Dead Flesh (19 page)

She eyed us
momentarily and blew a large pink bubble from between her lips. It
popped and she sucked it back into her mouth.

“Sure, it’s all
in the back,” and she nodded towards a door that had
PRIVATE - STAFF ONLY
written across it.

“Thank you,” I
smiled and headed towards the door.

The backroom
was poky and smelt strongly of stale tobacco smoke. There was a
table and a rubbish bin that was overflowing with empty cans of
Coke and cheeseburger wrappers. The table was littered with
crumpled magazines and newspapers. Fixed to the wall was a TV
monitor which showed the gas station forecourt. I watched it and
could see a car pulling in. In the distance, I could see across the
street and customers entering the Seven-Eleven. It wasn’t the
clearest picture in the world but it would do. I guessed that if
Emily Clarke was in that store yesterday, I would be able to make
her out on the footage. After all, she looked just like her sister,
Elizabeth. On the wall beside the monitor was a shelf which housed
a bunch of discs in plastic CD cases. I ran my fingers along their
spines and stopped when I had found the previous day’s disc. I
plucked it from the shelf and placed it into the DVD player beneath
the TV.

The monitor
went blank then flickered into life and once again I was viewing
the gas station forecourt from the previous day. It was like going
back in time. In the right-hand corner of the screen flashed
yesterday’s date and time. It read 07:13 hrs. I held my finger down
on the fast-forward button and whizzed through the next few hours
of footage. Banner had told me that Emily’s credit card had been
used in the Seven-Eleven store at 10:30 am, so I let the DVD run at
normal speed from 10:25 am just to make sure and take into account
any timing discrepancies.

We stood in the
staffroom and glanced anxiously up at the screen, both hoping that
we would see Emily. The clock on the film ticked round to 10:30 am
and we still hadn’t seen her.

“Come on,” I
breathed, hoping for just one break.

“Take it easy,
tiger,” Potter said, sensing how anxious I was becoming.

By 10:31 am
there was still no sign of her. The minutes seemed to take an
eternity to pass. Now 10:32 am - nothing. Then, as the clock turned
to 10:33 am on the screen, I saw something. I quickly pressed the
pause button and the image froze. I moved closer to the screen
until my nose was almost pressed against it and I screwed up my
eyes and stared at the screen. I didn’t recognise the person
leaving the store a few moments after Emily’s credit card had been
used but it definitely wasn’t Emily Clarke. Even through the grainy
black and white image on the screen I could see that it was a man.
He was tall, with black, swept back hair, wearing a black suit.

“Who do you
think that is?” Potter asked me.

I had never
seen McCain, but from the grainy picture on the screen, the image
of the man looked just how Elizabeth Clarke had described him.

“McCain,” I
said, unable to take my eyes from the TV.

“How can you be
so sure?” Potter asked, peering over my shoulder.

“I can’t,” I
told him, taking the disc from the DVD player. “Let’s just hope
that Isidor has done his homework in researching this McCain.”

“Let’s hope,”
Potter said, sounding unconvinced.

“But one
thing’s for sure,” I said, looking at him. “Emily Clarke didn’t use
her credit card yesterday. So where is she now?”

“Beats the shit
out of me,” Potter said, heading back through the kiosk.

“Did you find
what you were looking for?” the girl with the gum called out as we
headed out of the door.

“Maybe,” I
smiled, leaving the kiosk.

Kayla

We waited for
lights-out, and for the school to fall into silence before we dared
leave our rooms. With his head bent low, and crouched over like a
crab, Sam made his way down the narrow staircase at the end of the
corridor. I followed him down the spiral stairwell and into the
bowels of Ravenwood. The school was in darkness, and I felt my way
down the staircase by brushing the tips of my fingers against the
stone wall, listening to the s
nap-snap
sound of Sam’s shoes ahead of me. Reaching the ground floor, Sam
crept through the passageways which stretched throughout Ravenwood.
I followed.

Ahead, oblong
shards of moonlight fell through the corridor windows and lit our
way. I could hear the sound of Sam’s racing heart and it was almost
deafening in the desolate corridors. My stomach tightened and I
felt sick. Back in my bedroom, the idea of searching out Emily
Clarke’s bedroom seemed exciting, but Sam hadn’t mentioned anything
about how creepy the school was during the night and in the dark.
Every shadow we passed I eyed with dread, fearing that a Grey would
appear from within the gloom and come racing towards me,
sizzle-stick in hand, its end pulsating with shocks of electric
blue light.

The hallway
windows looked out across the grounds of the school. As we neared
each one, Sam would flap his hand in a downwards motion, signalling
for me to drop. Crouching as we passed beneath the windows, the
white light from the search towers flooded the hall then swooped
away again. Standing, with backs arched, we moved off again. Ahead,
the hallway veered to the right and I followed Sam down it. Not
once did Sam falter or stop to wonder what direction he should
take. He seemed to know where he was heading. As we rounded the
bend, I stopped, threw my arm out against Sam’s chest and pressed
him to the wall.

“What?” he
said, looking startled.

“Shhh!” I
hissed. “Can’t you hear that?”

“Hear what?”
Sam whispered.

Then, the sound
of crying – no pleading – that I could hear, seeped up from
below.

“That!” I said,
my eyes wide like saucers.

The sound came
again. But this time it sounded more like whimpering than
sobbing.

“Where’s it
coming from?” Sam asked, taking one of my hands in his. It felt
nice to be holding his hand, but his flesh felt cold like a corpse.
Sam glanced to his left and then to his right, as he tried to find
the whereabouts of the noise in the pitch blackness of the
school.

It came again,
but this time words could be heard between each sob and
whimper.

“Nooooo….Pleeeaaassee stop! I beg you!”
The voice
sounded like the person was being strangled. Whoever had muttered
those words was in complete agony.

I followed the
voice in the darkness and it led us to the top of a narrow wooden
staircase fixed into the corridor wall. The stairs led down beneath
Ravenwood.

“I’ve never
seen these stairs before,” Sam whispered behind his hand.

“I think we
should head back…” I started, just wanting to contact Kiera and
tell her what I had discovered. But what had I discovered? Not
much. No proof yet of what had happened to Emily.

A splash of
light from the search towers illuminated the corridor. It fell
across our face. And seeing the fear in Sam’s eyes, I knew what he
had meant when he said I looked as if I were about to shit myself.
We dropped to the floor and lay on our stomachs. I could hear a
scratching sound from beside me and I rolled onto my side.

“What’s that
noise?” I whispered.

“What? The
scratching noise?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s me,”
Sam said.

“What are you
doing? Someone will hear!” I groaned.

“Shhh!” Sam
said. “I’ve found something.”

“What?”

“The reason why
I’ve never seen this stairwell before,” Sam told me.

“How come?”

“They’ve had it
hidden behind this bookcase,” Sam whispered. “They just slide it
aside when they want to go down…”

“You’re hurting me,”
the voice from below came again,
and it sounded weak and petrified.
“I don’t know
anything about any….no! Pleeeaaassee stop!”

“I think we
should get outter…” Sam started.

“No - wait. I
want to listen to this,” I whispered, my head tilted towards the
top of the stairwell.

“Are you out of
your tiny mind?” Sam whispered.

“Shhh!” I told
him, putting a finger to my lips.

“…
I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
the voice
echoed up from below again and this time I got the sense that the
voice belonged to a woman. “
…Just let me go...I
promise I won’t say anything!”

We were so
intent on listening to the woman’s pitiful voice that neither of us
heard the sound of footfalls climbing the stairwell which led up
from the basement. Searchlight flooded the corridor again and
poured down the stairwell. In the flash of brilliant white light, I
saw a shadow creeping along the wall of the stairwell as someone
came up from the depths of Ravenwood towards us.

“Go!” I cried,
scrambling to my feet.

“Say what?” Sam
asked, sounding surprised.

“Someone’s
coming!” I hissed.

And then, as if
being kicked in the ribs, Sam jumped to his feet and raced away
down the corridor, as I clambered at his heels. I glanced back over
my shoulder, but the searchlight had swept away, and all I could
see was darkness. I didn’t know what was worse, not being able to
see what it was that had come from beneath the stairs or the
terrifying images my mind would create later while I lay in the
dark on my own.

Without
warning, Sam stopped ahead and I nearly crashed into him.

“How much more
noise are you planning on making?” Sam groaned in the darkness.
“You’ll have the whole goddamn school awake in a minute!”

“Oh stop your
moaning. It wasn’t me who was moving pieces of furniture about back
there! Anyway, why’d you stop like that all of a sudden, its pitch
bla-”

“Cos we’re
here, that’s why,” Sam whispered.

“Where’s
here?”

“Miss Clarke’s
room,” Sam whispered, and as he swung open the door, a burst of
searchlight splashed against the corridor walls again. Sam grabbed
my hand again, and pulling me into the room he closed the door
behind us.

Kayla

The
searchlights swept back and forth across the lawns outside Emily
Clarke’s bedroom window. I glanced around the room and in the odd
flashes of light from outside I could see that the room was
furnished very similarly to my own. There was a single bed in the
corner, a wardrobe, desk, and a bookshelf, which looked like it was
going to collapse under the weight of the books crammed on its
shelves.

“That was
close,” I sighed, looking into Sam’s eyes.

He stared
straight back. His breathing sounded shallow and I could hear his
heart racing in his chest again, but something told me that it
wasn’t through fear this time. Feeling a little embarrassed by his
gaze, I pulled my hand from his, and stepped away.

“So what are we
looking for exactly?” Sam asked.

Not wanting him
to know that I was looking for the camera that Elizabeth Clarke had
told Kiera her sister had hidden, I stepped towards the wardrobe
and said, “I’m not sure.”

The room lit up
again as the searchlights swept passed the window outside. It was
then that I saw the blood. It looked like someone had gone crazy
with a paint brush that had been dipped in red paint. Dried blood
stained the walls, the ceiling, and the wooden floor in thick
streaks and splashes.

“What the
fuck...?” Sam breathed in horror seeing the blood for the first
time.

I had seen
enough of the red stuff to last me a lifetime, but the sight of it
made my stomach knot as I thought of how good it tasted. For just
the briefest of moments I felt dizzy and swayed backwards, as part
of me wanted to start licking the walls clean.

Sam caught hold
of me in his arms and held me close. I could hear his heart again
and I could tell that he enjoyed holding me. “Are you okay?” he
whispered. “I don’t like the sight of blood either.”

If only he knew
, I thought to myself as the dizziness
faded along with my cravings. “Yeah, it’s something like that,” I
told him, glancing around the room at the blood. I wished that
Kiera was here, because within moments she would be doing her thing
– crawling around the room on her hands and knees, seeing stuff
that no one else could. Kiera would have been able to tell me
exactly what had happened in this room. Just by glancing at the
amount of blood that had been spilt, I knew that someone had died
in here – they had been butchered. I could guess that it had been
Emily Clarke who had died here, but how and who had murdered her, I
didn’t know.

“Are you okay?”
Sam asked again, as he watched me looking around the room at all
the dried blood.

“Sure,” I said,
pulling gently away from him.

Sam crossed the
room to the desk and started to rummage through the paperwork that
was placed there. “Well that’s a surprise,” he whispered into the
dark.

“What is?” I
asked, peering into the wardrobe.

“Miss Clarke
had given Pryor a “D” on his last piece of homework,” he said,
thumbing through a workbook. “He really is thick as shit.”

I smiled to
myself as I closed the wardrobe door and looked back at the room.
Elizabeth had said that Emily had woken to find McCain standing at
the foot of her bed.
So where would have been the
best place to hide a camera?
I wondered.
Where would I have hidden it?
I looked around the room
and if it had been me waking to find McCain watching me as I slept,
my first instinct would have been to rip his balls off, but Emily
didn’t do that – she wasn’t me. But if I were her...then, I guessed
where she would have hidden a camera. The bookshelf!