Monster (22 page)

I
dropped the boards I’d been carrying. My hands leapt to my mouth, as though I was going to vomit, but nothing came out. I just gagged. I’d never understood what ‘shocked to the core’ meant until now. Until I saw Matron there on the frozen ground, the snow banked up around her. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t cry. I could only feel the creeping horror of what I was seeing: her right leg tucked behind the left, her right arm stuck up against the snow, fingers stretched and solid. Her claw-like hand. The crude blood choker around her throat. The tiny pile of snow that had collected over her face, but was now brushed aside.

The Beast had dug her out of the snow and licked her face. It had not bitten her anywhere, or tried to eat what was
left. It was like it was showing me where she was. Showing me it hadn’t killed her. That meant—someone else had.

I don’t know how long I stood there, working things out.
Think logically. Stress makes you stupid.

Matron had been murdered, and not by the Beast.

That left …

Leon.

The thought struck me like a fist in the face. He’d been out in the woods the night Matron went missing. He was the only one of us who’d killed before. Plus, I’d never really bought his story about the Beast attacking him. A human couldn’t survive such an attack from a big cat, certainly not a cat the size of the Beast. Why had I believed him? Why had I let him in?

A terrific pang of dread enveloped me like a lead cape. ‘Oh my God.’

He was injured, that was why. He could have been dying. He could have frozen to death out here. But he was inside. Charlie was right. Maggie had been right too. Thank God he’d overruled me and locked him in. I was the only one who hadn’t wanted to lock his door. How could I have got him so wrong? Charlie had been right about that too, I did fancy him. I just didn’t want to admit it, as though it was a dirty secret. He was going to kill all of us. He was going to slit our throats. What kind of would-be Head Girl was I, letting that happen?

My options narrowed and came into horrifically clear focus. I had to get back to the school and warn everyone we had a madman in the building. We’d have to make a run for it. He was locked in; Clarice said she was going to do that, I was sure she did, so at least that was something we
had in our favour. But what if he’d woken up and realised we all knew?

As the last scrap of daylight left the sky, I realised I had no torch. I couldn’t go back into the dark sheds to look for a weapon—I’d have to make do with the poxy fruit knife in my pocket. I picked up the boards again and ran back through the gates to the Orangery lawn, back up to the formal gardens. Then I walked. If he was looking out, I didn’t want him to think anything was up.

Don’t draw attention to yourself. Knowledge is power. He doesn’t know what you know. Use it as a weapon.

Even though my breathing was short and fast and my heart pounded painfully, I walked slowly back across the driveway with the boards, towards where the bus was parked, trying to look calm, as though nothing had happened. But I couldn’t see Charlie or Maggie. I leant the boards against the front wheel and tried the handle. Locked.

I went round to the driver’s side and tried the handle there. That was locked too. When I looked down, the tyre was flat. So was the back one. They’d both been slashed. And there on the snow by the deflated back tyre were six little red spots.

My breathing grew shallower still. The more I looked the more blood spots I could see. On the bright white snow. On the melted patches where the ground was trying hard to be seen again. A fresh long red drip down the side of the white bus.

‘Oh, Jesus.’

I ached inside for Maggie and Charlie. Leon must have waited for me to leave and then taken both of them.

I had nothing to lose now. I had to get inside the school.

He might know you’ve seen the blood. Be careful.

I tried the handle on the front door.

Locked.

I moved along to the common room bay window, which we sometimes left open if we were airing the rugs.

Locked.

I moved round to the west wing, where the kitchen was and tried the door. Both ground floor windows were too high for me to climb up to. Everything was locked down tight. Solid. Jammed. I couldn’t see or hear anything from inside. God knows what could have been going on.

And then I remembered the other night, when we were looking for Tabby and how the Chiller was the very last room we tried. And how I’d got in.

Basement window. The faulty catch.

You need a torch.

I moved back round to the east wing, where the bus was parked, picked up one of the slates which Maggie had been using to dig out the wheels, and smashed the front window, grabbing the torch off the front passenger seat. Then I headed for the basement steps at the back of the school.

Keep your wits about you. Keep turning. Speed and surprise.

My hands were shaking furiously and I couldn’t control my breathing.

Once you’re inside, turn off your torch.

I pulled out the window with the faulty catch, placed my torch inside on the ledge and squeezed my way in through the gap. Once inside, I took a quick look around and turned off the torch, closing the window behind me. The intense darkness of the basement was like having my eyes closed. I felt my way through, remembering roughly where objects had been. Old desks. Piles of chairs. Scenery. Once I tripped
and fell forwards over some old cardboard mountains we’d used for
The Sound of Music
, but, after I’d righted myself, I could see a chink of light, so I knew I’d reached the point at which the room separated into the passage to the Chiller and the other that led to the bottom of Back Stairs, and up to the rest of the school.

I risked a flash of torchlight.

On.

Nothing. No one. A scuttling, squeaking sound.

Then a deafening crash, right behind me.

A stack of chairs had toppled to the floor: I’d dislodged them when I fell. I waited, my hand over my mouth, for a heart-paining minute to pass, in case anything else moved behind me. In case anyone came to see what the noise was.

Nothing.

I flashed the torch on again for a second, then crept along the tunnel until I reached the stairs. At the bottom of the door, there was a thin line of light. Feeling in my pocket for the fruit knife, I gripped the handle, holding the blade out in front of me. Then I tiptoed up the stone steps.

I listened at the door. There was no noise but the tiny whistle of a draught.

Make a plan. Where are you going, once you’re out? Be prepared.

The library. I’ll head for a Hidey, I thought. Leon won’t know about the Hideys. I’ll be safe in there.

Assess the situation. Keep yourself safe before helping your friends.

Ever so carefully, I tried the door handle.

Speed and surprise.

I yanked the door open and scanned the corridor. The light was on, but all was deafeningly silent and still. Opposite,
the staffroom door was shut. A little way along, the Music room and Science lab doors were shut too. The Gym doors were wide open, as were the heavy oak Latin room doors and the frosted ones of the French room.

At the very far end of the corridor, I heard screams.

And then all the lights went out.

I lost my head and panicked. I whipped round, only the glow from the Fire Exit signs above the doors to guide my way. I started to cry, thrusting my knife in every direction I turned.

Footsteps. Distant. Coming closer.

Then a warm hand smashed across my face, and I was bundled bodily into the French room. Behind me, the door was silently shut.

T
he hand stayed there, splayed over my face: thumb against my eyelashes, second finger just below my nose, and the rest of the fingers pressed tightly against my mouth. He held me close to him, so hard I could neither breathe nor struggle.

I knew for a fact I only had seconds to live.

‘Don’t. Move,’ he whispered deep into my ear.

I couldn’t even get my mouth open to bite, but I struggled for all I was worth. He just held me tighter, pulling me hard into him, trying to keep me still. Then I got my mouth open and clenched my teeth down into the palm of his hand, hard. The hand didn’t move.

Then a shadow passed by out in the corridor.

I stopped biting. I could see the silhouette, moving slowly past the frosted glass. Ever so slowly.

‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in,’ sang the voice. A man’s voice.

I could taste blood in my mouth. Not my blood.

The shadow stopped outside the French room, briefly, then carried on up the corridor.

‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in …’

It got steadily more distant until it was far far away.

The hand on my mouth slackened, then pulled away completely. By the light of the low milky moonlight outside the Quad window, I saw I’d bitten hard. My captor slumped down onto a chair behind him, and I finally saw his face.

‘Leon,’ I whispered.

‘Yeah. Who’d you expect?’ He winced as he wrapped his palm with a length of toilet roll from his pocket.

‘But who … what …’

His eyebrows rose. ‘No idea. He just came in, shouting his mouth off.’

‘What?’

‘Keep down!’ he said, sliding off the chair to the floor just as I saw the thing we’d been hiding from through the window, stalking the corridor on the other side of the Quad. The moon glinted on his blond hair.

‘No!’

It was Charlie, a carving knife clasped in his fist.

‘Come on,’ Leon whispered, tugging me down to the carpet and beckoning me towards the corner storage cupboard. Once inside, he pulled the door to so we were hidden, only a sliver of moonlit classroom and one of the frosted doors visible through the gap. The darkness was our friend as much as foe.

His eye stayed trained on the shard of classroom we could see through the gap as he whispered.

‘I heard all this screaming downstairs. When I got up, I heard someone shout that he had a knife. The one with the glasses, I think.’

‘Regan?’

‘I went to the corridor outside the bedroom and looked out. That’s when I saw Clarice, dead on the stairs. I think she must have been running up to warn me. Have you seen Di?’

‘Dianna? No. What the hell …’

‘If he hurts her …’ He bit down on his bottom lip. Something in his face had changed. I almost didn’t recognise him.

Words slowly formed in the glue inside my head, but I didn’t need to speak. Leon filled in all the blanks for me in his low, barely audible undertone.

‘Do you know him?’ He winced, gripping his side. He was clearly in some pain.

I nodded. ‘I … He’s Charlie. He’s … He was a friend. His dad owns the shop in the village. He came to see us. He was going to start the bus so we could get away. Maggie … Oh my God, Maggie!’

‘I didn’t see her.’

‘She was outside. I was there too. We were digging out the bus so we could drive it to the police station.’

‘All right, keep your voice down.’

‘Sorry.’ I choked down my tears. I concentrated on my breathing. ‘I went to get boards for traction. And I found …’

‘What?’

‘Our matron. In the snow.’

‘Dead?’

I nodded.

‘Exposure? That beast thing? What was it?’

‘She’d had her throat slit.’

He exhaled and for a second I lost his face in the darkness.
‘He must be one of those serial killer nutters. He must have done your mate Maggie outside and all.’

‘Don’t say it like that,’ I snapped at him between sobs.

‘I can’t sugar-coat it, can I? You didn’t see what he did to Clarice. You need to get your head around what’s happening here, Nash. Oh God, where did Dianna go? I haven’t seen her all day.’

‘I haven’t seen her either.’ My entire body trembled and I suddenly realised how cold I was, despite my tights, regulation pea coat and cardigan underneath. ‘I’m going to wake up any minute and none of this will be real.’

‘Nash, look at me,’ he said, grabbing my torch and clicking it on briefly. Its golden beam illuminated the cupboard and he shone it directly over his right hand, clutching his side. It was red all over. He’d been stabbed.

‘He did this to you?’

‘Yeah.’ He clicked off the torch and the darkness took over again. ‘I don’t think it’s too deep though. It hurts like a bitch, but it ain’t cut a lung or nothing. I knocked him down the stairs before he could do any more damage and then I started running. Well, hobbling—my ankle’s still knackered. The only reason I got away was cos he went after that Regan kid. She and the little one ran off. I don’t know where they went.’

‘Oh God, Tabby!’ I was about to burst out of the cupboard, but he grabbed my arm.

‘Don’t even think about it. You go out there now and you’ll be a butcher’s window. You’ve got to be more canny. Don’t go being a hero, all right? Think of your options.’

It was just what my brother would have said too. In the dark, it was like he was there with me. I stared at Leon’s
hand, his chest heaving up and down as he tried to breathe through the pain. ‘Let’s get a dressing on that, at least.’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a first aid box in here and all.’

I stood up, taking the torch from him and shining it on the top of a tall green filing cabinet. There against the wall was a large see-through box. We’d brought in ten of them at the start of term for the school governors’ visit. I clicked it open and found a large field dressing.

‘Hold this,’ I said, giving his good hand the torch. ‘Shine it over it for me.’

He did as I asked as I removed his hand to see what I was dealing with. He was right, it wasn’t deep, but deep enough. Red and oozing. I tore at his t-shirt, made a large hole and held the padding of the bandage against the wound.

‘Mnnnaaarrrghhaargghhh,’ he whined, as quietly as he could and started panting like he was in labour.

I pressed it down firmly and began to wrap the bandage around his middle. ‘At least it wasn’t on the same side as your appendix scar.’

‘Yeah. I’m counting my blessings about that one.’

‘Keep your hand on that and don’t move it. Stay sitting up, okay?’

‘This how it’s gonna be, huh?’ he said, as I shuffled him back against the filing cabinet. ‘You my own personal nurse?’

‘Seems to be how things are going so far.’ I yanked the bandage tight and tied the knot.

He raged his pain through clenched teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

‘Sorry.’

‘S’all right,’ he said, still doing his Lamaze breathing. ‘Is that it?’

‘No, I need to bandage your hand as well. Where I bit you.’

‘I didn’t mind that one so much,’ he said.

‘Give me your hand.’

‘Yes, Nurse.’

I exchanged the patchy red toilet roll tourniquet for a proper one and tidied it up with a small safety pin. ‘How’s your ankle?’

‘Kills.’

I nodded.

‘It was a trap,’ he said. ‘In the woods. A badger trap, I think. I lied to you. It wasn’t the Beast.’

I let out a long breath.

‘I went out looking for wood and stepped in it. No wild animals involved.’

‘Why did you say it was the Beast, then?’

He shook his head. ‘I dunno. Seemed right at the time.’

I couldn’t believe how well he’d lied. ‘You know I thought it sounded weird.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes. I’ve seen the Beast, up close. It didn’t lay a paw on me.’

‘Maybe it had just eaten.’ I didn’t want to dwell on that.

He heard something outside the door. He peered through again, then pulled back. ‘It’s all right.’

‘You’re a bloody good actor, I’ll give you that.’

His laugh was pained. ‘Dianna told me all about it and about the bloke in the village who got killed and what everyone was saying about the Beast. So when I did it, I thought maybe I could get inside the house if I used that excuse. It looks like a big animal bite though, doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah, it does.’ I thought back. It made sense now. ‘That
must have been what our Headmistress meant when she said the grounds man had “taken steps”. And why we weren’t allowed into the woods over the holidays.’ I thought about my monster. The softness of its fur. The way it had showed me Matron’s body. The way it had left the dead sheep on the porch for us. It meant us no harm at all. ‘There must be loads of traps up there.’

‘Yeah, well. There’s one less now.’

‘So what caused the fire then? Was that a lie too, about the lamp falling over?’

‘Kind of. I torched it so you wouldn’t send me back there. Dianna said if I had a good reason, you’d let me in. She knows you’re soft-hearted. You did a good job, patching me up.’

‘We did first aid in Biology. There wasn’t a module on “How to Deal With a Knife-Wielding Maniac” though.’ I shuffled back on my bottom and leant against the bookshelves.

‘I knew guys like him inside. To look at, they’re puppy dogs. You wouldn’t think they’d have it in ‘em. Till you find out what they did. Or till you see ‘em when they’re off their meds.’

‘But he’s … Charlie. Okay, I don’t know him that well. But he’s. He’s—’

‘The guy you’ve been flirting with all summer, yeah. Dianna told me. The shop boy. Didn’t you have the slightest sense he might be dangerous?’

‘No. I had no instincts about him at all. I just thought he was nice.’ That was Charlie all over. Nice. Or so I’d thought … ‘No, he is nice, he’s a good person. He took me out. He always gives us sell-by pies and sweets and stuff.’

‘He was clever, then. Reeled you all in.’

‘I just don’t believe it. I don’t believe he’s capable of it. He’s sweet and funny and—’

‘A killer. At heart, at base, he’s a killer. He likes killing things. All the rest is decoration. You didn’t see his face when he was sticking that thing in my ribs.’ He winced with the pain, as though it had just reminded him. ‘He
enjoys
this. This is the side of himself he chooses to listen to. He’s Jekyll and Hyde.’

I remembered the pill bottle in the glovebox of his car. ‘He’s on some medication. For his asthma, I thought.’

‘What, pills?’

‘Yeah. He had to go to the doctor and get them changed because they weren’t working. Long name. Something with trip in it.’

‘Triptarangurzine?’

‘Oh my God, yes, I think that’s it. How did you know that? Are you asthmatic too?’

‘They’re not asthma pills. They’re antipsychotics.’

‘Psychotic?’

‘As in psycho.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Loads of blokes in the nick are on ‘em for mood swings. We call ‘em the trippers, cos they’re always spaced out and their drugs all begin with “trip”. The pills are supposed to lessen their aggression, dull part of their brain. Some of ‘em are on doses so heavy they wander round like extras from
The Walking Dead.
’

I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘He killed that guy in the village. He killed those tourists. I went on a date with him.’

Leon’s brow was sweaty. I could see it in the crack of light coming through the door.

A door slammed hard in the distance.

‘Well, I only saw him kill Clarice, but it makes sense for him to have offed the rest.’ He moved his hand away from his belly bandage, checking his wound. The blood had stained the whiteness.

‘Keep your hand pressed hard against it,’ I reminded him.

‘All right.’

‘Clarice is dead?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Nash. He slit her throat.’

‘I … I can’t believe …’

‘Start believing, Nash,’ said Leon. ‘We don’t have the luxury of time to get our heads around all this.’

More pieces were slowly starting to fall into place. Things Charlie did that day at the Gorge. Really shouting at those virtual aliens on Castle Mars. His hands shaking. His maniacal driving, at top speed on ice and all over the road. At that moment, I felt a choking sensation around my neck, and remembered—the Howlite necklace he’d given me. I yanked it off and flung it away from me, so that it clattered against the broken whiteboard.

‘What was that?’

‘A present. From him.’ I couldn’t bear to think about it, much less wear it.

‘He had you good and proper, didn’t he?’

‘He did not,’ I snapped. ‘We’d only just started seeing each other. Could being on those pills make you, I don’t know, lose control of stuff?’

‘Yeah, definitely.’

‘In what sort of ways?’

‘I dunno, I’m not a doctor.’ He sounded irascible, like he was just drifting off to sleep. ‘The blokes in the nick get the
shakes sometimes and find it hard to concentrate on really basic stuff. I know that’s a side effect. Apart from that, I haven’t got a clue.’

The dirt under his fingernails. Maggie always said it was blood.

‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’

‘God’s busy right now, Nash. Let’s think of a plan, yeah?’

‘We’ve got to get to them. We’ve got to get to Regan and Tabby and Maggie and …’

‘And do what?’ said Leon, more wearily than ever. ‘What the hell can we do? I can’t move any more, Nash. I don’t know how I even got here without collapsing.’

‘I’ve got a knife.’ I showed him the tiny fruit knife from my pocket.

He laughed and stopped, wincing. ‘That doesn’t look like it’d skin an apple, let alone do anything worse.’

‘What about Tabby?’

‘She’s just going to have to take her chances. We can’t do anything. We’ve got no other weapons. Nobody’s coming, Nash. We’re on our own.’

There’s always a way. Always.

‘No,’ I said. ‘We can’t just sit and wait for him to come. I’m not doing that. I’m not dying in a French cupboard. And neither are you.’

‘What then? I’m not going anywhere. I can’t even walk properly, let alone go chasing round after that bag of Brazils with a blunt blade.’