Killer Game

by Kirsty McKay

  Everyone stares, nobody moving. The spider falls to the ground a mere metre away from Emily and starts to skedaddle back into the shadows of the velvet curtains. Emily watches it, and then her head falls back, her eyes roll white, and she sinks to the ground.

  And then suddenly the room is churning. Kids screaming, some laughing, everyone standing up, some pushing forward to see, some cowering back from the drama. Mr Flynn dodges the melee, runs up to Emily and takes the stage with a flying leap. He lifts a foot, which hovers over the spider for a moment—

  ‘No!’ cries Vaughan beside me.

  Mr Flynn’s foot crunches down on the arachnid. ‘Argh!’ he cries. That spider was a lot hardier than he was expecting. He kicks it over the stage. Bits clink off it and bounce on to the floor.

  ‘It’s mechanical,’ Vaughan mutters. ‘A mechanical spider.’

  The staff starts herding, getting us all out of there, pronto. A couple of teachers, plus Mr Flynn, are bending over Emily, who has come round, and is coughing and spluttering.

  ‘Someone get the EpiPen!’ Flynn roars. I try to catch a glimpse of Emily, but all I can see is one outstretched hand, reaching for something. The rest of her is obscured by staff.

  ‘Right, sixth form, you’re out!’ Mr Churley yells at us.

  I make for the door.

  ‘EpiPen?’ says Vaughan excitedly, in my ear. ‘Is she having an allergic reaction?’

  Before I can answer him, the projector screen at the back of the stage starts to unfurl, remotely controlled from somewhere else. Something is written on it, in metre-high letters. I recognize the font before I fully take in the word:

  Killed

  I gasp. There are a couple of screams, and some laughter. Kids who exited the ballroom start to try and come back in to look, and there’s a logjam. Teachers shout, telling everyone to leave, and I weave through the crowd and get the hell out.

  No need to go looking for trouble, it usually finds me soon enough.

  CHAPTER 17

  Trouble finds me straight away.

  The ballroom is evacuated swiftly and more efficiently than I ever thought possible; kids are rushed into the corridor like cows on the way to slaughter.

  A hand grips my upper arm. ‘We need to get a look at that robot spider,’ Vaughan says, pulling me aside under the stairwell. ‘What’s left of it, anyway. Before they sweep it up.’ He thinks fast. ‘You create a diversion; I’ll sneak in and grab the pieces.’

  ‘A diversion?’ I say. ‘Were you actually in the room just now? How do I divert from a robot spider biting a pupil who goes into anaphylactic shock?’

  Vaughan shrugs. ‘Take off your clothes?’

  ‘Isn’t that your thing?’ I begin to walk away, but turn on him before I get swept into the crowd heading out of Main House. ‘Do you really think they’ll let anyone in there? It’s a crime scene, now. Emily actually got hurt, and for all we know, she may die.’

  Vaughan looks amazed. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes!’ I splutter. ‘She collapsed, and Flynn was shouting about EpiPens, you heard him! She has some nut allergy or something. Everyone knows. She’s even got a flippin’ necklace on that tells you so. I would have thought you’d have noticed that with your amazing skills of observation.’

  He looks stricken. ‘The Rod of Asclepius?’

  I raise my eyebrows at him. ‘If you say so. The snake and sword symbol thing that means medicine. On the back of it, it says she’s allergic to stuff.’

  The hallway has cleared. In the distance I think I can hear shouting from the ballroom. Vaughan does too. He edges out from under the stairs and starts to float towards the double doors.

  ‘Vaughan!’ I hiss at him, but he’s not having it. I pad after him. ‘Look, if you must – come with me.’ I grab him and pull him right, along a short corridor and through another door into a second corridor. There’s not much light in here, and I’m perfectly happy with that.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Backstage.’ I hang a left and we find the door. The ballroom isn’t used for theatrical performances often, as we have the amphitheatre and a barn that has been converted into a theatre, but I happen to know there’s a small backstage area to the ballroom stage that is stuffed with chairs and hymn books. Once Daniel was rehearsing in the ballroom for a recital, and we ducked back here for a look.

  I open the door to backstage. A light is on; a reading light balanced on a pile of chairs at the far end of the room.

  ‘Whoa.’ I put a hand on Vaughan’s chest. ‘Someone’s definitely been here.’

  Vaughan pushes past me, starts searching the floor. He whispers to me, ‘Oh – I see, there’s a safety curtain between here and the stage. And here! A gap. Just enough for the spider to be launched.’

  I tiptoe over to him. The thing he’s calling a safety curtain looks more like a sliding door that folds into itself when retracted. Normally it’s locked into place, but someone has pulled it open a little to reveal the velvet curtain which hangs on the stage in front of it. On the other side, we can hear the voices of the people in the ballroom, muffled – and some kind of scrabbling noise.

  ‘They must have moved her from the stage,’ Vaughan whispers. I nod. The voices aren’t very near. We listen for a few seconds. I can recognize Mr Flynn’s voice, and Ms Lasillo, and I think I hear Emily groaning, but it’s hard to make out actual words.

  Vaughan bends low. ‘It’s so dusty in here you can see the marks where someone knelt to line the spider up properly.

  ‘Yeah.’ I trace our steps back a little. ‘Shame we’ve probably scuffed away any footprints with our own.’

  ‘Cate, this isn’t Famous Five,’ Vaughan snarks. ‘What were you going to do, trace a drawing of them?’

  I fume at him, hand on hip. ‘At least we could see what size the Killer’s feet are. Could determine girl or boy.’

  Vaughan sighs. ‘Boy. Do I need to repeat again? Another female victim. A mechanical spider, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘That’s sexist. And pretty ignorant, given the robo girl-geeks we have at this school.’ I give him a look.

  ‘Hmm. Still something very male about sinking your teeth into a girl’s leg.’ He does vampire teeth at me, and I roll my eyes. He chuckles, and continues. ‘So, the Killer places the spider here, and then he’s free to operate it remotely.’ Vaughan moves away from the curtain, on hands and feet, like a monkey, bobbing his head down to look beneath chairs and dusty boxes. ‘What are the chances?’ He reaches under a low table. ‘“Wake up, little spider, wake up.”’ He retrieves something slowly, with a hand-kerchief. He looks at it, being careful not to touch it directly, and then holds it out on his palm to show me. Half a spider’s face, with one googly eye and a little metal fang.

  ‘Be careful!’ I can’t help but warn, even though the thing is pretty mashed.

  Vaughan sniffs it, then places a gentle fingertip under the fang.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I say, alarmed. He rubs the fang, then sucks on his finger.

  ‘Vaughan!’ I say. ‘Are you insane?’

  He mock chokes, then smiles at me. ‘Yum.’

  I shake my head. ‘So go on, tell me. It’s peanut butter, isn’t it?’

  ‘Smooth, not crunchy.’ He nods. ‘The Killer knew about Emily’s allergy.’

  ‘Jeez.’ I shudder. ‘That’s not red paint in the shower, that’s messing with someone’s actual life.’

  Vaughan pushes his sleeves up, and rubs his hands over his hair. ‘It doesn’t make sense, does it? This Kill is completely different from the other three. No, this Killer has a completely different personality.’

  ‘Two Killers?’ I pull a face. ‘Would Alex put two Killer cards in the mix?’

  Vaughan looks at me. ‘You know him better than me, what do you think?’

  ‘Maybe.’ I clear my throat. ‘It would certainly make this Game memorable. Alex would like that.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Vaughan wanders over to the gap in th
e curtain again. ‘Killer number two is maybe forgetting this is all just a game.’

  On the other side of the safety curtain, the noise suddenly ramps up. Vaughan beckons me over, and we crouch together, ears against the gap.

  ‘They’re not here yet?’ It’s Flynn, shouting. ‘Then what’s their ETA?’

  Whoever replies is too far away for us to hear.

  ‘. . . causeway . . . emergency . . .’ It’s Ms Lasillo, but her voice doesn’t carry as far.

  ‘Of course,’ Vaughan whispers to me, his face serious. ‘How does the ambulance get here if the tide is in?’

  ‘Ssh!’ I listen again.

  ‘. . . the lifeboat, although if it wasn’t under control . . . helicopter . . .’ It’s Mrs James, the deputy head.

  ‘By boat or by air.’ Vaughan shakes his head. ‘They’re taking no chances.’

  There are some bumping sounds, and murmurs of instruction, and then everything goes quiet.

  We do a quick scan of the rest of the room, but there’s nothing else to find. Vaughan pockets the spider parts, and we leave.

  The staff has succeeded in getting most students into classrooms, but when the helicopter flies over, there’s little they can do to tear people away from the windows.

  I’m in Psychology, with Marcia, Tesha, Carl, Alex and Daniel, plus a couple of non-Guild. We’re not close enough to Main House to see Emily being stretchered out, but we see the helicopter fly over on its way back to the mainland.

  Our teacher, Ms Carol, puts up no fight as we line the window.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘Emily’s in expert hands now. I’m sure she’ll be all right.’

  ‘She’d better be,’ says Carl, grimly.

  ‘Do any of you know if this was some kind of prank?’ Ms Carol says gently.

  No one speaks. But really, Ms Carol – what else could it be?

  ‘I’m sure no one intended Emily to actually get hurt.’ The teacher fills the gap. ‘Anyway, let’s begin the lesson now.’

  ‘Did they call the police?’ Marcia asks Ms Carol, but the teacher only shrugs.

  ‘I know as little as you. It may be up to Emily’s parents.’ She beckons us from her desk. ‘Let’s all sit down now.’

  As the lesson begins, I’m willing Ms Carol to tell us to do something on our laptops, because then I can surreptitiously log on to Crypt, and see what the chatter is. But perhaps there won’t be any – after all, every Guild member is in the same boat: stuck in a lesson, dying to talk about what’s happened. Except Emily, of course. She could just be, well, dying.

  The first half of the lesson is a discussion, but after a while we’re tasked to begin an essay and everyone breaks out the hardware. As soon as I can, I log on. I’m impressed by how much talk is already going on. I look down the thread from the last half an hour; sooperdooper has been online, as has DeadMcTavish, AllKillerNoFiller, RAW, Banana Hammock and General Disarray. As far as I can tell, those users can’t be in this room, because nobody here has had the opportunity to get online until now.

  Or have they? Daniel had his tablet out, briefly. Carl was called up to look at something on Ms Carol’s machine, and she stepped away from her desk for a few minutes. But it would take balls of steel to log on and post in that short space of time, wouldn’t it?

  As more posts begin to pop up, I look around at my classmates, laptops are being abused left, right and centre. Tesha is sitting with Ms Carol at the teacher’s desk, going through a worksheet. I can tell she’s really frustrated not to get online. I watch users join the fray. 13*is*my*lucky*number appears. Becky_is_Dead starts posting, and IceColdBlonde. Everyone is reaching out for more info on Emily, but no one knows anything.

  Then Alex posts:

  ATTENTION, all members, this is your

  GRAND MASTER.

  Emergency Summoning today @ 6.30 p.m. SHOW

  UP to High Tea; we do not want to draw attention to

  ourselves. Leave promptly when you have finished,

  and go directly to the caves. Do not be late.

  STRICTLY NO MORE POSTS OR MESSAGES

  FROM ANYONE BUT ME ON CRYPT UNTIL

  FURTHER NOTICE.

  The bell rings for end of lesson. I’m just about to shut down my machine, when:

  Skulk

  Death is a debt we all must pay

  Skulk

  (That was Euripides)

  Skulk

  Bitch asked for it

  Skulk

  (That last one I made up all on my own)

  I shake my head and shut down my machine. Whoever Skulk is, they’re a moron. And what do they mean by that, anyway? Is Skulk claiming responsibility?

  As I leave the room, Daniel is standing outside, leaning against the wall, bag of books over his shoulder and the ever-present violin case. He looks at me, and just as I’m about to make some excuse about how I have to run, he leans in and hugs me. Right there and then. In public.

  ‘I’m sorry for how I’ve behaved,’ he squeezes me, his hands rubbing up and down my back. ‘I’ve been a prat.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’ I do the half-reciprocated back pat thing, because I’m completely blindsided by this. In the distance I spy a group of our year heading for the studies. I really hope they don’t see us.

  ‘Let’s just forget about it all, shall we?’ He nuzzles his face into my neck.

  ‘Um, yeah. I’d be happy to.’ I push him off me a little so that he’s at arm’s length, then try to cover it up by looking at him intensely, as if I needed to see him face to face or something. ‘Are you genuinely OK with it all?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiles at me. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and well, with this morning’s events we’re yesterday’s news already.’

  I pull a face. ‘Not for the best reasons.’

  ‘No!’ He drops my arms. ‘Of course not. But every cloud has a silver lining, and this is ours.’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose so.’ I look towards the group of kids, but they’ve gone now. ‘And you’re OK with . . . us?’ I can’t help but blush at the word.

  ‘Totally.’ He nods, picking up his violin case and pulling it in front of him like a shield, running his fingers a little nervously over the big, swirly cat sticker on it. ‘We’re friends. It’s . . . cool.’ He turns round, looking in the direction of where the kids were too, and starts to walk backwards, long fingers drumming on the violin case. ‘Things to do . . .’

  ‘Sure!’ I shout, a little too loudly. I don’t move until he’s disappeared. I should be pleased that he’s over our awkwardness, so why have I got a knot in my stomach?

  CHAPTER 18

  Later that day, in the precious gap between the end of classes and High Tea, I’m in Vaughan’s study. The only news on Emily is that she’s in hospital, and that she’s in a stable condition. There’s a rumour that the police will be coming over to the island when the causeway’s open, later this evening or tomorrow.

  Vaughan’s study is the tiniest of the tiny, and he rooms here alone. It has bare, pale-yellow walls, and is mainly furnished with boxes of junk – oh, sorry, computer parts – that cover every square inch of floor and desk space. He has an oversized beanbag in place of the usual sofa, and in honour of my visit he’s thrown a pile of coffee-stained scatter cushions on top. We’re lying on the resulting squishy nest, side by side, feet up on the radiator. Vaughan is balancing a tablet on his chest, alternating between reading old Crypt posts, and coding something too dense and clever for me to even guess at what it might be. I’m staring out of the window at the sky. The sun shouldn’t set for another couple of hours, but it’s weirdly overcast, and there’s an expectant, pinky twilight in the air.

  ‘It’s Tesha.’ Vaughan’s face is lit only by the light from the tablet.

  ‘What is?’ I watch starlings streak across the sky in a huge swarm.

  ‘Smee,’ Vaughan says. ‘Tesha is Smee, Tesha posted that video.’

  I sit up, abruptly, and look at him. ‘I thought you couldn’
t tell who is who, from the usernames?’

  He shakes his head. ‘This is not a techy thing.’ He snorts. ‘More of a de-techy thing. I was in the girls’ loos an hour ago and I just overheard Anvi, Whitney and Tesha talking. Tesha took the video at the party last term, on her mini video cam. They all knew about it, Alex too, apparently. Tesha was denying she’d posted it, but the others weren’t convinced, and neither was I.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Skimming over the part where you were in the girls’ loos for now – just for now, mind – what makes you think Tesha definitely posted it?’

  ‘Well,’ he places the tablet on the floor, ‘after I heard that, I had a little search in her study.’

  ‘You did?’ I lean on one elbow. ‘Naughty.’

  He shrugs. ‘She gave me reasonable cause. Anyway, I found the mini cam, with the video still on it.’

  ‘What did you do with it?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He does some more typing, then turns around to look at me. ‘Oh. Should I have deleted it?’

  ‘Yes, Vaughan, you should have deleted it,’ I say, exasperated. I say it, and yet what I truthfully would have wanted is for him to bring it to me so that I could delete it.

  ‘She’ll have a copy on her laptop from when she uploaded it, anyway,’ Vaughan says. He stops typing, and faces me. ‘Look, I’ll go back later tonight and delete it. And it won’t take much for me to get on to her machine and wipe it off there, if you want?’

  ‘You’d hack her laptop?’

  He blinks at me. ‘The less you know, the better.’

  The equivalent of twelve long-stemmed roses from him. I smile.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re very welcome.’

  I stretch out on the beanbag nest again. ‘Tesha as Smee makes sense. Smee didn’t post this morning, on Crypt. I was in Psych with a bunch of Guild, and Tesha was the only one who didn’t get on her computer all lesson.

  Vaughan nods. ‘Smee was quiet. So was Clouseau and Nimrod, RAW and CharlotteCorday.’ He smiles at me. ‘And we can deduce that Tesha is one of them – probably Smee – and Emily, of course, has to be one of the others. We’ll work it out when we see who doesn’t start posting again.’