by Amy Cross
“Me too,” Hannah muttered, before stepping over to her and reaching down to put a hand on her shoulder. “I should probably come out with some soul-stirring guff about how you can make your own home, or about how you'll see your mother eventually, something to keep your spirits up, but the truth is, if your home is gone, then it's gone. There's nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it, so you're just going to have to be tough and grow up a little.”
Wendy shook her head.
“It's how life works,” Hannah added. “When you're a kid, you're at home with your parents and if you're lucky it's all nice and safe, but you can't stay there forever. If you just sit at home for your whole life, you'll stagnate, the whole point of life is to start somewhere and move on to somewhere else. As far as I understand it, all that's left of your home is a pile of broken wood and some rubble. It'd be pretty sad if you just hung around the ruins, wouldn't it?” She smiled, before turning and starting to walk away again. “So come on, let's get moving. The sooner we can find this lost dead pilot, the better.”
“But I want to go home,” Wendy whimpered.
Sighing, Hannah stopped again. She paused, as if she was trying to think of something to say, before glancing back over her shoulder. “Are you going to force me to do this?” she asked.
“Do what?” Wendy asked.
Hannah sighed.
“Do what?” Wendy asked again.
“Home is where you make it,” Hannah said finally. “A house can be destroyed, but home is something you carry with you in your heart. It's the same with your mother. She's dead, but as long as you remember her, she's never really gone. Does that make sense?”
Wendy paused, before slowly nodding.
“Great,” Hannah added, turning and starting to make her way toward the river. “Then let's go, kid. And please, don't force me to come up with any more life-affirming statements about the meaning of home or a mother's love, not unless you've got a sick bucket I can borrow. Now come on, let's get moving. I don't know about you, but I'm busy and I don't have time to stand around feeling sorry for myself. We've got to find that pilot.”
Chapter Seventeen
Today
“Number nine,” the woman at the counter called out. “Burger and chips.”
Taking a look at the slip of paper in her hand, Alice saw that she was number eleven, which meant she still had a while to wait. She wasn't particularly hungry, though, and she'd only come to the cafe so she could get out of her flat for a little while. With light rain starting to fall against the window, she glanced outside and watched for a moment as passing pedestrians began to put up their umbrellas, although some simply quickened their pace and a few just walked normally, as if they'd accepted the rain and didn't much mind getting wet.
Another rainy day in London.
Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a rumble of thunder rolled across the gray sky.
Checking her phone, Alice saw that there had been a few more missed calls that she hadn't noticed. Not that she would have answered anyway, but still, it was frustrating to see that Doctor Carrington was still trying to get in touch. She figured he just wanted to ask her about the incident at the shopping mall the previous night, and that he'd be angry and disappointed, and she didn't much feel like having that conversation right now. The worst part was that he'd inevitably ask about the video that showed helping someone add graffiti to the wall, and then she'd have to admit that she didn't remember that part, and then it'd become clear that she was losing her mind.
Because she was.
She'd accepted that now.
“What if I have a relapse?” she remembered asking the doctor when she found out she was being released.
“You won't,” he'd replied. “Alice, you're better now. You don't want to spend your whole life in hospital, do you?”
She'd told him she didn't want that, even though it was a lie. Now she was more certain than ever that she just couldn't cope in the real world. It was fine being brave and confident, but she felt she just had to accept that she wasn't equipped to cope, not after everything that had happened to her that night, ten years ago. Most importantly, she felt as if she was a danger to other people.
“Number ten,” the woman at the counter called out. “Cheeseburger and chips, times two.”
A man and his son headed over to collect their food.
“You should call your parents,” the doctor had told her before her release. “You need a support network.”
She'd told him that, no, under no circumstances would she be calling her parents. She hadn't wanted any part of her old, pre-hospital life to come back, and that included people she used to know. It was as if she'd lived two entirely separate lives: there was the Alice before the incident, a hard-working girl who was on course for great things and who loved school; and then there was the Alice after the incident, the Alice she was now, who couldn't even hold down a job as a security guard for more than two nights. The earlier Alice had been admirable and smart, and the current Alice was weak and pathetic. She missed her parents, but the last thing she wanted was to put them through the ordeal of dealing with her.
“I want to go back into hospital,” she imagined herself telling Doctor Carrington.
That wouldn't go well.
She looked back down at the piece of paper with her order number, before realizing that the person at the table in the far corner seemed to be watching her. She stared at the paper, hoping that she was wrong, but out of the corner of her eye she could tell that the person seemed to be just sitting and staring straight at her. Although she told herself she was probably imagining the whole thing, she finally forced herself to turn and look, and sure enough there was a woman sitting at the far table, with no food in front of her, just staring. There was something dark about the woman's eyes, and she seemed painfully thin, as if the skin was clinging desperately to her bones.
Alice forced a faint smile, trying to be friendly, before turning to look out the window. A moment later, the man and his son walked past, carrying their food as they went to find a table. Alice told herself that the woman in the corner probably wasn't still staring at her, but she didn't dare turn and look, not yet. Finally, however, the pressure began to build until she couldn't help herself. She glanced over at the corner, and she saw to her surprise that not only was the woman still staring at her, but the man and his son had sat with her at the same table and were eating and talking normally, as if they hadn't even noticed the woman's presence.
There was a smell, too, a smell of rotten meat. She'd noticed it earlier but now it seemed to be really filling the cafe. Still, looking around, Alice realized that no-one else seemed to have noticed the smell at all.
“Number eleven,” the woman at the counter called out. “Burger to go.”
Getting to her feet, Alice hurried over and muttered “Thank you” as she grabbed her burger. Without looking back at the woman in the corner, she headed to the door and then out into the rain, just as the bad weather intensified. Keeping close to the wall so as to get some shelter from the awnings of shops along the way, she hurried along the street until she reached the next corner, at which point she glanced back and saw to her relief that the woman hadn't followed her out of the cafe. Telling herself that she was in danger of becoming paranoid, she headed along the next street and unwrapped her burger, figuring that she could just eat on the way.
Up ahead, there was a homeless girl sitting in a doorway, with her head bowed. As soon as she saw her, Alice felt a flash of fear at the thought that she might end up the same way. She hurried past, before stopping after a few paces and rooting around in her coat pocket. Finding some coins, she turned and held them out for the girl; after a few seconds, with the girl not responding at all, she leaned down and set the coins down on the pavement in front of her, before turning and hurrying along. She knew she couldn't afford to give money to people on the streets, but at the same time she hated passing by without doing something. Reaching the next corne
r, she stopped for a moment to take shelter in the doorway of a shuttered supermarket, and she took another bite of her burger as she watched the rain continue to fall.
After a moment, she looked down at her half-eaten burger and realized she felt too nauseous to continue.
“What are you going to do now?” she imagined Doctor Carrington asking. “We tried to help you, we set you up with a job, and you blew it.”
“I didn't do anything wrong,” she could tell him. “I know what that video shows, but I didn't help with the graffiti. I don't know who that person was.”
“The video clearly shows you interacting with her,” he'd point out. “You looked like friends.”
“I don't remember,” she'd insist, and at that point the damage would be done. He'd know that she was cracking up, but...
She paused, as the rain began to fall harder and harder.
“I want to go back to hospital,” she imagined herself telling him. “I had friends there. I had things to do. Out here, I'm lost, and I'm just obsessing about my own mental state all the time. I might hurt someone, I might...” She paused, finally realizing the awful truth. “The more I'm out,” she imagined herself saying, “the more I start to think that maybe I did kill that policeman ten years ago. Maybe there was no-one else there after all? Maybe everything else was just in my head?”
For a moment, she imagined how good it would feel to just go back into hospital and have everything done for her again, but finally she realized that she didn't want to surrender, not yet. She could find another job, without any help, and she could force herself to do things properly. It'd be too easy to slip into self-pity and failure, and she didn't want to be that kind of person.
Not yet.
Realizing that she couldn't finish the burger, she was about to drop it in a nearby bin when she glanced back along the street and saw the homeless girl still sitting on the pavement. Wrapping the burger back up, Alice stepped back out into the rain and hurried along, before stopping next to the girl and holding the burger out for her.
“Sorry I've eaten half,” she said, “but you can have the rest if you want it. It's good.”
She waited, but the girl didn't react at all. She was sitting with her head still slightly bowed, and with wet, straggly hair covering her features. Her hands were in her lap, but after a moment Alice realized that the girl's skin seemed extremely thin, even worn through in places to reveal the bone beneath.
“I'll just leave this here,” she said, reaching down and setting the burger on the ground. She paused for a moment, able to see just the edge of the girl's chin, and she realized that something seemed wrong, as if the skin was peeling away slightly. “Are you...” She paused, feeling as if she couldn't just walk away without checking to see if she might be able to help. “Are you okay?” she asked finally, crouching next to the girl. “Do you need to see someone?”
She waited, but the girl still offered no response.
“I can help you see a doctor,” Alice continued. She looked down at the girl's arms and saw that, while there were no obvious signs of drug use, her skin seemed discolored, almost gray. There was a foul smell, too, like the smell in the cafe. “Why don't you come with me?” she asked, hoping to get some kind of reaction. The thought of helping someone filled her with a sense of purpose, and it felt good to worry about someone else for a change. “Let me help you.”
Slowly, the girl began to raise her head. There was a faint creaking sound from her neck as she did so, and finally her face came into view, partially hidden still by matted strands of hair.
Frozen with fear, Alice saw that while the left side of the girl's face was discolored and gray, the right side had been crushed, with fragments of bone poking through and one eye having been pushed up into her forehead, as if by some kind of heavy impact. There was no blood, though, and the injuries seemed old, as if the flesh around them had already died. The girl's lips had been partially torn away, too, revealing the teeth below.
“I...” Alice stammered, finally pulling back as rain fell all around them. “No,” she whispered, unable to believe what she was saying, “please...”
The girl continued to stare, her eyes filled with a hint of resentment and anger. When she finally opened her mouth, a thick sludge of dark blood began to leak out, dripping down her chin before dropping into her lap as she let out a faint groan.
“No!” Alice shouted, struggling to her feet and stepping back until she tripped over the edge of the curb and fell into the street.
“Hey!” a man called out, hurrying over to help her. “Are you okay?”
“Do you see her?” she stammered, pointing toward the girl, who was still staring straight at her.
“Who?” the man asked, looking toward the doorway.
“Do you see her?” Alice shouted, with tears running down her face. “Please,” she added, grabbing the man's collar and holding onto him tight as he tried to help her up. “Tell me you see her!”
He looked around, but it was clear that he had no idea what she meant.
“Tell me you see her,” Alice whimpered again, unable to stop staring at the girl even as the passerby tried to help her to her feet. “Please, tell me you see her, you have to be able to see her. It can't just be me.”
A small crowd had gathered now, but none of them had noticed the girl in the doorway. Instead, they were all watching Alice as she dropped sobbing back down to the ground, her whole body shaking with fear as she continued to stare in horror at the skeletal girl.
And the skeletal girl, unseen by anyone else, stared right back at her.
Chapter Eighteen
1941
Stopping at the end of yet another dark street, Hannah looked both ways before turning and waiting for Wendy to catch up.
“Well?”
Wendy stopped and stared at her for a moment. She was exhausted and her legs ached from all the walking, not to mention the sore skin under her many bandages. “Well what?”
“Well are we there yet?”
Wendy frowned. “Where?”
Sighing, Hannah put her hands on her hips. “The pilot, remember? You're leading me to the dead pilot. That's the whole point of this. We're not out for a late-night stroll.”
“I... No,” Wendy replied, “I'm not leading you to anyone. I don't know where he is. I was following you.”
“Nope,” Hannah continued, “you were walking behind, but you were steering the way with your thoughts. You might not even realize it, but you're tuned in to the world of the dead now, and specifically that pilot. That's why I need you, and I guarantee you, he's somewhere around here, so now you just have to zero in on him.”
“But he's dead,” Wendy pointed out, starting to feel a little frustrated. “They took his body away after the plane crashed.”
“And his soul is still wandering the streets,” Hannah replied. “Most people can't see him. Me, I'm lucky, I get to see the dead all the time. You, you've only just made that connection, and the pilot's probably the only one you can see right now. You can sense him, too, even if you don't realize it. I reckon he's most likely close by right now, probably within half a mile or so. That might seem like another coincidence given the size of the city, but it's not.” She paused. “Go on, focus, try to work out where he is. Just to within a few meters or so, we can do the rest on foot.”
“I don't know how to find him,” Wendy replied.
“Try.”
Sighing, Wendy looked around, but all she saw was darkness. She was certain that Hannah was wrong, but she had no idea how she could make her see that, so she figured she should just pretend to be listening for some hint of the pilot. After a moment, however, she realized she could sense a presence nearby. It seemed impossible at first, like something she was imagining, but after a few seconds it began to crawl through her soul and tug at her conscious mind. Turning, she looked over her shoulder, seeing nothing but a dark street stretching to the distance, but...
Somewhere nearby...
“I'm going to assume,” Hannah said finally, “that your continued silence, coupled with that gormless look on your face, means you've actually twigged that I'm right.” Stepping toward her, she looked along the street. “Is he along there? Is he coming this way?”
“I don't -” Wendy began to say, before realizing that somehow, deep in her gut, she just knew that the dead pilot was in the shadows, heading toward them. She took a step back, filled with a sudden sense of fear, as if she could see a skeletal figure shuffling through the darkness. Waiting, she realized her heart was pounding in her chest, faster than she'd ever known before.
“Be brave,” Hannah whispered to her. “It's not just a case of you knowing where to find him, it's also a case of him coming to find you. Since you were the last person who saw him as he died, there's a kind of subconscious link between the two of you, and that's only going to get stronger as he trawls the streets. It's only natural, really. He's lost, so he's trying to find something familiar, which for better or worse happens to be you.” She took a step forward, peering into the darkness ahead. “He's not supposed to be here.”
“Then where is he supposed to be?” Wendy asked, fighting the urge to turn and run as she heard a shuffling sound getting closer the darkness.
“Well, that depends on whether he was a good boy, doesn't it?”
“But -”
“There!” Hannah shouted suddenly, pointing ahead as the faintest of shapes came into view. Slowly, a huge smile spread across her face. “Wow,” she whispered, taking another step forward as tears filled her eyes, “he's beautiful. He's really, really beautiful.”
As the dead pilot emerged from the darkness, Wendy didn't think he looked very beautiful at all. For one thing, there was nothing left of him but his bones, draped in the tattered remains of his RAF uniform, while he was dragging his torn and damaged parachute as he walked, trailing the silk canopy on a series of cords that were attached to his back. The effort seemed to be slowing him and causing him to hunch over as he struggled along, but he seemed determined not to stop. His skeletal face was looking down at the pavement, and he gave no indication that he knew he was being watched as he continued his slow, solitary trek the night.
