it's a love separated from life. I'm regretting that I haven't been around to see them outside of work in a while, and now I've promised to not see what is left.
She blinks, looks at Dad, then back at me. 'It didn't hurt, if that's what you're asking.'
'Absolutely,' Dad says. 'Whoever did it was a professional. Quick and painless.'
Of course it hurt, but they're trying to spare me that. I try and respect their pretense and play along, but I can't. Quick death is always painful, always dislocating.
'Mom, I need to-'
'You don't need to know at all. You want to.' Her voice hardens. 'Steven, you know the deal, we all do. I'm not happy with this, but it's happened.'
'But why? Why has it happened?'
'If either of us had any idea, we'd be telling you,' Dad says. 'But we don't. You're going to have to find out, and even that may not save you. I had no inkling of this in the office, and I thought I knew everything.'
I think about the phones, the rise in Stirrers. Something had been coming. Maybe I'd even felt it before I first saw Lissa. It's easy to see that with hindsight. But that isn't going to help now. I will get to the bottom of this. If this is death most definite then I'm determined to understand it. I just-I just wish I felt a little more capable.
Mom and Dad smile at me. Part of me is missing them already, and another part of me is so damn mad that I could kill someone. But there's no one, or thing, I can direct my anger at. Not yet.
'We'll come with you for as long as we can,' Dad says. 'But…'
'I understand,' I say, though I wish I didn't.
There's more dead coming through. Pomps and regular punters, drawn to me because the number of living Pomps is shrinking. I'm giddy with it and feeling sick at the same time. I've never had this many people to deal with.
Pomping hurts. Each pomp is like a spider web pulling through my flesh. The silk is fine, but every strand is crowded with tiny hooks that snag and drag until they're through. It's more of a discomfort than a hurt, but with enough of them things begin to ache. I'm raw with the souls I've pomped.
I've heard stories about the world wars, about the Pomps there, how it nearly killed them. So many dead rushing through. I lost a lot of great-uncles, most to the meat grinder of the front, but some to the job itself. I don't want that to be me.
The lights change. Time to get moving.
I'm moving down Roma Street, up and over the overpass, heading toward the Transit Centre, the underbelly of which is Roma Street Station.
'You know I love you,' I say to my parents. I'd said it nearly a dozen times in the walk between Ann Street and the overpass. I knew I didn't have much time; they couldn't stay with me forever.
'Course we do,' they say in unison, and like that, in the blinking of an eye, they're gone.
The last contact I get is their passage through me. Such a swift pomp. I'm never going to see them again. I try to hold on, to keep their souls with me, but there's nothing I can get a grip on. All it does is draw out the hurt.
The grief is almost paralysing when it hits.
I'm right out in the open, not yet at the escalators sinking down into the station. I stop and hunch over, because this is agony. I'm not numbed by their absence, I'm hurting. A coughing sob shudders through me. I'm going to lose it.
Just because I know what goes on in the afterlife doesn't mean I'm not missing my parents. I need time.
But there isn't any.
'Hey. Hey,' Lissa says.
'You're still here?'
I look at her, and even that hurts me. She's beautiful, and I won't get a chance to talk to her in the flesh. My mourning tugs me this way and that. Have to slap myself. My cheek stings.
Doesn't help.
Lissa looks at me as though I am mad. There's pity in her expression as well, and that makes me more than a little angry: mostly with myself.
She isn't gone yet. I'm not quite alone.
I walk into the station.
'Hey!'
I spin on my heel, cringing. When's the bullet coming?
'Your ticket!' The guard at the gate frowns at me, looking through Lissa, though I know how uncomfortable that must make him. It doesn't help that she then swings a tight circle around him. His face twitches in synchrony with her movements. At any other time it would be amusing to watch.
'Yeah, right. Sorry.' I dig my pass out of my wallet.
He takes it from me. Nods. 'Next time think about what you're doing.' He pushes it back into my hand.
I nod, too, smile stupidly, and walk through the gate into the underpass that leads to the platforms.
'You have to be more careful than that,' Lissa says. 'You have to stay focused. Something like that may get you killed.'
'I'm doing the best I can.'
She's clearly not happy with my answer. But it's all I've got.
I know where I have to go. The only place that I might possibly find some answers.
It might also kill me. That's on the cards anyway. In fact, I imagine that's where this will all end up. I'm a Pomp after all. Death is what it's all about. Death is what it's always about.
So I keep moving.
7
Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean the Hill…'
I'm sitting in the train heading west along the Ipswich line, out of the city, my forehead resting against the cold glass of the window. People sniffle and cough all around me. The carriage is heavy with the odors of sickness: sweat and menthol throat lollies duke it out. It's flu season all right, I can feel something coming on myself-or maybe it's the last remnants of the hangover, combined with the ache of all those pomps.
I pat my suit jacket. 'At least I'm dressed for a cemetery. Do you have any better suggestions?'
Lissa shrugs. I know she wishes that she did. So do I.
'The Hill's the only place I might get some answers,' I say. Problem is, the answers I'm after are just as likely to kill me as save me.
I try Tim's work number. Can't get through. His mobile switches straight to voicemail.
How do I tell him? I need to warn him. I need to tell him that his mother and father are dead. His voicemail spiel ends and I'm silent after the beep, working my mouth, trying to find words.
Nothing comes. The silence stretches on. Finally: 'Tim, I don't know what you know. But I'm in trouble, you too, maybe. You have to be careful. Shit, maybe you already know all this. Call me when you can.'
I hang up.
Lissa stomps up and down the aisle. People shudder with her passage, burying themselves in their reading matter or turning up their mp3s. She's oblivious to it, or maybe she is taking a deep pleasure in the other passengers' discomfort, the dreadful chill of death sliding past life. I don't know. Our carriage is emptying out fast, though. I find her movement hypnotic. Her presence is tenuous and vital all at once. I've never seen a dead person like this. Nor a live one, if I'm honest.
She catches me looking at her. The grin she offers is a heat rushing through me. My cheeks burn and for a moment my mind isn't centered on life or death. I'd thank her for that, if this was going anywhere but Hell.
I've fallen in love with someone I cannot have. Someone who isn't really a someone anymore. How bloody typical. But even this misery is better than the ones that crowd around me, grim and cruel, on that train. At least it's bittersweet rather than just bitter.
