A Friend of Yours

I couldn’t breathe. At all. It was as if a pair of hands had wrapped themselves around my lungs and squeezed out the air, like toothpaste from a tube. Two more minutes of this and I was going to become a corpse. Two more minutes. And yet I had signed on for this willingly, for an entire evening in fact, having chosen to wear a corset. I suppose the bluish complexion my face had started to turn was all the more convenient for the costume- undead bus conductor. The irony of it all was that there was now a real possibility of me dropping dead at the party. I finally relented and loosened the strings, allowing a breath of air to gush into my lungs. Emily was getting changed in the wardrobe behind me.

I pulled at the bags under my eyes in attempt to sag them out to the point of sickly. There was, of course, the advantage that I already held of having gone to bed at four in the morning. Whilst stretching at my features, I saw the figure of a girl appear behind me: oversized black suit, a red rose in the buttonhole and a pencilled-on moustache making an exhibition of her top lip. I laughed.

“What on earth are you made up as?” I asked.

“Godfather, innit?” she said, pulling out a comb from her pocket and beginning to slick back her hair. I rolled my eyes and returned to the mirror, trying to exaggerate any further sense of the deceased.

“You’re meant to dress up scary for Halloween.” I said, less than half focused on her. “It’s the entire point of the day. You’re meant to be scaring off the spirits.”

“Don Corleone’s a different kind of scary, isn’t he? Now, pass me the mascara or I’ll break your knees.” I did as she asked and handed it behind me, beginning to question whether or not Emily had even seen, let alone read, The Godfather. “Anyway,” she said, “you’re no better. Dressing up as a sexy bus conductor.”

“I’m not meant to be a sexy bus conductor. I’m meant to be a dead one.” Emily slumped down on the bed and kicked her legs up onto a stool.

“Could’ve fooled me. Corset and that? Trying to get the hourglass figure and everything.” I laughed at her again.

“It may have escaped your attention, darling, but dead people don’t eat.” I saw her grimace at me in the mirror, annoyed at being defeated, before laying her head down on the pillow. It was then that we heard a distinct jingle echo around the house: Westminster Quarters. Somebody was at the door. “I’m still trying to sort my makeup. Could you get that please?” I asked. Emily sighed and rolled off the bed, falling into a slump on the floor. She was the most pathetic mafioso I had ever seen.

“Dear, dear, dear. You do ask a lot of me, don’t you?” she said, shuffling over to the door on her knees. “It’ll be your mate, won’t it? I’ll just go and tell him that we’ll be a few more minutes.” Emily disappeared behind the door, her footsteps growing fainter. She was wearing those ridiculously shiny patent leather shoes, so there was always a slight squeak wherever she walked. I pulled out the contour from my desk draw and began to apply it to my cheekbones, still feeling that I fell marginally short of the decomposing look.

My mate?

What did she mean, ‘my’ mate?

I thought John was her cousin.

“Emily?” I yelled, still sat by the mirror. “What are you doing?” I couldn’t hear anything. I rose from the desk and made my way over to the door. Out on the landing, I yelled for her again. “Emily? Have you let him in?” It felt cold for some reason. I went down the stairs and looked into the kitchen. She wasn’t there. Down the hallway, I began to feel an even stronger draft. The front door had been left open. I slipped on my shoes and yelled out for her again. “Emily, for goodness’ sake. Where are you?” Stepping out into the road, the streetlights looked paler than usual. I could see lights on in the houses, but not a single body in the street.