“Never thought I’d be back here.” Katie stood in the relatives waiting room in the hospital opposite Shimma, as he contemplated the various flavours of soup in the new vending machine. They probably all tasted the same. “I still hate it.”
“Don’t be a baby. You’re not the one getting your hand stitched.”
“That one,” she pointed out. “Green bean and wild mushroom. I used to have that at my old school. It’s nice.”
Shimma frowned at her for a few moments, inspected the options for a bit longer then sighed, put his pound in and selected the mushroom picture. A swampy looking liquid glooped its’ way into a polystyrene cup. “You know, you didn’t have to come with us.”
“Hey, I saw the way you two were looking at each other. I’m not babysitting any mini-Keepers. No, you pair need a chaperone.” She listened for any sounds of life beyond the door but, other than a cleaner wheeling a mop and bucket at the end of the corridor, the place might well have been empty. The night meant skeleton staff at the student medical centre, which served as hospital for the town, although sickness in Northwood was pretty rare. It was a good bet that this place had never seen as much action as it had since Katie had arrived in town. She herself had sustained any number of cuts and bruises and near death experiences; Dina had spent over a week in a coma here; Uncle Billy had come here after she had tried to gouge his eye out; she had even locked Jaye in one of the treatment rooms after putting around fifty thousand volts through her. And now Marcie was shut away, alone, being sewn together by one of the two nurses working tonight.
How many people had begun and ended their lives here? Certainly the cool room they sat in had seen its fair share of beginnings. Katie and Marcie had met here. One of the doctors, Dr de Rossa, had likely begun mentoring her former house mother in this room. It had been in this room even that she had started thinking of this tiny town as her home. “I fell in love here.”
“You what?” Shimma looked sharply over at her. His soup was still too hot to drink. He blew on it. “Katie, I know I’m fabulous but-“ he muttered to cover his shock. Yes, he had known Katie and that cowboy kid were pretty serious about each other but – jeez – the girl meant it. It wasn’t the infatuated teenage gloss filming her eyes, that was love and loss and it was real. It was deep, so deep, deep enough to take her away for good. Shimma knew he would do anything in his considerable power to take that hurt away. Katie was a child and he had a duty to protect her from the hardness of the world until she came of age – eighteen by Northwood standards. No stretch of the imagination could extend that duty to shielding her heart though.
There were rules.
“Not bad,” he murmured after his first gulp.
“Told you. Never doubt me.” She slapped him lightly on the chest, the way she would have done a few days ago when they were just friends, joking and playing. Her hand touched his soft denim shirt and she was suddenly reminded that they were more than colleagues now, and she shouldn’t have been able to do that. Her hand should have dropped right through Shimma. But this… being able to touch again… it confused Katie. She thought back over the night – he had held her hand before. Yes, he could touch her in this world – the only one who could do so now. And that seemed all kinds of wrong.
An old television on a bracket over the door was playing a black and white film on mute. It looked like one of those old slapstick ones where the village idiot tried to crack a coconut with an inflatable hammer or something else quite mad. Katie sat back and crossed her arms to watch, hoping sleep would take her over, take her under, take her away. To Jack. Even if they only had one hour together – it would be enough. As long as she was not here any more. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure him up in her mind. It was as easy as the alphabet and as natural as blinking. A perfect picture of Jack – the smile, the scars, the damn leather jacket that even psychically smelled of straw and dirt. Grave dirt. That wasn’t a pleasant thought but somehow Katie could always ignore that fact, the fact that the soil under his fingernails was likely the mud he had been buried in, and enjoy just being with him.
Why? The image of him asked, reaching out, extending a hand to her so desperately that Katie wished she could be inside her own head to take it. Why did you fall in love with me, Lady Katie? Why did you make me love you first?
I don’t… she bit her lip and tried to forget that life was still going on outside her body. Her ghost of a body. I don’t think we get to decide who we love.
No. That sucks.
Preaching to the choir, cowboy. I want to see you again. Not like this but properly. And I don’t know how to get to you.
Whatever’s happenin’ out there – it’s my fault.
Do you know something about Shadow Boy? If you do, you need to tell me because he is freaking me the fuck out.
I’m runnin’ every night, every day, but it’s mostly night around here, trying to find something out but nothing yet. Other than, y’know…
No.
Y’know. That-
And then a wave of purple black energy blasted through some hidden part of her mind and his image was blown apart. It tore through Katie like a particularly vicious disease, singeing nerves on its way past. The whole thing was far too fast to work out if the dark energy had been malevolent in intent, evil or twisted. While it lasted, the pulse just felt… desperate. Maybe it hadn’t meant to shatter this beautiful fantasy or break the first moments of peace she had known since returning to the world. None of it mattered. It had taken Jack away. She hated it for that.
“JACK!” Katie screamed his name, barely aware that she was doing it. She felt a terrible, animal scream being pulled out of her – the inconsolable child after a favoured toy has been taken away – but was deaf to any coherent word around that sound. “NO!”
“Girl, you’re deep in broken heart land.”
“Shimma?” Katie opened her eyes on a blur of a room. She washed her face with the hem of her dress and then touched her face. Tears. Real ones that she had cried. “Something just took Jack away. We were talking and then a ball of black energy rushed him and he just got blasted to bits. Any ideas?”
But then Marcie walked in and held up a hand that had been cleaned of blood and glass and neatly stitched up with tiny black crosses. “I feel like a patchwork doll,” she muttered, wiggling her fingers and grimacing with every tiny movement. Her relieved groan when she flopped down into the seat beside Shimma spoke volumes more about the depth of her exhaustion than words ever could. “Is Tuesday over yet?”
“It’s a little before dawn on Wednesday,” Shimma said. He pulled Marcie back against him and circled her shoulders until he felt her relax into his chest just a little. There was no question of him putting her back into that artificial sleep of a few hours ago – she was hurt and medicated; the glassy shine of her eyes told him that. No supernatural influence could outweigh chemical interference. Humans had to be trusted to care for their own. “We’ll wait for the pharmacy to bag you up some poppers, then I’m taking you home.”
“What about-“
“What about nothin’. I’ll see your boy’s sorted for the day.”
“You’ll be okay? He doesn’t know you well.”
Katie drifted over to a corner and sat on the floor, legs out in front of her. The position was good for stretching during a workout but she had fallen into a habit of sitting like this whenever she had a difficult problem to think about. Much of her revision in high school had been done like this and now it seemed quite soothing. A few square feet of complete stasis in a world of chaos and confusion.
It wouldn’t be like this if I wasn’t here.
But she was still walking this earth and, dammit, she wanted to stay. Yes, an eternity of nothingness and sweetness with Jack called to her but he had warned of the danger. When she had dreamed of him yesterday, she had felt despair and terror. Something had destroyed even the m
oving picture of him this morning. Whatever he had been running from, it wanted to wipe out every tiny bit of him. It wanted to consume the presence he held in her heart. It wanted to hurt him in the Dead World. It wanted Jack to never have existed. And Katie damn sure wasn’t going to let that happen. If she had to rip a hole in that door back at the club and drag Jack out to keep him safe, even if hurt, then she would. But not tonight. Tonight (this morning, although it was still dark enough to feel like night) there were other things to worry about. As hard, as impossible as it was, Katie had to believe that the boy she loved was safe enough for now. Too bad safe enough didn’t actually mean safe. Honestly, being in a relationship with him had always been risky. Every stolen moment together had come with a price and they had paid their debts in blood and pain: to Jack’s killer, to their friends, to each other. However much they gave, however much they risked, it was never going to be enough. Not for the peaceful months they needed to live and love and work out if they were really meant to be together. Because, if they were the soulmates Jack seemed to think – if they shared one heart beat – then it shouldn’t be this hard. The world should be encouraging them… not trying to tear them apart so hard.
Katie shuddered, dimly aware of eyes boring into the back of her head. Turning, it was Shimma staring at her, his eyes flashing with familiar shadows. Gone half a moment later.
“Something wrong?”
He held a finger to his lips, more to indicate that he couldn’t speak with a not-quite-asleep woman propped against him. When you fall in love you fall hard, dontcha?
“Yes,” Katie replied, not seeing a need to speak with her mind too. Marcie shouldn’t be able to hear her but if she had a funny moment, like she had earlier, getting the briefest glimpse of a world even a Northwood resident had no right to, it could likely be passed off as some kind of hallucination. “What’s the point in loving at all if you don’t give it all you’ve got?”
You might get hurt.
“I might not.” She wondered if they were actually discussing her or him and Marcie. “You never know until you let it play out.”
And if it’s against the rules?
Right. So they were talking about him now. “I think that ship has sailed. I’m right, aren’t I?”
He nodded, still stroking Marcie’s cheek, but didn’t say anything else.
“Keepers have this magic to create. That’s what they poured into the silver yesterday. They, I’m just guessing here so correct me if I get it wrong, can also reverse that magic and use it to… uncreate.” Shimma still didn’t say anything so Katie ploughed on. “And because the sheriff wasn’t supposed to be in this world… he wasn’t, everything about him felt wrong. Slimy and wrong. But they couldn’t just, like, blip him away. A tiny bit of that power went into the badge and it had to be channelled through me to work. You know – the Einstein thing – balance and that.”
It didn’t have to be you. You could have asked one of us. Anybody would have done it.
“Yes, it did. Shimma, I’m 16. A kid. I. Don’t. Matter.”
You matter. You mattered enough for them to bring you here in the first place.
Once more, she saw the puddle of her own blood on the shiny dancefloor. Even if it was cleaned away, it would keep coming back until she was no longer trespassing in the mortal realm. Just as the sheriff she had fought, and lost to, was terrorising a world he had no place in. And when he was no longer around, nor could Katie be. “You have some of that magic and you used a bit of it on me. You saw me, felt me, slipping away, and created this phantom for me. Which is breaking the rules. I mean, having me lingering on messes with their order, right. They made me decide to go but you – you didn’t even break a rule Shimma! You punched right through it until it splintered!” Things were starting to click into place like the edge pieces of a jigsaw. Things were fixing together but there was still a long way to go before she could see the full picture. “Hypothetically speaking, if the Keepers, you know – the ones up there,” Katie lowered her voice as if somebody might be listening and pointed to the cracked ceiling. “If they got word that I was here, and not in the Dead World or the End Place or where-ever the hell I belong, would they send people after me?”
Shimma could not deny that he had considered the possibility too. After seeing the spirits trying to touch Katie through the portal in the club. After feeling that dark tornado of a figure burn by him and try to drag Katie with it into another dimension. Having seen all that, he would be a fool not to wonder. But I doubt it. I don’t see no way they could have worked it out.
“For arguments sake. What if they did? Would they try to take me back?”
Maybe. You think that something’s trying to take you away. The same thing that hurt Jack. He seemed to be thinking to himself now, the words were hazy and unformed, the vague sounds people made when they were making mental connections. Shimma shifted his arm from under Marcie and carefully laid her down on the seat he had just vacated. But he didn’t leave her side or let go of her unstitched hand. Sweet. But there was no chance of him leaving. Not even if it meant just breaking contact to move to the other end of the room. The red haired woman stirred in her uncomfortable-looking sleep and unconsciously tucked his hand under her chin. Katie looked away. That kind of touch, that profound a comfort, was nothing she would ever know again.
Her body was still here. She could hear it still, singing, keening in that thin and broken voice. It was surprisingly easy to ignore. At least it was when she began wondering if her parents knew yet. Who would tell them? What would they say? And then she knew, knew without an echo of doubt that she had to go home, had to see them, had to say her own goodbye. Had to make this easier. On a wish and a prayer to Leo’s God, Katie decided that her plan would work - had to work – and headed out into the corridor. Shimma sent her a warning before she disappeared; don’t do anything stupid.
I’m going to the mortuary. How much trouble can I get into with a bunch of corpses?
As Katie faded through the wall to the hospital mortuary – she could have waited for people to open doors but she was a ghost so, hey, why not use the perks? – the tinny sounds of a radio drifted through the air. Somebody was working down in this quiet corner of the building. It was likely the quietest time and the staff could get on with their jobs without haring around on other jobs or looking after upset relatives. It seemed purely logical. It was a small town and the town mortuary probably didn’t really need a team of its own, considering that nobody stayed down for long. No, they probably multi-functioned as regular doctors. For the living. Katie stood beside the chairs her friends had occupied less than 24 hours ago. Here, she felt close to them. The seats gave off clouds of colour – the energy they had all left behind them. Not enough to give her anything more than the impression of a sadness. It wasn’t the intense grief Katie realised she had been hoping for. It wasn’t leaving raw, bloody flashes of loss. Some tears had been shed. No-one had cared as much about her as she had about them. It set an ache gnawing deep in her gut, but it made the next few minutes easier. She stepped through the wall and glanced at the metal table in the centre of the room.
Even though the long, slim body on it had been covered with a black plastic sheet, it was as horrifying a sight as it had been yesterday. A hand was just visible under the covering. Her left – pink and sore with freshly healed burns. Ghost Katie held her own next to it and compared them. Hers looked long healed and, under a fading tan, could well have been the remnants of an injury from childhood.
“Okay, that’s weird,” she murmured and blinked a few times. It was confusing to see her own body just inches away and not be actually in it.
Just above the exposed part of her hand was a plastic ID band naming her CARTWRIGHT, KATHLEEN and giving her a number. Pretty soon, her physical form would be reduced to a toe tag and a body bag in one of the lockers. But there was no time to dwell
on that. No time to feel the complete emptiness inside.
“You were right, Roy,” she said, referring to the kind old man who worked as caretaker to Levenson Academy of Sport and Action, looking over some of the sports facilities the academy used. But he did much more than that. The student body almost all knew and loved him. And he, in return, and with his frail but ever so strong wife, loved and cared for each student as they grew from newly arrived children to adults who would likely live and die here. A few days ago, the man had died of a huge heart attack. The town had mourned his passing but the Keepers seemed to have decided the town needed him more than they thought. So they gave him back. “I really don’t belong here any more. I’m going home.”
And home was Worth, where she had grown up.
But the words were not going to take her away from this place. Making the simple statement of intent had no power. How had she moved last time? Why had she gone directly to Jack? All she remembered was a crippling fear. Watching a faceless medic cutting into her helpless naked body – distanced and disconnected from his actions beyond a faint hatred that he should ever be conducting a post mortem on a teenager. Faking fear was sadly out of reach – she could only get to a mild fright, a veneer that trembled towards breaking point because there was no reason, no body horror to witness and believe in. You went where your heart took you, did what it told you to. Her former managers’ words floated back to her and then it was simple. Hold Worth in her heart; fill her entire being with thoughts of her family, the places she used to find her sanctuary in. And it sounded easy enough. If only it wasn’t so hard. Because Katie couldn’t, couldn’t, remember the finer details of their faces. Hadn’t she been warned though? Hadn’t Jaye told her that she would begin to forget them?
“Come on, Katie,” she pep-talked herself. “You can do this.”
It was not happening.
As she was watching her dead flesh grow cooler with every degree the air con dropped the temperature, a door somewhere up the corridor creaked open loudly. The hospital was beginning to come to life. The morning staff change over was starting and voices were shouting incomprehensibly at each other. So busy was she trying not to pay attention to the life going on so close to her, focusing solely on her body and getting away, Katie didn’t notice the black mist crawling along the floor. She did notice it as it rose up just a foot or two to her right, coalescing into the roughly human shape of Shadow Boy. Before he could finish forming though, she threw up an arm to protect her face from some imaginary blow, and shouted, “I WANT TO GO HOME!”
There was a very long moment when the whole world seemed to freeze, like everything was being put on pause while some higher force decided what to do. There was just time enough to enjoy the hunch of confusion in Shadow Boy before the room dissolved into nothing.
Chapter seven