The Identical Boy Read online

  No ghosts.

  No monsters.

  Unless it was an invisible monster. Sam hadn't considered that. Could monsters make themselves invisible? He wouldn't put it past one.

  No. No such thing as monsters, of course there wasn't, that stuff was just for babies.

  The library doors burst open for a second time to allow in the fanfare of rectal mimicry. Miss Travers gave chase at full squash-waddle, the boys whooped and shrieked in delight, then fled.

  ~Chapter Four~

  Ally Chambers. She was 17, her hair cut into a sharp bob and dyed (for this week at least) a fierce, vibrant blue. The paint on her nails was always peeling, and her feet never seemed to wear anything but heavy Dr. Marten boots. To Sam, she seemed like just about the coolest person alive. She even smoked; he'd seen her as she stomped around the streets, music clattering from her earphones. He knew smoking was very bad for you. Perhaps that was why she looked so cool doing it. She was wearing her dark red leather jacket today, and under that a t-shirt that said 'Folk The Police' (Sam was pretty sure this was really clever and funny). Her bottom half sported a pair of orange jeans torn to such a severity that most people would've given them up for dead long ago.

  Cool.

  'We shouldn't be more than a few hours,' said Mum. 'Help yourself to crisps and that. Have a sandwich if the fancy strikes.'

  'Cool, ta, yeah.'

  'I don't mind if you nab a cheeky can from the fridge, all right darling?' said Dad, winking.

  'Cool, ta, yeah.'

  Sam's parents left. Ally flopped on the couch, legs dangling over the arm, and began to flip through the channels. Talk-show. Infomercial. Hitler. Finally she settled on one of the music channels.

  'Your Dad's a real creep, you know that?' said Ally.

  'Yeah,' said Sam.

  'All right darling?' Who's he think he's winking at? Creepy. Pure creepy.'

  Sam laughed and nodded.

  'I mean, I don't mind him fancying me, he can’t help that, but keep it to yourself, you're ancient. Creepy. Gross.'

  Sam sat cross-legged on the rug, watching three men with guitars jump in unison to their polished, thin-sounding pop-punk.

  'I don’t really need a babysitter, you know. Not anymore.’

  ‘Oh, is that right, is it? Why’s that then, Sammy boy?’

  ‘Well, I’m not a little kid. I'm almost twelve!' said Sam, trying to sound sophisticated.

  ‘Wow, pretty ancient.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  'Yeah, well, don't let on to your parents; I need the extra cash, know what I mean?'

  Sam nodded. He didn’t want Ally to think of him as a baby, but he also didn’t want her to stop coming round.

  'You don't mind me slagging off your Dad then?' she asked.

  'No,' Sam replied. 'I don't mind.' He hated to think that anyone he liked would actually think anything other than bad thoughts about his fungus of a Dad.

  'God, I hate this band. Soft as baby poop.' She flicked onto the next music channel, idly humming the song she'd just turned over from. 'Do you think your Dad fancies me, then?'

  Sam shrugged. Probably, he thought.

  'Yeah. I don't mind. Just don't be so gross and obvious about it. I mean your Mum was right there. Not cool, man.' She flicked back to the other song. 'What's that book, then?'

  Sam was holding the dream book. He'd taken it out of the library to look into it more.

  'Just this book,' said Sam.

  'Well duh, yeah, all right. What's it about, though?'

  'Dreams and that.'

  'Really? Give it here, then.' Amy reached out for it; Sam passed it over.

  Ally started flipping through the pages, back and forth, back and forth. 'I got a dream catcher over my bed. Know what that is?'

  'Not really.'

  'It's real mystical stuff. Hippy jazz, all right?'

  Sam nodded as if that made everything clear.

  'Why you reading this, then? Is it for school or something?'

  'No, I….' Sam swallowed. 'It doesn't matter. Nothing.'

  Ally clapped the book closed and sat up sharply. 'Oooh! Are you keeping secrets? You know, as your babysitter I am, like, your guardian and stuff. It's more or less illegal to keep secrets from me.'

  Sam wasn't sure if that was true or not; it didn't sound true, but then half the things grownups had rules about confused him.

  Plus, he really wanted to tell someone. Ally especially.

  'Well, there's this voice. And a place, I think.'

  Ally raised her eyebrows as Sam paused for that bit too long. 'Yeah, and? Elaborate, Sammy boy, elaborate.' Ally shimmied off the chair and joined him on the rug, her legs curved beneath her.

  'I dunno. Just a voice. I've told Mum and Dad, but they say it's probably nothing. It's not a monster; I'm not a baby who believes in monsters, you know.'

  'I'm not a baby and I believe in monsters,' Ally replied. 'Haven't you ever watched the news, or looked at the internet, or read a, you know, book or anything? Can't move for monsters. The whole world’s a monster, with teeth the size of trees. On you go.'

  Trees.

  That tickled at something in Sam’s brain. He shook it off.

  ‘Well, then?’ said Ally.

  Sam hesitated. Was he really going to tell her all about this weird thing? What if she thought he was nuts, like his Dad? But no, Ally wasn’t like that, she was cool. She believed in stuff. Maybe Ally would know what the voice was?

  'It's hard to remember. I forget it all. Or most of it. The important stuff. I think I remember when I'm asleep, but it hides when I wake back up properly. But there's this voice. I know there's a voice talking to me. Might be a boy. And we're someplace else. Some other place. But the other place isn’t completely another place as it’s also still here, I think. Sort of. Which doesn't make any sense. Do you believe me?'

  Ally eyed him with studied cool indifference. 'Maybe.'

  'Well, I think it might be a real thing. Not just a dream. It feels like I'm trying to remember. Like I should remember. Like it's important somehow. Like it's really, really important'

  Ally leaned back and regarded Sam. 'You've got quite the imagination, hey?' she said, with a wink.

  Sam turned away, blood rushing to his face. He shouldn't have told her. She thought he was a baby. A liar. An idiot.

  'Hey, man, what's with the cold shoulder? Imagination is good. D'you think your parents have any imagination? D'you think any parents at all have an imagination? Anyone over, like, thirty, even? They let all that cool stuff go when they start dreaming about weddings, and mortgages, and what kind of couch they could go buy to best suit their ugly curtains. Imagination is something to be proud of, something to fight for, 'cos it separates the likes of us from the likes of them.'

  Ally reached out and ruffled his hair. 'Imagination can make the unreal real. Keep tight hold of it, little man.'

  Sam smiled at Ally as she lurched back up and flopped onto the couch again.

  'Now go get me one of those beers your dirty perv of a Dad said I could have.'

  Sam hopped up and scurried off to the fridge.

  ***

  Sam could still hear the music channel blaring downstairs as he closed his bedroom door and climbed into bed. Every now and then he could hear Ally singing along, slightly tipsy, to one of the songs.

  He wondered if he'd ever be able to go to sleep, so full was his head of the voice, and of life, but before he knew it his eyelids dropped, his jaw slackened, and he left Awake behind.

  And that was the last normal day that Sam would encounter.

  Things would change.

  Things would stay remembered.

  And what could be remembered could be made alive.

  ~Chapter Five~

  Sam could hear a voice.

  He sat up, blinking away the surprise. Had someone called his name?

  'Ally? Ally, did you say something?'

  Nothing.

  'Mum..?'

  No
thing. A heavy, dark nothing.

  Sam switched on his bedside lamp, swung his legs out from under the covers, and placed his feet on the carpet. No. It hadn't been Ally, or one of his parents, it had been a stranger. Maybe not a stranger. No. He knew somehow it wasn't a stranger. Why did he know that? He didn't recognise the voice, could not put a face to it, but still his mind told him that it was true.

  He looked around his bedroom, and he realised where he was. He remembered. The dream. He was in the other place. The place that looked like home, that looked like his own house, but wasn't his own house at all. It looked right, but it smelt wrong. His real house smelt of his Mum's perfume. A heavy, unsubtle, throat-scratching stench.

  There was no such smell here.

  In fact, there was no smell at all. Sam raised his hand to his nostrils and had a sniff; nothing. He cupped a palm in front of his mouth and breathed out, heavy and long, before attempting to inhale his no doubt stale and stinky sleep-breath up through his nose.

  No odour.

  'No, Sam, you're not dreaming.' The voice. The familiar, unfamiliar voice.

  The voice was right, of course. Sam remembered that now. He wasn't dreaming and this wasn't a dream. If his Mum were to go to his room now in the real world, the Awake world, and were to push open his door to check on his slumbering form, she'd see no bulge in the duvet. No gently rising and falling shape giving away the fact that something was underneath. That he was asleep. Because he wasn't asleep. Not quite.

  He was Between.

  The bed would be empty. His Mum would run over and throw back the covers, calling out his name. Well, a good Mum would. A Mum who checked on him as he slept. She'd rush from room to room, panic slowly rising each time she called out to him, telling him to stop this stupid game of hide and seek. Then she'd run outside, blind fear, up and down the street, shouting, crying, calling, a wounded animal. Lights in the other houses would flash on, curtains pulled back, a few people would even step out of their front doors to watch this mad woman as she ran up and down, up and down, shouting and shouting.

  Awake happened in the real world. Asleep in your head. This place needed your mind and your body.

  'Between Awake and Asleep is Between. Is here,' the voice agreed.

  'Between Awake and Asleep is Between,' said Sam, nodding. Not quite awake. Not quite asleep. That was where he was. Another world. How had he been able to forget?

  Not everyone was able to come to this place. Most slipped hurriedly right on by and dove deeply in the dreams. Some special folk were able to find their own way there, to instinctively hop off the tracks as they passed by.

  Others still were brought here. A helping hand extended, took hold, and pulled them within.

  Sam knew he wasn't special.

  So whose hand was it that had reached out and guided him Between?

  'My hand, of course.'

  The voice.

  It was close, but not in his room. Sam stepped out into the corridor and followed the voice from room to room. He opened each new door to find it empty.

  ‘What’s taking you so very long, Sam?’ the voice asked.

  Sam made his way outside, stepping into the forest. The forest, with its skyscraper trees, didn’t exist in the Awake. In that place there was an ordinary street outside, ordinary houses, but here there were the trees. A forest full of trees that whispered behind his back as he passed them. Sam didn’t like these trees; it seemed like they were in on some joke that he wasn’t aware of. Their leaves rustled and their branches creaked: the language of trees. Sam wished they would just tell him where the voice was coming from.

  ‘There you are,’ said the voice.

  But this time it was more than just a voice. It had form. Physicality. It existed outside of Sam's mind, outside of his weakened awake recollections that itched and bothered and refused to be made silent.

  'Aren't you even going to say hello?' asked the voice.

  'Hello,' said Sam to the boy, who climbed down from the tallest tree in the forest and stood before him, smiling.

  ‘You forgot me again, didn't you?' the boy said, pouting, hands on hips.

  Sam had, which was weird; how did you forget your very best friend?

  ~Chapter Six~

  'You need to remember. To really remember. Then we can be friends in the Awake.'

  The words rolled and skipped and clanged around Sam's head as he wandered the playground aimlessly, not seeing or hearing or thinking.

  'You need to remember. To really remember. Then we can be friends in the Awake.'

  Just those words, and those words alone. He was a walking zombie with no other purpose but to unlock their meaning. He was sure he’d had it before. Before Awake. During Asleep. That's when he'd last known for sure.

  Asleep?

  Sort of.

  But there had been another word, hadn't there?

  'Then we can be friends in the Awake.'

  Awake, Asleep and someplace else.

  Familiar unfamiliar.

  A football screamed past his nose and crashed into the wall, but Sam barely noticed.

  No, not Asleep. At least, not dreaming. Something else. What was it? What was it?

  'What's wrong with you now?' his Mum had asked, exasperated, that morning at the breakfast table as Sam had sat, blank-eyed, slowly stirring his cereal to brown mush, never once lifting the spoon to his mouth.

  'Oi, your mother is asking you a question, dummy, answer the woman!' His Dad had thrown aside his newspaper and bellowed a few things or more, before stalking out. His Mum snatched Sam’s uneaten breakfast and emptied it into the bin.

  ‘You know there are children starving in Africa!’ said his Dad, leaning back into the room for a moment.

  ‘Sam! Sam will you pay attention!’ said Mum, waving a hand in front of his wide eyes. ‘He's losing his ruddy marbles. Perfect. Why couldn't I have had a son like Todd? Now there's a son to be proud of.'

  Not a dream. Sam knew that. He knew that now for sure. Usually all he remembered was that there had been a voice. Not what it had said or who had said it, just that there had been a voice and that it was important. But now he had a little more.

  'You need to remember. Really remember.'

  The words were like hooks in his brain, sunk deep and fast into the grey matter, unable to be ripped away and forgotten. But what did they mean? Who had said them? He could feel the sharp sting of those hooks as he pulled at them; they made him want to cry out.

  'Oi, watch where you're going, you div.'

  Sam walked on, pushed slightly off-balance by whatever obstruction he'd just attempted to walk through.

  'Oi, I'm talking to you.'

  'He's mental. Look at him.'

  'Didn't you used to be friends with him, Finney?'

  'Yeah, but that was ages ago.'

  Sam left them behind.

  Not dreaming. He didn't dream at all these days. Not for the longest time, he was suddenly sure of that. How long? How long since he'd actually had a dream rather than the other thing?

  What other thing?

  It was months. Could it be? It felt right. Months and months. Slowly, he'd become aware of the voice. And the other place.

  Now the hooks were in properly, the voice didn't want to be forgotten. It had to be remembered. Needed to be remembered.

  'Don't you want us to be real life friends? Awake friends?'

  Sam almost fell to his knees. More words! He reached out a hand to steady himself against the wall.

  'Don't you want us to be real life friends? Awake friends?'

  An extra piece remembered. The dam was cracking, unable to hold; more would flood through soon. Enough to drown him?

  'Don't you want us to be real life friends? Awake friends?'

  'Yes,' said Sam. 'That's what I want. That’s all I want.'

  Whom was he talking to? If only he could—

  Between!

  What did that mean? Not Asleep, not Awake, but Between. Between Awake and Asle
ep is Between. His bedroom that wasn't his bedroom. The not-his house. The forest that mocked and joked with words he didn’t understand. The hooks pulled down a further chunk of the dam. The water was starting to gush through fiercely now; there was no going back.

  That was where he'd been going all these months. He'd been going Between! Whilst others dreamt, he went Between and…

  …and what?

  That wasn't all of it, there was more. The most important thing. The thing that wanted to be remembered.

  A face!

  A voice doesn't exist in isolation, how stupid he hadn't considered that earlier.

  'Sam? Are you okay, Sam? Are you feeling sick?' An adult. A teacher? 'Sam, hey, shall we go to the Nurse’s office?'

  The boy.

  'Remember me!'

  The dam finally crumbled under the onslaught and Sam remembered all of it whilst awake, at last.

  The boy! The Between! The boy!

  Sam blinked and saw the teacher for the first time, looking down at him with concern.

  'My friend!' said Sam, delighted. 'My friend is coming to stay!' He turned and ran out of the building, across the playground, leaving behind the concerned shouts of the teacher and the insults of the gang of boys. Out through the gate and down the street he went, smiling so hugely that it hurt his face, his stomach churning like it was the night before Christmas.

  His friend was coming to stay.

  The boy remembered would now Awake.

  ***

  Sam let himself into his empty house; his parents were both at work. It felt wrong and wonderful and exciting to be there when he shouldn't be. Would he be in trouble? Probably, but what did that matter? This was the only thing that mattered.

  He took the stairs two at a time. 'Hello? I'm here! I remember! I remember you!'

  There was no answer; the house was empty. Was he crazy after all? Was this all in his head? No, not anymore, he was certain. What could be remembered could be made alive. His friend would be here. His friend would be waiting for him in his bedroom, his Awake bedroom.