Dead Flesh

As I peered through the orange glow of my light, I was mesmerised by the web of cracks and breaks that covered it. There were so many, I feared that should I touch it, it would fall apart before me in a pile of grey ash.

Apart from the statue, the room was empty. There wasn’t a bed, wardrobe, not one stitch of furniture, just the statue, which looked as if it were secretly trying to look out of the window. Then from behind me, the door suddenly slammed shut, snuffing out my light. The room went black and I screamed. With my free hand, I fumbled in my pockets for the book of matches I had found in the kitchen drawers. Placing the candle on the ground, I struck one of the matches, and a brilliant glow of orange light flared up before me and I screamed again. In my panic, I dropped the match and it went out. But in that split second of light, I had seen that statue again. He had no longer been looking out of the boarded-up window, but had now been standing before me, its blank, featureless face just inches from mine.

I stumbled back into the darkness, desperately trying to free another match from the book. But my hands were trembling so much, that it seemed impossible. Drawing a deep breath and backing away towards the closed door, I managed to free a match and strike it. At once there was a flare of orange light. With the flame jerking to and fro between my shaking fingers, I could see the statue knelt before the window.

“Get a grip, Kayla Hunt,” I spoke aloud, and even though it was my own voice in the darkness it gave me some comfort. I picked up the candle from the rough wooden floor and lit it. Snuffing out the match before it burnt my fingers, I reached out behind me and fumbled for the door handle. Unable to take my eyes from the statue, I could see that it was in exactly the same place and position it had been before the door had slammed shut and blown out my candle.

The statue hadn’t moved — it couldn’t have. I would have heard it, right? Feeling kinda dumb for spooking myself, I yanked open the door and stepped back into the hallway, closing the door behind me. I looked into the direction of the rickety staircase and, convincing myself that I had probably done enough exploring for the day, I headed back down the stairs and left the forbidden wing behind me. Maybe that old cow Ms. Payne had done me a favour by forbidding me to go up there.

I reached the bottom landing and once back in daylight, I blew out the candle. How had I been so easily spooked after everything I had seen and been through in the last year? After all, I was the dead one around here. I was the ghost stalking the stairwells and passageways. What did I have to be scared of? So, feeling embarrassed at myself, I decided not to tell the others what I had found up in the forbidden wing — especially not Potter — he really would take the piss and he didn’t need too much encouragement to do that.

So pushing the thoughts of that dumb statue from my head, I went in search of Kiera’s iPod. I needed to drown out my soundtrack — I needed to drown everything out.

Chapter Six

Kiera

As I crossed the lawn in front of the manor, my boots left footprints in the frost that covered the grass. Before I had died, I would have expected to see plumes of breath escaping from my mouth and disappearing up into the cold morning air, but that didn’t happen now. Not since I had come back. It was like I was colder on the inside than the icy cold wind that blew about me.

Before entering the woods, I looked back at the manor. It sat like a giant grey shell, its walls ancient-looking and covered in ivory like greedy, green-coloured hands. But as I looked back I noticed for the first time that all of the tarpaulin had been removed. The last time I had been at Hallowed Manor, the Forbidden Wing had been undergoing extensive repairs. The windows were still boarded up but there had been several skips surrounding that part of the manor, all of them filled with rubble. As I turned away, I wondered if Potter had removed them in an attempt to keep himself busy.

Although most of the trees had shed their leaves, there were still enough Fir and Conifers to cast the woods into a gloomy darkness. I passed amongst them, heading away from the manor in the direction that I had seen Potter head in. I came across the group of weeping willows that stood before me like a cluster of elderly people with curved backs. From within them I could hear the sound of wood breaking. Gently, I parted the branches of one of the willow trees and peered into the tiny graveyard where the half-breeds had been buried over the years when the Vampyrus had lived above ground. I hadn’t been back here since watching Murphy carry the bodies of his two dead daughters to this secluded place. With his back to me, I spied on Potter as he broke two thick branches over his knee. Then, with a piece of twine, he tied the two pieces of wood together to make a large cross. Silently, he made his way towards the other graves. I watched him as he skewered the bottom of the cross into the ground. When he had fixed it securely, he stepped back from it and looked at the cross. I knew who he was remembering and it filled me with sadness.

I pushed the branches of the weeping willows aside and made my way quietly towards him. As if hearing my approach, he looked over his shoulder at me then back at the cross he had made. Without saying anything, I stood next to him. Then taking Murphy’s crucifix and chain from around my neck, I hung it over the cross that he had fixed into the ground.

“Murphy would have wanted you to keep it,” Potter said without looking at me. “He would have wanted you to be safe.”

“Do I have to worry about vampires now?” I asked him, my voice low as if I were in a church.

“Who knows what dangers lay ahead,” he said, turning to look at me. His eyes were dark and looked troubled.

“What’s wrong, Potter?” I asked him, reaching out and brushing his thick forearm with my hand.

“I could ask you the same question,” he shot back, but his voice wasn’t angry — just confused sounding. “What’s happened to us?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered and took my hand away.

“I wasn’t expecting to spend the rest of eternity sniffing red roses or dancing in the hills singing, The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Music like Julie-freaking-Andrews, but I did think that perhaps we could…”

“Play happy families?” I cut in.

“Not that either,” he said. “Just you and me…together.”

“We are together,” I said, but I knew exactly what he meant, so I added, “Look, we’ve been through so much. None of us are finding this easy. At first I was so happy to wake and find that I had you, Isidor, and Kayla back again, but that happiness soon faded. And I know you feel the same. We all feel it. I lay awake at night listening to the sound of Kayla crying — it can’t be easy for her to know that she was murdered by Luke. He betrayed her.”

“He betrayed all of us,” Potter spat and stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “He was my friend too. To know that he was behind everything that we went through — to know that he set Murphy up like that — that’s hard to deal with.”

“Exactly,” I said, looking at him as he lit the cigarette. “We all lost one way or another and then to wake to find that we are the walking dead and…” I cut off before I said anything more.

“And what?” he asked, streams of blue smoke jetting from his nostrils.

“Nothing,” I said back, thinking of the cracks.

“Why don’t we just go away?” he suggested, coming closer to me.

“We are away,” I said and I let him take me into his arms. “Or perhaps you were thinking of some kind of holiday? Disneyland perhaps?” and I half-smiled.

“Grizzel’s,” he said, looking into my eyes.

“Sorry?” I asked sounding confused.

“There is no such place as Disneyland here, not anymore at least,” he said. “There is no Walt Disney or Mickey Mouse. There is Cornelius Grizzel and a maggot called Frogskin — but no mouse called Mickey. It’s like good old Disney never existed.” Then looking at me he added, “You’re not the only one who has noticed the world has been pushed.”

“Pushed?” I asked him, sensing he knew more about this than I had first