Dead Gorgeous (17 page)

‘It was just meant to be a joke, Raye,’ said Andrew unhappily .

‘Some jokes aren’t funny,’ Raye shot back at him. How strange that she should use the very words Liam had used when he told her about Nova.

‘Aren’t you going to let me off the hook?’ Andrew pleaded. ‘I cancelled the bet. I promise I did.’

A slight cough to Raye’s left had her head whipping round. They weren’t alone. Liam was standing in a corner of the room, watching.

‘Who’re you?’ Andrew frowned. ‘I didn’t see you when we came in here.’

‘That’s because you weren’t looking,’ Liam said easily. ‘You were too busy trying to wriggle off the hook you put yourself on.’

‘What did you say?’ said Andrew incredulously.

‘You heard me.’

‘Who d’you—?’

‘Liam, I want to ask your advice on something,’ interrupted Raye.

‘I’m listening.’

‘Andrew here made a bet . . . but hang on, you already know this, don’t you? You’re the one who told Nova to tell me.’

Liam nodded. Andrew’s eyes narrowed.

‘Andrew says he cancelled the bet and wants me to forgive him. What d’you think I should do?’

‘Tell him to get lost,’ Liam said immediately.

‘Who asked you?’ Andrew flared up.

‘Raye did – about five seconds ago. Or don’t you have any short-term memory either?’

‘Either? What d’you mean?’ asked Andrew belligerently.

‘Well, you don’t have any class, that’s for sure,’ Liam told him.

‘Why you . . .’ Andrew took a step towards him.

‘Just a minute, you two.’ Raye moved to stand between the two of them. She turned to look at Liam. He looked straight back at her. ‘You believe in speaking your mind,
don’t you?’

‘Always have,’ Liam replied. ‘Sorry.’

‘No. I like that in my friends,’ said Raye.

‘I’m glad you realize I am your friend,’ Liam said softly. ‘Because I do like you, Raye . . .’

‘Let’s see how you like this,’ said Andrew angrily. He sidestepped round Raye to take a swing at Liam. Raye turned to him, trying to push him away. Liam ducked back, but not
far enough. Andrew’s fist reached his chin – and swung right through it. With a surprised gasp, Andrew tried to steady himself, but his centre of gravity had shifted and he carried on
pitching forward. Liam sidestepped out of the way as he crashed to the ground like a felled tree.

‘Andrew, that’s enough,’ said Raye.

‘You . . . my fist went straight through you . . .’ Andrew gasped.

‘You wish!’

‘Liam, please,’ said Raye. ‘Could you leave now?’

‘I’m not leaving you with him.’ Liam folded his arms across his chest.

‘I’m telling you, I hit him, but my hand went right through him,’ Andrew insisted.

Liam’s head turned sharply towards the hotel reception and beyond.

‘I hit you.’ Andrew wasn’t going to let it drop.

‘You couldn’t hit the front of this hotel from a metre away with a dinner plate,’ Liam scoffed. But once again, his head turned towards the hotel reception. ‘I’ve
got to go,’ he announced. ‘Someone’s calling me. Raye, will you be all right?’

‘Of course,’ Raye assured him.

With one last smile, Liam ran off before either Raye or Andrew could say another word.

‘Raye, who was that loser?’ Andrew said with belligerence.

‘A friend of mine. And someone who tells me the truth,’ said Raye pointedly.

Slow, burning red crept across Andrew’s cheeks. Raye followed Liam out to the reception area. But apart from Dad and Miss Dawn it was empty.

‘Dad, where’s Liam?’

‘Who?’

‘Liam. The boy who just came out of the lounge.’

‘You’re the first person to come out of there in over ten minutes,’ said Dad, returning to the mass of papers in front of him.

Raye shook her head as she had another look around. Dad never noticed anything unless it was directly related to the hotel. A marching band could stride through the foyer and out the back and if
they didn’t stop to book in first, Dad would never know they were there.

‘I saw him, dear,’ said Miss Dawn. ‘But he’s gone now.’

‘Which way did he go?’ asked Raye eagerly.

Miss Dawn shrugged. ‘To the beach would be my guess. He’s good-looking, isn’t he?’

‘Is he?’ said Raye. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Of course you hadn’t, my dear,’ said Miss Dawn with a definite twinkle in her eyes.

Raye’s cheeks flamed. She went back into the lounge before the air around her head caught fire.

‘Ah! How romantic!’ she heard Miss Dawn sigh from behind her.

But as Raye regarded Andrew, she was feeling anything but romantic.

‘Nova, did you call me?’

Nova swung round, faint from relief when she saw Liam. ‘Yes! Yes, I did. I’ve been calling you for ages.’

‘I was in the middle of doing something, you know,’ Liam said with frost. ‘Something important.’

‘So is this! Up there! Quick! Joshua’s looking for you.’

Liam looked up immediately.

‘He found a tunnel and thinks it may lead to where you are. But I’ve been calling and calling him and he hasn’t answered,’ Nova said, on the verge of tears.

‘Why didn’t you stop him?’

‘How? Tie him to a boulder?’ Nova tried to defend herself.

‘Stay here. I’ll find him,’ said Liam grimly.

It took all of Liam’s powers of concentration to think himself into the tunnels. He hadn’t done so since the cave-in . . . Usually, all he had to do was think of himself at a place
and he faded out of his current location and appeared at his new destination. And more often than not, he could move faster than a blink if he really wanted to. He called it tuning. Like tuning a
radio station away from one channel and immediately to another. But thinking himself into the tunnels was proving difficult. He suspected that the cave-in was what had killed him but he’d
never had the nerve to check and make sure. So since then he hadn’t been in the tunnels. Not once. The thought of walking through them to be confronted by his own body didn’t appeal in
the least. But now he had to find his brother.

Liam closed his eyes and forced himself to think of the tunnels, to imagine himself inside. Nothing happened. Maybe if he picked a specific spot. He’d been through the cliff entrance
before. You had to crawl on your hands and knees for a couple of metres but after that the tunnel opened out so that you could stand up. If he could just think himself into the part of the tunnel
where it broadened out. Liam forced himself to concentrate on the tunnel and nothing else. He cleared his mind, then filled it with the image of the exact place he wanted to be. He knew the moment
it worked. Even with his eyes closed he could feel the darkness. He opened his eyes and looked around, but he couldn’t see his brother.

What was Joshua thinking of, coming into the tunnels like this? If he was so convinced that Liam’s body was in there, didn’t that tell him something, like how unsafe the tunnels were
in the first place?

‘Joshua?’ Liam’s eyes quickly became used to the gloom. The walls, the very air, were tinged with a bluish light which made everything around him very clear but very cold. Liam
felt an iciness creep over his body that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Everything inside him screamed for him to get out of there. Now!

But he couldn’t.

He looked around again. Joshua was nowhere to be seen. Liam walked further along the tunnel.

‘Joshua?’ he called, even though he knew he wasn’t in a state where his brother was likely to hear him.

Liam closed his eyes and thought himself another fifty metres along the tunnel. Then another. And another. With each reappearance, the tunnels sloped steeply downwards. Liam remembered that,
from the cliff face, the tunnels sloped downwards for quite a while before there was a sharp incline towards the hotel gardens.

There was still no sign of Joshua. But the icy dread biting at Liam when he first entered the tunnels was now threatening to swallow him whole. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before
– sick, blinding panic combined with a fear that gnawed at him from deep within. ‘Joshua, for God’s sake . . .’

Liam couldn’t take any more. He was about to fade out and think himself back onto the beach when he heard a faint thudding sound. Just ahead, the tunnel bent sharply to the left. Liam
remembered that the rise upwards happened just after this particular bend. At least, he thought it did. It’d been a long time.

It took all his powers of concentration just to stay put. Something about the tunnels, or in the tunnels, was zapping his strength. He could feel himself getting weaker. Maybe he should just get
out while he still could. Being a ghost was bad enough. Being a ghost forced to wander up and down the tunnels and nowhere else because he couldn’t think himself out would be an absolute
nightmare.

There it was again – the thud-thudding. Liam moved forward tentatively. He stopped abruptly, taking a deep breath, then another. ‘Get it together,’ he told himself
fiercely.

After all, there was nothing in the tunnels that could hurt him any more. Only his brother. Liam turned the corner to see Joshua sitting down with his back against the tunnel wall. His knees
were drawn up as he stared straight ahead. His torch was still on and lay with his rucksack on the floor beside him. Joshua’s left fist thumped slowly and steadily on the ground.

‘Josh, what’re you doing?’ Liam squatted down to ask.

Joshua didn’t move, didn’t blink. Liam tried to touch his brother’s arm, but his hand moved straight through it as if Josh were the ghost and not Liam. He tried to force
himself to focus so that he could materialize, but it just wouldn’t work. In the tunnel his concentration scattered like thistledown before a high wind. One thing at a time. What was Josh
doing? Focus on that. Liam glanced down at Josh’s hand. In that moment, he realized why Josh was thumping the ground. Pure frustration. Nothing more, nothing less.

‘Josh, you have to turn back,’ said Liam, hoping against hope that something of what he said would get through.

But Josh didn’t move.

Liam looked around desperately. Further ahead, the tunnel was completely blocked from floor to ceiling. He stood up, horror like an alarm bell clanging in his mind. He stared at the rocks and
rubble blocking the path. Instinctively he knew what was underneath the debris. Like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights, he could do nothing but stare.

Joshua jumped to his feet and moved towards the rubble. He took the rock hammer out of his rucksack and began hacking away at it like a man possessed. Years of anger and bitterness erupted out
of him as he pounded at the barrier. Above Joshua’s head, some of the rubble began to shift. Dust began to rain down from the tunnel ceiling. Joshua ran his hands over his hair to shake it
off, then carried on digging at the base of the pile of rubble.

Liam sprang forward as more rubble was dislodged from further up the mound. ‘Josh, don’t do this. It’s not safe. You’re going to cause a rock slide,’ he said
desperately.

Joshua carried on digging.

‘Josh, no.’ Liam desperately tried to drag Joshua’s arm away from the rubble. He made contact. His body was solid as he snatched Joshua’s rock hammer out of his hand.

Joshua stared at him, stunned. ‘NO!’ he yelled, pulling away. ‘You’re not real. You’re just a wish in my head, but I’m not going to stop. Liam’s here, I
know he is.’ He turned back to the rubble and started pulling rocks and stones and earth behind him in a frenzy.

Dropping the hammer, Liam tried to pull harder at Joshua’s arm, but already he was dematerializing. Joshua dived to pick up the hammer before Liam could stop him and started hacking at the
rock fall with renewed vigour.

‘Stop it. You’ll bring the whole lot down on your stupid head,’ Liam shouted.

The rain of dust above them was getting heavier. Then came an ominous cracking sound. Liam remembered it. How could he have forgotten? That cracking sound was the last sound he had heard before
he died . . . Joshua started hacking at the pile of rubble even harder than before, using his other hand to pull away the loose scree his hammer dislodged. Liam could see blood on Joshua’s
fingers where the jagged bits of rock had torn at his flesh. The cracking, rumbling noise was getting louder.

‘JOSHUA!’ Liam grabbed Joshua’s arm and pulled him backwards. But not fast enough. A crack like the lash of a whip echoed around them as the pile of debris slid down like a
rocky avalanche. Liam managed to pull most of Joshua’s body out of the way, but not all. Joshua screamed in agony as his legs below the knees were pinned under a mass of rocky debris at least
three-quarters of a metre high. Liam tried to pull him backwards, but Joshua screamed even harder and then his head and body flopped like a rag doll’s.

‘JOSHUA!’ Liam cried out.

But it was no good. Joshua was pinned like a butterfly to a collector’s card.

‘Help! HELP ME!’ Liam yelled.

But he and his brother were quite alone.

‘Please God, no. Please, please . . .’ Liam begged.

Gently, he lowered his brother’s head to the ground. He had to get help and fast. It might already be too late. Where was Nova? Still on the beach? She was the only one who could see him
no matter what. He couldn’t risk going back to the hotel, only to remain invisible.

‘Hang on, Joshua,’ Liam pleaded. He tried to fade out and return to the beach, but he stayed right where he was. Frustrated he slammed his fist into the tunnel wall beside him. It
didn’t hurt, but his hand didn’t pass through either. He had to calm down. But how, with his brother lying unconscious at his feet? Liam turned his head away, closed his eyes and forced
himself to concentrate.

‘Liam? Thank goodness. Did you find your brother?’ asked Nova.

Liam opened his eyes. He was back on the beach with Nova right in front of him. ‘Josh is trapped. Get help. He’s hurt.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Nova.

Liam turned to her with such a burning expression on his face that he almost seemed to glow with it. ‘Go and get help – NOW!’ he yelled.

Without another word, Nova turned and ran.