backward. "Jesus Christ." He looked up desperately, as if the sight of his companions would break this spell and make it all go away. He glanced back at the nightmare vision in the snow. It was no drunken hallucination. It was the real thing. He turned again to his friends. "There's a lassie up here," he shouted.
Weird Mackie's voice floated back eerily. "Lucky bastard."
"No, stop messing, she's bleeding."
Weird's laughter split the night. "No' so lucky after all, Gilly."
Alex felt sudden rage well up in him. "I'm not fucking joking. Get up here. Ziggy, come on, man."
Now they could hear the urgency in Alex's voice. Ziggy in the lead as always, they wallowed through the snow to the crest of the hill. Ziggy took the slope at a jerky run, Weird plunged headlong toward Alex, and Mondo brought up the rear, cautiously planting one foot in front of the other.
Weird ended up diving head over heels, landing on top of Alex and driving them both on top of the woman's body. They thrashed around, trying to free themselves, Weird giggling inanely. "Hey, Gilly, this must be the closest you've ever got to a woman."
"You've had too much fucking dope," Ziggy said angrily, pulling him away and crouching down beside the woman, feeling for a pulse in her neck. It was there, but it was terrifyingly weak. Apprehension turned him instantly sober as he took in what he was seeing in the dim light. He was only a final-year medical student, but he knew life-threatening injury when he saw it.
Weird leaned back on his haunches and frowned. "Hey, man, you know where this is?" Nobody was paying him any attention, but he continued anyway. "It's the Pictish cemetery. These humps in the snow, like wee walls? That's the stones they used like coffins. Fuck, Alex found a body in the cemetery." And he began to giggle, an uncanny sound in the snow-muffled air.
"Shut the fuck up, Weird." Ziggy continued to run his hands over her torso, feeling the unnerving give of a deep wound under his searching fingers. He cocked his head to one side, trying to examine her more clearly. "Mondo, got your lighter?"
Mondo moved forward reluctantly and produced his Zippo. He flicked the wheel and moved the feeble light at arm's length over the woman's body and up toward her face. His free hand covered his mouth, ineffectually stifling a groan. His blue eyes widened in horror and the flame trembled in his grasp.
Ziggy inhaled sharply, the planes of his face eerie in the shivering light. "Shit," he gasped. "It's Rosie from the Lammas Bar."
Alex didn't think it was possible to feel worse. But Ziggy's words were like a punch to his heart. With a soft moan, he turned away and vomited a mess of beer, crisps and garlic bread into the snow.
"We've got to get help," Ziggy said firmly. "She's still alive, but she won't be for long in this state. Weird, Mondo?get your coats off." As he spoke, he was stripping off his own sheepskin jacket and wrapping it gently round Rosie's shoulders. "Gilly, you're the fastest. Go and get help. Get a phone. Get somebody out of their bed if you have to. Just get them here, right? Alex?"
Dazed, Alex forced himself to his feet. He scrambled back down the slope, churning the snow beneath his boots as he fought for purchase. He emerged from the straggle of trees into the streetlights that marked the newest cul-de-sac in the new housing estate that had sprung up over the past half-dozen years. Back the way they'd come, that was the quickest route.
Alex tucked his head down and set off at a slithering run up the middle of the road, trying to lose the image of what he'd just witnessed. It was as impossible as maintaining a steady pace on the powdery snow. How could that grievous thing among the Pictish graves be Rosie from the Lammas Bar? They'd been in there drinking that very evening, cheery and boisterous in the warm yellow glow of the public bar, knocking back pints of Tennent's, making the most of the last of their university freedom before they had to return to the stifling constraints of family Christmases thirty miles down the road.
He'd been speaking to Rosie himself, flirting with her in the clumsy way of twenty-one-year-olds uncertain whether they're still daft boys or mature men of the world. Not for the first time, he'd asked her what time she was due