Page 21 of Inbetweeners
“Let’s go for a walk.” Nix set off with Charlie, and Emmett walked at their side.
There was a bench seat at the edge of a grassed area and the three of them sat down.
“I don’t understand what’s going on.” Charlie looked from Nix to Emmett. “Why can you see me and no one else can?”
“You’re dead,” Nix said.
Emmett glared at Nix. “Really?”
“What? Heisdead!”
“You could have said it more gently.”
“How? It’s not like you can build up to it. If you’re dead, you’re dead.”
“Good grief. Are you incapable of kindness?” Emmett turned to the dead guy. “What happened, Charlie?”
“Someone stabbed me in the back.”
“I thought you fell.” Nix looked up at the tower block.
“I did. Trying to get away from the guy who stabbed me.”
“Tough deal,” Nix said. “But you can’t hang around here.”
“I ought to go to hospital,” Charlie said. “I don’t understand why the ambulance didn’t rush me there.”
Nix rolled his eyes. “Back to the start. You’re dead.”
“For fuck’s…” Emmett gave him a wide-eyed glare.
Charlie put his head in his hands.
“You didn’t survive the fall, Charlie,” Emmett said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
“How come I’m talking to you then?”
“We’re dead too,” Nix said.
Charlie looked at them then. “Oh. But you don’t look dead.”
“Yet we are. Who stabbed you?” Nix asked.
“A stranger. I wasn’t going to let him in, but he tricked me and then he pulled out a knife. I turned and ran but I felt him stab me as I got out onto the balcony. I was going to shut the door, but somehow I fell. A woman came to me when I was lying on the ground. She wanted me to get up and go with her, but I knew I shouldn’t move. You’re not supposed to move in case you make your injuries worse.”
“You can’t get more dead than dead,” Nix said. “Not from that height.”
Emmett gaped at him.
“I told her I’d wait for the ambulance.”
“It didn’t strike you as odd that you’d just fallen that far and were able to ask for an ambulance?” Nix raised his eyebrows.
“Hey, some people fall out of planes and survive!” Charlie’s lip wobbled.
Nix put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “You fell onto concrete. You probably broke every bone in your body. You’re dead.”
“But…”
