Chapter One
Lucy
Leaving Hell, was, well, hell on earth.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was glad to be free of the furnace and back to Withernsea. It’s just that - everything had changed.
I’d watched an episode of Eastenders - Phil Mitchell was now old.
Nerds had become cool with Big Bang Theory and the IT Crowd.
Stars in their eyes wasn’t on anymore.
I was going to need counselling.
I’d kept up with certain things in Hell. We had computers though the internet was limited to what Satan felt we needed to know, and that wasn’t the latest on Kylie and Jason (who’d just released Especially for You when I was kidnapped). Fashion was easy to keep up with as the new residents came fully dressed and I gained an envied designer wardrobe from the many rich wives who’d killed their cheating husbands. That’s how my love of Louboutins had started.
But television. This was all new to me.
When I’d left earth, Grant and Phil Mitchell had just joined Eastenders, my favourite soap opera. I needed to watch twenty seven years of episodes to get caught up. Seeing as that was impossible, instead I was trying to read episode guides on the fan wikis I’d discovered on the net, but that was taking a long time.
I’d spent the best part of two months when I wasn’t working, sat in front of the television while my roommate was at work or sleeping, trying to work out why the latest craze was to watch people living their romantic lives on the television.
When I’d left, Doctor Who had just been pulled off the television due to poor ratings. Now it had been back on for years and I’d missed this Tennant bloke. The sexiest doctor ever. I’d lost a week out of my new life catching up on him alone.
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air didn’t appear to have aged as much as Phil Mitchell. I wondered if he was an undercover supe.
Then there was food. I’d not needed to eat while in Hell. We filled up on the souls of the evil. Now I needed to eat. I was plowing through the latest pizzas while trying to keep healthy via drinking these probiotic things that apparently helped my bowels.
Everything was taking so much getting used to. It was like entering a disco, the bass thumping, the lights flashing - but sped up. At times I’d been glad to get to bed, to sleep and block it all out, and wow these Memory Foam mattresses were the bomb. I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed sleeping so I made the most of it while my roommate was downstairs.
I heard footsteps thumping down the stairs.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I desperately tried to turn The Only Way is Essex off but Gemma was so loud and she yelled “Arg,” at the top of her voice.
I tried to rip a portal in the air, then remembered I couldn’t do that anymore.
The door banged open and my housemate stood there in his boxer briefs. His hairy, portly belly spilled over, and I glanced up at his middle-aged, balding head. Funny I’d been thinking about Phil Mitchell, I seemed to be sharing an apartment with someone who could be his brother.
“Who the fuck are you?” The guy scratched his bald pate though I noted his nostrils flared. He seemed stuck between thoughts he might be sleepwalking and ones of bashing his glamorous intruder’s head in. A smell emanated from him - great, I’d made him nervous and now I had to suffer. What the hell had he eaten?
I wished I could focus on just his head and didn’t have to see his gut. “Do you have a tee by any chance?” I asked him. “I’m finding it hard to talk to you when you’re half naked.”
“Are you kidding me? You break into my home and you’re asking me to get dressed?”
“I didn’t break in. This is my home.”
He edged towards me slowly, raising his hand up, like I was a cornered frightened dog like the ones on Dog Rescuers, which I’d got a little hooked on. If he came at me with a net, I’d bite his nose off.
“Okay, now take it easy, love. You’re just a little confused. Maybe you live down the street and you’ve had a bit too much to drink and I’ve somehow left the door unlocked. It’s an easy fix. You just have to tell me your address.”
I huffed. “I live here. Fact is, I moved in around April 1991. Then I had an extended holiday somewhere hot and now I’m back.”
“The previous tenant’s lease was given up by her parents because she went missing.” He looked at me and his brows creased. “Which isn’t you as you’re too young. Anyway, she ran off cos her fiancé got his leg over with another woman. She must have been a moose; you’re fit as fuck even if you’re crazy.”
I zoned out as he carried on with lewd suggestions on how we could flat share. He was yapping through TOWIE which was unacceptable.
“Oh! Now I see why my electric bill has gone up. I complained to them that it was too high, it's been you. How long have you been here, sneaking around?”
Another stench wafted over and I scrunched up my nose and tried not to breathe.
“Do you know? I thought fuck I have a crazy woman in my house, but now, seeing you lying on my sofa, looking all sexy in that tight red chemise, I’m thinking either I’m hallucinating or you’re a gift from God.”
As his curtains set fire and his eyes went wide, I guessed he was quickly changing his mind.