The Shadow Friend

by Alex North

  Except I couldn’t find the words.

  Charlie and Billy were in their usual seats, but the rest of the room seemed darker today. It took me a second to realize why. The lights closest to the door had been turned off, which left the two of them illuminated at the back, drawing you towards them from out of the shadows. Was that by design? I thought it probably was. Charlie stage-managed everything so carefully.

  As James and I made our way between the seats, I decided I wasn’t prepared to be manipulated by him any longer. We weren’t alone in the woods right now, miles from anyone; there was no danger here. So I allowed a little of the anger I’d suppressed yesterday to surface now. Wherever this experiment was heading, I decided it had to stop.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘What the fuck is going on?’

  ‘Sit down.’

  I ignored Charlie – but, of course, James did as he was told. His hands were trembling as he took his dream diary out of his bag.

  ‘What did we all dream?’ Charlie said.

  ‘I asked you what’s going on.’

  He smiled patiently.

  ‘James?’

  James looked up at me nervously.

  ‘I want Paul to go first.’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t want to say what I dreamed.’

  ‘I’ll do it, then.’

  Charlie held out his hand for James’s dream diary, the gesture delivered with total confidence that his command would be obeyed.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ I told James.

  But Charlie’s hand remained out, and I watched as James did exactly as he’d been instructed. He didn’t want his entry to be read out, but such was the hold Charlie had over him that he was incapable of refusing.

  Charlie opened James’s diary.

  ‘I dreamed I was in Room C5b,’ he read. ‘Charlie and Billy were there too. Paul wasn’t. The air was strange and liquid, so it was like swimming through water. When I went to the door, I looked through the window at the side and Paul was standing there.’

  James glanced at me, and then quickly away.

  ‘I couldn’t see him properly,’ Charlie continued. ‘His face was distorted and it was like he wasn’t properly in the dream. He seemed frightened. I started trying to talk to him, but I don’t think he could hear what I was saying. And then he wasn’t there any more.’

  James was staring down at the floor now, completely unable to meet my eye. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. His dream matched mine almost exactly, and even taking incubation into account, there was no way they could have ended up so similar. There was only one explanation I could think of for what I was hearing.

  He’d written his diary entry after talking to me on the bus.

  I want Paul to go first.

  Because I would have read my account of my dream, and then he would have read his, and they would have been the same. And in that moment, he would have impressed Charlie and proved him right – even though he knew, deep down, it was all a fantasy and a lie.

  Jesus, I thought.

  After everything we’d been through over the years – all those times I’d stuck up for him and protected him – he was so far gone that he was prepared to use me to help confirm Charlie’s delusions.

  ‘Bullshit,’ I said.

  Charlie broke off from reading.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said this is bullshit.’

  ‘Why?’ Charlie looked from me to the book and back again, playing confused. ‘This is what James has written down. What are you saying?’

  For a moment, I was too angry – too hurt – to answer. I looked from one of them to the other. Charlie waiting for my reply. Billy indifferent to it. And James, still looking down, so obviously ashamed of himself that I couldn’t get the words out.

  I’m saying my best friend is a liar.

  ‘Paul?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Finish reading what James dreamed.’

  But instead, Charlie put James’s diary on the desk.

  ‘You’ve always doubted this, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tell us what you dreamed? I can finish James’s account afterwards.’

  I looked down at my bag, on the floor at my feet with my dream diary inside. But I couldn’t read from that now, could I? Not without either confirming what James had written or challenging him outright about it, and both seemed unbearable to me right then.

  ‘Just finish reading what James wrote,’ I said.

  ‘In a minute,’ Charlie said. ‘But actually, I think I’ll read from mine first – or rather, Billy will. That way we can avoid any doubts or suspicion. You go first, Billy.’

  They swapped dream diaries and Billy started reading.

  ‘Billy and James and I were here in the room,’ he said. ‘At first, I wasn’t sure if the two of them were lucid in the same way I was, but I thought they were. Paul wasn’t there. I could sense that he was somewhere close by, but he didn’t want to join us for some reason. I was disappointed, because I knew it might take all four of us at first to accomplish what we wanted to do. It would be much harder with just three, especially if there was someone nearby who didn’t believe. Paul didn’t want to join us –’

  Charlie held up a hand.

  ‘Stop there, Billy. I’ll read the beginning of yours now.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘This is fucking crazy.’

  ‘Me and Charlie were in the room,’ Charlie read. ‘James was there too, but he was flickery, like he hadn’t managed to be as there as me and Charlie were – like he wasn’t as connected. I could see Charlie clearly, though. Paul wasn’t anywhere around. He wasn’t there at all.’

  Charlie stopped and looked up at me.

  ‘What did you dream, Paul?’

  I didn’t answer, and the silence in the air began ringing. After a moment, James looked up at me, with an imploring expression on his face that only intensified the sick feeling inside me. In his own sad way, he was doing this in an attempt to bring me back into the fold. To give me an opportunity to invest in Charlie’s fantasy the same way he had.

  I stared back at him, my face hardening.

  ‘I didn’t dream anything like that,’ I said flatly. ‘I wasn’t there. I didn’t see any of you.’

  ‘That you remember,’ Charlie corrected me. ‘James wrote down that he saw you.’

  ‘I think I’m done with this whole thing.’

  ‘Yes.’ Charlie leaned back. ‘I think that might be for the best. You being involved is hampering the three of us. That’s why we couldn’t connect properly – because you weren’t properly committed.’

  ‘James?’ I said.

  And then I stood there, waiting to see if James was going to say anything. Come to his senses and confess, perhaps; put an end to this whole charade. It was obvious from Charlie’s words that he was attempting to banish me from the group right then, and this was my supposed best friend’s chance to speak up and stop all this.

  To leave here with me.

  But he said nothing.

  ‘You’re right.’ I came back to life and picked up my bag. ‘I guess I’ll see you guys around.’

  I walked over to the door. When I reached it, I paused and looked back. Because even though I knew that nothing could possibly have happened, the fact remained that Goodbold was not in school today.

  ‘How did it all end?’ I called over.

  ‘The dream broke apart,’ Charlie said. ‘Because of you. I remember James and Billy drifting away from me, and the dream beginning to fade. Red Hands and I got as far as Goodbold’s house by ourselves, but I knew the two of us wouldn’t be strong enough to get inside by ourselves. All because of you.’

  I shook my head and gave a half-laugh.

  ‘So nothing happened.’

  Charlie smiled.

  ‘We managed to kill his dog,’ he said.

  23

  Goodbold was back at school the next day.

  For obvious reasons, I found my
self watching him out of the corner of my eye. On a superficial level, nothing about him had changed: he still lumbered about the same as always, rolling his shoulders, that whistle on a cord around his neck. But if you knew to look for it, it seemed to me that he was walking a little more slowly than usual, the way someone might while recovering from an operation. And every now and then, I caught him looking around suspiciously, as though searching for someone.

  There was no way I could know for certain if Charlie really had killed his dog. It wasn’t the kind of incident that would have been reported in the news or made its way along the school’s grapevine of gossip. But Goodbold did seem hurt to me. When I saw his face in unguarded moments, it was as though some cruel damage had been done to him and he couldn’t understand why.

  And so while there was no way I could know for sure, I did.

  Because I saw Charlie and the others watching Goodbold too. That first day he was back, I remember seeing the three of them sitting on a bench together by the sixth form block at break time. While I’d done my best to avoid them since yesterday, I was near enough to see Goodbold walking past on playground duty, and then what happened as he reached their bench.

  James was staring down at the ground. Billy was looking off to one side. But Charlie was staring straight at Goodbold the whole time, watching him as he approached.

  I saw Goodbold glance indifferently at them.

  Then back again more intently.

  And then he came to a halt.

  Because Charlie was smiling at him. It was a knowing smile – one that was easily deniable, but which communicated just enough of a message for Goodbold to understand what lay behind it. To let him know it was Charlie who had done this terrible thing to him, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

  The moment seemed to last for an age. It felt like my heart stopped in my chest as I wondered what was going to happen. Whether Goodbold might approach Charlie and challenge him. Or perhaps even lose control and attack him.

  And yet Goodbold did none of those things.

  He just stood there. But the expression on his face changed. It was as though he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing – as though even if, right then, he understood the what of it, he couldn’t make sense of the why. And in those few seconds, I saw the man in a different light. I remembered the occasions when I’d seen him walking his dog in Gritten, and I found myself picturing a lonely home life, and the frustrations and disappointments of his everyday existence. I imagined him waking up the previous morning and coming downstairs, stepping out into his yard, and seeing what had been taken from him. And despite all the indignities he’d forced on us over the months, I felt sorry for him.

  Then he turned from Charlie and walked away.

  And life carried on for all of us.

  Over the weeks that followed, it was easy enough to avoid James. The village was small, but there were routes through it that avoided his house on a morning. I found it easy to ignore him during the wait at the bus shelter. On the journey itself, he sat on the bottom deck and so was always ahead of me by the time I disembarked. On the way home, I’d often see him stalking across the bridge over the dual carriageway, his head bowed and his hands stuffed in his pockets, slumped and walking too quickly, as if he was trying to escape from something.

  At school, I imagine the three of them spent most of their time in Room C5b, and I had no reason to go there any more. Likewise, the woods. At weekends, I kept well away from the Shadows. I had no desire to encounter the three of them out there in the wilds, making their stupid plans, buying into each other’s fantasies, and communing with the monster from their dreams.

  I couldn’t get away from them entirely, of course. I saw them in lessons, and occasionally in the playground. While I did my best to ignore them, it was always uncomfortable, because I had the impression they weren’t ignoring me – or at least that Charlie wasn’t. Every now and then, my skin would crawl and I’d look up to see the three of them nearby, Charlie with a smirk on his face, a sly and victorious expression.

  You might have removed yourself from the game, he seemed to be saying. But the game isn’t finished with you yet.

  And each time, I would look away and wonder why I had ever been friends with him at all. It had been because of James, of course. But I never saw James looking at me. He would always be staring at the ground instead, embarrassed and awkward, and I remember thinking he seemed increasingly out of sorts with the other two. There had been shifting power divisions between the four of us as a group, but my presence had balanced things out a little; it seemed like, without me around, Charlie and Billy had grown closer again, and James was being dominated.

  There was one lunchtime when I was at the edge of the playground and I saw the three of them in the distance. James was walking between the other two, and he looked so broken down that he reminded me of a prisoner, being led somewhere against his will.

  But he had made his choice, hadn’t he?

  I stared after them for a moment, telling myself I didn’t care, and that I didn’t need him.

  Fuck him.

  Then I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and walked past the construction site towards the tennis courts and the bench.

  Because I had someone else to spend my time with.

  24

  Now

  I’m surprised you didn’t opt for a hotel.

  That was what Amanda had said to me yesterday. The comment had thrown me at the time. It had never occurred to me to do that, and I wondered why I hadn’t. It wasn’t a matter of money, so perhaps a part of me had wanted to punish myself. Or possibly, thinking about the way my life had faltered and failed over the years in the shadow of what happened, maybe on some subconscious level I’d decided it needed to be done – almost like a dare to myself.

  See? Everything is okay.

  If so, the delivery of Charlie’s doll changed that. There was no way I was going to stay in the house that night. I packed my things, including the boxes my mother had kept, then got into my car and drove back to Gritten. I found the cheapest hotel I could and checked in, deciding that I would figure out what to do in the morning.

  But I’d never been able to sleep well in hotels. And even there, away from the house, I still had the same sense of threat and foreboding. The knocks on the door might have been a prank, and the figure I’d seen in the woods a stranger, but there was no way of rationalizing away the delivery of the doll.

  Someone was out there. Someone was targeting me.

  And however much I told myself it was impossible, I couldn’t escape the feeling that Charlie was behind it. I tossed and turned as morning approached, remembering the way he’d looked at me in the weeks after I left the group. The sense I’d had back then that things were not over.

  The game isn’t finished with you yet.

  The early hours found me outside, walking the streets of Gritten.

  At this hour, the world was quiet and peaceful. There was no breeze, just the push of cool air against me, an almost welcome sensation in advance of the heat I knew would come later. Ribbons and threads of cloud hung low in the dawn sky. They were so close that they seemed like spirits that had descended to peer at me, and so still that it was hard to imagine them ever moving on.

  I wandered down roads I remembered well. There were endless rows of anonymous red-brick terraces squashed uncomfortably against each other. Back then, there had been clothes lines strung across the streets, with washing hanging down from them like tattered flags. The streets had changed a little, but they remained familiar. And while I told myself I was walking aimlessly – just drifting – I knew that wasn’t true, and eventually I found myself at the top of a hill I knew better than most.

  Jenny’s old house was just ahead of me.

  I stopped a little way up the street. The house looked almost the same as it had twenty-five years ago. My gaze moved to one of the upstairs windows, the one that had been her bedroom, and I pictured her singl
e bed with its plain covers, the desk with a small television on it, the acoustic guitar on a stand in one corner. The walls had been filled with shelves. They stretched all the way from the ceiling to the floor – clearly home-made – and always looked too flimsy to support the sheer number of books loaded on to them. It was only the foundations of more books below that had prevented the whole edifice from collapsing.

  God, I could still see it all so clearly.

  I remembered the first time I’d come here, and how it had been a surprise to see Jenny out of school uniform. When she opened the door, she was dressed in jeans, a faded Iron Maiden T-shirt that looked a couple of sizes too big for her, and an open, black-and-white checked shirt.

  The two of us had gone upstairs.

  ‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ she told me.

  There had been no need for her to apologize. The contrast with my own bedroom had struck me immediately, and I’d felt ashamed – thinking of the bare floorboards and plain mattress, the piles of clothes and books, the damp walls. Even the idea of having my own wardrobe or bookcase was alien to me, never mind a television.

  ‘You should see my room,’ I said.

  That got me a raised eyebrow.

  ‘That’s very forward of you.’

  I smiled at the memory now. It had made me blush back then, but at the same time, the squirming sensation in my stomach had been nice. And both feelings had returned shortly afterwards, when Jenny had finished bagging up the books she wanted to take to her beloved second-hand shop.

  ‘We should head downstairs,’ she said. ‘We don’t want my mum getting suspicious, do we?’

  A little way down the street now, the front door opened.

  I felt an urge to hide, but there was nowhere to go. Maybe it wouldn’t be Jenny emerging from the house …

  But then it was, of course.

  I watched as she stepped out on to the path, called something back into the house, then made her way to the street, hitching a bag over her shoulder. Not a plastic bag full of books this time, but something much more grown up: designer and expensive. She was going to turn and see me at any moment, standing in the middle of the pavement like an idiot.