Dead Scared (21 page)

As if the town wasn’t already aware that something big was happening at the House, by the time the fire engine drove by to extricate my friend from his chandelier, the grounds were teeming
with life. By this time the police had already asked Dougie plenty of questions about what had happened that night. The discovery of Phyllis Carrington’s remains, plus the ribbon and photos
Goodman had brought with him, only confirmed my friend’s account. Led out into the light with a blanket wrapped around him, Dougie looked every bit the survivor of a terrible ordeal, straight
out of the headlines.

Mr Hancock was there, waiting for his son. The poor chap was distraught and looked older than ever, his eyes wet and bloodshot as he spied Dougie. I stood to one side, leaving the two to their
reunion, son holding nothing back as his father enveloped him in his arms. When they finally parted, the flashbulbs began to go off as the photographers from regional rags tried to get their shot.
I even spied a television news van pulling up behind the fire engine, their film crew trying to find their way through the crowd. The lady journalist who led the way seemed most dismayed when her
own celebrity failed to part the mob.

‘Looks like you’re famous now,’ I said to Dougie as his dad stepped up to talk to the police and press on his behalf.

‘For fifteen minutes,’ he muttered. ‘It’ll be a skateboarding parrot they’re talking about next week, just you wait and see.’

‘Dougie!’

Her voice was breathless as she burst through the line of police officers and fell into his arms.

‘Lucy?’ said Dougie, as amazed as I was to see her. She hugged him hard.

‘We all thought you were dead, after what happened to Stu.’

‘No, I’m . . . I’m very much alive,’ he replied as another volley of flashbulbs went off. He smiled nervously as one of the photographers asked the two of them to look
his way.

I watched with befuddlement as Lucy whispered to Dougie.

‘I’m so sorry I never listened to you before, when you came to me to talk about Will. I didn’t take you seriously, what you were saying. I thought you were being cruel. If I
said anything to upset you, I can only apologise. I just wanted to let you know, if you need someone to talk to, ever: I’m there for you.’

‘You might want to call your attack dog off,’ he mumbled. ‘Vinnie Savage is quite protective of you, if you weren’t aware.’

‘I heard what you did to him on Danger Night, Dougie. It was very brave of you. Besides, you might just have put him in his place. He’s gone into hiding since you punched him in the
knackers.’

‘Why come to me now, Lucy?’ he said, aware of my close proximity. ‘Why the sudden interest in me?’

‘Will was a friend to both of us. If you genuinely think he’s a ghost, I’m all ears.’ She glanced over her shoulder at the cameras and crowds. ‘And besides,
you’re a bit of a rock star now.’

Dougie frowned and looked at me. Dead and unbeating though my heart was, it broke a little more at that moment. I looked at Lucy on Dougie’s arm and saw her for what she was. She might be
attracted to some rum company (present gormless best mate excepted) but that didn’t make her a bad girl. And yes, she was still by far the most beautiful girl I’d ever clapped eyes
upon. The memory of cherry upon my lips would remind me for ever of what it meant to be alive. But I didn’t know her, not truly. I’d been infatuated with her. She was fond of me –
of that there was no doubt – we were friends and mischief makers. I had always been there for her, to listen to what she had to say, to go light-headed when she flirted. I had to ask myself
though: did our friendship mean as much to her as it did to me? I’d never know. I’d never got to tell her how I felt, and I never would. I shivered as I thought of Goodman and his own
obsession, how he’d allowed it to eat away at him, devour him and lead him on to terrible acts.

‘Tell her you were lying,’ I said with a heavy heart. Dougie arched an eyebrow my way. ‘Tell her you were in mourning, that it was a passing madness. Tell her whatever you need
to, mate, but don’t let her think I’m a ghost.’

Once again, I stepped away from my friend, this time affording him some privacy as he spoke to the girl I’d loved. I couldn’t hear the words, but I could see he was earnest, almost
shamefaced as he tried to put her off the scent. Lucy frowned, shaking her head and looking about them. Did she believe him? Was she looking for me, even now after he’d denied my existence?
Stop looking, Lucy: you won’t find me. As the press clamoured to get Dougie’s attention and his father fielded their questions, I stepped a touch further away from them, into the
snow-banked shadows before Red Brook House.

Winter could no longer touch me – I was dead after all – but I’d never felt colder in my life.

After the drama at Red Brook House, the school had granted Dougie a leave of absence. This was time for my friend to convalesce, seek counselling from mental health experts,
unload whatever demons were haunting his nightmares after his awful ordeal. Dougie had different ideas, though: here was an opportunity to kick back and have a holiday. His boxed set of
The
Walking Dead
was duly hammered, the XBox took one hell of a beating, and he found himself strangely addicted to watching
The Jeremy Kyle Show.
The latter confirmed one thing: Dougie
needed to get himself back to school, pronto.

It was the day before he was due to go back, and we’d been to the hospital to check in on Stu. He was recovering well, back to his old self, and the wheelchair they’d put him in was
now his favourite toy. Stu insisted the other kids in the hospital – and certain members of staff – referred to him as Professor X. He’d even mooted the idea of shaving his head
in true homage, although Dougie was quick to suggest from personal experience that this wasn’t a good look. Doctors said Stu would be home by Christmas, although the nurses on the
children’s ward would’ve preferred him gone sooner.

We decided to walk home from the hospital, the day crisp, the weather clear and the snow crunching under Dougie’s feet. The fur-trimmed hood of his parka had been stitched back on –
badly – by his father, but my mate wouldn’t have it any other way. We were in no hurry, the day was ours. We strolled past Brooklands High, our eyes lingering on the headmaster’s
office. Miss Roberts, the head of the sports department and the most senior teacher in school, had taken temporary charge as interim head teacher. It was she who had signed off on Dougie’s
sickness leave permission letter, admittedly begrudgingly. She was still convinced he wasn’t right in the head. She was only half right.

We came to a halt outside the familiar iron gates, now with fresh chains and padlocks securing them shut. Red Brook House loomed in the distance, down at the end of the gravel drive, a fresh
layer of snow sitting atop its crooked roof like icing on a cake. The tall dark windows looked like sightless eye sockets, its double doors a wailing mouth. It already seemed like a lifetime
ago.

‘They can’t pull it down soon enough if you ask me,’ said Dougie. ‘The place is a graveyard. They should bury it underground.’

‘Dunno about that,’ I said. ‘Forget Goodman and his wicked ways if you can. The House is a mausoleum, a monument to our friend.’

Dougie shrugged and nodded. ‘Gone, but not forgotten.’

‘Never forgotten,’ I added.

‘I thought you were gonna go that night you know,’ he said. ‘When that door lit up and Phyllis went on her way, I was sure you’d be with her.’

‘And leave you behind?’

‘Well I wasn’t going to go with you.’

‘Yeah, but you’re my mate. I didn’t want to leave you. And besides, I’d probably have never got through anyway. I bet there was some angel or security guard checking
papers at the gate. Phyllis earned her chance to move on. We helped her solve the riddle of her death: she righted that wrong and saw justice done.’

‘So, what? You’re saying you’ve still got to tick that box before you can skedaddle?’

‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘I’m not entirely sure, but I can only imagine that I’m stuck here until I discover who was driving that car.’

‘But it could’ve been
anyone
,’ Dougie exclaimed, scratching his head. ‘It was a hit-and-run!’

‘That isn’t lost on me, and thanks for reminding me of what it was.’

‘You might never find out who did it, Will.’

I nodded forlornly. Dougie was silent for a moment, chewing the thought over in his head.

‘Hang about. If you never move on, does that mean you’re hanging around me for ever or what?’

‘Let’s think about it for a moment,’ I replied. ‘Phyllis was tied to the House, unable to leave it. Ever. Why was that?’

‘It’s where she was murdered.’

‘Spot on. So she was inextricably tied to that place, unable to leave it. The question is: why am I tied to you?’

‘I ask myself that same question every day, usually a second or two after I wake up and find you staring down at me like some pug-ugly gargoyle at the foot of my bed.’

‘Believe me, if I could be somewhere else, I probably would. Sitting in your room all night with only your snores for company isn’t the greatest way to spend each night.’

‘At least I leave the telly on for you.’

‘Yeah, the Psychic Channel if I’m lucky!’

‘I thought it’d be research for you? Y’know, swotting up on speaking with the dead and all that.’

‘The people on the telly at three in the morning are no more psychic than Bloody Mary, I guarantee it.’

We both laughed, Dougie receiving an odd look from an old lady who was trundling by laden down with shopping bags. He was admittedly, to her eyes, talking and laughing to himself.

‘You should be in school,’ she grumbled. ‘Blooming loony!’

‘Ah the joys of being considered mad,’ he sighed to me, his voice quieter now. ‘You’ve a lot to answer for, Underwood.’

‘Which brings me back to my point. I could’ve stayed at my folks’ house after the funeral. When all this first happened,’ I said, waving my hands up and down myself,
aware that I was a ghostly apparition before his eyes. ‘But I made straight for you. Why was that?’

‘Ready access to the Psychic Channel,’ answered Dougie with a grin.

‘Seriously, though,’ I went on. ‘Of all the places I could’ve gone to, it was you I chose. I think I know why.’

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘I spent so long thinking that my unfinished business was with Lucy Carpenter, chasing her around, trying to tell her my feelings through you. I was chasing a lost cause. It wasn’t
my feelings for Lucy that kept me tied to the world of the living. It was you, Dougie.’

‘Sorry?’ he said, a touch confused.

‘Don’t apologise, mate. I’ve stayed close to you, forgoing my family, because it’s from you I get my strength. I can see it now.’

Dougie was quiet for a moment. I could see the hint of a smile and the colour in his cheeks as he soaked in what I was saying. His eyebrow arched suddenly, the teenage boy getting the better of
him as he went to shove me away.

‘You big bloody Jessie! So what do you do now, then?’ he said, kicking snow at me and taking great pleasure in seeing it pass unhindered through my nether regions.

‘Dunno. Solve ghostly mysteries, I reckon.’

‘Like in Scooby-Doo?’

‘You’d have to be Scrappy Doo of course,’ I said, wagging my finger.

‘Naturally,’ he agreed. ‘But what does this mean for
you
?’

‘I guess I hang around, ad infinitum.’

‘Ad infinitum?’

‘It’s Latin,’ I replied.

‘I know what it means! You’re planning on being a pain in the arse to infinity and beyond?’

‘Like a ghostly Buzz Lightyear, mate,’ I said. ‘You got a friend in me!’

‘You’ll get hacked off with it,’ he said, wandering away, drawing me along after him via that invisible umbilical cord of friendship. ‘I’m really not that
interesting. Mark my words, you’ll go out of your tiny mind with boredom.’

‘Don’t worry, Dougie, I’ll be busy.’

‘Busy doing what?’ he said.

‘Haunting you, buddy,’ I said with a wink. ‘Haunting you.’