A Living Nightmare (20 page)

The footsteps stopped when they rounded the bend and saw me. For a long, terrible moment there was complete silence. Then Dad and Mom rushed forward and picked me up.

"Darren!" Mom screamed, clutching me to her chest.

"Let go, Angie," Dad shouted, prying me free and laying me down on the grass.

"What's wrong with him, Dermot?" Mom wailed.

"I don't know. He must have fallen." Dad stood and gazed up at my open bedroom window. I could see his hands flexing into fists.

"He's not moving," Mom said calmly, then grabbed me and shook me fiercely. "He's not moving!" she screamed. "He's not moving. He's …"

Dad once again eased her hands away. He beckoned our neighbor over and handed Mom to him. "Take her inside," he said softly. "Call for an ambulance. I'll stay here and look after Darren."

"Is he … dead?" our neighbor asked. Mom moaned loudly when he said it and buried her face in her hands.

Dad shook his head softly. "No," he said, giving Mom's shoulder a light squeeze. "He's just paralyzed, like his friend was."

Mom lowered her hands. "Like Steve?" she asked half-hopefully.

"Yes." Dad smiled. "And he'll snap out of it like Steve. Now go call for help, okay?"

Mom nodded, then hurried away with our neighbor. Dad held his smile until she was out of sight, then bent over me, checked my eyes, and felt my wrist for a pulse. When he found no sign of life, he laid me back down, brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes, then did something I'd never expected to see.

He started to cry.

And that was how I came to enter a new, miserable phase of my life, namely
death
.

I
T DIDN'T TAKE THE DOCTORS
long to pronounce their verdict. They couldn't find any breath or pulse or movement. It was an open-and-shut case as far as they were concerned.

The worst thing was knowing what was going on around me. I wished that I'd asked Mr. Crepsley to give me another potion, which could have put me to sleep. It was terrible, hearing Mom and Dad crying, Annie screaming for me to come back.

Friends of the family began arriving after a couple of hours, the cue for more sobbing and moans.

I'd have loved to avoid this. I would have rather run away with Mr. Crepsley in the middle of the night, but he'd told me that wasn't possible.

"If you run away," he'd said, "they would follow. There would be posters up everywhere, pictures in the papers and with the police. We would know no peace."

Faking my death was the only way. If they thought I was dead, I'd be free. Nobody comes searching for a dead person.

Now, as I heard the sadness, I cursed both Mr. Crepsley and myself. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have put them through this.

Still, looking on the bright side, at least this would be the end of it. They were sad, and would be for some time, but they would get over it eventually (I hoped). If I'd run away, the misery could have lasted forever: they might have lived the rest of their lives hoping I'd come back, searching, believing I would one day return.

The undertaker arrived and cleared the room of visitors. He and a nurse undressed me and examined my body. Some of my senses were returning and I could feel his cold hands prodding and poking me.

"He's in excellent condition," he said softly to the nurse. "Firm, fresh, and unmarked. I'll have very little to do with this one. Just some rouge to make him look a little redder around the cheeks."

He rolled up my eyelids. He was a chubby, happy-looking man. I was afraid he'd spot life in my eyes but he didn't. All he did was roll my head gently from side to side, which made the broken bones in my neck creak.

"So fragile a creature is man," he sighed, then went ahead with the rest of the examination.

They took me back home that night and laid me in the living room on a long table with a large cloth spread across it, so people could come and say goodbye.

It was weird, hearing all those people discussing me as though I weren't there, talking about my life and what I'd been like as a baby and how fine a boy I was and what a good man I would have grown up to be if I'd lived.

What a shock they'd have gotten if I leaped up and shouted: "Boo!"

Time dragged. I don't think I can explain how boring it was to lie still for hours on end, unable to move or laugh or scratch my nose. I couldn't even stare at the ceiling because my eyes were shut!

I had to be careful as feelings returned to my body. Mr. Crepsley had told me this would happen, that tingles and itches would start, long before I fully recovered. I couldn't move, but if I'd made a real effort, I could have twitched a little, which might have given me away.

The itches nearly drove me crazy. I tried ignoring them but it was impossible. They were everywhere, scampering up and down my body like tiny spiders. They were worst around my head and neck, where the bones had snapped.

People finally began leaving. It must have been late, because soon the room was empty and totally silent. I lay there by myself for a time, enjoying the quiet.

And then I heard a noise.

The door to the room was opening, very slowly and very quietly.

Footsteps crossed the room and stopped by the table. My insides went cold, and it wasn't because of the potion. Who was here? For a moment I thought it might be Mr. Crepsley but he had no reason to come creeping into the house. We were set to meet at a later date.

Whoever it was, he or she was keeping very quiet. For a couple of minutes there was no sound at all.

Then I felt hands on my face.

He raised my eyelids and shined a small flashlight onto my pupils. The room was too dark for me to see who he was. He grunted, lowered the lids, then pried open my mouth and laid something on my tongue: it felt like a piece of thin paper but it had a strange, bitter taste.

After removing the object from my mouth, he picked up my hands and examined the fingertips. Next there was the sound of a camera taking photos.

Finally he stuck a sharp object it felt like a needle into me. He was careful not to prick me in places where I would bleed, and stayed away from my vital organs. My senses had partially returned, but not fully, so the needle didn't cause much pain.

After that, he left. I heard his footsteps crossing the room, as quietly as before, then the door opening and closing, and that was that. The visitor, whoever it had been, was gone, leaving me puzzled and a little bit scared.

Early the next morning, Dad came in and sat with me. He spoke for a long time, telling me all the things he'd had planned for me, the college I would have gone to, the job he'd wanted for me. He cried a lot.

Toward the end, Mom came in and sat with him. They cried on each other's shoulders and tried to comfort themselves. They said they still had Annie and could maybe have another child or adopt one. At least it had been quick and I hadn't been in pain. And they would always have their memories.

I hated being the cause of so much hurt. I would have given anything in the world to spare them this.

There was a lot of activity later that day. A coffin was brought in and I was laid inside. A priest came and sat with the family and their friends. People streamed in and out of the room.

I heard Annie crying, begging me to stop fooling and sit up. It would have been much easier if they'd taken her away, but I guess they didn't want her to grow up feeling they'd robbed her of her chance to say good-bye to her brother.

Finally, the lid was placed on the coffin and screwed into place. I was lifted off the table and led out to the hearse. We drove slowly to church, where I couldn't hear much of what was being said. Then, with Mass out of the way, they carried me to the graveyard, where I could hear every word of the priest's speech and the sobs and moans of the mourners.

And then they buried me.

A
LL SOUNDS FADED AWAY AS
they lowered me down the dark, dank hole. There was a jolt when the coffin hit bottom, then the rainlike sound of the first hand-fuls of soil being tossed upon the lid.

There was a long silence after that, until the grave diggers began shoveling the earth back into the grave.

The first few shovelfuls fell like bricks. The heavy dull thuds shook the coffin. As the grave filled and earth piled up between me and the topside world, the sounds of the living grew softer, until finally they were only faraway muffles.

At the end there were faint pounding noises, as they patted the mound of earth flat.

And then complete silence.

I lay in the quiet darkness, listening to the earth settle, imagining the sound of worms crawling toward me through the dirt. I'd thought it would be scary but it was actually quite peaceful. I felt safe down here, protected from the world.

I spent the time thinking about the last few weeks, the flyer for the freak show, the strange force that had made me close my eyes and reach blindly for the ticket, my first glimpse of the dark theater, the cool balcony where I had watched Steve talking with Mr. Crepsley.

There were so many important moments. If I'd missed the ticket, I wouldn't be here. If I hadn't gone to the show, I wouldn't be here. If I hadn't stuck around to see what Steve was up to, I wouldn't be here. If I hadn't stolen Madam Octa, I wouldn't be here. If I'd said no to Mr. Crepsley's offer, I wouldn't be here.

A world of "ifs," but it made no difference. What was done was done. If I could go back in time …

But I couldn't. The past was behind me. The best thing now would be to stop looking over my shoulder. It was time to forget the past and look to the present and future.

As the hours passed, movement returned. It came to my fingers first, which curled into fists, then slipped from my chest, where they had been crossed by the undertaker. I flexed them several times, slowly, working the itches out of my palms.

My eyes opened next but that wasn't much good. Open or closed, it was all the same down here: perfect darkness.

The feelings brought pain. My back ached from where I'd fallen out of the window. My lungs, and heart having been out of the habit of beating hurt. My legs were cramped, my neck was stiff. The only part of me that escaped the pain was my right big toe!

It was when I started breathing that I began to worry about the air in the coffin. Mr. Crepsley had said I could survive for up to a week in my coma-like state. I didn't need to eat or use the toilet or breathe. But now that my breath was back, I became aware of the small amount of air and how quickly I was using it up.

I didn't panic. Panic would make me gasp and use more air. I remained calm and breathed softly. Lay as still as I could: movement makes you breathe more.

I had no way of knowing the time. I tried counting inside my head but kept losing track of the numbers and having to go back and start over.

I sang silent songs to myself and told stories beneath my breath. I wished they'd buried me with a TV or a radio, but I guess there's not much call for such items among the dead.

Finally, after what seemed like several centuries stacked one on top of the other, the sounds of digging reached my ears.

He dug quicker than any human, so fast it seemed he wasn't digging at all, but rather sucking the soil out. He reached me in what must have been record time, less than fifteen minutes. As far as I was concerned, it wasn't a moment too soon.

He knocked three times on the coffin lid, then started unscrewing it. It took a couple of minutes, then he threw the lid wide open and I found myself staring up at the most beautiful night sky I had ever seen.

I took a deep breath and sat up, coughing. It was a fairly dark night but after spending so much time underground it seemed bright as day to me.

"Are you all right?" Mr. Crepsley asked.

"I feel dead tired." I grinned weakly.

He smiled at the joke. "Stand up so I can examine you," he said. I winced as I stood: I had pins and needles all over. He ran his fingers lightly up my back, then over my front. "You were lucky," he said. "No broken bones. Just a bit of bruising, which will die down after a couple of days."

He pulled himself up out of the grave, then reached down and gave me a hand up. I was still pretty stiff and sore.