The Dead Have No Shadows (3 page)

“Most people think of themselves,” Pester explained.  “It’s the, ‘Oh woe is me, I’m too young to die’ kind of reaction.  Your first thought was for someone else.  It was a wee bit unexpected.”

“My Mum was the most important person in my life,” said Mickey.  “She meant everything to me.”

“You’ve got a funny way of showing it - robbing banks.  Going to buy a giant bunch of flowers for her were you?”

Mickey had been sitting on the edge of the chair with his hands dangling down between his knees.  He slapped his palms down on the arms of the chair. 

“It wasn’t like that.  Anyway, who are you really?  And why are you so interested in me?”

Mickey was on his feet now, squaring up to the man sitting opposite him.  Mickey wasn’t the biggest or tallest of people.  He could only boast to be of average height and with the kind of build that wouldn’t intimidate anyone remotely hard.  His boyish looks and mop
of wavy black hair made him look anything but tough.  Pester, on the other hand, looked to have once had more muscle bulk than he now carried.  He was taller than Mickey and this height advantage was accentuated by his crown of greasy black spikes of hair.  On the other hand,
Pester’s
hairstyle made him look skinnier than he actually was.

Even with Mickey looming over him Pester didn’t show any sign of being
fazed
or threatened.  He sat with his fingers
steepled
under his chin and watched Mickey with his blue – brown eyes.

“All will be revealed in good time,” said Pester.  “Or, then again, it may not.”  He stood up and smoothed imaginary creases from his leather trousers.

A loud thud sounded from one of the interview room doors and Mickey noticed a shadow of puzzlement pass across
Pester’s
face.  It was only fleeting and
Pester’s
half mocking smile soon re-established itself.

“First of all though, we have a journey to make,” he said.

“We?” asked Mickey.

“Well, you do,” Pester corrected himself.  “This is your final journey.  I’m just your guide.  There you are – that’s one of your questions answered for you already.  Now you know both my name and what I do.”

Not really, thought Mickey.  I know what you are – or what you say you do.  I don’t know why and I don’t know why you’re with me.

Mickey decided he’d try to pursue this later.

 “What do you mean by my final journey?” he asked instead.

Three loud thuds echoed through the empty banking hall.  This was followed by a fourth bang which ended with a crunching sound.

“Let’s talk as we walk,” suggested Pester, with a hint of urgency in his voice.  He
didn’t wait for an agreement from Mickey.  “Prepare yourself.  This is likely to feel a wee bit strange.”

The walls and ceiling of the bank began to fade.  As the walls became increasingly translucent Mickey could see a barren landscape emerge and gain clarity.  The banging on the door increased in volume and intensity.  Whoever was on the other side of the door wanted to get through in a hurry.  In the instant that the bank walls dissolved to nothing there was a crashing sound from the interview room door.  Mickey thought that he heard a curse that briefly became muffled before snapping off.

All of this was getting too much for Mickey to cope with.  His mind, already in turmoil with what had happened so far, went into meltdown.  He began to tremble violently and sat down before he fell down.  Where the armchair had been, and where Mickey still
expected it to be, was a large sandstone boulder.  A similar stone stood where
Pester’s
chair had been.  The stone was uncomfortable but it served Mickey’s needs.  He buried his face in his hands to block the view of this strange new landscape.

He tried to understand everything that had happened to him since he’d dragged himself out of bed that morning.  It wouldn’t work though.  Everything had been relatively normal up to the point that Mickey and
Jonno
had walked in through the doors of the bank.  The raid itself was extraordinary – after all Mickey had never done anything like this before.  But none of this would gel with what had happened after they left the bank.  Everything they had done up to that point was mundane compared to what he’d just been going through.

Being dead was difficult to come to terms with – but what had happened since he’d been loaded into the ambulance simply defied comprehension.

Dying was certainly not something that Mickey had contemplated doing anytime soon.  But then he supposed most people got up in the morning expecting to be going to bed at the end of the day healthy and intact.  They would never anticipate the experience that he’d just gone through.

And that was another thing.  If he really was dead, why was he still capable of thought and why could he feel the sharp edges of this sandstone block digging into his backside and thighs?

Mickey had always supposed that once you were dead that was it.  No more thinking, no more feeling – just nothingness; dark and empty, not even cold.  Being in his early twenties, death hadn’t figured very often in Mickey’s thoughts.  He was, or rather had been, one of those people who lived for today.  Tomorrow would take care of itself.  Only now, in Mickey’s case, there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow for him; at least not in the world that he’d woken up in that morning, where Mum and
Jonno
still lived.

Thinking of Mum made Mickey feel sick with grief and worry.  He’d lost her.  Who was going to take care of her now? 

Would he still be able to get to see her somehow? 

Or even get a message to her? 

Could this Pester guy help him? 

Would he?

Too many questions.  Mickey couldn’t handle this.  Tears smeared across his cheeks as his resolve crumbled.

“Are you ok?” Pester asked.

Mickey remembered that he wasn’t alone and shut off the tears.  He wasn’t going to let this stranger see him cry.  It was a long time since Mickey had allowed himself to cry and even longer in company.  He may be dead but he wasn’t going to let things change that much.

Dead.  That fucking word again.  Mickey wiped a hand over his face to clear the tears away.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said.  “It’s just a bit of a shock to the system, being dead.”

Pester laughed.  “Aye, I suppose you’ve had one or two shocks today,
Laddie
.”

“Tell me about it,” sighed Mickey.  “My head’s spinning.  I’ve got so many questions – and each one makes five more.”

“As I said, let’s talk as we walk,” said Pester.  “You’ve got a long journey ahead of you.  The conversation will help to pass the time and help you to understand what’s happening.”

Mickey grunted a kind of agreement.  There was more he wanted to ask but that would have to wait while he took in his new location. 

Mickey and Pester appeared to be standing on a rocky plateau.  Mickey walked to the edge.  A precipitous drop ended hundreds of feet below on a rock strewn floor.  This flat area spread for about half a mile before beginning to climb into foothills that grew into mountains beyond.  The precipice and mountains ringed the plateau on three sides before marching off into the distance.

Well that decides which direction I’ll be going in, thought Mickey.  He walked to the only possible
walkable
exit from the plateau.  A well defined but rocky path wound down to the valley floor.  The valley seemed to continue to the horizon as a broad featureless, flat landscape flanked on both sides by vicious looking
spined
crags that clung to the sides of the mountains.

Like the valley floor the mountains and crags were devoid of any kind of vegetation.

Being born and raised in a city, Mickey had never seen so much open space.  The parks of Derby seemed tiny in comparison to this.  Though having lived so close to vast areas of open countryside Mickey had never ventured far from the city.  He had no real concept of distance and couldn’t even begin to estimate how long it would take him to walk across the desert like valley floor.

“Why do I have to make any kind of journey at all?” Mickey asked.

“To get where you need to go,” Pester answered.

Very funny, though Mickey.

“It looks like it’ll take days to cover all that ground,” he protested, pointing down the valley.  “And what about at night?”  He assumed that normal day and night times still applied over here; wherever here was.

“You’ll be fine,” was all Pester would say.  “Come on, we need to go.”

“What if I say no?”

Pester shrugged.  “Then you’ll end up a pile of bones by the side of the path – or worse.  Trust me, you really wouldn’t want that.”

Seeing that Mickey didn’t believe him, Pester led the young traveller to the edge of the plateau.

“Look down there,” he said.

Mickey looked and saw parts of a skeleton spread over the hillside.

“That’s what happens to those that don’t go on,” said Pester.  “She couldn’t handle that fact that she was dead.  Her soul is down there somewhere, trapped in one of her bones.  If you want the same thing to happen to you then stay here.  Otherwise, it’s time to go.”

“Ok,” Mickey said, taken aback by
Pester’s
bluntness.  “Seeing how I don’t seem to have a choice in the matter, let’s get on with it.”

“Oh but you do have a choice,” said Pester.  “You always have a choice.  You can stay here if you want to.”

Without waiting for a reply from Mickey, Pester set off down the path from the plateau.

Mickey looked around him, then down at the bones strewn across the hillside, then at Pester walking down the hill.

“I don’t see that I do have any choice,” he muttered and set off after his odd eyed
guide.

Mickey struggled to match the pace that the other man set and soon started to lag behind.

“Stop, I need to rest.”  Mickey leant forward with his hands on his knees, panting.  His face was bright red and his tee-shirt was soaked in sweat.

“If I’m dead why am I so knackered?”

“You’re not,” Pester called back.  “Knackered, I mean.  It’s all in your mind.  Because you’re a soft city boy you have no stamina.  Your mind thinks that you should be hot and tired.  So, your spiritual body reacts that way.”

“So if I just decide that I’m not tired then I won’t be,” said Mickey.

Pester laughed.  “It doesn’t work that way.”

Typical, thought Mickey.  He’d already noticed that Pester could be cryptic and oblique with his answers.  He drew in a lungful of air.  Pester had already continued the descent to the valley floor.

Mickey was used to walking on pavements.  He felt unsteady on this steep, dusty and uneven path.  His thighs and calves were tightening up as he tensed himself for each downward step.  He decided to let Pester have the gap that he’d opened up and concentrated, instead, on keeping his footing.  If Mickey was feeling the effects of his exertions then he would experience the pain of a sprained ankle just as much.  He guessed there were no NHS Walk-In centres on this side of whatever boundary he had crossed.

The sun was low in the sky when Mickey finally reached the valley bottom.  The shadows thrown out by the mountains were flowing across the ground.  They would have completely hidden where Pester had set up camp if it wasn’t for the flames of the campfire
that the guide had lit.  Mickey started to trudge towards the flickering light.  His feet were sore and his calves were protesting at the amount of work they’d been asked to do.

There was a deep throated growl from somewhere in the foothills of the mountains.  That sounds big, thought Mickey.  He based this theory on the natural history programmes he’d seen on the television.  Every time he’d seen a big cat at the zoo it had been silent; either sleeping or prowling along their perimeter fence.  The sound came again but was suddenly cut off in a yowl of pain.  That meant that something bigger was out there.  Mickey spotted the odd bone here and part of a skeleton there. He decided that his legs didn’t hurt quite as much as he first thought as he quickened his pace towards camp.