All The Pretty Ghosts (The Never Series Book 1), Jamie Campbell [english reading book TXT] 📗

“What on earth is going on down there?”

“You can go look.”

“I’m not going down there. I’m dead, I’m not stupid.”

“Why? You can only die once.”

“Can’t even do that right.”

“Nobody’s going down there,” I said sternly. Although, I’m not sure why I did. I didn’t care if the ghosts ventured into the city. Nor did I care if they came back. I would have been glad to get rid of them.

But, somehow, we were family. They were the only people I had. God knew they annoyed me as much as a real family did. The thought of being alone in the house at the top of the hill was a thought much scarier than having them around.

The alarm shut off as we stood in shock but the smoke still freely flowed. Two alarms in as many days, that wasn’t a good sign. Oliver was right about one thing when he visited me – they needed my help down there.

And they needed it now.

Chapter Three

Three days later, the fires were still burning in the city. I got up every day, expecting to see a clear sky and being disappointed. The air outside was so acrid with the lingering smoke that it seeped into everything. I never thought smoke had a taste before, but it did.

It tasted like death.

I stood in front of the kitchen pantry, trying to put something together for breakfast. My choices had severely dwindled. All that was left were a few cans of food. They had all passed their used-by date months earlier.

“You’ll end up like one of us if you don’t get some food soon.”

“I miss food.”

“Me too. My favorite was ice cream.”

“Chocolate.”

“Jellybeans.”

“Pizza.”

“Guys,” I interrupted. My stomach was growling just listening to them. “Don’t remind me what I’m missing.”

Agatha moved to the front of the crowd and placed her hands gently on my shoulders. I don’t know why she always did that, she couldn’t actually touch me. “You need food, Everly. You can’t delay it much longer.”

I moved from the depressing pantry to look out over the backyard instead. “Maybe I could grow some fruit and vegetables in the garden? Then I would always have food.”

“You need seeds for that.”

“And good soil.”

“I wouldn’t trust anything grown in that ground. Who knows how contaminated it is.”

“Maybe it will make things grow quicker.”

“Or bigger.”

I tuned them out when they started talking about mutant vegetables. My problem was real… and serious. If I didn’t find more food soon, I was going to starve. I had been on rations for so long that I was surviving on very little, but having nothing was not going to keep me alive.

I had already raided all the houses on the hill long ago. It was how I lasted this long. I knew it would be futile returning to the buildings to scour for scraps. If I had left anything behind, the rodents and wild animals would have scavenged it by now.

The situation couldn’t be ignored for much longer. I had enough canned food for one, maybe two days, at the most. If my body got too much weaker, I wouldn’t be able to make it into the city to search for more supplies.

I would be dead halfway down the street.

But it wasn’t only the food situation bothering me. I tried to convince myself it was, but it really wasn’t. I couldn’t even fool the ghosts into believing it either.

Today was the day Oliver normally visited. I would always pretend I didn’t notice and then secretly await his arrival all day long. Even though it was still only early, a voice in the back of my head kept telling me he wasn’t coming.

The fires had been too big, the sirens too loud, for Oliver to make it out of the city. My gut instinct was telling me it would have taken a miracle for him to be okay and then make it up the hill to knock on my front door.

He wasn’t coming.

I just knew it.

Oliver always came before noon. He was more reliable than clockwork, he always had been. I never needed to wear a watch when he was around because he kept a keen eye on his own and would tell me if I had to be somewhere.

Noon came and went with the echoing bongs from the old Grandfather clock in the living room. One of the ghosts insisted I kept it wound, although I had no idea why. It wasn’t like time meant anything to anyone anymore.

Nighttime fell as the full moon made its ascent into the sky. The city was barely a dim glow in the distance. Oliver never came. It was the first time he had missed his visit since he found me after the Event.

But wasn’t that what I wanted all this time? I had decided long ago I was never going to return to the city with him. I was never going to listen to a word he said. With every visit, I had told him to leave me alone and not come back.

I had received what I wanted.

Oliver wasn’t coming back, exactly like I had begged him to do on so many occasions. I was being left alone, alone with my forty-three ghosts that were slowly sending me insane. Alone to starve to death in the deserted street. Alone forever.

I went to bed exhausted. My stomach ached for something to eat but I didn’t dare delve into the few remaining morsels I still had. They needed to last longer than humanely possible. Perhaps the leaves on the few trees in the yard wouldn’t taste so bad? Maybe contaminates from the crumbling city had time to dissolve or evaporate? There had to be a slim chance they