Pretty Little Dead Things by Gary McMahon Page A

realised that she had been crying.
    Â Â "I've lost some weight recently. Stress: the best diet in the world." She linked my arm and dragged me towards the bar, her feet gliding across the floor as if she were dancing.
    Â Â The bar area was empty, so Ellen grabbed a table while I ordered the drinks. She was drinking white wine and soda, while I stuck with the whisky. I moved back across the room, hanging onto the drinks, and lowered myself into the chair opposite.
    Â Â "Thanks. I need this," she said, grabbing her glass and swallowing a mouthful of drink. "God, when I said you looked thin I meant it. What have you been up to?"
    Â Â I considered lying to her, but she knew what I did for a living so any level of dishonesty would only have insulted her. "I had a very bad experience about a year ago, and it left me in a bit of a state. I lost weight, lost focus, and I'm only just getting back on track."
    Â Â Ellen's hand strayed across the damp tabletop, as if of its own volition. By the time she realised what the hand was doing, it had already grasped my arm. "Really? Was it that bad? Are you okay now? I mean, really? Are you okay?" her eyes widened, and within them I saw a strange light that I had not witnessed for a very long time. The luminescence caused by someone who cares, a person with whom I had a strong connection – a person that was still alive.
    Â Â I nodded my head. "Yes. Yes, I think so. It was bad for a while, but I think I'm back on track now. I… I haven't been using my ability." I had never been comfortable with that word, but what else could I call it? "I've been moving in what you might call mortal circles for quite some time now, but it's isn't that simple."
    Â Â "What do you mean?" Her mouth was a hollow circle; her eyes glowed.
    Â Â "The dead always want me back." I smiled, finished my drink.
    Â Â "Jesus, Thomas, you always were such a fun date." A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, uncertain yet wanting to come out into the open. I laughed lightly, giving it permission to come forth, and Ellen took her hand away from my arm and grinned.
    Â Â Despite my levity, I felt anything but at ease. Although I had intimated that something major had happened, I knew that I would never actually tell Ellen about the events that had shaken me so much that I had tried to block out the dead. In truth, there wasn't that much to tell. It involved an old, supposedly lost piece of film, a late night meeting between government representatives, the scientific community, and a woman who had attended in the name of the church. None of them had survived that night; I was the only one left alive. Nothing tangible had actually occurred, but madness and death had been the result of us viewing that film. Everyone but me had seen something on the screen: the living, the dead, or the exalted; the end of the world and the beginning of something else. All I had witnessed was a blank space, an empty screen, despite being there only because I'd thought I might just catch a glimpse of my wife and daughter in the footage. All that remained was an acute sense of disappointment and the feeling that I had inadvertently opened myself up to something, some darkness at the edge of the world.
    Â Â "So," I said, pulling my thoughts away from the memory of that night. "How have you been? Things still going well with the job?"
    Â Â Ellen placed her glass on a paper beer mat and scratched her nose. "Yes, it's great. I've been working with trainee astronauts, of all people. Getting them in shape, testing their bodies for the effects of anti-gravity and other imposed forces. It's interesting work. Despite having very little funding these days, the space programme is still developing new technologies."
    Â Â "Ah," I said. "It's a long way from a grotty little GP's surgery in Horsforth."
    Â Â We continued with this kind of small talk, saying too much while not really saying much of anything