Dead Romantic (34 page)

 

 

 

 

T
wo doors down, in a hospital bed, lay my best friend Zoe. She looked just terrible. Her face was a sweaty, sooty black and both her hands were bandaged up. Her eyes were closed.

‘She's on a lot of painkillers so you might not get much sense out of her,' said the doctor. ‘I'll be just down the hall.' And she gave me an awkward smile and left.

I tiptoed over to the bed. ‘Zoe? Zoe? It's me, Camille.'

‘I am awake, you know, there's no need to creep around.' Her voice was croaky and she coughed when she'd finished speaking. She opened her eyes and they were still huge, blue and starey like before, unmistakeably Zoe amid all the soot. ‘Might not get much sense out of her, huh,'
she scoffed. ‘I'd like to hear some sense coming out of her mouth once in a while instead of hearing what happened in the last instalment of
Celebrity Scrapheap
.'

I laughed. ‘It's good sometimes, that. They have to dig around in some really bad rubbish and finds things to make . . .'

‘I. Don't. Care,' she said tiredly but smiled at me at the same time.

‘Sorry.'

I was so pleased to see her. I wanted to hug her and didn't care if she wouldn't hug back. I flung myself on her and she
oomphed
and laughed, coughing again. ‘Sorry,' I said, pulling away. ‘I told the doctor you could stay with us. Until you're better. I can help you.'

She stared at me.

‘You can't say no. She said you will need help because of your hands.'

She still stared at me.

‘It won't be a problem. My mum and dad will be cool. It'll be fine; don't worry. You could spend Christmas with us. Like . . . a sister or something, I don't know. I've always wanted to open my stocking with a sister.' I blushed, realising that had sounded better inside my brain where it probably should have stayed.
Damn you, brain
.

‘A sister?' she said. ‘You'd really want me to stay?'

‘Yes!' I cried. ‘Zoe, you've given me everything I ever wanted: a pet, a boyfriend – a true friend. I know we're not alike and I'm not as clever as you . . .'

‘I'd like that,' she said. And she smiled and blinked away a little tear which I pretended not to see.

I got a little over-excited. ‘We could even double-date if you got to like Damian. We could be, like, Z-amian and Cam-ouis.'

‘Steady on now.'
Cough cough.

I dragged a chair to the side of the bed and stroked her bandaged hand, doing the windscreen-wiper thing cos people did that in hospitals. And when they wanted to show people how much they meant to them. I don't think she could feel it through her bandages though.

‘Ow,' she said, looking down at my stroking fingers.

I took them away. ‘Oh sorry,' I said, biting my lip. ‘So you're pretty burned then? How are you feeling? How did you get out of the gym before it blew? What happened? Did you try and get the tank out first? Is that why you wouldn't leave?'

‘Which question would you like me to answer first?' she croaked with a cough.

‘I don't know,' I laughed. ‘How are you feeling?'

She coughed again. ‘Burnt.'

‘How did you get out of the gym?'

‘I grabbed a crash mat from the store room and got the back doors open just in time. I rather think that crash mat saved my life.'

‘Where's You-Know-Who?'

The fire was in her eyes again; the same fire that had been there at the start, when she'd been describing how we would collect up all the pieces and put him together. And then she was smiling. ‘I have absolutely no idea.'

I frowned. ‘What happened to him then? The doctor said there was no one else in the building. Did you get
him out of the gym before it blew?'

‘I didn't get him out, no. There was nothing left of him in that building.'

‘Oh,' I said.

She stared across to the window. The sun had risen fully now and it was a clear blue sky outside. ‘He's gone, Camille.'

I frowned. ‘Gone where? You mean, he burned to d . . . ?' How can something that was never alive burn to death? He must have burned to no-chance-of-life-ever, I guessed. It was my turn to stare at her. I remembered the photos of her mum and dad at her house. Another person leaving for her to deal with. Another death. A re-death of her father. The little girl would always be alone now. A bubble of sadness popped in my neck. ‘At least we tried. I can ask Louis if we could have some kind of funeral for him. A private one. Just us, yeah? We'll arrange everything.'

‘Louis is . . . good for you, Camille,' she said, with a yawn. ‘I knew it that day on the bus when I shouted at you. I knew how you felt about him before you did. You're tailor-made for each other. I was just afraid. Of losing my friend.'

I bit my lip. ‘Best friend,' I said. ‘I'll be a better friend to you than Sexy Dead Boy ever could have been. You'll see. I'll be your family now. Maybe it's a good thing that it didn't work.'

‘Oh it did work,' she mumbled. She turned her head back towards me.

‘What?'

‘It did work. He's alive, Camille. Sexy Dead Boy is very
much
alive
.' Her grin went wide. She was making the exact opposite face to me.

‘What? What do you mean, he's alive? You said he was dead.'

‘No, I didn't. I said there was nothing left of him in that building. While you three were running for the hills, Sexy Dead Boy sat bolt upright in the tank. It took him a time to get his bearings but once I'd untied the wire around his feet and hands, he was off. He stood. And then he walked. And then he ran. Through the back doors, across the playing fields and far away.'

My chest hurt. My head throbbed. ‘Are you sure? You're on a lot of painkillers, the doctor said . . .'

‘Yes, to reduce my pain, not addle my mind. I know what I saw. It worked, Camille. It actually worked!' The tear that had been threatening to fall from her eye finally dropped onto the pillow beside her head.

This was unbelievable. I couldn't imagine Sexy Dead Boy up and about. Walking. Running. Breathing. ‘Where did he go?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘And I'm powerless to go out and look for him in this state. I want you to go and find him.'

‘Find him?'

‘Yes. Find him and help him. He will be confused and afraid and he shouldn't be on his own at a time like this. I need you to find him and take him to my house and keep him there until I come out. You passed a locked room next to my Aunt Gwen's room when you were snooping, do you remember?'

‘Yeah,' I said, remembering that day I'd stolen SDB's head from her house.

‘Outside that room is a framed anatomical drawing of a lung. It's an original Castilho sketch; he was the Da Vinci of his day. On the top left-hand corner is a key. This key will unlock the locked room. He can go in there. I used to lock my father in there sometimes. On bad days. It's padded.'

‘You want me to go out on my own, find a mad walking dead bloke, go to your repossessed and probably locked house, break in, find the padded cell and lock him up?'

‘Yes. If you wouldn't mind. And he's not mad; he's unnerved. Scared. Confused. But if you could just be there for him, until I'm well again. You can dress him in those clothes you bought. That'll be nice, won't it?'

‘He's not a doll,' I said. ‘He's a human being now. A living, breathing man. He could be capable of anything.'

‘With a brain like his I imagine he would be. You're good at looking after people, Camille. This is where you really could shine for this experiment!'

My mouth wouldn't close. ‘But I don't even know where he is.'

‘My guess is he's gone down to the beach. Or the woods. Somewhere he once knew very well. He won't have gone far. Take Louis with you if you're concerned. He will help you, won't he?'

‘What, help me find my naked would-be boyfriend, capture him and lock him in a padded room? Yeah, I should think so,' I said, not knowing what else to say.

‘I wouldn't tell him that my father's brain is alive though, not just yet. I'm not sure he'd quite understand.'

‘No, okay,' I nodded, as the thought of Herbert West drifted back into my mind. And not just the thought that I didn't have to write that English essay any more, now that college had burned down.

One thing had uttered a nerve-shattering scream; another had risen violently, beaten us both to unconsciousness and run amuck . . .

He was out there, Sexy Dead Boy. He was out there somewhere in the town. Doing goodness knows what. Maybe whooping in a treetop. Maybe strangling pensioners. And starkers too. How on earth was I meant to catch him? Pin him down? Drag him all the way up the steep streets of Clairmont Hill and up the gravel drive into Zoe's house? Up the stairs? Into the padded room? I couldn't even coax my Jack Russell puppy down from a tree.

‘I'll try my best,' I said and turned to leave.

‘Camille,' said Zoe.

I turned back to look at her. ‘Yeah?'

‘Thank you.'

‘Lutwyche's BRAIN? You gave the thing Lutwyche's brain?'

So I told Louis when we were in the hospital car park waiting with Damian while he finished his cigarette. I didn't mean to. I just thought he ought to know. So he'd know what to expect.

‘Oh my god. There's a madman on the loose. He's
gonna be a madman, just like Loopy Lutwyche! You should have told us this, Camille. This changes everything.'

‘What do you mean, changes everything? It doesn't change
any
thing. I always knew that I would need to look after him once he came to life.'

I looked around the car park. Nothing but cars and wheelie bins and a strong midday sun beating down onto the concrete. Pee Wee was sniffing inside a chip box. But beyond that was the hills. And the woods. And somewhere, the human formerly known as Sexy Dead Boy. Now, I guessed, his name was Thomas, like Zoe's dad.

Louis walked up to me and held my wrists. ‘He's going to be off his head. Maybe dangerous. We really don't know what we're dealing with now.'

‘He won't be mad,' I said. ‘He might be scared though. We've got to go and find him and look after him.'

‘Camille, you should have said something . . .' He looked across at Damian. I looked at Damian too. ‘What do you think?'

Damian took one long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke out slowly through his nostrils like a dragon. ‘As I see it there's only one thing we can do.'

‘What?' said Louis.

‘What?' said I.

‘Kill it,' said Damian.

‘What?'

‘WHAT?'

‘Well, no one knows he exists except us four,' he explained. ‘Princess, you said the quack had no idea there was someone else in the gym, right?'

‘No, she didn't know anything about . . . '

‘Right, so the cops don't know about him. And Zoe's in no fit state to know what's good for her so I suggest we leave her out of it for now. And we go and find him. And we end it.'

‘Kill him?' said Louis. Pee Wee scurried over to him and hopped up and down by his boots to be picked up. ‘You can't just kill another human being, Dame.'

‘Oh look, we can all get happy-clappy and Friends-of-the-Earth about it later if you want but the fact remains that there is a dangerous dude on the loose and that is our fault. We're all to blame for whatever he does. And the right thing to do now is locate the target and frag it. End of.'

‘He's not a target, he's a real live boy and he's called Thomas!' I shrieked. ‘We've just spent the last I-don't-know-how-long putting him together. There's no way I can kill him. There's no way I can kill anything! And there's no WAY I'm going to stand by and let you kill him either. No wayski.'

‘We ain't got a choice, darlin',' said Damian, flicking his cigarette into a wheelie bin and lighting up another. ‘We don't know what Oliver Twisted's capable of, do we? He could be out there right now, tearing people limb from limb. Kids. Old dears. You really want that on your conscience?'

‘. . . or he could be crying somewhere or shivering underneath a bush or something,' I argued.

Damian shook his head as he took another long drag. ‘I say we finish the maniac before he gets started.'

‘No, I want to help him,' I said.

‘And how do you plan on doing that, princess? Reanimated psychos don't tend to go in for all that soulsearching rehab cobblers you've got in mind. The only language they understand is a shovel to the face. That's my kind of therapy.'

Louis laughed and then he stopped laughing when he saw my face.

‘Come on,' said Damian, looking straight at me. ‘You've read the books. And you've seen the movies.' He looked at Louis. ‘You know how this ends.'