Junk - Melvin Burgess [67]
He hung around for half an hour and then went back; same thing, no answer. We were getting a bit worried by this time. Alan and Helen never went anywhere. If they said they’d be in, they were in. Everyone was thinking the same thing. You see, it wasn’t all that likely they’d been busted because the police’d still have been round there half an hour after they rang up. On the other hand… well, we all knew people OD. You heard about it. But…
Rob was getting paranoid because he was scared to go round in case they had been busted and the place was being watched. I went and walked past to have a look for him but I didn’t dare knock. When I got back Lily was getting really pissy, blaming Rob and getting on at me and Gems just because we had some and they didn’t. She wanted someone to go round and bust in. There was a window open at the back, but it was up on the first floor; it would have meant shinning up the drainpipe.
‘You do it, Tar, you’re all right,’ said Rob.
‘No way, it’s your stuff.’
‘You’re all right, how’d you like to go breaking into someone’s place when you’re coming down?’
We started squabbling until Lily suddenly lost her temper.
‘Just bloody someone go round and sort it out, okay?’ she screamed, and she started walking round the place kicking things. She was getting really wound up. She started punching the doors and making a mess of her hands. So Rob and I looked at each other, and we decided to go together.
We didn’t have to climb in the window in the end. Gemma remembered that this other friend of ours who lived a few doors down from Alan and Helen had a key in case they got locked out. He didn’t want to give it to us at first, but once we’d explained to him, he handed it over.
‘You can come in with us if you’d like to make sure it’s all straight,’ said Rob. But funnily enough, the guy didn’t want to.
*
We just opened the door and walked in. It was like normal at first. They were just sitting next to each other on the sofa. Helen had slumped a little sideways on to him and he was just sitting there staring straight ahead as if he was thinking about something. It smelt a bit funny. She looked like she was asleep. His eyes were wide open.
Rob said, ‘Are you okay?’ and I thought at first he was talking to me but he wasn’t. We both knew at once. They were blue. Then I saw the needles in their arms.
Rob looked at me. Then he went into the room and started creeping about opening drawers and looking on the shelves.
I went up close to have a look. I touched him on the arm and he was quite cold. Behind me Rob was rushing about, faster and faster. I think he was freaked out but I didn’t mind so much as him. They looked just like themselves but they weren’t moving. Alan was still gorgeous. She’d gone a bit thin lately, it didn’t suit her. So had he but it made him look even nicer if anything. I wanted to kiss her on the cheek because I knew she couldn’t wake up. It was like the Sleeping Beauty.
It was all so realistic. I kept waiting for him to move, and then for her to move and then for him to move, but they never did. I touched his cheek again. I thought of cold meat.
‘Bloody get away from them and help me!’ hissed Rob. We started pulling stuff out of the drawers and running about. He found it in the end – two bagsful, it must have been not far off an ounce.
That was a lot of junk. It was more than I’d ever seen.
‘It’s probably dead pure as well,’ said Rob, nodding at Alan and Helen. We giggled… you know, dead pure.
‘What shall we do with it?’
‘Well they’re not going to need it.’
I felt like we were stealing it even though they were both dead. I had this feeling they were waiting, that they were trying to trick us into stealing their stuff. I looked at them and shook the little bag at them as if to say, Is it all right? Then I noticed little details I’d missed the first time, like the sticky under their noses and in their eyes. Then I saw a fly walking across his face and I just flipped. I yelled and ran. Rob ran after me. We were down