The Death House Read Online Free PDF

whisper past accompanied by the rustle of plastic bags as Ellory’s clothes and toiletries are removed. Nothing will be left for Joe to remember him by. He’s being efficiently exorcised from our community. I wonder what they do with the clothes. Are we all wearing dead boys’ clothes, recycled from a previous wave of Defectives? Is there a stockpile in the house somewhere ready for children of all shapes and sizes? The lift doors slide shut again and I let out a shaky breath as adrenalin rushes through me.
    Goodbye, Ellory. It was nice not knowing you.
    I feel almost sick, a tang of nausea in my mouth. I need the bathroom and a glass of water. I turn away, and only then does my eye catch on the landing two floors above. A thick strand of something has escaped from between the banisters and floats in the air like seaweed drifting in the shallows. I almost gasp with the unexpectedness of it, and maybe I do let out a short, sharp breath as my mouth falls open. It’s hair. Someone else is awake. I freeze, then frown, my thoughts jolted away from Ellory, the sickness, the dreadful nothingness that waits upstairs. Thoughts I can’t define but which are wrapped up in the ball in my stomach and sit like a sour taste on my tongue. They are gone in an instant. No one else is ever awake.
    The shadow moves, the hair pulled away as its owner retreats, and the stairs creak. I dart back into my dorm and peer out through a crack in the door as the figure goes by. Who is it? What are they doing? More change – first Tom, now this. I seriously think about going back to bed and staying there, but I’m not tired, and why the fuck should I, anyway? The nights are mine.
     
    I find her in the kitchen. She’s got slices of ham and cheese out and is making a sandwich.
    ‘Want one?’ she says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that we’re meeting here in the dark at gone two in the morning. I don’t answer, just stare at her from the doorway as the wind outside whips around the building and whistles through the gap under the back door.
    She spreads about an inch of butter on one slice of white bread. ‘My mum never let me have butter. Not good for the hips, apparently, and definitely not good for a dancer. Well, I’m having it now. Don’t think fat thighs are my biggest priority any more, do you?’ She smiles as she slaps the sandwich together and then jumps gracefully onto the stainless steel kitchen prep table to eat it. It’s hard to see but I think she has a rash of freckles across her face. Her teeth are white and even, and her thick red hair tumbles scruffily around her shoulders.
    I look at her sandwich and my stomach tightens. The nights are no longer under my control. I have someone else’s mistakes to worry about. She follows my eyes.
    ‘Don’t worry. I was careful and I’ll clean up. They won’t notice I’ve been here.’
    ‘You came with Tom,’ I say.
    She nods. ‘Poor Tom. He’s so angry about everything.’ Her legs swing back and forth and under her nightshirt I can see they’re slim and toned. There’s pink varnish on her toenails. An echo from her before . Energy fizzes from her. She chews another mouthful and watches me. I want a sandwich or something but I’m not going to have one. She’s killed my appetite.
    ‘You didn’t take the vitamins,’ I say. I’ve moved one step inside the kitchen but I won’t come any closer. I’m sullen but she doesn’t appear to notice. She laughs a little instead. It’s warm. Friendly. What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she know where she is?
    ‘Vitamins, my arse. My mum’s been taking “vitamins” for years. Normally with Scotch.’ She puts the sandwich down, forgotten. ‘Why don’t you take yours?’
    I’ve learned to slide the pills between my upper lip and gum line so quickly that the nurses don’t notice, practising with peas from dinner. Now they’re all collected in a wrap of toilet paper stuffed into the ball of my bedpost. Same