Free Walking Shadows by Narrelle M. Harris Page A

had to knock three times before I dragged myself, cursing, out of bed.
    I emerged, still wearing last night's clothes, and skulked past him into the kitchen. Kettle on.
Coffee cup out. I didn't offer him one.
    My distorted reflection in the stainless steel kettle was woeful. My hair was all over the place,
like I'd stuck my tongue in a live socket. To be fair, it looks like that most of the time. I also
had creases on my face from my pillow. Great. Not even the undead should have to see what I look
like first thing in the morning. A refreshing shower was in order.
    After a quick wash, I strategically squirted on a scented body spray, then dressed in jeans and a
T-shirt. The shirt was dark red and had "Shhhhh!" written across it in big black letters,
next to a picture of an index finger held in front of a pair of lips. A birthday present last March
from my library colleagues.
    Lastly, I grabbed my voluminous satchel and considered throwing it in the bin. The bag had taken
on gross-factor 10, having recently contained receptacles that had harboured a severed hand.
    On the other side of the scales, it was a fantastic bag. It had lots of compartments which
nominally made it easier to find all the things I carried, like my wallet, headache tablets, lip
balm, some old receipts, an MP3 player, my current reading matter, keys, pencils, notepad, unpaid
bills and my mobile phone.
    The gross factor was trumped by the useful factor, and I kept the bag.
    I gulped down a glass of milk and a muesli bar while Gary waited quietly on the sofa, no doubt
suppressing disappointment that I hadn't made something that looked or smelled more interesting for
the morning meal.
    Ready to face the world, I turned to him. "Northward ho, Gaz!"
    Far from being energised, Gary simply began to put the teen-girl emo-romance back into his
pocket. I held out my hand and he wordlessly passed it to me, along with his new DVD, so I could put
them in my bag.
    "Ahh… You've got milk…" Gary wiggled his fingers vaguely to demonstrate
where. I dragged the back of my hand across my lips, feeling unkempt, then he sniffed and said:
"You smell nice. Is that jasmine?"
    "Yes." Both impressed and bemused.
    "My mum liked jasmine."
    Nice save, Gary. "Let's get to Ballarat."
    Despite the hideous much-too-earliness of the hour, there were plenty of people around. I
wondered if any of them were on errands as mysterious as ours. Gary seemed marginally more relaxed
this morning, but as the tram deposited us at Southern Cross Railway Station, his tension
returned.
    The station is very spacious and the curved roof has a futuristic cathedral feel to it. Gary
promptly got confused trying to find the ticket counter for rural destinations - the station had
been totally rebuilt in recent years and he confessed he hadn't been near it since 1983.
    I reassured him that mere mortals also got lost trying to find the ticket counters. Between us we
managed to buy tickets and find the platform. I considered teasing him about getting lost inside a
train station before remembering that he'd carried me to bed last night, without banging my head on
a cupboard or dropping me, and I gave him a break.
    As the train pulled out, I worked on my powers of effective harassment again. "This guy in
Ballarat - what on earth could he want from you?"
    I shouldn't have asked. No lies came forth, but no answer either. Instead, he settled down with
the curtain positioned to shield his eyes from the light. I was glad the myths were wrong about the
effect of sunlight. Gary didn't know what it was about the sun that made him itchy and squinty, but
it didn't burn him up like a magnesium flash, thank goodness. He had little enough of a social life
as it was.
    "Hey," I said, "I've got some new songs for us to listen to." Gary collected
songs the way he collected books and movies. He had bought whole albums on the strength of one song,
or the group's name. It was fun trying to dig up things he hadn't heard before.
    For the