Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (79 page)

He nods.

I smile through the tears. "You're like Sophie," I say. "You're a damn good liar."

Turning and leaving, I hurry along the street, wiping my eyes as I walk. I don't even know where I'm going, but I feel like I have to get somewhere; it's as if I just have to keep moving, and everything will fall apart if I stop even for a second. If Sophie's really dead, I have to get out of Dedston. I have to get as far away from here as possible. I have no idea what'll happen to Patrick, or Nimrod, or Abigail, but it's none of my business. I was just Sophie's friend. The real story was about her, not me. I have money in my pocket, certainly enough to get to New York. I can find a job there, and I can muddle through. Maybe over time I can even forget about everything that's happened here in Dedston. Sophie will just be a memory from my teenage years. If she's dead, I don't want to know how it happened. I just want to get away from here. Maybe New York isn't even far enough. Maybe I should go abroad, to somewhere like Japan or India. Maybe I should -

"Missed me?" asks Comfortable, suddenly stepping out in front of me. I come to a halt, but before I have a chance to react, he swipes down against my neck with his hand and I black out.

Comfortable

I have her now.

Forever and always, beyond even death...

Shelley

My head hurts, and this time it's definitely not a hangover.

Opening my eyes, I'm surprised to find myself in a large, light room. It takes me a moment to realize that I've been here before: it's the abandoned warehouse I went to when I followed Comfortable the other night. Which means...

I try to get up, but I find that my arms are tied behind my back and my legs are tied together. Struggling, I realize there's no way I can get loose. The bonds are too tight and too well tied, and I can only wriggle around on the floor.

"Careful," says a familiar voice from nearby. "Don't hurt yourself."

I roll over and find Comfortable sitting on the floor nearby. He has a sad, strained look on his face, as if he knows something I don't know.

"Help!" I scream at the top of my voice. "Someone help me!"

"It's no use," he says. "We're a long way from anywhere."

"What the fuck are you doing?!" I shout at him. "What the fuck's wrong with you?"

"Everything," he says, staring at me. "Everything's wrong with me. That's the problem." There are tears in his eyes.

I struggle again. "Let me go," I say, trying to stay calm. "There's no need for this to be a problem. Just untie me, let me go and I won't tell anyone about this."

"That electric current really hurt," he says. "When you zapped me. God damn it, Shelley, what did you think I was going to do to you?" He pauses. "I wasn't going to hurt you. I'd never, ever hurt you. I'd rather die first. That's why..." His voice trails off. "First I want to tell you everything. Everything about me. So that you understand."

"Let me go first," I say. "We can talk after."

He shakes his head. "Look," he says, sitting up and taking off his shirt. The first thing I notice is that he has a great body, but the second - and more shocking thing - is that both his arms have huge stitch marks near the shoulder. "I'm sewn together," he says.

I stare at the stitches, and I realize that his arms look different to the rest of his body, almost like they're not his original arms. And then I realize that I've seen those arms before: they're the arms that were stolen from the funeral home.

"What the hell?" I say, shocked.

"It's not my fault!" he says quickly. "I was made this way. I was..." He pauses. "I was made right here. In this building. I was put together by a man who had no sense of moral restraint." He comes closer and holds out his arm, letting me see the stitches where he's attached the dead man's arms to his body. "I mean, he wasn't using his arms any more, was he?" he asks, but I can see from the look in his eyes that he knows that's no explanation.

"What the fuck are you?" I ask, desperately trying to think of a way out of this situation.

"I don't know," he says. "I don't think there's a word for this." He stares at his hands. "My whole body's stitched together from bits of dead people. I had my own body once, but I burnt it out after a few years. Now I used these pieces of other people, but they don't last very long. Only my head has survived."

I feel my heart racing as I try to work out how the hell I'm going to get out of here. It's like Comfortable's some kind of monster, like something stitched together by Dr. Frankenstein. "Who made you?" I ask, trying to keep the conversation going so I can work out a plan.

"A crazy guy," he replies. "I hated him. I still do. He should never have done this." He pauses. "I killed him. Over there." He points to the other side of the room. "I killed my own father. And I swear to God, as he died he was smiling, like he was glad I did it. I guess to him it demonstrated that I had the killer instinct he wanted to create in me. Even in death, he wouldn't stop being pleased with the monster he'd made." He pauses for a moment. "I was created to kill Patrick, but I didn't want to kill. After my father, I just wanted to be a normal person, but I needed blood. I needed body parts to survive. I'm a..." He pauses again, as if he doesn't know how to explain what he is.

"Monster..." I say quietly.

He nods. "I am," he says, "but I don't want to be. And then one day I was following Patrick, just watching him, and I saw him with you and Sophie and it was like..." He smiles sadly. "I know you don't realize this, Shelley, but you're the most beautiful, the most... perfect... girl in the entire world. You're it. You're everything."

I swallow hard. I like a compliment as much as the next girl, but this conversation is rapidly turning fifty shades of creepy. "You've got to let me go," I say. "You -"

"No!" he shouts, seeming to lose control for a moment. "I..." He pauses, taking a series of deep breaths. "Do you know what's ahead of you in your life, Shelley?" The tears return to his eyes. "Nothing but pain and misery and a brutal, brutal death. I've been protecting you for so long, without you realizing it. You'd have died several times. But I'm dying now. I can't maintain this body much longer. And when I'm gone, you'd never be able to survive. You'd die horribly."

He's crazy. I was hoping he might just be misguided, but no: he's crazy. He's mad as a box of fish, and he's got me tied up. I look around, trying to find something - anything - I might be able to use to get away. Damn it, if I was Sophie I could just wait for Patrick to turn up and save me, but that ain't gonna happen. Sophie gets stalked by a thousand-year-old vampire, and I get stalked by a stitched-together psycho. Life's a bitch.

"So you're definitely going to die," Comfortable says, his voice soft and tender. He reaches out and pushes some hair away from my face. "The only question is, will it be painful or will it be painless?" He stares deep, deep into my eyes. "You'd rather have a painless death, wouldn't you Shelley? And you know the only way you can have a painless death is if you die before I die. So..." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a syringe. "This won't hurt," he says, "and it'll be quick. And I promise I'll be right behind you. I'll just give you this first injection to knock you out, then a second one to kill you, and then I'll let myself die. You understand, right? You understand why I'm doing this?"

"No," I say, shaking my head. "Please, please don't do this -"

"I love you!" he says, his voice filled with urgency. "Sophie has Patrick, and you have me! Trust me, you've got the better deal. Her death, when the prophecy finally comes true, is going to be so much more painful. I love you, Shelley. I love you so much."

"Then don't fucking kill me!" I shout at him.

"I'm killing you
because
I love you!" he hisses back at me. "Because I can't leave you alone in this godforsaken world. Do you know how many times I've saved you from being hurt? Without me, you can't survive. Not for long. So it's better to be realistic. Accept the truth." He places the needle against my arm and slides it under the skin. His thumb hovers over the plunger, ready to inject me. "This won't hurt at all," he says.

There are tears in my eyes now. This guy's about to kill me, and I have no way of stopping him. "Why are you doing this?" I say, my voice breaking as I start to cry. "If you just want to fuck, I'm fine with that. Why do you have to do this to me?"

"Because I love you," he says. He flashes me a fake smile. "Because this world's too brutal and rough for someone like you to survive without someone like me to protect her." He pushes the plunger down. I struggle, but the liquid goes into my body. "Just a few seconds," he says, leaning closer and kissing me on the side of the face.

I struggle to get free, desperately trying to find any way to loosen the binds, but soon I start to feel tired, and I feel myself starting to lose consciousness. No matter how hard I fight, it just gets worse and worse until, finally, I let my head fall limp against the floor. I guess no-one's going to come and rescue me after all.

Comfortable

When something beautiful dies, there's always sadness. But you have to look beyond the obvious, and consider the bigger picture. Yes, she's leaving her earthly body, but she'll be able to explore a whole new world. And soon I'll be able to join her there. We can be together, away from this horrible place. She could never have survived without me. This was the only way.

Shelley

I open my eyes, and my first thought is: Am I dead?

The room is silent. I'm still in the abandoned warehouse, still on the floor, but something's changed. It takes me a moment to realize what's different. Moving my arms, I find that I'm no longer tied up. I roll over and sit up. My head's pounding. Is this what it's like to be dead?

On the floor next to me, there's the empty syringe that Comfortable used on me. And nearby, there are the ropes he used to tie me up. I look across the room and see that the light coming through the windows is somehow lower and longer, as if many hours have passed and it's early evening.

I hold my arms out. They look real. I decide the only way to find out if I'm alive is to pinch myself.

"Fuck!" I say loudly, finding that a quick pinch hurts.

I get to my feet. In the distance, I can hear the sound of the freeway that passes close to the park, and the sound of a jet plane going overhead. I step forward. I feel alive, but maybe this is what happens when you die? Somehow you end up back where you were, just alone and with no idea what's going on?

Silence.

And then I hear him.

Turning, I see Comfortable over in the far corner. He's on the floor, and he's whimpering. My first thought is to run, to get as far away from him as possible. But he looks so sick, I feel like there's no way he could hurt me. I step toward him, still keeping a slight distance.

"What's going on?" I ask. "Are we dead?"

He looks up at me with weak eyes. The color is gone from his face, and while the Comfortable of a few hours ago was animated and lively, this Comfortable seems sick.

"Am I dead?" I ask.

He shakes his head.

I pause. "What happened?"

"I couldn't do it," he says, his voice frail and tired. "I couldn't give you the second injection."

I step a little closer. He looks so awful. His face is almost gray, and his eyes look as if they're sinking into his head. "What's happening to you?" I ask.

"I'm dying," he replies. A faint smile crosses his face. "The new body parts I stole are already failing, and I need to consume human blood." He shakes his head. "I'm not doing those things any more. I don't want to be a monster."

"You're not a monster," I say.

"I am," he replies. "Or I was. You said it yourself."

I kneel next to him. "You said you were going to kill me."

He looks up at me. "I couldn't do it. I love you too much."

"You love me?" I say, finding it kind of weird that a guy I barely know could say he loves me. Still, it's nice to hear the words. No-one's ever told me they love me before.

"You have no idea," he says, smiling. "I've been watching you for months. Following you. I know it sounds crazy, but I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. I know you don't love me back. You don't even know me. But that's my fault. I'm a monster."

"You're not," I say.

He puts his hands together and pulls, and one of his arms comes off as the stitches break. He throws it onto the floor. "I'm a monster," he says quietly. "I was created to be one type of monster, and I rebelled and became another. I can't keep trying desperately to live. I have to accept that I was a failed experiment." He takes a deep breath. "I was born to kill, but after a while I found I wanted to be something else. I wanted to be human. I'm so sorry I almost killed you."

I feel tears coming to my eyes again. "Why didn't you?" I ask.

"I didn't..." He suddenly starts coughing, and blood sprays from his mouth. It takes him a moment to recover his composure. "I didn't want to deprive the world of such a beautiful person," he says.

"I'm not beautiful," I say. "At best I'm alright, but I'm far from beautiful."

"That's what you think," he says, his voice getting weaker.

"You can't die," I continue. "We'll find a way to keep you alive. We'll find somewhere to get new body parts, and we'll find some blood from somewhere. We can do it!" I suddenly feel as if keeping Comfortable alive is the most important thing in the world. He loves me, and nobody else does. Maybe I can love him too? "We can find a way," I insist, "as long as you keep fighting."

"The only way to stay alive is to be a monster," he says, "and you can't love a monster. So..." His voice starts to trail off, as if he's losing consciousness. "I'd kill you," he says quietly. "It's better this way."

"Stay alive!" I urge him. "We'll find a way to make it work! You just have to stay with me! I'll go back to the funeral home and find more body parts. We can go to the cemetery and get
loads
of body parts. We can..." I stop speaking as I realize there's no point any more. "We can..."

He's dead.

I start crying. I don't know why. I didn't really know him, and he came close to killing me, but I've got this strange feeling that if we'd met in different circumstances, we could have been good together. If only he'd given me a chance to help him find a way to overcome his problems. He wasn't a monster. He was just a guy who, for whatever reason, was created differently to everyone else. Damn it, why does Sophie get a hot, healthy vampire and I get a dying monster who has no idea how to stay alive?

I sit with him for a while. As the sun slowly dips in the sky, I feel as if it'd be wrong to leave. Part of me hopes that he suddenly wakes up, but eventually I accept that there's no chance of that. Finally, I lean close to him and kiss the side of his face, and then I get to my feet and walk slowly toward the stairs. Noticing some books piled on a desk, I wander over and find piles and piles of faded old notebooks. I look through some of them and find that they seem to be part of some kind of experiment. They look old, as if they've been gathering dust for decades. Finally, glancing toward the window, I see a series of jars, each containing what looks like a tiny fetus.

I look back over at Comfortable. What kind of experiments created him?

Leaving the building, I'm shocked to see a figure walking towards me. It's Patrick. He stops as he reaches me, and I look down to see that he's carrying a can of gasoline.

"How long have you been here?" I ask, tears still in my eyes.

He stares at me. He has a different look on his face, though, as if he's almost sorry for what's happened. Has he started to show more emotion, or have I just got better at seeing what was already there?

"Do you know who created him?" I ask. "Who made Comfortable?"

He pauses for a moment, and then he nods.

"You should talk more," I say. "It'd be really fucking helpful sometimes." I pause. "So you're gonna burn the place down, huh?" I stare at the gasoline can. "I guess that's the only way to cover up a mistake."

Without responding, he steps past me and heads toward the building.

"Is Sophie dead?" I call after him.

He stops and turns to me. There's a new look in his eyes, a kind of pain mixed with sadness. It's almost as if he's answering me.

"Is she dead?" I ask. "I can't get hold of her, and I'm scared she..." I pause, fighting back the tears. "Just tell me if she's dead. At least tell me that. You spoke to me once before, and you told me two things... The first was that Sophie would die soon, and the second was that one day I'd have to give my life to save her daughter." I take a deep breath. "Has it happened? Is she dead? I thought I'd be there when it happened, but has it happened already?"

He doesn't move. He just stares at me, and I get this sensation of overwhelming sorrow. Surely if Sophie was still alive, he'd let me know, right? He'd give me some kind of sign? But no. He just stands there for a moment, and then he turns and walks toward the building. I stay where I am, rooted to the spot, tears running down my face as I face the fact that my best friend is almost certainly dead. After a few minutes, with the sun really low in the sky and the park getting dark, I see the flickering orange light of a fire starting to develop in the building. I guess Comfortable's body is going up with the rest of the place.

I turn and walk away. I don't need to see this. I know it's gonna burn long and hard. I don't need to see the whole fire; just the first flicker of a flame is enough.