by Frazer Lee
“You think? Let me see that.” I’ve piqued Victoria’s interest. She brushes me aside and begins to leaf through the manuscript herself.
“I think I saw her watching us from the clock tower. And she was at the pool too, I’m sure of it. She knows routes through the building that we don’t. What if she was in the basement when you fell down there? Maybe Principal Quick lets…or rather, let her roam free, after lights out. That’s why she said the clock tower is off limits. She stays up there during daylight hours. I’m sure of it. And maybe Quick thought this girl wouldn’t harm her, but….” I glance down at the principal’s dead body. And I feel cold.
“Emily.” Victoria’s jaw drops.
“What is it?” I move back to her side, so I can see the pages she has been reading.
Victoria scoops up the book and holds it to her chest. She backs away and I feel so confused at just how angry she looks right now. Angry, and terrified. “Keep the hell away from me,” she says.
But I am away from her, so I don’t understand what she means. The desk separates us, with Principal Quick’s dead body resting head down on it. This whole situation is so fucked up already and the last thing we need right now is more division. I pinch my forearm to make sure I’m not dreaming. My skin feels numb, and cold to the touch.
“No, we have to solve this together. You said so to Annie. We have to catch up to her. And Lena, right? We have to get together and figure out what to do next.”
And yet, even as I say the words, I can see Victoria withdrawing further into herself. Away from me.
“No, no, no,” Victoria says, and her voice is getting all high pitched and starting to freak me out. “It’s you, Emily. I don’t know how you’ve been doing it, I’m not sure I want to know, but….”
My ears start ringing, very faintly. Another out-of-body experience? Bring it on. My already pretty limited understanding of other human beings is being stretched to its absolute limit.
“What on earth are you talking about?” I ask her.
“It’s your name in Quick’s research, Emily. You’re ‘Girl A’.”
Victoria throws the manuscript at me. I have to dodge out of the way to avoid it hitting me square in the face. The sheaf of paper hits the wall behind me and drops to the floor.
“Victoria?”
But she’s already gone, leaving me alone in the office. Alone except for Principal Quick’s dead body. And the manuscript. I crouch down and gather up the sheets of paper from the floor. I carry the manuscript around to the other side of the desk so I can be as far away from Quick’s blankly staring eyes as possible.
I leaf through the pages until I see it. My name is there, just as Victoria said it was:
Case study introduction. Emily Drake—
(There’s some writing scrawled over this bit, in Principal Quick’s hand.)
(NOTE: TO BE REFERRED TO THROUGHOUT M/S AS ‘GIRL A’!)
—exhibits symptoms of acute dissociative disorder. Under hypnosis, she refers to a half-glimpsed fellow inmate – a ‘gray girl’ who lives in seclusion away from the rest of the girls. This ‘gray girl’ could be a manifestation of an alternate identity and further interviews under hypnosis will explore whether this persona is actually part of a dissociative identity disorder (see footnote1 about EXTERNALIZED multiple personalities) or merely a projection resulting from what this study will refer to as ‘dissociation de-realization disorder’ or DDD for short. Girl A’s case is difficult to pin down within the confines of established prognoses based on prior case studies in this field. Girl A is presenting something new and exciting to the field and treatment must be exploratory and experimental….
Is that who I am? Some new kind of medical definition? My mind feels fuzzy at the concept of having been hypnotized by batshit old Principal Quick. I wonder when exactly that happened. Of course, I wouldn’t know if she put me under, wouldn’t have any recollection. Would I? My mind flashes with a half-remembered memory of a pulsing light, accompanied by the ticking of a metronome. And then it’s gone, leaving yet more questions.
Was the principal writing all of this about me when I was last incarcerated at Greyfriars? She must have been. And, judging from the thickness of the manuscript, this was something she was working on for months. I can’t shake the feeling that whatever ‘exploratory and experimental’ treatment she gave me might have made me even worse. My behavior and my condition. Nor can I ignore the possibility that my out-of-body episodes could be a symptom of Principal Quick’s dubious brand of reformatory care. Is that why Jess and Saffy are dead, I wonder? Did they kill themselves because of some wacko treatment that Quick was subjecting them to? But my thoughts circle back to the ‘gray girl’. Where does she fit into all this? I’m wondering now if she really could just be the product of my disorder.
If that’s true, though, how did the other girls see her?
A sound pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts. A scratching, coming from behind the closet door. I listen intently, hoping against hope that I imagined it. That it is—
(What did Quick’s manuscript call it?)
—a projection, that’s it.
But the scratch-scratching continues and, even worse, it is accompanied by a sobbing, wailing sound. The voice is female, and anguished. My mind conjures images of Jess, all bloody, her fingernails ravaged from her climb up the hard, stone steps of the basement. The shrill wailing gives way to the eerie sound of a musical box’s chimes. I swallow hard. Can’t just stand here, doing nothing. What if it really is Jess trapped in there? But I saw her throat gashed open, all her life’s blood spilled over the tiled floor in the bathroom. It can’t be her—
(So, who is it then?)
—I think, as my hand falls to my side and brushes against the handle of the desk drawer. The key is still in there, I know it is. And I know I’ll have to take it from the drawer and unlock the closet door. Then I will have to face whatever is in there, sobbing and wailing and scratching, because I also know that if I don’t, the sounds are going to drive me insane. Far crazier than even Principal Quick could have bargained for.
I slide open Quick’s desk drawer and root around inside. But, before I can locate the key, I discover something else. I pull out a small, crumpled metal box. It has a metal handle poking out through a tiny aperture in one side. I hold up the box and turn the handle. It chimes discordantly. And all of a sudden, the wailing stops. The music chime echoes out into silence. The scratching on the door has thankfully stopped, too.
I place the music box onto Quick’s desk and find the key at the back of the drawer. Clutching the key in my right hand, I steel myself and then walk over to the closet door.
I knock gingerly.
“Hello?” I ask the silence, and of course no reply comes.
I insert the key into the lock and wonder why my hand is shaking so much. I turn the key in the lock barrel and I hear it click against the tumblers. Willing my hand to stop shaking, I clutch the door handle and twist it open. I push against the door and see into the closet.
There’s no one inside. Embarrassed relief quickly becomes concern that I’m imagining things again. The extract that I read in Principal Quick’s manuscript plays over and over in my mind. I’m about to shut the closet door when the music box chimes again. My mind conjures an image of the principal, dead as a doornail and sitting up in her desk chair. Turning the little music box handle, her staring eyes glistening with madness.
The music box chimes again and I try not to scream in terror.
I turn sharply around to see that Principal Quick is still slumped over her desk, exactly as she was before. A shadow momentarily moves across the wall behind her. I blink and it’s gone.
I rush over to the desk and pick up the music box. I turn the little handle. No sound this time. I shake it and still it doesn’t chime. I thrust it into my pocket and run to the office door, eager
to be away from Principal Quick and the confusing mysteries she’s left in her wake.
Chapter Sixteen
Annie
Annie ran on until she reached the main doors. She reached up and pushed the door release button. Hearing an electronic buzz, she stepped back from the door, expecting it to open.
But nothing happened.
Annie tried the door and slammed the palms of her hands against it in frustration. How could she have been so stupid? Running away from Principal Quick’s office without first taking her keys? Now she was stuck inside this stupid goddamned building with no means of escape.
Well, she would just have to find another route out of there. Only thing for it. There must be an emergency exit or something. She would find it. Anything to get away from creepy Emily and insipid Victoria. They were no use to her at all. Whatever sick game old Principal Quick had been playing was not going to be the end of her, no fucking way. Annie grimaced at the memory of what she had seen written about her in the psych evaluation profile on the principal’s clipboard.
Annie turned on her heels and began to retrace her steps. Maybe the refectory would be her best bet. Where there were kitchens, there were fire risks. And where there were fire risks, there were also building regulations. There would be a fire escape somewhere out back of the canteen. She was willing to bet her life on it.
Or maybe not my life, she thought, still disturbed by what she’d seen in the profile.
“Aaannniieeee….”
The voice was a cold whisper and it stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Emily? Victoria? That you?” Annie asked, even though she knew in her rapidly beating heart that it wasn’t them at all.
She heard a laugh. It was an entirely mirthless sound, cold and mocking. And that sound made all the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Annie’s eyes discerned a dark shape, moving across the corridor wall ahead of her. It was the distorted shadow of a girl, and it snaked across the wall as though she had been borne out of the fabric of the building itself. Annie tried not to scream in fear, and failed because the shadow stretched out like it was reaching out to find her and entrap her in its darkness. She backed up and, with no choice but to double back on herself, she took another corridor. It was the route to the swimming pool.
No way out through there, Annie thought, her mind racing. Just keep going.
“An-nie!” The sharp whisper nearly shocked her into losing her footing as she rounded a corner into a wider corridor.
She risked a look back over her shoulder and saw that same dark shadow, moving at speed along the corridor. It wasn’t natural, the way the shadow spread out like that. A dark tendril blossoming across the wall, it seemed to suck all the ambient light from the corridor as it grew.
Annie was at the door to the recreation yard. Without a second thought, she gripped the handle and opened it. Closing the door quietly behind her, she hoped that whoever was following her hadn’t seen her duck outside.
Keeping to the shadows, which were thankfully still, Annie made for Principal Quick’s office window. When she reached the window, she saw the principal’s body through the glass, lying slumped across her desk. Emily and Victoria had left. Maybe it was them who were chasing her. Maybe it was their plan to kill her too, like they had killed Principal Quick. Annie took a moment to try and catch her breath, intent on not allowing her fears to get the better of her, and then she tried to open the window. It was unlocked, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Aaannniiieeee….” The sharp whisper made her cry out in surprise. She couldn’t help it because now her fears really were besting her.
Annie spun around.
The courtyard was empty. She looked up at the perimeter wall, then at the branches of the dying tree. Her eyes sought out an escape plan. But there was too much of a gap between the tips of the branches and the wall for her to climb up and leap over. That would have been perfect – an escape route that didn’t require her to go back inside the building. Her only option was the window now. She turned her attention back to trying to open it. She bent her knees and used the leverage this posture gave her to force the window up, but only by an inch. It was as though an invisible hand was pushing down on it, preventing it from opening.
Just then, she saw someone move inside the office.
It was too dark in there to make out, but maybe Emily and Victoria hadn’t gone after all. Or perhaps they had returned when they couldn’t find her in the corridor. She might have been too hasty in her judgment of them. It was, after all, one of her worst traits. One that had gotten her into terrible trouble in the past.
“Emily? Victoria? Help me open the damn window, will you? It’s stuck….”
If the window wouldn’t move, they could grab Principal Quick’s keys and she could meet them at the front door. Then they could get the heck out of there, together. If they kept to the road, they might get lucky and hitch a ride.
Then Annie saw another movement. She was expecting either Emily or Victoria to come to the window when she realized her dreadful mistake.
Principal Quick lifted her head from the desk.
Jesus Christ, thought Annie, she’s not dead. Not dead and she was faking it and….
Quick’s head turned sharply to face her. Annie screamed. The principal’s eyes showed no sign of life.
Then, with abject horror, Annie saw a dark shape emerge from next to Principal Quick.
It was a girl, dressed in a gray uniform like Annie’s, her facial features concealed behind her tangled dark hair. She was holding Principal Quick’s lifeless head aloft, her fingers gripping on to the dead woman’s hair.
Annie put her knuckles into her mouth to stop herself from screaming her lungs out. The gray girl held Quick’s head as if it were a prop dangling in a sick puppet show. And then she slammed the principal’s head back down onto the desk with a horrible crunch.
Annie blinked. And the strange girl was at the window.
Annie staggered back, terror making every step an ordeal, as the girl’s dirty fingernails skittered across and down the glass. She was reaching for the bottom of the window. Her bony fingers appeared through the one-inch gap like worms through soil and Annie saw her begin to lift the window upward.
That was enough for Annie to find her footing again.
She turned and bolted across the recreation yard for the door that led back into the corridor. But as she reached to open it, a freezing-cold hand grasped hold of her wrist, stopping her. At the icy touch of that almost skeletal hand, Annie heard a scream inside of her that was horribly familiar and yet not her own.
Impossibly, the gray girl was standing right in front of her.
Annie tried to wrench her wrist free, but that cold grip was all too strong. She tried again, shrieking with the effort as she used all her body weight to escape it. Annie heard a ripping sound and for a horrible moment thought it might be the tendons in her arm. She wriggled free, crying out in terror and clutching on to her frozen wrist in pain. Annie’s uniform sleeve dangled loose from her arm – the source of the ripping sound. As she broke contact, the scream from within her echoed and diminished, leaving only the wind whistling through the dead branches of the tree.
Annie recoiled from the grim visage of the gray girl. Her eyes sought out the window in the moonlight. It was still almost shut. Then, she felt those bony fingers clutching at her exposed shoulder and knew she had to find a way to rid herself of this spiteful apparition.
The tree. It was the only option left. She brushed away the unwanted touch of those cold fingers and ran to the center of the recreation yard. Annie reached for the lowest of the branches and leaped for it. Contact. She swung her legs up until the soles of her shoes found the tree trunk. Then she pushed herself up higher until she was on the branch.
Without looking down, Annie shimmied along the length of the branch
until she could reach the next highest. It was just out of reach. Her terror was all the inspiration she needed, and she set about tearing the rest of her sleeve away from the shoulder of her uniform. She was in such a panic that she managed to wrench a length of the underarm away with the sleeve too. No matter. That only made it easier to twist the fabric into a makeshift rope. Annie swung the frayed fabric over the tree branch and grabbed hold of the loose end, making a loop. She tried to use it to pull herself up and onto the next branch.
But the fabric of her sleeve was not strong enough. With a stomach-churning tearing sound, it gave way until it was rent in two and Annie fell sprawling back from the tree. She hit the ground hard, with such force that it knocked the wind from her.
Annie rolled over, groaning and tried to get her shit together. She saw the dark glint of the gray girl’s eyes and realized that the hideous creature was crawling toward her across the yard. Annie grunted with the effort that it took her to get back onto her feet. She had to scale the tree to escape her pursuer, but how?
Annie’s eyes found a coiled shape that lay against the roots of the tree. A jump rope. Annie reached down and grabbed it. She slung it over the branch nearest her and pulled herself back up. Without daring to look below her to see how close the gray girl was, Annie let loose one end of the rope and swung it higher, over the branch she couldn’t quite reach before. It worked this time. Unlike her torn sleeve, the rope was strong enough to hold her weight.
Once she’d used it to pull herself up and onto the high branch, she risked a glance below.
The mysterious gray girl had disappeared.
Annie clung on to the branch and waited until her heavy breathing subsided.
She peered over to where the branch ended. Quite a distance to the wall, but it didn’t look so insurmountable now. Not from up here, anyway. Annie decided to stand up, to get a better perspective. Looping the skipping rope around it, Annie held on to the trunk as though she were some kind of crazy tree-hugging activist. From there, she worked her way up until she could stand on the branch, with the topmost length of the tree at her back.