The Stuff of Nightmares (30 page)

‘I don’t get it.’ I frowned.

‘If you don’t believe in anything outside yourself, then how can those things really affect you, how can they touch you? If you don’t believe in ghosts, one could be standing right in front of you and you’d never see it. To butcher a line from one of your mum’s favourite films – if you don’t have a dream, how will it ever come true?’ But he’d barely finished speaking before he began to fade out, like a shifting hologram.

‘Dad?
Dad!
’ I shouted.

He was back and solid again, but I could see the effort was wearing him out. His shoulders were slumped, his skin ashen, his eyes, oh, so tired.

‘Dad, are you all right?’

‘No. But I will be if you’ll believe me when I tell you that my death wasn’t your fault,’ said Dad.

Behind me Rachel began to slow-clap at my dad’s
words
. I turned in surprise. To be honest, I’d forgotten all about her.

‘Very touching,’ she told him.

‘You need to stay away from my son,’ Dad said quietly.

‘But we both know I can’t do that.’ Rachel shrugged.

The two of them watched each other, their eyes holding a silent conversation from which I was totally excluded.

‘Dad, this is Rachel. She’s been helping me.’

‘Kyle, helping you was the last thing she had on her mind.’ Dad spoke to me but his eyes never left Rachel.

‘You’re wrong. She’s the one who made it possible for me to hide inside my friends’ dreams.’

I looked at Rachel. That slight smile I knew so well tugged at her mouth. I turned to Dad. He looked at me and shook his head, and then I knew I’d got it totally wrong.

I looked from Rachel to Dad. ‘It’s
you
, not Rachel, who’s been helping me, isn’t it?’

‘It was the only thing I could think of until you could see me,’ said Dad.

‘But Rachel said we had to try and escape from you.’

‘Yes … Rachel …’ Something in the way Dad said her name sent a chill down my spine.

‘D’you know her?’ I asked.

‘We’ve met. Just once before this. Just once. But it was enough,’ Dad replied.

As I stared at Dad, it was like opening my eyes for the very first time. I finally realized what Dad was trying to tell me. Horrified, I stepped away from Rachel, backing up towards my dad. My eyes were drawn to her T-shirt again. The message on the shirt no longer seemed innocuous or intriguing. It had taken on a more sinister turn:

I didn’t need to ask her to take off her jacket so I could see the back of her T-shirt. What would be there? One simple, monosyllabic word or a hooded skull or a skeletal hand clutching a scythe or just an image of her face? I didn’t need to see the word or any of the images. I knew who she was now. Why hadn’t I figured it out sooner? I turned to my dad. I needed to look at something real now. Something recognizable.

Feeling like I was emerging from fog, I picked my way through the words.

‘So she …’ I turned to face Rachel. ‘You’re on this train … collecting …’ I couldn’t say any more.

Rachel smiled. ‘Of course. This crash is going to be called the miracle of the decade. A number of injuries but only one death. Imagine that. I only have one name on my list.’

Ice-cold pinpricks danced down my spine. I stared at her, horror-stricken. ‘My name …’ I realized.

‘Your name,’ Rachel confirmed.

I’d spent the last few months in a haze, wondering what was the point of carrying on? Now at last I had the answer. Life was the point. It was as simple and straightforward as that. But looking at Rachel, I began to recognize that maybe I’d learned that too late.

‘I’m not dead. How can you take me if I’m not dead?’

‘But you were supposed to die,’ said Dad from beside me. ‘I wanted you to hide out in your friends’ dreams until I could get to you, but she got to you first.’

‘Anthony, your attempts to stop me were so pathetic.’ Rachel grinned. ‘Hiding your son inside the dreams of others was a clever idea, I’ll give you that – until I found a way to use it to my advantage. But did you really think I wouldn’t find him?’

‘It slowed you down though,’ said Dad. ‘At least until Kyle was ready to see me.’

‘But you’re the one who took ages to appear …’
What
was Dad talking about? I was always ready to see him.

‘Kyle, I’ve always been here but you only saw what you expected to see. It was only when you were ready to face me that you saw me for who and what I truly am,’ said Dad.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘That’s the other reason I wanted you to live through the nightmares of some of your friends in this carriage, just for a little while …’ Dad began.

I considered his words, having to rethink all my conclusions again.

‘It was so that I could see I wasn’t alone …’ I realized slowly. ‘That, for whatever reason, everyone has fears they have to face sooner or later.’

Dad nodded. ‘Only it took longer than I anticipated and I had to let you jump into the nightmares of strangers. I just had to trust that you’d find your way out again.’

‘But Rachel kept encouraging me to stay inside the dreams,’ I said. ‘She said it was the only way to escape from you.’

‘Because if you made the decision not to come back, as long as each dream featured her in some way, then she’d still have you.’

‘Have me how?’

‘Your body would’ve still been on this train, but your mind … To all intents and purposes you would’ve been brain dead,’ Dad replied. ‘Rachel was more than willing to settle for that if she couldn’t have
all
of you. To everyone else your mind would be in a vegetative state and that’s the way you would’ve stayed until your heart finally ceased to beat.’

Horrified and shaking, I thought back. Apart from the first three dreams, which I’d inhabited before Rachel arrived in the carriage, the only two dreams where Rachel hadn’t joined me were Naima’s and Kendra’s. I got it now. As far as Rachel was concerned there was no point in visiting either. Naima’s dream didn’t feature Death because Naima was dead already. And no one died in Kendra’s dream because Mrs Guy was already a ghost. Rachel had obviously been able to sense whether or not her presence was required in each nightmare.

‘Kyle, Rachel was counting on you not wanting to confront one of your biggest fears,’ Dad told me.

‘Seeing you again …’ I understood now. ‘I thought that if I somehow ever saw you again, you’d blame me for your death.’

My fear of ghosts and shadows was all tied up with seeing Dad again.

‘You thought worse than that,’ said Dad quietly.

Yes, I did. Dad was right. In my deepest, wildest dreams, when I dared to imagine seeing my dad again, I always thought he’d either blame me for his death – or, even worse, thank me for it. He loved my mum. After she left I was convinced he didn’t love me. I felt like I ceased to exist for him. I’d never felt so alone in all my life.

‘I made a mistake, son,’ said Dad. ‘The biggest
mistake
of my life – because not only did it cost me my life, but it cost me you. I won’t rest – I
can’t
– until you believe that …’

‘Dad, I—’

‘This is all very moving but Kyle still has to come with me,’ said Rachel.

‘But I—’

‘Shush,’ Dad admonished. He turned to Rachel. ‘My son isn’t dead. You know the rules.’

‘Don’t quote the rules back at me. I know I don’t get his soul until he’s dead, but he would’ve been by now if you hadn’t interfered,’ Rachel hissed at him.

What did that mean?

‘Dad …?’

I followed Dad’s gaze to look up at the broken window above us. The helicopter was still hovering beneath a sky that was now more blue than grey. The rain had finally moved on.

‘I tried to escape out of there,’ I told Dad.

Even now a part of me wondered if I hadn’t made a mistake by not going for it. But even if I had made the wrong choice, I wasn’t sorry. At least by staying, I’d seen my dad.

‘D’you want to know what tomorrow’s news story would’ve been if you had tried to leave this train?’ asked Dad.

I wasn’t sure I did, but I nodded at the intense look on his face. He held out his empty hand. As I watched, a folded newspaper materialized in it. He handed it to me. I opened it and was stunned to see my last school
photograph
covering at least a quarter of the front page. Beneath my photo, I read:

Kyle Fitzwilliam, aged fourteen, died while trying to escape from the second carriage of the upturned train in yesterday’s train crash. Helicopter TV coverage dramatically caught the moment when the schoolboy clambered out onto the side of the train but, unable to keep his grip, slipped and fell to the pavement three storeys below. Kyle was killed instantly …

The newspaper print, then the newspaper itself, faded and disappeared from my hands. Shocked, I looked at Dad. He nodded.

My blood ran cold … I’d never really appreciated what that phrase meant before. But I knew now.

‘Enough of this. Kyle, you’re coming with me,’ said Rachel.

‘No, he’s not,’ Dad argued.

‘Let’s see about that, shall we?’ She laughed.

Right before my eyes, Rachel became less real, more insubstantial. She was now the ghost and Dad was the real thing. They’d swapped places. And inexplicably, the more shadowy she became, the easier it was to believe in her.

‘Dad, what’s she …?’

Dad was staring at Rachel, a puzzled look on his face. I don’t think he even heard me. But suddenly he turned to me, his brown eyes dark and wide with dismay. He grabbed hold of one of my hands
with
both of his, pulling me round to face him and away from Rachel. It was the first time since he’d arrived that he’d touched me. His hands were surprisingly warm.

‘Kyle, don’t look at her. Whatever you do, don’t look at her—’

Dad didn’t get any further. There came a whooshing sound, like all the winds of the world were suddenly howling around the carriage. A dense, icy mist surrounded my head, suffocating me with the stench of the dead and dying. I couldn’t get any air into my lungs and my heart was jack-hammering inside me. It felt like my whole head was burning up, but not from heat, from the intense cold. I tried to turn and look at Rachel. One of Dad’s hands came out to turn my head back to him, but his hand passed straight through me. He couldn’t stop me from turning round, but how I wished he had.

Death stood behind me and it was everything I’d ever imagined, every nightmare I’d ever had all rolled into one. This was a vision of Death worse than anything I’d ever imagined. A grey mist swirled around her … it, with a life of its own. I heard someone scream, a gut-wrenching sound of pure terror. It took a second or two to realize that it was me.

‘I love you, Kyle. And I’ll never leave you. Ever.’ Dad’s voice was light-years away. I couldn’t turn my horror-stricken gaze away from Death.

‘Kyle, I’ll always be with you … No matter what she says or does, you mustn’t …’

I heard nothing else. The icy-cold, swirling mist surrounding Death shot into my mouth and up my nose and through my eyes and into my ears. Screaming in agony, I scrunched my eyes shut and, pulling my hand away from Dad’s, tried to cover my ears. My whole head was being crushed in a vice and I’ve never felt pain like it.

‘Let’s take a look at your worst nightmare …’ Rachel’s voice echoed in my head.

I fell to my knees, knowing I was a fraction of a moment away from dying.

29

THE VERY NEXT
moment all the noise and the cold and the pain stopped. My heart howled in my chest. The memories of what I’d just been through echoed within me, but strangely that’s all it was, an echo. I opened my eyes slowly.

What on earth …?

I was back in my house, in my bedroom, lying on my bed. I sat up slowly, still disorientated. What was I doing back here? And how did I get here? Where was Dad? What was that mist which invaded my body and burned my insides like poisonous gas? Why was I back home? Swinging my legs off the bed, I stood up. Even though I recognized my bedroom at once, it still took more than a few seconds to get a handle on what was happening. I was definitely back home, that much was obvious. Back home and back in my room. That could only mean one thing. Dad must’ve battled Rachel for me. And he’d won. I was safe.

Safe.

… safe?

‘Mum?’ I left my room and headed for Mum and Dad’s … for Mum’s bedroom. She wasn’t there. I paused in the doorway. I hadn’t been in this room since Dad died. Not once. But for some inexplicable reason I wanted to go in now. One slow step followed another until I was in the centre of the room. I looked at the bed, which was neatly made with hardly a wrinkle in the duvet. After Mum left and while Dad was … around, it was never made, unless I did it. I turned towards the dressing table. It was covered with Mum’s skin-rejuvenating lotions and anti-wrinkle potions. The room smelled faintly of her floral perfume. There was nothing left of Dad. No aftershave, no men’s deodorant, not even his comb. I couldn’t see him in this room at all any more.

But I could see Mum.

It was strange but at that moment, standing in Mum’s bedroom, I could see Mum more clearly than I had for the past year. I realized that I’d stopped seeing her from the moment I stopped looking for her, on my birthday. I shook my head as I remembered Dad’s eager face, asking to see the card, the message, the
anything
I’d received from Mum. I’d hated myself for disappointing him – but I’d hated her more. The day of my birthday changed so many things. When Mum walked out, buried deep down inside me was the hope against hope that she’d come back by my birthday, maybe even come back
for
my birthday. I have to admit that, like Dad, I thought she’d be back, even if it was just for my sake. Every morning when I woke up
and
every afternoon when I came home from school, I looked for her.