Where the Dead Live Page 6

  I spent the evening sitting in front of the television with a bottle of wine, trying not to think about anything. I flicked between the sports channels and settled on something, only to realise that half-an-hour had passed and I had absolutely no idea what had happened in the game. In the end, I gave up and climbed the stairs to bed. I considered sleeping in the spare room—I wanted Maggie to have her rest, but I also wanted to be able to keep an eye on her. She had been sleeping solidly since I put her to bed that afternoon, so I guessed the sedatives the doctor prescribed had done their job.

  Even so, I wasn’t going to take any chances, so I opened our bedroom door. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but as soon as they did I saw our bed was empty and Maggie was missing.

  “Oh God.”

  Immediately, I knew where she must have gone and I ran back down the stairs, taking them two at a time, my heart in my throat. I ran to the back door and swung it open, only to stop in my paces and my mouth dropped open.

  I could barely believe what I saw.

  A weird green light surrounded the greenhouse, like a green aura or phosphorescent that some deep sea creature would emit. It wasn’t bright in the same way a normal light had a glare; instead it was more like moonlight, soft and pale. But it came from every pane of glass and made it impossible for me to see inside.

  I was rooted to the spot, unable to move, caught within the moment of seeing something I almost didn’t believe. Then I became aware of a faint humming noise and I knew it was coming from inside the greenhouse. I also knew that whatever was causing the sound and the light, also had my wife.

  “Maggie?” I called out, my paralysis broken. I ran up to the greenhouse and slammed open the door so hard it fell off its hinges. The moment I touched the glass, the light went out and a moment later I realised the humming had stopped.

  Maggie lay on the dirt floor, unconscious. Her dressing gown was open around her, exposing her naked body to the cool night air.

  “Oh Maggie,” I said, falling to my knees beside her. I pulled the dressing gown back around her and then slid my arms beneath her and lifted her up. She felt so light in my arms, so fragile, and for the first time I thought I might have been too late.

  I carried her out to the car, some part of me registering that I was probably over the limit to be driving, but the other part of me not caring. I drove to the hospital as fast as I dared and parked in the emergency bay. Seeing me carrying a half-naked, unconscious woman, nurses ran to my assistance and I was immediately taken to a bay where Maggie was placed onto a bed. She still hadn’t regained any kind of consciousness and was as pale as an albino.

  “Has she taken anything?” a young doctor asked me. I explained our situation, the trouble we had been having and how she had taken two sedatives before bed. I couldn’t bring myself to mention anything about the greenhouse; now I looked back, I wasn’t even sure what had happened.

  “Could she be pregnant?” the doctor asked.

  I almost laughed at that. If she was I felt that we would not be having these problems.

  “No,” I said. “It’s impossible.”

  “She has probably had a bad reaction to her prescription,” he said. “Her vitals are stable and her eyes are responsive. I think she will wake up in her own time, but we’ll keep her in and keep an eye on her.”

  I nodded, but my heart had only heard the words ‘I think’, and in the back of my head a horrible little voice kept saying, ‘What if she doesn’t wake up? What are you going to do then?’

  I spent the rest of the night trying to get comfortable in the chair beside her bed. I didn’t think I had slept at all, but the next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming through the window and Maggie was sitting up in bed.

  “Oh, thank God,” I said, standing up. She smiled at me and I cupped her face in my hands and covered it with kisses. “Thank God,” I said again. “I was so worried. I thought I might have lost you.” Then I looked at her again and saw she was still smiling. “Are you okay? How are you feeling?”

  “We need to ask for that test again,” she said.

  I frowned. “What test?”

  “The one the doctor was going to do last night. The pregnancy test.”

  My heart sunk. “I didn’t know you could hear him.”

  She shrugged. “I must have on some level.”

  “But you know it would be pointless doing a pregnancy test, sweetheart,” I said trying to be patient. “You know what the consultant said.”

  “Everything has changed now. I told you they were here to help us and they have. They’re gone now though,” she added.

  I didn’t know what to say. I had been hoping that she would wake up and be back to normal again, but this clearly wasn’t happening. I didn’t want her to go through the disappointment of another negative pregnancy test, but I was relieved she had said whatever it was had gone. Maybe that meant mentally she had let go of something. Perhaps a negative test would be what she needed to bring her back to reality.

  “Okay,” I said, reluctantly. “I’ll go and find the doctor.”

  An hour later, they were drawing blood and then we were left waiting; Maggie in nervous anticipation, me with a dull, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. They told us it would be at least an hour and I sat, dreading the results. Maggie chatted away to me, talking about everything except what had happened and what we were waiting for. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was back to her old self and I was dreading the moment that would bring an end to having my wife back again and the start of some new breakdown.

  When the doctor finally approached us, I could not read his face, but Maggie sat cross-legged on the bed, that silly grin still on her face.

  “Well?” she asked him, as though she somehow already knew the answer.

  His face broke into a grin. “Congratulations, it’s positive. You’re going to have a baby.”

  Maggie squealed with delight and threw her arms around me. “See!” she declared. “I told you it was here to help us. I told you!”

  Automatically, I put my arms around her, but my head was buzzing. How was it possible?

  “There must be some mistake,” I said, “The consultant said it was impossible for us to conceive.”

  The doctor smiled again. “No mistake,” he said. “I took the bloods down myself. You’re wife is definitely expecting.”

  I thought back to a couple of nights earlier, our lovemaking in the middle of the night. It must have been then, I thought, the baby must have been conceived then. But then my mind flashed back to the way I had found her the night before; naked and exposed, and in my head the consultant’s words echoed in my head;

  Impossible.

  Letting Go

  I’m standing on the bridge, certain he won’t come.

  How many years has it been now? Ten, at least. The tenth time I’ve came here, hoping he will show, yet knowing he won’t.

  It’s July twelfth, the anniversary of the day he asked me to marry him. My heart is sick with grief and I wonder how it is that I cannot move on. Every day I wander without direction, searching for him, yet he is always just out of reach. It is as if when I enter one door, he slips out of another.

  The night is warm and I can smell honeysuckle on the air. Below me, the stream trickles, singing a gentle song to the stones and gravel it passes over. Trees line both sides of the stream, their branches reaching out to each other, like lovers hands grasping, creating a canopy over the water.

  I sigh and lean against the small wooden bridge. My fingers twist the platinum band of my engagement ring, the moonlight catching the small cluster of diamonds. I no longer wear it on my left hand, switching it to the right as a sign of our separation, but I cannot bring myself to take it off completely.

  Why do I keep torturing myself like this? Too many years have passed for him to still care. He probably has a different life now, one filled with a new family of his own. I cannot believe he still thinks of me, even though thoughts
of him seem to be the only thing I know.

  Movement catches my eye and I turn to see a figure approaching out of the darkness. My heart picks up a beat, my breath catching in my throat.

  Mark?

  He walks toward me, but I don’t know how to react. It’s such a long time since I’ve seen him and I can see the years on his face; in the lines upon his skin and the grey in his hair.

  I cannot speak as he stands beside me and leans his forearms on the bridge. He looks down at the flowing water, as if he cannot bear to look at me.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” I say.

  “I don’t know why I’m here, Lisa. It’s been such a long time.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “I think I just needed to say goodbye properly. You’ve been playing on my mind and it’s simply not right. I need to get on with my own life.”

  “Please, Mark,” I beg. “Let’s just spend some time together, talk things over. If you came, then you must still...”

  But his actions still my words. He opens his hand and nestled in his palm is the platinum band and cluster of diamonds of my engagement ring.

  My heart stops and I look down at my own ring. How is that possible? Did he have another, identical one made? Why would he do that?

  “I need to say goodbye now, Lisa. I’m moving on, just like you have.”

  He tilts his hand to drop the ring into the water. I reach out to catch it as it falls, but to my horror the small circle of metal passes right through my hand, as if I were not even there.

  My eyes fill with tears of terror. What the hell was happening?

  “I know it wasn’t your fault,” he says, addressing the air. “It wasn’t your fault you left me. The accident was nothing more than that, just a horrible accident. But I need to get on with my life now. It’s been too long and I’m letting you go.”

  At his words, I feel something pull against me, as if invisible hands have hold of my shoulders and legs, tugging me from behind. I look down to see my limbs suddenly seem insubstantial, as if I cannot quite see them or am looking through a mist.

  “Help me, Mark,” I call out, terror firing adrenaline through my veins. But now I know he cannot hear me and my voice sounds faint, even to my own ears.

  It suddenly dawns on me that I do not know where I’ve been all these years, only that I’ve been searching for Mark, his own grief and longing holding me near. Now he has finally let me go and I am moving on, going to whatever life—or death—holds for me next.

  My body is little more than smoke now and still something pulls on me, taking me away from him. The distance between us is growing and now he is simply the figure of a man standing on a bridge.

  A man saying goodbye.

  Deadly Beauties

  She prepared herself to step onto the small stage, adjusting her breasts in the cups of her bra, pulling at the tiny strips of elastic of her black lace panties. The stench of cigarette smoke and stale alcohol drifted up to her, making her sick to her stomach.

  “And now please welcome to the stage…Calypso Dreams!”

  Like the name of the club she worked in, ‘The Paradise Bar’, her stage name also carried a tinge of irony. The name was fake, of course. Her real name was Nadine Shepard, but that was nowhere near glamorous enough for the dive she danced in.

  Nadine stepped onto the stage just as the girl who was on before her—a tall, small-breasted woman with too many tattoos—stepped off. The other dancer was not to Nadine’s taste; she liked her women to have curves – breasts and an ass – not all straight lines and angular corners.

  The other woman, ignorant to Nadine’s thoughts, gave her a brief smile before brushing past.

  Nadine strutted out, knowing her long legs looked endless in the gold, strappy, three inch stilettos. A haze of smoke drifted up in front of her; the smoking ban laws flouted with both disregard and disrespect. She tried not to squint in the sudden bright light, knowing her eyes would adjust within a few moments. Sometimes she wished they didn’t. It would be easier to pretend she was somewhere else if she did not have to see the punters sitting in the front row.

  The Paradise Bar wasn’t a classy joint. Located in London’s East End, in the dark and seedy back streets of Whitechapel, it was never going to attract the best clientele. Instead, the bar was filled with London’s finest—older, fat men, with saggy jowls and sad eyes, skinny young lads sporting sleeves of faded tattoos. Whatever their background, they were all here for one thing, to watch the girls dance.

  Taking pride of place in the centre of the stage, a silver pole joined the floor to the ceiling. It was to this Nadine headed.

  It had taken a couple of shots of cheap vodka, as she was getting ready, to stop her from running, screaming from the club. She knew the other girls did stronger stuff—coke, crack, meth—but she wasn’t going to go down that route. It was an easy trap to fall into. They started the drugs to cope with the job, but then they needed the job to pay for the drugs. A downward spiral.

  Nonchalant disinterest met Nadine’s appearance on stage. One guy in the back started to clap, but when he realized no one else was joining in, he immediately stopped. She looked across the room to see who the clapper was, but something else caught her eye.

  There was a faint, almost imperceptible crease of her forehead, her eyes narrowed. Someone sat at the back of the bar, alone.

  Was it a woman?

  Sure, there were plenty of women out there who liked strip joints. Nadine had watched groups of them giggle and scream from behind their hands, as though watching strippers was the most exciting and dangerous thing they had ever done—as though it somehow made them more interesting. But normally the women were in groups, dragged along by business men in suits, and they always went to classier establishments.

  Nadine’s eyes did not leave the lone woman as she reached up with her hands and pulled herself up onto the pole. She wrapped her slender legs around it and let go. Her head tilted back, her long, dark hair brushing the floor. She stretched her legs out to show off her strong thighs and arched her back, knowing her breasts looked round and full in the black lace balcony bra.

  Taking hold of the pole again Nadine opened her legs wide and slid back down, the pole pressed between her thighs.

  She twisted herself back onto her flat stomach, and then pushed her ass into the air, straightening her legs in the high stiletto heels.

  The music continued to thump. She looked up, swinging her hair out of her face. The solitary woman was still there. Still watching her.

  They were all watching her, the sensible part of her mind told her. That was the reason they were there.

  Yet still, there was something about the woman that set off Nadine’s well-honed sense of danger.

  Could the woman have something to do with the feeling Nadine had that she had been followed on her way to work that night? She didn’t start until ten, so night had long since fallen when she started her walk from the flat she shared with two other working girls. London’s East End streets were never safe, but yet she had gotten used to them. Maybe she was even too blasé about the dangers they held. Yet that night she had felt eyes on her, had even thought she heard footsteps follow her down the dark alley that led to the club. Each time she had spun around, the street had been empty.

  Now she had the same feeling again. The intense sensation of someone watching her.

  Trying to push the feeling away, Nadine continued her routine.

  The punters approached to give her tips. Pushing tens and twenties into the small strips of material she still had covering her. Experience had taught her how to avoid the ones who were after more, the punters who tried to tweak her nipple or slip a finger along crotch of her g-string.

  With skill, she whipped the notes out of her bra and slipped them into the side of her panties. Then she reached behind her and quickly unhooked her bra, dropping the lingerie to the floor and freeing her breasts.

  She cupped her breasts in her hands,
pushing her already ample cleavage together. She bent over to give the punters in front a closer view of her breasts and the men behind a view of her ass. In front of her, the woman still stood at the back of the bar. Still watching.

  It had been a long time since she had had sex with a man. It wasn’t that she didn’t like sleeping with men; it was more that she just didn’t like men. Too much time spent in places like this had simply put her off.

  She looked up to see the woman had suddenly gone. No, she hadn’t gone, she had simply moved to a different position across the other side of the bar. How had she got there so fast? One minute she had been sitting in one spot, the next she was standing across the room. Nadine didn’t think the woman had left her sight long enough for her to move without her seeing.

  The woman was closer now. Her hair was red and long and frizzy around her face, but her eyes were dark, strangely dark.

  Nadine knew enough about sex. She could read the lust in those strange black eyes. But there was something else she saw, a different need, a different desire, one Nadine couldn’t put her finger on.

  Something else was strange. Here was a beautiful woman in a bar filled with testosterone pumped, sex crazed men, and yet not a single man had hit on her. No one had approached her to offer to buy her a drink, no one had even tried to talk to her. Even the others girls had left her alone. Not one of them had gone up to her, offering a private dance or more.

  Nadine looked up again to see the woman had gone, vanished as though she had never been there. But in the moment just before she vanished, Nadine realized she recognized the look in the woman’s eyes.

  It was hunger.

  Nadine did not join the other girls for drinks after work. They had not invited her and she had no wish to go. She didn’t care that she was an outcast among her peers; she had no interest in socializing with them.

  It was two in the morning when she left the club. She had changed into a sweater, leggings and fake UGG boots; an outfit completely opposite to the slutty clothes she was required to wear for dancing. Her steps were almost silent as she walked down the alley, towards the main road. Ahead of her, the headlights of cars passed across the exit, and she could hear groups of young people heading home after a night out. Their laughter floated over to her, becoming louder, before drifting down the street. There was sound of breaking glass as someone dropped a bottle. The scent of stale urine violated her nostrils and she turned her head to one side, hoping to avoid its source.