I could hear him teasing her now. After every teasing little taunt, he would laugh, as though he could barely hold it in. The sound made me shake as I followed his voice.
‘What makes you think I’m going to hurt you? I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to ask you something. Come here, it’s okay. Look, I’ve got your rabbit.’
Past the Art room. Past the CDT room. The voice grew louder still.
‘Come and get your rabbit,’ it sang. ‘Come on, I’m giving it to you, look. Here he is. Don’t you want him?’
Past the House noticeboards I crept, until I reached the double doors of the gym. They were wide open.
‘I don’t wanna hurt you. Come on, come out.’
Slowly, I peered around the door. He was standing there in the middle of the stage, his back turned, the knife still in his hand. He’d taken off his hoody and had on just a light blue t-shirt and jeans now. And he was talking to the bulging curtains in the wings. Babbitt was hanging from his belt, tethered at the neck.
‘Look, he’s here. He’s right here. You’ve got to come and get him though. He wants you. Look, he’s sad.’
Now Charlie was getting tired of waiting.
‘I’ve called you, and you haven’t come. I’m getting angry now. You come out here NOW or I swear the bunny gets it. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna cut his head off.’
He yanked the toy rabbit from his belt and held it up, squeezing its face with one hand.
Think two steps ahead of him. Where will you go when you make your move?
‘You ready? I’m gonna cut off his head RIGHT NOW.’
She didn’t appear. Maybe she was gone. Maybe she was just too afraid. Charlie’s fury intensified.
‘Come out here NOW. You’re only making this worse for yourself in the long run, you little squib.’
Suddenly, he started slashing at the curtains, over and over again. If they’d been alive, he would have drowned in the blood. He started yanking them down, pulling them off their runners, throwing them over the stage.
Then I saw a face, peering out at me. Regan. She wasn’t on the stage or behind the curtains. She was on the gym floor, under the piano, peering at me beneath the dust sheet, directly across from where I stood outside the double doors. I saw the shining tip of her javelin on the floor beside her. Charlie still had his back turned to me.
I signed, Are you OK?
Yes, she nodded.
In the dorms, she mouthed. He thinks that’s me behind there.
My chest almost collapsed in relief. I mouthed the words Don’t move. Then held my finger to my mouth to say, Don’t make a sound, and then made more gestures until she got what I meant.
She nodded again.
I’d worked out where I needed to go next. It was a stupid plan, but it was the only one I had. I had to get to the kitchens.
Three, two, one. ‘RUN!’ I shouted.
Regan darted out from beneath the piano sheet, just as Charlie disappeared into the tattered black curtains on the stage. She was halfway across the gym when he reappeared and yelled:
‘OI! YOU LITTLE BITCH. COME HERE!’
By the time he’d sprinted across the stage, jumped to the floor and hurled his knife at her, she was through the double doors and we were slamming them closed together, wedging them shut with the strong steel javelin threaded through the handles.
Fuelled by adrenalin and something else I couldn’t explain, I saw mist at the edges of my eyes and yelled at his face through the glass, ‘COME AND FUCKING GET US, CHARLIE!’ His heaving breath fogged up the window. He didn’t look like the Charlie I knew any more. His eyes were dark and determined and he banged on the door like the room was on fire. Regan and I ran back down the corridor, furious bangs and shouts and threats echoing after us all the way.
‘Where are we going?’ puffed Regan as we ran, her cheeks streaked with tears.
‘Kitchens,’ I puffed back, pumping my arms for all I was worth. ‘You’re sure Tabby wasn’t in the gym?’
‘No, I told her to go up to the dorms and hide. I had Babbitt so I threw him on the stage when he was coming to distract him.’
‘Good thinking, Regan.’
As we turned the corner into the long corridor towards the front of the school, we heard the sound of breaking glass. Then there were heavier, rubber-soled footsteps pad pad padding behind us, but far enough away that we had a good head start. Adrenalin made us pelt down those corridors faster than either of us had run in our lives. We pumped our arms and sliced our legs, one-two one-two one-two, and didn’t stop pumping until we came to the first dividing door. Regan kicked away the wedge at the bottom, I slammed it shut and slid the bolt across.
His silhouette was still coming at us. He’d just rounded the corner.
‘Come on,’ I panted. We picked up the pace again, driving our legs like pistons all the way to the next internal door.
Behind us came the clattering sounds of a doorknob being furiously jiggled. More banging, more breaking glass. By this time, we’d locked the next dividing door and were on our way to the kitchens. We bolted the kitchen door shut, knowing it was made of thick oak and had no glass in it, so we were safe. For now.
‘What do we do?’ she heaved.
‘Look for something, anything, to fight him with. Knives. A rolling pin, anything.’
There was a drawer full of knives at our disposal. A cupboard full of oven cleaner, bleach and washing powder. We couldn’t link any of them with something useful and the knives all looked smaller than Charlie’s. I grabbed the oven cleaner.
Now he was outside the kitchen door. Bang bang bang.
Regan was panicking. ‘I can’t fight him, Nash. I can’t.’ She threw down a thick-bladed carving knife and it tinkled to the floor. ‘I just can’t. I’d rather hide.’
Use any means necessary. Stress makes you stupid. Think.
‘Okay. Get out the back, or something. Just keep out of the way.’
Regan disappeared behind me as I rootled in the knife drawer. When I looked back, she was gone.
The door bang bang bang banged again as Charlie kicked at it, and my hands shook so much I dropped the bread knife I’d found. A black shape moved into the kitchen from the utility room. Chief Brody had just woken up, stirred from his bed by all the banging. It was a relief to see him. He cocked his head to one side, sniffed the air, looked at the door as it pulsed and pulsed and pulsed from the other side. He yawned. Then he sloped off back to his bed.
‘Thanks, Chief.’ I almost laughed, sweat dripping into my eyes.
The bang bang banging continued until all of a sudden the bolt splintered away, and the door flung open and bounced off the side of the fridge. I backed away from the knife drawer. There he was, his wet blond hair dangling in his eyes like pondweed. He had one of the large fire extinguishers in his hand from Long Corridor. He dropped it with a loud clang on the hardwood floor. The only thing between us was the large metal table.
I grabbed the oven cleaner spray and held it out in front of me, not taking my eyes from Charlie for one second, even to blink.
He smiled. He was sweating too, and there were blood spatters all over his blue t-shirt. He glanced at the oven cleaner can. ‘What you gonna do with that? Clean me?’ He looked like he was on the verge of laughing. ‘I’m too dirty to clean.’
Don’t connect with him. Don’t look him in the eyes. He wants to own you.
‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid, Nash?’
‘No. I’m not afraid,’ I lied. I didn’t even want him saying my name.
He started moving around the table. I moved the other way. He quick-changed to the other direction, and so did I.
‘Come on, you know me,’ he said.
‘No. I don’t,’ I said, trying to stamp out the quiver in my voice.
‘I’m Charlie. I’m your boyfriend. I know what’s best for you. This is for the best. He wants you. All of you.’
‘Who does?’
‘My beast. I have to feed him or else he’ll go away. He can’t do that. We need him here. Think what will happen if the Beast goes away. No one will come here any more.’ Babbitt was dangling from his belt, tethered with one of his friendship bands.
My arm was locked in front of me, the oven cleaner still clutched in my hand. ‘You kill people and feed them to the Beast?’
‘No, I don’t. It’s the Beast that kills ‘em. They’re not dead when I take them to him.’
As he got closer and moved into the light more, I could see his nose was bleeding and going purple on one side of his face. He’d been punched or kicked or something. Maggie, I thought. Maggie would have fought him for her life.
‘You’re the only beast around here,’ I said. ‘That thing’s just a wildcat. You kill people and you hope he’ll eat the evidence.’
‘Well, yeah,’ he laughed, wiping his bleeding nose with the wrist of his knife hand, painting a long smear along the bare skin of his arm. ‘It’s worked till now.’ His knife glinted.
He did another quick change around the table, and I swerved away until I was as far from him as I could be.
‘Come here. Stop running. You know you can’t outrun me. I’m just too damn quick for you. It’s pointless.’
I shuddered, remembering him saying the exact same thing at the arcades.
‘You killed Matron.’
He bit his bottom lip and nodded at me, like he was a naughty little boy afraid of being told off. ‘You didn’t find her, did you?’
He sounded like we were back in the shop and he was asking if I’d found the Coco Pops next to the Rice Krispies. ‘Yeah. I found her.’
‘Knew it hadn’t snowed enough. Should have covered her up more.’
‘The wildcat took me to her body. It dug her out.’
He laughed a bit. Then he stopped laughing, like someone had pulled out his plug. ‘That’s a lie.’
‘No it’s not. I saw the Beast. I’ve seen it. Up close. It took me to her.’
‘If you’d seen it, you’d be dead too.’ He made a quick dart to the left. As I went right, he banged his free hand down on the metal table. ‘Do you know, I’m just starting to get the teeniest bit bored of this. You really are wasting your time trying to fight me.’
Don’t let any of it go in. They’re empty words. That’s all. Keep moving. You’re as strong as him. Stronger.
‘How come I’m here then? Alive?’
‘Not for much longer,’ he said, lunging round to my side again. We went round and round the mulberry bush a few more times, and every time he thought he was getting close enough, he would slash out with the knife.
Then a strange thing happened: I lost my fear. Just lost it, like snow turning to melt water. And I started to goad him.
‘I’m going to survive you and I’m going to win.’
‘Nash, you CAN’T win. You stupid, STUPID little girl. Don’t even THINK you’re better than me and the Beast. We are SO much stronger than you will ever be.’
‘You lost your mum,’ I said. ‘I lost my brother. We’re not so different.’
‘I’M DIFFERENT,’ he roared. ‘You don’t know what I can do, Nash. The power I have in these hands.’
The final time round the table was the fastest. In one quick motion, I yanked the top off the oven cleaner and sprayed it as close to his face as I could get.
He sneezed, like a dog, then laughed. ‘That wasn’t nice, was it?’ I backed off. ‘I’m going to take my time with you, Nash.’
‘I’m going to tell them what you did. I’m going to live through this and I’m going to tell them all exactly what you are. That wildcat isn’t going to get the blame any more. You need to be locked up.’
‘Says the girl who’s been harbouring a convicted killer.’
Suddenly, there was another noise, behind him. We broke our stare for just a second and he followed my eyes to where it had come from. The oven.
He looked back at me. ‘Where did that other girl go? The one with the plaits?’
I swallowed, tasting iron in my spit. ‘She left.’
He looked down to the oven again. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ I locked my gaze with his.
He reached down and held the central knob on the front of the oven. ‘So if I turned up this dial, that wouldn’t worry you?’
I swallowed again. I couldn’t catch my breath. ‘It’s me you’re after, Charlie. You need to come and get me.’ I started round the table again, but this time he stayed where he was. I moved back. He turned up the dial.
‘How long does it take to get to temperature?’ he said, turning the dial again, more and more, until it was at maximum, and holding the door closed with his foot. ‘Think I might stay here for a bit. Let things warm up.’
A hollow, muffled scream came from inside the oven. I had to move. I had to think. I had to get him away.
‘I don’t think the Beast minds whether his food’s hot or cold. He might like to try something different for a change. What do you think?’ He twisted the knife in front of him, to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right, as though urging me to make a choice—let him stab me or Regan would die. ‘Oh, Nash?’ he called. ‘Nash, time’s running out. I need an answer.’
I had to move now. I had to think harder. But nothing was coming. Nothing was helping. There’s always a way.
Then the little yellow fire symbol on the can caught my eye.
Charlie moved then. He switched directions round the table and came right at me. I fumbled in my pocket for Leon’s lighter and flicked the switch on the squirt of oven cleaner. It didn’t light. I dodged Charlie and tried again at the same time. On the third attempt, just as he was almost on top of me, I got the flame in the line of the spray and a thick, flaming torrent burst from the spout, right into Charlie’s face.
‘AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHHH!’ he screamed, dropping his knife and raising both his arms over his face to shield himself.
‘Regan, RUN!’
The oven door burst open and Regan scrambled out onto the floor in a mess of arms and legs. Still holding my makeshift flame-thrower in front of me as a warning shield, I walked backwards towards the kitchen door, now hanging from its hinges. With my right foot, I flicked up the brake on the table island and kicked it towards him, pinning his body against the sinks. I flicked the brake back up so it was locked, holding him there, then I made my escape.
‘Regan, go and get help,’ I ordered her. ‘Back door. Just run. Get as far away from here as you can.’
Oven cleaner and lighter still clutched tightly in my hands, I sprinted, barely any breath left, back down the corridor with no thought to where I was going. I could still hear Charlie screaming behind me.
‘You’re DEAD. Bitch, you hear me, you are a DEAD. GIRL. WALKING.’
His words were following, echoing, closing in. I could keep running, but where would I run to?
The dorms. It had to be the dorms. I knew my way around the school—right now, that was the only thing on my side. I sprinted up the stairs, two steps at a time, and fled along the corridor. Our dorm-room door was closed. Now I heard him coming up the stairs, shouting and screeching after me.
‘Where are you, bitch? I’m gonna have you!’
Without thinking, halfway along the landing, I ducked into the airing cupboard and silently closed the door.
Footsteps along the corridor. My skin was alive with prickles. In the close confines of the airing cupboard, my breathlessness sounded so loud and obvious. I covered my mouth with a small pile of pillowcases. He was creeping about. I could see his shadow through the slats in the cupboard door.
‘Just come out, will you?’ said Charlie’s voice, closer than ever now. He was right outside. ‘This is getting really boring.’
Did he know I was in here? Would he try the door?
I heard the rattle of a doorknob, but it wasn’t the airing cupboard knob. It was one across the corridor. Prefect Dorm Two. The handle rattled louder. There was a thump. He was kicking it. Harder.
‘Come on, Natasha, you know I’ll get in eventually.’
No way would he open it. The doors up here were too heavy and thick. Except my airing cupboard door; he could have kicked that one in, easily. It was thin. It had slats. And I was right there on the other side of it. I had to get further inside, back behind the boiler. I scrabbled my way back through the piles of blankets and sheets and tablecloths. Once I was ensconced behind the boiler, I piled everything up around me. It was a mess. But at least I was hidden.
Bang bang bang. He was at my door now. The handle rattled. A wide band of light flooded in. He was inches away now. Sniffing the air, as though he could smell me. I could smell him. I could smell BO and the vague scent of burnt hair.
‘Nash?’ His voice was softer now. I cupped my mouth with my hand again to swallow my breathing. ‘Nash. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need you. Help me. I love you.’
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know if my heart was still beating. Then all of a sudden his voice seemed to sing out:
‘I’m gonna cut your head off when I find you, Natasha. I swear to God. I’m gonna take my time with you. You’re going to feel everything.’
My body froze at the sound of his unnaturally matter-of-fact voice. A door slammed and his footsteps pumped back along the corridor. I let out my breath into a stack of clean gym socks.
I still had the can of oven cleaner and the lighter in my pocket, but the can felt empty. I needed something else. I clicked on the little light pull to ignite the small bulb and looked around me. There was nothing but sheets and blankets and spare uniform piles as far as the eye could see. The shelving units groaned under the weight of it all. I spotted one thing, the only thing that might come in useful, on the second shelf up. A small box of biological washing powder. I reached up and took it, snatching up a large handful into my cardigan pocket. It would have to do for now. I had to get out of there. I had to find Tabby and Maggie. I had to get help.
I clicked off the light and silently opened the airing cupboard door, closing it carefully behind me and checking the corridor, up and down. No sign of anyone. I was completely on my own. I started quickly back down the landing, one hand in my pocket the whole way. I could smell him. I could smell his burning hair.
The smell disappeared at the top of the staircase, which meant he had gone downstairs. I jiggled the knob on the door marked ‘PRIVATE’, which took me along to the Saul-Hudsons’ apartments and the front staircase. I could see the front door.
But between me and freedom were the stairs. And a body lying there. Like a butterfly Charlie had crushed beneath his shoe.
Clarice Hoon. Her blood was all up the wall. Unlike Matron, her eyes were closed. I knelt down beside her head and robotically felt for her pulse, just to be sure. No movement. No breath. Her skin was cold. Many a time I’d wished Clarice would just disappear. Now I’d have given anything for her to wake up. She looked quite beautiful. A painted lady.
A bang in the corridor to the kitchens. I sprang to my feet. He was coming. He would find me. I couldn’t make it up the stairs, and I couldn’t get out through the front door without a key. I was trapped. He would see me and kill me and I would die there, next to Clarice.
And then I had a thought.
‘Clarice,’ I said, and in a flash I knew where to go. I had just enough time to get down the remaining stairs and into Mrs Saul-Hudson’s office, closing the door behind me. I could bolt it from the inside too—so I did. I looked around. Untidy shelves. Papers all over the desk, in large messy stacks. I’d told Clarice to lock all the windows the night Matron went missing, but I knew beyond doubt she wouldn’t have gone in the Headmistress’s office. No way would she have voluntarily gone in there. I climbed across the desk and jumped down the other side, leaning across to lift up the pane. It flew up like a bride’s dress and a rush of cold air greeted my face from outside.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ I muttered, clambering out just as the door to the office began to bang bang bang.
I closed the window behind me. I didn’t have a clue where I was going or what I was doing. I just knew I had to run, fight and keep fighting until someone came. Anyone came. Someone would come, eventually. I had to believe it.
But then the voice returned—the one I thought had left me.
There’s nowhere else to run. You have to hide.
I was running past the Reference Library window. The Hidey. I could get to the Hidey behind the encyclopedias. If the window was open, I could get to it in time. Charlie didn’t know they were there.
I climbed onto the hedge and tried the window, but it was locked tight. Without another thought, I jumped down and grabbed a large pebble from the flower bed, hurling it at the pane, which shattered completely.
‘Knowledge is Power’ said the sign outside the door. Maybe the books would save me.
But he had heard the breaking glass.
And he was at the door before I’d jumped down from the window.
His face was red and peeling from the fire, his blond hair burnt at the fringe and smoke-blackened. I held the can up again, threatening him with it.
‘There you are,’ he snarled, stepping closer to me, knowing I was cornered. The Hidey was out of the question now. He’d follow me in, and then I would die in complete darkness. I fumbled into my left pocket for the oven cleaner. I pressed down on the squirt and lit the flame again, holding it in front of me like before.
‘Don’t come near me or I’ll light you up again,’ I warned through ragged breaths.
‘I don’t care,’ he said. He closed the door behind him and walked towards me. ‘I’m going to slice you into ribbons.’
The flame burned and roared in front of me like a dragon’s breath—and suddenly burnt out. Now I had nothing. I shook the can. Empty. I threw it at him. He batted it away with his free hand like he was swatting a butterfly. My hand dived into my left pocket for the washing powder. I threw it at him. It completely missed. His knife hand rose.
I threw the lighter at him. It missed. Still he kept coming. Then I went for the books. Encyclopedias. Big heavy dictionaries and atlases. Book after book after book after book I launched at him. Overarm. Underarm. Over my shoulder. I threw with all my might.
Go down fighting.
Some bounced straight off his body. Some he batted away. Some he slashed at with the knife in mid-air. One hit him square in the face. But still he kept coming and coming at me, until he was on me and the knife was raised and his free hand was on my shoulder to steady me as—
‘GET BACK FROM HER, YOU BASTARD,’ shouted a voice behind us. He whipped his head round and found Maggie standing there, as if appearing from a puff of smoke, a javelin raised in her fist, pointed straight at his face. She’d emerged from the Hidey.
There was no warning. Charlie faced her, stepped forward with his knife raised, and with one quick movement Maggie plunged the javelin deep into his thigh.
‘AARRGGHHH—JESUS!’ he cried, backing off.
Maggie steadied herself against the bookcase as he writhed in agony, wrenching the spear from his leg and flinging it across the room towards the door. ‘How’s that for a prank, bitch?’ she yelled at him.
I didn’t even have time for relief. Charlie was on his feet again before I could say a word. As straight as he could manage, he raised his knife again and dived at Maggie, sticking it straight into her belly as far as it would go. I heard the dull thump of it going in.
The sound of my own scream petrified me to the spot.
She made a gurning noise as he stabbed her. She didn’t scream. It was like the knife had zipped up her breath and forced it back inside her throat. She slid down the bookcase and hit the floor hard on her bottom. The knife stuck out of her stomach, buried up to the hilt.
Then Charlie turned back to me, his red face contorted in pain, and grabbed me by the neck. His grip was so tight.
Go for the vulnerable parts of the body. Throat.
I punched out at his Adam’s apple. He coughed and drew away. I tried to scurry away, but he grabbed my hair and pulled me face down to the floor. He was on my back.
Headbutt.
I jerked my head back as hard as I could. As it made contact with his face, he yelped and I struggled free, just for a second. But I couldn’t get my footing on the polished floor, and then he was back, turning me to face him, lying on top of me, all his weight pressed against me.
‘You’ll enjoy this, I promise,’ he whispered.
Eyes.
I pressed my thumb against his eyeball until I felt the soft jelly give under my touch.
‘Arghhh!’
Nose. Up to the nose with the heel of your hand.
I grabbed and yanked and punched what I could. But it was no use. He got his hands around my neck again and again and held me down.
Knee him in his crotch.
I couldn’t get to it. I couldn’t move my legs at all. He had me pinned.
Hit him. Bite him. Pinch him. Grab him. Slap him. Don’t. Ever. Stop.
He pulled my head up and brought it back down, hard, to the floor. Again and again, squeezing the breath from my throat at the same time. I could feel myself slipping away, no breath coming, an iron grip around my throat. Something dug into my leg. I was dying.
‘I really fancy you,’ he said, his voice sounding almost as strangled as mine. ‘We could still have some fun, though you won’t have much say in it.’
All my breath had left me. I couldn’t contend. I was disappearing down a well and had no strength left. Nothing to fight for.
‘You struggle too much, Nash. Look on the bright side. You can join your brother now, can’t you? He’s dead, now, Nash. Remember, he told you he wasn’t going to make it.’
It was him. On the phone. Pretending.
Not Seb. Charlie.
Something was digging hard into my leg.
Seb hadn’t phoned. That hadn’t happened. It was him.
I knew what it was now. I got my hand underneath my cardigan to my tunic pocket and fumbled for it. I found it. I pulled it out. The pencil.
Seb not dying. Still hope.
I got it into my fist. Drew it out. Drew it away. Drew it back. Drove it hard, fast, right into the side of his neck with a glorious squelching punch. I wasn’t on target. But it was enough. Deep enough.
His blood spouted straight into my face, into my eyes, my mouth, but the pressure on my neck released and I gasped in as much air in as I could, pushing him back with all my might. He stumbled and fell, scuffling backwards along the blood-soaked rug, half the pencil still jutting out of his neck.
I spat every fluid from my mouth and coughed as I stood up. I walked over to him. I looked down. He was gasping for air. I bent to his level, not looking at his face, and untied Babbitt from his belt. Then I stood up again. His free arm reached out for me, but I slapped it away, pulling my pencil out with a spray of blood and a sickening pop. He gasped. I put Babbitt in my tunic pocket and went over to sit beside Maggie. I picked up her hand. She looked at me, scared.
‘Jesus, Nash.’ Her hand shuddered over the knife sticking from her belly.
‘No. Leave it in,’ I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine.
It was only then that I heard the sirens.