The Dead Have No Shadows (2 page)

“How do you know that?” Mickey asked.  The paramedic ignored the question.

“Age?” the doctor snapped off the question whilst performing basic checks on the body before him.

“Twenty two,” said the ambulance man.  “But I can’t see him making it to twenty three.”

The doctor scowled at the remark.  “If he does not, it will not be for any lack of effort on our part.”  He allowed the paramedic to update him with the treatment that the patient had already received then dismissed him.

The paramedic sidled over to Mickey and whispered, “That’s what I admire about doctors and nurses.  They never know when they’re beaten so they never give up.  And, they don’t pass judgement. 

“The old man there won’t even flinch when he finds out you were shot trying to rob little old ladies of their savings.”

Mickey couldn’t keep up with any of this. 

Had he really been shot? 

He still thought he could be tripping on that stuff that
Jonno
had given him.  Maybe this was really just a dream; although it was bloody realistic.  One way or the other he wanted some answers.  He turned to the paramedic who cut him off before he could say a word.

“You know, you’re lucky that you’re still clinging to life,” the paramedic said.  “If you’d already gone our friend back there by the entrance would have had a go at claiming you.  And we don’t want that do we?”  He turned away to watch the doctors at work.

The team around Mickey’s body worked to a well rehearsed and co-ordinated routine: all to the tune of strident alarms that were heralding Mickey Raymond’s impending departure from the land of the living.

The paramedic took Mickey by the arm.  “Time to go,” he said.

Mickey was back in the bank – but he was alone.  There was no sign of
Jonno
.  Neither were there any staff nor customers. 

“Fucking drugs,” he growled and ran past the queuing ribbons to the teller positions. 

Mickey craned his neck to look over the counter into the rear of the bank.  That too was deserted.  He scanned the row of meeting rooms along the side wall.  Despite the frosted glass doors Mickey could tell that the rooms were empty.  He walked back down the main hall towards the main entrance.  No-one was walking past outside and there didn’t look to be anyone in the shops across the street either.

“
Jonno
,” Mickey shouted.  “What’s happening?  Where are you?”

“There’s no point in bellowing,” said a voice near the entrance.  “He’s not here so he can’t hear you.”

At the front of the building the open plan reception area was dotted with armchairs.  A man sat with his back to Mickey.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mickey challenged.  He pulled a gun from his jeans and aimed it at the back of the man’s head.

The man started to rise from the armchair.

“Slowly,” yelled Mickey.  “Slowly,” he said again, trying to sound calmer.  He wasn’t sure if he would hit the man if he fired – his hand was shaking that much.

The man raised his hands and continued to climb from the chair, but slowly as he’d been ordered.  He turned in exaggerated slow motion and smiled at Mickey.

“You,” Mickey gasped.  “You’re the paramedic.” 

He looked around again, hoping that
Jonno
had made an appearance.  “Now I know I’m on a trip,” he shouted.  “You bastard
Jonno
.  Stop hiding.  What was that stuff
you slipped me?  I’ll kill you when I get hold of you.”

The man with the odd beard and the strange mis-matched eyes continued to smile at Mickey and took a step forward.

“Don’t you fucking move,” shouted Mickey.  He was covered in sweat and the gun was beginning to slip in his hand.

“As you wish,” said the man, his smile never flickering.  “My name’s Pester.”

“What?”

“You asked, who I was.”

“Pester?” said Mickey.  “What sort of stupid name is that?”

The man shrugged.  “Just a name,” he replied, his smile broadening. 

He no longer wore the uniform of a paramedic but was clothed in an old set of dark blue, two piece motorcycle leathers, complete with calf length boots with worn down soles and heels.  The jacket was unzipped, revealing a thread bare crew neck sweater.

“Oh, think you’re funny do you?” said Mickey, taking exception at
Pester’s
amused expression.  He waved his gun in
Pester’s
face.  “You won’t be very funny if I pull the trigger,”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Pester.  “You need me.  And I wouldn’t be much use to you with a hole in my head.”

“Yeah?” sneered Mickey. 

This was his trip.  He wasn’t going to let some weird figment of his imagination order him about. 

He was the man, yeah. 

He was the boss. 

It was his trip. 

Mickey pulled the trigger.

The gun kicked upwards and the bullet entered
Pester’s
head just below the hairline.  A flap of scalp flipped up and back and a spray of the contents of
Pester’s
skull jetted from the back of his head.  Pester took a single step backwards then collapsed to the floor.

Mickey giggled nervously. 

He’d just killed someone.  That was a first. 

He laughed.  It was high pitched and approaching hysteria.

Hang on.  He hadn’t killed anyone.  He couldn’t have.  He wasn’t a killer.  No, it was the trip – the drugs that
Jonno
had fed him.  Anyway, the gun he’d taken into the bank was only a replica. 
Jonno
hadn’t wanted to take a real one and had got all piss and panicky about.  That was typical
Jonno
.  He was just a girl really. 

Mickey vaguely wondered where he actually was and if he had managed to get away with the money.  He guessed he would find out when he finally came down.  Mickey walked over to where the man, Pester, lay in a pool of blood. 

Yeah, I’m the man, thought Mickey.

Pester’s
eyes snapped open and Mickey screamed.

Pester sat up.

“Do you feel better for that?” he asked, adjusting the flap of scalp back into place.  The skin reattached itself and the bullet wound shrank and disappeared.  Pester stood up leaving a halo of blood on the floor where his head had lain.

Mickey looked at the gun in his hand and then looked at Pester.

“It’s the drugs,” Mickey said.  He didn’t sound convincing.

“No it isn’t,” Pester replied.  “This is real – or as real as it’s ever going to get for you from now on.”

“I don’t get it,” said Mickey. 

He was beginning to feel unsure of himself.  The trip was getting worse, surely he
should be coming down by now.  But coming down to what? 

He had a vivid memory of being in this bank and robbing it.  He could remember getting outside, trying to make a run for it and hearing gunfire.  Mickey looked down at his chest.  There were no bullet holes in his jacket or shirt.  So who had been shot?

“Don’t worry about it for now,” Pester told him.  “You’ll understand in time, if there’s enough of it.  First of all though, you have to accept.”

“Accept what?”  Mickey had a horrible feeling that though he needed to know the answer he wouldn’t want to hear it.  All cockiness was draining away from him.  He began to feel scared.  Something was wrong.  Really wrong – not just drug induced.

“You have to accept that you‘re dead,” Pester said.  It was said in such a matter of fact way that Mickey knew that the odd eyed man wasn’t lying.  The words hit him as hard as the bullets had less than an hour earlier.  He dropped the gun.  It made a familiar plastic clatter as it hit the floor.

“Dead?” Mickey whispered.

Pester nodded and smiled.  It was a smug self satisfied smile and it angered Mickey.

“Bollocks,” he yelled.  “I haven’t come down yet.  You’re fucking with my head.”

“Come with me,” Pester said.  He beckoned for Mickey to follow him and stopped by one of the interview rooms.

“This isn’t going to be pleasant for you,” he warned Mickey, “but I’m going to prove to you that you really are dead.”

Pester opened the door not onto a bank interview room but a hospital cubicle.  Two people in hospital scrubs were working on a blood soaked body, while other medical staff were busy around them.

“Blood pressure is still dropping,” said a nurse.

“He’ll go into VF if we can’t hold that pressure,” said one of the doctors working in
the patient’s open chest cavity.  “He’s bleeding out faster than we can get the stuff into him.”

The doctor moved to one side and Mickey saw his own face.  It was grey and looked lifeless.  He tried to take a step forwards.

Pester placed a restraining hand on his arm.

“Your final journey has begun,” he said.  “Every step has to be forward from now on.  You can’t go back.”

One of the crash team nurses was talking.  “There’s a man in reception asking about his condition.  He keeps pushing for regular updates.  He claims he’s a reporter, but I don’t believe him.  He’s dressed like a hippy.”

“Sounds like the guy who was by the door,” Mickey remarked, remembering the John Lennon look-a-like he had seen earlier.

Pester nodded.  “One and the same,” he said.  “You’re beginning to get the picture.  A wee bit at a time and you’ll soon put the puzzle together.”

Back in the hospital the senior surgeon was talking, “I need the bullet that is still lodged inside him.  Lift his heart slightly please.  I want to see if the bullet is caught behind it.”

The other doctor eased Mickey’s heart upwards and twisted it slightly.  That was all the damaged aorta needed for it to tear open, allowing blood to pulse out with renewed force.

“Damn,” spat the senior man.

Alarms blared as Mickey’s statistics plummeted at a rate that the medical staff were powerless to halt.  There was so little blood left in Mickey’s body that it was soon exhausted.  His heart battled bravely to keep pumping but with no blood left
ischaemia
followed and the complex muscle seized, never to beat again.

Mickey felt a physical wrench and then a cold emptiness flooded through him.  He knew that what he’d just witnessed had been real and what Pester had told him had been true.  He didn’t need to hear what the senior surgeon said next.

“There is no more we can do here.  If everyone agrees?” He looked around at his assembled staff.  There were nods and murmurs of assent. 

The surgeon looked at the clock on the wall.  “Time of death, thirteen forty two.  Thank you everyone.  Could someone inform his next of kin please?”

That final sentence dealt a crushing blow to Mickey Raymond.

He uttered a single word, “Mum.”

Pester led Mickey back to the armchairs in the reception area.  They sat in two of the leather chairs, facing one another.

“It was an interesting reaction,” said Pester, “at the moment of your death.”

Mickey just stared at the man opposite as if he’d spoken a foreign language.