by Frazer Lee
She closed her eyes for a moment and caught her breath.
When she opened them, the gray girl was standing in front of her. Annie gazed in disbelief at the girl’s bare feet, corpse-pale and balancing on the narrow branch as though she were a prize gymnast.
“Please…” Annie began to plead.
But it was no use.
The gray girl was upon her before the word had fully formed from her lips. Those icy hands clamped on to the sides of her head and Annie’s strangled cry became caught on a gust of freezing air that wafted over the wall. For a moment, Annie saw the trees and fields beyond the wall. She saw the road like a ribbon of black through the wilderness. And then she realized she could only see those things because the gray girl had lifted her from her feet and high into the air.
Annie felt the rough fibers of the skipping rope wrap around her throat.
For a moment, there was silence. Even the night wind had stopped blowing.
Then there was a rushing sound as Annie felt her body drop.
She waited for the makeshift rope to pull tight around her neck. A death-noose of her own making. Annie shut her eyes again, expecting it to be for the last time.
But the noose did not tighten. On and on she fell, and that was somehow worse. The pit of her stomach protested queasily at the sensation. It was as if the world had opened up to swallow her whole.
Then there came a sharp bang.
It sounded – crazily – like a hammer.
Annie opened her eyes.
She recognized the space she was in, though her reeling senses could hardly comprehend what she saw.
It was the courtroom.
She was in the courtroom, but how? And the hammering sound she had heard was exactly that.
The judge slammed the hammer down again on the wooden block before him and called for order. A reluctant hush settled in the courtroom. Disoriented, Annie felt as though she might topple over. Her hands gripped on to something to break her fall. At first, she thought it was the branch of the dead tree. She looked down and saw that it was, in fact, the wooden rail of the witness dock.
Annie swallowed, wishing her dizzy spell would end.
“The jury’s verdict is unanimous,” the judge was saying, “and it is the opinion of this court that the accused did knowingly commit the crime of which she stands accused before us…”
Annie was being sentenced.
All over again.
The judge’s voice sounded weirdly distant and muffled.
Her vision blurred and she blinked in an attempt to focus on what was going on around her. She had a horrible feeling that she had been drugged. Was that even legal, considering she was on the stand?
“…therefore it is my solemn duty to give sentence. Taking into consideration the testimony of mental health experts during this trial, the accused should serve a minimum of two years detention in a youth correctional facility for her crime – a crime that left an innocent young woman, with a promising life and career ahead of her, permanently disfigured….”
There were gasps and murmurs from the gallery. The judge again called for order.
A woman screamed obscenities at her. Bitch, murderer, perverted psychopath.
The crowd roared its disapproval. She deserved to die in jail for what she had done.
For what I did.
Annie blinked.
She saw a memory of liquid. Saw its arc describing a shining, wet hook in the air. The opposite of a rainbow. Annie heard the splash and then the sizzle of acid eating into flesh as it hit her victim in the face. Saw the victim’s hand clutching at her cheek, too late. Watched as the woman’s skin came away with her hand. It was as though she was peeling away a beautician’s face mask, Annie remembered. She’d never be beautiful again. Not for him. Not for anyone. If she could bear to look in a mirror ever again, it would be to despair at her hideous reflection.
“…a crime committed to seduce a young man whose bravery to attend court today is a testament not only to his decency, but also to the failed plan of the desperate wretch you see before you in the dock,” the judge concluded.
Annie looked through her tears at the young man on the witness stand. His eyes burned with hatred and betrayal. She knew – all over again – that he didn’t love her. The fact looped around in her skull until she was sick to the core from its persistence. He could not, and would never, love her. She felt as though the life was leaving her body with each breath she exhaled. Her legs buckled and she clung on to the railing, but fell anyway, down from the dock.
As she dropped, she became aware of the skipping rope, still coiled around her throat.
She clawed at it with frantic fingers, but it was too late.
Her neck snapped as the noose held her in death’s embrace.
Chapter Seventeen
A More Permanent Form of Oblivion
I’m running in the direction of the medical storeroom when I realize I’ve been along this corridor before.
It’s as though the reformatory is playing tricks on me, folding in upon itself like some kind of puzzle to prevent me from getting to where I need to be. And where I need to be right now is with Lena. Unless Annie or Victoria got to her first, she doesn’t know that Principal Quick is dead. She’ll be waiting for us to bring the principal along to be syringed into oblivion. Lena has no idea that Principal Quick has found another, more permanent, form of oblivion all by her sweet self.
I stop running, and try to get my bearings as I catch my breath.
My heart is thundering in my chest, and my head is near exploding from the pressure of the blood in my veins. I try to slow my breathing, but can’t. I wonder if this is what a panic attack feels like. I read about those in Principal Quick’s spidery handwritten notes. I read about a lot while I was in her office that I’d rather forget.
My skin, already coated in a film of clammy sweat from running, turns cold. What if there really is no actual way out of here? What if the building really does, somehow, have me trapped inside of it? That makes me nothing more than a rat in a maze.
I lean against the wall for support, and that’s when I feel it beneath the palm of my hand. It’s just a vague sort of thrumming at first, but as I focus my mind on it I begin to feel its rhythm.
Thrum, thrum, thrum.
The wall – yes, and I’m aware how crazy that sounds – has a heartbeat. It really does feel as though the reformatory is alive. A living, breathing creature. I almost laugh at the idea. This crummy old shell is alive, somehow? But there it still is.
Thrum, thrum, thrum.
The rhythm pulsing in my palm is now so defined that I feel compelled to put my ear to the wall in order to hear it, too. I lean in and press my ear against the wall. The surface feels pleasantly cool against my cheek, which is still warm from running.
The throbbing beat seems to come from deep inside the building. I’m amazed the walls don’t crack and crumble under its repetitive force. But as I listen intently to this strange heartbeat, I begin to wonder if it’s maybe what’s holding the building together.
Thrum, thrum, thrum.
I feel my heartbeat begin to slow, in time with the reformatory’s. My breathing becomes relaxed and less labored.
Thrum, thrum, thrum.
I’m in sync with it now, my ear canal becoming a conduit for the beat at the heart of this dark old place. Something tightens – inside of me, or the building itself, I can’t be sure – and I feel a little lightheaded. My heart skips a beat and falls out of time with the rhythm of the reformatory. One heartbeat becomes a slight echo of the other.
Thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum.
The staccato sound is now less like a heartbeat and more like the immense ticking of some vast, subterranean clock marking time that’s running out.
How odd, I think.
I
really want to pull my ear away.
And yet I can’t.
The sound becomes deafening, and I clamp my eyes shut against it. My vision flashes red behind my eyelids, and I feel my blood again, coursing hot through my veins, making my head throb from the pressure of it all.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
The cacophony rages in my skull and I begin to lose feeling in my nerve endings as they become numb. My legs grow weak, forcing me to push harder against the wall for support, but that’s where the noise is coming from. A vicious cycle.
I feel a spike of darkness enter my head, carried by the ticking beat of the wall. My ears begin to ring. For a moment, I feel as though I am floating, borne on the soundwaves that are holding me fast. I open my eyes and try to focus on another sound, any other sound. One that might bring me back to the here and now and place solid ground under my feet.
The wall seems to shiver as I look at it. The drab, gray paintwork flakes outward, as if something is pushing through the layers of masonry beneath, eager to free itself from its hiding place. I gasp as the gray girl’s head appears from the wall, followed by her shoulders, and then her upper body. She is birthed by the pulsing rhythm of the reformatory’s ominous heartbeat. Where she ends and the wall begins is hard to make out. It’s as though the building has made her from bricks and mortar, before coating her in the paint-gray pallor of its own skin. One hand emerges from the wall and I hear her fingers snap into existence. She uses them for leverage, in the same way that a moth might flutter its wings to spring from its cocoon. When the vertebrae in her neck begin to click too, I know that she’s turning her head slowly, but ever so surely, in my direction.
That clicking sound is my terror, and my salvation.
I scream.
I push with all my might against the wall. It holds me to its dead, cold bosom and I’m terrified that even as it gives birth to her, it might swallow me up. Life from death, and vice versa. I decide against going down without a fight. Balling my hands into fists, I beat against the wall and feel that tick-tick-thrum just stop for a second.
And a second may be all that I need.
I snap my head away from the wall. The rest of me follows its momentum. The ringing in my ears stops. I see her, spreading across and out of the wall like an obscene stain. Her fingers claw the air. I can’t see her eyes beneath her dusty mane of hair, but I can feel their malevolent gaze on me. She’s almost free of the wall now.
I run.
Crashing around the corner, I slip and lose my footing.
I twist my ankle badly and bang my knee against the floor. Every instinct is telling me to crawl to the wall, and to lean against it for support. But I’m too scared. Remembering the hideous heartbeat, and the gray girl who must have freed herself from the wall by now, I cry out, the sound giving new names to my agonies. Avoiding the wall, I push myself up from the floor. My ankle hurts like fuck but hey, that’s good. It’s something tangible, something real that I can focus on. And while I have my focus maybe I can find my way out of this hellish place. I start limping along the corridor. When I blink, it’s like a whiteout. But I can concentrate on the pain.
I don’t get very far before I hear it.
A distant shriek from around the corner.
I follow the sound as quickly as my ankle will allow me to.
Wincing at the pain with each step, I glance behind me to see if the gray girl is catching up to me.
I can see only shadows.
I grit my teeth and push on, then turn the corner into another corridor. A shaft of silver moonlight creates a sharp rectangle on the floor. The light is coming through the window to the recreation yard. I hear another shriek, and I know now that someone is out there. I continue limping toward the door that leads to the yard. Then the shrieking stops and I hear another sound. This one even more chilling than the last.
Thunk.
There’s a finality to the sound that freezes the blood in my veins. I know it sounds weird, but it’s like it’s the last sound in the world. I wrap my arms around my body and hug myself tight, searching for warmth that isn’t there. I keep moving and, as I reach the door, I see a long, dark shadow swaying across the rectangle of moonlight on the corridor floor.
I open the door and limp into the exercise yard. The moon hangs brilliantly white in the night sky, illuminating the façade of the clock tower. I hear a creak and turn to see the dead tree at the center of the yard, its branches shaped like gnarled fingers clawing at the sky. Another creak and I see the source of the long, swaying shadow cast by the moonlight into the corridor.
Annie.
It comes back to me, clear as day, what I saw written in Principal Quick’s psych evaluation of Annie. On the clipboard. ‘Suicide by hanging’. That’s what it said. This is so fucked up. Did Quick know how this would happen, or did that…thing in the wall have something to do with it?
“Annie,” I say, because I really don’t know how else to articulate what I’m seeing.
Annie’s body hangs limp from a high branch. Her head lolls at an odd angle and looks as though it could topple from her neck at any moment. The branch creaks under her weight as the rise and fall of the wind causes her body to sway from side to side.
I notice that one of her arms is bare and then see why. The sleeve of her uniform has been torn away. I take a couple of nervous steps closer and, as her body rotates slowly in the wind, I can see that the recreation yard jump rope has been fashioned into a noose around her livid neck. Her tongue protrudes from between her teeth. But her eyes are the worst of all. They’re wide open and the moonlight catches them, making them gleam with an iridescent white. Then, as the wind rises again, her body turns and that light goes out from her eyes.
I turn away, still not quite able to process the abjection of all that I’ve seen, and all that I’ve endured. I can’t quite believe that Annie managed to climb all the way up into that tree in order to hang herself. I tell myself that maybe I don’t have to. I know that somehow, the hideous gray girl I saw emerging from the wall is to blame for this.
For all of this.
I look at the door that leads back to the corridor, willing the gray girl to be standing there. But I’m alone. I glance up at the clock tower and its empty windows. I look to Principal Quick’s office window and see someone there. A cloud obscures the moon, and she’s gone. I realize that what I saw in the window was my own moonlit reflection.
Recalling that deathly glow in Annie’s fixed, open eyes, I limp a retreat to the door. Then I head back inside, in search of Lena.
Chapter Eighteen
The Specter Took Its Time
Victoria ran, each breath snagging in her throat because of her panic. Her heart pounding because of her fear. Fear of Emily, and of Principal Quick’s dead body. Rising panic at the prospect that she had been in such close proximity to Emily when it could have been her all along, killing the girls, and now Principal Quick. Emily had been found in the bathroom, which was awash with Jess’s blood. Sure, Quick had said that Jess had committed suicide, but what if she was merely covering for her star pupil? The thought almost made Victoria gag.
Emily’s name in the principal’s manuscript could only mean one thing. Victoria unpacked the evidence as her mind raced.
Item one: Emily had been valuable to Principal Quick, for whatever whacked-out research number she was doing on her.
Item two: Emily had been an inmate at Greyfriars Reformatory before. Maybe the principal had to hit the pause button on her research when Emily had been released from her care. No way Quick was going to lose out on a chance to make her name with Emily around once again. Hell, she had been nothing short of eager to welcome her back into the fold, from what Victoria recalled of the first couple of days. So what if it meant losing a few no-hoper inmates along the way? Emily was back under Principal Quick’s loony microscope.
&nb
sp; Well, Victoria mused, it had backfired on Quick, and spectacularly. Emily had sure made it look like suicide. The bottle. The pills. The only thing that had been missing was a ‘goodbye cruel world’ suicide note. Victoria’s skin crawled at how Emily had feigned her ignorance, and how she had even looked surprised, when they found the principal facedown on her desk like that. But not too surprised. Oh, no. There was something very wrong with Emily, and it began to dawn on Victoria that she was lucky to be alive. How easy would it have been for Emily to kill her while they had been on the smoke run? Maybe Emily was as smart as she was crazy, after all. By having Victoria go with her, and then to discover Jess’s body—
She’s still down there! All bloody.
—down in the basement, it would make her look the total innocent. Then, when Victoria had spoken up about it, she had thought it extremely odd that the principal was so keen to have her show them the closet. The old bitch had been so eager to prove her wrong in front of everyone. The principal had no doubt done it to show Emily that her secret was safe; Victoria was convinced of that now. It was supremely messed up to think that Emily was being allowed to toy with them like that, and to pick them off one by one, while Principal Quick covered up for her each time.
Well, Principal Quick was dead now, too. And good goddamned riddance. Victoria intended to go on living. And she was out of there, just as soon as she—
Victoria stopped and slapped her hand onto her forehead in frustration at her sudden realization.
No keys.
How in the living name of heck was she going to escape without Principal Quick’s keys? She glanced up at the barred window nearest to her in the corridor and, for just a moment, considered doubling back and retracing her steps to Emily. But if she was being brutally honest with herself, she was too scared. Afraid of what Emily might do to her if she showed up at Quick’s office looking for the keys. And that was if Emily hadn’t taken them already. She was too sly not to have done so. Add to that the fact that Victoria didn’t want to be in the principal’s office with the corpse of its owner ever again. She felt a shiver pass over her skin at the memory of that room and its sickly sweet, charnel smell. Victoria gazed at the shadow of the window bars, which stretched across the floor in the moonlight. She refocused on her next best option. There was only one person in the building who could get them out of there. Lena had made light work of lock picking, and hopefully she could do so again. Setting off at a running pace, Victoria headed for the medicine store.