A Little More Dead Read online

  Sabrina did as I bid and pulled out three pink stun guns. They were shaped like knuckle dusters and conveniently pocket-sized. She handed one to each of my housemates with its accompanying charger.

  “Are these illegal?” Lucy waggled her finger through the holes and threw some punches on the air in front of her.

  I shook my head. “In the real world? No. Here? Isn’t everything?”

  “I like it.” Petal somehow managed to wear hers like a really big, multi-finger ring.

  “Please, please be careful with them. Don’t stun yourselves and don’t let the ‘o’ word find them,” I said. Pretty much all three of them ignored me in favour of admiring their new accessories.

  “What else do you got?” Lucy crouched back down and pulled the bag open wider so she could peer inside.

  Sabrina looked up at me, holding her hands out to the sides, her expression clearly saying “what the hell?”.

  “Like I said, personal boundary issues.” I grabbed the back of Lucy’s top to yank her up once again and turned to Lucy before she could complain. “Yes, I’m sorry. Now please stop looking in Sabrina’s bag-o-destruction uninvited.”

  “I’m going to get that embroidered on the front,” Sabrina said, pulling out a baseball bat and handing it to me.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, holding the bat up.

  “I use mine for feeding my goldfish,” Sabrina said and bent down to dig into her bag again.

  “Ooooh, you have goldfish?” Petal asked and couched down opposite Sabrina so she could look straight into her face. “What are their names? How many do you have? What colours are they?”

  Lucy took the bat from my hands and examined it end to end. She scratched the tip of it with her nail. “You feed your goldfish wood?”

  “No,” Pam peered over Lucy’s shoulder at the bat. “It’s the varnish. You can get vitamin varnish. I didn’t know it was edible, though.”

  Lucy held her hand out in front of her, admiring her red talons. “Could I get that for my nails?”

  Sabrina looked to each of my housemates in turn and then glanced up at me. I shrugged. “They’ve not had anyone to keep them mentally agile until I got here.”

  “You just asked me what to do with a baseball bat. I’m not sure you’re going to help them any,” Sabrina scoffed.

  I pointed to the considerable length of wood Lucy was still fondling. “I meant that it wasn’t a concealable weapon.”

  “It’s not meant to be concealed. You keep it by your bed,” Sabrina said.

  “Great. Because I’m always getting attacked in my bedroom. Can’t I just have one of those?” I gestured to the knuckle duster stun gun Petal was still admiring.

  “I only have three. Sorry,” Sabrina said.

  “You could just tape the baseball bat to your leg,” Lucy suggested and swung it. The motion carried her round and Pam ducked just in time so the bat whistled above her head. Pam straightened up and gave Lucy one of the best flat looks I’d ever seen. Pam held her hand out for the bat. Lucy gave it up without a fight.

  “What part of her leg would she tape it to?” Petal asked, taking the bat from Pam’s hands to measure it against my leg. “Her shins are far too short, really, so it would have to be her thigh. Though it’s still too long,” Petal said, measuring the bat against my thigh.

  “Also, when she’s in her jumpsuit uniform it will be awkward if she needs to go to the toilet,” Pam pointed out.

  “And she’d have to completely strip out of her jumpsuit if she wanted use it,” Lucy added.

  “That could be a good distraction, though.” Pam nodded to Lucy. “Her attacker gets caught up in Bridget stripping and then she whips out the bat and knocks him out.”

  “But he’ll see the bat while she was stripping,” Lucy pointed out.

  Pam moved behind me. “Maybe we could tape it to the back of her leg.”

  Lucy nodded. “That would be better.”

  “I just …” Sabrina threw an amazed glance my way and then returned her attention to my housemates. “I can’t even …”

  Lucy took the bat back from Petal and rested it diagonally against her own back. “What if she wears it like a sword? That way she could just whip it out if she needed too. It wouldn’t impede any toilet visits and it would be concealed while she strips.” Lucy whipped the bat over her head from behind her back in a circular motion, once again causing Pam to duck, and held it in front of her like a sword.

  “But it would hurt to just yank it out if it was taped to her back,” Petal pointed out as Pam removed the bat from Lucy’s hands.

  “It would hurt if she just pulled it off when it was taped to her leg,” Lucy said and took the bat back from Pam.

  “If it was attached to her back why would she still need to strip?” Petal asked.

  Lucy shrugged. “As a distraction. Didn’t we already cover this?”

  “Oh! I could make a sheath for it!” Pam exclaimed, eyes alight with excitement as her attention danced between Petal and Lucy.

  “We could all have one!” Lucy said, hopping from foot to foot in excitement.

  “Okay, now, I assume when you say ‘all’, you’re including me in that, right?” Sabrina asked. “Because, I definitely need a baseball bat sheath.”

  “Hey!” I clapped to get everyone’s attention. “No one is having a baseball bat sheath.”

  “But it would be so handy,” Petal whined.

  “And awesome,” Sabrina agreed, nodding far too eagerly. “We could name our bats — ”

  “And Pam can embroider the names on the sheaths!” Lucy bounced up and down on the spot.

  “No!” I swiped my hands through the air as if trying to waft the idea out of existence. “We are not having baseball bat sheaths. We are not carrying baseball bats around with us as we go about our daily lives. We are not naming chunks of wood. And we are not stripping as a distraction.” I pointed at Sabrina’s face as she was about to frame a response. “No.”

  “You’re such a spoilsport,” Sabrina grumbled.

  “More like the voice of reason,” I said, pursing my lips at her in an expression that reminded me of my mam. “You three head on inside, please. I just need to talk to Sabrina for a moment.” I took the bat from Lucy’s hands and used it to direct my housemates to the house.

  Lucy paused, her fingers twitching as though she were going to snatch the bat back before then glancing at the bag as if she expected something to come climbing out. “Are you getting something better that you don’t want us to see?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t really need a weapon – I have an adjustment companion.”

  “I don’t think she’s really a match for Katie,” Petal said, a slight frown marring her young face.

  “No, I meant if Crazy Katie comes for me I can throw Evil Barbie at her as a distraction and make my escape.”

  “Oh.” Petal thought about that and then a smile lit her face and she nodded. “Okay. But I’m not happy about that name-calling.”

  “I’m sorry, Petal,” I said, appearing properly chastised. Every other sentence out of my mouth was an apology lately. Maybe I could tape myself apologising, with ten minute intervals of silence, and then constantly play it on a loop.

  “Good. Will you be okay out here? I don’t mind staying,” Petal said.

  I shook my head and lowered my voice. “I need someone to look after the other two.”

  “Okay.” Petal nodded and skipped up the garden, Pam and Lucy in tow, faux boxing each other as they went.

  “Who are you?” Sabrina asked as she eyed my three housemates as they entered the kitchen and left the door wide open behind them.

  “Don’t stress me out over it, okay? They’re nice to me. I have to be nice back,” I said, staring at the wide open kitchen door. I was tempted to cross the lawn to close it but then I realised the futility. I turned back to Sabrina. She was facing the door and I was facing her, together we pretty much had the whole garden covered.
And even if I closed it all Crazy Katie would have to do was open it again. Hardly a challenge.

  Sabrina arched an eyebrow. “Do you have to be nice or do you want to be nice?”

  “I want you to shut up,” I snapped and she laughed.

  Sabrina tilted her head and eyed me. “Funny how your heart stopping has actually made you less heartless.”

  “If Katie kills them, Oz will likely get three new wards. Who knows what they might be like. At least I know what I’m getting with those three,” I said and jerked my thumb over my shoulder.

  “Uh-huh, it’s all just self-preservation.” Sabrina said with a nod.

  “With Mark and Clem graduating to fully functioning members of society we’re already due two new housemates.” I did my best to suppress the shiver of anxiety over what drama the two new housemates would bring.

  “Was that today?” Sabrina asked and I nodded. “Was there some sort of ceremony or anything?”

  “Nope. Oz took them both to the bureau with their suitcases, signed them out of his care and that was that. Pretty anticlimactic, really. Mark did give us a chocolate cake, though.”

  “Huh. So what did you want talk about?”

  “Katie tried to strangle Petal,” I said.

  Sabrina opened her mouth to speak, paused and then closed it again.

  I nodded. “I know, right?”

  “Wow. Okay, I’ll see what else I can find out about Katie at work tomorrow.”

  I checked over my shoulder to ensure my housemates hadn’t snuck back out. “Well, I have some information that might be helpful.”

  Sabrina’s eyebrows raised as she sensed something interesting. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, so you know how Oz told me Katie had failed her assessment, was sent to a rehab facility, then failed that programme too, which meant she was classified as a poltergeist?”

  Sabrina gave a slow nod. “I remember.”

  “He lied. Apparently, she killed a bunch of people, including her best friend.”

  “Seriously?” Sabrina’s voice jumped in pitch, in what I assumed was excitement.

  “Yep, Johnson arrested her.” Straightaway I knew where this was going.

  “Already I’m doubting her guilt. We should totally look into this. To, y’know, make sure your housemates are safe.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I said with a nod. “Let’s get ourselves involved in an old, resolved murder spree to make sure my housemates are safe.”

  “Just because it’s resolved doesn’t mean it’s solved.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure it does.”

  Sabrina crouched down to zip up her bag-o-destruction. “And there’s no need for that tone.”

  “Well, I’m annoyed.”

  “Because Oz lied to you?”

  “Yes!”

  Sabrina looked up at me. “That’s pretty hypocritical. You lie to him all the time.”

  “Whose side are you on?” I snapped.

  “Yours. Always.” Sabrina stood and heaved her bag over her shoulder. “I always thought it was a bit weird that someone would be classified as a poltergeist if they failed the assessments. Maybe a potential but not certified. How could you be classed as a serial killer without actually killing anyone? I couldn’t find any examples of anyone else being classified the same. Now I know why.”

  “Because he lied,” I snapped. “He told me she was certified as a poltergeist after failing the assessment, thinking I’d try harder to pass it. And, so if you looked up her record, we wouldn’t be curious about her being a poltergeist because he’d already explained how she became one.”

  “And he knew you wouldn’t talk to your housemates about it because he asked you not to since the topic clearly upsets them and he knows somewhere deep down that your care.” Sabrina sucked some air through her teeth. “He played you like a fiddle.”

  Chapter Three

  “There you are, sleepyhead,” Anna, my adjustment companion, cheered at me from the breakfast bar as I walked into the kitchen the next morning. “We were beginning to think you weren’t getting up today, hon.”

  Anna, or Evil Barbie as I liked to think of her because of her long blonde full-bodied hair, tiny waist and considerable chest, had one arm around Pam’s shoulders and the other around Petal’s. Neither housemate looked particularly happy about it. Maybe because Anna’s hair was hanging loose and looked far too close to their breakfast plates. Anna shook her head and it reminded me of a horse tossing its mane. Petal and Pam exchanged a disgusted glance and turned their bodies away from her, protecting their food.

  It was one thing having to deal with her all day at work, it was quite another having her in my kitchen first thing in the morning, draped all over my housemates. I needed tea. I couldn’t deal with the woman without some tea in my system.

  I walked past Oz, who was silently cooking over the hob, and grabbed a mug from the cupboard.

  “Who’s we?” I asked as I filled the kettle.

  “All of us,” Anna said.

  “I didn’t think that, Bridget,” Petal said before eating a small piece of what looked like a very tasty sausage and mushroom omelette.

  “Me either,” said Lucy without glancing up from filing her nails.

  “Or me.” Pam shot Anna a pointed look and Anna stiffly removed her arms from both Pam’s and Petal’s shoulders and dusted off her hands.

  “I guess it was just Oz and me then,” Anna said and stepped around the side of the breakfast bar. I noticed Oz didn’t disagree but really he couldn’t. He couldn’t side with me over my adjustment companion or I’d never respect her. Not that I respected her now.

  I reached for a teabag to find the tin empty. I turned to face the kitchen and held up the empty tin. “Can someone please explain this?”

  “Oh, that was me, hon,” Anna said, resting her hip on the side of the centre island. She was wearing black, wide leg, high-waisted trousers with a crisp white blouse tucked into them. If someone else had been wearing it I’ve have commented that it was a great outfit. Since it was Anna I said nothing. Anna gestured to Oz with her mug. “Oz said it was okay.”

  And that was when I knew I had to get out of there before I lost my mind and beat her to her second death with the empty teabag tin. Or a teaspoon. Or anything that wasn’t nailed down. I couldn’t take this woman on a tea-free system. I just couldn’t. And I wasn’t up for dealing with Oz right now either. I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t attack him with the teaspoon after I’d dealt with Anna. I placed the empty tin on the counter and headed for the kitchen door.

  “Whoa, where are you going?” Oz said asked.

  “Canteen.” One-word answers were the best I could do. And he was lucky they were polite-ish. I was mad. He’d not told me Crazy Katie was a multi-murderer or that she’d attempted to kill Petal or that she’d escaped. And he’d deliberately fed me misinformation as a way to control my behaviour. That was so not cool. I’d spent the night lying awake getting more and more angry about it. True, I might lie to him all the time but this was a totally different thing. I didn’t try to manipulate him – I simply lied to his face. Just plain, straight up, honest deception.

  And then, then, he’d let Evil Barbie have the last teabag? What type of idiot let some interloper use the last teabag? It was all just too much.

  “Well, if you hadn’t been up until all hours eating cake and drinking tea maybe there would’ve been some left this morning.” Oz gestured to the dirty plates and mugs in the sink before he turned back to his cooking. “And I want everybody to eat here.”

  “Well, I want a cup of tea,” I said, frowning at the dirty dishes in the sink. I should’ve washed up again to hide the evidence but I’d already washed up once and my hands were far too delicate to keep doing those sorts of manual labour intensive tasks.

  “I’ll get you one, just stay here and eat your breakfast.” Oz flipped the omelette he was cooking out onto a plate and offered it to me. Automatically, I took a step back. In life, whenever anyone ha
nds you food like that you know they hate you. They’re either trying to kill you by clogging up your arteries or make you do at least a dozen spin classes to work it off.

  Or they’re just plain trying to bribe you. Whatever. When someone offers you really good food for no obviously innocent reason they never have a good motive. Never.

  I didn’t take the plate but looked around the kitchen instead. “I don’t want to eat here.”

  “What you want really doesn’t matter, hon,” Anna said and sipped her tea. My tea.

  I opened my mouth to explain to Evil Barbie, in the tone my mam used when the neighbour’s dog was about to do his business on our lawn, that what I wanted was all that mattered to me. And then I’d maybe roll up a newspaper and whack her on the nose to reinforce my point. Perhaps more than once.

  “You don’t want to eat with us?” Petal asked.

  “Why don’t you want to eat with us?” Lucy asked.

  I sighed. This friend thing was just so hard. “There’s no tea in this house.”

  “Do you want mine?” Lucy offered me her half-drunk mug of tea.

  I sighed again. It was a really kind gesture, a little gross, but kind. I wouldn’t have shared my tea with anyone. “Thanks, that’s really generous, Lucy, but you keep it.”

  “Bridget.” Oz offered me the plate again. It smelled so good. Crispy bacon and sausages with mushrooms, topped with melted cheese. I had to scratch a fake itch on my chin to make sure I wasn’t drooling.

  Oz glanced down at the plate and then back up at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m a vegetarian.” It was the lamest excuse ever but I needed him to take that food away. He’d totally played me by omitting some truths when he told me about Crazy Katie, and then, knowing full well she was a serial killer hadn’t bothered to mention her escape. Let’s not even touch the whole letting Evil Barbie use the last teabag. However, staring into the plate of breakfasty goodness, being annoyed about all that suddenly seemed just so petty.

  “Since when?” Oz asked.

  “Well, if it’s just going to go to waste …” Anna swiped the plate from Oz’s hands. She sat at the breakfast bar like she was welcome and tucked in. Oz didn’t look at her, he kept looking at me. I had an urge to snatch it back and smash her in the face with the plate. My utter hatred of her might have been a little irrational, and I might have known it was a little irrational, but that didn’t stop me from feeling it.