DEAD(ish) Read Online Free PDF

anything you
know that might help Mike out – or might help me help Linda leave
this world for the next – would you tell me? Please?"
    "Oh, poor little Mikey!" Geordie says and
downs another whiskey. He's onto his fifth, now, and starting to
look a little shaky. "Poor little Mikey deserves everything he
gets! Killing Linda like that – and he hasn't even ponied up our
share of the cash, has he? Poor little Linda, I liked that girl...
ha, if she was really poor she'd still be alive, wouldn't she,
Mikey-baby would never have barbecued her arse... oh, such a nice
arse, too!"
    Luckily, I can't say a thing, I'm frozen with
horror.
    "Such a juicy arse – all tender, and
beautiful with a plum sauce!" Geordie croons, looking off into the
distance. "I miss her!"
    He covers his face and starts to sob.
    The arseholes ate Linda!

Fallout
    "They ATE me? They ATE my body? That's why I
can't find my body, because it's... it's sewerage !"
    Linda's not impressed.
    "Those DICKHEADS!"
    She punches my wall, and her hand goes
through without breaking anything – then she clenches her jaw and
rips electrical wiring and insulation out through a large hole when
she pulls it back out. Something fizzes, and the lights dim and go
out.
    I sigh. Somehow I get the idea that telling
her to calm down wouldn't be a brilliant move.
    "I'm sorry, Linda," I say helplessly.
    She collapses into a little heap on the
floor, and heaves with sobs.
    I kneel down next to her, and put my hand on
her shoulder in a weak attempt to comfort her, but my hand goes
straight through – she's completely insubstantial.
    "Linda..."
    I have no idea how to comfort a woman
who I can't hug, or kiss, or even touch. So I hover uselessly, a
couple of tears of my own welling out of my eyes. No one deserves
this kind of crap, but especially not Linda.
    "Fuuuuuuck!" she wails.
    ****
    Eventually she gets up, and she's got her
bottom jaw jutted out in a way that tells me I'd better only get in
her way if it's a matter of life and death – and probably not then,
either.
    "I want to see them." she says.
    "Laz and Geordie?"
    She nods, and her bottom lip quivers a little
as she thrusts out that lower jaw just a little more.
    "You want me there?" I guess, since she
hasn't popped out of view.
    She nods.
    I sigh, and call another cab.
    ****
    "Why?"
    Linda's standing in their lounge room,
looking lost. Looking betrayed. Geordie and Lazarus are speechless
in front of her, pole-axed by shock and guilt. It's like they knew
Linda was around, but never thought she'd find out what they'd done
to her, and never thought about what they should do if she did.
    "WHY?" she demands, and starts to cry. Big,
ghostly tears well up in her eyes and roll down her cheeks.
    Geordie, never one to be out-dramaed, starts
to sob.
    "I'm so sorry, Lindy-love!" he chokes, "We
never meant – we didn't know – it was -"
    God. All the emotion in this room makes me
want to blubber myself, or down a couple of stiff drinks. Except I
don't think that doing something as trivial as making a drink would
be a brilliant idea right now. And besides, it seems
disrespectful.
    "It was what ?"
    "It was Mike," Lazarus says, looking straight
at her for the first time, "He told us what he'd done, that it was
too late, you were dead... and that you wouldn't want him to go to
prison. We didn't want him to go to prison. He said it was
an accident... we didn't realise til his mates came round that it
might not have been. But – we'd already..."
    He falls silent, and stares at the
carpet.
    "You ate me, you arseholes!" Linda
yells.
    They nod meekly. Geordie sniffles, and digs
in his pocket for a hankie.
    "We didn't know," says Lazarus, and sighs, "I
know that's not much comfort, but... we didn't know, it was just a
barbecue Mike invited us to. He told us as if it was a big joke,
that we just ate his ex-girlfr-"
    He breaks off and buries his head in his
hands.
    Linda is starting to look more angry than
teary.
    "Do you want to make this up to