Imprint

Imprint
             
Annmarie McQueen

Imprint

By Annmarie McQueen

Copyright @ 2011 Annmarie McQueen

All rights reserved

Please do not reproduce, lend or copy this work without the author’s express permission

Dedicated to all of my friends and family who have supported me,

And in particular Rosie who has stuck with this book from the very beginning.

Prologue

H
e found himself drawn to the black parade.

Maybe it was morbid to show interest at such a depressing event, but he couldn’t help
his odd fascination with
the way the men walked, one foot forward and then the other, all wearing those same black suits and grim expressions. They were like wind-up toy soldiers: uniform, with plastic faces and stony eyes, as if the fact that they were carrying a dead body on their shoulders didn’t even bother them.

Few
people had t
urned up for the funeral. He hadn’t expected them to,
because they’d tried to keep the incident co
vered up.
Even so the despair that festered in the air like an open wound was so strong it was almost tangible, a foul stench suffocating him.
He hated hearing people cry, seeing their
pathetic tears and sympathy
, but he had to watch. They were crying for
him
. If
he didn’t watch t
heir tears would be for nothing
. Did they really know anything about him
, though
? Did they care that that he couldn’t fe
el the sun on his skin anymore, or
laugh with the friends he’d left behind?
Sixty years worth of life
he’d never get to experience.
And right now, the only thing that felt real was the image of a young boy, unconscious in a hospital bed.

That image stayed, stamped into him.

The crowd massed around the casket like a flock of crows, and he stood among them, invisible.
He wondered if he should mourn his own untimely death as well, but decided against it. T
hat would be weird.
He
shouldn’t even be
here, watchin
g all these people paying their respects to him
.
He didn’t deserve respect. It was his own carelessness that had gotten him killed, and they shouldn’t be glorifying him as a hero he had never been.
Searching the crowd, he picked out faces and reminded himself of how he knew each person.
It all felt so far away
, but each name embedded irrevocably into his memory was the last line that tethered him to his old life.
He recognised the lady standing next to him, dabbing at her eyes discreetly with a tissue, to be his teacher.
Mrs. Blackburn
.
He sti
ll owed her a piece of homework;
it was sitting on his desk at home
probably growing mould,
but she would never get it now.

“What are you crying for?” he asked, knowing that she wo
uldn’t be able to hear
or see him. “You barely even knew me. I was just one of your students, the same as the twenty nine others in the class, and I never did anything for you.
In fact I was the one
who egged your car last Halloween. You shouldn’t care that I’m gone.
” He knew it was probably crazy, having a one-sided conversation like this, but it put things into perspective when he spoke out
loud
. “But then this is pretty crazy too, isn
’t it?
Here I am, watching my own damn funeral, and I’m asking
you
why you’re crying. I should be the one who’s sad, shouldn’t I?” He sighed. It was no use. He would never get an answer.

No clouds today. The sky,
a monotone sla
te, the
same
colour
as his
favourite pair of jeans
,
was
depressing. The weather was
utterly boring. He didn’t even deserve a dramatic clap of lightning
. It
was as though
despite everything he had given up, the world was still indifferent to him. Maybe the sky had a point though.
He was just an insignificant human being after all, nothing worth throwing a thunder storm over
. He could hardly muster the energy to feel
anger at the world for ignoring him, or any
emotional attachment to his dead body that would soon be underground. Why did it matter to him? It was nothing more than a shell,
just
an empty container past its use-
by date.

His parents were at the front of t
he crowd now, talking about
him, something he’d always despised
.
He’d managed to tune out all of the
priest’s prayers
. T
hat was okay,
he didn’t believe in god. But h
is mother’s voice was shaking
dangerously
and he caught phrases like “so brave,”, “he was everything to us,” and “we’re so proud of him.” It was one of those typical soppy eulogy s
peeches. He tried to tune that out as well
, because
he didn’t want to think about what he was leaving behind. Would they still be saying these things in five years time? Maybe instead they’d be trying to remember what colour his
eyes were
. He would fade out of their lives gradually, one body part at a time, like wood being sanded down to nothing.

They lowered the casket
into the grave once the speech was over. His
parents had requested specifically
that he be buried instead of cremated. It was sad though, that after everything he’d gone through and done and suffered for, he would end up forgotten in a hole in the ground. He tried to crush
the bitterness he felt because
he knew he had no right self-pi
t
ying. People died all the time. He needed to stop whining and suck it up.

“We now commit this body to the ground,” the Priest began in a solemn vo
ice, hollow like an empty room
. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.”

He scoffed at the irony.
“Eternal life?” he muttered
in derision
as he walked away. “You really have no idea.”

Chapter 1:
T
here’s a 60% chance you’re mad
already

“Smile.”
Click. Snap.
“Next.”

Sean Lane hated School Picture Day with a passion, which was strange for someone like him who rarely showed much interest in anything. As he slipped out of the uncomfortable chair and the next victim appeared, he wondered idly if anyone would notice if he took the rest of the day off. It felt like he hadn’t had a break in years.

He stopped outside the Main Hall, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms with a sigh.
‘This is such a drag’
he thought dryly. Ali had insisted that he wait for her, so that they could go back to Biology together. He didn’t understand the attraction in being escorted back to lessons. Couldn’t she just walk down the corridor to the classroom herself? Females, go figure. He tapped his foot impatiently, scanning the students that were scattered in the corridor. Many of them were small year sevens, th
e girls with ridiculous ankle-length skirts
. They seemed to multiply each year like a spreading infection. It was annoying how jubilant and chirpy they were, how naïve. What had happened to that sixth form authority they were supposed to have? Just last week he remembered being pushed out of the way – and nearly down the stairs – by a group of the little brats.

Finally, Ali appeared, chewing
on her lip and gripping her
bag protectively. “I don’t think it went very well,” she frowned, brown eyes darting to him anxiously. “I really hate picture days.
I always feel like they’re focusing on my giant forehead.
I’d rather just have the extra lesson instead.”

“I can imagine,” he drawl
ed, refraining from rolling his eyes in exasperation.

“Anyway, let’s go ba
ck to biology.
We’ve wasted enough time standing around here.”

“Do you always have to be so eager to get back to lessons?”

“Well,” she coc
ked an eyebrow. “I do have to learn for both of us
, after all.”

“I study,” he lied, defensive. “Most of the time. Sometimes. Okay, occasionally.”

“I think you’re using the term ‘occasionally’ pretty loosely there.”

“Have a little faith in me
.”

She sighed,
shaking her head
. “Are you coming or not? Because if not, then you can’t share my notes.” Sean knew it was no use trying to stall for anymore time.
Damn, he needed those notes, otherwise he would never graduate.
With a scowl, he followed her to the classroom.

They managed to make it just in time for a riveting lecture about metabolism, bursting through the door and causing the teacher to glare. However as they took their seats in the second row, Sean couldn’t help but feel slightly uneasy. It was a strange sensation and it felt like someone was watching him. Subconsciously, he glanced behind him only to see a group of girls whispering in the back row. Nothing unusual; it was just him and his overactive senses,
he concluded. He’d
had that feeling a lot lately, but maybe he just needed more sleep.

“Hey, Sean, are you okay?”

He quickly snapped out of his musings to meet a pair of worried, chestnut eyes. Ali was biting her lip again, small frown lines creasing her forehead and wisps of pale hair escaping to f
rame her face. S
he looked
kind of
cute when she was worried. Then he realised what he had just thought.
Cute?
He frowned. “Yeah, sure,” he murmured absently. She accepted the answer and returned her attention to her notes.

After that the lesson quickly declined into day-dreams, note passing and whispered conversation. Sometime during the ‘properties of fat cells’ he caught a muttered rumour about Laura Herthford and Daniel Johnson getting together. More relationships than usual were always started or e
nded on picture day. I
t was September; the start of a new year and of new beginnings. Maybe this year, he should try boosting his withering reputation a little. But socialising required work, and work required effort. Being slightly more popular probably wasn’t worth it anyway. He liked the freedom of doing whatever he wanted, and if he was around people too much he would get sick of them eventually.

He turned his attention back to the whiteboard and the droning teacher intending to put on an act of concentrating, but something caught his eye: the date hidden in the right corner of the board. It read 1
9/11/2005. That
wasn’t right. It was the first of September, not November, and also it was 2009. But there was something familiar about that date. There was a heavy feeling in his chest that he couldn’t place, as though he’d seen that date somewhere before, as if that date was somehow significant to him.

“Mrs. Blackburn,” he called, raising his hand and stopping the teacher mid-lecture. “I think you wrote the wrong date.”

The old lady stared at the whiteboard for a second, and then gave him a strange look. “What do you mean, Sean?” she asked. “Today is the first of September 2009.” Confused, he glanced back at
the date. But this time, it
definitely
read
01/09/2009.

“Sean.”

The voice came from nowhere. At first he thought Ali had spoken, but it sounded nothing like her. Blinking dazedly, he turned back to the teacher. “Sorry, did you say something?” he asked.

She shook her head, a worried look on her face. “No, I didn’t say anything. Are you feeling alright?”

“I have a headache,” he admitted, not really aware of what he was saying. “Can I go to the medical room?”