by Lou Morgan
The experience in the Tube station had left Izzy unsettled. Uneasy. What, exactly, had she seen? What had happened there – and how come none of the others had seen it? And it wasn’t just that, was it? There had been everything else – the garden, Juliet’s house, her own apartment…
She shivered, clutching her coffee more tightly.
Not really wanting to go home, Izzy sat on one of the cushioned benches that dotted the foyer and flicked through a magazine someone had left behind. She carried on flipping until the school kids had left, and what remained of her coffee had gone cold. There was music playing somewhere in the Centre – something discordant (the kind her dad liked to call “modern nonsense”). It was full of jangling bells that set her teeth on edge the longer she listened. She did feel better, though, in spite of the music. There had been no more shadows moving out of the corner of her eye. No more mysterious figures running about, and definitely no more melty faces. This could only be a plus. Even so, she didn’t fancy walking back through (or even past) the gardens.
Instead of taking the main doors out on to the terrace, she headed towards the ramp that sloped up and round to the back of the Barbican Centre, flattening out into another of the covered walkways that ran around the complex and emerged at the base of Shakespeare Tower. She could see if Tigs was still around, maybe catch up with the others if she was lucky. Avoiding the gardens meant it would take her almost twice as long to get there, but it was worth it. And besides, this way looped past her favourite part of the whole Centre – the windows on to the Barbican Theatre’s wardrobe department. When the lights were on inside, anyone walking past could look in and see the racks of costumes for whichever play happened to be in residence. Sometimes it would be sumptuous fairytale gowns and jackets, each with a white-powdered wig sitting on a stand above it. At other times it would be rows of suits in every possible shade of grey. Last Christmas, she’d stood on the walkway and almost choked with laughter watching the costume fitting for the pantomime’s cow.
Today, however, as she drew close to the windows, she could see that the lights were off. There were no costumes lined up in front of the window; none of the staff were trying to iron out the creases from last night’s performance or to sew on missing beads. Everything was in darkness.
The walkway swept around, past the windows – and as she walked past the third and final one, she realized with a start that there was someone inside after all. She could see movement in the gloom. A cleaner, maybe, or an assistant running in to fetch something and in too much of a hurry to switch on the lights.
There was something about the movement, though, that made her stop. It was jerky, repetitive. The harder she looked, the more she was convinced she could see the outline of a person, but rather than moving about the room they stayed in one spot. Izzy frowned, peering in through the window. Whoever it was, all they were doing was shaking their head from side to side – and doing it fast. Faster than she’d seen anyone ever do it.
Faster than anyone should be able to do it…
Sweat prickled between her shoulder blades, and the cool of the concrete walkway started to feel like a chill.
Izzy walked on, telling herself that it was nothing. Another trick of the light. A fan, perhaps, switched on in the darkness to cool the room.
Not a person. It couldn’t be a person. No one could move their head like that – not really.
And she had almost convinced herself when she heard the first of the footsteps behind her.
Chapter Six
At first, she thought it was someone walking the same way she was, maybe to one of the theatre offices that opened off the walkway. After all, lots of people went along it every day. People just like her. Normal, everyday, average people. Not creepy stalker-types or anything. It was fine.
Except that when she stopped, the footsteps stopped, too. And when she walked faster, they sped up along with her.
“Idiot,” she muttered to herself. “They’re your footsteps.” She’d been freaked out by an echo. To prove it to herself, she stopped again. The footsteps stopped.
She hopped three steps.
The footsteps did not.
Trying to get over the fact that she’d just randomly hopped down the walkway in front of a complete stranger – who doubtless now thought she was a total weirdo – Izzy stopped and bent down as if to adjust a shoe.
The footsteps stopped, too.
Izzy’s breath caught in her throat.
Someone was following her.
She had a choice. She could turn and face them, or she could run.
Panic flashed through her. There’d been that safety talk at school a couple of months ago. And why couldn’t she remember any of it? That was right – she’d been trying to get that English essay finished, hadn’t she? At the time, it had seemed more important than listening to how to deal with a hypothetical stalker. So that had been a good call, clearly.
There’d been something about staying calm. Sure. Staying calm and slowing down. That was it – slow down, turn around. Never run. Never lose control.
Slowly, she stood up. Her knees felt weak, as though the smallest gust of wind would break them. But she stood up anyway, and she fought against the rising tide of fear that was flooding her chest, her throat, making it impossible to breathe. She fought against it and she took as deep a breath as she could – and she turned round to look down the walkway behind her.
There was no one there.
The walkway was completely deserted, there wasn’t a soul in sight. None of the office doors showed any sign of having been opened – the mystery walker hadn’t just stepped through one, surely? Everything was completely still, completely silent.
Izzy stared back along the empty passage. “I’m going mad. It’s finally happened.” She shook her head. It had to have been an echo after all, distorted by the curving concrete of the walls.
She started walking again, and the footsteps started up behind her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. But it was nothing, she told herself. Nothing. She’d checked.
She stumbled slightly, her shoe scuffing the clay tiles of the floor.
The footsteps sped up.
Izzy couldn’t even begin to convince herself it was an echo now – and she couldn’t just walk calmly as though nothing was happening. This was wrong. It was all wrong. She walked faster, until she was half walking, half jogging. But the footsteps behind her kept going at the pace they had before.
A sudden, desperate hope came to her, that someone was playing a trick on her – following her, and then darting into an alcove or doorway every time she stopped. It was Tigs or Dom, or even just a random stranger. Someone wanting to mess with her head. Without breaking her stride or slowing down, and definitely not stopping, she whipped around again, and carried on walking, facing back the way she had come. She was totally alone but, to her horror, the footsteps stayed with her. If anything, they seemed to be getting closer – they sounded harder, more purposeful. Deliberate, as if whoever was making them was now only a couple of paces away from her and was stretching out with an unseen hand…
Her shoulder collided with something solid behind her, and she couldn’t stop herself from screaming. The sound of the footsteps vanished as she tumbled to the ground – and Izzy looked up to see Grey staring back down at her. He must have been coming the other way, and she’d managed to crash straight into him.
He looked just as shocked as she did. But it was more than that – he looked terrible. His skin was greasy and sallow, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His hair hung lankly over his face.
“Sorry, did I scare you?” he asked as Izzy picked herself up.
She shook her head. “No. It’s…” She tailed off. It would sound ridiculous if she said it out loud – that she’d been running away from phantom footsteps. Because that was something crazy people did. “It’s nothing. You look awful, by the way.”
“Thanks.” He ruffled his hair with his fingers, but i
t didn’t do any good. He still looked just as bad. “Not seen you for a couple of days. Not since—”
“Juliet’s party?” She cut him off. “Yeah. I wanted to crash out on the sofa for a while.”
“Not feeling very sociable?”
“Not particularly. It just felt like such an effort, seeing people.”
“Wow. Thanks.” He grinned, pretending to be offended.
“Not you. Obviously. You’re not people.”
“Again – thanks.”
“Anyway.” It was time to change the subject, she clearly wasn’t doing herself any favours carrying on this way. “What happened to you, then?” If she kept talking, he might not notice the crazy. She could always hope.
“Rough night, you know?”
“One?”
“Really rough night.”
“Tell me about it,” she said with a sigh as they fell into step, just as they always did – although today things felt a little different. “I feel like I’ve not slept in weeks.”
“Me neither. But last night was definitely the wo—” He stopped abruptly. “Iz?”
“Mmm.”
“How many weeks, exactly?”
“What?”
“How long do you think it’s been?”
“Since what?”
“I don’t know… Since you got a decent night’s sleep, maybe? Or at least felt like you did?”
“God, I don’t even remember. Before the exams, I guess. I’m kind of hoping everything’ll get back to normal, now they’re done.” Izzy shrugged. He was peering at her, but wasn’t really seeing her. He was looking through her, somehow. “You’re thinking, aren’t you? It shows.”
“Since the exams.” Apparently he wasn’t hearing her, either. Or at least not properly. “How about since the end of term – the start of study leave?”
Izzy shrugged. “Something like that. It’s not exactly shocking, though, is it? Not after all the ‘You must pass your exams or your life’s over…’ stuff.”
“I’m not joking.”
“You’re an idiot. An idiot who clearly needs to go back to bed.”
“Izzy.” He was looking at her now, looking at her properly. She looked back at him. His eyes were red; the shadows under them were bruised shades of blue and purple and green. “I know exactly when this started. It started the first night we took those pills.”
“The study aid? Oh, come on.”
“Izzy, listen. It’s not just me. Noah called me this morning – he said Dom’s freaking out about something.”
“About what?”
“He says he keeps seeing things.”
“You mean like the other night?” The conversation was starting to make Izzy uncomfortable. After all, hadn’t she seen something then, too?
“I don’t know. He thinks he’s being followed. They’re going over to Tigs’s place later to … I dunno, ‘Talk About It’ or whatever.”
“That’ll make her happy…”
“This is serious, Iz. Something’s not right.”
And however much she wanted to argue with him, deep down Izzy knew that she couldn’t. Because however much she wanted to ignore it, however much she wanted to pretend, something was very, very wrong.
Izzy thought back to the last time they were gathered in Tigs’s apartment. Only Kara was missing, and they were all sitting in the same places … but the mood couldn’t have been more different. That time, they were tense – the exams were looming over them like a cliff. This time? This time, the exams were done. The exams were done and they were scared. There was no other way of saying it. Instead of joking and laughing as they had before, everyone looked twitchy. Everyone, thought Izzy as she glanced around, looked tired. How had they changed so much in just a couple of days? All of them had shadows under their eyes. Even Tigs, now she was looking more closely. The signs were well hidden under carefully applied make-up, but they were there. How had she not noticed it earlier? Maybe because then she’d been more worried about whether she was going crazy. Now, though…
Dom looked the worst. His eyes were bloodshot, his cropped dark hair greasy. He slumped in the corner of the sofa, worrying at a thread on his board shorts, barely speaking or looking up. Barely even awake.
“But he was fine yesterday,” Juliet was saying, as Izzy and Grey walked in.
“He’s not fine now, though, is he?” said Noah. He peered at Dom, who blinked slowly.
“What happened?” Izzy looked at Mia, who shook her head, not taking her eyes off her twin.
“I don’t know. We were just at home last night and Mum was out, and I went upstairs to take a shower. And, like, five minutes later he’s banging on the bathroom door saying there’s some guy outside the flat trying to get in.”
“In the corridor?” Juliet asked.
“On the balcony.”
“What, just standing there and looking in?” Something about the direction the conversation was taking made Izzy uncomfortable.
“I know!”
“What did you do?”
“I got out the shower and went to see.”
“And?”
“Nobody there. I swear, I had my phone and I was literally about to call the police – the way Dom was freaking out, you’d think there was a serial killer out there or something.” Mia sighed. “Apparently, by the time I got there, the guy had just done a runner along the balcony.” It was blindingly obvious that not only did Mia not believe her brother, she thought he was either going mad or lying – or both.
Dom looked up, blinking slowly. “He was there. I’m telling you, he was there.”
“And then what? He just vanished? Yeah, right.”
“He did! I swear!”
“So what did he look like, then? If you saw him so well? And how come none of the neighbours complained about some guy shoving past their windows?” Mia folded her arms across her chest and waited. Everyone was watching them. No one else knew what to say – or quite what was happening.
Dom just hung his head again. “It was dark.”
That was all he could manage, and he slumped back into the sofa cushions. Mia pulled an I-told-you-so face. Everyone just stared at Dom. Everyone except for Tigs.
The whole time Dom and Mia had been talking, Tigs had gazed out of the window. Now she was examining her fingernails. If she was aiming for ‘couldn’t care less’, she’d hit the mark and then some. While everybody else was worried about Dom, she looked like she was much more interested in her nail polish. After what felt like forever, she turned away from the window.
“This is all great, but what exactly does it have to do with the rest of us?”
“Tigs!” said Juliet, but Tigs just shot her a death-stare.
Juliet shut up again.
“Seriously, what does this have to do with anyone? Dom’s having some kind of mental meltdown. Whatever.” She waved a hand dismissively. “And anyway, why did it have to be here? Today’s just been such a bust. First there was her little ‘episode’ this morning…” She glared at Izzy, who felt her face turning red. “And now this. I mean, Jesus. It’s the summer. All the stress is supposed to be over?”
Izzy could feel Grey staring at her. She looked at him, and saw him mouthing “Episode?”.
She shook her head slightly. It could wait until later.
He watched her for a moment longer, then scrunched up his nose like he always did when he’d made up his mind.
“You know why we had to meet here?” he said, raising his voice. He sounded hoarse. “It had to be here because this is where it started.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” In the bright light beside the window, the shadows under Tigs’s eyes were clearer.
“It means that this is where we took those stupid pills of yours.” Grey looked at each of the others in turn. “How are you guys sleeping lately, by the way? You tired? Having nightmares? Maybe you wake up in the morning feeling like you haven’t slept at all?”
Tigs’s face twisted into a s
neer. “The study pills? Are you kidding me? Dom’s gone off the deep end and you’re going to blame it on a bunch of vitamins?”
“Vitamins! You’re still sticking with that, are you?” Grey laughed.
Everyone looked at him.
“What are you saying?” Juliet asked. If anything, Izzy thought she’d got even paler since they’d walked in.
“I’m saying…” Grey stopped and sighed. “I’m saying … what the hell was in those pills?”
Chapter Seven
There was a shocked silence in the room. Everyone looked from Grey to Tigs and back again because, honestly, that was the question none of them had wanted to ask. They’d all been thinking it, though – it showed on their faces. Izzy had thought it every single time she’d taken one of the foul-tasting yellow pills. She’d thought it … and each time, she’d decided that the exam results were more important than knowing. The results were what counted – being good, being better, being the best. That was the only thing that counted. No matter what the consequences might be.
“What was in the pills, Tigs?” Grey repeated.
Tigs didn’t answer. She just stared at him, her lips set in an angry line.
“What was in the pills, Tigs?” he asked again. He obviously wasn’t going to stop.
She was still staring him down, but Izzy could see the corners of her mouth softening, see her bottom lip starting to wobble.
The unthinkable was about to happen. Antigone Price, of all people, was about to cry. The ice queen’s frosty exterior had cracked. She slumped on to the chair – Noah stepped out of the way, his eyes wide, as Tigs buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know, all right?” she wailed.