The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (40 page)

  
“Of course,” Polly said, who started to think. This was all so overwhelming she
didn’t know how to react, and was veering from joy to horror and back again.

  
Dee and Pohl were sat in their car, looking at the house from out of the
windows.

  
“Do you think he’s forgotten?” Pohl asked.

  
“I texted him before we left, he’s supposed to be ready and stood on the
pavement.”

  
At that moment the front door to Nazir’s house opened and two men emerged. One
was who they expected, the other a muscular black guy they’d never seen before.
After a brief hug, one walked away and Nazir came to the car window.

  
“You didn’t tell me you pulled!” Dee protested.

  
“If I texted you every time I got a shag I’d break my contract.”

  
“Don’t start on me, I’m getting fucked regularly now.”

  
“As you keep reminding me.”

  
“Well why the fuck not.”

  
“Are we surprising him with coffee?” Pohl asked.

  
“Oh yes,” Dee confirmed, “we’ll grab some liquids and some donuts, wake Joe up
and take him for a fun day out.”

  
“Your text message was wrong. It said you’d found a dinosaur themed crazy golf
course.”

  
“That is exactly what I said.”

  
“Toot toot!”

  
They arrived at Joe’s a short time later, knocked on the door, and shouted at
the windows. He opened them, and he found them grinning and bearing gifts.

  
“Are you here to cheer me up?”

  
“Oh yes.”

  
He shook his head. “Okay, come in, come in, and those better have chocolate.”

  
They went into the lounge while Joe dressed, then he came down took a bite.

  
“You look better today.” Pohl commented.

  
“Thanks. I feel… I feel happier. Now I know the future.”

  
“That’s excellent!”

  
“And you’ve not been back?” Dee asked.

  
“Has my car been back?” Joe returned.

  
“No it hasn’t,” Nazir confirmed.

  
“See!”

  
Something crashed in a different room, and everyone turned and looked.

  
“Must have fallen off a shelf,” Joe concluded. He wasn’t meeting Dee’s eye.

  
“Action figures?” Nazir asked, looking keen.

  
“No, no, just some, err, CDs and stuff.”

  
There was another crash, and Dee stood. “Sounds like you’ve got a problem.”

  
“No, no, nothing, it’s n…”

  
Dee looked at him and realised. “Something’s up.”

  
“No.”

  
“You’re worse at lying than a seventies TV presenter,” and she stormed out and
up the stairs.

  
“Dee!”

  
But there was another sound of something being pushed off a shelf and hitting
the floor, and Dee yanked the door open. Then she froze, but just for a moment.

  
“There’s a fucking bed in here,” she said.

  
Nazir was following up, “it is a bedroom,” but then he saw.

  
“There’s a fucking bed from the asylum,” Dee continued.

  
“It’s shabby chic,” Joe protested at the bottom of the stairs.

  
“Joe, there is a ghost pushing things off your shelf, and a bed from a place
with one ghost in particular. So unless you think I have the brain of a gerbil,
shabby chic isn’t going to cut it.”

  
“I brought her back with me.”

  
“What did I fucking tell you?”

  
“I don’t care what you said. I don’t care. I love her, and we’re going to be
together, and I want all three of you out of my house now.”

  
“If we’re leaving we’re taking the bed with us.”

  
“Joe, Dee,” Pohl said to try and stop things breaking down.

  
“Get out!” Joe insisted, his face going red.

  
“No, this is a fucking intervention and you need one badly.”

  
“Says the mental woman.”

  
“At least I don’t wank next to a metal bed and a dead woman.”

  
“I…” he tailed off.

  
“Let’s not make this personal,” Nazir suggested.

  
“It’s personal, he’s making a huge mistake.”

  
Joe made a decision, so he snarled up to them all “well I can’t throw you out,
but I’m going myself. I’ll walk round this block, and if you’re not gone when I
get back I’m calling the police. Alright?” He turned and stormed out, letting
the door smash shut, glass shaking but just staying intact.

  
“This is not going well,” was all Nazir could say.

  
“That could have gone much better,” Pohl added, wondering what people were
supposed to do in these situations.

  
“He’s left the machine, let’s go and get it.”

  
“Dee, we can’t take his machine from him!”

  
“We are not stealing his machine,” Dee explained, “we are going to use it.”

  
“Are you going to shout at her now?”

  
“Oh am I, hold onto your clothes.”

  
Dee soon had the machine by the old bed and turned it on.

  
“Right you strangled cunt, listen to me, stop seducing our friend and making
him a fucking ghost loving weirdo.”

  
“He’s in a lot of danger.”

  
“And don’t you try to…what did you just say?”

  
“You’ve got to help him, he’s going to do something stupid.”

  
“He’s done that already.”

  
“He’s going to kill himself!”

  
That silenced Dee.

  
“Is he?” Pohl asked.

  
“He wants to be with me. He wants to be a ghost with me and you’ve got to stop
him.”

  
“Hang on,” Nazir said, “you don’t want him to?”

  
“Why would I? I don’t want his life cut short like mine, I want him to live.
He’s getting obsessed and toxic and you need to stop him. And… and I don’t love
him, I just can’t bear to tell him I don’t.”

  
“Okay people, I may have fucked up badly on this one,” Dee admitted.

  
“Why would he want to kill himself?” Pohl asked out loud.

  
“His mind is ill. He’s seeing only darkness, he is consumed by bleakness, he
sees no other route. This, this depression is…”

  
“He’s got depression.”

  
“Must be.”

  
“…grinding him away.”

  
Dee put her head in her hands. “He needs help, not shouting at. Fuckity fuck
fuck what have I done.”

  
“We better find him,” Nazir suggested, looking at the door.

  
“He said he’d come back to throw us out.”

  
“I know Dee, but what if he doesn’t?”

  
“Okay, okay, we better split up and find him. It’s all roads round here, no
backstreet paths, you take his car, I’ll take mine and Professor you stay in
case he returns.”

  
“Sounds like a plan.”

  
Dee drove her car round a corner and saw Joe walking ahead of her facing away.
Well it would be me, she thought, before deciding she was the one who had to do
this. The car was parked up, Dee got out and walked quickly so she fell in
beside Joe.

  
“I’m sorry,” she said as Joe turned to see who it was, “I really am. I had no
idea, and if I could do it again I’d do it differently.”

  
“Bit late for that.”

  
“No, it’s not, because you’re still alive. There’s still time.”

  
“She told you did she, told you my plan.”

  
“Yes, she did. And she also told me something else: she doesn’t want you to do
it. Not now, not ever.”

  
“I know, she doesn’t want me to die so soon, but it’s for the best.”

  
“She doesn’t want you to die Joe because she doesn’t love you.”

  
“What? No, no, that’s not true,” and he hissed the last part.

  
“We can go back and ask her. She’s lonely Joe, lonely and afraid, and you’re
welcome in her life, but she doesn’t really love you.”

  
Joe stopped and balled his fists, putting them to his temples. “Not her as
well. Not her too, why does this always happen, why always me…”

  
“But you’re similar to Polly aren’t you Joe. You’re lonely and afraid and she
was welcome in your life.”

  
“Why can’t I just find someone…”

  
“Joe, what you’re feeling, it isn’t about being single, it’s deeper than that.
You’re depressed, clinically depressed, and it’s making you feel like hell.
You’re in love with the idea of dying, not her, and you would be without her.
It’s not her that’s making you feel suicidal, it’s within you. You need help,
to talk to someone, maybe to take some pills, to get you on an even keel.”

  
“Easy for you to write my pain off.”

  
“Write it off? I’ve been from psychiatrist to psychiatrist, I don’t mention them
lightly. But you've got a health problem that can be targeted and helped. It’s
a real, known thing. They, we, can all help you. We’d taken our eyes off you,
not realised how ground down you were, but now we know we can be there when you
need it. I’m not telling you to cheer up Joe, that’s stupid, I’m saying there’s
a world of support we can for you, we can help you with.”

  
“And Polly?”

  
“Polly is a friend. She can support you too. We’re here for you.”

  
Joe turned, embraced Dee and began to weep on her shoulder. She hugged him
back, felt him shudder, and knew how close she’d come to losing him.

  
“I don’t want to die Dee, I just don’t see any other way.”

  
“We’ll help you find those ways, we will, we will. Whatever we need to do to
help you, we’ll do it.”

  
Joe eventually put Dee down, the crying stopped, and they walked slowly back to
the car. He asked her about therapy, she decided to give him a sugar coated
appraisal based on Pohl’s experiences, not her own, and Joe seemed to lighten
slightly, a new way forward being presented. But Joe wanted most of all to talk
with Polly, so that’s where they went, tasking Pohl with recalling Nazir.

  
“Hi,” Joe said, quietly.

  
“They found you.”

  
“Yes, yes they did.

  
“I’m so glad. Very much.”

  
“ Is it true?”

  
“That… that I don’t love you?”

  
“Yes.” She couldn’t read his voice.

  
“Yes. I love you as a friend Joe, and I don’t want to be alone again, but I
don’t love you like that. Not as a girlfriend. And I want you to stay alive.”

  
He sighed. “I know, I know, and I’m going to, I’m going to get help, Dee knows
where to go.”

  
“Good. Just stay out of asylums.”

  
“Thank you for speaking to them, for saying something.”

  
“I had to. Get the help I didn’t, live the life I didn’t.”

   “I
will. And I think I really only love you as a friend too. I just don’t want to
lose someone who understands.”

  
“I know, but your friends do now you’ve told them. They’re good people, they
just needed to be let inside.”

  
Everyone paused, away in their thoughts, before “So what now?” Dee asked.

  
“I don’t think I should stay here,” Polly said, “but I don’t want to go back to
the asylum either. I need to be somewhere where I can see people. Is that
possible?”

  
“Yes,” Pohl smiled behind them, “it is possible.”

  
The bed had been stripped back to metal and painted a warm colour, and was now
sat in the foyer of a hotel. The building was relatively small, but kept in
immaculate condition and filled with art and fascinating objects. The owner,
who was no less immaculate and a fascinating object, was walking round it,
looking at it.

  
“A little austere,” he said as he bent down to look at the underside.

  
“That’s part of the effect, true vintage from the era.” Dee smiled sweetly.

  
“I understand, and I think it would be excellent in one of our rooms. I’ve
never seen one with quite this construction before, it’s almost as if you could
tie things to it.”

  
“It came from a hospital,” Joe explained, “you’re getting the real thing.”

  
“A hospital? I see, I see. Well I do like it, but it all depends on the price,
of course.”

  
“We know your hotel is small but very busy, so we’d be prepared to let it go
for a hundred pounds.”

  
“A hundred…would you do eighty?”

  
“Hmm, we trust you to look after it, give it a good home…”