Killing Woods

by Lucy Christopher

  51

  Emily

  On the ceiling behind Mack’s left ear is a sketch of a wolf. It’s snarling, blood dripping from its teeth. There’s another one beside my shoulder. I’m surrounded.

  How could I have ever thought that the wolf in these pictures was Dad? Dad is slighter and short. His eyes are pale and watery and his expression hesitant. He’s more like a bird, something fragile. There’s nothing of the wolf in him.

  Mack is shouting something at me, something about Damon. Does Mack know? Did he see these pictures as soon as he got down here and work it all out? I’m dizzy and need to leave. But Mack is standing in my way.

  I push at him. ‘Let me through!’

  Mack shakes his head. ‘Damon’s my mate, my brother …’

  I push him harder. I’m not going to stay here, not with him, not with those pictures.

  ‘You’re not going to the police!’ he shouts.

  And there’s another sound. Above us, on the forest floor, coming closer. Footsteps. For the second time tonight. I feel Mack’s fingers go stiff where he’s been grabbing my arm. We wait.

  When I look up at the bunker hole, Damon is there. He’s peering in, squinting at both of us then looking at the candles. Did he see the light and follow it? Hear us? He looks so confused.

  ‘Mack?’ he says.

  But he’s looking at me. Wide eyes. There’s blood or dirt or something on his face, his hair’s stuck up everywhere. His chest is heaving like flanks.

  Mack lets go of me. ‘I’ve been looking for you, Damo! All bloody evening!’

  Only then does Damon drop my gaze and stare at Mack instead. I press myself to the wall. I have to get out of here, but there’s two of them now to get around. Damon is crouching over the entrance, he’s jumping down into here! I step away from them both and want to melt through these walls, want to dig myself up to the surface, make a tunnel. I can see it so clearly now … the long taut body, the focused expression, the long nose and muscly shoulders and those eyes. Those exact same dark and fiery and exhausted eyes! Those eyes are here in this bunker, right now, with me.

  I have to leave.

  But Damon is coming towards me like he’s about to say something. Mack grabs his shoulder fast.

  ‘She thinks it’s you, Damo,’ Mack says. ‘If you don’t stop her, she’ll go to the police.’

  This makes Damon snap around to him. I breathe out slowly, inch along the wall.

  ‘Good!’ Damon’s voice is loud.

  He thrusts his shoulders into Mack’s chest and pushes him back, makes him stumble. Mack’s got his hands up, but he’s not shoving him away.

  ‘Mate!’ I hear him say. ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘I saw the film, Mack!’

  I stop moving, listen.

  ‘You been keeping secrets!’

  I’m almost under the entrance hole when I see Damon grab Mack by the throat with one hand and reach into his pocket with the other. He takes out a phone, waves it in Mack’s face.

  Mack’s body goes slack as he sees it. ‘Where’d you get that?’

  ‘You know where!’ Again Damon pushes Mack, so hard I hear something crack on the bricks.

  Mack gasps for breath. ‘I didn’t … I didn’t do anything!’

  I look from Mack’s eyes to Damon’s. Mack’s hands are flailing towards the gun slit as Damon’s grip tightens on his neck. I’m under the entrance hole now. I just need to jump up so my hands can find the ledge, wedge my feet into the sides, climb up, and I’m gone.

  ‘Tell me what’s going on!’ Damon’s yelling. ‘What did you do, Mack? What happened that night?’

  I don’t jump for the ledge. Instead I turn back and see Damon still waving that phone about. I see that it’s beaten about and covered in dirt.

  ‘I didn’t do anything!’ Mack roars, finally throwing Damon off him. ‘I didn’t!’

  He’s furious, red-faced, and he’s looking at me now.

  ‘You should stop her!’ he says. ‘Seriously!’

  His dark, glinting eyes reflect the candlelight. I don’t move. Not yet. I’m still wondering about that phone.

  ‘She’ll go to the police,’ Mack repeats. ‘She’ll tell them everything about us … the Game, Ashlee …’

  His lips are curled back as he speaks. I see the wolf in him so clearly that I almost gasp. That makes me reach up, makes me grab the edge of the entrance hole.

  ‘Stop!’ Mack yells, and he lunges.

  But Damon’s after him, pulling Mack back. He holds the phone out of Mack’s way and he looks right at me.

  ‘Let her go to the police,’ he says.

  There’s a challenge in Damon’s eyes, like there was when we were on the Leap together last week, like when he held his hand like a gun.

  Mack uses that moment to grab Damon, to get him in a headlock. I bring my feet up until my toes are against the wall, start to climb. But Damon is still looking at me, and that look is desperate, pleading. That’s when Mack knocks the phone out of his hand. It skitters across the concrete, comes to rest just underneath me. And I don’t think. I just drop back down into the bunker and I reach for it.

  52

  Damon

  I’m going to kill him.

  And I have to, don’t I? After what I saw … after what he did. But he’s shouting something. About how we’re brothers, how we look after each other, how we don’t tell no secrets. He’s saying it wasn’t his fault.

  ‘We got each other’s backs!’ he yells. ‘Always! I didn’t do nothing!’

  He’s not going to have a chance to tell nothing more. Because I’m stopping his voice, stopping his air. Stopping him. I hear Emily’s footsteps above, racing away.

  I press my hands round his neck. ‘How hard do I push?’ I ask him.

  His eyes go wide.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I saw it all mate.’ I say the last word like I’m mocking him. ‘I saw those films you made.’

  And I’m thinking of Ashlee falling down. About how Mack laughed.

  ‘What were you playing at?’ I shout.

  I need answers. Need to hurt him. I don’t know which I need most.

  ‘She wanted it,’ he’s saying. ‘I swear!’

  ‘Why would she want that …?’

  Words catch in my throat. I’m thinking something else – remembering. Ashlee had placed my hands on her that night. I’d felt her neck between my fingers, her pulse. I remember her daring me.

  I twist away and Mack slams me to the side of the head.

  ‘Get a grip!’ he shouts. ‘It was Shepherd, OK – him! You know this! I would never have hurt Ashlee … not intentionally, not …’

  His voice is shaky, unable to finish.

  I’m stumbling across the bunker, seeing flashes of light from where Mack’s just punched me.

  ‘You don’t know shit!’ Mack’s saying. ‘You don’t know what I did with Ashlee, what it meant.’

  My stomach clenches. Mack and Ashlee kept secrets. Ashlee did things with Mack she didn’t do with me. Mack’s just admitted it.

  I glare at him nasty. ‘You chased Ashlee! You chased her and then you …’

  ‘No,’ Mack says. ‘You don’t understand!’

  Something’s coming together, though. It’s so big and terrible, it hits me like a tsunami. I don’t want to face it, because I know that soon as I do, there’s no going back. There’s nothing! It’s just the getting flattened, the drowning. The blackness and emptiness of knowing that …

  ‘You killed her!’ I scream. ‘It was you! You!’

  I feel my jaw and my throat tense. There’s streaks of pain shooting through me. But I grab Mack and push him so hard he makes a thudding noise against the bunker wall.

  ‘You!’ I shout. ‘You wrapped your fingers around her. You squeezed.’

  And he made me believe it was Shepherd, all this time! I think of Emily running hard to the police station – I want her to get there faster.

  I push Mack again. His arm splays
out towards the candles, scatters them – I see sparks of light in the air. I hear the lamp smash. But I can’t stop. Not until I know why. Not until I hurt him as much as he hurt her.

  ‘What were you doing?’

  He’s moving his head sideways, much as I’ll let him, he can hardly get words out. ‘A different game,’ he gasps.

  I’ve got my fingers round his neck, and I’m squeezing ’til I see red lines through his eyeballs, ’til his look goes kind of vacant. Did he see that in Ashlee’s eyes too, that night? Did he keep going anyway? I’m shaking so much I don’t know how hard I’m pressing. But I’m seeing his big dirty hands all over her, and I’m hearing his wide mouth laughing as she fell … and I don’t want to listen to his excuses. Don’t even want to look at him. I just want to squeeze, do it hard.

  ‘I saw it all!’ I yell again.

  I just want him hurt. And I still have Ashlee’s collar in my pocket. I could wrap this around Mack’s neck and draw it up tighter than I ever done before, ’til he coughs and gasps. And maybe that would be right.

  ‘Not brothers any more,’ I say.

  53

  Emily

  I’m running – stumbling – heading for the track to my house. When I get there I’ll keep going, all the way to the police. I hold the phone tightly in my hand. I can still hear them shouting in the bunker behind me, fighting. Damon is yelling and yelling. If this phone even works, I should stop and use it to call the police. The ambulance too. Because, from these sounds I can hear back there, it’s like Damon and Mack are going to kill each other. I hear a huge shout, then a smash like the lamp’s gone over. I’m breathing hard when I slow up and lean against a tree. I’m not sure I can leave, not with all that.

  I look at how scratched and dirty this phone is, wonder where Damon found it. What did he see on it to make him so mad?

  My hands are shaking, but I’ve got to do it. I can’t leave until I know. So I start pressing at the phone, my fingers fumbling. There are so many films here, though. Which one was Damon meaning when he was shouting at Mack? I click on the last one, press to make it play. The film starts dark and jolty, I can make out trees. A camera flash goes on and it turns the branches white and brittle. There’s black sky. I can’t tell much else. But there are voices, somewhere off-screen. Laughter. Rain? Definitely wind – I hear that battering, whooshing sound against the speakers.

  What’s going on?

  Then I hear it – Ashlee’s voice. She’s speaking in a high-pitched and singsong way; she’s on this film.

  ‘Seven seconds!’ she’s saying. Least that’s what I think she says. ‘Let’s go, baby!’

  There’s another voice in the background too, I can only just make it out. A boy’s? It’s low and murmuring. A high-pitched laugh makes me jump – Ashlee’s. It’s as if she’s here, right next to me in this wood, she sounds that close.

  ‘Damon’s passed out again,’ she says. ‘He didn’t want to play anyway …’

  What’s she on about?

  The image blurs as the phone moves again. I breathe in hard. Now it’s Ashlee’s face on the screen – it’s real and close and so alive, her eyes are shining like an animal’s. This time she’s speaking directly to the camera.

  ‘Fairyland!’ she’s saying. ‘There’s only one person left to take me.’ She leans so close to the camera that all I can see is her lips, perfect and plump. ‘You,’ she whispers.

  It’s like she’s talking directly to me, that’s how it feels. I press my head against the tree trunk and look up at branches, I send my breath up to the leaves in puffs. In this film Ashlee is wearing green – the same shade as she was wearing the night she died. There’s something around her neck. My stomach twists. Something horrible is on this film and I’m about to watch it. I’m about to see what made Damon mad enough to get so angry with Mack. I don’t know if I want to. But I have to know the truth. And this was filmed that night. Wasn’t it? It has to have been. So I wrench my eyes back. Because this is important, it’s the missing piece. It could be.

  On the screen, Ashlee’s mouth pulls back into a smile. I watch her mouth words at the person behind the camera.

  ‘Take me,’ she says. ‘Dare you!’

  The image jolts. I see trees flash past, blurred bodies: two of them.

  ‘I can’t hold this and do it too!’

  That voice is different. Louder. Excited. I know that voice.

  Mack’s.

  He was the one filming this. He was there with Ashlee.

  There’s a dull thudding sound like something being kicked. Then the camera goes black, like it’s being held against clothing.

  ‘He’s not coming round any time soon.’ Mack’s voice, muffled.

  ‘Useless!’ That’s Ashlee. ‘Serves Damon right for …’ And I don’t catch that bit, but she’s laughing and laughing. The camera moves again. ‘Come on, do you want my collar or not? Game’s not over yet.’

  I hear footsteps. The camera moving in a rhythm, pointing down towards the ground. They’re walking. I see dirt and leaves and fallen twigs. My mouth is full of something foul-tasting, water I can’t swallow. I don’t want to keep watching this – don’t want to see what’s coming next. But I won’t turn it off.

  ‘Hold the phone in your mouth, Mack!’ Ashlee’s voice, loud. ‘When you do it … I want to see my face when I—’

  And they’ve stopped now.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Bite the case in your teeth – you know how!’

  ‘Fine!’

  I hear wind whooshing, a loud rumble – thunder? Then the image goes close up on Ashlee’s face, on her neck too.

  ‘Are we making a deal?’ she says.

  Her fingers are unbuckling whatever it is that’s fastened around her neck, the thing I’d caught a glimpse of before. It’s some sort of collar I think, like something you’d put on a dog. It’s pink. There’s a mumbling sound – Mack saying something, trying to, but maybe the camera is in his mouth now like Ashlee suggested.

  The image jolts again and I see two hands – Mack’s? They stretch into the shot and wrap around Ashlee’s neck. Just like that. She doesn’t stop him. She even smiles a little.

  ‘Fairyland,’ she says, nodding.

  I breathe deep, force myself to keep my eyes on this. I don’t understand it. Why is Ashlee letting him do this? Why isn’t she struggling? Trying to get away? I want to shout at her – warn her – I want to jump into this film and grab Mack’s hands. I want this to stop! Because it looks like Mack is squeezing her neck, and he’s doing it harder. And harder. Ashlee’s breathing is changing, getting more laboured and rattly, like there’s fluid stuck in her throat. Her face is flushing red, her eyes going distant.

  ‘Stop,’ I whisper. ‘Please.’

  Mack is squeezing so hard that Ashlee’s eyes roll back. But still, Mack keeps his hands there. Keeps squeezing. I want to scream. Want to do something! But what can I do now? Ashlee’s eyes flicker. Shut. I’m gripping the phone so hard I’m scared it’s going to break. And still Mack keeps going. Ashlee starts to fall. Her head tips forwards towards the camera and the image jerks. It goes black. My lungs go tight. I wait.

  What’s happened?

  Then the image is moving again, pointing at trees and clothes, there’s that rustling sound of things touching the speaker. And then … Ashlee’s face. Her eyes are closed, and her head is lying back on the forest floor. I stare. Is she dead? Is this how it happened? Did Mack just do it, like that? So calmly? Like it was just a game? Why didn’t she struggle?

  The image goes black again, fast, like Mack’s dropped the phone.

  ‘You did it!’ I hear him saying, over and over. ‘How was it, baby?’ The image stays on black. ‘Ash?’ I hear. ‘Ashlee?’

  There are more rustling sounds against the speaker.

  Still black.

  ‘C’mon, Ash, you coming round?’

  I can hear him shaking her – I think this is what those noises must be – I can hear him sta
rting to sound more desperate too as he calls her name. There’s the sound of the wind. Rain. Mack’s breathing, loud.

  Then even those noises stop. I tap the screen, try to make the film keep going. But it’s finished. The end. I shut my eyes up tight, make myself breathe.

  I should be racing for the police station, should be doing anything other than just sitting here. But I think I’m starting to understand something. Already my fingers are moving to open up the next film back, and I’m starting to watch it. And I’m listening out for the noises in the bunker behind me.

  54

  Damon

  Someone is shouting at me. Grabbing my arm. ‘You have to stop!’

  Emily? She’s back? She’s pulling me. And there’s a different noise too, like crackling. A heat.

  ‘Stop!’

  I let her wrench me away.

  Mack’s cowering on the floor. His eyes are shutting like he’s going unconscious. I did that? But he’s moving – just – I think he is. My face feels sticky, hot. I put my hand up to it and find something dark. Red. Blood? It’s everywhere. Where from? Emily tries to turn me.

  ‘We have to get out!’

  She’s dragging me – trying to – but I won’t let her pull me away from him, not entirely, because I ain’t finished yet … I can’t have. He’s still got some movement in him.

  ‘Fire!’ Emily yells. ‘There’s flames!’

  I see it then, behind her: flames where the lamp has fallen over. They’ve caught on the pile of wood in the corner, they’re moving up Shepherd’s chest of drawers. It’s not a big fire, not yet, but it might not take long.

  ‘Come on!’

  I let her drag me. And somehow I make my hands into a step so I can get Emily out of the entrance hole first. Because even when I don’t know what’s going on, I know she’s done something for me … stopped something. I know it’s not fair for her to get trapped here too. But as I’m coming up after her, she’s leaning down and she’s still shouting at me.

  ‘Mack! Get Mack! You can’t leave him!’

  I look back and he’s still there, still half-unconscious. It won’t be long before the fire is right beside him, smothering him, making him choke. I want to let it. I want to let him suffer for what he did to Ashlee … for being a liar and not a brother at all. But I can’t, can I? Even now I can’t do that. And Emily is screaming something else.