***
The sight of Amanda Blake gave Brenden quite a surprise. When he had been told that this someone was going to have a look into his attack, he expected to see a member of the police - or whatever constituted the equivalent in the world of the undead - and that they would be dressed in the formal attire that went with such a profession. However, when he first saw Amanda waiting for him in the corridor outside the deputy’s office, she did not fit into this picture at all - dressed, as she was in a pair of old jeans, Doc Martens and a black ‘Flight of the Conchords’ t-shirt, and with her tied back, blonde hair. She was also a few inches shorter than his 5’8’’ and, despite how pale she was, attractive enough to make him feel far too embarrassed to be able to look at her directly in the eye for anything longer than a fleeting moment.
“You must be Brenden,” said Amanda.
“Yes,” replied Brenden, glancing up at Amanda’s face for a second and then dropping his gaze to the floor.
“Did they tell you why I’m here?”
“Ms Halford said you were going to have a look into the attack.”
“Yes, that’s right. Think I should tell you, though, straight up, that I’m no detective or anything. I’m just going to see if I can find anything that the living have missed. They sometimes miss a few things as they don’t really have all the pieces of the puzzle: you know, like the fact that we even exist.”
Amanda smiled as she said this and, in doing so, got Brenden to smile a little too.
“Is this your first day?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, as long as you’ve still got most of your brain left, you’ll be fine. In fact, I’m sure you’ll be fine whatever happens. Though some of the teachers don’t look it, they’re generally good at what they do. Some of them have had enough time to practise, so they should be. Anyway, I think we should get started. The deputy’s using his office at the moment, so he said we should use one of the empty classrooms to have our chat.”
Amanda pushed open the door of a classroom to reveal a cluttered mess of a space which had clearly seen better days.
“There’s not as many newcomers as there used to be,” said Amanda “especially compared to when the place first opened about three hundred years ago. That’s why there are all these empty rooms. Place is a bit spooky if you ask me.”
Again, Amanda drew a shy smile out of Brenden. She gestured for him to sit down at one of the tired, wooden chairs that had been left in an unordered pattern across the floor. She drew another towards the seat Brenden selected and took out her smart phone to record the interview.
“The deputy told me that he’d already had a talk with you about what happened, but that at the time you couldn’t really remember much. Has anything else come back to you?”
Brenden glanced up at Amanda and froze.
“It’s okay Brenden, take your time. Anything you can tell me might help, no matter how small it might seem.”
“I’m not sure. I already told the deputy.”
“I know it’s difficult Brenden, but just take a moment. I remember that the deputy said that you came across your attacker while walking home.”
Brenden closed his eyes for a moment and for the first time since he had left the cold earth of his grave, he consciously tried his best to picture what he could remember about the attack. He sat still and said nothing to Amanda for a little while; she did nothing to disturb him.
“Yeah, he was just standing in the middle of the field,” said Brenden. “It was dark, so I might be wrong, but he looked pretty pale and his clothes were dead old. He looked a bit wrong, but I still assumed that he needed help; I didn’t really think about what I was doing. I mean, I’ve heard about people, you know, but nothing ever happened, so I didn’t think about it. But it was a bit weird, I guess I forgot about that.”
“What do you mean? How was it weird? Go on.”
“He didn’t say anything. That’s right. He just stood there a while, keeping his eyes fixed on me. He was pretty fat; I think I already said that. Well, he was chubby anyway and, I don’t know, I think he was pretty much bald. Oh yeah, I forgot that I don’t think he was wearing any shoes, just socks. It almost made me think of my dad.” Brenden noticed that Amanda appeared truly intrigued by what he was saying; it made him want to continue on, so he just said the first thing that came to mind. “He was always going out to the garden in just his socks and my mum, before he left anyway, would always get dead annoyed at him, saying he should put his shoes on. Anyway, he kept on doing it. I think he sometimes did it to annoy her a bit.”
Before trying to steer the conversation back to the attack, Amanda gave the boy a sad smile. She did not know what Brenden had been through in his old life, nor how much attention he had already received to start to help him adjust to his new one, and for a few moments she wondered if she should attempt to reach out to him. However, she could not think of how to broach the subject and, fearing she may lose
