Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (78 page)

Shelley

Although it seems like kind of a bad idea, I figure the next morning that although I can't go back to work at the funeral home, I have to at least go and tell Walter that I'm leaving and see if I can get the money for the day I worked. Normally when I quit a job I just cut my losses, but I desperately need the cash. The truth is: although I really want those disco boots, the money from this job was probably never going to go toward them. I need money just to live, just to get food and buy drinks. I made fifty stinking dollars last night with that asshole from the bar. If I just start doing that kind of thing regularly, I'd make far more money than I'll ever make at some stinking funeral home.

Before I leave home, I try to call Sophie again, but there's still no reply. I could really use her moral support today, but she seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet. After all the stuff that's been happening lately, I'm starting to get seriously worried about her. I try calling Alice as well, but she's out of town.

Arriving at the funeral home just after 9am, I pause outside the door. I figure there's no way Comfortable is going to be at work yet. He's probably still a bit sore after last night. All I have to do is get in, talk to Walter, and get out. It feels kind of strange not being hungover, so I guess I can use my atypical clarity to try to win Walter over. Although he owes me that money, he could easily find a way to weasel out of paying me, so I have to be on my best behavior and I have to find some way to get him to not hate me.

Deep breath.

Here goes nothing.

I step through the door and into the back room of the funeral home. I immediately hear a noise coming from one of the refrigerated rooms, like someone banging about and searching for something. I pause, worried that it might be Comfortable, but then a familiar voice rings out.

"Who's there?" Walter shouts.

"It's me," I reply. "Shelley."

After a moment, Walter storms out. "Were you here last night?" he asks, clearly angry.

"Last night?" I ask. "No, why?"

He stares at me. "Someone was here," he says, turning and storming back into the other room.

I follow him through, and find there are three bodies under cloth being refrigerated. "What's the problem?" I ask.

"This is the problem," Walter says, pulling a cloth from one of the bodies. It's the same corpse from yesterday, except this time he's missing both his arms.

"Where are they?" I ask.

"That's what I'd like to know," Walter says. "Do you have any idea how much trouble this is going to cause? I could be shut down! I could lose my license. Not to mention the question of what kind of... beast... would want to steal the arms of a dead man."

I stare at the rough wounds on the corpse's shoulders where the arms used to be. One word keeps going round and round in my head: Comfortable. For whatever sick, sick reason, he's the only person who could possibly have done this. He must have come back here after I left him, but why the hell would anyone want to steal the arms from a dead body?

"Are you quite sure," Walter says, staring at me, "that you had nothing whatsoever to do with this?"

"I swear to God," I say. All thoughts of getting my money for yesterday have now left my mind. All I can think about is that Comfortable is clearly much, much weirder than I thought.

"This is serious, Shelley," Walter continues. "If you did this, or if you know who did, then you need to tell me now."

"I don't have a clue."

"Then we both know who it was, don't we?" Walter sighs. He looks down at the body. "If I believe you, and I think I do, then the only other person who had access is Comfortable." He pauses. "That boy has never been right in the head. There's always been something slightly 'off' about him. You can see it in the eyes. And now this..."

I swallow hard. It's clear that Walter is seriously freaked out about this, and I actually feel sorry for him. Yesterday I kind of got the impression that he was something of an amateur Hitler, but now I see that he's just a guy trying to run a business.

"What are you going to do?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "I'm going to cover it up," he says simply. He turns to me. "You have to swear not to breathe a word of this to anyone."

"I swear," I say.

"I mean, really swear," he continues. "I'm already in a lot of trouble because of this, and covering it up is even worse. If it ever gets out..." He pauses. "Wait here." With that, he hurries out of the room and up the stairs, leaving me alone in the room with the armless wonder.

What did Comfortable want with a dead guy's arms? What's going through his head? Has he always been weird like this, or did he snap after I zapped him? And is he dangerous? He took a dead guy's arms this time, but maybe he's gonna come back for
my
arms next time? I've seen a lot of daytime TV movies; I know how crazy people can get.

"Here," says Walter, returning with a handful of cash. He thrusts the money into my hands. "This is a pay-off."

Stunned, I stare at the money. There must be more than a thousand dollars here.

"You take this money," Walter says, his voice shaking, "and you forget you ever walked through that door. You forget you ever worked here. You forget you ever saw anything. You forget you ever met me, or ever met Comfortable. You don't ever, ever mention this to anyone. Not when you're drunk. Not when you're a little old woman talking to your grandchildren. This never leaves the room. Got it?"

I pause. "So I'm fired?" I ask.

"Get out."

I stuff the money in my pocket. Every inch of me wants to throw the cash back in his face. I want to stand up for my principles and show him that I can't be bought. But I need the money really badly, and I can't afford to have any principles right now. "Deal," I say, nodding. "What happens in the refrigerated storage room, stays in the refrigerated storage room."

"Go," he says. "I've got to find some way to sort this out."

"You need any help?" I ask.

"No!" he shouts. "Just go!" He's already over at the work bench, sorting out tools.

I head to the door, and then I turn back to look at him. "What are you going to do about Comfortable?" I ask.

"Leave that to me," he says, not looking up.

I walk out of the building. As soon as I get out into the parking lot at the back, I pull the money from my pocket. Making sure there's no-one watching me, I quickly count the cash and find that I'm holding fifteen hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred dollars! I've never seen so much money in my life. Okay, I know it won't last long, but I bet I'm the only person in this whole fucking town who's got so much cash right now. I can get those disco boots, and I can buy real, actual food! I take a deep breath. Or I could use the money to get out of town. I could go to New York. I've always wanted to get out of Dedston. This could be my chance. My last chance. My only chance. I feel like I'm at the crossroads of my life. What I decide right now...

I stuff the money back in my pocket, turn to walk away and find someone staring at me. I instantly assume that it must be Comfortable, and I tense, ready for a fight. But then I realize it's not Comfortable. It's Patrick.

Comfortable

Sometimes the rage overcomes me and I have to hide myself away from all of mankind. At times like this, I go out into the forest and I stay there until the rage passes. I know that if I stayed in town, I'd end up doing something I regretted. The rage - the fury - that I feel at times like this is indescribable, and it has the power to cloud my judgment and force me to do terrible things. So when I first feel it coming over me, I always turn and run for the forest. Out here, I can walk and walk and walk, and scream to myself, and wait for it all to be over.

I'd do anything to get rid of the rage, but it's impossible. It was built into me from the start. I wasn't born: I was created. A man put me together, piece by piece, so that he could turn me into the perfect killing machine. It all went wrong, though, and I was left like this: a pitiful wreck incapable of controlling the anger that was genetically programmed to boil away inside my soul. When the rage is truly at its peak, there's no limit to the terrible things I could do. Sometimes I think I could even hurt Shelley if I encountered her while I was feeling like this.

The forest always calms me, though. Once I get out here, it never takes long for the rage to pass. I simply get onto my knees and wait. As the anger makes my entire body shake, I close my eyes and imagine some kind of happiness. Usually, I imagine what it would be like to be with Shelley. I imagine us having a house, like normal people do. Not a big house or a mansion... Just a nice little house. We're happy there. We're together. We have children, and we live normal lives free of pain and fear and hatred. I no longer have these crippling bouts of rage, and I no longer have to consume human flesh to survive, and Shelley no longer has to work dead-end jobs and sell her body for money. It's a perfect life. It's also completely impossible.

Still, thinking of such happiness always helps me to bring the rage under control. Eventually I stop shaking, but I'm always so tired that I need to rest, and then to feed. Sometimes I fear that it's the rage that drains me and causes me to require human flesh. If I could get the rage under control, perhaps I could stop killing people? But I fear it's too late. I am what I am. I was created this way, and I can't turn against my basic instinct. This is me. This will always be me. I can't change anything.

Once I've recovered, I sit and examine the new arms I sewed onto my body earlier. When I take body parts from the funeral home, I'm normally careful. I wait until the bodies are in the coffins, all dressed up for the service, and then I sneak in and remove a leg or an arm here and there. But last night I was desperate and I didn't have time to be delicate, so I just broke in and took two arms from the first corpse I found. Poor old Walter is going to be beside himself, and he'll quickly realize that I'm responsible. God knows what he and Shelley are going to think of me, but they don't understand that my own body is breaking down so badly. I desperately need to acquire new parts almost every month. The rage that burns within me destroys my body too fast...

But now it passes. Soon I will need to feed again, and to acquire new body parts. This cycle of life is too fast, and it's getting worse. I can't survive much longer. But if I die, there'll be nobody to protect Shelley. She'll die a horrible death, and I can't allow that, so perhaps I must accept that her death is inevitable, in which case I must be the one to kill her. I can do it kindly, and without causing her any pain. I can manage her death for her, and once she has passed away peacefully, I can allow myself to die too, and we can perhaps find each other in the next life.

Shelley

"What are you doing here?" I ask, staring at Patrick. My heart's racing. Usually when I meet Patrick, I'm with Sophie, but this time he seems to be here for me, and that prospect fills me with dread.

He doesn't reply, of course. He's just standing there, staring at me. There's something slightly off-putting about the way his deep, soulful eyes seem to peer into my mind. He always has this expression that suggests he not only knows everything about me, but he's kind of sad about it. Sometimes I swear he's seen the future and he knows all the crap that's coming everyone's way. The more I learn about him, the more I realize I don't know anything.

"It's 9am," I say, glancing about nervously. "Shouldn't you be hiding from the sun or something?"

No answer.

"No?" I ask. "You don't spend your days sleeping in a coffin and stuff like that?"

Still no answer. He's just staring at me.

"Do you..." I pause. "Okay, this is a silly question, but... can you turn into a bat?" I immediately feel pretty foolish for even saying those words.

He narrows his eyes.

"Okay," I say, starting to get angry, "this is bullshit. What do you want?" I stare at him. "Come on!" I shout. "Don't just stare at me. Talk to me. I know you can talk. You spoke to me once, remember? I know Sophie puts up with that mean and moody silent shit, but I've got stuff to do, okay? I've got places to go. So if you've got something to say, say it. Otherwise, just fuck right off, okay?"

I wait.

I'm bluffing.

He knows I'm bluffing.

I sigh. "Fine," I continue. "You know, two can play this game. You want moody silence? I'll give you moody silence." I stare at him, and I say nothing, and I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait...

The two of us just stand there. This is great: I'm effectively having a staring contest with a thousand-year-old vampire. But that's okay: I've got a lot of experience when it comes to staring contests, and there's no way I'm going to back down. If he wants something from me, he's going to have to tell me something in return. If he's got a question, he's going to have to ask it, rather than just waiting for me to work out what he wants to know. He's going to have to talk to me.

"For fuck's sake," I shout at him, unable to keep this up. "Look, okay, if you're looking for Sophie, I don't know where she is. And if I did, I don't know if I'd tell you. I can't find her, and..." I pause. "I'm supposed to be leaving town," I say, kind of surprised to hear myself say the words. Am I really leaving town? I guess so! "I need to find her before I leave, to see if she..." I pause. Damn it. I can't leave when Sophie needs me. I feel my heart sink as I realize I'm stuck in Dedston. "I don't know where she is," I say flatly. I suddenly realize I've been babbling over-excitedly, and now I feel like I'm crashing and burning.

After a moment's pause, Patrick turns and walks to the back door, entering the funeral home.

"Now where the fuck are you going?" I ask, following him inside. He goes into the refrigerated room and stares at the armless body. Fortunately Walter seems to have gone through to another part of the building for a moment.

"Gross, huh?" I ask.

I watch as Patrick steps over to the body and examines the wounds where the arms were removed. He leans in close and starts sniffing the wounds like a dog.

"So is this just casual interest, or are you here for a reason?" I ask. "Do you just like hanging out with dead people?"

Without responding, he reaches out and touches the torn flesh with the tip of a finger, and then he licks his finger.

"Gross," I mutter.

Patrick turns to look at me.

"It
is
gross!" I say. "It's a dead guy! What kind of person goes around licking gross dead bodies?"

He stares at me.

"You're weird," I say.

He frowns.

"What?" I say. "I didn't do anything. It was this crazy guy. His name's Comfortable. Fuck knows why he did it, but..."

Patrick looks back down at the body.

"Why are you here, anyway?" I ask. "Are you here to see me, or are you here to look at what's happened, or... I don't know, did you just happen to be passing on the way to the shops or something?"

He turns and heads to the door. I run after him and realize he's got what he needed, whatever that might be. He's planning to just walk off without saying a word, like I'm just some annoyance he can ignore. Sure, he's totally focused on Sophie, but he doesn't give a damn about me, even though I'm always getting caught up in the stupid things that keep happening around him. Then again, I'm increasingly getting the feeling that all of this - everything - has always been about Sophie to begin with. I'm just a bystander. An observer. I'm the best friend who gets to say a few lines but ultimately doesn't get in on the main action. Damn it, I always thought I'd be a main character, not a side character in someone else's story.

"What about Sophie?" I call after him as we get outside.

He stops and turns to me.

"Where is she?" I ask. "What have you done to her?" I stare at him. "Fuck it," I say eventually, "I don't give a shit about prophecies and babies and all that shit, okay? I just want to know what's happened to my best friend."

Again, he says nothing. He just stares at me, as if somehow that's enough of an answer. And then, he tilts his head slightly, the way a dog does when it's trying to understand something.

"Is she okay?" I ask. "I can't find her anywhere. I've been calling her and leaving messages, but it's like she's just disappeared off the face of the Earth or something."

He stares at me. I can't work out what he's thinking at all. Maybe Sophie's got better at translating that blank face into something intelligible, but to me he just seems like some kind of robot. No emotion, no thoughts or feelings. Just a blank person, wandering around and fucking stuff up for everyone. I really don't get why Sophie's so into him. I mean, even if a guy's hot as hell, a personality like this can seriously dampen any passion.

"Why did you tell me that stuff?" I ask. It's the question I've been wanting to ask him for a long time. Ever since he whispered the secret about Sophie to me, I've been trying to work it out. Why me? "The stuff about the kid. Do I really have to... I mean, I don't want that to happen. She's just a baby, so how do you know you'll be able to trust her in sixteen years?"

No reply. Nothing. He just stares at me.

"I don't get it," I continue. "If I can't tell Sophie... If I can't do anything about it... Then why tell me? Why torture me like this? Am I supposed to do something? You talked to me once. Why can't you do it again?"

He turns and walks away.

"Fine," I say. "Seeya later... Have a nice drive home in your Batmobile." He doesn't turn back, so I just stand and watch as he makes his way across the parking lot and, eventually, into the parkland at the far end.

I turn and walk away. I feel like there's this huge story going on around me, but I'm not part of it. Sophie and Patrick and this Nimrod guy are all in the eye of the storm, and I'm on the outside. Sure, I get pulled in from time to time, but I don't really understand the details. With Sophie having apparently vanished on me, I guess my part's done. I guess there's a chance that Sophie might be dead, but I have to put that idea out of my mind and focus on working out what to do next. After walking for half an hour or so, I find myself near Sophie's house and I figure it wouldn't hurt to drop by and see if she's there.

I knock on the door and wait. I doubt there's much chance that I'll find out what's going on, but I feel like I can't give up on her just yet. Eventually the door opens and Sophie's little brother stares up at me.

"Hey Todd," I say, trying not to act like I'm worried or anything. "Is your sister home?"

Todd frowns and then shakes his head. He seems kind of dazed, like he's not really used to talking to people. He's a shy kid, but I like him. There's a lot of Sophie in his face, almost as if they could be twins, but Todd's a good few years younger. I've never really talked to him, but it's weird to see how he's slowly growing up and becoming an actual person with an actual personality.

"Do you know where she is?" I ask.

"No," he says. He has a delicate, sad voice, and it kind of shocks me. "She hasn't been home for days," he continues. "I don't know why not."

I sigh. "What about your Mom? Is she in?"

He nods and steps back to let me into the house. I walk through to the front room, where I find that Sophie's Mom is - as usual - sitting on the sofa, watching daytime TV. I swear to God, she's always doing exactly the same thing. I remember when I used to come over to play with Sophie when we were kids, and her Mom would always be sat on the sofa like that. She's even watching the same shows.

"Hi, Mrs. Hart," I say.

She looks over. For a moment, she doesn't seem to recognize me, and I start to wonder if she's okay in the head, but then she smiles. "Hey..." she says, but she still seems a little confused. Not surprising, really, given the shit she watches on TV all day. "How you doing..." she continues, but she pauses as if she's not sure what to say next.

"Shelley," I say.

"Right," she continues. "Hey, Shelley. Do you know where Sophie is?"

"No," I say, my heart sinking. "That's kinda why I came to see you. I was hoping you'd know."

She frowns, and then she shakes her head. "No," she says, turning back to look at the TV.

"If you see her, could you tell her to call me?" I ask.

She turns back to me. "Yeah," she says, and then she looks past me. "Todd!" she shouts.

Todd comes into the room, looking kind of scared.

"Honey, get me some Po-Po," she says.

Without saying anything, Todd turns and heads through to the kitchen.

"Okay," I say. "Thanks, Mrs. Hart." I wait for her to respond, but she just stares at the TV so I turn and leave the room. Before I go to head out the front door, however, I sneak along the corridor and go into Sophie's room. It's immediately obvious that no-one has been in here for days. Everything smells so stagnant, as if the air hasn't been disturbed. I walk over to the desk in the corner and take a look, hoping for some kind of clue, but there's nothing. I check the drawers, and I see that Sophie left all her clothes. Even her cellphone charger is still here, on the dresser, so she obviously didn't expect to be away for long.

Turning to leave, I spot her crescent moon necklace on the little table by her bed. Picking it up, I run my fingers over it. The silver moon is about an inch in diameter. I gave Sophie this necklace years and years ago. It wasn't her birthday or anything; it was just a summer's day and I decided to give it to her. I was planning to give her this little speech and tell her how important she was to me, but in the end I chickened out and almost threw it at her, acting like it was a joke. She liked it and all, but I don't think she thought it was anything particularly special. Okay, I stole it from a store in town when I was about fifteen years old, but I stole it specifically for Sophie so it was still a nice gesture. It's the thought that counts, right?

I sniff the necklace. It smells of her. Not just her perfume, but her skin too. I put the necklace in my pocket. If I see her again, I'll give it back to her. But if I don't see her again, I want to have something of hers, so I can remember her. I don't really have many photos of her, and anyway photos aren't very physical. I need something I can touch and hold. Something I can wear, so she's always with me. And...

Suddenly I realize I'm starting to cry.

I sit on her bed. The truth is, with everything that's been happening recently, it's entirely possible that she's been killed. God knows how and where, and I might never find out. But the knowledge that she might be dead has been at the back of my mind for a couple of days now, since I first realized she was missing, and I've been trying to ignore this creeping feeling of dread. She's been living a dangerous life lately, and it's definitely possible that things have finally caught up with her. After all, I know her too well: she wouldn't just stop communicating with me. Something must be wrong. She's been captured, or hurt, or killed. I just hope, if she really
is
dead, that it wasn't painful. I wipe more tears from my cheek. Is this why Patrick suddenly appeared outside the funeral home? Was that his way of telling me that Sophie's dead? Did she die alone somewhere, out in the forest?

"What's wrong?" asks a voice nearby.

I look up and see that Todd has come into the room.

"Nothing," I say, sniffing and wiping my eyes. "Everything's fine."

"Where's Sophie?" he asks.

"Nowhere," I say, standing up. "I mean... Somewhere. Definitely somewhere, doing something." Damn it, I'm a terrible liar. You'd think with all the practice I've had, I'd have improved. "She's good," I continue. "She'll be back soon."

"Why are you crying?" he asks.

"I'm not," I say, patting him on the head as I slip past him and head out into the hallway.

"Yes you are," he says, following me to the door.

"It's hay-fever," I say, turning to him. "I'm allergic to stuff." I see, through the doorway leading into the lounge, that Mrs. Hart is still sitting on the sofa and watching TV. "Are you okay, Todd?" I ask, looking down at him.