This is the story of a girl who lived but was not alive…
Carrie Anne is desperately unhappy. Tangled in a web of abuse, she seeks solace in the cemetery that backs onto her garden. But something creeps between the gravestones. Carrie Anne is not alone…
…and a boy who was dead, but could not die.
The cemetery is home to a boy. He has guarded these forgotten bones since meeting a gruesome end two hundred years ago. Neither dead nor alive, he has been watching for a long time. And now, he finally has the visitor he’s been waiting for…
Also available by Sebastian Gregory
The Gruesome Adventures of Alice in Undeadland
The Asylum for Fairy-tale Creatures
The Boy in the Cemetery
Sebastian Gregory
SEBASTIAN GREGORY
(pronounced Gre-gory) writes from a cabin in the middle of a haunted wood. His inspiration comes from the strange and sorrowful whispers amongst the ghastly looking trees. Sebastian is only permitted to leave the shadowy candlelight of the cabin once a story is complete, when it is unleashed upon the world of the living. Sebastian writes for the younger readers as they are easier to terrify than adults whose imaginations died long ago.
When not writing in a cabin in the middle of a haunted wood, Sebastian lives in Manchester with his family and various animals.
You can email Sebastian on [email protected]—he would love your feedback.
You can follow him on Twitter @wordsbyseb
You can stalk him on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/writtenbyseb
For the Perseverance Book Club, thank you for a great evening. Next time we will rock!
Contents
Blurb
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
This is the story of a boy who was dead but could not die.
And a girl who lived but was not alive.
There was a name that caused fear and missed heartbeats to those unfortunate enough to hear it spoken. A name so suited to the disease that the words themselves described the symptoms and the purpose in a terrible dark perfection. So afraid were the people of the city that they dare not speak of it, for fear of in some way drawing the attention and wrath of the thing itself. It was called The Consumption and like an ominous descending fog it choked the life of anyone unfortunate enough to be caught within its wisps. The cruellest of diseases, The Consumption would take every last drop of life as it turned a once recognisable, living person into something far less. A mere blood stained whisper of humanity’s l memory. To its victims, The Consumption was devastating; to those who watched their loved ones waste away to a dry husk, more so.
First there is the cough, subtle at first, small as a tickle. But the tickle soon becomes an itch, an itch that comes from the lungs and so cannot be scratched. There is no relief as the choking and choking and choking grips the windpipes and begins to slowly, oh so very slowly, drown them in their own blood. Drip, drip the lungs begin to fill; drip, drip the lips splutter and spill. The Consumption can take its own time and savour the misery wrought; after all there is no cure and it is, at the point of bloody coughs, firmly rooted within the body. Now is the time for the sweating to begin as the body temperature rises and sweat pours forming puddles around the lost desiccated soul. As the body shakes and rattles, the sweats run. Now he Consumption really earns its name, leaching all that it is to be human, slurping the mind of sanity, and petrifying the body to bone. All that is left for death to usher into the next world is a withered, mindless thing. And this is exactly what happened to the boy’s mother.
They lived in a one-roomed hovel, the boy his mother and an unknown number of skittering cockroaches, by the city docks. It was always dark inside no matter the time of day. What little light fought for survival against the dank dark was provided by small brown wax candles that produced a smaller brown flickering light. Slivers of sunlight penetrated the cracks in the rotting wood door, but soon became lost in the gloom. They brought a damp stench and clung to the air and wet the lungs and offended the nostrils. There were no beds—only two dirty grey uncomfortable mattresses made from stitched sacks and straw, placed on the cobbled stone floor. One for his mother and sometimes his father—if truth is told, the father was rarely seen and spent most of his time pissing at the gin shops. The other mattress belonged to the boy. They slept in ragged sheets that wouldn’t keep a small rat in bedding. The boy barely noticed his father and was not even truly aware of him until his mother was in the cold grip of The Consumption. In his memories, the mother’s smile lit up the dark; she was soft and warm despite the harsh cold world. Her hair was red curls, wild, that tickled his nose whenever she cleaned his face with kisses. She would sing to him at night, sweet angel songs as she sat in front of a cracked mirror putting on her coal soot make-up.
“Mummy