‘It’s about Will,’ Dougie yelped, his final gambit coming out as a high-pitched squeak. I watched as Lucy’s face softened, her eyebrows arching sympathetically.
‘What about Will?’ she said, lowering her hockey stick. Annabel rolled her eyes and huffed dramatically before marching away back toward the other girls in the centre of the playing field.
‘She really doesn’t like me, does she?’ Dougie said, peering around Lucy as he watched her friend flounce off.
Lucy cleared her throat with a cough, drawing Dougie’s eyes back to her. ‘Will, Dougie? What about him?’
‘This might sound a bit weird . . .’ he began, struggling to find the words.
‘What? It gets weirder than you stalking me for a week?’
‘That’s a bit unfair, isn’t it?’
‘She’s got a point,’ I interjected. ‘You have just leaped out of some bushes at her.’
‘Shut up, you,’ he said, turning to me.
Lucy flinched. ‘OK . . . just got weirder. Who are you talking to?’
He raised his palms up before him as he took a step toward her. ‘You’re going to think I’ve got a screw loose so please bear with me.’
‘Quickly shifting from weird to scary, Dougie,’ I said. ‘If you’re going to say something say it now!’
‘You see . . . Will – he hasn’t gone away.’
Lucy frowned suspiciously. ‘Dougie, you were there with me at the funeral home. It was a cremation, remember? Will’s gone.’
‘No,’ said Dougie earnestly, wringing his hands now. ‘He’s still here.’
Now Lucy dipped her head to one side and smiled sadly, her voice heavy with sympathy as she stepped up to him.
‘I’ve heard about this kind of thing, Dougie. And I get it, I really do. You don’t want to admit Will’s gone, you can’t accept he’s no longer with us. So your mind will make up anything to ease that loss. Is that what the shaved head and the black eyes are all about? A cry for help? Makes sense now.’
Dougie shook his head. ‘No, it’s not that. There’s no easy way of putting this, so I’m just gonna come out and say it.’ He took a breath. ‘Will’s a ghost.’
‘He’s a what?’
‘A spook, a phantom.’
‘You realise how mad you sound?’
‘I’m telling you the truth!’
‘You’re telling me he’s back from the dead, like some kind of zombie?’
‘Not a zombie, no, that’d be awful, shambling around, bits falling off him, stinking the place up. No, he’s your common or garden ghost, a regular wispy, smoking spectre. He’s here right now, just beside us.’
Naturally she turned the wrong way and not towards me. Dougie whistled and nodded his head in my direction. She stared right through me, searching the air for a telltale sign. Suddenly she shook her head and gave him a shove.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she said with annoyance, threatening him with her hockey stick again. ‘You had me for a moment there. What sort of sick game are you playing?’
‘It’s no game! He hasn’t been able to move on, he’s stuck here in limbo. And what’s worse, he’s following me everywhere I go.’
‘That’s bad, is it?’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes it is bad, numpty!’
‘I take it that was for Will’s benefit?’ she said sarcastically.
‘Of course it was!’ said Dougie, losing his rag at last. ‘The reason I’ve been stalking you – as you so kindly put it – is because I wanted to put you in touch with him. He’s my best mate and I figure the two of you might have some unfinished business!’
‘What unfinished business?’ she asked, bemused.
Dougie turned and looked straight at me. ‘You’d better be telling me the truth, dude, or I’m going to look like such a pillock . . .’
‘What truth?’ said Lucy, looking more than a little worried as Dougie spoke to thin air.
‘You know,’ he said, making big eyes my way as if he suddenly couldn’t speak in front of me.
‘No I don’t, hence the question,’ she said with annoyance.
‘The kiss,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth with all the conspiratorial guile of a pantomime villain.
‘Well disguised,’ I said, clapping my hands in a mocking fashion. ‘Didn’t catch a word of that.’
‘The kiss?’ she said incredulously. ‘On the night he died? It was nice, but we were just friends. It was no big deal.’
‘Why would she say that?’ I yelped at Dougie.
Dougie waved me away. ‘It really meant nothing to you?’
‘Sorry,’ she said, her face now reddening as behind her the other girls were gathering. Annabel was pointing our way, Miss Roberts having now materialised in their midst.
I turned my back on her and faced my friend. I knew I was invisible to her, that she couldn’t see me if she tried, but I didn’t want to show her just how gutted I was.
‘I’ve heard enough. Can we go, please?’
‘Just a minute,’ Dougie said, lifting his hand to silence me as he glowered at her. ‘Is this how you get your kicks, leading lads on? Will thought you really liked him.’
‘Hancock!’ shouted Miss Roberts as she began to march towards the touchline, the girls streaming behind her. ‘Come here, you horrible boy!’
That was enough for Dougie. Self-preservation kicked in and he was off, bounding back into the bushes as he headed away from the playing field, Miss Roberts in hot pursuit, wielding a hockey stick menacingly.
SIXTEEN
Knock and Run
In the aftermath of the hockey field fiasco, I realised it was time to start retracing my steps, see if I’d missed something in the search for ghostly answers. Where better to begin than back within the four familiar walls of my family home, close to Mum and Dad? I hadn’t returned since I’d first drifted off to Dougie’s after the funeral. The connection I’d found in my friend’s company had been missing at home, my parents and brother in their own little worlds, but perhaps I’d find what I was looking for now. The reason I was stuck here in the land of the living remained a puzzle. Might my parents hold the key? I hoped so, given Lucy had totally failed me.
‘Not being funny, mate, but you’re better off dead than worrying about impressing Lucy Carpenter,’ Dougie said as we approached my front door.
‘Really?’ I said incredulously as we came to my front porch. ‘You’re going with that expression?’
‘Oh right,’ he said sheepishly.
‘I’ll see you in there,’ I said, shifting through the closed uPVC door as Dougie hit the doorbell. Across the threshold, a charge of electricity raced up and down my spine. Though this was the house I’d grown up in, it felt both familiar and odd at the same time. I’d left my family behind to seek out Dougie after my death, so I felt like an intruder in my own home now, and it was an uneasy sensation.
My mum came striding through the living room, causing me to instinctively step to one side to allow her to pass. My heart soared to see her, but another feeling hit me: guilt. Had it been selfish of me to rush off to be with my best friend? Should I have stayed close to her, witnessed her mourning first-hand? Was this my punishment? A quick glance at Mum told me worrying was unnecessary. She was smiling as she opened the door.
‘Douglas, love, how are you?’ she exclaimed, reaching out and wrapping him up in a maternal hug. ‘Come in, come in!’ My mate was on tiptoes in an instant as he was dragged, teetering, through the porch and into the house.
‘Who is it?’ came another voice from the back of the house, as a second woman appeared. Shorter, and altogether more spherical than my mum, it was Val, our next-door neighbour. She was always round when I was alive and nothing had changed since my death by the look of things. Bizarrely, both of them were wearing tracksuits.
‘Watch out for Val,’ I warned. ‘She’s loud, bubbly and prone to inappropriate hugging!’
‘It’s young Douglas, our Will’s friend,’ replied Mum, propelling h
im into the room. ‘You remember him, don’t you? What are you doing here, lovely?’
‘Keep moving, mate,’ I said as Val made to give him a hug of her own. He deftly side-stepped her and kept a clear line of sight for the front door.
‘I felt I ought to pop by and say hello,’ replied Dougie. ‘I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at . . . at the funeral.’
‘Oh bless you, young man,’ said Val. ‘You’re a thoughtful one, aren’t you, dear?’
‘Ask Mum where Dad is,’ I whispered into his ear.
‘Where’s Mr Underwood?’
‘He’s working out in the gym,’ said Mum, gesticulating toward the staircase.
‘I didn’t know you had one.’
‘We didn’t used to,’ she replied sheepishly. ‘It’s just now that we’ve got the box room back we’ve done a spot of decorating. He’s on the rowing machine at present.’
‘Got the box room back?’ I hissed in Dougie’s ear, causing him to flinch. ‘What was I? Some unwanted lodger or what? That was my bedroom!’
‘The gym was Will’s old room then?’ he asked her.
‘We had a long hard think about what we wanted to do with it,’ sighed Mum. She was about to say something and the words caught in her throat. She tried to smile at Dougie but her lip quivered, struggling to hold back the emotion. Val reached an arm around her and gave her a comforting hug until she could continue.
‘I couldn’t keep looking at it, and I should imagine the last thing Will would’ve wanted was for us to turn it into a shrine, so we cleared it out.’
‘That was the only thing I wanted! A shrine was just fine – and what’ve they done with all my posters?’ I looked at Dougie, indignantly. He just shook his head.
I wanted to ask Dougie to push Mum for answers. If there was anyone left who might know what was going on, it was Mum. But my mate was well ahead of me.
‘You look well, Mrs Underwood. You were so sad the last time I saw you. Understandably, of course.’
Mum gave Dougie a sad, tender smile. ‘We were all sad, Douglas. We still are, for that matter. Nothing will ever be the same. Nothing can ever return Will to me.’
‘Yet here I am,’ I whispered, Dougie shivering at my words as Mum continued.
‘I didn’t sleep for a week after his death, even with the medicines the doctors prescribed. There were probably enough drugs in me to tranquilise a horse but somehow I kept going. I was in a terrible state, as only a mother could be. Was it my fault that Will was out on his own that night?’
‘He wasn’t on his—’ Dougie began, but Mum cut him off, her eyes wet with tears.
‘Look at me. I thought I was done crying. I’ll never be done. I loved my boy – I love both of them – but could I have paid more attention? Should I have been stricter, ensured he was in earlier? I mean, it wasn’t so late, but I didn’t know where he was. What kind of parent does that make me?’
‘He was with friends, Mrs Underwood. He was happy. Will was a good lad, he avoided trouble. What happened – it wasn’t his fault. And it wasn’t yours, either.’
‘I know. It was the driver of the car who’s responsible.’
Instantly I was transported back to the hit-and-run, my bicycle crumpling under the impact of the car, spinning me into the air. I hadn’t thought about it too much, had avoided the memory, the pain. Only then did it occur to me that Mum had been living with the event all this time, reliving it in her own mind, imagining what I’d been through.
‘If they ever find the swine who did it, he wants hanging,’ added Val.
‘That’s an argument that we can’t get into, Val,’ said Mum with a sniff, silencing her neighbour before she could get a rant on. ‘An eye for an eye gets us nowhere. But to find out who was behind the wheel and get them behind bars would be some justice. But what chance is there of that ever happening?’
I wanted to hug her, more than I’d ever wanted to in life. You take so much for granted with family. You assume you’ll always be there for one another, you don’t tell them what they mean to you, always thinking you’re going to get the chance to say goodbye, the big death-bed scene. I never got that chance with Mum, and only now did it hit me like a bolt out of the blue.
‘I’ve moved on as best I can, Douglas,’ said Mum. ‘One has to. To dwell on the past would’ve served no purpose. I have to celebrate Will’s life the only way I know how. I need to live on, for him. Keep him alive in my heart.’
Dougie, bless him, stepped forward to hug her. She was right, he had always been a sensitive soul.
‘If only she knew I was here,’ I said, as much to myself as Dougie. But there was nothing from her, no awareness, no recognition of my presence. I reached out and ran my hand over her head, my fingers lingering through her hair. My heart ached. She glanced up suddenly. What was that?
‘Anyway, I just wanted to call by and say hello,’ Dougie said, pulling away.
‘I’m glad you did,’ said Mum. ‘You’re a good lad, Douglas. Don’t be shy about calling round.’
‘I won’t,’ replied Dougie. I knew he probably wouldn’t come back. He’d been here for me, not my mother. Had this been the last roll of the dice in our search to find answers? Where did this leave us now? There was only really one place left.
Dougie started for the door, pausing to give my mum one more compliment.
‘I like the tracksuit,’ he said. ‘Are you working out alongside Mr Underwood?’
‘Oh no, the box room’s all Geoff’s. Val and I have been training for a fun run, to raise funds for the children’s hospice in town. As I said, I’ve found a way of celebrating Will’s memory and doing some good for other kids in the process.’
‘That’s awesome,’ said Dougie, and he meant it. He even glanced my way and nodded. My heart ballooned now, full of pride for my mum’s efforts.
‘There’s a gang of us, mums from the old school run from when you boys were in short pants. The run’s this afternoon at the race course.’
‘You could join us,’ said Val. ‘I’m sure we’ve got a spare T-shirt in your size.’
‘T-shirt?’ he asked.
Right on cue, Val and Mum unzipped their tracksuit tops and pulled them open. My school photo from about Year Five was emblazoned on the front of their pristine white T-shirts, crowned with the words Team Will. Dougie stifled a laugh.
‘Not bad, eh?’ said Val. ‘Sure you don’t want to join us?’
‘Very striking, but I’ll pass, if that’s OK,’ Dougie said as he reached back and grabbed the door handle. ‘I’m sure if Will were here to see you he’d be very proud.’
‘I am here and “proud” isn’t a word that springs to mind. It’s times like this I’m glad I’m dead.’
The sight of Mum’s gang legging it across a racecourse with my face stencilled across them would have likely killed me anyway!
‘Make sure you live your life to its fullest, Douglas,’ said Mum. ‘Don’t be afraid of challenges, face up to your worst fears . . . you can do anything, understand me? Regret is a terrible thing.’
Dougie nodded, my mother’s words seeming to make him think.
I made for the door, pausing to peck my mum on the cheek. ‘Love you, Mum.’
She raised a hand to her face, brushing the skin absentmindedly where I’d kissed her.
‘Did you see that?’ I said, as Dougie opened the door and I drifted after him. ‘I’m sure she felt something there – twice!’
My friend waved as he walked away from the house, setting off down the street. My mum waved back.
‘Your mum’s a smart lady, mate,’ he said, her words still ringing in his ears.
‘I need to work on that, the connection thing,’ I said excitedly, looking back at Mum on the doorstep as we left my old home behind. ‘There’s a way of reaching out, of touching things in your world.’
‘All good,’ said Dougie, with purpose in his stride. ‘And in the meantime it’s time for me to reach out too. To try and touch someone
in your world.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘The House,’ he replied with a fearful shiver. ‘I’m ready to return.’
SEVENTEEN
Brighter and Braver
As with many things that induced bowel-wobbling bouts of terror, Red Brook House looked far less scary in daylight. Our last trip had resulted in a twilight flight through the woods, the wailing girl behind us as we screamed and scrambled our way to safety. With the sun now directly overhead and a chill wind at our backs, we stood before the red-brick building eyeing it nervously. The foreboding shadows that had shrouded it the other week were gone now, though they’d be back soon enough when the night came in. The house’s façade was crumbling, stained green with decades of moss and lichen where the sun’s bright rays couldn’t reach. Thick tendrils of twisting ivy snaked across the walls, creeping in through the empty windows and broken brickwork, throttling the life from the structure.
‘Can’t think why they want to pull this place down . . .’ said Dougie.
I didn’t answer him, instead approaching the stone steps that led up to the doors. I’d missed it the first time I was here, failed to recognise what could only be described as paranormal activity. There was a tension in the air, an electrical charge that caused my ghostly body to tingle. I’d first noticed the phenomenon in the woodwork class some weeks ago, when I’d struck out at Dougie. It had next happened when we visited my mum – twice on that occasion – a sensation that I was making a connection with the world around me. A similar feeling presently struck me, only it wasn’t the living, breathing world I was connecting with: it was the spiritual. It was my world.
‘You ready for this?’ I called back.
‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Dougie replied anxiously, wrapped in his trademark parka, plus a hat and scarf in case she tried to freeze him again. ‘Let’s see if she’s got some answers for us.’
He was brave to be returning here. For me, nervous though I was, I didn’t feel in physical danger from the phantom girl. I was already dead: could she really harm me? But for Dougie, there was more to be afraid of.
Dead Scared Page 8
