Killing Woods (20 page)

45

Emily

T
here's no answer from inside the bunker. No sound, nothing. How many times have I done this same sort of thing with Dad, searching for him in the dark?

‘Damon, are you here?'

I jump down. In the dimness I see the same candle stub still burnt to the same level, the old lamp where I left it. I guess my theory was wrong about Damon being here. It's obvious no one's been here since this morning. That means Dad's sketch isn't here either. I slide down the wall and sit on the cold floor, pull my coat tighter around me. I'm empty now, used up. Damon's got the sketch and he's skipped town with it. He just hasn't told his mates, that's all.

I lean my head against the wall. I could sleep like this, I could dream. Maybe, in another life, I'd be waiting for Damon to come find me here and it wouldn't be for any reason to do with death or pain. In that life Ashlee wouldn't be dead, and my dad wouldn't be in prison. Damon and me would talk for hours, we'd keep the hatch open and look up at the moon and stars. I'd know Damon wasn't bad; I'd know Dad wasn't either.

I dig my hands into my pockets, scrunch my fingers to keep warm. I look at the ribs of the corrugated ceiling, the concrete walls. There's enough moonlight to see the pictures, all those scrawls there, those wolves. They all have the same dark eyes, sometimes with red rims too – the only bit of colour here. These eyes are excited – eyes that want something. In one of the sketches the eyes are rolling back into that wolf's head, just like that wolf is crazy . . . half out of its mind. I can't recognise Dad in these wolves' faces, not one bit, and I'm trying to.

I stand up, get closer. I'm thinking about what Joe said about Damon now too. Can I see Damon in these wolves' faces instead? I'm walking around the bunker, looking at each sketch carefully. I'm half-listening to the wind outside, thinking that it's howling like a wolf too. Then I pause, tilt my head and listen harder.

That's not the wind.

I go extra still, straining to hear, then stand and press my face to the gun slit. This isn't my mind playing tricks; it's something else. I listen harder and . . . yes . . . it's there . . . that howling noise again. It makes me think of the last
time I couldn't sleep, when I'd been woken from my dream. It makes me remember standing at the window the night of Ashlee's death. There'd been strange noises in the woods then too. My breath is tight in my throat as I try to hear the howling noise again. One long shiver travels down my spine as I do. This noise is coming from deep inside these woods. I look up at the moon, but it is silent and watching me, waiting too.

46

Damon

I
hear them howling. They can't be playing another Game, though, not after last time, not without me. Are they looking for me instead?

One howl, two . . . I wait for the third. A gust of wind blocks my ears. I hunch in tighter to the rock face. It feels like I'm on the run, like I'm playing the Game for real and the boys are hunting me out. But maybe it should be me hunting them out – for not telling me how they played the Game with Ashlee, because Ashlee told me a secret that night that they might've been a part of.

Slowly, slowly, by feel more than sight, I move down the rock face. I'm on the wild, empty side that no one gets to know. Maybe I'm wrong about Mack keeping people's
secrets. Maybe he's told Ed and Charlie everything he knows about that night – and maybe now they're coming for me. What do they all think I've done? Are they coming to tell me? Are they coming to tell me to run?

I'm aiming for those rocks that jut out below me like teeth – the boulders – for the crevice I saw in between them, for what I think I saw inside it. The full force of the wind is blasting at me, but I'm glad of it – it's knocked some of that haziness from the joint out at least. I'm glad of the moonlight too. While the wind tries to drag me off, I stay clinging like a limpet, my fingers and toes wedged into tiny cracks. I'm feeling the rough, grainy texture of the limestone, the electricity in my fingers. I sense the empty space of air around and below me. If I slip I'll be heading for that, I'll be free-falling to the bottom. I have to force myself to keep going. Seems this isn't called Suicide Drop for nothing.

It's easier once I've got both feet on a boulder; I lower myself 'til I'm curled between it and the rock face. I don't look at the drop beyond. Sharp wind pierces into my lungs, whirls round me. But there's another sound too, isn't there? Something from the summit? A voice? I don't look up to check, can't risk losing my balance. I wedge myself in tighter to the rock instead. If there is anyone up there, they won't be able to see me here. When I bring my fingers away from the stone they've gone white and stiff, hard to unclench. Very slowly I shuffle sideways across the boulders. I move to the crevice I saw from above. Then I tip forward to the gap and push my arm inside it. The
wind is whooshing into my face and making my eyes stream but I keep digging about. I feel moss and pebbles and wet leaves. I force my eyes open against the wind, drop on to my belly, put my face close to see.

It's there!

Just like I'd thought!

Wedged inside this crevice is something pink and sparkly.

It's Ashlee's phone cover. Maybe her phone's there too.

I try to breathe deep, try to stop myself from moving hasty. With shaking fingers, I stretch to grab it. The phone cover's material is sodden through, cold. As I dig about I feel the phone is also here, but it's in several pieces – smashed. I take a hold of what I can and wrench my arm out, pull myself back 'til I'm leant against the rock again. I'm trembling, and not from the cold. I look out to the sky and the dark sea of trees below for one second, two . . .

Ashlee's lips were pink and sparkly that night, the same colour as this phone case, they'd smelt like raspberry.

I take a breath and look at it all in my hand. The phone has split apart. The back of it is detached, the screen a faint cobweb of cracked glass, the battery separate again. How hard was it hurled down here for it to break like this?

I didn't throw it, did I?

I don't remember it.

I stare at these bits in my hand like they can give me some answers. But nothing comes. If I was spinning so much that night that I don't remember getting home – that I don't even remember when I last saw Ashlee – how
could I have climbed up here to throw this? I rest my head against the cold rock and try to think. But all I'm getting is some random conversation I had ages ago. I'd been propped up at the bar of the City Arms by Mack's dad – maybe the first time I ever got proper drunk. Mack's dad had held court, telling the whole place about one of his mates:

‘He got so drunk once that he chucked his wife off a balcony,' he'd said. ‘Seventh floor and all! It was an accident, though, they were arguing, they was just having a holiday! It just got a bit out of control, like!'

I think that's how it went. I remember Mack's dad explaining that when his friend woke next morning and was arrested, he could remember nothing – he even asked where his wife was.

Is that like what's happened to me?

Is there a whole story of terrible things I did that night, that I don't remember? Did Mack see it all? Did he take me home and away?

My throat goes tight. Maybe I should be checking into a mental hospital rather than a police station, maybe Mack was right when he said I was going loony. Maybe Mack
saw
me going loony that night. Maybe I don't know anything about who I am – what I'm capable of.

I put the phone cover in my pocket with Ashlee's collar, then lay the pieces of her phone out on the rocks. I get an ache thinking about the phone being whole, being held by Ashlee. My hands start shaking again and I almost lose all the bits.

Could Jon Shepherd have thrown it down here instead? I remember Emily telling me that he was scared of heights, but she could've been lying. Couldn't she?

I slot the battery in. I have to wedge the back of the phone in hard to make it stick. I turn it on, expecting nothing, and nothing happens. I bang it against the palm of my hand. Now there's a flicker on the screen: tiny, but there. A spark. I bang it again. And somehow, it works. Somehow this battery still has juice!

Ashlee's home screen comes up. It looks kind of disjointed, and the cracked glass doesn't help, but straight away messages are coming through, hundreds of them it seems, all from me or her friends or her family. They're all asking the same things – where is she, is she safe, what's happened – they get more desperate as they come. It hurts to look – it hurts to hold this tiny part of Ashlee in my hands but not the rest of her. It hurts to know that she never read these words.

I run the back of my hand over my eyes and click on to anything just to make the messages stop. I open up her picture folder, and I feel kind of desperate now. I'm scrolling back to her earlier pictures fast, just wanting to see Ashlee from months ago, wanting to see her alive. I find all the pictures she took and sent me of her in her underwear and pyjamas, but these don't make me feel no better. I want –
need
– to see a picture of her and me. In the photo I finally click open and stare at for ages, Ashlee's got her mouth pressed against my cheek, biting me gently, and I'm staring straight at the camera and grinning like a
loon. I got no right to be that happy. It's not fair that the grinning, thoughtless loser in this picture gets to keep hugging her for always.

I move the images on. Now I'm surprised. Because there are loads of films here, not just photos. Which is weird, because I don't remember Ashlee filming anything ever. Even the last two images in this folder are films! And all these films seem to start with an image of something dark and blurred. It's like they're all filmed at night. All filmed some place with trees. And now I'm curious.

I click on the one that's second to last, just because it's shorter. The image starts shaky and dark, and, combined with the cracked screen, I can't make much sense of it. I hold the phone closer and try to work it out. I think I hear wind. Light rain? A rumble of thunder? There's something about this image that's starting to feel familiar, horribly so.

Then the camera flash goes on, illuminating everything. The image takes a second to focus. And I see it then.
I see!
My breath leaves me in a rush.

Because in the image is a body slumped on a forest floor.

And I know who it is. Course I do.

47

Emily

I
listen in the dark, but that howling sound doesn't come again. My eyes are pressed close to the gun slit watching everything: the way the trees move, how clouds smother the moon then let it shine again, how wind skitters leaves along the ground. Dad did this too once, looked out of here and listened. Did he also listen for this noise? Was it the reason he'd started drawing all those wolves in the first place? I know wind can sound strange moving through trees at night. Depending on the tree it moves, though, wind can make a whole lot of different noises: noises like distant traffic, animals, a fire, a roar, water. Maybe I've just been thinking of that sketch too much, I've got wolves on the brain. Now I'm even
hearing them in the wind.

I don't move from this bunker, though. Not yet. Because I'm safe here, in the dark. No one can find me.

As I stay here, listening, I hear other strange sounds in the wood. There are shrieks and laughter like there's a party going on. And when I start to move again there's another noise. It's faint at first, but getting louder. Footsteps? Running? Heavy boots? I feel this strange surge inside me. Has Damon come back here after all? I shrink back into the darkness, watching through the gun slit. I need that sketch he has. Need to talk.

A few moments more and I see a figure moving fast down the small track that runs the other side of this bunker. He stops, looks around, then veers off, heading straight for this clearing. That decides it for me. It's like he's coming straight for me. I move to the entrance hole and pull myself up it, wedge my feet into the sides so I'm half in, half out. I'm about to call out when I see him properly.

He's in this clearing when he sees me too. He stops mid-step. Then his mouth drops into a perfect O of surprise.

It isn't Damon.

‘What are you doing here?' he says.

48

Damon

I
t's me.

This body that's slumped on the forest floor. This one the camera is focusing on. My face is pressed into the dirt and I'm out of it. I'm wearing Dad's combat shirt – the same one I had on that night, the same one I got on again now.

Did Ashlee make a video that night? Did she film me? Like this? Is that what's going on here?

My hand is shaking so much it's hard to keep the phone steady. I jump big as I hear Ashlee's voice and I have to grab at the cliff face behind me and force myself not to look around for her – she's speaking from the phone, on this film.

‘Oh Damo,' she's saying. ‘You're a bit useless now, honeypie . . .'

Useless.

It's that word again. Is this why I remember it?

The image jolts forwards and back, goes close on my passed-out face. Blurs. When it clears, I see that my mouth is open, my hair is stuck across my cheek. I'm out of it.
Fucking
out of it!

‘What are we going to do with you now?' Ashlee's voice is close to the speaker, singsong.

A smudge of water lands on the camera screen. That could be the rain starting. There's wind battering against the speaker too, making it hard to hear everything Ashlee is saying.

‘Told you I'd win.' I hear that. ‘Guess you won't get my collar tonight after all.'

There's laughter. The camera moves again, goes steady. That's when I see the loser that's me on this screen wake up; my eyes open and I swat out clumsily.

I hear Ashlee laughing louder. ‘Knew you'd wake up. Don't want to miss the fun, do you?'

I see my mouth open, and I'm talking to her,
trying
to. ‘You shouldn't have done that.' I sound really pissed off. ‘You shouldn't have done that with Mack!'

My throat goes dry as I hear this. What had she just told me? Her secret? Something about the Game she played?

The shot is steady on a close-up of me. I see the frown in my forehead, the anger I got.

‘My collar's all yours if you want it,' Ashlee's saying.
‘Just take it like I said.'

Then the image shakes all over the place. I get a close-up of leaves. Darkness. Tree trunks. My face again. Hers.

‘You'll have to try harder than that,' she's saying.

Am I fighting her? Is that why the image is jolty? What's going on?

‘Can't believe you'd do that!' It's my voice again. ‘Why would you even . . .'

She says something that I don't hear. Only the words
Try it . . . Don't get mad about it . . . Playing . . .
and . . .
Game.
She's laughing or crying, I can't tell which. Then the image freezes on dark branches. There's no more sound. No more movement. Just her laughter ringing in my ears. Just this sick feeling in my guts. Because I'm starting to remember now, ain't I? I'm starting to think I know what she told me that night – starting to think I can remember her secret. It's coming back. I nearly drop the phone into the dark air, my feet have to dig into the boulder to stay firm. Yes – it's in my head now – this secret. This secret she kept with Mack. I clench my free hand into a fist and slam it into the rock face.

‘I don't want you to be my girlfriend no more.' That's what I'd told her that night. ‘I don't even know you!'

There's an empty feeling all through me. That night, had I tried to break up with her? The ache of it gets me hard. She'd been mad about it – I know that.

I close my eyes to feel cold, sharp air against my
eyelids. There's one more film on this phone. It's the very last thumbnail image in her photo folder. It has to be from that night too – it has to be the last thing she ever filmed. I click to open it. Because I can't stop now. I got to know how this ends.