances to the cemetery and the many winding paths around its houses for the dead. The graves were many, and at some point there had been a lot of money spent on the dead. Large tombs and crypts cast eerie shadows like the fingers of a hand reaching out from the setting light of the sun. Tristan found himself avoiding them, walking around each shadow as though around an open grave.

  After he had walked the grave-yard a number of times and he felt familiar with its mass of paths, he let his thoughts drift. He stared into the distant fields and woods. He started to imagine the many lives lived that were now ended, the many bodies that had walked upright now lying beneath his feet, the lives of the dead and living that intersected at this graveyard. He started to populate the cemetery with the personalities of the dead. This long thin pillar for Jerome James Smith, 1798 – 1853, he was a pointed and direct fellow, starved and thin, severe. This small grave carved with cold stone flowers and engraved ‘for a much loved mother, Mercy Rebecca Sowter, 1809 1887,’ she had always loved flowers, a gentle and unassuming woman. This massive vault, Earnest Matthew Grimm, 1734 – 1786, he was austere, evidently from the massive block, commanding. Tristan looked at the setting sun and realised his wandering feet had brought him in the shadow of the crypt, the shadow of the austere crypt, evidently, austevident, austevil, evil, evil, evil.

  Tristan felt like someone had hit his off switch and the world was closing down to a small and distant spot. There was a dry scratching noise like static on a detuned radio, or fingers on stone.

  Dizzily he stepped back; he was coming.

  He stepped further back, and knew he had to move.

  He staggered and stumbled to the gates of the cemetery where he gripped the icy metal bars, trying to hold on to reality. He was coming. He knew it. But he didn’t know what it meant. It was as real as the iron bars he held himself upright with. But he didn’t know who he was.

  Gregor? He didn’t think so.

  Earnest.

  Earnest?

  Tristan sobbed in air like a drowning man.

  Was he going insane? Was he already insane? Did mad people ever stop to ask if they were mad? Why was he in a cemetery in the middle of nowhere, afraid of shadows and his own thoughts. Why couldn’t he control his own thoughts?

  “Get a grip, Tristan,” he said to himself.

  Why was he here? That was it. That was the question. That was why he was here, questions, maggoty, murderous questions that needed answers.

  “Get a grip,” Tristan repeated to himself and his words sounded small and lonely in the graveyard at the edge of the fields.

  He checked the time and settled into the spot he had selected earlier. There were a cluster of larger tombs that would allow him to hide between them if Gregor should walk past, or from where he could observe the gates and follow if they went a different way.

  Tristan was also relieved for no reason he could explain or justify that he was also hidden from the tomb of Earnest Matthew Grimm, 1734 – 1786.

  Tristan hid and the darkness of night fell fast.

  Hidden in the dark, in his black clothing, Tristan could see the gate in the orange glow of a streetlamp. At a few minutes to eight Max prowled up, head down but looking carefully around, pacing back and forth at the gates. Perhaps one minute later, Lucretia silently ar
rived. She stood a small distance from the gates staring at the cemetery. She did not move at all.

  Finally, after another brief pause, Gregor appeared. He leant on his walking stick and said a few quiet words.

  Then they were through the gates, heading straight down the central path, still walking in the light of the streetlamp. There was no talking, no sight-seeing, no stories. They were silent and purposeful, intent on something.

  It was clear to Tristan that this was either the worst ghost walk ever or that something else was going on. And as he watched them from the absolute darkness of his shelter, Lucretia looked over in his direction and straight into his eyes. Shocked, Tristan felt their eyes meet and he stayed completely still.

  It was too dark for her to see him. Not from that distance. Not where he was, behind the tomb, behind the tree. Not a chance.

  If he moved then she might register a movement, but there wasn’t a chance if he stayed still. He knew it was impossible.

  But he had seen her face when her eyes met his, had seen the slight shift of expression on her beautiful face. He had felt her eyes on him, not in the looking into another person’s eyes sense, but in that uncomfortable hairs on the back of the neck, someone is watching me sense. You’re being paranoid, he thought. It’s impossible.

  Then she winked at him with a sly smile and shook her head slightly, naughty Tristan. She looked away, scanning around the graveyard.

  Now he ducked down. She couldn’t have seen him, but she had. He was panting with adrenaline. Should he ditch the whole plan? Make a run for it? Fight or flight?

  He looked back and Gregor and Lucretia were further down the path. Max had disappeared completely.

  Shit!

  Where was Max? This hadn’t been part of his plan, for Max, the personal trainer psychopath, to go awol.

  Meanwhile Gregor and Lucretia were getting further away. Time to act. Fight or flight? He looked towards the still open gates of the cemetery and shook his head.

  Tristan ducked low, behind the cover of the large tombs and part jogged, part tip-toed towards them. He remembered the course he had picked out during the day and was making reasonably speedy progress.