Casting Shadows Read online

same day. In Ruth's front room. She had sickened and shrivelled in front of Ruth's eyes. By evening there was nothing left but a shell, a papery sculpture of mummified skin. She had lifted Karen carefully - she was light as a feather, and put her in the back garden. She hadn't looked out of the back window for the rest of the afternoon but by evening the only thing that remained was a silver pendant and a small pile of teeth. Ruth didn't like to think about what she was breathing in every time she left the cottage.

  She walked out of the back door. The silence was no different than when she had occupied a world of the living, but for the lack of planes in the sky it could have been any other day. She trudged over to the whale, shivering as the cold sand burrowed beneath her toes.

  It was already a shell. She touched it tentatively and the papery shards of its skin disintegrated and were carried away on the breeze. She might be the last one left, she thought. Clearly she was immune to whatever it was - she'd been around the animals before they died, Karen had shrivelled in front of her and still, here she was - as healthy in body as she'd ever been.

  She looked back at where the cottage and its small garden should be. The mist had enveloped it completely; all she could see was the beach, the dead grasses hanging disconsolately from the dunes. The sea foamed a bleak grey, the tide on the turn. She saw the swirl of the currents and knew what she had to do.

  As the water ran across her chest and into her open mouth she remembered the cottage a month ago, whitewashed clean and with the daffodils dancing merrily in the window boxes out the front. The tiny pansies swaying in the brisk spring sunlight. She closed her eyes and let the water cover her face completely.

  Soon, like the rest of them, there was no trace of her left. The gulls continued to swirl and dip in the empty sky as the mist embraced the beach and peninsula completely.

  Fleeting

  by Joleen Kuyper

  A fleeting glance

  A slender stare

  I see your face

  Almost everywhere

  On strange heads

  In places you don't go

  That feeling of dread

  Daring it to be so

  At night in dreams

  Across a busy street

  I hope and fear

  That we shall meet

  I tremble as I remember

  That sinister smile you wore

  The image has never left me

  And shall remain for ever more.

  The Immortal Benedict Calhoun

  by E.J. Tett

  He sat and watched the sun set. It was beautiful, he thought, in spite of how apprehensive he felt about what was bound to happen when night fell.

  "You chose this," he said quietly to himself. "You want this."

  A wolf howled from the valley below and he shivered and pulled his suit jacket tighter around himself. "You chose this," he said again, and he waited.

  ?

  Bored of living? Afraid to die? Turn your back on both! Choose immortality?

  "Ben, why do you read that stuff?" Honey asked, peering over his shoulder.

  Ben folded up the newsletter quickly and sipped at his tea. "I wasn't reading anything," he lied. Then, "It's interesting."

  "You know it's nonsense, right?" Honey asked, laughing. She had a piece of toast in her hand and as she leaned over him butter dripped from it and landed on his shirt. He pursed his lips, rubbed at the butter with his finger- "Hey!"

  She snatched the newsletter out of his hand and stood back with a triumphant grin on her face. "Choose immortality," she read, putting on a ridiculously booming voice. She laughed. "You want to live forever?!"

  "No," he said, turning back to his tea. "Of course not."

  ?

  Ben stood in the queue in the supermarket holding his items (one loaf of bread and a cinnamon whirl in a plastic bag) and heaved a bored sigh. There was a young mother in the queue behind him and she drove her pushchair into the back of his ankles for what felt like the hundredth time. There was an old man in front of him counting out coppers one at a time and handing them over to the till operator.

  The child in the pushchair started squalling and Ben furrowed his brow. He wanted to rip the child from its seat and use it to beat the old man with. He grinned to himself.

  The old man collected his bags and moved out of the way at last. Ben handed over his items, paid, and then left the store. He sat on a bench out in the carpark and ate his cinnamon whirl, inspecting it closely first in case there was anything wrong with it.

  You had to inspect things before you ate them, Ben thought. God knows what was going into your mouth otherwise. He'd heard a story once of somebody who ate a cream bun and ended up dead because of it. Cream bun poisoning.

  Ben brushed pastry crumbs from his lap, collected his loaf of bread, and was about to get up when somebody plonked themselves down onto the bench next to him and held out their hand for him to shake.

  "Benedict Calhoun? Allow me to introduce myself."

  "Okay," Ben said, frowning and shaking the guy's hand. He was going to be sold something, he thought miserably.

  "My name's Jim Spiker. Immortal Jim they call me." The guy sounded like an extra out of Oliver. And he smelt like a graveyard.

  "Uh huh," Ben said, wiping his hand slowly on his trouser leg. "Excuse me, but where did you get my name from?" He looked at his shirt to make sure he wasn't still wearing his nametag from work.

  Jim tapped his head. "From in 'ere," he said, flashing Ben a grin. "I know things. You wanna know how I know things? I'm immortal. You tend to learn a lot when you live forever."

  "Immortal," Ben repeated, getting to his feet. "Right. Immortal Jim, yeah makes sense. I uh? I have to go now. My ticket's about to run out."

  "Course!" Jim said, jumping to his feet. "Let me just give you this first. I 'eard what you were thinking in there. About the kid in the pushchair? Nice. Just take this and read it." He winked at Ben and then turned on his heels and left.

  Ben looked at the newsletter in his hand. He wondered if he'd muttered his thoughts in the store out loud by mistake and somehow managed to attract a weirdo. He sighed and headed for his car.

  ?

  Honey took forever to get ready. She always did. Ben lay on the bed in his suit looking at his watch and sighing loudly in the hope that she'd get the hint and hurry up.

  He pulled his gaze away from his watch and eyed Honey. He didn't even want to go to the party; it was her work do not his.

  Ben got up, hooked an arm around Honey's waist and pulled her close to him, hoping that the smile he was giving her was coming across as dashing rather than creepy. "Let's just stay here?" he suggested. "We can? you know?" He nodded towards the bed hopefully.

  Honey pushed him away with a laugh. "Yeah right!" she said. "No offence, Ben, but I'd rather go out." She turned back to the mirror and reapplied her lipstick.

  Ben had the biggest urge to smash her silly smiling face into that mirror and then throw her down onto the bed anyway.

  He sat down. "We're going to be late," he said. Honey didn't seem to care so Ben reached for his newsletter and read it again. Choose immortality?

  ?

  "A werewolf or a vampire?"

  "Those are your choices," the man said, shrugging. "Or zombie of course, but you'd have to be a total loser to choose that!"

  The man laughed and Ben shivered. He looked at the newsletter that he'd been clutching for the last hour and then back up at the man. "I don't want to die, I want to be immortal. Like Jim," he added.

  "You won't be dead exactly," the man said. "You'd be one of the undead. Immortal. You see?"

  "I see," Ben said, starting to wish that he'd stayed at the party with Honey. He looked around the room. It was dimly lit with candles, for atmosphere, he supposed, and had various tables around the edge of the room with men and women stood behind them. It looked a bit like a carboot sale in a village hall that had forgotten to pay its electricity bill.

&nbs
p; "If you want werewolf, go over there, and if you want vampire, go there," the man said, pointing out two of the tables to Ben. "I chose vampire because it's less painful and way cooler. Werewolf's only part-time of course, so it depends how much you think you'll enjoy being a monster. You turn once a month, kill a few people, then once your full moon's over you're back to being human."

  "And I won't ever die?" Ben asked, eyeing up the werewolf table and the couple of people who were there already, signing papers. "I'll live forever?"

  "Just don't piss off anyone with a silver bullet," the man said, grinning.

  ?

  "Benedict Calhoun you are the slowest driver ever!" Honey said impatiently. "Put your foot down or we're going to be late!"

  Ben checked his mirrors again. He'd seen the adverts; always check your mirrors and then check again. You could crash and die at any moment. "I did say we were going to be late," he said. "If you'd just-"

  "I wanted to look nice," Honey said irritably. "It takes time to make yourself look this good, you know! Pull up here."

  Ben parked the car, got out and then went round to open up the door for Honey. He looked at the hotel where all of Honey's workmates were meeting for the party. It looked expensive and he hoped that he wouldn't be the one forking out for all the drinks.

  He followed Honey inside, forcing a smile onto his face as she ran ahead suddenly,