Some people attract death. It loves them, twines around them like ivy, follows them all their lives. Riley has suspected for some time that death is just a step or two behind her. So when the boy in green follows her down the street that summer day she wonders - if only for a moment - whether he might be death, catching up with her at last.
Riley is on her way home - or back to Cousin's house anyway when she feels him in her wake. He moves from shadow to shadow. He's thin, about her age, as far as she can see. Green t-shirt, jeans streaked green at the knees like he's been climbing trees or skidding down hills. He slips into the shadow of Higgers drugstore, then behind a car. Each time she turns she just catches him - a flash of thin limbs. If he wasn't trying so hard to hide Riley probably wouldn't have noticed it.
It's an unseasonably warm early summer and behind the city the white snowline has crept back up to the very tips of the mountains. The asphalt is warm and stray dandelions poke up from the cracks in the sidewalk. People are starting to come outside, walking slowly through the heat the day has left behind, tugging their hat brims down against the sinking sun.
She leaves the avenue with the convenience store on the corner and turns down the quiet street, lined with worn-out Victorians. Riley can almost hear the paint bubbling and cracking in the heat. Like a twig cracking underfoot, she thinks.
The sound comes again and Riley realises with an indrawn breath that the sound is not just in her imagination. It’s out here in the world with her. It’s not paint cracking in the sun. It is footsteps, someone walking with a quiet tread, in her wake. Riley turns quickly, breath held, searching the shadows thrown by fences, sheds, the tall weathered gables of the houses. The street just stares back, sun-warm. She can’t see anyone. A bumblebee wavers drunkenly past her, over the fence into a nearby garden. She feels the buzz of it right through her body. Riley knows better than to believe the street, with its air of lazy summer peace. Someone is following her.
Riley turns and walks – quickly, but not too quickly. She can feel the gallon of milk she took from the grocery store sloshing in her backpack. She keeps her gaze forward and unwavering. Riley knows, as every kid knows, that ignoring fear is camouflage. Close your eyes and the bad thing – the tall thin shape in the dark at the foot of your bed, or the footstep behind you in an empty street – could miss you. It’s noticing the bad thing which makes it notice you. It feeds on attention – fear and your slanted glance.
Riley turns the corner onto the street where Cousin’s house sits squat at the end of the close. Riley speeds up; she strides fast, just short of running. This is another rule: you mustn’t run. Only things that are prey run. There’s a scent now in the air, something like charred meat, and she knows it comes from him, the boy. He’s close, she almost feels his breath on the back of her neck.
Riley shoves open Cousin’s rickety gate and now she is running, racing up the path, throwing herself in the front door. She slams it behind her. Riley locks the door, rests her back against the wood and breathes. She’s inside now, so she’s safe. Monsters can’t cross boundaries unless you let them. It’s important to believe that.
She settles her breath before calling out. She doesn’t want her fear to touch him.
‘Oliver?’
Only silence answers, but she feels her brother’s warm little presence. He has three hiding places, and she knows which one he will have picked today.