The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1)
Read The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) Online
Authors: Robert Wilde
The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living
By Robert H Wilde
Book One of The Dead Speak
Contents
Dedicated to
Jonathan Wilde.
Everyone is an
ark.
Thanks
to Sarah Sharp.
Cover
by The Cover Collection.
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.
You didn’t have to be six years old to find the rain scary, especially not the
way it was hammering off the windscreen, so the little girl and her father were
equally worried. Her, in case the pounding water would smash right through the
glass and into her body, he, in case he skidded on the road and crashed into
something hard, such as the forest to his right. But there had been no question
of skipping this trip, the one they’d both made every month for four years, the
trip to see their mother and wife. Many men had regular meetings with the
mother of their children, but the lead in his heart was because they were
visiting a grave, and for her these trips to a small grass oblong, with a small
stone oblong at one end, were all she knew of her mother. Nothing stopped their
visits, nothing, not even a storm of this…
Something happened and the car skipped to a halt as brakes squealed. It took a
few moments for him to realise his ears had heard a titanic noise and his whole
body had contracted in fright, training making one of his feet stick out to
stop the car. It took another for him to turn to the forest and see a light
through the trees, some sort of fire maybe burning despite the rain.
“What’s happened?” she whispered, having shrunk back into her seat, having
never heard anything like that, so loud, like something huge tearing through
something equally sized, like a building ripping apart.
Her father paused, looked at the forest, made the mental calculation that
people might be in danger and he was the first on the scene, then turned and
explained “Dee, I need you to be brave for me, okay. Something’s happened, and
your dad’s got to go and help. But you need to stay here, with your phone,” and
the pink, cat shaped rucksack was pulled through from the front seat, “I need
you to stay here and wait until I come back.”
Dee nodded, proud to be considered a big girl who could do what her father
said, and she felt him kiss her on the forehead, and saw him disappear into the
rain. Then she was alone, so she undid her straps, pulled herself through into
the front seat, and decided it would be okay to turn on the radio. In a few
seconds she had music, although she didn’t recognise the band, or even if that
really counted as music, so she sat where had dad had been, the seat still
warm, and looked out of the window at the rain and the forest and the fires
within. How long would Daddy be? Would a fire engine come soon? Ooh, yes, that
would be good.
Dee sat, growing colder, the desire to wee getting stronger, and hoped more and
more that her father would return back so they could go home. Then she began to
debate leaving the car to wee at the edge of the forest, which dad wouldn’t
like, but which he’d prefer to her wetting herself. Big girls didn’t wet
themselves.
Finally she saw something moving, and pushed the car’s door open. The blurred
black shape soon became her father, as he was moving at speed, and he looked
wet, bedraggled, and had red smeared on his face. Then he was with her, pushing
her back, talking at speed, saying words and phrases she didn’t understand, but
picking up on his panic. Then there was a noise behind him, he turned, and…
Stevens considered it babysitting, just fucking babysitting, which wasn’t
entirely baseless as he was tasked with escorting a seven year old girl around
and writing up the reports. Quite how he’d been given this job he didn’t know,
it wasn’t like he’d blown an assignment or let the Prime Minister’s daughter
get touched up or anything, but here he was, sitting outside a third state
approved psychiatrist, waiting for the ‘expert’ and the girl to finish. He
looked down at the magazine he’d taken from a pile in the waiting room, and
concluded if he never saw a ‘celebrity’ gossip rag again in his entire life
he’d consider it well lived.
Finally the door opened, so Stevens stood and nipped over. The girl sat on a
chair, her red hair tied back, her skin looking more sickly than pale, her face
deeply unhappy. She always looked the same after these things, which might be a
good sign depending on your priorities, and the psychiatrist came out and shut
the door.
“Well?” Stevens asked.
“I’m not sure what you expect me to find, this girl has seen three people like
me already, and all three have drawn the same conclusions.”
Stevens felt the man was fishing for explanations, and while he wasn’t going to
get those, indeed Stevens didn’t have them to give, he could get partway. “This
girl witnesses, or most probably witnessed, something of grave importance. We
have to make absolutely sure we’re making the right conclusions.”
“An event of… magnitude.”
“Yes.” A friendly pause, then a not so friendly “and?”
“Well sir, I’m afraid to report that the girl has no memory of those events.
She remembers getting into the car at her mother’s grave, and remembers being
driven away in a police car, but as to the death of her father, what happened,
anything at all, she has none of it. I can assure you, she’s not pretending,
this girl does not remember.”
Stevens smiled inside. The psychiatrist had got the wrong end of it. Had missed
the main problem. So Stevens had to ask. “Are the memories in her head? Will
she ever be able to remember them?”
“If she saw it, if she was conscious, then yes, the memories are locked away.
Something that affected her so badly she’s buried them deep inside. As to
whether they’ll come back, maybe with years of therapy something could be
extracted, but you’d have to be careful that ideas weren’t being embedded. You
may never really know if you’d found them or if she was fantasising.”
“So there’s a chance.”
“Slim; the mind is an odd thing.”
Stevens closed his eyes. Four experts, all in agreement that little Dee wasn’t
going to remember, and if she did she’d never know if she was remembering
right. That might be enough. Just enough to let her go.
20
Years Later
An alarm barked a harsh digital signal for eight seconds before a groaning was
followed by a hand thrusting out from beneath a duvet, stabbing the off button,
and then retreating. Silence reigned for twenty further seconds, before the duvet
was thrown off with protest and the sleeping figure sat up on the bed, rubbing
her eyes and groaning once more. Opening her heavy lids in the dull light, Dee
looked disheartened into the mirror opposite her, and saw her tangled hair,
worn out t-shirt, and still pale legs.
“Another fucking day,” she complained to no one, not even a cat, then sighed,
and forced herself up. Her first port of call was the bathroom, where she went
to the toilet, spent scant minutes under the shower, and then opened the door
to the room’s cabinet. Inside was a cavalcade of pill bottles, prescribed over
the many years by a range of experts, all for something supposedly wrong with
her.
She knew what was wrong with her, but there was no pill to open your memories.
Yet.
Deciding to reject medicine once more she dressed herself in leggings, skirt
and jumper, dried her hair and combed it straight and, having grown bored of
getting ready, decided to check her phone. An old model, but dependable, and it
certainly coped with being dropped all the time. Well, she thought, not all the
time. But she’d been right initially.
Low and behold, she’d had a missed call, her boss seemingly aware of whenever
she was showering, morning or night. But there was a message, so she dutifully
listened to it while bounding down the stairs.
“Dee, I’ve got an article for you. There’s this laboratory, or science
installation, or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now, they want to do a PR
piece, show the world they’re not a bunch of animal killing freaks or what have
you. Actually, don’t think they do animals, just some shit too weird for me.
But perfect for you.” Dee paused, hand on her fridge, and scowled. They always
gave her the odd jobs as if she was an odd person. Bastards. But the details
came next, and Dee scribbled them down before assessing her chance of a decent
breakfast. There was some cider, a pork pie, and a lot of empty space.
Coffee and pie it was then, so she dropped them on the table, switched the
radio on, and pondered whether she was getting old because this music didn’t
seem as good as it used to be.
Jesus she sounded… well, like she imagined her Dad would have sounded if he’d
still been alive. She did a lot of imagining that.
More sighing, but at least the pie was fine, and the coffee was miraculously
good too. Measuring exact amounts of anything was not in Dee’s character unless
she was trying to impress, and there was no one like that here.
Then it was time to get up, grab a coat, and enter the wide world of bullshit.
A lab, how weird could that be? She was hardly going to get bitten by a spider
and develop fun powers.
An alarm played out the theme from a well-known science fiction programme –the
Doctor Who music never had lyrics so it was eminently suitable - and a figure
rose immediately from beneath the sheets, sitting on the side of the bed and
shaking his head clear before he reluctantly turned the music off. Sweet music.
He looked round his room, with everything where he’d both put it and expected
to find it, and considered what lay ahead for him: the lab was getting close to
a breakthrough, and he’d be putting in more long hours. But if, no, when it
worked it would be amazing… Energised he snapped himself upright and went in
the bathroom. Shedding his smart blue pyjamas he washed, dried, and opened the
cabinet door. Inside was the bane of his life, his contact lenses, but after
months of torture he’d decided he had enough, so he slammed the door shut, went
back to his bedroom, and put on his good, trusty spectacles. Then he dressed
smart casual and checked his phone… ah, he’d missed a call. He listened to the
message as he went downstairs to check the fridge.
“Hello Joseph, Doctor Monroe here. I know you’re busy, but I’ve negotiated
taking you away from the project for the morning.” Joe felt suddenly sad. “I
have been cultivating some press contacts, and a local paper have agreed to
send one of their journalists to write a piece on us. I feel this is a chance
to put our case to the local public, and really convey there’s nothing odd or
weird about what we do here. Get them on our side, so to speak. And, to be
frank Joe, you’re the most normal member of staff, so I’d like you to speak to
the writer, give them a tour, make them feel like we’re on frontiers, but happy
frontiers. See you soon.”
Joe considered this as he looked in his fridge. On the one hand social
interaction wasn’t his strongest suit, on the other it was always good to have
the man in charge of the whole complex singling you out for special work. And
he only had to talk about what they did, how hard could that be? Oh, and he had
some sausages left over from left night.
A hot pork sandwich was soon prepared, and Joe ate while listening to Radio 4.
Did this mean he was getting old? Probably. Then it was time for the rows of
pill bottles, all filled with vitamins and minerals which would boost his
immune system and keep him fighting fit. Hmm, he thought, as he selected the
ones which matched how he felt that morning, as well as those he took every
day.
Then he was ready to get to the lab. A journalist. Hmm. He supposed they’d be
after radioactive spiders and that sort of thing. But he did have something
equally exciting to offer them.
Joe had purchased a cup of coffee and custom made lunch from a sandwich bar, a
place he could be induced to admit was his main source of social interaction
outside the lab. But was finding comfort in a barista wishing him a good day
really all that bad?
Okay, it was pretty bad wasn’t it, and that ate at his thoughts as he drove
into work. The radio, discussing a particularly fierce point of economic
difference between two people who needed to get out more than even Joe, passed
him by. But soon he’d waved at security, parked up, deposited his lunch in his
locker and dressed himself for battle. There was something special about
putting on that white coat that civilians would never understand. It made him
feel… catching himself before his brain finished ‘like a man’, Joe went to
Monroe’s office, was briefed more fully, and then went down to wait in the car
park because there was no reception, because there really weren’t ever any
visitors.
Soon a car Joe hadn’t seen before pulled up to reception, spoke to the man, was
finally allowed in the carpark, and a woman in her mid-twenties climbed out,
picked up a bag and looked around. Seeing her long red hair, fair skin and
bemused smile, Joe was rendered unable to move, and it was she who came up to
him and asked “hello, can you direct me to Doctor le Tissier’s office?”
She thinks I’ve got an office? It was all he could do to stick a hand out and
say ‘that’s me.”
“Oh, hi, I’m Dee Nettleship, I have an appointment with you.”
“You look just like…” and he once again caught himself, because saying ‘Amy
Pond, one of Doctor Who’s assistants’ would not have been the opening lines
Monroe envisaged. Instead he mumbled quickly “someone I used to know.” Quick,
think of something human and social to move things on… “Is Dee short for
Deborah?”
