Killing Woods (19 page)

42

Damon

I
t's murky dark when I wake. Dusk? Past that. I don't know where I am. I get this fear that makes my ribs hurt – something's happened, something bad. I start scrabbling in the dirt, touch cold leaves, my hand tightens around a collar. Am I playing the Game? I rub my fingers across its heart-shaped tag.

Then I remember.

Ashlee.

She's gone.

Dead.

I breathe in hard. A whole heap of other images and thoughts come back at me too. And I'm gasping like I can't get no more air.

This is all my fault.

I need to get out of here – go to the cops. What does it matter if I don't remember it all? If it's all a jumble in my head? What the cops think now ain't true. Can't be.

But I'm too wired. The cops will smell the joint, and how's that going to go down? And the forest is swaying. I'm not sure I can even stand.

I feel around for my phone, shove it deep in my cargos. My vision is shaking, unsure. I need to get out of here before I do anything else stupid. But my legs are weak. I'm trembling like a full-blown druggie, out of control. How long was I out for? How strong was that joint? My brain's fuzzy as fuck! I turn my body in the way that feels right; I let fate decide. One way down this path and I'll go back to town and what I know I've got to face; the other way and I'll keep walking out of here, follow the river to someplace new. I could disappear entirely, become a missing person on a milk carton:
someone last seen
. It's my feet's choice.

Then I freeze. I'm hearing voices. Not anyone's I recognise. I go straight into Game mode, kick leaves and twigs over where I been and head towards the trees. It's like footsteps are everywhere, echoing through this wood. Then I get why: this is like Ashlee said it would be tonight, it's Halloween.

‘People will come into Darkwood to look for ghosts,' she'd said.

I hear shouting and laughing coming from somewhere near where the car park must be.

Somehow, I find that deer path I was on before. My steps sound like a rhino's, though – dried leaves, nut husks, bracken, twigs, all this making me loud. I'm stumbling into trunks. I'm seeing people crouching in the dark spaces between trees, laughing and jeering. One of them runs his finger across his neck in a sign like I'm dead. When I look again, they're gone. It's just dark space. Maybe I should go the long way round, get on to the path that'll lead me out near Emily's house instead.

Emily.

I stumble again. Was it only this morning when she'd been with me inside that bunker? She'd been nice to me,
too nice
. Her eyes had been the colour of oceans. I could've drowned. Pulling out my phone again, I think I might call her. But I don't have her number. And anyway, she wouldn't want to hear from me. She thinks I chased Ashlee through these woods. She thinks I chased Ashlee that night. Maybe she thinks I did more than this too. Because she still don't think it's her dad that killed Ashlee, does she?

I tip forwards against a trunk.

Is this what Emily's telling the police right now?

I'm getting that feeling again, that tingling on my neck like I'm being watched, like someone is trailing me. I spin around, squint at the dark. If anyone is here they're still as me. When I hear someone running, fast and close, I slink back into the shadows. This wood is alive, full of the fairies and druids and ghost hunters like Ashlee said it would be tonight. It's freaking me out. And I need to get
everything straight before I go to the cops, straight as I can. I need to get these drugs out of my system!

I know where to go. Just for an hour or so. I can stay hidden on animal tracks all the way. No one will see me. Only, I keep feeling it – that tingling at the back of my neck. I try to go faster to outrun it, and the wood spins. I keep turning round to check behind me.

Eventually, I start climbing the Leap. The moon makes the limestone glow, turns branches into bones. Skeletons. I go quick, checking over my shoulder and then above me to where I'm headed. Then, when I'm nearly at the top, that's when I see her.

When I think I do.

She's behind me.

She's weaving between bracken, catching me up, tall and curvy and gorgeous. The tingles on my neck start up again. She's been following me. I blink, try to see her better, but she's gone, disappearing into rocks.

Everywhere I go in this wood, Ashlee won't leave me alone. Maybe even when I head to the police station she'll be there too. Maybe she'll come everywhere now, everywhere 'til I tell the police what I know. Everywhere 'til the truth comes out. But she won't ever let me touch her again; she'll always be out of reach for that.

I blink. This is just the joint.

I pull myself on to the summit. It's quiet and empty and there are no Halloween weirdoes. It's just me. The wind is blasting it. I stay on my belly to crawl to the edge, take a breath and look over.

She's there.

Her face is right in front of me. Her blonde hair whips away from her cheeks, flies back with the wind. Her skin is pale and her eyes a dull brown. I want to touch her. She's floating backwards, across to the part of the Leap with the jagged rocks: Suicide Drop. I follow her around.

No . . . Don't leave . . . not yet . . .

Her voice or mine?

Her eyes spin like whirlpools, drag me closer. Then she blinks again. Gone.

I look over. I want her. Right now I think I'd jump off this summit, straight into the jagged part, if it meant I could collide with her first . . . tumble down with her pressed to me. Feel her for those last few moments, her body up close. One last time. Maybe that –
really
– is the only way out of this. A huge gust of wind grabs at my clothes, wants to take me over. I glance at the rocks below and I think I see her again, but she's further away, just a wisp of light, something fading into black. Is she telling me to let go?

I remember how I was standing up here with Emily Shepherd, how I'd fooled her by jumping on to the ledge beneath. I feel bad about that now – about being so cocky about what I thought I knew. If Emily was here, I'd ask if she could see Ashlee; I might hold on to her instead. Now I grab on to plants and hang over the summit.

I could let go. I could fall head first. It wouldn't be so hard. Maybe it's the easiest way out of this. Then I'd be tumbling into Ashlee, joining her. I'd know the truth –
maybe I would – I'd know what I did that night. I loosen my grip, just a little, feel myself slide. I can still catch myself, can still grab on to things or angle myself on to the ledge below, for a few more seconds I can. But I think about Ashlee lying dead in these woods and I want to hit those rocks with my face. I think of her skin cold and rotting, and I want my skull to crack. I want my brains to spill. My brains never did me no good anyway, never told my stupid drugged-up body when to stop.

And I'm sliding . . . sliding . . . but I don't care. I just want to get close to her, feel her body round me like how she'd promised that night. And I think I'm working out now what Mack's been protecting me from – I think I'm putting together that other image in my head, the one of me swaying down the high street. Because Mack got me out of these woods that night. He must have. Mack got me home. This means Mack knows. He knows what I must've done. This means he's been hiding me from it. This means what I did must be pretty damn bad.

43

Emily

I
hear Mum going into her room, but it's too early for bed, even for her. I lie in my own darkening room staring at the ceiling. I thought I'd feel different after chopping up Dad's uniform. But there's still this niggling sliver of doubt. It sits at the back of my head like one of Joe's cracks of light, teasing another world where Dad can still be innocent. It's dangerous to look at too long.

So I think about Damon instead: his lips trembling in the bunker, the pause of his eyes on mine, his tattoo full of stories. I still don't understand why I gave him that sketch. Is he looking at it now? If I knew where he lived I'd go to his house, crawl into his room and steal it from him. I'd take it to Dad – he's the only one who can tell me what it
really means. I'll tell Mum to tick
yes
on that form, tell her we have to visit immediately.

I watch the moon creep into the sky. It's full, fat and bright – a proper harvest moon. A hunter's moon too. I go across to the window so I can see it better. But when I get there, I don't look up, I look down. There are people in my lane, walking from the town end towards the gate into Darkwood. Three people – two tall and one shorter – talking with heads bowed together. I press the tips of my fingers under the bottom of my window and pull it up soundlessly, open it a crack. Something uneasy winds into my throat as I see who these boys are.

‘We need to find him.' That's the first thing I hear.

It's Mack Jenkins' voice.

I almost tap on the glass to get their attention – almost call down and ask what's going on – but there's something about Mack's face that stops me. It's drawn tight with fear, worry. He's running a hand across his short hair, and his eyes are darting everywhere. I draw back a little. Damon's other mates – Charlie Jones and Ed Wilkes – are either side of him, and they're looking strung out too. Charlie is clenching his hands into fists and then opening them again. Ed is glancing in the direction of Joe's house and scowling.

‘He's going to get us all in trouble if the coppers get to him first,' Mack is saying. ‘Right now with the way he is, he could do anything . . .'

He stops before the gate and turns to the others. He's talking low and fast. The only other words I catch are
find
him
and
split up
and
quick.

Could he be talking about Damon? Could Damon still be in Darkwood? Still where I left him in the bunker this morning? Why else would his mates be looking for him? I think of the dark sketches on its walls, the hangings and guns and death, and I shiver. But if Damon
is
still there, then it means Dad's sketch of Ashlee as a deer is still there too.

‘We got to find him before he does something stupid,' Mack says again, his voice fading as he starts opening the gate. ‘You know what he's like . . . fucking phone's even off!'

Each of them looks around before they slip through the gate. Mack goes through last, hesitating for a moment on the other side, looking out of the woods and towards our house. For one second I think he looks right into this window, right into me. He shakes his head once, almost like it's a warning, almost like he knows I'm here, watching. But he can't know this. I'm stood back from the window, deep in the darkness of my room. A second later, he turns around to the other two and they're off again.

‘Damon's not himself . . .' I hear him saying, ‘. . . the last thing Damon needs . . .'

Then they're gone into the woods, even though it's pretty much dark now. Why are they so desperate to find him? What do they think he's done? Or is going to do? I turn from the window, grab my coat and go swiftly down the stairs. If Damon really is still in the bunker, only me and the police, and maybe Joe I guess, can find him there.
Damon's mates will have no luck. Perhaps this is my chance – to get that sketch back and make Damon explain Joe's story, both at the same time. And I'm not scared of him like Joe thinks I should be. I know Damon's not who Joe suspects.

I'm out of the back door and spilling into the lane. I go to the gate and peer up the track into Darkwood. I can still, just about, make out the path. You'd think I'd hear Mack and the others walking down it, though, you'd think they couldn't just melt into these woods. They're boys after all, with heavy boys' footsteps, and they don't know this place like I do.

I hesitate, looking up the path. If Damon is in the bunker he won't have phone reception, he'll be cut off from everything – no wonder his friends are frustrated. I keep myself moving forward by telling myself that I don't have to stay long, that I can just get the sketch and speak a little to Damon. I can slip back into the woods before he even knows where I've gone. I don't even have to go inside the bunker.

It's darker the further into the woods I go, despite the bright moon. I listen for anything, listen with my skin. I shouldn't be in these woods right now, even with a full moon, even if I know this place just by feel. Weren't these always Mum's rules when I was younger – never go into the woods at night and never go into them alone? Now I'm doing both. But the closer I come to Damon, the more I know it's the right thing. I feel that too, in the way my feet step out the path without me even looking down.
There's this strange sort of pull to him. Maybe it's a little like how Joe felt with Ashlee in the woods that day – maybe I shouldn't want this, but I do.

I trip over briars as I hear the roar of a stag. It's not close, but his noise is desperate and deep; he's either protecting a herd or challenging for one. His roar masks the sound of my footsteps, hiding me. I'm careful as I get near the bunker, hovering the other side of the hawthorn hedge and looking across. There's no light coming from inside it, but Damon could have pulled the cover over the entrance like Dad did sometimes. Like Dad, Damon could be sitting quietly in a corner. Again I hear that stag roaring, though further away now. A barn owl shrieks. I make myself think about getting that sketch back, and I slip through the hedge. I go to the bunker entrance, silent and quick. I pull back the lid.

‘Damon?' I call down. ‘Are you in there?'

44

Damon

I
've seen something.

It's something far down the rock face, wedged between the rock and the jagged boulders. I'm trying to look for it again. But I'm scrambling and falling, grabbing at smooth stone. And I'm too late – I'm going over, over the edge of the Leap.

I'm practically headfirst when I hit the ledge below. Somehow I grab at something, hold it, throw myself into the cave. I press myself against stone 'til I'm steady. Breathe.

I look over again. Even in the full moonlight, it's hard to make out. But there's something, far below. I'd only caught a glimpse of it because I was looking at those
jagged rocks so long, looking for Ashlee. It sparkles, glints. I rub my hand across my eyes, blink. It's still there. I'm not just imagining it.

First Ashlee's ghost, now this.