The Dead Ones (Death Herself Book 3) Read online

  “No,” Josh says firmly.

  Dad sighs.

  “We agreed to wait,” Josh continues, with a hint of panic in his voice, “and we have to stick to that. Bonnie's in there somewhere, I know it. She's going to wake up eventually.” He sits back down and takes my comatose body's hand again. “Sometimes I think she squeezes,” he adds. “Not a lot, and I know the doctors and nurses think I'm insane, but I swear I've felt it once or twice. It's like she's trying to give me a sign.”

  “I'm right here,” I tell him, starting to panic as I realize that there seems to be a vast gulf between us. “Make him see me!” I shout, turning to Hannah.

  “I can't,” she replies.

  “Then why did you bring me here?” I ask. “Just to torture me?”

  “I'll give you a minute or two,” she says, turning and heading out of the room. “Let me know when you've finished being so emotional.”

  Stepping back, I watch as Dad takes a seat on the other side of the bed. I want to scream, to somehow force them to notice me, but I feel completely powerless. They're talking calmly, keeping their voices down a little, while my body rests between them.

  “I'm here!” I shout, before trying to grab the bed. No matter how hard I try, however, I just can't seem to make the damn thing move. Finally I hurry to the door and into the corridor, where I find Hannah waiting by the stairwell.

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “I told you -”

  “I know,” I reply, interrupting her, “you're fixing something that went wrong, but it's more than that, isn't it?” I wait for her to say something, but from the look in her eyes I can tell that she's holding back. “I'm not special,” I continue. “I'm just an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. People die every day, do they all get a visit from you, trying to save them and put them back into their bodies?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Then why me?” I ask. “Assuming for one moment that you're real, why do I get to see you when millions of other people don't?”

  “It's complicated.”

  “Tell me!”

  “You just have to trust me,” she says firmly. “I get it, you're freaked out, and frankly you're holding yourself together way better than I expected. Some people would have lost their minds by this point, but you just need to trust me and do what I say.”

  “So you've got a plan?”

  “I'm working on one.”

  “And the first step was to bring me here so I can see my father and my boyfriend moping next to my hospital bed? So I can hear my own father suggesting that maybe they should switch the machine off and let me die?” Again I wait for an explanation, but again she says silent. A moment later, I see my father and Josh coming out of my room, heading to the vending machine at the far end of the corridor. “None of this makes sense,” I add finally, taking a step back. “If you want someone to trust you, you need to give them a little something in return first. A sign that they're worthy of that trust. Right now, I guess it doesn't matter whether you're real or not, because you clearly can't actually do anything to help.”

  She sighs. “Bonnie, you're in shock, you -”

  “I'm out of here!” I tell her, turning and pushing the doors open. Maybe this is a mistake, but I feel as if my head is churning and I just need to go somewhere and think for a moment. I hurry to the top of the stairs, but when I look down I immediately freeze as I see Mr. Dyson down below, heading up this way. Backing away slowly, I make my way into the corridor again. “He's here,” I stammer, as I feel my heart pounding in my chest. “Hannah -”

  Turning, I realize that there's no sign of her. My father and Josh are still at the vending machine, but Hannah seems to have disappeared. Hurrying to the door to my room, I peer through and see to my shock that the bed is empty.

  “Huh?” I whisper, before making my way along the corridor and looking around the next corner, just in time to see Hannah hurrying through a set of double-doors, carrying my comatose body in her arms.

  “I'm just saying that we need to think about what's best for Bonnie,” my father says as he and Joe wander past. “If she's in pain, do we have the right to prolong her life with machines? She's my little girl and I can't stand to think of her suffering.”

  “Wait up!” I shout, running along the corridor and barreling through the doors. Reaching the top of another stairwell, I look down and see Hannah carrying my body down to the lower floors. “What the hell are you doing?” I call out, racing down after her.

  “You asked why we were here,” she replies. “This is why. I knew Dyson would show up soon.”

  “Why did he come?” I ask.

  “Think about it. Now he knows time is running out, he wants you dead as soon as possible. He was probably going to smother you in your hospital bed. He's getting desperate.”

  “But...” I look at my prone, comatose body for a moment as it rests in her arms. “Is this safe? Won't she... I mean, won't I die if you just carry her out like this?”

  She kicks opens the doors at the bottom of the stairwell and carries my body into the parking lot. In the process, however, she bangs my head against the side of the door.

  “Sorry,” she mutters, taking me out into the afternoon air. “Did you feel that?”

  “I don't know,” I reply, putting a hand on the side of my head as I realize I feel slightly woozy. “Maybe for a moment.”

  “You should be fine,” she explains, “at least for a while. The machines were there to monitor you, not to pump you full of drugs. We'll get you somewhere safe and then we'll come up with a proper plan. A better plan. Don't worry, I always think of something. I just need a little pressure to build up first, something to get the juices flowing.”

  “How much pressure do you think will be enough?” I ask. “I mean, there seems to be quite a lot already.”

  “Stop stressing,” she replies, hurrying between two parked cars, banging my head against one of them. “Sorry again.”

  “Can you -”

  My head hits the side of another car.

  “Careful!” I hiss, feeling a distinct ache. “Do you mind not bashing me to death while you're rescuing me?”

  “You're in a coma,” she replies as we reach the edge of the parking lot and she carries my body into the forest. “Maybe you should try complaining less. A few bumps might even do you good.” She glances back at me. “In fact -”

  Before she can finish, she trips on a tree-root and falls forward. My body spills out of her arms and crashes down into a pool of mud. Almost tripping over Hannah myself, I stop and stare down at my unconscious, mud-soaked body.

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  “This is why you shouldn't ask dumb questions,” she continues, taking a little more care this time as she starts to lift me from the mud. Dirty brown water dribbles from my hospital night-gown, and I can't help wincing even though I can't actually feel the mud right now. “I know a place where we can hide out,” Hannah continues, “at least for now. Dyson is going to be looking for us, and it won't take him long to come up with another plan.”

  “But you stared him down before,” I point out as we make our way through the forest. “He backed off when he saw you.”

  “That was just shock,” she replies. “I wish I could say I'll always have that effect, but I won't. He just wants to claim your ghost and then he'll move on, leaving this town forever. I'm not going to let him get what he's after, though. We have to find a way to get you back into this body.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” I ask.

  “I don't know,” she mutters, “but I'll think of something. Just try not to bug me to death first or -”

  Before she can finish, she bangs my head against one of the trees. When she turns to look, she bumps me against another. At the same time, I feel the start of a headache.

  “Sorry,” she says with a faint, force smile. “Come on, we have to get moving before Dyson finds us.”

  Chapter Sixteen

 
“There,” she says as she wipes matted, muddy hair from across my comatose body's face. “You'll be okay for a while.”

  We're in an abandoned old factory at the edge of town. I used to come here as a kid, with Debbie and Molly and a few other girls. We used to play dumb games to while away the hours, but that all feels so long ago now. Even Malcolm came down with us occasionally, back in the days when he was just my older brother rather than a mass-murdering psychopath. He's gone now, and so's Molly.

  “How's the plan coming along?” I ask.

  Hannah gets to her feet and steps past me, but she doesn't reply.

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Not so much,” she mutters.

  I wait for her to continue, but she remains quiet, lost in thought. I guess I was hoping that she'd miraculously come up with a way for us to get out of this mess, whereas she seems to be merely stalling for time.

  “Won't they notice I'm gone?” I continue, staring at my body on the floor. I can see my chest rising and falling as I breathe, but other than that my body is completely motionless and unresponsive. “At the hospital, I mean.”

  “Totally,” she replies. “People can see me, remember? When they check the security cameras, they'll see me running out of the building with you in my arms. I'm sure the police are hunting for us both by now, but I had no choice.” She starts examining an old workbench in the corner, wiping dust from the surface. “If I'd left you there, Dyson would have killed you by now, and then there'd be nothing to stop him claiming your ghost.”

  I watch as she takes a look at some old tools. Despite all her outward confidence, I can't shake the feeling that Hannah is definitely hiding something from me.

  “This wasn't supposed to happen,” she says finally.

  “No kidding,” I mutter. “Stealing a body from a hospital is -”

  “Not that,” she snaps, glancing at me with guilty, pained eyes. “The whole thing. The shooting, everything, the whole goddamn mess.”

  “But...” Pausing, I start to realize what she means. “You were supposed to stop it?”

  She shakes her head. “I wasn't supposed to. In fact, I'm very much not supposed to interfere. The people I work with, or at least the people I used to work with, are strictly opposed to the idea of messing around in human affairs. But when I realized what your brother and his friend were planning, and when I looked ahead and saw how many people would die, and how many more would suffer... How many lives would be destroyed...” She takes a look at a rusty old wrench for a moment, as if she's trying to distract herself. “I thought I could break the rules,” she continues, with a hint of deep regret in her voice. “I waltzed into town, the way I always do, and I told myself I could somehow talk your brother and his friend Jonathan out of what they were planning. I knew it'd be messy, but I figured I'd muddle through. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way.”

  “How did you know what they were planning?” I ask.

  “Traumatic events like the shooting...” She pauses. “They echo through the world and through reality, in every direction. It wasn't hard to figure things out, but I thought I could stop them. I've never failed before, not really, not at something so important.” She sets the wrench down and now there are tears in her eyes, although she quickly sniffs them back. “I came to town about a week before the shooting happened. I started talking to Malcolm and Jonathan, trying to subtly steer them away from their plan. I listened to them for hours, all their boring self-righteous justifications for hating society, and eventually I started to realize it wouldn't be as easy as I'd expected. By the end, only they could see me. I was at the school with them when they burst into the cafeteria, I was screaming at them to stop but...”

  Her voice trails off, and after a moment she wipes her eyes on her sleeve.

  “I failed,” she adds finally.

  “No, you -”

  “I did!” she hisses, as anger fills her voice for a moment.

  I shake my head.

  “I tried to stop them,” she continues firmly, “and I failed.”

  “That doesn't mean it's your fault,” I point out. “Believe me, I've been through mental contortions trying to blame anyone but my brother for what happened that day. Eventually I realized that for whatever reason, he made a conscious decision to take guns to the school. Each time he shot someone, he made the choice to pull the trigger.” I pause, thinking back yet again to the horrors I witnessed in the cafeteria. Sometimes I feel as if the sound of echoing gunfire has never really left my thoughts since that day. “Unless you're saying that something had taken control of him,” I continue, starting to feel a ray of hope. “Is that what happened? Did some kind of monster manipulate Malcolm and Jonathan into carrying out the shooting?”

  She turns to me, and I can see the sadness in her eyes.

  “That would explain it!” I continue, as the sense of hope blossoms in my chest. “I knew Malcolm wasn't like that, I knew there had to be something else that -”

  “Bonnie -”

  “This Dyson creature made him shoot those people!”

  “Bonnie, listen -”

  “It's so obvious now!” I stammer, relieved to finally understand why my brother would do such an awful thing. “Dyson must have reached into his head and forced him to do it all!”

  “No,” Hannah says firmly.

  “But it's the only explanation!”

  “It's not,” she continues. “Bonnie, Dyson didn't cause the shooting. He was attracted here by the stench of death, but he didn't influence Malcolm or his friend to do what they did.”

  “Then...” Pausing, I realize that the hope is starting to fade. With tears in my eyes, I try to think of some other answer. “Then why did Malcolm do it?” I ask finally.

  “I honestly don't know,” she replies. “Anger, I guess. Or pain. Humiliation. A mixture of all those things and more.”

  “Everything thinks he was evil,” I whisper, sniffing back more tears.

  “No human is truly evil,” she mutters. “Twisted, maybe. Able to contort their minds until they believe black is white and right is wrong? Sure. But I've never met an evil human, not in all my travels.”

  I open my mouth to reply to her, before another shock of realization hits me. “Jonathan was shot early,” I tell her, “which means... Malcolm must have been the one who shot me. I ran to the door, and then he... My own brother.”

  “Maybe he didn't realize it was you until too late,” she suggests.

  I feel a sense of hollow anger in my chest as I imagine him pulling the trigger, hitting me in the back. “He killed Mom,” I say finally. “Why wouldn't he try to kill me too?”

  “Everything about that day was human,” Hannah replies after a moment. “Dyson only showed up to feed on the aftermath, but the shooting was a very human event. I don't know exactly what caused your brother and his friend to do it, but I know that I tried to stop them and I failed.”

  I want to tell her to stop blaming herself, but I'm too shocked to get the words out. My own brother tried to murder me.

  “I let my ego get too big,” Hannah continues. “It never seriously occurred to me that I wouldn't find some way to break the rules, to stop the shooting. And then finally I ended up standing in that cafeteria, surrounded by so many dead kids, and I realized I'd screwed up. After that I went away for a while. I had to be alone. Maybe that was selfish of me, but I was in shock. It took a long time before I realized that I should come back, that I needed to deal with everything that happened next. And then when I got here a few weeks ago, I immediately sensed that another type of entity had come to leech off the misery in this town.”

  “You mean Dyson?”

  She nods.

  “He has some kind of creature with him,” I continue. “I don't know what it is, but Dyson doesn't burn the ghosts himself. The creature does it for him.”

  She nods again. “The creature is called a Flesh Weaver. They're usually very peaceful, very noble animals, but Dyson has managed to
enslave one. They live in the depths of the Underworld, working with the Loom People, and it's very rare for one to be seen out and about like this. Unfortunately, Dyson has found some way to enslave one of the poor things. The Flesh Weaver burns the bodies and passes the souls on to Dyson, because otherwise Dyson would have to spend much longer on each one. He's a typical addict, really. He needs more and more hits, and he needs them faster. A place like this town, following the massacre at the school, is his perfect hunting ground.”

  “But nothing happened until yesterday,” I point out. “Why did he wait until my brother had been executed?”

  “He needed to take your brother's soul first,” she explains, heading over to the dirty, cracked window and peering out for a moment. “There are certain rules about this kind of thing.” She pauses again. “This has gone too far. I should have stopped it.”

  “You can't always -”

  “Yes I can!” she shouts, turning to me with anger in her eyes. “I should have stopped it all!”

  “But you said it's against the rules.”

  “So?”

  “So maybe there was nothing you could have done,” I continue. “Believe me, I tried to work out what I could have done to stop Malcolm, and it took a long time before I realized there was nothing. Literally, there was no way I could have anticipated what my brother was planning.”

  “Of course you couldn't do anything,” she sneers. “You're just a kid. You're just mortal.”

  “Well -”

  “I'm more than that!” she yells, grabbing the edge of a nearby bench and tipping it over, sending the tools clattering across the concrete floor. She takes a deep breath, as if she's shocked by her own momentary burst of anger. “I'm so much more than that,” she adds breathlessly. “I can change things that happen right in front of me. I can banish demons, I can keep people alive, I can see into the future. I have all this power, so when I fail at something, it's not because of my own limitations, it's because I screwed up! It's because I got so accustomed to saving the day, I forgot to be careful.”

  I wait for her to continue, but she puts her head in her hands, and after a moment I realize she might actually be crying.