Page 6 of Not Quite Dead Yet

She understood the pain. In fact, she was the only one in the family who could. Mom and Luke had never spent weeks at a time pissing blood, or unable to walk because of the pain in their side. Them and their normal kidneys.

‘Well.’ Jet clapped her hands. ‘It’s been a pleasure, but I’m going home.’

‘You can’t,’ Dianne snapped. ‘You said you’d stay till the end and help us clear up. People are leaving now. You can make yourself useful and take the chairs back to the hotel.’

Jet had never agreed to that, and she hated when her mom told her to make herself useful. It didn’t make her feel useful; it made her feel small.

‘I’ll do it tomorrow,’ she said.

‘Your catchphrase, Jet,’ her mom sighed.

‘That’s not the catchphrase,’ Dad said, but there was warmth in his voice. ‘It’s: “I’ll do itlater.”’

‘Lateris a great word,’ Jet said, voice rising as she turned away from her parents. ‘Means I never have to beuseful.See you at home.’

Mom was distracted again anyway: Gerry Clay was back, a full cat this time.

‘Boo!’ He jumped out from behind the stall. ‘Dianne, I know your deepest, darkest secret,’ he said, low and diabolical.

‘You’re having too much fun, Gerry,’ Dianne clipped back.

Jet walked across The Green, onto the street beyond. It was dark, but not yet late enough to worry about it. The town was still thrumming and shrieking with departing cars and the undead. A gaggle of teenagers outside the little church, too loud and giggly for just sugar. Found Mom and Dad’s liquor cabinet, she’d bet.

Past the houses beyond, jack-o’-lanterns still glowing outside, mean triangle eyes glaring back at her. Someone hadn’t bothered carving theirs; just a bunch of naked pumpkins and gourds lining the steps up to their front door.

Jet turned up College Hill Road, saluting the skeleton hanging outside the Romanos’ at number 1, its limbs creaking and flailing in the fall breeze. Up the hill to number 10.

Home.

This big obnoxious house that Dad had renovated and extended, and extended again. It stuck out against the normal houses on the street, against the Finneys’ directly opposite at number 7. Jet might just hate the Masons too, you know.

She jogged up the large ringed driveway, past her truck, giving it an affectionate pat on the cargo bed. A Ford F-150 in powder blue. Mom thought Jet had bought it just to piss her off. Mom wasn’t totally wrong.

Just one jack-o’-lantern outside their red front door, but its eyes had blown out, gone dark. A bucket on the front step with a sign:Please help yourself. One candy per person.What world did her mom live in? Damn, the bucket was empty. Fuckers.

Jet searched her jacket pocket for her house keys, the Ring doorbell camera eyeing her, so she eyed it back, stuck out her tongue.

She unlocked the front door, and Reggie was at her feet in a rush of red fur and a helicopter tail, the happy squeaks he only made for her. He jumped up and pawed her knees.

‘Hello, hello, handsome. Who’s a good boy, huh?’

Jet bent to tickle him behind the ears. Those silly, long, English cocker spaniel ears.

The dog ran off, skittering around the corner and back two seconds later.

‘Oh, did you bring me some dirty socks?’ Jet said, thumbing his muzzle, the proud wiggle of his little body at the sacred offering. ‘Thank you so much, my absolute favorite.’

Jet closed the front door and moved through the hall; crisp white walls and Moroccan rugs, too neat, too styled, like a show home, and – man – was Jet in trouble every time she dared to treat it like a home, dropping crumbs or leaving her boots out. Through to the kitchen at the back of the house, Reggie trotting in behind her.

There was a plate of cookies on the kitchen island. Sophia had baked them, dropped them off earlier, black iced bats and orange pumpkins. Sophia did things like that. Baked. Jet picked up a bat, bit off its head. Damn, they were actually good. She finished it off, wiping her sticky fingers on one of the dish towels by the stove, a matching set of three: little marching lemons and oranges and avocados, because everything had to match in this house. Jet turned and passed thecookies again. Fuck it, actually; she took one of the pumpkins too, wandering through the wide, corniced archway into the living room.

Cookie in mouth, she reached into her pocket for her phone. Unlocked. Thumb finding Instagram before her eyes did. She bit off half the pumpkin, the sweet orange icing cloying against her tongue. Girls from school or college who were now married, having anniversaries and babies. Or no weddings and babies, but fancy dinners and sipping glasses of champagne to celebrate new jobs. That could have been Jet too, a humble-brag post about a big promotion at a firm with an acronym everyone pretended to recognize. If she hadn’t quit and left Boston overnight.

Jet finished off the cookie, sticky fingers against the screen. It didn’t matter. Jet had time to find the right thing; she had all the time in the world, remember? And then life would really begin, and when it did, you better believe she’d be shoving it down all of their throats in return. Just you wait.

Reggie stood in front of her, started to whine.

‘Sorry bud. Human cookies.’

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