Anomaly Read online

  ‘I don’t even know how he manages to get up sometimes,’ Cameron said. His gaze turned to Kyle and a cheesy grin erupted over his features, the same grin he had worn when Sophia Leto had finished her presentation last night.

  ‘Knock it off,’ Kyle said shaking his head.

  ‘She was so staring at you,’ Cameron pointed out for the hundredth time and Alice had to agree. Sophia had stared at Kyle, but she had also appeared to have been staring at Alice too. That wasn’t supposed to happen; the living weren’t supposed to see the dead. It was unsettling.

  ‘No she wasn’t, she had a cough that’s all.’ Kyle tried to convince himself, but his soul spoke otherwise, he knew. He pushed past Cameron and opened his door.

  ‘Sure and that’s the oldest trick in the book,’ Cameron called as Kyle disappeared into his bedroom. He gathered a towel and a wash bag from his room, and slowly made his way down the hallway to the bathroom. Alice remained behind, collecting her energy, and staring at the familiar four walls of Kyle’s temporary bedroom.

  Every wall had been painted an off-white colour and remained bare; there were no photos or posters. She had spent the long night hours studying every dent and crack in this room. Her eyes glided over the marks in the plasterboard ceiling and over the split in the top right corner of his mirror, and then finally on the dent in his wardrobe door, which looked like it may have been caused by a woman armed with a stiletto heel. She sat on his bed and crossed her legs, as she focussed on her soul. Her energy levels were slowly creeping back to normal, but they never seemed to return quickly enough.

  There was nothing in Kyle’s bedroom that hinted at his personality or interests, and there was certainly very little that would remind him of her. She knew he had done it on purpose; it had been a cleansing mission for him, a way to avoid painful memories. In fact, there was only one object in Kyle’s bedroom that Alice could associate with herself. A clear jam jar, containing a few dozen or so pennies, sat neatly in the corner of his windowsill. It had been her childhood collection, and she had watched as Kyle had added to it, slowly, over the last couple of years. She realised it was the one thing that he could do to ease his conscience and honour her life, without having to remember too much. It brought on a strange mix of contradictory emotions for her, but overall, she was happy, perhaps selfishly happy, that he had kept at least one small part of her past with him.

  A short while later Kyle returned, hair wet and a towel around his waist. He pulled out some clothes and Alice looked away as he dressed. Even though she wanted to look, she felt bad about invading his privacy, especially since he wasn’t aware. He shaved, sorted his hair, and then ate some breakfast, before collecting his things for that morning’s lecture. The four students left together and made their way to the centre of campus. Dani and Cameron were usually the leaders of any conversation; Kyle listened and offered the odd word, and Stuart largely ignored them. He wasn’t a morning person. Cameron reached his destination first; the brown-bricked physics building was at the very top of the hill. He grinned ruefully at Kyle.

  ‘I’ll ask Sophia for her number, OK?’ he said.

  ‘Ah, cut it out, will you?’

  ‘Don’t be such a misery.’

  ‘Who’s Sophia?’ Dani asked but Cameron just laughed and jogged off to his lecture.

  ‘No one,’ Kyle answered as the three of them continued down the slope.

  He made it to the business building; it was at the bottom of the slope, next door to Stuart’s law and politics building. Alice braced herself for what was sure to be another long and boring hour. Her best subjects had been maths and physics and they had once been Kyle’s subjects too, but he had lost himself over the years. She hadn’t lived long enough to study physics at university but she was certain that she would prefer sitting in Cameron’s lectures, and she was almost certain Kyle would prefer it too.

  Kyle was as diligent as ever at carrying out his dad’s wishes, but Alice saw more in Kyle than he would have ever liked to believe. There was a reason he was drawn to physics, and why he attended the evening guest presentations in the physics building. Alice saw the way Kyle listened and how his eyes sparkled as though they contained the suns of the universe. She saw the creative and imaginative hues colouring the outer layers of his soul in aqua and lilac. She saw the interest in his gaze, his mind working silently behind his eyes, and the notes he kept in the subject he had given up on. Then she saw the way he worked for his business degree; the spark wasn’t there. He took everything in, did all the work and carried out his revision, but it wasn’t the same, there was no passion. He wasn’t the Kyle she had once known in these lectures; he was a lifeless zombie.

  She took a seat next to him, hoping that no one would try to sit through her today. She was aware of the girls whose eyes followed Kyle subtly and could see their pink souls. She tried to keep calm; she wasn’t around anymore and she couldn’t expect Kyle to remain single for the rest of his days, but even so, the pink souls annoyed her. She scanned the room lazily; the souls were all typical of their age and only a couple of Negative souls had shown up today. Their souls were almost entirely black, and Negative energy hung in dark clouds around their bodies, invisible to the living world, but completely visible and dangerous to Alice.

  She leant back in her chair as a hawk-nosed professor entered and began busying herself behind the large desk at the front of the room. Alice could feel Positive energy tingling through her imagined body. There had been a disturbance recently, throwing a static type of energy up into the air, very much like the feeling before a thunder storm. Alice had felt it, and she was certain all of the deceased had felt it too. It made her wonder what Ahrl and The Thirteen were up to.

  The lecture began and Alice tuned out, her thoughts were busy and kept returning to Sophia Leto. A sudden feeling of déjà-vu had hit Alice when Sophia had looked at her last night. The young woman seemed way ahead of her years, her knowledge was overwhelming and her soul blindingly Positive. Alice couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that Sophia had truly seen her. Yet Alice’s intuition was quiet; there were no visions, no pulls from the other side. Sophia hadn’t been there in Kyle’s first year at Red Oak; she had recently enrolled on her Master’s course. There was nothing unusual about that, but Sophia was unusual. Her soul was a brilliant golden yellow, brighter than any soul Alice had ever seen. It almost hid the rest of her colours, but not quite – there was grey within Sophia’s soul, though it was faint. She also displayed dark blue for compassion and deep red for love and the tell-tale hues for imagination and creativity. Sophia’s soul was almost a perfect example of everything that was good and positive in this world, yet… there was something different about Sophia, something exotic and foreign, and it wasn’t her ethnicity.

  Alice frowned. She felt like she should know Sophia, as though they should have been friends, but she couldn’t explain why. If her déjà-vu feelings had any grounding at all, why hadn’t Ahrl mentioned anything? As a Deykashee soul she wasn’t allowed to see the fountain directly, but Ahrl had shown her important memories before. He could pull Alice across the divide for a discussion, albeit temporarily, at any time. Surely someone with a Positive soul like Sophia’s would be important? She didn’t know and that troubled her. A disturbance and a very Positive soul, here, with Kyle, at Red Oak? That couldn’t be a coincidence? Could it?

  Five

  Hailey Hunter was nose deep into her book. She was sat on a bench at the local park, Fairhaven, the skate park to her left, a large grassy field to her right and a big man-made lake in front of her. She had a rating system for every book she read. If it could distract her from Tank for a few minutes it was a good book. If it could distract her from Tank for more than ten minutes, it was an extremely good book. If it failed to divert her attention from Tank for less than a minute, then it was a bad book. Her current book fell into the extremely good category; so much so, she barely n
oticed when Tank approached her.

  Tank was two years her senior; his real name was Robert Smith but everyone called him Tank. It had nothing to do with his strength or size, Tank was slim and lean, but it had been the nickname his mother had given him, purely because he had loved Thomas the Tank Engine as a kid. His shadow fell across her book and Hailey glanced up at him, supressing the blush that fought its way into her cheeks.

  ‘So what are you reading today then?’ He flashed pearly white teeth at her as he sat down next to her. She glanced around and noticed that the kids he had been coaching were all leaving the park, football practice was over.

  ‘The Invisible Crown.’ She closed the book and showed him the cover. It was a fantasy book about a young girl with an evil stepfather, set in medieval times where lords governed the land. The young girl had run away, and was winning the hearts of the common people.

  ‘Bad? Good? Or extremely good?’ Tank grinned; he knew about her ratings, but not how she did it. Hailey blushed.

  ‘Extremely good.’

  ‘You read more books than anyone I know,’ Tank said. ‘I swear you have a different book every day.’

  ‘Sometimes.’ Hailey shrugged. She wanted to be a writer and the best way she could learn to write was by reading other authors’ books and to practise. Tank smiled and massaged his right shin.

  ‘How’s your leg?’ Hailey asked anxiously. Tank had broken his leg a couple of years ago and it sometimes ached when he practised for too long. In the earlier days she had watched him hobble around on crutches and, when he had taken up coaching, he had sometimes grimaced in pain.

  ‘It’s OK, just a little stiff,’ Tank said. She felt her heart fluttering in her chest as he caught her gaze. ‘How’s Kyle?’ he asked and Hailey’s heart stopped. She didn’t talk about her brother often; they hardly spoke so there wasn’t much to say.

  ‘He’s…’ she searched desperately for the right words. Emotionless? Stubborn? Depressed? ‘He’s not coming back for his twenty-first birthday.’ She sighed, suddenly remembering the tense conversation that had taken place between Kyle and their mother Stacy, during a phone call earlier that week.

  ‘Oh?’ Tank didn’t seem too surprised. ‘Still hates coming back then?’ He stretched out his long limbs, the muscles in his legs shifting under his dark skin. Their mother had tried her best to contain her disappointment whilst she had been on the phone, but as soon as Kyle had hung up she had been tearful.

  ‘More than ever,’ Hailey replied bleakly, remembering their mother’s crushed features. Tank’s dark eyes softened and he leaned towards her, causing Hailey’s heartrate to skyrocket.

  ‘It will get better with time, Hailey.’ She felt her shoulders and heart melt; she loved the way his father’s Caribbean accent had worked its way into Tank’s and how it caught on her name.

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ she said glancing away from him. Tank had lost his mother and he had lost his dreams too with his accident, but he hadn’t just given up on everything like Kyle had. Alice’s death had destroyed the old Kyle and Hailey didn’t think he would ever come back.

  ‘It will,’ Tank said.

  ‘I know. I just wonder how long it will take.’

  ‘All people are different; it might take months or it could take several years.’

  ‘I hope it won’t be much longer.’ She stared down at her feet. There had once been a time when the rattle of skateboard wheels and laughter would have filled the air, when Kyle and his friends had still been around, when Alice had been alive, but those days seemed long gone now and those memories had lost their warmth.

  ‘Why don’t you suggest that he comes back for bonfire night?’ Tank said. ‘We all used to go as a group every year. If he’s not coming back for his birthday he could at least come back for bonfire night.’

  ‘I don’t know…’ Hailey began as she worried her bottom lip.

  ‘You can only try,’ Tank said and he nudged her playfully with his shoulder. ‘Come on, be that demanding little teenage girl I remember.’ She felt her cheeks grow hot and Tank laughed at her. ‘Call him,’ he said, and stood up.

  ‘OK.’ Tank nodded and strode off to collect his cones and footballs.

  Six

  Kyle waved as he spied Cameron speaking directly into a suspended microphone, huge, neon green headphones clamped over his ears. Two large computers and a mixing deck were in front of him, along with pages of scribbled down notes. Cameron raised a finger and pushed a number of buttons and sliders, before removing his headphones and opening the door to let Kyle in.

  ‘Hey, how’s it going? Want some headphones?’ he asked, dashing back to his chair.

  ‘Na, I’ll leave the geek channel to you I think,’ Kyle replied, taking one of the three vacant chairs.

  ‘You’re just jealous.’ Cameron placed his bright headphones around his neck. ‘The whole nerd community is huge. You’re missing out.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Kyle smiled and looked around the small office room situated at the back of the Students’ Union on the second floor. There was a large window and one of the pale yellow walls was covered in photos of previous student presenters. ‘Busy today?’ Kyle asked, glancing at the computer screens.

  ‘A few people have been talking, fairly quiet though.’ Cameron shrugged. ‘Everyone is busy sleeping or they’re actually doing work. What have you been up to?’

  ‘Revising.’

  ‘Good God, you’re not revising for exams already are you?’

  ‘Yes, so should you,’ Kyle said, knowing full well that Cameron had a brilliant memory. He had always aced every exam with the minimum amount of revision, even at school.

  ‘Yes, but I’m in my third and final year, you’re only a second year.’

  ‘Second year is harder than first year,’ Kyle said. Cameron grinned and placed his headphones back over his ears. He flicked a switch and then spoke directly into his microphone.

  ‘That was Chasing Demons by Imagination. For all of those who have just tuned in, we have a discussion about virtual particles on our web page. For all those who are interested we also have another vlog debate from the usual culprits. If you want to find out more, visit our website at www, dot, n show, slash, red oak, dot, ac, dot, uk, or you can search us up on social media, or text in to six five three, five eight nine. Don’t go anywhere; we have some new bands coming up, Pretty Girls’ Whispers and I See Lions.’ Cameron flicked a number of buttons again to play the various jingles and looped them on to adverts before muting the mic and placing his headphones back around his neck. ‘How were Dani and Stuart when you left? Still arguing?’ Kyle grimaced; he had left the pair in the kitchen where they had been arguing about Halloween decorations. Dani wanted to go all out and Stuart was complaining that it would be a fire hazard.

  ‘I think she just likes winding him up to be honest. I mean, Halloween is still weeks away,’ Kyle replied.

  ‘I guess you guys will be working?’ Cameron said, rooting in a rucksack on the floor and taking out a flask and a couple of paper cups.

  ‘Yeah, it’s going to be a busy night,’ Kyle replied dismally; he hated his job but it was even worse when the university hosted major events.

  ‘I don’t know why you do it; you’re not really a socialite,’ Cameron said, pouring himself and Kyle a cup of coffee.

  ‘Money, CV, the usual reasons why people get jobs.’

  ‘Yeah, but you hate it.’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Kyle asked; the coffee was barely warm so he gulped it down quickly. Cameron raised a finger again and placed his headphones back on, hitting buttons and sliders before speaking into his mic.

  ‘Welcome back to the N Show. If you’ve just tuned in, that’s too bad, we only have about five minutes left but don’t worry, we’re here every week, on Thursday afternoons, one till two. We have
a couple of awesome last minute songs lined up so without further ado, this is Pretty Girls’ Whispers.’ Cameron flicked off the mic and fiddled around before turning to face Kyle again. ‘Maybe you should try doing something you enjoy.’

  ‘No one does what they enjoy.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘OK, only if you’re stupidly rich or famous, the rest of the world has to do whatever they can to get by.’

  ‘You’re very cynical, you know that, right?’

  ‘I call myself realistic.’

  ‘What are you going to do when you get your degree?’ Cameron asked.

  ‘Get a job somewhere, work my way up the career ladder. The usual.’ Kyle shrugged. Cameron’s stare made him uneasy.

  ‘That seems so odd coming from you. I remember when you wanted to be a physicist. God, Alice would be…’ Kyle gave him a cold stare. ‘Come on man, don’t be like that, you know what I’m saying.’

  ‘Where did you get these cups from by the way?’ Kyle asked, motioning to the design adorning the side of the paper cup. It was a quirky advertisement for the Halloween event at the SU, a black print on a rustic orange background. Cameron sighed but let their conversation go.

  ‘I got them from downstairs; the staff let me have them for free.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve not seen them…’

  ‘It’s something Dani designed apparently; she wanted to make sure we had extra advertising this year.’ Cameron shrugged. ‘She’s even got me playing advertisements alongside my jingles.’

  ‘Oh, she’s gone all out this year as team leader then.’ Kyle was pleased that Dani loved her job and took it so seriously, but the extra advertisement would probably make their night harder.

  ‘Dani was pining for the position last year; I’m not surprised she got it this year.’

  Cameron placed his headphones back on again, one of the few things he hadn’t unplugged, and then flicked another couple of switches. ‘What’s up listeners, that was Pretty Girls’ Whispers and I See Lions.’ Cameron smirked, his eyes darting to Kyle. ‘Here’s one last song for you, Vortex by Dead Souls.’ Kyle cast him an irritated glare and Cameron ignored him as he whizzed about on his chair, flicking off switches, shutting down his laptop and logging out the main computer. Kyle could hear the song, muffled but still audible through Cameron’s headphones. The first verse was just starting with, ‘Look for possibilities, you’re the vortex surrounding me. Burning pathways in my mind, we must have travelled a thousand times. And when the storm is crashing down, you’re the lightning I’m the sound. You have to open up the doors, to see something more…’ Kyle grimaced and Cameron unplugged his headphones, and packed away the rest of his belongings into a rucksack.