The Border Part Four by Amy Cross Read Free Book Online

her flesh was ice cold.
    “He’s here,” a voice whispered suddenly.
    Looking at Caitlin’s dead face, he realized that her eyes were staring straight at him.
    “He’s here,” she said again. “Joe, don’t turn around. Please, whatever you do, don’t turn around. Don’t look at him. If you look at him, that’s when he gets you.”
    He opened his mouth to reply, before realizing he could hear footsteps crunching over the grass, getting closer.
    “Don’t turn around,” Caitlin said again, her voice trembling with fear. “Joe, he’s right behind you.”
    “I have to see him,” he whispered.
    Slowly, he turned and watched as the tall, dark figure stepped closer, looming out of the thick mist that surrounded the tree. On top of the figure’s head, there were several large shapes protruding, like broken antlers.
    “It’s the stag-headed man,” Caitlin said. “Joe, wake up before -”
    Suddenly a doorbell rang.
    ***
    Sitting up suddenly on the sofa, Joe realized someone was at the door. He froze for a moment, still half awake and half in the dream, before turning and seeing that Caitlin was standing next to him.
    “You had a nightmare,” she said with a calm smile, reaching down and putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I tried to wake you gently, but you were really far gone for a while. You must be so tired. You were talking, too, kind of mumbling in your sleep.” She paused. “It was about me, wasn’t it?”
    “He was there,” he replied cautiously.
    “I know.” She took a seat next to him, and the sofa even creaked slightly as she put a hand on his knee. “You’ve been through so much, Joe, and with no-one to really look after you. The stag-headed man -”
    She stopped suddenly.
    Waiting.
    Watching his expression.
    “You flinch when I mention him,” she continued finally. “You get this nervous twitch on the side of your face, and your eye squeezes shut for a second. He still haunts you, doesn’t he? More than you let on and -”
    The doorbell rang again.
    “Ignore it,” she told him. “It’s just someone trying to sell you something.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I know.”
    They sat in silence for a moment, until footsteps finally headed away from the house.
    “No-one believed me,” he whispered.
    “I believe you.”
    “You were there,” he stammered. “You saw him. That’s not about believing me, that’s about knowing what you saw with your own two eyes. He killed you and…” He paused, staring at her for a moment. “He killed you.”
    “That’s right. He did.”
    “You’re dead.”
    “Uh-huh. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still love you. Quite the reverse, actually.” She turned and looked around the dark, filthy room, as if for a moment she was contemplating the dirty plates and takeaway boxes, and the beer cans that had been left everywhere, and the funnels and bowls left over from his attempt to extract pure codeine from his prescription tablets. “I would have married you, you know,” she continued. “A girl knows these things real early when she meets a guy, earlier than he’d ever expect.” She turned back to him with a faint, sad smile. “That night, the night I died, I could already tell that you were a good man, the kind of man who’d make the perfect husband. I was teasing you, of course, and playing with your emotions, but I’d decided I’d be your bride. If you’d have taken me, that is.”
    He nodded.
    “What’s that?” she asked. “You would have taken me?”
    “Of course,” he replied, his voice tense with the effort of holding back tears.
    “Imagine us together,” she continued, resting her head on his shoulder. “We’d have had a really nice, smart house. Well-decorated, well-maintained, maybe even this place, but obviously very different. I’d have made you keep things tidy, Joseph Baldwin.”
    “I know,” he whispered, as the first tear rolled down his cheek.
    “And we’d have had children,” she added.
    He