49Well, folks, it's been a year. If I were decent at planning, I would've probably published one chapter per month, but because I'm not, this is what you're getting.
Like always, I absolutely must give credit to Dark Heart 945. If it weren't for her, this story probably wouldn't have become what it is, but more than that - she's the sister I never had and she's been there for me for another year, putting up with my silliness and weirdness and just being so kind and smart, so this chapter is for her, and for another very happy birthday.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" Riley Wallace asked Daniel Stevens.
The two boys were strolling through the woods one September morning, sharing a packet of Doritos and talking about random things.
"Why do you ask?" Daniel responded.
"Because these woods are said to be haunted," Riley said casually.
Daniel snorted in disbelief. "Yeah, right."
"I'm serious," Riley insisted, taking a detour to the left. "Here, I'll show you."
With scepticism, Daniel tailed after his friend, stopping only when they came to a clearing. Or at least it seemed like a clearing because there was very little dirt for trees to grow on due to the fissures that remained in the ground. Grass and weeds had grown sparsely on their soily walls, with the faintest residue of luminous ectoplasm lying on the floors. The fluid had a very high boiling point and hadn't evaporated off, even over the last fourteen months.
"Three children died here," Riley went on, indicating to the commemorative marble block:
This plaque was put up in memory of all the victims of the Arachnidan Cult, an evil necromantic group that had been claiming victims since 1896. On July 17th 2016, the Cult, which had previously only been thought to be an urban myth, was discovered to be real after it was dismantled by Ryan Reeves, 14, Bailey Wharton, 15, and Jody Jackson, 14. Tragically, all three children died from the cult's actions and the radioactive conditions of their lair.
"Are we even allowed to be here?" Daniel asked once he'd finished reading the plaque. "This says this place is radioactive."
"They say it's safe now*," Riley dismissed, putting the Doritos bag down. "Apparently radioactive things get less radioactive over time."
"How can you be so sure it's haunted then?" Daniel asked.
"My cousin told me she came here last month, dropped her mood ring on the floor and it disappeared without a trace," Riley said.
Daniel looked down at the leafy, twiggy forest floor. It seemed like any little thing dropped on there could get lost easily, ghosts or no ghosts.
"My uncle also lost his Swiss Army Knife here," Riley went on, "and my aunt, her copy of A Clockwork Orange."
"Why was she bringing a book with her to a place like this?" Daniel asked.
Riley shrugged. "The same reason we brought Doritos?"
"Can I have another, by the way?"
"Sure," Riley said, looking around for where he'd put down the bag, only to come up blank. "I could've sworn I put it down right here ..." He trailed off, staring straight at Daniel for a few seconds.
Daniel got the message and proceeded to sprint back down the direction they came, Riley hot on his heels.
Meanwhile, in the world of the dead, with three immature spirits who still have the ability to cross dimensions ...
"Should you even be feeding him those?" Jody asked, watching as Bailey held the half-eaten bag of Doritos open in front of Fritz while the little frog's tongue flicked around the inside.
"Frogs aren't picky eaters," Bailey shrugged. "Besides, we're all dead anyway. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Oh yeah, forgot about that," she muttered sarcastically. "You know, Ryan won't be too happy if he comes back to find you feeding his pet."
Fritz croaked indignantly at being called a 'pet', before catching a Dorito on his tongue and flicking it in Jody's direction.
"He probably won't be back for ages," Bailey said. "Last time he decided to go exploring, he didn't come back for a month."
"You try navigating your way out of the Amazon without any equipment."
The other two looked up to see that Ryan had appeared again, looking slightly disconcerted. Fritz, however, turned with a croak and hopped onto his owner's shoulder.
"Where did you go this time?" Jody asked. "The Sahara?"
"No, I went there ages ago," Ryan said. "There's nothing to see there anyway, unless you like sand. I just went to America."
"America?" Bailey repeated. "Isn't that where-"
"Yes," Ryan interrupted, a shadow passing over his expression. "She wasn't half scared when she saw me appear in the room out of nowhere." He tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth seemed weighed down by the memories. "She knew I was dead, of course. The whole thing was all over the news all over the world. She didn't even care enough to watch our funeral on TV." He clenched his ethereal fist. "She's never coming back to Britain, not even to send for Chloe. She doesn't care about either of us."
Jody and Bailey were silent for a moment, unsure of how to respond. Bailey's father had been utterly stricken by the news of his son's illness and even visited him in the hospital, though Bailey himself only found this out when Jody told him later, being too out of it at the time to comprehend anything. His mother, real or fake, never gave him a second thought, not even during their public, televised funeral.
Jody's family hadn't been quite as devastated by the news of her death, but they at least had the decency to show up to the private funeral and look appropriately sombre, even Kingsley. Chloe had been there too, looking like she would rather be tetraplegic if it meant having her brother back.
"Chloe's probably better off without her," Jody said in the end.
"What did you say to her?" Bailey asked.
"I told her that I would haunt her every minute of every day until the day she died."
"And are you going to?"
"No way," Ryan said. "She fell asleep soon enough after, so she'll probably just think it was a bad dream."
"You could still scare her every once in a while," Bailey suggested.
Ryan shrugged. "Where'd you get the Doritos?" he asked, to change the subject.
"Two boys were walking past the pit with them, so Bailey decided to steal them," Jody said, glaring slightly at Bailey.
"We haven't had Doritos in forever," Bailey defended. "Besides, Fritz likes them."
The frog croaked in agreement, but Ryan went over and grabbed the bag. "Only I can feed him, he's my frog. You can have Mischief when he dies."
"Hey!" Bailey exclaimed.
"Told you he'd be annoyed," Jody said, turning her attention back to reading A Clockwork Orange.
"Why are you wasting time here anyway?" Ryan asked. "We only have nineteen more years before we lose the ability to cross over. Why waste them stuck up here?"
"We've moved on," Bailey explained. "Time to enjoy our time at peace."
"Suit yourselves," Ryan said. "For me, dying has let me live the life I never had. I've seen things that you have to see to believe."
"I've had enough of seeing unbelievable things," Jody chimed in. "It was your stupid bet about them that cost all of us our lives."
"You still owe me 15 quid, by the way," Bailey added.
"Oh yeah, I should've left it to you in my will," Ryan said sarcastically, before his tone change to sincere. "But come on, we've been given a chance to live. Really live, not just be alive."
"He's got a point," Bailey said, after a pause. "I mean, what's the worst that can happen to us? It's not like we can die again."
Jody was silent for a long moment, before folding the corner of the page she was on and closing the book. "Where to next?"
*Uranium actually has a half-life of 700 million-4.5 billion years (depending on which isotope of uranium), so 14 months isn't remotely long enough for the radioactivity to have reduced enough to be safe. Thankfully, Riley, Daniel and everyone else who happened to pass won't have stayed there long enough for it to affect them.
Shameless self-plug: A Spine-Tingling Tale, my other story that's hopefully quite different to this. Never mind that I'm a little miffed at the lack of reviews on its last chapter.
Well, that was The Flood. Thank you, everyone, for following this story, Dark Heart 945 especially, reading and reviewing and hopefully enjoying reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
With everything in me,
Justice.