The Dead Have No Shadows (7 page)

“One of the boys pushed me over when they ran past me,” Mickey replied.  He could feel this going wrong rapidly and he couldn’t think of an easy way out.

There was a loud bang as a football hit the Headmaster’s window.  Mr.
Firman
jumped up from his chair and opened the offended window.

“You boys,” he bellowed.

There was a loud click and Mr
Firman
froze in mid-sentence.

“Hello Mickey,” said a voice to Mickey’s left.

Mickey jumped and spun round.  He hadn’t noticed anyone else come into the room with him – and Mr
Firman
hadn’t acknowledged anyone else.

“Who ... are ... you?” Mickey stammered.

“Let’s just say that I’m a friend,” the man replied.  “Will you answer me a couple of questions?”

“Why should I?”  Young Mickey instantly became guarded.  He didn’t like this stranger.  He’d got weird coloured eyes and a funny looking beard.

“I’m curious,” said Pester.  He offered a smile to help ease Mickey’s suspicions.  From the look on Mickey’s face Pester wasn’t convinced it had worked.

“What do you want to know?”  Young Mickey asked.  He edged away from the odd eyed questioner.

“Why did you hit the fat bastard?”

Mickey started at the question.  It caught him by complete surprise that this odd man would use swear words.  He was slightly impressed and felt a grin begin to grow on his face.

“Because he was picking on
Jonno
,” Young Mickey replied.

Pester raised his eyebrows.  As simple as that?  You fought a kid twice you size because he was picking on a kid that you don’t even know?”

“Yeah.”  Mickey’s answer was indignant.  “That fat bastard’s always picking on little kids.  It’s wrong.”

“That’s very deep and profound for a nine year old,” Pester observed.

It took a few seconds for the penny to drop with Mickey.

“How come you know how old I am?” he asked.

“It would take too long to explain and you wouldn’t believe me anyway,” said Pester.  “Now, get ready.  Put your hands behind your back.”

“What?”

“Hands.  Behind your back,” Pester waved impatiently.  “And make sure you’re looking at four-eyes over there – not at me.”

Young Mickey giggled but did as he was bid.  There was another loud click and the Headmaster came back to life.

Mr
Firman
finished berating the errant footballers then turned back to the boy on the other side of his desk.  He seemed to have lost his thread.  “Right,
er
, where was I?”

Mickey was quick to seize his opportunity.  “You said that I could go, Mr
Firman
.”

The Headmaster stared at the boy in front of him.  “Did I? Oh, well, in that case off you go then.”

Young Mickey wasted no time in leaving the Headmaster’s office.  He was followed by the elder Mickey and Pester.  Pester had become invisible to the boy again.

“Are you ok?” asked
Jonno
who had waited for him.

Mickey was confused.  Something had just happened but he couldn’t remember what.  He shrugged and just said, “Yeah.”  Then he pulled himself together a bit and added, “From now on, just let me do the talking.”

“So that was how you met your lifelong friend
Jonno
,” said Pester.  “A heart warming tale it was too.”

“Did I actually meet you then?” said Mickey, ignoring
Pester’s
sarcasm.  “I don’t remember that bit at all.”

“You wouldn’t,” laughed Pester.  “It only just happened.”

“What?”

Pester laughed again.  “Don’t worry about it.”

Pester and Mickey were standing in the playground.  All of the children were lined up at the top of the yard.  Playtime was over and the pupils were under inspection before going back inside for lessons.  The elder Mickey could see his younger self and
Jonno
in their separate respective class lines; both looking satisfied with themselves.  Two rows further back Hogg and Child wore completely different expressions.  The adult Mickey took an element of immature pleasure from the look on the two older boys’ faces.  Once the Headmaster’s review was complete the children were allowed to file back into their classrooms.

“It’s time for us to go as well,” said Pester.  He turned and walked towards the school exit.  Mickey watched the children going back into school then turned towards Pester.  There was something odd that Mickey couldn’t quite put his finger on.  He looked back at the children and then again at Pester.  No, whatever it was, it kept itself secret.  Mickey set off after Pester.

The rocky desert spread out before them; seeming to run on forever.  Mickey sighed and put a first foot forward to resume his journey.

“Why did you speak to the younger version of me back there?” Mickey asked.

“I wanted to know why you helped the boy,” Pester replied.  “I was curious about whether you got involved because you wanted to help or because the fat boy insulted you.”

“Like I said, it was the right thing to do,” said Mickey.

“Perhaps so,” mused Pester.  “But he still insulted you and you still reacted to it.  It shows a streak of temper in you.”

Mickey shot Pester a look but chose not to respond.

Eventually the scenery of dusty desert began to change.  The two men came across what would once have been a lush green meadow.  Though dead, the grass had been cropped short in places by a small flock of skinny free roaming sheep.  A shallow river had appeared from somewhere.  It would have looked picturesque if the trees and reeds that bounded the waterway weren’t dead.  Skeletal fingers from the willow branches reached down in desperate hope of touching the life giving water.

 “We can fill our water bottles in the river,” said Pester.

Mickey was still trying to work out where the river had come from as he followed Pester.

“We can take one of those sheep for some fresh meat,” he said, pointing towards a small flock in the distance.  “I take it they are real?”

“They’re real enough,” said Pester.  He’d led Mickey to a gravel bank, where it was easy to reach into the water, to fill their bottles.

“Those sheep belong to someone though.  But then I suppose sheep rustling is small time for a bank robber like you.”

Mickey ignored the taunt.  He was more interested in the fact that the sheep had an owner.

“Are you saying that people actually live here?  That doesn’t make sense.  I thought that this was a place of the dead.”

“It is a place of the dead,” Pester replied.  “The place is inhabited but no-one lives here.  Do you understand?  Everyone and everything is dead on this side.  Even those sheep that you want to eat are dead.”

“I don’t get it,” said Mickey.

“Don’t worry about it,” Pester told him.  “You’ll see what I mean soon enough.  And don’t concern yourself about getting meat.  I’m pretty sure you’ll be welcomed and well fed before too long.”

The prospect of meeting other people and getting a decent meal inside him thrilled and worried Mickey in fairly equal measure.  He wasn’t sure how he would react to seeing a group of other dead people; or how they would react to him.  It was only one day since he’d died and he still hadn’t got used to the idea.  That said Mickey was starving again.  He had quite a hunger for a corpse.

There wasn’t a path through the meadow but a small track wound along the river bank.  Mickey could almost be forgiven for thinking that he was back in the living world.  The only thing that spoilt the image was the lack of living creatures along the river.  There should have been fish in the river and dragonflies and other insects skimming over the margins.  Birds should have been feeding and nesting in the trees.  They were all conspicuous by their absence.

Mickey had rarely been to the countryside during his life and it occurred to him now just how much he’d missed.  It wasn’t too difficult to imagine fish in the rivers and birds in the trees.  Lush, verdant grass was easy to visualise – rather than the dead stunted clumps that looked reminiscent of the drought ridden areas of central Africa.  Though he was in a land of the dead, Mickey found this environment peaceful.  His Mum would have enjoyed seeing a place – a living place – like this.  Mickey’s father had never taken them anywhere when he’d been around and Mickey had never picked up the initiative after the vicious bastard had cleared off.  He regretted the missed opportunity.  It would have been good to see the smile on Mum’s face from a day in the country, or even at the seaside.

The mountains seemed a little lower now and though they still sported needle sharp crags, their slopes were dotted with a few bushes and trees.  They may have been the shades of what they had been in the living world but at least they gave the impression that something was trying to exist and not give up entirely.

As Mickey and Pester put the old school further behind them a cluster of buildings came into view.  More became visible as the two travellers got closer. 

“Is this an entire village?” Mickey asked.

“Almost,” Pester replied.  “I’ll let the villagers explain things when we get there.”

“How come the buildings are here?”

“A mudslide buried a large section of the village.  When that kind of thing happens the whole area comes over, buildings, fields, rivers, animals, as well as the people.”

Mickey was stunned to silence by the enormity of what must have happened.  He racked his brain for a memory of a major disaster like this.  The world had been full of bad news but a name finally came to him.

“Was this
Koprno
?”

Pester smiled and applauded the young traveller.  Mickey let out a low whistle.  This was getting weird again.

“Will they be ok with us?” Mickey asked.

Pester nodded.  “They’ll welcome you.”

“Me?  Why not you as well?  Do they know you?”

“They used to know me,” Pester replied.  “I was the guide for the village when they came across.  They decided that they weren’t ready to take their journeys and refused to move on.  When that kind of thing happens the association between the guide and the traveller is broken and the guide stops being visible to them.”

“So I’ll be on my own in there,” said Mickey.

“No,” said Pester.  “I’ll be with you.  The villagers might have forgotten that you’ll have a guide.  So it’s best if you’re careful about how you talk to me.  They might think you’ve gone round the twist if they see you talking to yourself.”

“Sounds creepy to me.” Mickey shuddered.  “I take it this is another encounter for me and you recommend that I’m a good boy and just get on with it?”

Pester shook his head.  “No.  This place is always here in the valley.  Everyone who comes this way sees it and can just walk past if they want to.”

“Really?” Mickey made no attempt to hide his surprise.  “I thought everything had been planned out for me.”

“A lot has,” Pester conceded.  “Some could well be spontaneous; based on what you do as we go along.  This ... This is just a choice.”

“Will not going in affect what happens later?”  Mickey was beginning to understand how things worked over here.

“Don’t know,” said Pester.  “It may just mean you get to the end earlier and avoid something else.  On the other hand it could mean you don’t pick something up that would have been useful later on.”