Shiver the Whole Night Through by Darragh McManus

out-of-body type feeling. Aw God, I wasn’t going to be struck down by one of those, was I? As if I didn’t have enough crap to be dealing with.
    I met Podsy after school and we walked part of the way home together. He’d talked to his uncle late last night. God bless you, Uncle Tim, and your free-and-easy way with confidential information.
    According to Podsy, Sláine had been fully dressed when they found her, although not wearing a coat. Her parents said they didn’t think one was missing from her room, so I assumed she’d gone there without. That’d back up the suicide theory, but of course I knew by now this wasn’t the case.
    Her feet were bare – they’d turned blue from the cold, become swollen. Other than that, the medical examiner found no marks on Sláine’s corpse, no signs of violence, self-inflicted or not. The one thing of note they couldn’t explain yet was the state of her skin and eyes. Sláine’s skin was marked by tiny light-blue lines all over her body, as if the blood vessels underneath had somehow petrified. Tim said the girl looked like she’d been tattooed.
    And her irises had changed colour: from her natural dark-grey to the same icy-blue as the lines on her skin. The coroner was baffled, hypothesising that the freezing temperatures had had some radical, mystifying effect.
    I didn’t recall noticing marks on her skin when we met on Saturday night. Having said that, I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to notice much of anything, beyond the fact I was having a conversation with a girl who was dead and now appeared to be alive once more. Also, her eyes had seemed dark to me, not blue. I’d have to examine her more closely tonight.
    I thanked Podsy for the information and turned to go. He stopped me by the arm, saying, ‘What’s all this about? All this wanting to know about Sláine McAuley. Did you fancy her or something before?’
    I laughed unconvincingly. ‘What? No way. I didn’t even know the girl.’
    He eyeballed me, clearly suspicious.
    I said, ‘I’m just curious, I told you. Like, it’s weird, the way she was found and all. How they don’t know what happened to her.’
    â€˜They
do
know, though. She died of the cold. Anyone would, out in Shook Woods in winter, middle of the night. Your body temperature drops below a certain point, you can’t metabolise nutrients and your organs start to fail. Eventually you’ll slip into a coma. Then you die.’
    â€˜Did Uncle Tim tell you that?’
    â€˜Nah, just know it myself. From Biology, you know.’
    â€˜Right.’ I paused, not sure if I wanted to express the thought that had just popped into my head. ‘I, uh  …  this’s going to sound awful, but you want to know something?’
    â€˜Uh-huh.’
    â€˜I kind of don’t give a shit that Chris Harrington got his ass torn up like that.’ I looked at Podsy, feeling ashamed but not ashamed. ‘Does that make me an evil person?’
    He smiled wryly. ‘Yeah, I noticed you weren’t too concerned about him, all right. No, I don’t think so. I mean I’m not happy the guy got attacked. But he was an asshole. Is, sorry. Still is an asshole. Not dead yet.’
    I smiled at Podsy and punched him lightly on the arm. ‘I mean I guess I want him to pull through.’
    â€˜Sure, yeah. Me too.’
    â€˜So what did happen, anyway? Harrington. What was it, a pack of wild dogs or something?’
    Podsy said indifferently, ‘Mm, think so. Don’t know where they came from, though. Do we have wild dogs around here?’
    â€˜Maybe from the forest.’
    â€˜Yeah. You wouldn’t know
what’s
hiding out in that bloody place.’ He gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘Man. Shook Woods. Wouldn’t catch me going there for love nor money.’
    â€˜No? You believe all that stuff, then? Legends