Tyrell looked at Amy. She had changed since the phone call. And he didn’t know if it was for the better.
She was standing on her own, looking down at the ground, the phone hanging loose in one hand, the gun in the other. Her mouth was moving, talking to someone who wasn’t there. She began to move around, taking small steps as she spoke, completely unaware that the other two were there.
Tyrell thought this was his chance. He could run for it. Take Josephina and go. Leave Amy to whatever was in her head. He gathered the little girl next to him. Looked round for a way out. There was forest on all sides. He could just pick her up and run. Any direction, didn’t matter. The woman was probably too far gone inside her own head to notice.
‘Mummy … ’ Josephina was looking upset again. He hated to see her looking upset.
‘Yes, Josephina. I’ll take you to see your mummy.’
And he was ready to go.
But something stopped him. Something nagged at him about Amy. She had looked familiar when she got close up to him. He still didn’t know who she was or how he knew her, but there was definitely something familiar about her.
The eyes. That was what did it. The eyes.
He knew them but he didn’t. Couldn’t explain why. Or how. Her eyes. And something else. When she had got mad with him before, got angry. That was familiar too.
He couldn’t place it. The memory was just out of reach in his mind. When he tried to grab it, it slipped away like smoke.
He watched her some more. Tried to see her eyes, but her head was down.
It was like watching a ghost. He remembered a comic he used to read when he was little. An American comic that he wasn’t supposed to have because it belonged to the boy he’d been told to call brother. Deadman. That was the name of the character. Deadman. He had a bald head, a white face, black eyes and a red acrobat’s costume, and there was something about him that Tyrell had loved. Deadman was, as his name suggested, dead. But he could make his spirit live by putting it into other people’s bodies. And then he would have adventures. When Tyrell looked at Amy now, that was what he saw. Deadman. A spirit living in someone else’s body.
He just didn’t know whose spirit it was.
He glanced at Josephina, looked back at Amy. This was it. Run for it.
But he couldn’t.
He looked at Amy again. It wasn’t just her being Deadman. She was troubled. She was behaving the way she was, doing the things she was doing because she was unhappy. Not right inside. And he couldn’t just walk away and leave her. Not without trying to help her.
So instead of running away, he walked towards her.
‘Amy … ’
She didn’t look up, didn’t even acknowledge that she had heard him. Just kept walking round, talking to the invisible person she was having a conversation with.
She looked up then. Her eyes were wild, pinwheeling, struggling to focus on him, to recognise where she was.
‘Are you … are you OK?’
She turned away from him. But before she did, he saw a flash of … something … in her eyes. More madness? Sadness? He didn’t know what.
‘Leave me alone.’
He stayed where he was. ‘I just thought … ’ Then stopped. He didn’t know what he just thought.
She turned back to him. There was no mistaking what was in her eyes now. Hatred. Pure, unmistakable hatred.
‘I said leave me alone.’ She was spitting, hissing at him. ‘I wish … I wish I had never met you, wish you’d never come into my life … you freak, you retard … you … Everything that’s wrong, everything that’s been wrong, it’s all because of you … ’
He stared at her, didn’t know what to say.
‘You ruined everything. You ruined my life.’
Conflicting emotions ran through Tyrell. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. He didn’t know who she was, why she was saying these things. He knew he recognised her, or at least there was something familiar about her, but …
‘I never … ’ he said.
‘What.’
‘I never ruined your life.’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really. I’d have remembered.’
And that was when she pulled the gun on him again.
He stared down the barrel once more, not knowing whether he was going to live or die. This time, though, it felt different. Like it was happening to someone else and not him. Like it didn’t matter either way. Like he didn’t care.
Amy screamed and turned away from him, lowering her shaking arm as she did so.
‘No … you have to live … I hate it, but you have to live … ’
He stared at her. Knowing she was too far gone, unreachable by anyone.
He glanced at Josephina, who was looking confused as to why he hadn’t taken her to see her mummy.
He sighed.
Wished he had just taken the girl and run when he had the chance.