The Things You Didn't See(2)
He turns on her, hisses, ‘No one asked you to come.’
Carl turns his moonlike face at her, smug. ‘Scared, are ya? Don’t worry, we’ll protect ya.’ He pulls aside his Red Sox bomber jacket, which makes him look like a fat cherry, and she sees a BB gun wedged into the belt of his jeans. Black and stubby, a lot of the boys on the base have them.
Jamie grins. The light of the torch makes his teeth glow, as he pulls something out: he has his air rifle.
Holly gasps, her heart pounces. ‘Jamie, you shouldn’t!’ He’s only allowed to shoot cans in the backyard when Dad is watching.
‘Shut the fuck up, Holly,’ he says, the glittering barrel moving wildly as he does. He reaches across to take the bottle from Carl, and she smells caramel. Carl has stolen whisky.
The boys take turns swigging from the bottle – even Ash gets a go – as they crouch behind the straw bales, watching the farmhouse. They’re tense, but as the minutes tick past, they fidget. Jamie starts messing with his gun, turning the safety catch off and on. Finally, they’re all still. The empty bottle rolls over to the chickens, who stalk away from it, alarmed.
Holly wants her bed. She closes her eyes.
‘Holy fuck, it’s the woman in white!’
She wakes, realises immediately she’s in the barn and shouldn’t be. There’s danger here. She needs to go home. This time, it’s Jamie who presses against her, swaying, voice both slurred and afraid. ‘Shut up, Holly, don’t fucking move,’ he orders, though she was doing neither. She couldn’t move or speak even if she wanted to.
In front of them is a pale shape, moving slowly towards the barn. Moving from side to side like a mechanical toy, face definitely human. Human, but with blank, dark eyes. A person, but absent, dressed in white.
‘I want Dad,’ she whines, her whole body shaking from stomach out. She’s going to be sick.
In a reflex action, Jamie pushes Holly behind him.
Slowly, mechanically, the ghost looks their way. It walks towards them like a zombie and Carl swears, lifts his BB gun onto the straw bale, but it slips from his sweaty grasp. Jamie’s shaking so much that it takes him three goes to release the safety catch. Ash pulls at the barrel – ‘No, Jamie, stop!’
Jamie ignores him, lines up the barrel so it’s pointing at the ghost, just as Ash lunges forward to stop him. Carl reacts too, and all three fight in the dark. The chickens fret and cluck, bustling around, as the ghostly shape moves closer.
Jamie fires the gun, she hears the crack, then the cry.
The ghost cries out, then moans as it falls to the ground. It isn’t real, Holly tells herself. I’ll wake up soon.
The ghost is on its side, clutching its chest, where white cotton is soaking red. The lights in the farmhouse flash on, bright white, and a gruff voice shouts, ‘Who’s out there? I’m callin’ the police!’
Jamie grabs her by the wrist, Carl follows, and they run from the barn. Back through the scrubby farmland, through the woods, not stopping until they’re safe within the fence of the airbase, hearts thumping, chests ready to burst.
They can hear the distant sound of an ambulance, coming closer.
It is only then that she realises Ash isn’t with them. He stayed behind.
1
HALLOWEEN, NOW
Holly
‘Oh, your poor face!’ Holly said, wincing, a hand to her own cheek.
‘Ja, stuff of nightmares, isn’t it?’ Leif grinned wickedly, turning to show how on one side he still had the unblemished face of a Swedish Viking, tough-jawed and roguishly handsome – the face that had persuaded her to agree to this date in the first place. But now the left side was scored white, raised like pulp, with red blood-like marks streaked through it. His eye had been taped down at the corner so the skin there looked burned.
It was only stage make-up, to team with the Freddy Krueger red-and black-striped top and fake-knife fingers, but as he touched her with the plastic tips, she felt heat burning her cheeks.
‘I’m actually a bit tired, Leif,’ she said desperately, wondering how she could get out of this date that no longer seemed such a good idea. ‘I’m working tomorrow anyway, so maybe it’s best if I cry off. We could do this another time, yeah?’
‘Did I say something wrong, Holly?’ His handsome face fell, his seafarer eyes suddenly solemn, but there was a glint there too, like a naughty puppy who knew his cuteness could allay any punishment. ‘It has surely taken me months to persuade you to give me a chance. And now I have made a mistake somehow?’
‘No, of course not . . .’ How to begin explaining? She simply couldn’t. ‘Just one drink then.’
Leif gave a playful ‘Hurrah!’ and took her hand, leading her along the communal balcony past the front doors of the flats, towards the concrete steps leading to street level.
The moon was a perfect disc of white, with more abstract light cast by glow sticks and torches. The streets were teeming with werewolves and witches, ghosts and vampires of all shapes and sizes, but it was Leif ’s disguise that Holly felt most sensitive towards. She had to stifle an urge to flinch every time she looked at him. Her own effort at a Halloween costume was pathetic. Thirty minutes ago, she’d been standing in front of her wardrobe, assessing her limited options. Eventually she’d picked out a plain black top and leggings, re-beaded her hair so it stuck up in tufts like ears, and marked her cheeks with kohl eyeliner to represent whiskers. As a final gesture, she’d pinned a thin velvet scarf to her bottom, hoping it would pass as a tail.