The Dead Have No Shadows (4 page)

Pester was roasting a small animal on a spit.  It looked to be rabbit sized but it could have been anything.  Mickey didn’t care what it was or where it had come from.  His stomach rumbled in anticipation of a meal.  He hadn’t eaten since . . .  He began thinking it was his first meal since breakfast.  He actually ended up thinking that it was his first meal since he’d died. 

“The
food’ll
be ready soon,” said Pester.  “Make yourself useful while it’s cooking and gather some firewood.”  He pointed at some bushes just on the fringe of the ring of light cast by the fire.  “Make sure you stay in the light.”

Mickey sighed.  He’d just sat down and was easing his trainers off.  He rubbed his aching feet then slipped his shoes back on.

“Why do I need to stay in the light?”  He didn’t think he really needed to ask the
question – he remembered the animal and its howl of pain.

Pester smiled.  “You must have seen the bones along the way.”  He left the rest unsaid.

Mickey nodded.  “How much wood should I gather?”

“Enough to keep the fire going all night,” said Pester.  “We need to make sure them beasties don’t get too interested in us.”

“Are they...?

“Dead? Aye,” Pester replied.  “They’re just as dead as you and just as hungry.”

Mickey went to collect the firewood.  He made sure that he always faced outwards from the camp and kept glancing out into the darkness looking for signs of movement amongst the deepening shadows.

When Mickey got back with the firewood the meal was ready.  Both men ate in
silence – Mickey through sheer hunger and Pester just happy to let his charge settle and adjust to his new condition.  There would be difficult times and questions ahead.  Better to let Mickey handle them in his own time. 

They both made short work of their meal.  Pester took two water bottles from the pockets of his leather jacket and passed one to Mickey.

“Only drink what you need,” said Pester.  “There’s not much drinking water along the way.”

Mickey nodded and took a small sip of water.  He swished it around his mouth before swallowing.  He offered the bottle back to Pester who indicated that he should keep it.  Mickey slipped the bottle into one of the pockets of his Army store combat jacket.

“What
were
all those bones I saw back there?” Mickey pointed back the way they had just walked.

“The remnants of more of those who gave up before they’d even started,” Pester replied. “Plus one or two who just got unlucky.”

“Do a lot of people come this way?” said Mickey.

“Oh, aye,” the guide replied.  “There are always plenty of people passing this way – it’s one of the start points.  That’s why the animals wait around here; it’s easy pickings for them.”

Mickey stared back into the darkness, too shocked to speak.  It hadn’t occurred to him that he was just part of the flow of the dead.  Another layer of sediment settled on his mind.

“Do you want to talk about anything else?” Pester asked when Mickey had been silent for several minutes.

“Such as?” said Mickey.  Now that he’d rested and been fed Mickey began to feel defensive.  He didn’t know what was really happening to him.  He wanted answers but he didn’t want to start pouring his heart out to this stranger.

Pester shrugged.  “Anything.  You must have hundreds of questions about what happened today, where you are and what’ll happen from now on.  You’ve probably got a lot of mixed emotions about your situation as well.”

“You mean the fact that I’m fucking dead,” snapped Mickey.  “Helped here by you, if I remember right.”  He remembered Pester in his guise as a fake paramedic and how he had turned off the drip in Mickey’s arm.

“You couldn’t be saved,” said Pester flatly.  “It was your time to die.”

“So you thought you’d help me along?”

“You could look at it that way,” said Pester.  “I don’t normally get involved with the living side.  But I was told to make sure that you got over here quickly and safely, and then make sure that you completed your journey.”

Mickey pondered what he’d been told.  “What normally happens then?”

“When someone dies they arrive over here, at one of the start points, like you did.  They’re met by a guide, like me, and go on their way.”

“So why would you be sent after me?” Mickey asked.

“No idea,” said Pester.  “We don’t get told things like that.”

“Who by?”

“Those in charge.”

Mickey accepted the answer without question.  He could tell he wouldn’t get any more from Pester on the subject.  But he also got a sense that Pester was holding something back.  Maybe be was even lying.

“So who was the other guy?” said Mickey.  “The one with the sunglasses.”

“Ah, that was Mr. Jolly,” said Pester.  “He’s like me.  He’s a guide, but his job is to persuade people to take a different route; to a far more unpleasant destination.”

“Why would anyone take up with him if they end up worse off?”

Pester laughed.  “He can be very persuasive, our Mr. Jolly.  But he doesn’t tell them the truth about where they’re going.  He was waiting at the hospital to try to catch you.  He won’t have taken too kindly to the fact that I got to you first.”

“It was some kind of race to get to me, was it?”  Mickey said.

“In a way, aye, it was,” said Pester.  “It looks like we were both told to get you get over here and help you on your way.  Now that you’re over here with me, Mr. Jolly will do what he can to get to you.”

Mickey’s smile was grim and humourless.  “Well, as I’m already dead, he can’t use that threat against me.”

“Don’t be so sure of yourself,” said Pester.  “Aye, you’re dead – but you can still be killed over here.”

Mickey didn’t have a clue what Pester was talking about.  He just stared at the guide.

Pester explained.  “If you lose an arm here, it stays off.  The limb won’t grow back.  If you lose your head your body will lie where it falls.  It’ll rot and decay but your mind will linger on unaffected.”

“What about cuts and bruises?” said Mickey.

“Nothing heals over here,” Pester replied.  Your body is dead.  While it stays intact it’ll be ok.  Any injury will start to fester though.  Eventually your body will fail and your mind would be stuck where you lie.”

“Great,” said Mickey.  He thought things over for a few seconds.  “Thanks for the warning.  So, what are you and this Mr. Jolly?  Angels or Devils?”

“Do you believe in God then?” said Pester.

“No way,” Mickey replied.  He almost spat the words out.

“So why do you use those names then?”

“
Dunno
,” said Mickey.  “I guess it’s just words to show the difference between good
and evil.”

“Hmm,” mused Pester.  “You’re pretty close with the good and evil idea between Mr. Jolly and me.  But do you know which one of the two you’re with?”  He gave out a low chuckle that made Mickey shudder.

When Mickey didn’t offer an answer, Pester continued talking, “You say that you don’t believe in God.  Why not?”

Mickey thought his answer through before replying, “When I was at school we were taught that God is good.  If that’s true then I’m fucked if I know what good is.  No God that was good and loved his people would have allowed my Mum to suffer the way she did.”

“You don’t think there was a purpose behind it?” said Pester.  He threw another stick on the fire and watched Mickey’s expression by the growing firelight.

“Mum always used to tell me that everything happens for a reason,” Mickey replied.  “I can’t see any reason for what she had to put up with though.”

“Was your Ma a religious person?”  Pester poked at the fire to spread the embers
around.  The fire grabbed greedily at fresh twigs and branches, the flames leaping in joy at the treat.

Mickey enjoyed the increased warmth from the fire and the opportunity to talk about his Mum, even though it hurt him.

“Yeah,” he replied.  “She was very religious.  Mum would go to Church as often as she could.  He didn’t like her going though.  Sometimes he’d stop her from going.  She told me that she prayed for me every time she went.  When he left us she went to Church whenever she wanted to.”

Pester wondered if he could see moistness in Mickey’s eyes.  Maybe so or maybe it was just a trick of the light.

Mickey’s voice seemed thicker when he spoke again.

“Mum said that she needed to pray for me a lot.  She said that I was a good boy but my soul needed all the help she could give it.  I just laughed at her and told her that I could look after myself.  I believed that there was nothing after we were dead, so my soul was ok.”  He looked around him into the impenetrable darkness.  “I guess I was wrong about that.”

You were wrong on quite a few counts, thought Pester.  He thought about enlightening the young traveller about a few of these.  It was late though and Pester wanted them to cover as many miles as possible the following day.  Putting Mickey straight could wait for another time.  He should have enough opportunities to fill Mickey in with all the things that he needed to know.

Pester watched Mickey for a while.  The young man seemed to be lost in thought.  He also looked exhausted.  No more talk tonight then.  Let the boy sleep.  Tomorrow was likely to be long and testing.  Pester was encouraged by how well Mickey had handled the events of the day so far.  He’d seen far worse from people in the past.  There was always the possibility that Mickey might have a delayed reaction.  Pester was sure that there would be some kind of
outburst.  There nearly always was.  He preferred the histrionics to happen and be over with early on.  It was out of the way and dealt with then.  He found it was always more difficult if someone lost their heads a few days into the journey.  The further they’d gone the worst the consequences were if the traveller fell off the rails.  It usually happened when one of the inevitable obstacles presented itself.

People always found it tough to cope when they made an association between the fact that they had left the mortal realm but still had trials to face in this one before their final journey could be completed.

Sometimes Pester was able to help the traveller to calm down and find a way forward.  For those that he couldn’t well, he never really knew what happened to them after that.  Pester suspected that the difficulties just multiplied for people after they left him.  He’d lost
quite a few this way.  None of them would have completed their journeys.  It was possible that some were still wandering around in the wastelands beyond this valley.  It was more likely that they would have become prey to some of the beasts that prowled around the starting points. 

For others though, their journeys would end when the realisation of the magnitude of what lay before them became too much to bear.  For these the end would come when they simply sat down and waited.  Hunger would overcome them and their bodies would fail and decay.  Their minds would be trapped in the shells of their bodies.  When the flesh had atrophied and only bones remained, the mind would still be constant.  Though he didn’t really care for his charges, Pester had an element of sympathy for some of these – especially those who had battled bravely but ultimately found the challenge too much.

There were stretches of the path ahead that had many such shrines dotted along them, like cairns along a mountain path.  Pester had been guide to some of these and took time to pay a little respect to those he knew who had tried their best and failed.

Something roused Mickey during the night.  He was surprised that he’d fallen asleep at all, even though he was exhausted.  In the distance Mickey could hear the growling of the beasties, as Pester had called them.  They still sounded hungry but seemed to be some way off and so didn’t unduly bother Mickey.  He thought of his Mum, alone at home.  Someone would have told her by now.  She would probably have been to see his body.  He wondered if she’d been able to get to sleep.  He felt guilty that he’d fallen asleep when she was probably lying awake trying to come to terms with what had happened.  Tears welled up in Mickey’s eyes and spilled down his cheeks.  They were still flowing when sleep crept up un-noticed and reclaimed him.