The Six

by Luca Veste

  ‘You were my friend, Matt,’ he said, coming closer now and I could see the knife in his hand. It glistened as the lowlight caught it here and there. ‘I want you to know that. You were always my friend. I . . . I just have to do this.’

  I could see a tear forming in his eye, rolling down his cheek as I opened my mouth to speak and he shoved something down my throat. I mumbled a scream from behind it, as he raised the blade above me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his breath hitching and breaking. ‘It has to be this way.’

  I screamed as the knife came closer. Felt the blade across my neck. Then, I screwed my eyes tight, tensed my body, and waited for the darkness to descend.

  Forty-Three

  I remembered being in that place before. The house where I’d found Chris burying Michelle. Where he had already buried Nicola, I imagined. And countless others probably. Twenty-five years earlier. A summer holiday with Chris and his family. We would go up the nearby hill and watch the sun go down together.

  Throw rocks and pebbles into the abyss below.

  We had called it a cliff, but it wasn’t that of course. We were in the middle of nowhere, so there was no coastline. It was simply a long drop down, as the hill came to a point rather than a gradual drop on the other side. A strange feature of this countryside.

  We would sit there and imagine jumping off. Laughing together about it. Working out how we would survive. What we could do.

  He told me he would like to watch someone try to do it. Maybe push someone off just to see what it was like. I remembered laughing, thinking he was joking.

  That memory was the one I had now.

  I almost felt the knife enter my body, I was so ready for it to happen. I braced and tensed and hoped that it would be as quick and painless as possible. Screwed my eyes tightly shut and wished for it to be over.

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  The only fear I had was the after. The silence I would hear and live in for eternity.

  Only, there was no pain.

  There was no after.

  I opened my eyes slowly and heard Chris’s cries of anguish. I tried to move, but I was still groggy and my body took an age to respond. My hands were tied. Literally.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ Chris whispered, talking to himself. ‘Why can’t I do it?’

  I wanted to feel relief, but I knew I had only bought myself a little time. Eventually he would pull himself together and be able to finish what he started. He was a killer, after all.

  I tried not to laugh at my situation.

  ‘Chris, we can stop this,’ I said, trying and failing to move myself closer to him. ‘I’ve known you most of your life. I know this isn’t you . . . ’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Chris sniffed, shaking his head and stopping me from continuing. ‘It is me. This is what keeps me going. If I didn’t do the things I do, I wouldn’t be here. I just never thought I would have to hurt people like you. People who have always been there for me.’

  ‘Where’s Nicola?’

  Chris shook his head again, more forcefully this time. ‘I can’t talk about that. I won’t talk—’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I said quickly, wondering where her body was. Whether she was dead already, like I feared, or whether I still had time. The way he spoke whenever he mentioned her name made me think I was too late for that. ‘We don’t have to talk about her.’

  ‘I thought you would be easier,’ Chris began, but then stopped himself. He stood and picked something up from a shelf above me. ‘She’s been calling you for the past hour. Alex. Or Alexandra as you always called her. I’ve always wondered why that was. Why you had to refer to her as something different from everyone else? It never made sense.’

  ‘This can end now, Chris. Mate. Just listen—’

  ‘I think it’s a control thing,’ Chris continued, as if he hadn’t heard any interruption. ‘Like, if you have just that one single thing that you own – a name for someone – then it’s enough for you. No matter that you can’t control anything else in your life now. You still have that one thing. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking things. It just . . . it never made sense to me why you wanted to be my friend when no one else did. Why all of you wanted to be my friend. I was so scared you’d wake up and realise one day that it was a mistake, that I never brought it up.’

  ‘You’re a good man,’ I said, wishing I still believed that. Surrounded by the smell of death and red candles. There was no good there. ‘This is just a mistake. You can get help and stop this . . . this part of you. I know you can.’

  Chris chuckled softly to himself. ‘Don’t you think I’ve tried to stop? I haven’t killed as many as they say I have online, but there’s enough of them. I can’t go back. There’s no help for me.’

  ‘Wait . . . ’

  ‘I can’t kill you, Matt. Not like the others. But you’re not leaving here. You can stay and keep Michelle company. I’m sorry.’

  I tried to say something more, but Chris moved quicker than I could react and then there was an explosion of pain across my chest. The knife in Chris’s hand came back into view and it was slicked red with my blood.

  ‘Just something to get the ball rolling,’ he said quietly. He had something else in his hand. ‘I hope it doesn’t hurt and that you’re asleep when it happens. I remember that place in Blackpool well. You wouldn’t stop talking about it for days after you came back. I’ll make sure she doesn’t suffer.’

  ‘No,’ I managed to get out, but my mouth wasn’t working properly. My body wasn’t either. The pain began to dull to a screech, but it was still there. Pounding. Pounding. Alexandra. Chris. Stuart.

  All of them. Pictures in my mind.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I heard a voice say – Chris? Michelle, back from the dead? Alexandra come to help me? – I wasn’t sure.

  Then, there was only silence.

  And my blood. Dripping to the floor, like wax from a candle.

  *

  I came around in stages. I was lying on my front and for a moment I thought I was lying in bed. Listening to classical music, or TalkSport, or an ASMR video, or some boring podcast about American politics.

  None of those things.

  I was on hard ground. Not a soft mattress. I was in hell, rather than safe at home.

  I had to free my hands.

  My mind had decided to wake up first. My body, on the other hand, was less willing. It didn’t want to move. It wanted to stay where it was and let more blood escape. Let it all go. Just lie down and wait for it to be over.

  No. We’re not doing that. We’re getting up and going after him.

  I grunted with the effort, but I managed to move my unwilling body around until I was sitting up. Every movement was agony. I needed to stop the bleeding from the slash across my chest, but first I had to free my hands. I could feel the cable ties digging into my wrists. My legs tied together at the ankles were the same. My shoes had disappeared at some point – probably removed when I was tied up, I imagined. I wasn’t sure.

  My head was still pounding. Concussion, I assumed. The world span with every movement, my stomach churning along with it. I tried to take a few deep breaths, think of Alexandra, and ignore the fact that only yards away, Michelle was buried in a freshly dug hole.

  Somewhere in my muddled mind, that last thought broke into an idea.

  I shuffled slowly across the dirt floor, glancing over my shoulder and seeing the glint of metal in the candle light. Kept going, as my nausea subsided and the jackhammer in my head diminished a little. Reached the shovel Chris had used to bury Michelle and tried not to collapse under the weight of that image.

  I had to keep going. I had to keep going.

  I had to . . .

  It took me at least five minutes to make my way to the shovel leaning against the wall. Then at least double that to hack my way through the cable tie with the edge of it. Finally, my hands came free and I instantly put them to my chest. Put my hand up my T-shirt and felt carefully along the
wound, wincing at every touch.

  It wasn’t deep, but blood was thick on my fingertips when I withdrew my hand. I picked up the shovel and had my legs free after a little more effort.

  I allowed myself a minute’s rest – my head resting against the cold brick. Tried to keep my eyes from falling shut again and when that became too difficult, cut the resting short with an image of Alexandra in my head.

  I was probably already too late.

  I placed a hand against the wall and rose to my feet. I wobbled a little and gravity tried to take me down to the ground again, but I managed to keep myself upright.

  The car may as well have been in another country. It didn’t matter. With each step, my mind cleared an iota more. Adrenaline kicking in and helping me for once.

  I wanted to be back at home.

  It was safe there.

  I made it to the car somehow. I barely remembered any of the short journey to it, but I could see darkness in the sky above and realised I was still holding the shovel in my hand.

  My keys.

  He’d taken them.

  I almost fell to the ground then. Screamed at the sky and wondered if I had the energy to reach the top of the cliff behind me and throw myself off it.

  I was too late. It was over. I was at least thirty minutes behind Chris and I had no way of getting to him in time. Of getting to Alexandra in time.

  It was over.

  I thought back to a year ago. The week before the music festival, when everything was perfect. Alexandra and I, moving into the house, so happy, planning for a future we’d always wanted. A future that would be filled with contentment and pleasure. Children and companionship. Love and laughter.

  Gone in a flash of violence.

  And now, that future was simply darkness and destruction. Chris was going to find her. She would never be seen again. He would come back to this house and find me still sitting against the driver’s side of my car. He would be able to finish the job he’d started and that would be it.

  The spare. The box.

  I was thinking of that day we’d left for the music festival when I finally remembered. The small contraption that I had scoffed at when Alexandra gave it to me. I’d fixed it underneath the car and then forgotten about it.

  A spare key.

  I turned and knelt by the wheel arch. Ran my fingers under it, sure that it would no longer be there. I went back and forth, becoming more certain by the second that it would have fallen off in the past year. Caught on something and been torn away.

  Finally, my fingers found purchase and I pulled the box away with a guttural sound of triumph.

  It was a small thing, the size of the palm of my hand. I closed my eyes and remembered the combination.

  12 05 15

  I would never forget that date.

  If I got out of this, I would make this another date to remember.

  The box opened and there was the key.

  I could have cried, but instead I rose to my feet, unlocked the car and got in. My head was still pounding with pain and my chest leaked blood over my T-shirt, but I could barely feel any of that.

  I wasn’t going to be late. I was going to make it.

  I didn’t have my phone, but thankfully the satnav in the car was built-in. I rarely used it, but was glad of it now. I would have become lost in the hills and country roads without it, but instead I was on the major A-road in minutes and then the M60 and M61 followed quickly. A trip that was an hour and forty-five minutes was going to take much less. I weaved through traffic as the sky darkened and became blacker by the second.

  I was there in an hour. Pulled up to the hotel and saw Chris’s car first. Then the dirty white walls of the hotel, as I left the car – door wide open and forgotten – and ran towards the entrance.

  My hand was on the door when I heard the scream.

  It came from above me. The roof. I looked up and thought I saw movement. I waited there for a second. Frozen in place. Waiting for what I thought was the inevitable.

  There was nothing else.

  Only silence.

  Instead of being afraid of it, like I always was, something broke in me. I felt anger instead of fear. Hate instead of terror.

  He wasn’t going to win.

  I shoved the door open and ran inside.

  Forty-Four

  It had started raining at some point, but I wasn’t sure if it was before or after I’d reached the roof. My clothes were already wet, but that could have been sweat, blood, the rain, or most likely a combination of all three.

  I breathed in and out rapidly, as I stood with my back to door of the rooftop. From behind me, alarms rang. I hadn’t heard them on my way up the stairs, but the race up had been done in a blur.

  The rain fell harder and I wanted to close my eyes. I didn’t want to know what was happening. What was about to go into her. What was about to slice her flesh.

  The shovel was still in my hands. I didn’t remember taking it with me from the car, but some part of me was still working without me knowing. My arms felt heavy and suddenly any movement made me want to shout in twisted agony. I could feel the bruises and splinters in my hands. I could feel the angry slash across my chest, tearing apart a little more with each breath.

  I could smell her perfume in the air.

  I could see Chris. Standing with his back to me. His arm around Alexandra, as she knelt on the ground, almost looking like he was embracing a loved one.

  Alexandra.

  Kicking and squirming with every last ounce of energy she had left.

  I moved forwards, raising the shovel with both hands and then when I was close enough and heard his voice, I screamed with everything I had.

  The wave of pain hit my hands first, then up my arms into my shoulders and I fell to the ground. My face hit the floor and my eyes met his.

  Chris.

  On the floor, his eyes open for a second, before they glazed over and closed. Blood seeping from his head onto the dark ground and disappearing into it.

  I almost felt myself slip away. Then, her smell and her voice came through the fog.

  ‘Matt . . . ’

  I wanted to answer, but I could say nothing. Could feel nothing. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to wake up and forget about all of this.

  I felt her hands under my arms and was lifted to my knees. My body wasn’t responding, my mind not much better. I retched and felt the world spin around me. Saliva filled my mouth, as my stomach churned and threatened to overpower me. I swallowed, trying to keep some semblance of control.

  ‘We have to get of here,’ Alexandra said, looking around her. I saw the storm lantern and the red candle. Even up here he had needed his talisman.

  ‘Is he the . . . ’ she said, before stopping, unable to finish the sentence. Unable to accept the truth.

  I managed to nod my head and set off another bout of nausea. I breathed a few times and managed to calm. The word concussion bounced around my head and I wondered what would be left of me if I got out of there.

  ‘He can’t be.’

  ‘He is,’ I said, twisting to see him. All I could see was the end of his leg, before Alexandra pulled me again. My chest throbbed in pain and I tried not to dwell on it. Tried to stay lucid.

  I wasn’t winning the battle.

  I held onto her arm as she turned and pulled me away. My legs groaned in protest. I could see the way out ahead. The door that led from the rooftop came into vision. I didn’t think this was real. My mind had slipped into delirium. I was still back at the house where Chris had buried Michelle and he was still slicing his way through my chest.

  My best friend. Someone I considered closer than family.

  This was him.

  The feel of Alexandra’s hand on mine brought me back somewhat. She looked back at me and I could see in her eyes that it was going to be okay.

  Then, they changed. They darkened in a moment, and I suddenly dropped to the floor. I heard a scream. I heard footsteps scraping against the
concrete. I heard my name, then a screeching feeling in my back.

  I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t move. My body went limp and I could feel a wetness under my upper body as I lay on the floor.

  I saw her.

  I saw him.

  I saw the knife in his hand, something dripping from its blade, and Alexandra disappearing from view. Chris staggering after her.

  The last thing I saw before I blacked out into the silent darkness.

  *

  The rain was still hammering down above me when my eyes came back into focus. I put my hand slowly underneath my arm and against my chest, flinching rapidly with the pain it caused. When I pulled my hand away, I could see the blood on it by the candlelight.

  I wanted to lie there forever and accept it was over. Lie there in the evening darkness and let it wash over me. Take me away. Allow my life to seep from my body and onto the dirty ground. Wait for the silence to consume me and not worry anymore.

  Alexandra’s face came to mind then. That was enough to make me dismiss the easy way out.

  It wouldn’t happen.

  It couldn’t. I wasn’t going to let it.

  I dragged myself up to a sitting position, my right arm limp across my lap. I groaned with the effort, as I managed to get to my feet and start moving.

  With every step, a fresh wave of pain hit me and my head swam as the world threatened to spin out of control. The pain stabbed into me, down into the depths of my body. I put a pale hand against the wound and screamed in response.

  I kept it there and continued moving.

  I hadn’t been unconscious long this time. I could still hear their voices on the other side of the rooftop. My vision was darkening by the second as I dragged myself along.

  I heard a shout from ahead and it seemed to help.

  I moved quicker in the open air. The freshness and cold hit me and seemed to wake me up to the reality of what was going on. The world became more solid around me and I focused on what was ahead of me. The rooftop was long and I kept moving towards the distant shouts and struggles.

  I fell to my hands a few times, as I dragged myself along the roof. With each moment, I felt another minute of my life end.