Dead Scared (16 page)

There she was, the cute, ponytailed girl with bows in her pale hair, front row, third in from the left. Monotone though the photo was, I was in no doubt as to the colour of those ribbons. The
names of each child were printed at the base of the photograph, barely legible. Dougie squinted as he read out the name from the front row, third along.

‘P. Carrington.’

My heart skipped a beat, seeing the ghost girl there on the screen, as she was in life. The empathy I already felt for her was magnified, seeing her innocent smile months, weeks, perhaps even
days before her terrible fate occurred. My eyes drifted across the crowd of children, my mind imagining the various friendships, acquaintances or indeed rivalries Phyllis might have had with those
kids. There was a Lucy Carpenter amongst their number, and a Vinnie Savage no doubt.
Which one would’ve been me?
I wondered, staring at the boys who stood to attention along the back
row. I gasped.

‘Back row, far right,’ I said, as Dougie read out the name.

‘E. Borley.’

He looked back to the rakish figure at the back of the group, the familiar hook nose making him instantly recognisable. The caretaker’s cold, dark eyes stared out of the screen at us, deep
into our very souls. Dougie gulped and glanced at me.

‘Crap,’ added Andy, succinctly.

Our shocked stupor was broken by a commotion outdoors. Dougie looked out of the window and could see a crowd had gathered in the playground. There must have been a hundred kids, huddling
together in the snow next to the Upper School building.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘Looks like a fight, perhaps?’ said Dougie.

Andy stood and cranked open the library window to shout at one of the Year Sevens who was rushing past.

‘What’s happened?’

‘That big lad who dared to climb on to the Upper School roof,’ said the kid excitedly, his face a mixture of horror and morbid excitement. ‘He’s only gone and jumped,
hasn’t he.’

Andy and Dougie didn’t wait around, grabbing their jackets and bags as they legged it for the door. I floated along beside them, fearing what awaited us when we got to the scene of the
fall, a blizzard of snow hitting us as we dashed outdoors. I always said his stupidity would be the death of Stu. I hadn’t suspected this might be that day.

It was the last place I’d expected to return to. I thought after my sudden departure from the living world I was done with the General Hospital, but here I was back, only
this time with Dougie and on account of another poor fool. Actually, scratch that. I hadn’t been foolish. I couldn’t have foreseen what would happen to me on the awful night of my
death. Nobody had made Stu climb on to the top of the Upper School. Nobody had bent his arm, forced him to scramble on to an icy rooftop three storeys high. He could have avoided the terrible fate
that had followed, but a brain-fart of colossal proportions had prevented common sense from kicking in. I mean, what harm could possibly come to anyone on top of a lofty, snow-covered building in
blizzard conditions?

By the time Dougie and I arrived at the hospital, the night was already drawing in. Dougie had grabbed a bus into Warrington straight after school, travel by rail still an impossibility thanks
to the train station’s resident soul-devouring ghost. We had journeyed in shocked silence, wondering what awaited us. As we walked up to the entrance to A&E, I felt a sickening dread
rising in the pit of my stomach. The blue lights on ambulances flashed nearby, casting their pale, revolving glow on to the hospital’s grim walls. Here was the building where I’d put
together my terrible conundrum. This was where I’d realised I was dead, returned as a ghost. I stopped walking, hovering in the air outside the sliding doors as paramedics and patients rushed
in and out. Dougie stood to one side, dragging me with him.

‘Are you OK, Will?’

‘I’m just a bit . . . apprehensive.’

‘Understandable, mate, under the circumstances.’

Neither of us knew how bad things might be for Stu. By the time we’d arrived at the scene of his fall, a dozen teachers had already formed a ring around him, while others proceeded to shoo
students away. Dougie had tried to squeeze through to see better, but had found his path blocked. I faced no such obstacle. I drifted forward, phasing through geography teacher Mr Hopwood, until I
stood over my stricken friend. Mrs Jolly, the school nurse, crouched beside Stu, leaning over him, talking to him, seeing if she could stir a response from him. He lay spreadeagled on his back,
limbs out at every angle, buried deep in the snow. As Dougie was forced away from the scene, I was drawn back with him, away from Stu’s motionless body. The remainder of the day had been
spent worrying about what condition he was in, as an ambulance arrived and whisked him hurriedly away.

‘Do you think . . . if anything happens to Stu . . .?’ said Dougie.

‘What? That he’ll come back like me? I don’t know. I’m not sure how the whole ghostly gubbins works, mate. Think of Phyllis. Who knows what her story is?’

‘It’s fair to say Borley’s at the heart of it,’ said Dougie. ‘We need to see her again. Find out—’

His words were cut short as he stared slack-jawed into the building. I turned to see what had silenced him.

‘You seeing him too?’ he asked, and I nodded.

A man in his early thirties, wreathed in a pale light, was walking through the A&E lobby, clad in an old-fashioned military uniform. He turned our way as he strode confidently by, coming to
a halt between the sliding doors. Rank insignia adorned his left breast pocket, marking him as an officer. He smiled at us both before sending his hand to his brow in an elegant salute. Then he was
on his way again, disappearing through the wall at the end of the reception area.

‘OK,’ I said with a whisper. ‘That was interesting. Make a note in your little black book, Dougie: return to hospital and have a chat with “the Major” at some point
in near future.’

‘So long as he’s the nice kind of ghost as opposed to another Lamplighter, eh? Did you not see him last time you were here?’ he asked as we entered the building, staring at the
wall that the old soldier had disappeared through.

‘I was kind of preoccupied, chum, what with having just died and all that fun and nonsense. There could’ve been all manner of spooks walking around that night and I wouldn’t
have noticed. That said, it seems Phyllis was right: you
are
tuned in to some ghostly wavelength now. Whatever I’m seeing, you’re getting it too.’

Dougie stepped up to the receptionist.

‘Hiya, I’ve come to see my mate—’

‘Have you taken a ticket?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Have you taken a ticket?’

‘I just want to check up on—’

‘You need to take a ticket.’

‘Can’t you just check—’

‘Take a ticket.’

With a sigh, Dougie stepped to one side and took a stub from the machine. It was a dozen shy of the number on the readout above the receptionist’s head.

‘Can’t be chewed waiting for the honour of speaking with that old dragon again,’ said Dougie, screwing up the ticket and chucking it into a waste bin. ‘Let’s see
what we can find out for ourselves.’

Dougie hopped over to a water fountain and bent his neck to rub water into his eyes.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ I asked, but he paid me no attention.

Backing out of the sliding doors, we spied a lady paramedic and her driver sat on the back step of their ambulance, supping plastic beakers of tea. The woman looked up as Dougie approached.

‘You all right, son?’ she asked.

‘I’m looking for my brother,’ he sniffed, wiping the faux tears from his eyes. ‘He was brought in this afternoon, had fallen from the school roof.’

‘Oh, you poor love,’ she said, placing the cup on the step and rising to give him a hug. ‘You’re in a right state. I know who you’re on about, we were the
responders. Tom, stay here and keep an eye on my brew. I’ll be back in a mo. You can come with me.’

She took Dougie by the hand and led him back indoors, my mate throwing me a wink as she set off through the A&E. Leading us to a lift at the back of the Casualty department, we were soon up
on the second floor and travelling down a long corridor, passing wards on either side. The paramedic made small talk with Dougie, trying to sound positive as we drew ever closer to our
destination.

‘Your dad’s the Reverend Singer, isn’t he? Lovely fella. He’s here already,’ she said.

‘He is?’ asked Dougie, suddenly worried that his cover would be blown at any second.

‘I’m told he’s helping the police answer some questions at the moment, back downstairs. Wouldn’t you prefer I take you straight to them?’

‘I’d rather see my brother first,’ said Dougie, chancing a reply.

‘Try not to worry, love,’ she said, squeezing his hand tightly. ‘Try not to worry.’

I could tell by the way she was speaking and her body language that whatever had happened to Stu had been pretty grim. The sick feeling in my belly returned, twice as bad as before, my guts in
knots. Two large, automatic doors stood at the end of the corridor, adorned with badly illustrated paintings of Disney characters. After a brief chat through the intercom, the doors opened and we
walked in.

‘Sit yourself there, lovely,’ said the paramedic, pointing Dougie to the waiting area. ‘I’ll go see what I can find out for you. Back in a mo.’

With the ambulance worker gone, there was no need to hang around. Dougie joined me as we looked down the corridors that made up the ward. We set off, passing rooms where kids of all ages lay in
beds, some with arms or legs in plaster, raised from their mattresses, others hidden beneath their sheets, feeling sorry for themselves. It quickly became apparent that he wasn’t on one of
the open wards. The only other place he could be was in a side room.

Moving quickly down the corridor that housed the private rooms, I dipped my head through each door. After three peek-and-see head-bobs I found him. The blinds were down over the windows in the
room, including over the panel in the door. Stu lay on a bed covered in pristine white sheets, hooked up to all manner of medical paraphernalia. I popped back into the corridor and beckoned Dougie,
who slipped into the room as quickly as he could.

We stood over Stu’s body on the bed. A collar was fastened firmly around his neck, keeping it motionless. His right leg and arm were both in plaster, suspended from the ceiling by a
network of cables and pulleys. The
pings
,
bleeps
and
beeps
of the machines provided an odd electrical chorus, as we watched Stu’s chest slowly rise and fall.

‘Thank God,’ I said, relieved that I wasn’t encountering a ghostly incarnation of my mate in the room.

‘Stupid sod,’ muttered Dougie, shaking his head.

‘Takes one . . . to know one . . .’ wheezed Stu, his eyes still closed. Dougie and I both jumped to hear him speak, the revelation met with shock and joy.

‘What were you thinking, daft arse?’ asked Dougie, reaching out and taking Stu’s left hand in his own. He gave our friend’s palm a squeeze.

‘Have you got Will with you, then?’

‘He’s right here,’ grinned Dougie.

Stu opened his bloodshot eyes and glanced my way, guessing my whereabouts. ‘Tell him he’ll have to wait. I’m not ready for that reunion just yet.’

‘He’s smiling at that,’ said Dougie, and he wasn’t lying. A tear rolled down my cheek, I was so happy to see Stu was alive. ‘How bad is it?’

‘Arm and leg broken, and they’re waiting for test results on my back,’ Stu grimaced. ‘Reckon they’ll be putting plates and rods and stuff in there. I’ll be
more machine than man when I’m done.’

‘More muppet than man,’ I said.

‘You do realise what a complete member you were, climbing on to the roof when it was covered in snow?’ said Dougie, his voice serious now. ‘I get that you like showing off, but
that sounded like a death wish.’

‘I only peeked over the edge, Dougie, I swear,’ said Stu with a grunt. ‘I’m not that daft that I’d risk my life. I had hold of the air conditioning vents up there,
I wasn’t going to fall.’

‘Yet you did fall, Stu,’ corrected Dougie. ‘And it’s only by blind luck and a very healthy blanket of snow that you’re still alive.’

‘You ain’t listening,’ said Stu. ‘Your coat’s over there, pal. You can have it back, whatever condition it’s in.’

His clothes were piled up on a chair beside the bed. There was Dougie’s parka, the green jacket draped over its back. My mate picked it up, shaking it out, droplets of meltwater from the
snow flicked across the floor.

‘What the hell did you do to it?’

The distinctive hood was gone, torn free, the padding sprouting out in tufts from the ripped material.

‘Like I said, you haven’t been listening,’ spluttered Stu. ‘I didn’t do that to the jacket. It happened on top of the Upper School. He tore it!’

‘Who tore it off?’ asked Dougie as I felt a chill seize my heart.

Stu’s red eyes were wide now.

‘Whoever pushed me off the roof.’

With all eyes on the hospital and the fortunes of an injured daredevil, Brooklands High was quiet as a crypt, entombed in snow. Dougie and I stared at the sprawling expanse of
buildings from the wrong side of the gates, my friend having just hauled himself over the railings. Inevitably our gaze lingered upon the top of the science block, scene of Big Stu’s awful
accident. Only it wasn’t an accident, was it? Our friend reckoned he’d been shoved, his plummet intentional at the hands of another. And that would-be-killer was still out there.
Perhaps he’d killed before?

Dougie crept across the car park, sidling along the low wall that ran along its edge, sticking to the shadows as he covered the distance to the buildings. His old parka was back on – minus
the hood – while the bobble on his woolly hat shook with every step. I sensed two emotions rolling off him as I drifted along at his side: fear and anger. Fear that he might get caught, and
anger that someone might have tried to harm our friend. It was too much of a coincidence that Stu was wearing that coat when he was pushed from the rooftop. Dougie had been the target, and it
scared him witless.