Enter the Dead: A Supernatural Thriller Read online

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m the one who should be apologising. I should be thanking you for offering to help. You took me by surprise, that’s all. Bloody Tom: for the sales director of a design agency he’s pretty crap at communication! No wonder things are quiet around here.’

  ‘Do you want me to talk to him?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. Of course I’m happy to help out. I’m assuming you can write?’

  ‘Yep.’ The smile had returned, the full, pert lips parting to reveal gleaming teeth that by comparison made Sam feel like a dirty, homeless tramp with halitosis. He wasn’t the unfaithful type, never had been, but any normal red-blooded male would have felt the same way about a girl like Gabby. And she was supposed to help him get his work done quicker? Fat chance of that. Still, there were worse distractions.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, handing her an old Pilko brochure. ‘The website’s going to include a section on the history of Pilko. The firm’s owners are a bunch of old farts who actually think people give a damn about stuff like that. But seeing as they’re paying our wages, who are we to argue? Why don’t you see how you get on with that; if you do a decent job we’ll look at what else you can do. Keep the sentences crisp and clear, okay? We don’t want ‘War and Peace’, just the facts. Put yourself into the mind of the customer; picture how you would like the information to read.’

  ‘Got it. How about: The history of Pilko - what came first, the pig or the pie?’

  ‘Creative – yes, appropriate – no. Simple and serious, okay?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Good. Let’s meet up later and discuss how you’re getting on. Don’t be afraid to ask me for help, but trust your gut feeling and run with it. I can always rewrite it later.’

  I guarantee I’ll rewrite it later, but give the girl a chance.

  ‘Okay, thanks Mr Rai…I mean Sam.’

  He watched as she gave him a sexy smile and walked away, clutching the tattered brochure in her hands.

  ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ he muttered to himself, sitting down and switching on his computer. He smiled, thinking how weak-willed even happily married men could be when shown a little leg. And while he had no intention of embarrassing himself by making an awkward move on a beautiful girl almost half his age, he was quite content to spend a few moments imagining the possibilities.

  What harm could there be in that?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sarah Railton lay in bed, contemplating how long she could remain there. The mattress was so soft, the duvet so thick and warm; if she hadn’t needed to get back to work she could quite happily have stayed there all day. Of course that wasn’t possible, but surely a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt. After all, she had just partaken in a scrumptious session of delicious lunchtime sex. Perfectly understandable that she might be suffering from a dose of post-coital lethargy. She smiled as she listened to the sound of her lover singing in the en-suite shower, evidently proud of his efforts.

  And so he should be, she thought, reaching for the box of tissues on the bedside table.

  She ran her hands through her hair as she heard the shower door slide open, trying to make herself as presentable as possible for the man who’d spent twenty exquisite minutes inside her. She attempted a seductive smile as he emerged from the bathroom, one hand holding a white towel wrapped around his waist and the other carrying a bottle of cologne. Even though she’d known him for so long, he was still as sexy as hell. He knew it, of course, but for Sarah that was part of the attraction. Sam had always lacked confidence, whereas Tom Jackson, well, let’s just say he knew how to handle himself.

  ‘Still in bed?’ he said, letting his towel drop to the floor so he could apply some cologne. Her eyes automatically zoned in on his long, plump cock and she wished he would get back into bed with her. She knew he wouldn’t. He never did.

  One strike and you’re out, she thought, recalling the previous twenty minutes. But what a strike!

  ‘I can’t get up,’ she said. ‘You’ve worn me out. I’m going to have to stay here all day.’

  ‘I wish I could join you,’ he lied, smiling at her like the cat that ate the cream. ‘But if I don’t get back to the office in the next half hour they’ll have my balls on a platter.’

  ‘Well I for one wouldn’t be happy about that,’ she said, reaching out from beneath the sheets to grope his manhood.

  ‘Hey!’ he said, jumping back to evade her advances. ‘I’m serious. I’m presenting to the Board at two and I still haven’t finished the fucking presentation.’

  ‘The life of a high flyer. I better get back too…can’t stay here all day.’ And then, against her better judgement: ‘Did you see Sam this morning?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Sarah, why are you asking about him?’

  ‘I’m sorry but, well, you don’t think he suspects anything? I can’t have him finding about us.’

  ‘How long have we been seeing each other?’ he asked, buttoning up his shirt. ‘Three, four years? Don’t you think if he was going to suspect anything he would have done so by now?’

  ‘I suppose, but-’

  ‘But nothing, darling,’ he said, leaning over the bed and kissing her forehead. ‘Sam doesn’t think like that. He idolises you.’

  ‘Don’t say that. It makes me feel guilty.’

  ‘Sorry to break it to you like this, sweetheart, but you are guilty. We both are. I’m his boss and you’re his wife. I’m afraid it doesn’t get much worse than that.’

  ‘I know. We’re terrible. We shouldn’t be doing this.’

  ‘Like I keep telling you: what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.’

  ‘Maybe, but that doesn’t stop it feeling wrong. His wife and boss…we’re such a ridiculous cliché!’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to spoil the party, but if you’re not happy…’

  ‘It’s not that and you know it. Of course I want to carry on seeing you, but after everything Sam’s been through, I…I just don’t want to hurt him. Not to mention Max.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ Tom said, tucking his shirt into his trousers. ‘Nor do I. And remember, you’re not the only one with something to lose. I don’t want to hurt Jane either.’

  ‘I know.’ Sarah shook her head and laughed. ‘It’s weird: the better the sex, the guiltier I feel afterwards.’

  ‘In that case,’ he said, pulling on his shoes before leaning over the bed again to kiss her, ‘I’ll try not to be so damn good next time.’ He kissed her fully and ran a hand through her hair, enjoying her taste and feeling himself stir again. He forced himself away before passing the point of no return, causing Sarah to moan with disappointment. ‘Until the next time,’ he said, winking at her before walking across the hotel room and grabbing the door handle.

  ‘And when might that be?’

  ‘I’ll call you. I always do.’ He blew her a kiss and opened the door. For a split second she nearly said ‘I love you’, a term that neither of them had used before. Luckily she came to her senses in the nick of time; she knew that to do so would mean the end of their affair. Besides, she knew he wouldn’t reciprocate. It wasn’t like that for him.

  The door closed, leaving her alone with her guilt.

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave. When first we practise to deceive!

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she said, burying her head into the pillow. She knew that in the end there was no simple solution to her predicament: it was impossible to have her cake and eat it. She may have got away with it so far, but it was only a matter of time before Sam found out. And when he did, it would tear his world apart. She couldn’t allow that to happen. As infatuated with Tom as she was, she couldn’t carry on like this. She knew what she had to do. But not yet.

  Not yet.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Max Railton dawdled along Chaytor Avenue without a care in the world, absorbed in the screen of his iPhone. Arriving at number thirty-nine he stopped and sat on the stone wall that marked the boundary of Aunt Gracie’s terraced h
ouse, intent on allowing the music in his ears to finish before going inside. It had been the exact same routine every day for three years; ever since his parents had finally allowed him to walk home from school by himself. A token gesture of independence in an otherwise over-protected childhood.

  When the song finished playing, he unplugged the earphones and slotted them into his jacket pocket. His parents had been reluctant to buy him a phone, believing he should spend his formative years playing the kind of antiquated games like Scrabble and Chess that none of his friends bothered with anymore. Eventually, like most parents, they capitulated; but not before he had turned eleven the previous year. Eleven years old! Christ, he’d been the last person in his class to have been given a phone, or so he’d told his parents.

  He walked up the uneven path to Gracie’s house and paused to collect the door key from his pocket. One day I’ll have my own house, he thought. And then nobody will be able to tell me what I can and can’t have.

  From the corner of his eye he noticed Scooch – Gracie’s tabby cat – sitting on the windowsill licking its left paw. Scooch glanced at him before resuming its business, confirming Max’s suspicion that it hated him.

  The feeling’s mutual, he thought, inserting the key into the lock and letting himself in.

  ‘Aunt Gracie?’ he shouted, more to announce his arrival than to enquire as to her whereabouts. He knew exactly where she’d be; the same place she always was.

  ‘In here, darling,’ she replied. ‘I’ve made some fresh biscuits!’

  ‘Result,’ he said, entering the cosy kitchen-diner and kissing the old woman’s forehead.

  She set aside her Wilbur Smith novel and rose unsteadily to her feet. As far as Max was concerned, anybody over the age of thirty was ancient, so he would have struggled to get his head around the fact that the old woman who looked after him for two hours each day was fast approaching eighty years old. In his eyes, that would have put her in the same league as Gandalf or Yoda, not that he would have loved her any less. She wasn’t his real aunt – the only real aunt he had was his mum’s sister Jennifer who lived miles away in Bristol and only came to visit once or twice a year. He vaguely remembered his mum once mentioning something about his dad having a sister too, but he’d never met her or heard his dad talk about her so had never given her a second thought.

  Gracie had been the manager of the children’s nursery that Max had attended as a toddler. She’d been in his life from as far back as he could remember, and in many ways she was like a grandmother to him. After retiring eight years ago at the ripe old age of seventy-one, she’d kept her hand in by becoming a child-minder for three of the nursery kids who’d moved on to first school. Max was now the last boy standing, and the arthritis ensured she wouldn’t be taking anyone else on. Besides, she was too old. She adored Max: partly because he was a good kid, and partly because he was the last remaining link to a lifetime spent caring for children. He didn’t need much looking after anyway – twelve year old boys rarely do - all he needed was a snack and a roof over his head to tide him over until one of his parents returned from work and took the baton from her. No, they rubbed along just fine, Max and her, and she wasn’t looking forward to the day when it would all come to an end.

  ‘How was your day?’ she asked, taking two large chocolate biscuits from the baking rack and handing them to him on a plate with a glass of milk.

  ‘Okay,’ he replied, accepting the plate and getting straight down to business.

  ‘Never been one to stand on ceremony, have you Max?’ she said, smiling at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind,’ she laughed. ‘You tuck in son. Before you get comfortable, I hope you don’t mind but I have a client coming in the next few minutes. Would you be a cherub and take yourself off to the front room for half an hour or so?’

  ‘No problem. Cards or Runes?’

  ‘Not sure yet…maybe both. I’ll decide when I see her.’

  ‘Why won’t you read my fortune?’

  ‘I will, one day. When you’re old enough.’

  ‘Does it really work?’

  ‘Does what really work?’

  ‘Seeing into people’s futures. Telling them what’s going to happen to them and stuff like that.’

  ‘Oh yes, definitely. But you have to know what to look for, and more importantly you have to know how to look.’

  ‘Dad thinks it’s a load of rubbish, but I tell him that he’s wrong and I ask him why so many people come to see you if it’s all made up. He tells me that people believe what they want to believe, especially sad, unhappy people who are searching for answers.’

  ‘We’re all searching for answers, Max, including your father. But the sad truth is that nobody really knows what those answers are.’

  ‘Not even you?’

  ‘Not even me. All I do is try to help people find the right path. I can’t make their choices for them.’

  ‘But you do see people, don’t you? Dead people.’

  ‘Not always dead, but yes…sometimes I see people.’

  ‘Don’t you get scared?’

  ‘Not any more. I did when I was young, but you get used to it as you get older. It just becomes part of normal, everyday life.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound that normal to me. Are they friendly?’

  ‘Most of the time. Not always. But they can’t hurt you; they’re not real people like you or I, and they never outstay their welcome. They say what they want to say and then they go.’

  ‘Is there anybody else in the room now?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a goblin with an enormous mouth who’s threatening to eat your biscuits if you don’t stop asking so many questions.’

  ‘Tell him to keep his hands to himself!’ With that, Max snatched a third biscuit from the rack and headed for the sitting room. As he was about to leave, Aunt Gracie called out from behind him.

  ‘Max? Before you go…is everything alright at home?’

  ‘Fine. Why?

  ‘Oh nothing…just asking. Off you go.’

  She watched as he walked away, the thin smile fading as he left her sight. Her attention immediately shifted to the person standing in the corner of the room: a tall, thin figure dressed in a tattered grey suit and wearing a shabby brown hat. A fedora, Gracie thought, noting the hat’s wide brim and indented crown. I haven’t seen a hat like that in years.

  A dark mist covered the figure’s face and hid its features from her, and although she couldn’t be certain, she sensed it was male. It was unusual for a spirit to appear and not reveal itself; they almost always wanted to be recognised. After all, the main reason they came was to deliver messages for her to pass on to the living. But this man had no message. She felt nothing: no good, no evil; only somebody whose thoughts she wasn’t able to read. But for some inexplicable reason she sensed he had something to do with Max. There was something about his presence – his aura – that linked him to the boy.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, noticing the lack of hands protruding from the figure’s creased shirt cuffs.

  There was no reply.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked, growing increasingly uncomfortable. She wasn’t afraid – she’d lived with ghosts all her life – but they all had faces. They all had eyes. ‘Do you know the boy?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ came the reply, as soft as mist and whispered without emotion.

  And then the figure vanished, leaving the old woman alone to ponder his reply. Was it a warning? Some kind of veiled threat? Maybe, maybe not, but as she walked towards the hall to answer the door to her next client, she had an unnerving sense that she’d be seeing him again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When Sam called round to Gracie’s house later that day to collect Max, he wasn’t expecting her to tell him that Sarah had already beaten him to it. She rarely returned home before seven or eight pm, sometimes later. Her commitment to her job was far greater than his, not to mention her work ethic. Not that he was about to complain ab
out his wife coming home early; it would be nice to have an extended evening together, especially after the day he’d just had.

  ‘Anybody home?’ he shouted, taking off his coat and hanging it on a peg in the hallway.

  ‘We’re in here.’

  ‘What are you doing back so early?’ he asked, joining Sarah and Max at the kitchen table and leaning over to kiss her cheek.

  ‘I don’t know why, but I’m exhausted,’ Sarah replied.

  ‘Are you feeling alright?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t feel particularly ill, just worn out.’ Her mind drifted to her lunchtime rendezvous with Tom. She could think of one reason why she might be more tired than usual.

  ‘Well whatever it is, it’s a nice surprise. Everything alright, Max?’

  ‘Fine,’ he replied, too engrossed in his iPhone to look up and acknowledge his father.

  ‘Do me a favour, son. Either turn that damn thing off or play it somewhere else would you?’

  ‘See ya,’ Max said, climbing down from his stool and trudging out of the room.

  Sam shook his head as he watched him leave. ‘You know, when I was his age I used to read comics and books. Those bloody computer games are turning our kids into the living dead.’

  ‘Oh, he’s alright. He’s already done his homework.’

  ‘All the same...’

  ‘Anyway, what are you doing back? I thought you had a tight deadline for that website you’re writing.’

  ‘One late night’s enough for me. Besides, I’ve been allocated an extra resource, for all the good it’ll do me.’

  ‘What extra resource?’

  ‘An intern! Can you believe it?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Lord only knows. It was Tom’s idea: he said that she was at a loose end and that seeing as I’m the only one who seems busy at the moment I could maybe use the help.’