Skippy Dies: A Novel

It sounded like when you set an animal on fire. Then all around him were black bodies rising out of the grass. They rose up, they were screaming, only Carl could hear them.

Then he was on the street outside his house. He didn’t know how he got there. The noise was gone, they were gone, but the night kept getting darker and darker. He blinked to push it back but then it came crashing in again. Lights did not make any difference. The rain in the pocks of the path joined up to make words he could not say, words made of secret letters. Every word was a shell that held an empty universe.

The key was in the door. There was mud on his trousers.

Carl’s life had become a series of scenes featuring Carl. They joined up for a second like words made of rain in the pocks of a path then came apart again. Everything was like an answer that was on the tip of your tongue. Coats. Tiny flowers of the wallpaper.

He could not remember how things join up!

The bodies, the shadows, a thousand, a million, going, WE ARE THE DEAD. So loud, the horrible sound! The Druid staring at Carl with his mouth open. Then in a glow Dead Boy at their front.

That’s when Carl ran, he ran all the way back home.

The living room smelled like chemicals. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Light shot at you from everywhere! Gleam gleam went the wood and glass, the TV, the rowing machine, the gin bottle. Through the dark. On the couch Mom lay. From the doorway it looked like a fairy-tale with a princess fallen asleep in an enchanted garden. The curtain was open, the streetlight shone on her bare legs. Carl reached down and very gently, like he was plucking a flower, took the burned-down cigarette from between her fingers. He carried it to the fireplace and put it there.

In the kitchen he poured water into a glass. He held up the glass and looked into it. In the glass the room: the cream walls, the grey refrigerator, the cookery books with famous TV chefs on the never-opened covers, all shivery and blurred. He drank and felt the room wobbling icy-cold in his stomach. Now when you open your eyes there will be nothing there.

Carl!

He opened his eyes. He was in the living room. Mom rose silver out of her sleeping body and floated above it. She watched Carl but did not speak. The moon was full, they had turned it into a streetlight. She looked down sad like something terrible was going to happen. But it was not she who said Carl’s name.

Standing right next to Carl was Dead Boy.

Oh fuck!

Now when you stared at him he did not disappear any more. That was what happened on the hill, that was why Carl was screaming. You screamed and screamed, FUCK OFF and I’M SORRY, he just hovered, he just smiled. Now he was here in Carl’s house, there was nowhere left to run.

He is dead. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, he said.

He can talk?!

First you had to smoke the poppies first, then I can talk to you.

???

The poppies are made of In the war they grew out of the bodies From the LAND OF DEATH People spat on them So They moved underground To give them ANTEROGRADE AMNESIA so When you smoke them Now you can see us

Do you live in the dolmen? Carl said.

Dead Boy nodded. It is very cold, he said.

Yes that is what THEY said, now he remembered We are cold We are sad.

I am cold too, he said.

I know, Carl, said Dead Boy.

Then he realized: Dead Boy is his friend! He wanted to help him! That was why he’d been appearing!

Carl’s eyes were full of tears. Lori won’t talk to me, he told

Dead Boy. It’s like I’m dead too.

Dead Boy nodded.

I love her, Carl said. How can I get her to talk to me again?

You have to show her that we’re friends now.

But how?

You have to help me finish the quest, Dead Boy whispered.

Everything went dark like the room was filled with [black paint] [millions of crows].

Carl was afraid. The quest?

You have to kill the final Demon. Now it was just Dead Boy’s eyes like two big moons.

It’s the priest, Carl. It’s the peterphile. He’s the one who killed me.

He is? Carl said.

Dead Boy nodded slowly.

Something was not right about this but Carl shook it away.

Everything glowed.

You have to show her.

The holy fire, Mom said above the couch. Her hand was a flame.

And Carl knew what he had to do.