Silvers Wish Chapter 3

Chapter 3

When I opened my eyes in the morning, I remembered it all too clearly.

I wanted things to be different but I knew now I had no choice but to accept it.

The room still seemed dark with all the brown throws hung across the window, My new home, completely deprived of anything homely just practical and basic.

I jumped up out of the bed and walked across the old wooden floorboards that creaked with every step that I took.

I went to the graveyard of throws that shielded the window. I pulled them back to see the baron wildness outside; everywhere you looked was bright white open snow, it was like how I imagined the Antarctic to look. The sky this time was a jade green which made everything else seem so eerie, it seemed like we were on some other planet and I expected little extra terrestrials to hover down in flying saucers. There would be a bright white light coming out of the bottom of the craft and a bridge would extend downward, then I would see two grey figures on spindly legs and arms with overly large heads and massive black eyes.

I kept on staring at the desolate scene waiting for my fantasy to appear. I used to love alien films they always seemed to be on a Sunday dinner time. I remember my mum used to use the remaining chicken from the roast dinner to put on white cushiony doorstep sized slices of bread oozing with mayonnaise. Me and my older brother Sam would sit on the floor next to each other waiting for the legendary leftover creations and for the film to start. We cried at E.T and then Sam would tease me as I had abnormally long figures and he would poke my face and go “Elliot” when I was a lot younger and we had seen Village of the damned I would use to speak like the creepy children on the film to try and freak Sam and my mother out. I always wanted to take a trip to American with Sam and to visit Roswell New Mexico where there was an alleged Alien crash I knew he would have loved that.

I turned away from the window and walked towards the bedroom door. It looked like a long old Victorian hallway covered in sheer darkness. I cautiously began to walk across it as I reached the old wrought Iron twisting staircase that lay before me, something out of a Tim Burton film. It seemed to go on forever plunging into what seemed like a black hole. I took a deep breath as I wondered downwards into the abyss. It seemed to take forever to reach the bottom and when I did I came into another room that resembled a Kitchen, Lana was sat at the table in a pretty white floaty floral dress.

“Morning” she said smiling
Max was busy bustling by a sink and there was another man in the room he was a lot older with very dark eyes and pale skin.

“Ah our new arrival” he grinned through rotten teeth with a heavily croaky voice that sounded as if he was a chain smoker. “Silver what a name, you sound like a cowboy’s horse or something. How do you like our humble home, not much decoration I Know I keep telling Lips here” he said pointing toward Lana “that she should add a womanly touch to it. But has she! I feel like I’m a nagging housewife sometimes!” he snorted when he laughed.

“Oh Shit, How fucking rude am I, I’ve not even introduced myself. My names Keaton but my friends call me Keat” he pushed his grey hand towards me and his fingernails were worse than his teeth. I politely smiled as I shook his hand; he had the biggest black circles under his eyes I had ever seen and the beadiest small eyes. “Anyway I best dash, got people to see things to do” he said rolling his eyes sarcastically “Basically I’m just going to fuck off and let you kids get to know one another. Max behave yourself she’s new here don’t take advantage!” He winked as Max went bright red behind him “I know I would” he hissed as he looked me up and down then raised his eye brows like a letch. He then dashed across the kitchen as if his feet were on fire, dramatically turned “ Toodles” he said as he saluted with his hand and disappeared out the door.

“Sorry about him” Max said

“It’s ok, he seems like a real character” I stammered nervously as I fiddled with my hands.

“He’s like a cartoon character!” Lana replied

“Take a seat” Max gestured toward the seat across from Lana.

“Thanks”

“Just think when I first arrived here I had Max as my mentor, Poor Max had Keaton!” She pulled her face.

“Yeah at least you have Lana as yours. We did discussing him being yours but thought that was needlessly cruel” he winked at me and I felt a little bit like a schoolgirl.

“I thought today we could show you around the town today. Then tonight if you’re up to it you can shadow me” Lana asked.

“Yeah that sounds like a plan” I replied.

“Would you like a brew” Max asked still lingering in the Kitchen almost as if he was afraid to come and sit with us.

“Can we still drink things” I felt really stupid asking but this was all too surreal for me.
“Yeah, it’s weird I know but we can still eat and drink things, everything is similar to things up there...back home but slightly off, slightly strange” he reached for a blue mug.

“Can I have a coffee then...please” I asked almost feeling like things were normal, but things weren’t normal and would never be normal again.

“The souls of the damned” Lana mutters as we get in the Old Blue truck that is parked outside the house. The words seem to ring in my ears until I feel like blood will slowly start to trickle out of them. We pull out onto the openness of endless pure white snow and head off to what seems like the edge of the world. She says “That’s what this place is, it’s the home for the souls of the damned” Her words stay in my mind for an uncomfortable amount of time, nothing else matters. Questions swim through my mind like fish in a feeding frenzy- Am I damned? Is this it? What about my murderer? Yet my mouth doesn’t utter these words as my lips seem sewn up by the invisible threads of shock.

I have snow crystals on Lana’s black jeans, she leant me them and a brown top. When I had taken off my old clothes I could still see the wounds from the multiple stab wounds apparently they won’t fade away. Lana’s hair is that thick the scars were the bricks broke through to her skull is not visible. I don’t even know what happened to Max or Keat. Through the miles and miles of identical flat ground we come to a slope and at the bottom of the slope is what looks like a shed.

“This is the shack” she tells me as she parks up “It’s like a pub or a bar” she grinned; I know my face is the look of pure surprise.

“This is not how I imagined the afterlife to be like” I tell her as I slam the door.

“Silver this isn’t the afterlife. This is the in-between a little bit like the land of the living and a little bit like heaven and hell; we are in Purgatory/Limbo whatever you want to call it. You know my views” and I could hear the echo again of what she had said as we got into the truck. The shack was your typical sleazy bar, even though I had only met Keat for what must have been at the most ten minutes I could imagine that he would love and thrive in a place like this.

It had a green hew all around it and smelt of damp. There were about three men in the place one on a table on his own slumped over it so much I couldn’t tell where the table stopped and where he began. The other two were ogling the barmaid. The barmaid looked like a model even though her skin looked almost green in the light like an attractive female hulk I thought with a chuckle.

She had bright blonde hair and must have been six foot or more but I imagine from the way she clunked around the bar that she was wearing massively sized heels.

“Lana” she smiled her Blue eyes sparkling
“Jade, Nice to see you” Lana took a seat at the other side of the bar away from the two men who sat uncomfortably close to one another. “This is Silver”

“Ooh Silver what a great name” she beamed “My names Jade, so how long have you been here?” she made it sound like this was a vacation, a choice.
“Not even one day” I smiled uncomfortably as Lana gave me a look that seemed like a warning signal in relation to the type of character Jade was.
“So how did it happen?” she asked leaning over the bar and as she did so I thought about how much she resembled the kind of 1950’s pin up girl tattoo you see in tattoo shops. She had bright red lipstick on that made her lips seem bigger than Lanas if that was possible and her breasts seemed so pushed up when she leaned over they nearly touched her chin. “How did you die” she repeated over accentuating the words as if I couldn’t hear her or understand her.

“ Umm I don’t know it all happened so fast” I replied afraid to blink in case the images flooded back. She leaned back table cloth balled up in one hand that rested on her hip.

“ Oh...well I’m sure it will come back to you” She smirked and then leaned over again her chin dangerously close to resting on her breasts again her pupils like a cats when they are about to pounce. “I was a victim of a serial killer” she paused for dramatic effect “would you believe they never attributed my death to him. I even scratched that son of a bitch with my fingernail so the police might be able to get some evidence off him but he pulled off all my nails!” she shrieked as she held her fingers up and where her nails should have been was just skin. “Then he bathed my corpse” she shivered “I’m so glad he got what was coming to him, the sick pervert!”

“How do you know all this?” I asked her feeling cheated that I didn’t know anything about what happened to me or who did it or most importantly why.

“Oh sweetie it will come to you and it will all be clear. You just need to remain patient” she stroked my hand with the stubs of her fleshy fingertips. “Isn’t she just a darling” she said smiling at Lana. “Now what can I get you.”
“Do you like rum?” Lana asked me. I was never a big fan of rum I had gone on a big girls holiday to Cuba for my twenty first birthday and we had far too much rum and cubre libre’s and I remember cutting in between a couple who were having a romantic moment staring out over a bridge and looking at the beautiful palm trees and the sea. Then I barged in between them and threw up over the bridge. It could have been worse...he could have been proposing to her. At this moment in time though I was not fussy...alcohol was alcohol.

“Yeah Rum and coke would be amazing right now” I replied

“I think I’m going to like you Silver” Jade said as she turned round and I was subjected to the massive slash from her neck across her back.

“Stab wound” Lana whispered as she must have sensed my horror “You will get used to it” she said. Suddenly the door flew open and a man walked in, he looked at the lump in the middle of the room and grabbed a chair and started hitting the old man who was sat in the chair and had been covering the table.

“ Oh Shit” Jade screamed, the man was the most beautiful man I had ever seen he must have been at least six foot four and had the coldest blue eyes I had ever seen. The old man was now on the floor blood dripping from the corner of his head. He slid back on his hands and shuffled away from the man. “Please” He whimpered.

“You shouldn’t be here” The male spoke with an eastern European accent and his voice seemed to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
“Neither should you” Jade spoke up as she spun round from behind the bar on the sort of spike heels I imagined her to be wearing. “You could get in a lot of trouble from being here.”

“You would be getting in a lot more trouble if you get in my way” he said as he moved his face so incredibly close to hers I wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss her or head butt her.

“You don’t frighten me” she whispered, the old man was sobbing behind them not even attempting to crawl back anymore. The male reached into his pocket and got a jagged edged knife out and slowly pressed it across Jades neck and smiled.