Read Borstal Slags for Free Online Page B

there, Sam.’
    ‘I saw …’ he said, and he found himself trying to swallow hard in a dry throat. ‘I saw something. I saw whatever it is that’s after us, that’s after Annie …’
    ‘Did you? Or did you just see
yourself
?’ the Test Card Girl asked. ‘You’re a mouldering corpse, Sam. The worms have got into you. They’re eating you from within. Your eyes are already gone. They’re just two holes now, filled with maggots.’
    ‘It wasn’t
me
I saw, it was that devil out there!’ Sam howled. ‘I am
alive
! The here and now is 1973, and in 1973 I am
alive
!’
    ‘No, Sam. You’re dead. You’re dead, and you’re lost – not in one place, not in another – somewhere in-between—’
    ‘I am
alive
!’
    ‘You’re fooling yourself, Sam.’
    ‘If I
am,
then I’m happy with that! I came back here by choice. I came back here because I want to be here. I came back here for colour, and feeling – and Annie. I came back here for
life
. I don’t understand what it all means, and I don’t
want
to understand. I just want to live my
life
.’
    ‘You have no life, Sam. And neither does your beloved Annie. Or that horrid man you work for, the one who smells of ciggies and is always shouting. Or any of you.’
    ‘Bullshit! They’re all alive! Of course they’re alive! And as for
me
, I’m more alive than I’ve ever been!’
    ‘If you’re all so alive, Sam, then what are you all doing
here
? This isn’t a place for the living, Sam.’
    Sam wanted to yell at this little brat to keep her lies to herself, but deep down he knew that she wasn’t lying at all. Indeed, he had long since suspected what she was telling him, though he had fought against the knowledge, suppressed it, blotted it out with his police work, with his clashes with Gene, with his feelings for Annie, with that constant internal mantra that said,
I’m just a copper, not a philosopher – I’m just a copper, not a philosopher – I’m just a copper, not a
—
    ‘You don’t need to be a philosopher to work it out, Sam,’ the Test Card Girl said. ‘A simple copper is more than able to see what’s what.’
    ‘I’m alive,’ Sam declared.
    ‘No, you’re dead.’
    ‘I’m alive, and so is Annie.’
    ‘She’s dead too. So’s your horrid boss man. So are your friends in CID. All dead, Sam. You know that. You won’t accept it, but you know it. Think about it, Sam. You
know
you’re dead – you remember – you remember jumping from that roof and falling—’
    Sam turned away, shaking his head, but the girl’s voice would not stop.
    ‘You remember, Sam. The others, they
don’t
remember. They’ve been here too long. They should have moved on by now. And if you stay long enough, Sam, you’ll start forgetting too. You’ll forget you had a life before this one. You’ll become like
them
. Lost, Sam. Lost.’
    There were tears in Sam’s eyes now. He dashed them furiously away, but more came. He was thinking of Annie, of the life she’d had before this one. Had she, like Sam, come from the future? Or had she come from a life even further back than 1973? And how had that life ended? How had she died?
    ‘You know how she died, Sam. It was a horrible death.’
    ‘Stop it.’
    ‘Painful. Nasty.’
    ‘I said stop it!’
    ‘And it wasn’t quick, Sam.’
    ‘I don’t want to be in this damned dream any more, you filthy little bitch!’
    ‘Awake, asleep, whatever.’ The girl shrugged. ‘And calling me names won’t help you, Sam. Look at that vast universe out there. You can’t just wish it away. What will happen to you, Sam? Do you think you can carry on like this for ever, drifting in the gaps between this world and that one? You all have to move on one day. You, and your guv’nor, and your little friends in CID, and Annie too.’
    ‘I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying here, in nineteen-bloody-seventy-bloody-three with Annie! I am staying!
We
are staying!’
    ‘You think so? You think that you’ll keep hold of your