How To Be Dead Read online

  Sarah Davidson tripped over the collection of sour milk bottles left on the doorstep. She attempted to hide them behind a dying pot plant. It disappointed her that, in this market, some vendors still did not make an effort. She was the fourth agent to take the property onto her books. Stories had begun to spread through the local industry that it was unsellable, but nobody could say exactly why. It happened from time to time. A house doesn't sell for a while, the price is dropped and buyers become suspicious. This did not deter Sarah. She was not one to back away from a challenge.

  She let herself in, shoving the door against the pile of mail that had gathered on the hall floor, and turned the lights on. They flickered, hummed and crackled. Sarah did not like evening viewings. Lamps and downlights were less forgiving than the natural glow of the day, no matter what the property shows on the television might tell the public. She swept the envelopes and flyers up into her arms and dumped them on the hall table.

  Sarah gave the house a quick inspection. Half drunk coffee cups on the kitchen sideboard, books scattered on the living room floor. She began to suspect why this was a difficult property to sell. It was structurally and aesthetically fine, but the vendors took no pride in it. Why should others imagine they could? She put away what she was able to, sighed and saw her breath on the air. She looked for the thermostat and turned it up until she heard the dull, distant thud of the boiler starting up.

  The house was filled with a welcoming warmth by the time the viewers arrived. A young couple, Peter and Victoria. Sarah was happy to see that Victoria was pregnant. The nesting instinct always helped a sale along.

  'Shall we start in the lounge?' Sarah asked. The couple nodded and followed her into the room. Sarah looked down on the floor in horror.

  'How embarrassing. I'm sure I put those books back on the shelf.'

  'Not a sign of subsidence, I hope,' said Victoria. Sarah laughed too hard.

  'As you can see the room is generously proportioned...' The television burst into life. The three of them jumped as if they had been physically slapped by the noise. Sarah picked up the remote control from the coffee table and began punching buttons at random. Nothing seemed to work, so she ran over and yanked at the plug socket until it came loose and the television winked into a dark silence.

  'Are the electrics safe?' Peter's face was a picture of concern.

  'Fine,' said Sarah, trying to sound reassuring. 'I'm sure it was just on a timer. To deter burglars. Not that there's any problem with crime around here,' she said, breathlessly. 'The vendors must have gone away without informing the office. Shall we move through to the kitchen?'

  Sarah scanned the plug sockets. She was relieved to see that they were all switched off.

  'This has all been refurbished. Built-in dishwasher and dual sinks...'

  'It's freezing in here. I thought there was central heating.' Victoria shivered. Sarah would later find it hard to describe, but it wasn't just cold. There was a palpable absence of warmth, as if it had been locked out of the room.

  'Can you hear that?' asked Victoria. Whispers. Indecipherable and innumerable voices brushing past each other. The memories of every conversation ever held in this house being played back at once. Sarah looked around, but they were coming from everywhere and nowhere. The fear sat heavily in her chest, like a shard of ice had been plunged through her ribcage. She focused on what she knew. The sale.

  'Shall we try upstairs?' she asked, enthusiastically. They hurried out of the kitchen and back into the hallway. Sarah went first, up the stairs and onto the landing. She listened carefully and was rewarded with silence. She sighed with relief.

  'It's Halloween, isn't it? It's probably just some kids playing pranks,' she reasoned. Peter and Victoria replied with nervous smiles. 'Let's start with the master bedroom. It's en suite.'

  Sarah placed her hand on the brass handle of a bedroom door, her body heat warping the shine of the cold metal. Her unease returning, she tentatively opened the door. It creaked open slightly, but then closed again as if someone on the other side had pushed back.

  Sarah pushed again with her full weight. The door slammed back, throwing Sarah across the landing. Then the scratching started. An insistent scraping like nails chipping away at Sarah's soul. Victoria, Peter and Sarah looked at each other with wide eyes and scanned around for the source of the noise. Victoria saw it first and let out a scream that sang along with the rasping in a harmony of fear.

  An invisible hand was slowly carving thick lines into the wall at the top of the stairs. As the dust and plaster fell to the floor, Sarah realised with growing horror that the marks were forming words.

  GO AWAY.

  This was not a childish prank. The estate agent and her clients ran down the stairs, their feet thumping as fast as their heartbeats. They fell out of the front door and began fumbling for car keys.

  'We've thought about it,' said Peter, gasping, 'and we've decided not to make an offer.'

  'Is there any way the vendor could improve the property?' asked Sarah, always keen to hear feedback.

  'Fire. Lots of fire,' Peter replied as he lunged into his car and started the engine. The couple sped off, neither of them looking back.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  'Do I want to go for a drink?' Gary asked himself. He ran the unfamiliar sequence of words around his mouth to see if they were a good fit. 'But "My Big Fat Geek Wedding" is on. Your favourite. Footage of brides crying because they can't find a vicar who speaks fluent Klingon.'

  'But we never go out. We never meet new people.'

  'You know my motto,' said Gary. 'A stranger is just an arsehole I haven't yet met. And, anyway, we went out for your birthday.'

  'That was a terrible night.'

  'It was a brilliant night! We gave you the bumps!'

  'You pushed me down the stairs!'

  Gary sighed. It had been two years since Dave had moved in, a new arrival to London. He had seemed the safest choice from the parade of artists, graduates and hipsters that came to look at the small room. Gary had only been looking for help with the rent, but - as it is with men who care for each other - their conversation soon dissolved to nothing but personal abuse. He would grudgingly admit that he had also found a friend. He had learned from bitter experience that, if he refused Dave, the inevitable outcome from this conversation would be his friend sulking for the rest of the evening.

  'If you want to go out, I know somewhere holding a pub quiz,' Gary suggested.

  Dave could feel the evening slipping from his control.

  'I'd be useless. I don't know anything about pubs, but my work is holding a Halloween party.'

  A knowing smile broke out over Gary's face.

  'I presume that girl from your office going to be there? Melissa?'

  Dave was prepared for this, but still tripped over his words.

  'Melanie? I think so. Maybe. Perhaps.'

  'I knew it. I don't know why you just don't admit you like her.'

  'I do not. That's ridiculous. What makes you say that?'

  'Every time you tell a lie an angel punches a unicorn in the face with a kitten.'

  'I am not lying!'

  'Whenever I bring this up, you react in the same way as when I ask if you've eaten the last biscuit. I'm not judging you or anything. All I know is that it's been a long while since I had a custard cream.' Gary sighed. 'We'll go. What are we going to do about costumes?'

  'We'll get something on the way.'

  Dave always ate the last biscuit.

  And so Dave found himself back on the streets, surrounded by people so desperate to have a good time that he feared they may burst a blood vessel. He and Gary stopped at the corner shop on the way to the tube station and discovered their costume options were limited. Gary suggested that he could go as a zombie victim who had been bitten but had not yet turned, going so far as to try and bite a chunk from his own hand. Dave felt that this would not be in the spirit of a Halloween party, so he picked out some flashing devil horns. Gary
settled on a pair of fluffy pink bunny ears because, according to him, both of them wearing the same thing would make them look 'fucking stupid'.

  'Dave!' someone called above the noise of the crowds. He turned around to see Melanie and an unimpressed friend forcing their way through the tide of bodies. Her face painted like a cat's, Melanie teetered on high heeled shoes. Dave gazed at Melanie like Professor Brian Cox eyeing up a particularly thought-provoking mountain range. Suddenly the night was bursting with promise and opportunity.

  'Is that her?' Gary had an impressed tone to his voice.

  'Yes.' Dave's voice revealed his nervousness.

  'Just be yourself. Actually, don't. You're a dick. Try and be someone cool and interesting.'

  'No, you're right. I should just be honest with her.'

  'What? Be honest? With a woman? And start a dangerous precedent?' Gary decided to ignore Dave's implicit admission that he was attracted to Melanie. There would be plenty of time for ridicule later.

  Dave adjusted his devil horns to what he believed to be a jaunty angle. Can devil horns ever be jaunty? he thought. Yes. This is the area to focus on right now.

  'Nice devil horns. Very jaunty,' said Melanie. 'What are you up to?'

  'Oh. We're just on our way to the party.' Dave shrugged.

  'UberSystems International-endorsed employee-focused entertainment set between pre-defined boundaries?'

  He smiled sheepishly. 'I can't get enough of it.'

  Gary cleared his throat. Dave supposed he was asking a lot to hope to avoid introductions.

  'Melanie, this is my housemate Gary. Gary, this is Melanie.'

  'Hi,' said Melanie. 'This is Emma.'

  'Pleased to meet you,' said Emma, the iciness of her voice indicating that she was nothing of the sort. The four of them began to walk in silence. Dave decided to blunder blindly into the world of small talk.

  'So how do you two know each other?'

  'We went to university together,' said Melanie.

  'Mel's crashing with me since she and her loser boyfriend split up.'

  'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.' He wasn't.

  'Don't be. We'd been drifting apart for a while. He was... Well... He made things complicated, shall we say? He tried to make an effort at the end but it was all too little, too late. As opposed to his bedroom proficiency, which was too little too early. Clitoral stimulation? Give it? He couldn't even spell it. I'm not entirely sure why I told you that. I may have had a drink.'

  Dave opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no words came. He was slightly relieved when Melanie stumbled over on her ridiculous heels. But she continued to stagger and slipped off the kerb into the road. Dave saw the oncoming headlights, like the bright eyes of a predator bearing down on its prey. He heard the brakes squeal. He stepped into the glare, as if an unseen force had propelled him towards the inevitable. He instinctively shoved Melanie out of the path of the oncoming car.

  Everything was a blur. Sound. Space. Time.

  Then.

  Stillness.

  Dave barely felt the wet tarmac beneath his broken body; a rag doll thrown by the petulant child that is chance. He was surprised by how uneventful his last moments were. There was no tunnel of light. Nothing flashed before his eyes.

  With as little fuss as he had lived, Dave Marwood died.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dave opened his eyes. He could not feel any pain. He could not feel the ground beneath him, nor the cold night air against his skin. The only sensation was panic. He remembered a TV show in which a paramedic asked a road accident victim to wiggle their toes. This little piggy went to market. He went through all the piggies and their activities. Somehow, it was the world that was numb, not his body.

  He pushed himself up onto his elbows. A fog had descended, reducing everything to a ghostly presence. The streets were empty. No traffic. No people. No life. After the noise of the crash, the silence screamed in his ears. How long had he been lying there? He couldn't understand it. Surely his friends wouldn't have abandoned him?

  The mists parted and a figure that haunts all of humanity's nightmares glided ethereally towards him. Its black cloak absorbed the street light. The scythe in its hand glimmered with the memory of a thousand dying suns. This guy had really made an effort with his Halloween costume. The image was ruined, though, when he crashed to the ground like he had been shot. His feet waving in the air, Dave could see the roller skates.

  'A little help, please?' the figure cried out.

  Dave pulled himself up and helped the struggling and swaying man to his feet.

  'Sorry about that. I was just trying something new.'

  'Good night? Had a few drinks?' Dave asked slowly and loudly. He searched for a face under the cowl, but all he found was an all-consuming darkness that tugged at the loose threads of his being.

  'Oh dear, Dave,' replied the grim stranger. 'This is going to be awkward. I am Death.'

  Dave looked confused. Death pressed on regardless.

  'The whisper on the lips of the damned? The dark companion who walks in the shadows of humanity's souls? But that's terribly depressing. I'm thinking of calling myself something else. Steve, perhaps.'

  Dave knew somehow that the words the stranger said were true. The shock hit him harder than the car, a punch to the gut that caused him to double over.

  The Living World crashed down around him. Dave saw that a worried crowd had gathered around his own shattered body lying in front of the car. Gary frantically paced back and forth, shouting into his mobile phone. Melanie, smeared with Dave's blood, pumped his chest with her fists. She locked her lips over Dave's in a kiss that he would never taste.

  'What? I'm dead? But there were so many things that I wanted to do.'

  'Really?' asked Death.

  Dave wondered if it was worthwhile taking offence to things when you were dead.

  'Well, I hadn't finished watching all my DVD box sets.'

  'You're not going to cry are you? Oh, I don't like it when you lot cry.'

  Dave decided that it was worthwhile to take offence to things when you were dead.

  'No!'

  'I shouldn't worry,' said Death, in what Dave assumed was an attempt at a reassuring tone. 'This is what you Meat Puppets call a Near Death Experience. You'll be up and about in no time. If it makes you feel more comfortable, I'm thinking of this as a Near Dave Experience.'

  Relief flowed through Dave's body in exactly the way that his blood currently did not.

  'Oh. Right. Lovely. Sorry about the shouting. So, what happens next? Do we just...?'

  'Pretty much.'

  Dave was standing before Death. He could ask him anything right now. Questions on the fabric of space and time. The past. The present. The future.

  'You know you're a lot shorter in person?'

  Death shrugged and nodded as if this observation had been regularly made to him since the dawn of creation. He then took a very expensive pocket watch from his cloak and examined it.

  'Do you fancy a quick pint?'

  Dave was having an out-of-body experience. More accurately, Dave was having an out-of-body-down-the-road-and-in-the-nearest-pub-with-two-pints-of-bitter-and-some-bar-snacks experience. This was not how he had imagined his evening would turn out; having a drink with Death. Actually, Death was the only one doing the drinking. Being a ghost, whenever Dave went to pick up his pint glass, his hand passed straight through it with the sensation of running his fingers through water. The pub was tatty and so dark Dave wasn't sure where the barmaid's nicotine stains ended and her fake tan began. Ignored by the customers, Death was just another drunk muttering to himself in the corner.

  'This is the only night of the year when I can go out for a drink,' he said. 'Halloween has become so commercialised now. You lot have forgotten the true meaning of the undead walking the Earth.'

  As Dave concentrated on picking up the beer in front of him, he remembered his last living thought. 'I'll be honest with you. I was expecting a tu
nnel of light or something. My life flashing before my eyes at least.'

  Death choked on his pint. He wiped his hidden face with the sleeve of his robe. 'Tunnel of light? Load of rubbish. I got bored and held a toilet roll close to a few people's faces while shining a torch down it. Do you want to see your life flashing before your eyes?'

  Did he? Perhaps Dave could learn something from this. His past actions could give an insight into his destiny. His old life replayed and reset before his rebirth. Also, he might get to see Lisa Daniels naked again.

  'Yeah. Alright.'

  Death clicked his fingers and reality lurched aside.

  Dave found himself watching the Long Dark PowerPoint Presentation of the Soul. His achievements had been reduced to a series of slides smashed together with every kind of heavy-handed dissolve, transition and clip art file.

  And written in Comic Sans.

  Dave saw himself aged seven years old, winning a cuddly toy from a seaside grabber machine. Then time jumped forward ten years and he was successfully parallel parking a beaten up car into an impossibly narrow space. Then a fruit machine hitting the jackpot, coins cascading everywhere. Star swipe to Dave sitting at his desk at UberSystems International. Late at night, he throws a screwed up ball of paper across the length of the office. It bounces off of the wall into the waste paper basket. Dave punches the air.

  End of slide show. Click to exit.

  'Is that it?'

  'What are you talking about? That was a really good piece of parking.'

  'And nobody saw it. That's the sum total of my existence?'

  Dave wasn't expecting much, but that was pitiful. He resolved to become a better person, to look at this second chance as a gift. He turned to Death to tell him this, but he was concentrating on his mobile phone.

  'What are you doing?' Dave asked. 'I'm having an existential crisis here.'

  'I'm just updating my Twitter.' Death showed Dave the phone screen. 'I am currently talking to the world's most miserable man.' He pressed the send button.