Chapter Nineteen

Is This Hell?

I keep on moving so that the shadows can’t gain on me.

At every turn, I hear an echo of that awful sound, repeatedly in my head.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

I try to put Annie’s dead face from my mind. Try not to linger on the way her lips had already turned pale blue by the time I’d found her, hanging from the dead tree in the recreation yard. I try to ignore the gray phantom that must have tormented her in her last moments.

But I can’t.

Why aren’t my ears ringing? I wonder if they ever will again, after all that I’ve witnessed during this night. I wish I could retreat, instead of running. I crave the numbness, now, in a way that I never have before. Floating out of body and out of time would be just the thing, please and thank you. But in truth, my senses feel sharper than ever. I’m aware of every breath I take, and each footfall I make as I rush down the corridor.

I find the door to the medical store wide open. Blood covers the floor. Lena’s body is slicked red with blood. Jesus, there are so many needles everywhere. What the hell happened in here?

She happened.

The thought arrives with such stark clarity that I whirl around to see if someone has whispered it into my ear. But I’m alone on the threshold to poor, dead Lena and so much blood. I don’t want to go inside. Don’t want to tread in all that blood. I feel as though it would be the wrong thing to do. The blood still belongs to Lena, and to Lena alone.

I back away from all of the broken glass, all of the horror and death inside that depressing little storeroom, thinking what a waste of a young life, and how Lena was the last of us I’d have expected to die here at Greyfriars Reformatory. The clever way she got us all out of the locked dormitory – that was neat. We’d still be locked inside and arguing about how we were going to escape if not for her. The way she kept watch each night, by the dormitory door, makes me think she wasn’t looking out for Saffy, or for herself. Rather, I think she was looking out for all of us. For whatever reason, I believe she saw herself as a protector. Sure, she was happy to have Saffy be the alpha, probably because Lena wouldn’t be interested in that self-aggrandizing nonsense. Lena was always there, only speaking when she needed to. She was tough as nails, she was resilient, she kicked ass.

And now she’s dead.

I’m nowhere near as resourceful as Lena was. Her survival skills would have made her a useful ally. My best shot at surviving the wilderness outside the reformatory. But she’s gone, and I’m on my own now.

Then I notice the bloody footsteps leading away from the medical storeroom, and begin to figure that Victoria must have come here first. She must have been looking for Lena’s help too. I’m already walking, and following the blood trail before I even realize it.

The bloody footprints become an expressionistic flourish as I follow them around the corner into another corridor. Victoria must have slipped as she navigated the corner. Must have been going at quite a pace, and I bet I know who, or what, she was running from.

The corridor darkens as I walk further. There are no lights on in this part of the building. Not sure exactly where I am now because I’m feeling a little light-headed all of a sudden. Not in my usual way. This is something else. There’s a sick feeling in the depths of my stomach that makes me swallow. I keep walking and become aware of a noxious smell in the air. Is that what’s making me feel unwell, I wonder?

I see the familiar door to the refectory and get my bearings. The door is halfway open. From inside, a light flickers. The smell is strong now, and unmistakably gas. I take what breath I can before I reach the door and go inside. The light flickers madly overhead – a malfunctioning starter lamp in one of the overhead lights – and the potentially deadly combination of toxic gas and erratic electricity sets my teeth on edge. I find my way between the refectory tables and a memory of my fight with Victoria comes back to me. It strikes me that we were both focused on the wrong fight. Instead of battling each other, we should have been finding ways to team up. Stronger together, not apart.

I push on toward the kitchen door and I know I’m going to have to breathe soon. But not yet. I clamp my arm over my mouth and nose and kick the swinging door into the kitchen open. A loud hissing alerts me to the fact that the stove gas switches are all open.

Victoria is on the floor, a crumpled mess at the foot of a stainless-steel storage unit.

I move in her direction as fast as I can. A shadow spreads and sweeps across the wall to the left of me. I don’t stop to look. I hear a metallic clang as a pan or some other utensil falls to the floor somewhere behind me. Again, I don’t hesitate. Eyes on the prize. Stronger together. Not apart. Holding my breath, which wants to burst free from my agonized lungs, I quickly close each of the gas switches.

I stoop and curl my free arm under Victoria’s upper body. I try to lift her and have to remove my other arm from in front of my face because she’s a deadweight. Clutching her tightly with both arms, I pull her up from the floor. Her head lolls forward, chin balancing on her chest, and I wonder if she’s dead already.

I can’t hold my breath any longer. I have to breathe. I open my mouth and gasp.

The putrid stench of the gas is overpowering.

I hold on to Victoria and drag her limp body backward through the kitchen. Her heels drag across the hard floor surface, making it harder for me to move her. My head is swimming now from the effort of dragging her, and from breathing in so much gas. I have to take another breath and this one nearly finishes me. I tumble back through the swinging door and into the refectory. I lose my footing and slam down hard on my ass. Victoria’s dead weight topples on top of me. I cry out at the pain and feel Victoria moving on top of my legs.

She’s alive.

“Victoria?” I rasp, my throat burning as I speak her name.

She replies with a groan. It’s not much, but it’s the most human sound I’ve heard for what feels like a long while. It urges me on somehow, encourages me to double my efforts.

“Can you walk?” I ask.

She grunts, and then nods, as I get to my feet and help her to stand. We lean on each other for support and stagger across the refectory toward the still-open sliding door. It might just be the effect of the gas playing tricks on my powers of perception, but the room looks much bigger than it did before, and the door much farther away. The strip light flickers overhead and I wonder if it’s all been in vain after all. Surely the place will go up any second with so much gas in the air, and no windows.

“Come on! A spark from the light might be enough to make the gas explode,” I say.

Victoria increases her pace along with mine.

We struggle on together and reach the door. Maybe I really did turn off the gas just in time.

After tumbling through the door, we fall to our knees together in the corridor. Even the musty odor of the reformatory smells blissfully sweet after the tainted air of the kitchen and refectory. I breathe in and out a few times to clear the nasty taste from my airways. Then I turn and slide the refectory door closed. Victoria has taken on much more of the gas than me. She crawls to the corner of the corridor and throws up. The vomit keeps coming. Her upper body convulses as she dry heaves. Her throat is making sounds more likely to come out of a blocked drain, and I’m feeling pretty queasy myself now.

“All done?” I ask.

She dry heaves again.

There’s clearly nothing left for her to puke up, but her body needs to be rid of the poison in her system. She groans and sits back against the wall before wiping the perspiration from her forehead. She looks pale and drained. Victoria looks at me groggily, eyes streaming with tears.

“What is this place, Emily? Is this Hell?”

I don’t know the answer. So I just shrug.

“Lena’s dead,” she says.

“I know,” I reply.

“Where’s Annie?”

“Annie’s dead,” I say.

“Oh no.” Victoria looks like she is struggling to take it all in. “How?”

“I found her hanging from the tree in the recreation yard.”

“Jesus Christ,” Victoria says. “That’s how her file said she died.” Then she coughs to clear her throat. “Except it said she hanged herself in detention. Why would it say that?”

“I didn’t—”

“I know, okay. It’s her. That…gray girl. It’s like she knows every bad thing you ever did in your life.” Victoria coughs again, then struggles to her feet. “Lena’s case file said massive blood loss from torn veins. Said it was intentional self-mutilation – in case the drug overdose didn’t do the trick. That’s how she died, for sure. But Principal Quick entered it in her case file like a premonition or something. At first I thought you and she were in cahoots somehow…” She catches my look. “…and I’m sorry about that, but you can understand why I thought that, right?”

I can’t. But I nod anyway because it seems the right thing to do at this particular time. Maybe I’m getting better at navigating this kind of human interaction after all, because Victoria seems to accept my nod.

“I just don’t understand it, Emily. How could Principal Quick know? And why did she choose to top herself like that? She was studying you, right? For her book?”

I nod again. I’m getting good at this.

“Well,” Victoria goes on, “she had you back, right where she wanted you. And then Jess died, and Saffy. Followed by Principal Quick herself. Then Lena and Annie – not sure who went first….” Victoria winces, as though she’s said, or thought, something truly terrible. She takes a deep breath before continuing.

“So the only thing left to puzzle out is the gray girl. Do you think she’s real, Emily?” Victoria asks. “Do you think she really can be killing us off, one by one?”

“There was something in Principal Quick’s manuscript about her,” I reply. I try to remember the exact words, but can’t summon them. “That she was…a projection or something.”

Victoria’s eyes widen. She starts pacing the corridor, thinking aloud. “That manuscript of Principal Quick’s. That’s your case file, Emily. I think it must be the key to all of this.” She stops pacing and looks right at me with excited zeal in her eyes. “We have to go back and take a proper look at it. You game?”

Again, I nod.

“And your file?” I ask. “Is it true, Victoria?”

“I fucking hope not,” Victoria says before marching off along the corridor.

* * *

“Emily…” Victoria says, and I’ve seen it too.

Principal Quick’s body has gone. Her desk is unoccupied. The empty pill and liquor bottles are still where they were before. The phone receiver lies, silent and useless, on the desk where Annie put it down. The manuscript is still there, too. I rush over to grab it.

“Do you think she faked it?” Victoria asks. “Her death, I mean?”

“She could have, I guess,” I reply. “If anyone would know how, it would be Principal Quick. She seemed to know a thing or two about meds, after all. Maybe there was something she knew she could use to look stone-cold dead. But why would she want to fool us like that?”

Victoria shakes her head. “I think she’s insane, Emily. I mean was…or is…. Jesus, you know what I’m saying – completely off the scale batshit mental. I think she’s been playing a game with us since we arrived here. And I’m not sure it’s a game we can win, unless we can stick together, okay?”

“Okay.”

But there’s always the chance that someone just moved the body, I want to add, but I can’t bring myself to say it. And I wonder why – before I realize that it’s because if the body was moved then it means whoever moved it was very probably the gray girl who’s been haunting us every step of the way. My skin turns cold at the thought, and I shiver.

Then the phone starts ringing.

Off the hook.

I look to Victoria and she looks back at me as if to say no way, I’m not answering it. But it rings on, and one of us has to do something. So I reach over the desk and pick it up.

“Emily…?” Victoria says feebly.

At first, I can’t hear anything except a weird kind of whispering sound, like the breeze through some trees. But then, down the line I hear a faint musical chime and remember the small music box in my pocket. Then comes a burst of shrill laughter.

“She’s coming for you, Emily,” a voice rasps, after the laughter has died out.

The voice sounds weirdly familiar, and utterly alien all at the same time. It chills me to my core, and I slam the receiver back down on its cradle. But the voice is inside my head now, laughing and taunting, and I clamp my hands over my ears in the vain hope that this will block it out.

“Coming for you, coming for you, coming for youuuuuu….”

All that my hands over my ears are doing is to keep the voice inside my head, looping and echoing, growing in intensity until—

Victoria screams.

—and the horrible voice stops.

But then I look at Victoria and see the fear etched into her features and I’m almost too scared to look at the corner of the room. To see what she sees. But Victoria is gasping and pointing now, and I have to see what’s gotten her so terrified.

There, in the shadows next to the filing cabinet, stands Principal Quick. And she still looks dead. Worse still, her face is still locked in that look of horror, her glassy eyes betraying no emotion. She’s just standing there and watching us, and I wonder if she’s been there this whole time. There’s a jangle of keys and I realize with dread that she has taken a step toward us both.

Victoria screams and moves beside me.

Principal Quick’s body moves stiffly, like a mannequin’s, as she takes another step, and then another. Each time she moves, there’s another jangling sound, and as she emerges into the light from the desk lamp, I can see the bunch of keys in her hand.

“Looking for these, girls?” Her voice has the sound of something that’s been buried deep in the earth and then dragged to the surface again, bringing some aspect of that grave along with it. When she giggles, a foul, yellow fluid spills from the corners of her mouth and Victoria and I both turn and run to the door.

We clatter out of the office and into the corridor.

But the jangling continues, and I know we are being followed.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Victoria says breathlessly, her terrified eyes fixed on the office doorway.

Mirthless laughter echoes down the corridor as Principal Quick follows us out of her office. She lifts her dead hand and jangles the keys in the air, taunting us with them.

“God can’t help you now, foolish girl,” she says in that charnel voice, her face still locked in that look of life-extinguishing horror.

Then Principal Quick’s entire body twitches like a mad puppet’s before dropping to the floor in a crumpled heap.

The keys are buried beneath her.

Victoria screams again. And I try to, but I can’t. The sight of Principal Quick, back from the grave, was harrowing enough. Now I just clamp my hand over my mouth because there she actually is, as plain as day, standing behind Principal Quick’s fallen body. The gray girl, her dark eyes blazing through her mane of tangled hair. She shoves Principal Quick’s dead body aside with one foot and it’s as though she’s discarding an unwanted Halloween costume.

Then she creeps toward us as lithe, and as quiet, as a spider.

I feel Victoria clutch at my hand. Her hand trembles against mine, and I hold on to it tightly.

We run.