The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (38 page)

 
“Yes, what will you do? The fame that I never had is surely yours.”

  
“Fame?”

  
“Yes,” Dee smiled at him, “fame, fortune, an endless supply of plaint goth
girls, all yours when you unveil the machine.”

  
“I…I don’t want any of that. I like our group, doing good things, I don’t want
newspaper or television or…” he stopped, because the goth girls were certainly
tempting.

  
“I’ve been informed that you’ve had brushes with death yourself, all of you,
and have only really been saved from my fate by luck.”

  
Nazir raised an eyebrow. Luck was surely overstating it.

  
“But we have done so much good,” Joe defended.

  
“I understand, but my point… be careful, if you must risk your life don’t die
without taking steps to ensure the machine lives on. Don’t let this knowledge
be lost to the world once more. And for goodness sake, give the machine a
name.”

  
Joe nodded. “It has to be the Scott Machine after the man who invented it.”

  
“My brother,” Pohl added proudly.

  
“Excellent, a start at least, the Scott Machine.”

  
“Doctor Buckley, my article will make sure you and Doctor Fazackerly live on.”

  
“I fear it is too late for my own fame. Tell my story, but allow Joe and Pohl’s
sibling to claim the fame of invention. Now, Emily would like you to stay for
tea.”

  
“I’ve cooked some special scones for you all.”

  
“We can be persuaded.”

  
“So, it turns out to Doe a Deer is to fuck it.”

  
Dee groaned at Nazir’s comment, and replied “have you been reading Urban
Dictionary again or do we need to call the RSPCA?”

  
“Who are they?”

  
“They’re like the police, but for animals.”

  
“I once fucked a bloke so hairy he might have been a werewolf, would that
count?”

  
“Eww, and no.”

  
Dee caught sight of Pohl’s face from the reflection on the windshield, and
there was a definite raised eyebrow, so Dee pulled her phone out and composed a
hurried text. She sat in the back of the car, next to Nazir, Joe was driving
and Pohl was passenger.

  
Nazir’s phone beeped and he found a message… from Dee.

  
“I’m not sure joking about sex is going to cheer Joe up.”

  
Nazir texted back, and a silent conversation ensued. “No, it probably isn’t,
unless you offer to suck him off.”

  
“I’d break the poor boy.”

  
“You and me both. But we’re trying to cheer him up here, surely a good bit of
banter will help?”

  
“If us teasing each other could achieve that it would have worked by now.”

  
Nazir paused, looked over at Joe’s face in the wing mirror, and went back to
his phone. 

  
“You’re sure he’s getting depressed and isn’t just having a shit week?”

  
“Yes. He’s been miserable ever since he and I had a talk and I shut the door on
him.” New message. “I’m worried, I really am, he seems to have sunk into a
trough, and we need to bring him out of it.”

  
“I appreciate all that, but is going hunting for a missing schoolgirl really
the most cheerful thing?”

  
“It’s a distraction.”

  
“A zoo is a distraction, we could have gone to see Pandas.”

  
“Mmm, good idea. But it’s a chance to do good, to remind him he has a role.”

  
“I think he just wants a roll with you.”

  
“Ha fucking ha.”

  
“Tell you what, if this doesn’t work, let’s take him out sharking.”

  
“I have a boyfriend thank you.”

  
“It’s officially boyfriend now?”

  
“Yes. He’s left some slippers at my flat.”

  
“How terribly middle class.”

  
“We can’t all be illegal immigrants.”

  
“What do you think the Anglo-Saxons were?”

  
“Err, red hair, Celtic!”

  
“Alright, but you don’t have to pull. We just need to give Joe some tips.”

  
“I want to cheer him up, not rebuild him.”

  
“We could hire a hooker.”

  
“I think my plan is more likely.”

  
“You do realise that if looking for a probably dead kid cheers Joe up it makes
all of us really sick fucking people?”

  
“Excuse me while I rofl.”

  
“My spell check recognised fucking.”

  
“Well that figures.”

  
“Do you think everyone else is getting suspicious?”

  
“Probably thinks you’re talking to Maquire and me to a boy toy.”

  
“Perfect cover. Which reminds me, I do have to text him.”

  
“Let’s ask his opinion on this novel therapy shall we?”

  
“Go blow a goat.”

  
“On the plus side, it’s not raining,” Nazir said as they crested a hill.

  
“I’d take some rain about now,” Dee said, pulling her sun hat down further on
her head  and hoping the factor fifty she’d almost put on with a trowel was
stopping her from burning.

  
The English countryside stretched out ahead of them, dropping then rising, with
a road cutting across ahead of them and woodland behind. It would have been
idyllic if it wasn’t for the structure to the right. Decaying bricks were
covered by ivy, the fence was overgrown with weeds, wooden panels covered some
windows but others were smashed apart. It was a stain on the landscape, and a
perfect place for someone to hide or get injured.

  
“What is it?” Joe asked.

  
Dee looked at her phone. “An old asylum.”

  
“Spooooky” Nazir tried.

  
“Maybe at night,” Joe said as they turned to walk towards it. He had the
machine in a rucksack, and the earpiece in so he could leave it constantly open
for ghosts, and every so often he’d quietly asked “have you see a girl pass
this way?” So far things were going well, and two ghosts had pointed the group
in the right direction. Hopes were high as they found a way into the asylum’s
grounds.

  
In theory the lower windows and doors had been boarded up, but someone before
them had wrenched the wood off a door and the group were able to get inside,
using their torches to light the way. They found a building that loved long
corridors, rooms with threatening locks on the outside, piles of rubbish, the
remains of small fires and animals, and a basic mess. What they did not find as
they went room to room was a blonde girl of five foot height.

  
Joe was the first up the steps to the second floor, and he heard a voice in his
ear “who are you?” It was quiet;, full of intrigue and surprise.

  
“I’m Joe,” he said, “who are you?”

  
“I’m Polly. I…I suppose you know what I am.”

  
“A ghost.”

  
“Yes,” she sounded ever so sad, “a ghost. And you can talk to me? How?”

  
“I have a machine in this bag I helped invent.”

  
“Ah, clever!” The spirit seemed proud.

  
By now the other three had arrived. “Got one?” Nazir asked.

  
“A young lady. Were you kept here?”

  
“Yes and no,” Polly replied.

  
“How do you mean?”

  
“I was the warden’s daughter. So I wasn’t considered sick, but I was forced to
live here.”

  
“But no one locked you away.”

  
“From the hands of the staff? Oh yes. Why are you here?”

  
“We’re looking for a missing girl. Five foot, blonde hair, possibly wearing
uniform.”

  
“There was someone like that earlier today. Went out the main gate and left
down the road.”

  
“Thank you!” Joe said.

  
“But you’ve got to promise me something?”

  
“Yes?”

  
“You’ll come back and speak to me. Just you, back here.”

  
“It’s an hour’s drive.”

  
“So?”

  
He smiled. “Okay, okay.”

  
The group worked their way through the countryside until they came to an old
bridge which crossed a river. They stopped on it to take a drink of the water
they’d brought with them, and not for the first time wished this girl had gone
missing where they could have brought the car easily and not into rural
England. Then some snack bars were produced, chocolate being left at home
because of the heat, and as they stood chatting, the earpiece silent, they
heard a cough.

  
All four looked around, but there wasn’t anyone in front or behind them on the
road, or visible in fields to either side.

  
“Somebody coughed” Dee mouthed, and everyone nodded their heads.

  
“Billy Goats Gruff,” mouthed Pohl.

  
“What?” they all said.

   
“Billy Goats Gruff,” Pohl mouthed again.

  
“What the fuck are you saying?” Dee asked.

  
The Professor pointed down, and the group used an overgrown path to wind down
under the bridge. There was a river running along, and there a young blonde
girl was sat, now looking at them afraid.

  
It took twenty minutes to convince the girl to stand and come back with them,
to convince her she didn’t have to run away, twenty minutes before the group
were satisfied they’d succeeded and found a living girl and not a shade doomed
to stay under the bridge. Then they’d made a call, and a car came along to
collect them.

  
Their return as all conquering heroes was delayed by giving statements to the
police, and then Dee led them to the bar for a full evening’s drinking. Joe,
however, said he had a headache and would have a sleep in one of the pub’s
rooms. But he didn’t sleep, he sneaked out, took his car, and drove to the
asylum. Soon he was inside, armed with just the machine and a torch. He didn’t
bother with the earpiece.

  
“You came back!”

  
“Yes,” and Joe smiled at her excitement, “you can rely on me.”

  
“Excellent, excellent!”

  
“Why did you just want me?” he asked.

  
“I saw something in you. That you’d understand.”

  
“In my soul?”

  
“No, your face.”

  
“Oh, I see, thanks. Are you alone here?”

  
“Yes,” now she sounded sad again. “Just me, no one living or dead ever comes.”

  
“No one else died here?”

  
“They did, but all went. Just me.”

  
“Do you mind if I ask how you died?”

  
“I was sick. They should have put me in a room.”

  
“What?”

  
“My mind failed. Where there was once joy, there was darkness. Where there was
once hope, only despair. I lost my energy, lost my ability to think straight…“

  
“I know how you feel,” Joe said. “I get that a lot these days.” 

  
“…So I took a piece of rope and hanged myself.”

  
“You… killed yourself?”

  
“Yes. Surprisingly easy.”

  
“And do you, still…”

  
“Not really. Being dead is different, energy is different. Now I just get so
lonely. So very lonely. And I missed out on courting and families.”

  
“I also know how that feels.”

  
“Tell me about you Joe? Tell me.”

  
“Not much to tell. I trained as a scientist, qualified, passed all the
interviews to get onto a project, became a key member, helped make a ground
breaking scientific discovery, now help do good, and I feel so fucking alon...”
He stopped short. He hadn’t meant to say that. Had meant to say literally
anything else but reveal those emotions to this stranger. But he began to feel
he could say anything to Polly.

  
“You don’t have a girlfriend?”

  
“No.”

  
“Not the lady who was with you?”

  
“Dee? I had a crush on her for ages, but she’s not interested. Told me so, and
that’s Dee for you, she’d tell you. So no hope there.”

  
“Still looking then.”

  
“You could say.”

  
“And you also get this… this darkness?”

  
“Yes. It comes over me and I retreat, like a cloud spreading into my mind, and
it’s all I can do in public not to curl into a ball.”

  
“But you do in private?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Family?”

  
“My parents are alive, but they moved to the South of France like a cliché. My
sister is doing well, but... five years younger with a husband and two kids.”

  
“But you made a groundbreaking discovery!”

  
The attempt did not cheer Joe up. “I’d give it all up to find someone like me.
Who, well, likes me.”

  
“I understand. Can you stay here long?”

  
“I should probably only stay an hour.”

  
“How long have we had?”

  
“Really not long at all.”

  
“Good. Then what would you like to talk about?”

  
Joe wasn’t sure what was a good topic between a man and a dead young woman, but
he thought his favourite subject might help. “You’ve never heard of Doctor Who
then?”

  
“Doctor…yes, the old man who travels through space? Is that still going?”

  
“Oh yes.”

  
“He must be long dead.”

  
“They change the actor, and the character ‘regenerates’.”

  
“I can tell from your voice you love this.”

  
“It is one of the few things I get pleasure from these days. Although there’s a
lot of episodes I can’t watch now.”

  
“Why?”

  
“They remind me of Dee.”

  
“Ah, Her.” She didn’t need to say any more to convey her displeasure. “I
suppose she has a boyfriend?”

  
“A policeman.”

  
“Women love a man in uniform.”

  
“Not you?”

  
“The orderlies wore uniform. I don’t need any more of that in my life.” A pause
as she thought, then decided. “Joe, I want you to promise me, that however our
talk goes in the next fifty minutes that you’ll come back. I don’t want to make
a friend for one night, I want to see you again.”