Draugr

Four

"I know you can't hear me, Hiccup," she said gently. "But I am with you. I will always be with you. I will never leave you alone. I love you and I should have said it so many times. I should have made you knew I loved you every single second of every day. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

An old guy paused by her, his rheumy eyes sweeping over her neat shape. He was rotund, balding and dressed in baggy pants with suspenders, a dark brown cardigan and carpet slippers.

"He can't hear you, lass," he said kindly and her head snapped up in shock.

"But you can?" she gasped, slowly rising to her feet. He nodded and gave a small shrug.

"Well, I'm in the same predicament," he admitted, gesturing to a small side room and an empty trolley. "Three years ago, I was brought in and...well, my time was up. But my Doris was still alive so I couldn't leave her. I remained, watching over her, seeing her fade with grief. She died of a broken heart...but when she passed, she went into the light...but I couldn't follow. It seemed I had rejected my chance and was stuck here." He sighed. "It's usually us old ones...but sometimes you youngsters get lost as well."

He had begun to amble along the corridor and she found herself walking alongside, wanting to hear more. He was literally the only person who could hear her now and though she loved Hiccup, there was a growing sense of isolation.

"Does it happen often?" she asked him curiously, already calculating how many people died every day but he gave a gentle smile before he grimaced and rubbed his back.

"Lumbago," he apologised. "Obviously as a ghost I don't have a bad back...well, I don't have a back...but I do have the memory of a back-and one that twinged!" He grinned and she found herself smiling back. "Not that often, to be honest. Tends to be when someone has so much to stay for that they reject the call to the afterlife. Well, the good one...no one can resist the other one..." And he shuddered.

"Other one?" Astrid asked carefully. If she was stuck here, she should gain as much information as she could about how things worked. He nodded.

"When you died, did you feel a light, a sudden warmth that reached for you, that pulled you...?" he asked her thoughtfully and for a moment she paused...and then she nodded.

"I thought it was the security lighting-I was chasing after the mugger..." she began and then her eyes widened. "After my murderer! But when I turned back, it had already faded..." The old man rubbed his mildly whiskery chin and nodded, his greying jowls moving slightly.

"You are clearly a very strong-willed young woman," he told her thoughtfully. "You were so focussed on chasing the man who killed you that you rejected the afterlife..."

"What's the other one?" she asked him directly. He sighed.

"Most people when they go head..." He pointed self consciously upwards. "But a few bad souls...well, the others come for them." He shuddered. "They're dark and flow and are terrifying...and no one ever escapes..." Astrid glanced around in anxiety but he patted her kindly on the shoulder. "Don't worry, lass-you're not theirs. You're here, aren't you?" Then he patted her shoulder smartly and pointed behind her. "Look!" he said and she spun.

In the room behind them, through the window, they could see an old woman, a mask on her face and doctors and nurses treating her urgently. But there was a glow beginning to fill her face, growing stronger and stronger by the moment.

"The Shimmer," the old man said knowingly. "She's going." Behind the old woman, the EKG flatlined and red alarms flashed. The team swung into action, flattening the bed and beginning expert CPR. A nurse trundled up the defibrillator. But as Astrid and the old man watched, the old woman rose from her body, even as the current arched through her chest. Her lined face was lifted in a beatific smile, her arms stretched out as she rose into the glow-and vanished.