Page 29 of Inbetweeners
There was a laugh from the dead person in the corner. A boy, really, Emmett thought. Late teens, twenties? He was skinny with scruffy blond hair.
“You can see me too? Holy shit!” the dead guy said.
“What are you doing in here?” Emmett asked.
“You do look good,” the boy said. “You have a lovely arse. And a lovely—”
“Shut up,” Emmett said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, he does. Well, now he’s washed off the blood.”
Phoenix thinks I have a lovely arse?Emmett was happier about that than he should have been.
“What’s your name?” Emmett asked.
“Harry Rivers.”
“Are you in one of these drawers?” Emmett gestured behind him.
Harry walked over to the end of the row. “Middle one. I can’t open it. My hands just go through stuff. I have no idea why I don’t fall through the floor. Not figured that one out yet.”
Phoenix pulled the drawer open.
Harry stared down at himself and sighed. “Yep, that’s me.” He touched his face and his fingers disappeared. He yanked his hand back. “Oh that’s creepy.”
Phoenix closed the drawer. “What happened to you?”
Harry turned and pointed to the tears in the back of his shirt. “I was murdered.”
Emmett sucked in a breath.
“Who killed you?” Phoenix asked.
“Don’t know. Until I find out, I’m not leaving. I want to haunt them. Not that I’ve figured out how I can do that, but still…”
“Are the police looking into it?” Emmett had a feeling it wasn’t going to be easy to persuade Harry to leave.
“I was stabbed in the back. No one could think it was suicide.”
“Well, you ought not to hang around down here,” Emmett said. “You can’t help the police solve the mystery. Your body will be moved to a funeral home after the autopsy. You really don’t want to watch yourself be opened up. Sorry, but you’re not likely to find out who killed you.”
“I’m only nineteen,” Harry whispered. “I shouldn’t be dead.”
Emmett sighed. “No, you shouldn’t, but you can’t interact with anyone. How are you going to help the police? You can’t leave them a note. You can’t move things. Even if you found out who’d killed you, you wouldn’t be able to do anything. It would frustrate you that they were still alive, living their life and you weren’t. You’d be happier moving on to where you’re supposed to go. At the moment, you’re in the middle, not one thing or another.”
“But I can’t move on until I find out who killed me. And I’m interacting with you, aren’t I? How come you can see me? Are you dead too? I guess you are. How did you end up in the morgue? Except you’re not the same as me. You can touch stuff. Your body’s not still lying on that tray. You’re alive again. How did you do that? Show me how. I want to touch stuff.”
The desperation in his face made Emmett’s heart hurt.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Phoenix said. “We’ve been brought back to do a job. Getting you to go where you’re supposed to go is part of it. Your soul is in danger if you stay here.”
It probably was, but Emmett wasn’t sure if Phoenix should have told him that.
Harry crossed his arms. “What does it matter when I’m dead?”
“You don’t want your soul to end up with the bad guys,” Emmett told him. “Hold my hand. You can trust me.”
“What are you two doing in here?”
