Chapter Sixteen

Annie

Annie ran on until she reached the main doors. She reached up and pushed the door release button. Hearing an electronic buzz, she stepped back from the door, expecting it to open.

But nothing happened.

Annie tried the door and slammed the palms of her hands against it in frustration. How could she have been so stupid? Running away from Principal Quick’s office without first taking her keys? Now she was stuck inside this stupid goddamned building with no means of escape.

Well, she would just have to find another route out of there. Only thing for it. There must be an emergency exit or something. She would find it. Anything to get away from creepy Emily and insipid Victoria. They were no use to her at all. Whatever sick game old Principal Quick had been playing was not going to be the end of her, no fucking way. Annie grimaced at the memory of what she had seen written about her in the psych evaluation profile on the principal’s clipboard.

Annie turned on her heels and began to retrace her steps. Maybe the refectory would be her best bet. Where there were kitchens, there were fire risks. And where there were fire risks, there were also building regulations. There would be a fire escape somewhere out back of the canteen. She was willing to bet her life on it.

Or maybe not my life, she thought, still disturbed by what she’d seen in the profile.

“Aaannniieeee….”

The voice was a cold whisper and it stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Emily? Victoria? That you?” Annie asked, even though she knew in her rapidly beating heart that it wasn’t them at all.

She heard a laugh. It was an entirely mirthless sound, cold and mocking. And that sound made all the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

Annie’s eyes discerned a dark shape, moving across the corridor wall ahead of her. It was the distorted shadow of a girl, and it snaked across the wall as though she had been borne out of the fabric of the building itself. Annie tried not to scream in fear, and failed because the shadow stretched out like it was reaching out to find her and entrap her in its darkness. She backed up and, with no choice but to double back on herself, she took another corridor. It was the route to the swimming pool.

No way out through there, Annie thought, her mind racing. Just keep going.

“An-nie!” The sharp whisper nearly shocked her into losing her footing as she rounded a corner into a wider corridor.

She risked a look back over her shoulder and saw that same dark shadow, moving at speed along the corridor. It wasn’t natural, the way the shadow spread out like that. A dark tendril blossoming across the wall, it seemed to suck all the ambient light from the corridor as it grew.

Annie was at the door to the recreation yard. Without a second thought, she gripped the handle and opened it. Closing the door quietly behind her, she hoped that whoever was following her hadn’t seen her duck outside.

Keeping to the shadows, which were thankfully still, Annie made for Principal Quick’s office window. When she reached the window, she saw the principal’s body through the glass, lying slumped across her desk. Emily and Victoria had left. Maybe it was them who were chasing her. Maybe it was their plan to kill her too, like they had killed Principal Quick. Annie took a moment to try and catch her breath, intent on not allowing her fears to get the better of her, and then she tried to open the window. It was unlocked, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Aaannniiieeee….” The sharp whisper made her cry out in surprise. She couldn’t help it because now her fears really were besting her.

Annie spun around.

The courtyard was empty. She looked up at the perimeter wall, then at the branches of the dying tree. Her eyes sought out an escape plan. But there was too much of a gap between the tips of the branches and the wall for her to climb up and leap over. That would have been perfect – an escape route that didn’t require her to go back inside the building. Her only option was the window now. She turned her attention back to trying to open it. She bent her knees and used the leverage this posture gave her to force the window up, but only by an inch. It was as though an invisible hand was pushing down on it, preventing it from opening.

Just then, she saw someone move inside the office.

It was too dark in there to make out, but maybe Emily and Victoria hadn’t gone after all. Or perhaps they had returned when they couldn’t find her in the corridor. She might have been too hasty in her judgment of them. It was, after all, one of her worst traits. One that had gotten her into terrible trouble in the past.

“Emily? Victoria? Help me open the damn window, will you? It’s stuck….”

If the window wouldn’t move, they could grab Principal Quick’s keys and she could meet them at the front door. Then they could get the heck out of there, together. If they kept to the road, they might get lucky and hitch a ride.

Then Annie saw another movement. She was expecting either Emily or Victoria to come to the window when she realized her dreadful mistake.

Principal Quick lifted her head from the desk.

Jesus Christ, thought Annie, she’s not dead. Not dead and she was faking it and….

Quick’s head turned sharply to face her. Annie screamed. The principal’s eyes showed no sign of life.

Then, with abject horror, Annie saw a dark shape emerge from next to Principal Quick.

It was a girl, dressed in a gray uniform like Annie’s, her facial features concealed behind her tangled dark hair. She was holding Principal Quick’s lifeless head aloft, her fingers gripping on to the dead woman’s hair.

Annie put her knuckles into her mouth to stop herself from screaming her lungs out. The gray girl held Quick’s head as if it were a prop dangling in a sick puppet show. And then she slammed the principal’s head back down onto the desk with a horrible crunch.

Annie blinked. And the strange girl was at the window.

Annie staggered back, terror making every step an ordeal, as the girl’s dirty fingernails skittered across and down the glass. She was reaching for the bottom of the window. Her bony fingers appeared through the one-inch gap like worms through soil and Annie saw her begin to lift the window upward.

That was enough for Annie to find her footing again.

She turned and bolted across the recreation yard for the door that led back into the corridor. But as she reached to open it, a freezing-cold hand grasped hold of her wrist, stopping her. At the icy touch of that almost skeletal hand, Annie heard a scream inside of her that was horribly familiar and yet not her own.

Impossibly, the gray girl was standing right in front of her.

Annie tried to wrench her wrist free, but that cold grip was all too strong. She tried again, shrieking with the effort as she used all her body weight to escape it. Annie heard a ripping sound and for a horrible moment thought it might be the tendons in her arm. She wriggled free, crying out in terror and clutching on to her frozen wrist in pain. Annie’s uniform sleeve dangled loose from her arm – the source of the ripping sound. As she broke contact, the scream from within her echoed and diminished, leaving only the wind whistling through the dead branches of the tree.

Annie recoiled from the grim visage of the gray girl. Her eyes sought out the window in the moonlight. It was still almost shut. Then, she felt those bony fingers clutching at her exposed shoulder and knew she had to find a way to rid herself of this spiteful apparition.

The tree. It was the only option left. She brushed away the unwanted touch of those cold fingers and ran to the center of the recreation yard. Annie reached for the lowest of the branches and leaped for it. Contact. She swung her legs up until the soles of her shoes found the tree trunk. Then she pushed herself up higher until she was on the branch.

Without looking down, Annie shimmied along the length of the branch until she could reach the next highest. It was just out of reach. Her terror was all the inspiration she needed, and she set about tearing the rest of her sleeve away from the shoulder of her uniform. She was in such a panic that she managed to wrench a length of the underarm away with the sleeve too. No matter. That only made it easier to twist the fabric into a makeshift rope. Annie swung the frayed fabric over the tree branch and grabbed hold of the loose end, making a loop. She tried to use it to pull herself up and onto the next branch.

But the fabric of her sleeve was not strong enough. With a stomach-churning tearing sound, it gave way until it was rent in two and Annie fell sprawling back from the tree. She hit the ground hard, with such force that it knocked the wind from her.

Annie rolled over, groaning and tried to get her shit together. She saw the dark glint of the gray girl’s eyes and realized that the hideous creature was crawling toward her across the yard. Annie grunted with the effort that it took her to get back onto her feet. She had to scale the tree to escape her pursuer, but how?

Annie’s eyes found a coiled shape that lay against the roots of the tree. A jump rope. Annie reached down and grabbed it. She slung it over the branch nearest her and pulled herself back up. Without daring to look below her to see how close the gray girl was, Annie let loose one end of the rope and swung it higher, over the branch she couldn’t quite reach before. It worked this time. Unlike her torn sleeve, the rope was strong enough to hold her weight.

Once she’d used it to pull herself up and onto the high branch, she risked a glance below.

The mysterious gray girl had disappeared.

Annie clung on to the branch and waited until her heavy breathing subsided.

She peered over to where the branch ended. Quite a distance to the wall, but it didn’t look so insurmountable now. Not from up here, anyway. Annie decided to stand up, to get a better perspective. Looping the skipping rope around it, Annie held on to the trunk as though she were some kind of crazy tree-hugging activist. From there, she worked her way up until she could stand on the branch, with the topmost length of the tree at her back.

She closed her eyes for a moment and caught her breath.

When she opened them, the gray girl was standing in front of her. Annie gazed in disbelief at the girl’s bare feet, corpse-pale and balancing on the narrow branch as though she were a prize gymnast.

“Please…” Annie began to plead.

But it was no use.

The gray girl was upon her before the word had fully formed from her lips. Those icy hands clamped on to the sides of her head and Annie’s strangled cry became caught on a gust of freezing air that wafted over the wall. For a moment, Annie saw the trees and fields beyond the wall. She saw the road like a ribbon of black through the wilderness. And then she realized she could only see those things because the gray girl had lifted her from her feet and high into the air.

Annie felt the rough fibers of the skipping rope wrap around her throat.

For a moment, there was silence. Even the night wind had stopped blowing.

Then there was a rushing sound as Annie felt her body drop.

She waited for the makeshift rope to pull tight around her neck. A death-noose of her own making. Annie shut her eyes again, expecting it to be for the last time.

But the noose did not tighten. On and on she fell, and that was somehow worse. The pit of her stomach protested queasily at the sensation. It was as if the world had opened up to swallow her whole.

Then there came a sharp bang.

It sounded – crazily – like a hammer.

Annie opened her eyes.

She recognized the space she was in, though her reeling senses could hardly comprehend what she saw.

It was the courtroom.

She was in the courtroom, but how? And the hammering sound she had heard was exactly that.

The judge slammed the hammer down again on the wooden block before him and called for order. A reluctant hush settled in the courtroom. Disoriented, Annie felt as though she might topple over. Her hands gripped on to something to break her fall. At first, she thought it was the branch of the dead tree. She looked down and saw that it was, in fact, the wooden rail of the witness dock.

Annie swallowed, wishing her dizzy spell would end.

“The jury’s verdict is unanimous,” the judge was saying, “and it is the opinion of this court that the accused did knowingly commit the crime of which she stands accused before us…”

Annie was being sentenced.

All over again.

The judge’s voice sounded weirdly distant and muffled.

Her vision blurred and she blinked in an attempt to focus on what was going on around her. She had a horrible feeling that she had been drugged. Was that even legal, considering she was on the stand?

“…therefore it is my solemn duty to give sentence. Taking into consideration the testimony of mental health experts during this trial, the accused should serve a minimum of two years detention in a youth correctional facility for her crime – a crime that left an innocent young woman, with a promising life and career ahead of her, permanently disfigured….”

There were gasps and murmurs from the gallery. The judge again called for order.

A woman screamed obscenities at her. Bitch, murderer, perverted psychopath.

The crowd roared its disapproval. She deserved to die in jail for what she had done.

For what I did.

Annie blinked.

She saw a memory of liquid. Saw its arc describing a shining, wet hook in the air. The opposite of a rainbow. Annie heard the splash and then the sizzle of acid eating into flesh as it hit her victim in the face. Saw the victim’s hand clutching at her cheek, too late. Watched as the woman’s skin came away with her hand. It was as though she was peeling away a beautician’s face mask, Annie remembered. She’d never be beautiful again. Not for him. Not for anyone. If she could bear to look in a mirror ever again, it would be to despair at her hideous reflection.

“…a crime committed to seduce a young man whose bravery to attend court today is a testament not only to his decency, but also to the failed plan of the desperate wretch you see before you in the dock,” the judge concluded.

Annie looked through her tears at the young man on the witness stand. His eyes burned with hatred and betrayal. She knew – all over again – that he didn’t love her. The fact looped around in her skull until she was sick to the core from its persistence. He could not, and would never, love her. She felt as though the life was leaving her body with each breath she exhaled. Her legs buckled and she clung on to the railing, but fell anyway, down from the dock.

As she dropped, she became aware of the skipping rope, still coiled around her throat.

She clawed at it with frantic fingers, but it was too late.

Her neck snapped as the noose held her in death’s embrace.