Lets Drink To The Dead Read Online Free

it.
    And then he rolls onto his back again and he sees the man at the end of his bed.
    The breath clogs silent in his throat. Cold light flickers. The man wears a black, thigh-length coat. His head is pale and bulbous-looking, with only a thin feathering of hair around the ears reaching round the back. His eyes are pale and vast behind thick pebble lenses, and there’s red smeared round his pale, pursed mouth. His jaws lump as he chews. His hands are pale and soft-looking. Child’s hands. They hold something long and white. A bone, a big one. From someone’s arm or leg, maybe? A bone. It has chunks of meat hanging from it, and Alan knows he’s looking at the Shrike.
    The Shrike swallows. His red mouth opens. He’s speaking but there’s no sound. But Alan... Alan doesn’t hear the words so much as see them. They seem to hang in the air, glowing red against the dark.
    Do not look at me.
    Alan would cry out, but there’s no hearing in this place. He claps his hands over his eyes instead. He tries to sob, but there’s no sound. It isn’t coming back. The world will never know song or laughter again, not that it’s known much of either in his limited experience. Slowly, slowly, he peels his hands away from his eyes. Maybe the Shrike will still be there, waiting for him. Maybe there’s no escape for those like him, ever. Maybe he never really left that cellar and he’s dreamt everything since.
    When he looks, the Shrike is gone. But the room’s still choked with that unnatural silence, and he’s not alone.
    Three small, naked boys stand at the foot of his bed, their backs turned to him. One has fair hair, one has brown, the third has black. He knows them, of course; knows who they have to be.
    Johnny, Mark and Sam . He’d name them all if he could, but he has no voice. But they’ve heard him nonetheless, it seems; as he watches, the boys turn slowly to face him.
    They face him and he almost screams, not that it would make much difference here. They have no eyes. Only holes where their eyes should be.
    Alan wants to clap his hands back to his face, to turn, to run away. Their lips move, the three of them, in perfect unison.
    Look at us.
    Look at us, Alan.
    And so he does.
    We are the dead . We are the dead.
    He can’t speak. What would he say, even if he could? They’re right, of course. They’re dead, were good as dead as soon as Yolly and Mr Fitton delivered them to the farmhouse on Dunwich Lane.
    But you could have stopped it , they say, and he knows it’s true. He could have told. The police–
    But the Policeman. Daddy Adrian had the Policeman to protect him.
    Daddy Adrian is dead. And only he knew who the Policeman was. The Policeman won’t risk himself to save Mr Fitton or Father Joseph. You could have saved us.
    Daddy Adrian always said Alan would get put in a children’s home if he told, full of worse than him–
    We were your friends , the dead boys say. We looked up to you. We trusted. We trusted you as we trusted Daddy Adrian and Mr Fitton and Father Joseph. And you betrayed us.
    No. No, he wasn’t like them. He’d only wanted the pain to stop. He’d only ever wanted to get out.
    Oh, you’ll get out alright, Alan. You’ve bought your freedom with our blood. But there’s a price. There is always a price.
    Alan knows this. He’s been paying all his life, and he doesn’t even know what for. What price now, for this?
    The Sight, Alan. We give you the Sight.
    The sight? What sight?
    The sight of us, Alan. The Sight of the dead. You’ll make a living from it. Telling pretty lies about the afterlife. But we’ll always be with you to remind you of the price. And one day we’ll call you home. A day of reckoning, Alan, when you’ll finally atone. But not yet. Not for years yet. We give you those years, Alan. Remember it. You owe them to us.
    The shadows beyond the foot of the bed are deep and thick. The three boys glide back into them and are gone. Sound returns, and he realises he’s sobbing,