THE ROAD OF THE DEAD HOW TO
THE ROAD OF THE DEAD CRACKED
THE ROAD OF THE DEAD FULL

Some time later I awoke to the pain of a jagged knife ripping open my heart, and I knew without a doubt that Rachel was dead. The Dead Man came out of the dark and took her down, and everything went black forever. I felt it at the same time as her, and we were both too late. There was something thereвЂ¦something that shouldnвЂ™t be there. All she could feel was the cold and the rain and the wind and the darknessвЂ¦ДЄnd then suddenly she was feeling something else. вЂњI thought you were coming home tonight?вЂќ вЂњWhat are you doing here, Rach?вЂќ I asked her. We were cold and wet and tired and scared, and the world was black and empty, and I didnвЂ™t know why.

THE ROAD OF THE DEAD CRACKED

One moment she was with me-sitting in the back of the Mercedes, looking around the yard-and then the moment suddenly cracked and I was with her, walking a storm-ravaged lane in the middle of a desolate moor. IвЂ™d just never got any feelings from her before, and thatвЂ™s why it was so strange to suddenly feel her that night-so strange and weirdвЂ¦ Or maybe it was just because she was my sister. Perhaps it was because weвЂ™d always talked a lot anyway, so weвЂ™d never needed anything else. Until that night, IвЂ™d never felt anything from Rachel. With my sister, though, it had always been different. Sometimes I get them from Mum, and very occasionally from Dad, but the feelings are strongest when they come from my brother. In fact, I very rarely get them from anyone outside my family. I donвЂ™t get them all the time, and I donвЂ™t get them from everybody. I get them, and thatвЂ™s all there is to it. But IвЂ™ve long since stopped worrying about it. I donвЂ™t even know if theyвЂ™re real or not.

These feelings I get-the feelings that IвЂ™m with other people-I have no idea what they are, or where they come from, or why I get them. Cole once asked me what it was like to know everything there is to know, and not know anything about it.

THE ROAD OF THE DEAD HOW TO

I donвЂ™t know how to describe these feelings I get. Then a gust of wind caught the sign over the gates, and as it creaked on its rusty chains and I looked out through the shattered back windscreen and read the familiar faded words-FORD & SONS-AUTO PARTS: CRASHED CARS, VANS & SUVS, MOT FAILURES, INSURANCE WRITE-OFFS, BOUGHT FOR CASH-thatвЂ™s when I first felt Rachel in my heart.

I liked seeing the raindrops as threaded jewels, the heaps of scrap metal as mountains and hills, the tottering piles of broken-up cars as watchtowers. I liked the way the lights over the gates shone crystal-white in the dark, making everything look special. I liked being alone in the yard at night. I liked the sound of it hammering down hard on the roof of the car.

THE ROAD OF THE DEAD FULL

I could have taken shelter in one of the old storage sheds, or I could have gone back to the house, but the sheds were dark and full of rats, and the rain was really pouring down, and the house was all the way across the other side of the yardвЂ¦ I could have gone somewhere else, I suppose. IвЂ™d spent an hour or so checking it out, seeing if it was worth stripping down, and then the rain had started-and thatвЂ™s when IвЂ™d got in the back. My brother, Cole, had brought the Mercedes into the yard a few hours earlier and asked me to look it over while he went off to see someone about something. When the Dead Man got Rachel I was sitting in the back of a wrecked Mercedes wondering if the rain was going to stop. Kevin Brooks Talks AboutвЂ¦The Road of the Dead To resort thither for baptisms and funerals.ДЇearsome almost beyond belief must have been that journey over the desolate and sinister land, with the sphinx-like grey rocks ranged like perpetual mourners beside the trailвЂ¦no sound save the ravenвЂ™s croak or the stumbling steps of the mourners вЂњas silent and slow they followed the dead,вЂќ and before them mile after toilsome mile of rock and mire and floodвЂ¦This must often have necessitated setting forth by the light of a flying winter moon, or the even more eerie and less effectual beams of storm-lanterns flashing like will-oвЂ™-the-wisps along the way. Of Dartmoor, who lived nearer to Widdecombe than Lydford, Until, in 1260, Bishop Bronescombe gave licence to the inhabitants From Post Bridge starts the Lych Way, the Road of the Dead,ДЄlong which corpses were conveyed to Lydford, the parish church,

The road of the dead