Jayden was freaking out. Shouting, running a couple of steps one way, spinning around and running the other way. People were laughing and making jokes, but none of them were helping him.
I shoved past a couple of Year Eight boys, grabbed hold of Jayden’s arms and tried to pull him to a stop. “Jayden!” He was looking past me, his eyes not quite focused. “Jayden, what are you doing?” He noticed me at last.
“They won’t leave me alone,” he said.
“Who?”
“The boys.”
“Get lost!” I shouted at the crowd gathered around. “Leave him alone!”
But Jayden shook his head, his eyes too wide. “Not them.” He pointed, his arm swinging in a wide arc. “Them!”
“Come on,” I said, pulling him out past the gathering. The Year Eights tried to follow, but I swore at them until they went away.
“What are you talking about?” I asked Jayden. “What are you doing?”
“There’s loads of them…” He was looking behind us, counting quietly. “Fifteen!” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “They’re all different ages, from babies to old men.” He gripped onto my arm.
“Who are?”
“Them,” whispered Jayden. “The ones no one else can see.”
I got this shivery shock.
“You don’t believe me!” he said.
“I do.” I was so relieved it wasn’t just me, but terrified at the same time.
“They’re following me around,” said Jayden, staring at nothing. “They won’t leave me alone.”
“Are they still here?” I asked, and Jayden nodded silently.
“I wish they’d shut up. They keep going on, but I’m not doing anything. I haven’t even touched them!”
Another cold shiver. “What are they saying?”
Stop, stop, stop! Except it wasn’t Jayden who said that; the voice was much deeper. I turned around, and my heart nearly stopped in fright. Standing next to me was this tall man. His hair was clipped in angles, and he was wearing a blue hoody, these stupid, ultra-wide trousers and mirrored sunglasses. On his wrist was a massive watch, with a touchscreen display. He looked like someone, but I couldn’t think who.
“Stop what?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
Jayden squeaked. “Are they talking to you as well?”
I shook my head, not taking my eyes off the man who’d just appeared.
“How do you know what they’re saying then?”
“Because there’s a man next to me who’s saying the same thing.”
Jayden looked either side of me, his face more scared than ever. “I can’t see any man.”
“And I can’t see any babies, Jayden.”
Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!
It was hard to think through the shouts of the ghost-man.
Jayden was shaking now. “Someone told me Isis has cursed the school, so it’s full of ghosts.”
“Do you actually believe that?”
“I don’t know!” he shouted. “I don’t even believe in ghosts, and now there’s a whole gang of them following me around!”
For a moment even I wondered if Isis had done it, somehow. I mean, she’s done a lot of stuff you’d never believe. I’ve seen a monster go inside her, and light pour out of her like the sun.
Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! said the man, like a broken record.
Angel and that creepy Mandeville were ghosts, I knew that, but urban-future man didn’t look the way they did. He was more solid, and more… blank. Like, if you see a photograph on a computer and then you see it printed out, the picture’s the same, but they’re different too. The man in front of me, he wasn’t ghostly, you know? He was something else. He was like the figures at the standing stone, but more… finished-looking.
He took a step towards me. Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!
“They’re getting closer,” said Jayden, panicking.
“Merlin walked straight through one,” I said to myself.
“What?” squawked Jayden.
I took hold of Jayden’s wrist. “Run for the door into school.”
“What?”
“Just do it. Come on!” This time I didn’t count; I set off at a flat-out run with Jayden shrieking and pulling behind me.
“You’re crazy! Don’t!”
But I didn’t let go of him, just kept my eyes on that door and forced my legs to go as fast as I could manage. Across the playground, a girl from our year started screaming like she was getting murdered, even though there was no one near her.
Stop! Stop! The voice was right by my ear, making me stumble, sending my heartbeat so fast I thought it might explode.
“Argh!” cried Jayden, suddenly speeding up, getting ahead of me. He’s not a brilliant runner – he must’ve been half killing himself.
“They’re keeping up with me!” he panted.
“We’re nearly there!”
And then Gav came running out of nowhere and crashed straight into us.
“They’re after me!” he shouted, eyes wide and staring. “They won’t leave me alone!”
That was more than Jayden could cope with. He twisted in my grip and started yelling at nothing.
“Get away from me!”
“Leave me alone!” shouted Gav, also at nothing.
“Go away!”
“Get back!”
They were shouting and hitting at thin air, while my own invisible man was closing in, hands reaching out towards me.
Stopstopstopstopstopstopstop.
I lost it too, starting to shout myself. It was the way he just kept coming, and wouldn’t give up…
“WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” Mr Watkins came out of the door. It shocked us all still for a second. “GET INSIDE, right now!”
He hauled us through the doorway.
“What do you think you’re doing? There’s enough trouble today without you three mucking about!”
Normally I would have hated getting told off in front of everyone, people stopping to watch. But I was glad, if you can believe it, because it was only us. No ghost, zombie or whatever he was. Just me, Gav and Jayden, getting shouted at by an ordinary, human teacher.
As Mr Watkins went on about us setting a good example for the younger pupils, Gav and Jayden both kept glancing at the door.
“Break’s nearly over,” finished Mr Watkins, “so get to your lessons.” He gave us a last glare and walked away.
“You all right?” I asked Gav.
He nodded. Slowly, and sort of surprised.
“I was fine until I went outside,” he said, “then they all…” He frowned, as if trying to puzzle out a dream, then shook his head, looking at his feet.
“Was it someone no one else could see?” I asked.
“Did they look like you?” said Jayden.
Gav flicked his gaze up and nodded. “There were about ten of them,” he mumbled. “Four of them in school uniform. They looked like me, even the older ones.”
“Mine too,” whispered Jayden.
“I only saw this one guy, but he—” I stopped, this horrible thought in my head. When I’m older, I’ll easily be as tall as the man I saw.
“And now they’re gone!” said Gav, staring out through the door.
Outside a teacher ran past, chasing the girl who’d been screaming. We all backed away, like we were safer further from the door, but I could still see Imran, this boy from our geography class, standing stock-still in the middle of the playground, crying.
“What’s going on?” asked Jayden, shaky-sounding, like he was only just holding it together.
“Everyone’s on about ghosts,” said Gav.
I shook my head, trying to untangle it all. “How can you have a ghost of yourself?”
“Maybe it’s a ghost’s trick?” said Gav. “Like a disguise?”
Jayden frowned. “Ghosts float, but this lot walk, like zombies.”
“They aren’t zombies!” said Gav. “Zombies are other people. These are us.”
“Clones?” said Jayden.
“Then why did they vanish when we came inside?”
“I don’t know!” said Jayden, peering anxiously through the door. “Do you think they’re out there waiting for us?”
Gav backed further away from the door. “I’m not going to find out.”
“What about walking home after school?” said Jayden.
We were all silent, thinking the same horrible thoughts, then Gav said, “I’ll ring my mum, ask her to pick us up. She would if it’s an emergency.”
Jayden held an imaginary phone to his ear. “Hi, Mum, can you give me a lift home, because I’m seeing loads of ghosts that look like me, or maybe they’re zombies. I’m not sure cos no one else can see them. Oh no, it’s fine, we don’t need to stop at the psychiatric hospital on the way.” He looked at Gav.
Gav scowled back. “All right, what do you think?”
“Maybe terrorists have sprayed weird drugs into the school and we’re hallucinating?”
“Oh God,” groaned Gav. “It’s a genetically engineered virus, and this is the first symptom. Next we’re all going to bleed out through our eyes and die.”
“It’s not that!” I said. “Come on, let’s think. We only see them outside, right?”
They nodded.
“So they aren’t zombies or clones, but they could still be some kind of ghost?”
“An outdoors-only ghost?”
I sighed. That didn’t sound very likely either.
“When did you first see them?” Jayden asked. There was something about the way he said it. That’s when I started to realise.
“Three weeks ago,” answered Gav quietly. “I saw a boy who looked like me. Only a glimpse, and I thought maybe I’d imagined it.”
“I saw this thing on the school trip,” said Jayden. “Just a shape, but it had my face.”
“I saw shapes too,” I said.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” asked Gav.
“Why didn’t you?” I took a breath. “And I saw this kid in our back garden, the day after. He looked just like a photo Mum’s got of me when I was five.” I didn’t tell them about the standing stone though. I was still worrying about the wrong things then, like them thinking I was the craziest of all.
The same thing clicked in our heads, all at once.
“The school trip,” said Jayden.
“Something at the quarry?” I said.
“This is because of that?” asked Gav. “But that was ages ago!”
“Oh!” yelped Jayden. “Remember in physics, we did all that stuff about radioactivity? How when they first discovered it they didn’t know it could make you ill and they used radioactive paint in watches, and made necklaces out of uranium and stuff?”
Me and Gav both nodded, even though Gav probably didn’t have a clue.
“So what if that rare earth stuff they’re mining is like that? Except instead of radioactivity, it gives you hallucinations?”
It made sense, and even if hallucination-inducing rock wasn’t the best, it was way better than seeing stuff with no explanation…
Gav shook his head though. “They quarry for rare earth metals in China and America and places. Wouldn’t it be all over the internet if it made people go loopy?”
We were quiet for a minute, then Jayden piped up. “Mr Watkins went on loads about it being a really unusual deposit or seam or whatever. Maybe what they’re mining there is so special that…”
“It makes you hallucinate?” Gav pulled a face. “It won’t be much good for touchscreens then, will it? Anyway, why would that Dr Harcourt take us into the quarry if she knew it would make us like this?”
“An experiment!” said Jayden. “Like Frankenstein?”
“Then why is this all happening today?” asked Gav. “Why not when we actually went to the quarry?”
“Perhaps it’s slow-acting?” said Jayden. “Like when that Russian man got poisoned using radioactive polonium? He didn’t die for ages.”
We all went quiet.
“Are we going to die?” asked Gav.