The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (5 page)

  
“They don’t want you after thirty.”

  
“I am nowhere near thirty.”

  
“Just getting you ready.”

  
“Do I look thirty?” Dee peered in the mirror.

  
“No, but,” and his phone announced a new text message.

  
As he checked what his mum was sending, Dee thought aloud. “I know that sound,
I’ve heard that sound somewhere before.

  
“It’s the Tardis materializing.”

  
“Oh, yes, of course, it’s…” she scowled. “Did you ask me out because I look
like one of Doctor Who’s women?”

  
“No,” he spluttered unconvincingly.

  
“Because that would be weird.”

  
“No. I, err, because you’re interesting. And funny.”

  
“Okay then. We’ll stick with funny. And we’ll put Radio 1 on Mr Old Before His
Time.”

  
Conversation was stilted, mostly based around the music, and soon it was very
much night. Then, finally, Dee pulled the car over, and Joe looked around.

  
“Where are we?”

  
“This was where my Dad died.”

  
“We’re in the middle of a road. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  
“Not everybody dies in a hospital.”

  
“No, but still, and is that a forest?”

  
“I’m sorry my Dad didn’t die in a coffee shop, why are you opening your door?”

  
“So we can go the site?”

  
“I have GPS’d the location. We are here, this is it. The car was parked exactly
here, and I’m where I, well, was. So switch on and let’s get talking.”

  
Joe climbed into the back seat, pulled the machine up from the floor, and put
his hand on the switch. “You recording?”

  
“Just turned on.”

  
“Right, here we go.”

  
“Dad, can you hear me, it’s Dee?”

  
“This isn’t a séance, you don’t have to call them.”

  
“How do you know, you’ve only done this once.”

  
Joe shot back “I’ve done other testing!”

   
What they could hear was a clicking noise, two regular clacking sounds, close
together, then apart, and there seemed to be an odd rhythm to the sounds. “Is
that interference?”

  
“No,” said Joe, plugging in his phone and looking at the data, “we’re picking
this up from the…”

  
It would be difficult to describe the voice they now heard as human, although
it undoubtedly was. It would be impossible to describe it as coherent, because
they were listening to something choppy, fragmented, torn about. In fact torn
was the best word, as if someone had taken a conversation, ripped chunks out
and glued mud spattered remnants together.

  
“Is that your father?” But Dee was frozen, face paler than usual, mouth open.
“Dee, Dee are you alright?”

  
“My Dad. That’s my Dad. What’s happened to him?”

  
“It’s really not the machine, everything is checking out.”

  
“I didn’t break it then?”

  
“No.”

  
“Bugger.”

  
“That’s not nice,” and Joe put his hand protectively on the machine.

  
“Turn it off. Turn it off and let’s go home.”

  
Dee had driven stoically all the way home, dropped Joe off with his machine at
his home, gone home, got into the shower, and then only then allowed herself to
start weeping. All those years, all those visits to psychiatrist after
psychiatrist, as if someone was keeping tabs on her, to try and sort her fucked
up head out as she’d grown into, well, whatever set of labels they applied now
to what she’d become, and all those pills and threats to shock her brain. All
of that, and she’d finally got what she’d always dreamt of: a way to speak to
her father. A way to cut through her faulty head and get back to source, get
back to Dad telling her what was happening. All that, in her hands, and then
something she had never once dreamt of: her father was damaged. Not just dead,
not just a ghost but actually damaged. Unable to talk, say anything coherent,
just flashes of words and then confusion.

  
It was worse than finding out that there weren’t souls, and not just for the
coming and going of hope. It was worse because it meant her father was a broken
thing, and that whatever had killed him, something she already knew was
horrible enough to lock itself away in her mind, had damaged his soul as well.
What the fuck sort of thing did that? Was there some spirit crunching demon
thing out there hunting for fathers? But that wouldn’t kill a body. And still
no answer to the question, the most painful question of them all: what killed
her father and let her live? Why was she alive and he was dead? Why not the other
way round? You’re brought up to believe people are after kids, not that adults
are really at more risk.

 
Dee leaned her forehead against the tiles, which felt cold on her skin. The
water poured down on her head, always hot, and streamed down her body. What
now? What do you do when you’ve run out of options long ago, found a surprise
new one, and had that taken away too. No point speaking to the dead, she might
as well chuck her books. No point in anything. Just get up, do your shitty job,
and have a hole in the back of your mind.

  
Right, that sorts it, she was going to get very drunk on cheap lager and
expensive spirits, pass out, and pray for the world to end in an apocalypse.
Then, only then, would she find the peace which was all she’d ever wanted.

   
Joe had got to bed late, passed out immediately, and assumed his alarm would
wake him the next day, at which point he’d have to drag his tired body into
work and get through the day like a zombie. He didn’t think Scott would accept
‘I had to drive in the unknown for testing with a woman I’ve only really spent
an afternoon with’ would be a great way of delaying his arrival. Unfortunately,
or fortunately as it turned out, Joe found himself waking naturally, feeling
quite recharged, and it took a look at his alarm clock to see how long he had
left.

  
It said ten o'clock, which was a good few hours after he was supposed to be at
work. Cursing, he realised he’d been too tired to turn the alarm on, and so
wasn’t now a zombie but wasn’t exactly on time. Sighing heavily he climbed out
of bed, washed and dressed at speed, and came into his kitchen. No time to have
breakfast, and he’d have to miss the lady at the cafe as he dashed into the
lab. Bugger.

  
What was unusual was he found a message from Monroe as he checked his phone,
just the one, asking ‘Joe, did you come into work today?’ The recipient shot
back a quick ‘sorry, I’m late, there soon’ and hopped in the car, only briefly
pondering why Monroe would ask this, today, when he never had before. A text from
Scott asking where the machine was, that was the expected, but Monroe? There
seemed only one conclusion: he was in a lot of trouble, and Scott had escalated
the machine’s absence. Buggeration.

  
But there was still a car drive into work to do before he got shouted at, and
he decided to focus on something more pleasant: an evening with Dee. Okay, it
had been a very awkward first date, and it probably didn’t count as a date
unless you were very desperate, and he was, but Joe had really felt the start
of a connection between them. Well, in between the theft issue and the whole
‘my father’s ghost is shredded’ problem, but if you removed those outliers you
definitely had a shared experience. And isn’t that what brought people
together, doing things together?

  
Best not ask her out again for a little while. Maybe after he’d got whatever
new job he’d have to when he was fired in a few minutes.

  
Joe realised he’d forgotten to turn the radio on, but noticed a plume of black
smoke reaching into the sky in the distance. Odd, a fire of some sort. But then
the radio was on, and now mostly ignored as Joe continued found thoughts
turning back to Dee. A lovely woman really, if light fingered.

  
Feeling like his time employed was ticking down at the speed of his car, Joe
turned down the road with the lab and got closer to the entrance. Whereupon he
realised the thick black plume of smoke, which had been getting closer, was
coming from the science park. From the labs. From his lab. Fire engines and
ambulances were all around and service personnel were running backwards and
forwards.

  
What the fuck had happened?

  
Leaving the machine in the passenger footwell, Joe jumped out and dashed over
to a small group of white coated people sitting round the back of an ambulance.
Jane and several other of the lab team were there, silent, pale, a couple with
marks on their face like they’d been struck.

  
“Are you alright?” Joe shouted as he neared them.

  
They all rose, hands out, and touched Joe as he got to them. “Oh thank god you
didn’t come in today,” Jane said, eyes filled with fear.

  
“They had guns,” one of the scientists said.

  
“Gu… Jane, what’s happened?”

  
“We were raided. That’s the only word for it. Raided. A group of people, maybe
men, with masks and explosives. They took the professor, took the machine, then
destroyed everything.”

  
“They had guns,” came the shocked reputation.

  
Very aware that he had the machine in his car, and that in the confusion
everyone thought these gunman had the machine, Joe began to grow both afraid
and pleased. So their work had survived, thanks to Dee. But there was a bigger
issue.

  
“Who were they, why did they take Scott?”

  
“We don’t know, the police don’t know, no one knows. But they wanted our work
and they ruined what was left behind.”

  
It seemed scarcely credible to Joe that this could have happened. That their
quiet lab and their small project would have caused a SWAT style raid. That
they had, if not enemies, then a serious problem of espionage. Joe decided to
keep the machine’s survival a secret.

  
“Monroe wants to speak to you.” Jane said it as an afterthought, because it
was.

  
“I’ll go check in, then I’ll get you all some coffee.”

  
As it turned out, Monroe wasn’t telling Joe off. In fact the former had simply
been trying to work out if the latter had been kidnapped too, and it seemed to
Joe that he might have been if he’d got up at the right time.

  
Having delivered coffee to the science team, and checked the other workers were
alright, it was clear there were no fatalities pending the location of Scott.
Just a lot of fear.

 
“Joe!”

  
If it was meant as a shout if didn’t sound like one, but he recognised the
voice and saw Dee coming through the vehicles towards him.

  
“Are you alright?” he asked, “you look awful.”

  
“You know how to reassure a woman.”

  
“Oh, err,” yeah, perhaps not the best start.

  
“It’s alright, I’ve got a killer hangover. I felt no option but to get hammered
last night.”

  
“Oh, I’m sorry, I should have stayed with you.”

  
“So you could take advantage of me?” She said it half smiling.

  
I could have taken advantage of her. No, bad Joe, bad. “Just to make sure you
were alright.”

  
“I appreciate the thought, but it looks like I’m not the one with the problem.
What happened?”

  
Joe explained as best he could, and Dee nodded gently along to each point.
“So,” he said to conclude, “it looks like you saved the machine. And me.”

  
Dee now smiled more fully. “So you owe me, let’s remember that.”

  
“Actually I think it means we’re even.”

  
“Guess again. You could be being tortured as we speak.”

  
“Poor Scott.” Dee was impressed by how worried Joe looked.

  
“And the police have no leads?”

  
“Not yet.”

  
“Hmm,” and Dee pondered things, “how many people knew about this machine?”

  
“Not many. A handful.”

  
“And could anyone in the lab be a double agent?”

  
Joe looked behind him. “Always possible I guess.”

  
Tapping her nails on the car to her right, Dee had an idea. “I’ve got a lead.”

  
Joe turned back quickly. “What sort of lead?”

  
“I knew about the machine, yes?”

  
“Well, yes, because you came to the l…oh. Oh I see.”

  
“Someone rang me up, then emailed me all your documentation. Someone with
access to your lab was leaking me information from your lab. Did they leak it
elsewhere?”

  
“Who did it?” It seemed to Joe like they had a traitor suddenly in their midst.

  
“I don’t know, but I have leads to go and find out.” Then Dee took a decision.
“Are you going to stay here and sort through things, or do you want to come
with me while I dig into this?”

  
“I’ll come with you.” He didn’t even say it out of lust, this just seemed the
best way forward.