Dead Scared (2 page)

I felt my fist clench as I readied myself for another attack, but a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me away from the table. I looked up through tear-filled eyes, expecting to see Ben beside me ready to give me an earful for spoiling the gathering, but it wasn't my brother who had pulled me away from Gary. It was the guy from the cemetery – the one who had been sitting on the mini digger.

When he spoke, he said something that would change my life forever…

“I can bring her back.”

The man pushed me into a chair at a table near the back of the pub and sat opposite me. Smoothing down his blue work-overalls, he grabbed a small glass containing a sparkling, reddish drink and downed it in one go. Then he glared at me with dark eyes.

“You certainly know how to cause a scene.”

I glanced over my shoulder to where my Aunt Anna was almost in tears; some of her husband's blood had spattered onto the white fur of her ridiculously expensive coat. “He deserved it,” I grunted. “And a lot more besides.”

“A lot of people deserve a lot of things,” the man said.

I looked this weirdo up and down. What on earth was he talking about now? “Listen, mate,” I said, starting to get up, “it's been a long and particularly rubbish day, so if you don't mind…”

The guy reached across the table and pushed me back into my seat. Then he grabbed his tiny glass and raised it to his lips again. That was odd. I could have sworn that glass was empty a few seconds ago.

“I'm Nick,” he said, necking the auburn-coloured liquid. “And I meant what I said – I can bring your mum back…”

For the second time in five minutes, I felt my hand tighten into a fist. “You what?!”

Nick didn't shift his gaze. He stared me straight in the eyes as he pulled a piece of old, yellowing paper from inside his overalls and slid it across the table to me.

I glared right back at him – not wanting him to win our little staring contest – but I had to admit that I was also very intrigued by whatever might be written on that piece of paper. Eventually, I lowered my eyes and snatched it up.

It was a small sheet of paper, about the size of a page from a book, and it felt greasy against my fingers. The writing was tiny, scrawled in a flowing script in deep purple ink. I'd seen that sort of writing before. My dad collects old fountain pens – and this had almost certainly been written by something like that.

I was about to toss the paper back across the table when I noticed my mum's name near the top: Maria Emily Daniels. That caught my attention and I started to read. I couldn't understand all of the words – whoever had written this had eaten a dictionary for breakfast – but I got the gist of it.

All I had to do was sign my name at the bottom and my mum would come back from the dead.

No – that's not quite right. My mum would never have been dead in the first place.

“So…” said Nick, once I'd finished reading. “What do you think?”

I looked up at him. “What's the catch?”

Nick shrugged, then he downed another draught from his seemingly bottomless glass. “You just have to nominate someone to take her place,” he said. “Someone to go into the coffin instead of her. One in, one out.”

Behind me, I could hear Uncle Gary demanding loudly that my dad buy him a round of drinks to replace the ones I'd spilled.

“Where do I sign?”

Grinning, Nick pulled an ornate pen from a pocket in his overalls and handed it over. I filled in the nomination in bright scarlet ink, then held the nib over the line where I had to sign my name. I hesitated. What if it didn't work? Well,
then – I guess I'd just wasted ten minutes chatting to some nutter in the corner of a pub. But, what if it
did
work…?

I signed my name.

There was a judder in the air around me – as though someone had just changed every TV channel across the entire world at the same time. Then I heard her voice.

“I can't believe he's gone at such a young age,” said my mum.

It took me ages to gather up the courage to turn around but, when I did, there she was. My mum was sitting at the table – in the spot where Gary had been. Anna and Mel were with her, both dressed in black and their eyes red with tears.

It had worked!

I raced across the pub and flung my arms around my mum. “You're back!” I sobbed, burying my face in her shoulder.

“Back?” she said, lifting my head. “I only went to the toilet!”

I did my best to compose myself. “Yeah, right… it's just been, you know… an emotional day.” I sat down next to her. She looked so well! Like the cancer had never even been near her.

“I think we're all still a little shocked,” my mum said. “No one expected your Uncle Gary to go so quickly after his diagnosis.”

Aunt Anna took a sip of her wine. The fur coat she was wearing – now black instead of white – looked even more expensive than the previous model. She certainly wasn't wasting any time in spending Uncle Gary's money.

“What about your exams?” my mum asked, taking Mel's hand in hers. “Will they give you extra time?”

“I… don't…” Mel stifled a sob and I suddenly felt a pang of regret for what I'd done. I'd sent
an innocent man to his grave – well, a reasonably innocent man – just so I could have my mum back again. Was that right? Was that fair?

I pulled out the contract and held it beneath the table so the others couldn't see it. Maybe there was a way I could reverse my decision and nominate someone else – maybe someone at the hospital who was due to die anyway. Squinting, I tried to read the tiny scrawled script, but it was just too dark.

Then a flash of blue overalls caught my eye and I spotted Nick as he passed our table on his way out of the pub. “I'll be right back!” I said, jumping up to follow him.

The air was cold outside – colder than I'd expected. But there was no sign of Nick. He'd managed to vanish somehow. Maybe he'd had a taxi waiting. I pulled out my mobile and stared at the contract again, hoping there was a number I could call in the small print.

“What's that?” demanded a voice.

I spun round to find Mel standing behind me.

“What's what?”

“That piece of paper!” said Mel sternly. “I saw you reading it inside just now.”

“It's… it's nothing,” I lied. “Just something I found in the pub.”

“Then why does it have my dad's name written on it?”

Blimey! She must have good eyesight!

“It doesn't!”

“Then you won't mind me having a look, will you?”

“It's private!”

“You said you'd just found it!”

Mel reached around my back and grabbed the contract in my hand. She pulled and I heard it begin to rip.

Then the channel changed again – and everything went black.

I was lying down and there was someone pressed up against me.

“Who's there?” I asked nervously.

“It's me, Mel… Where are we?”

“I don't know.”

“What happened?”

“I don't know!”

We took a couple of moments to catch our breath. I could feel Mel's body pressed up against
mine and I tried to wriggle back to make some space between us, but I couldn't move. “Hang on,” I said. “I've got my mobile here…”

Wriggling around a little, I managed to pull my phone from my pocket and turn it on. The glow from the screen was enough to illuminate the tiny space around us. We were surrounded by soft, white silk – like the inside of a coffin.

Oh no!

I could feel Mel begin to panic. “No!” she breathed. “This can't be happening.”

“Look, just calm down…”

“Calm down?” she cried. “We've been buried alive. Together!” She began to hammer on the lid of the coffin with her fists. “Help! HELP!”

“No one's going to hear us!” I snapped. “We're two metres underground!”

“But how?” asked Mel, her voice cracking. “Why?”

I sighed. No point keeping it a secret any more. So I told her what I'd done. I told her about Nick and how I'd nominated her dad on his contract.

“You idiot, Toby!” Mel screamed. “You've killed us both!”

“I didn't know this was going to happen, did I?”

“No – but you were happy enough when it was my dad in here!”

“Better him than my mum!”

We fell silent for a moment, both trying to catch our breath. It was getting stuffy and I realised with horror that we were running out of air. I didn't mention the fact, as I doubted it would have helped to lighten Mel's mood.

“Your mobile!” she cried. “We can call for help!”

“Brilliant!” I still had the phone in my hand, so I switched it on again and stared at the almost blinding light of the screen.
Please, please, please…

My heart sank. “No signal,” I said.

“There must be!”

“There isn't!”

“Keep trying!”

“I am! Where's your phone?”

“In my handbag, in the pub.”

I stared in dismay at the two tiny words at the top of the screen: ‘No service'. I got bad enough reception around here to begin with, so how I expected to get a signal underground was anybody's guess.

“Dial 999!” said Mel suddenly.

“I've told you, I haven't got a signal.”

“You don't need one!” said Mel. “Emergency calls link directly to the police network, or another company's phone network – at least, I think they do. It's so you can get help wherever you are.”

“I've never heard that,” I admitted.

“It's got to be worth a try…”

She was right. With trembling fingers I began to dial. 9… 9… 9…

It started to ring!

“It's working!”

Mel grabbed my free hand and squeezed it tightly. “Yes!”

“Emergency, which service do you require?”

“Police!” I said. “My cousin and I are – ”

The coffin fell dark. The light from the phone was gone.

“No! No, no, no!” I stabbed at the power button again and again. “NO!”

“What's wrong?” demanded Mel.

I fought back the urge to cry. “The battery's dead.”

“You didn't charge it?”

“As much as I dared, yes. This is the model with the dodgy battery, remember.”

We lay together in silence for a while, our breathing becoming increasingly laboured. I'm not sure how much time passed – I stopped wearing a watch ages ago and checked the time on my mobile if I needed to.

“They'll never find us, will they?” said Mel eventually.

“Of course they will,” I said as reassuringly as possible, but I wasn't sure I believed my own words. “They'll be looking for us right now.”

“Not if they think we're dead.”

“They don't think that.”

“I did, when you swapped your mum for my dad.”

“That was different,” I insisted.

“How?”

“I nominated your dad,” I said, a pang of guilt gnawing at my stomach. “What happened to us was some sort of accident because we were fighting over the contract.”

“Either way, they think we're dead,” sighed Mel.

“They can't do!” I insisted. “They wouldn't bury both of us in the same coffin, for a start!”

“That's true!” said Mel. “You might be right – this wasn't meant to happen. Where's the contract?”

“In my pocket, I think. Why?”

“Take it out.”

“What for? We won't be able to read it.”

“Just do it!”

Wriggling around, I managed to get my hand into my other trouser pocket and pull out the sheet of paper. “Careful,” I said to Mel as I handed it over. “It's starting to tear.”

“I know,” she said. “That's the bit I'm interested in.”