Monster (23 page)

‘There’s got to be something we can do.’

‘Well, I can’t do anything—look at me. What if we wait in here for him, then jump out and surprise him? Tie him up?’

‘What with?’

‘I dunno.’ He checked the coast was clear through the gap
before flicking the torch on again to assess the high metal bookshelves around us. I stood up to look in the plastic storage boxes, but all I could see were ancient French dictionaries, copies of the Tricolore textbooks, rolled-up posters for
parfums, huile d’olive
, Le Tour de France, Air France and Le Folies Bergère. On other shelves there were see-through boxes of plastic French foodstuffs—
croque monsieurs
, croissants and strings of garlic and folded French flags. In others there were just rolls of craft paper, more textbooks, a broken whiteboard, a redundant blackboard and a whole load of stationery waiting to be used.

‘What are we going to do, dry-wipe marker him to death?’ he snorted. ‘Oww.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, brain buzzing like a beehive. I sat back down. ‘You’ve killed people before.’

‘Hardly
people
,’ he winced. ‘A man.’

‘But how do you do it? How do you … you know, stick it in?’

He breathed a long, hot breath. ‘I didn’t have a plan when I did what I did. I did it cos I had no choice. You don’t know your own strength until you have no alternative but to use it.’

Don’t give up. Whatever you do, just don’t give up.

I wasn’t sure about asking, but I did, before I could stop myself. ‘How did it feel afterwards? When you’d killed him?’

‘What, to finally kill the one man who’d been making my life a misery since I was seventeen? I threw up. I panicked and threw up. Once you do something like that, it changes you somehow. It made me kind of give up on everything, once I’d taken a life.’

I thought I was going to be sick too. I had the rivers in my mouth.

‘But this is different, Nash. It’s kill or be killed. There’s no other option now.’

‘I can’t do it. I’ll have to make a run for it.’

‘Run where?’

‘To get help. I know it’s safe outside now. The Beast won’t go for me.’

‘It’s suicide. It’s pitch dark now and there’s no street lights round here. Not to mention the three feet of snow you’d have to traipse through. You said yourself the nearest help is two miles away. You’ll never make it.’

‘The Beast will protect me,’ I muttered.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘However quick you are, he’s a lot quicker.’

‘I’ve got to do something.’

‘Nash, you’re dealing with a psychopath. At the moment, he is capable of anything. Literally anything. If he finds you, he won’t stop to make conversation. He won’t see you as his girlfriend. He will stab you. Don’t go thinking you can find his sensitive side.’

‘I’m not stupid,’ I hissed. ‘But I still have to go.’

I stood back up and moved the door an inch wider. That’s when we heard the newest round of screams. My chest heaved. They were young screams. And from the echo, I knew where they were coming from.

‘That was Tabby,’ I said. ‘She’s run into the gym. I’ve got to find her.’

‘Nash, for fuc—Just be careful, all right? Don’t be the hero.’

‘I will. I mean, I won’t.’ I held my fruit knife out in front of me. If Charlie was going to kill Tabby, he was going to have to kill me first.

Use your anger. Believe in yourself. Act quickly and decisively. Trust your instincts.

‘Stay here,’ I told him. He nodded. He was shivering. I undid my pea coat and carefully put it over him, despite his protests that he was all right and it was a girl’s coat. ‘Just shut up and wear it. And stay here.’

I stepped out of the storage cupboard, checking for noises or movements in the corridor through the window on the other side of the Quad. The lights were back on in the corridor. There was no sign of Charlie, though.

‘Nash. Nash!’ came a harsh whisper from the cupboard. A hand reached out from under the coat with something clasped inside it. A lighter.

‘Maybe you can use this, I don’t know,’ said Leon.

‘Thanks,’ I said, putting it in my pocket.

He nodded, then slowly closed the door behind him.

Back out in the corridor, there was another noise: a laugh. A hysterical, tinkling sound like summer bells. I poked my head through the gap in the door and listened again. Charlie was laughing. Like he’d won something. It was a victorious chuckle.

He’d found Tabby.

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.

Where’s Tabby?
I asked her.

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.

Any means necessary.

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.