Diary of the Gone (3 page)

Go on writing,
Callum,
I told myself. Only the words
didn’t come easily tonight.

The boy was looking at me.
He wanted to tell me something. What does it mean? Does it mean
that Greg Thornby is dead?

As if answering the question, the
scraping and the wind stopped. A chill slithered over my body, my
heart thumping in total silence.

“
Callum,” a voice I’d
never heard called, coming from inside my head. “Callum, let me
in.”

I pressed myself into the corner of
the bed, awaiting my doom.

Please, leave me
alone,
was my next line. Then the door
burst open, and consciousness dimmed. Just as my mind slowly
drifted into welcoming blackness, I saw a silhouette advancing on
me. It wasn’t Greg. It was a girl, only I couldn’t see her face,
her features blurry in the dark, her long hair streaming down to
her waist.

She came close to me and laid her bony
hand on my shoulder, whispering, “Thank you for setting me
free.”

Chapter 3

Entry #28

May 26

I don’t know why Shadows
haunt me. Why me of all people? If it’s a gift, then it’s a lousy
one.

When I woke up, the first thing I did
was check my ankle. It was giving me more and more trouble. The
flesh was bruised to a purple color, with skin sore to the touch.
The memory of yesterday’s experience combined with the deep, purple
traces creeped the hell out of me.

“
Callie, breakfast’s
ready!” Mom screeched from below. Whatever horrors I’d gone through
yesterday night, ‘Callie’ sent me into motion—I loathed when people
called me that, mostly because Stan Crosby loved taunting me with
it.

“
Coming!” I yelled, grabbing the diary from the bed.
Should I take it to school today?
What if I see another Shadow on the
way?

I opened it where I’d put my last
entry, took a pen and started scribbling hastily.

Entry #154

October 28

The dead started talking
to me. This time it was a girl. I have no idea what’s going on
here.

“
Callie! Hurry up!” Mom
shouted from the kitchen.

“
Coming!” I yelled, even
louder that time, then bent my head to the page to jot down a few
more sentences.

Mom’s calling me. I’m off
to school. Hope I’m not going to see more of the dead
today.

Bev entered my room,
and I barely had enough time to shut the diary and hide it behind
my back. “We’re not going to wait on you forever,
Callie
,” she said with a
sly smile.

Damn, she saw
it!
I cursed, not really sure what to do
next.

Bev flashed a wider grin at me, her
eyes screaming, “Gotcha!”

“
You should knock before
you enter. D’you know it’s polite?” I glared at her.

“
Oh, I just wanted to make
sure you’re not dead.” Bev’s lips curved down, as if she was
annoyed to find me still breathing. “You know Mom’s been calling
you?”

“
Yeah, I’m not deaf, thank
you. Will you leave me alone now?”

She lifted her neatly plucked
eyebrows, giving me her usual you’re-totally-mental look, then
turned on her heel and left, her hair streaming in her
wake.

To call us cat and dog would be such
an understatement. Not only were we different in appearance—I had
blue eyes and fair hair while she had Mom’s dark-brown eyes and
black hair—but we also could hardly bear each other’s presence for
five minutes.

Back in Phoenix I’d had a hard time
tormented by Shadows at least once a week. Bev didn’t try to make
me feel better. With each year my ‘nightmares’ got worse, and
doctors suggested that we move to a less stressful environment.
That was the time I’d found the old diary. Whereas it helped me not
to see Shadows for some time, Bev did her best to make my existence
a living hell.

Well, I was the reason she had to be
away from her friends. Unlike her, I didn’t have any, so I was all
for moving from Phoenix, no longer paying attention to her sulking
and sending silent curses my way whenever she saw me.

Putting my diary into the bag, I went
downstairs and took my usual seat, opposite Bev. “What’s for
breakfast, Mom?” I asked, ignoring my sister’s scathing
look.

“
Bacon and eggs,
sweetheart.” Mom was fussing in the kitchen while we were sitting
in the adjacent room. The divine smell of bacon reached my
nostrils, and I took a long breath.

“
Any plans for today?” Bev
asked me.

“
Since when do you care?”
I said as Mom entered with two steaming platefuls that she put in
front of us.

“
Thank you,” Bev and I
chanted in unison.

After Mom left the
room, Bev said, “I just want to make sure you’re not going to use
my make-up …
again
.” She tilted her head and drummed on the table with her long
well-manicured nails.

“
You’ll never let it go,
will you? An’one’s ’llowed one m’ssake,” I said,
chewing.

“
One
mistake? What about my shampoos
and lotions?” she nearly screeched but kept her voice low for Mom
not to hear.

All right, I always wanted to know
what it felt like to be a girl. Curiosity got the better of me. Now
I knew it was no good: no good could come from borrowing my
sister’s make-up and using her lipstick when she came in and found
it smeared all over my face.

“
You know, I’m not even
sure if I should use my bath sponges anymore,” she said. “Have you
tested those too?”

I nearly choked on the bacon and had
to gulp it without chewing. “You’ve got to be kidding
me.”

“
Hmm, let me think. Have I
ever even seen you with a girl?” She hit me below the
belt.

“
Nope. That’s ’cause
you’re hanging out with that jerkface Terry Haubert all the time!”
I knew her weak spot and it was high time to sting her.

“
No, I’m not!” she hissed.
“And if you ever call him jerkface again …” Her eyes narrowed and
glinted with hatred.

“
Then what? What will you
do?”

She leaned in to me. “I’ll tell Mom
you go outside at night,” she said very quietly, venom seeping
through her voice.

She got up, went to the kitchen and
returned with a plate of pancakes. She didn’t sit down at the
table, but went upstairs instead.

“
Leaving already?” I
chanted.

Bev answered by banging the door real
hard. I did get under her skin this time.

My good mood was tainted when I
spotted today’s paper on the kitchen counter.

I came to take it, then leafed through
and found what I thought I would find. The picture of the missing
boy. Greg Thornby.

It was the same boy that I’d seen in
the Shadow.

*

Though I hated school, I knew I’d
better go today, otherwise Mom would ground me. No friends, no
Facebook, no movies. She probably thought that was the best way for
me to become a normal person.

Everything was close to home in Olden
Cross. The school was just a five-minute walk, but I had to walk
part of the way past Mrs. Palmer’s old cottage, so I made a detour
around Montague Street.

“
Hey, Callum! Wait!” a
familiar voice behind me called.

It was Nathan. Dressed in khaki
trousers and a black sweatshirt, he walked with a confidence I
always lacked. He raised his hand for a high five, and I smacked it
with mine.

“
What
are you doing here?” he asked. “You never go to school
this
way.”

“
Um,
nothing. Just taking a walk.”
How
lame!
“What’s up with
you?”

“
Nothing much. It’s a
shame you didn’t go with us last night. I told the guys about
yesterday, and everyone asked if you are okay.”

“
Why’s that?” I
asked.

“
Well, I mentioned that
Mrs. Palmer stared at you without blinking. Still have goosebumps
all over me.”

Great, now they’ll
think I’m as crazy as Mrs. Palmer,
I
thought.

“
I wish I’d come with you.
I didn’t feel well, sorry,” I said.

Nathan turned to me, his eyebrows
knotted. “I thought you promised Mom to come home
early.”

“
Oh,
yeah. That as well.”
You have to remember
your lies better,
I scolded
myself.

Nathan snorted. “You’re being weird,
man. By the way, here’s an idea. How about you and I skip double
Chemistry today and go back to the Swamps?”

“
What?” I asked,
recoiling. “Seems like you don’t remember yesterday.”

“
We’ve got to take another
look at it,” he pressed.

The hair on the back of my neck
bristled. “Thanks, but no, thanks.” I squirmed. “Besides, remember
what Mrs. Wharton said? ‘I’ll make you clean all the phials and
test tubes in my laboratory, Blackwell, if you miss another
class’.”

“
The old hag says that to
everyone. She’ll survive if you skip it.”

He was always like this—too hard to
say no to. I did want to know what the hell was going on there. On
the other hand, the idea of seeing Greg Thornby made me shake with
nerves.

“
Next time maybe,” I said,
seeing Nathan knot his brows.

“
You sure?”

“
Yes.” I slapped him on
the shoulder. “See you later.”

Nathan grumbled, “Blow the old hag a
kiss, okay?”

“
I will.” I winked at him
and entered the school gate, feeling sorry that I didn’t go with
Nathan.

Chapter 4

Entry #26

May 3

He’s sitting right
next to me as I write about him. He’s never blinked yet, his eyes
on me all the time. His skull is fractured
where the windshield had hit it, blood seeping down the side
of his head.

A couple days ago I came
across a Shadow with a boy my age being knocked over by a car. His
body was thrown a few yards away from the vehicle, as if
feather-light. By the unnatural position of his arms and legs I
knew he died on impact. The driver was so wasted he barely managed
to get out of his car. People shouted around me, pushing their way
to the immovable body lying face-down. Women cried, crouching over
him.

And now he’s here, sitting
next to me. Why do I see him? Like the others, he never talks. Just
stares unblinking and that’s it.

I know that when I finish
writing this sentence he’ll be gone. They are all gone once I’ve
mentioned them in the diary.

P.S. Yep. I was right.
He’s gone.

Good night, Callum. Sweet
dreams.

I didn’t know why I remembered that
boy today during Chemistry. Maybe because Mrs. Wharton did a great
job ignoring me, and once in a lifetime she didn’t pester
me.

I kept asking myself why I was the one
seeing them. Maybe the dead had come to me to say I could have
saved them? With that boy everything had happened at the end of the
school day, just when I was in detention.

I’d got used to them being around. But
even after they were gone, I couldn’t stop thinking about them. How
could I? They’d become part of my life. Part of me.

The bell rang, and I scooped my books
and left the classroom. The rest of the day was as gray as the
skies.

The storm clouds formed a purple,
menacing line that unhurriedly advanced on Olden Cross.

It’s going to rain
soon,
I thought grimly. It rained for the
most part in this sodden place, as if sunlight and color were
taboo. No wonder animals left the nearby forest long
ago.

I zipped up my parka. The wind picked
up and ruffled my hair.

“
Look who’s here!” I heard
a voice that haunted me as much as the Shadows these days. For once
in a lifetime I wished I’d crossed a Shadow rather than come across
Stan and his friends again.

Just ignore
them,
I told myself
. Walk and don’t listen. They just want to make you feel
scared.

The gang caught up with me in a matter
of seconds, their bursts of laughter making me jump a
bit.

“
Callie, where’s your
boyfriend?” Stan sniggered, much to the delight of the other
guys.

I sped up my pace, trying to break
away from them when Stan tripped me, and I toppled
head-first.