Roadkill (LiveWire)

by Daisy White

  “Hey Farlan! I thought about what you said, you know, doing something I’m good at? Well I used to be a Guide so I figured the woods thing would work okay.” She is chattering away and shivering at the same time. Hmmmm…

  As I smile in what I hope is a reassuring manner and turn away, but she comes close and lowers her voice, “I really need to do this you know. Just to prove them wrong. Hey did you find out about those girls? Sorry I didn’t send you the link, I couldn’t find it again!” She smiles helplessly.

  It means nothing to her, that people have died doing what she is doing, just a little added frisson. I push Leo farther from my mind, and focus on this last task. He’s gone, and the police will catch up with him.

  Frankie’s brother and his mates seem pretty chilled out, and certainly aren’t putting any pressure on her at the moment, but perhaps it’s different when they’re at home. Whatever. I hope she makes it.

  I am looking everywhere for Kelly, and realise this is stupid as everyone is in dark hoodies and jeans. The only clear photo of her on LiveWire is a head and shoulders shot, and she has no distinguishing features. To be honest she looks a bit like Melissa. I text her but get no reply. Weird as she was so keen to get me out here.

  Our phones bleep with instructions and I follow the boys under the huge sombre trees. Our feet scrunch on already fallen leaves, and it smells of damp earth.

  “Okay, this is it,” Ludo says, excitement shaking his voice slightly.

  Frankie, by contrast is now a bit quiet. I don’t want to ask her what’s wrong because then she might freak out again, so we wait in silence, huddled with about fifteen other teenagers. We all jump in shock as a masked man slides from the brambles, and pulls something from a sack. For a crazy, terrified second I think it’s a gun and turn to run, then I realise, as a relieved rumble of laughter scatters the crowd, it’s masks.

  Still no Kelly and I text her again, annoyed now, that I came out for her and the stupid cow hasn’t turned up. Maybe she’s still in L.A. and it’s her idea of a joke…

  Grotesque Halloween type masks, with tiny narrow slits where the eyeholes should have been. The thin elastic pulls my hair as obediently I slip mine over my head. Responding to my sudden loss of sight my other senses kick in and I am acutely aware of the smell of aftershave, a rough touch on my arm as we are herded into a truck, a frightened whimper from one of the kids. I can’t tell if it’s male or female, because I’m slightly, okay a lot freaked out by this dare.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’m not the only one, there are mutterings and a girl says she wants out. As per the rules it’s too late for that and our driver yanks the truck to a halt and tells us we have to keep our masks on, look out for ‘obstacles’ and get back out of the wood in two hours. Two hours! St Peter’s wood isn’t that big, perhaps ten miles wide, and I’m starting to think this is going to be easy after all.

  I set off with the main group at an easy jog down the big ride, someone has GPS on his phone and calls it’s this way, which is kind of stupid actually, as we’re all in competition. Seconds later the two leaders yell and there is a crack as a tree branch crashes across the path. Wow, even though I am struggling with night blindness and the stupid mask I can see that that was really close. There is further screaming as someone shouts there is electric wire down the side of the path. The panic scatters the herd and I take a deep breath to stop myself joining them. I haven’t got satellite navigation on my phone but I know this place, and even in the dark I should be able to find my way carefully back to the car park.

  Just think, I tell myself if I can do this I get my third star. A little voice deep inside pipes up (it is the same voice that recently informed me short black hair and mini-skirts don’t suit me) this is the last time. Rose is dead and I have to accept her death. I must actually get on with my life. Mine, not pretending to live hers. I’m so deep in thought I have dropped way behind and suddenly the wood is very, very quiet. My soft breathing feels like a lion’s roar, and my foot cracks a twig like a gunshot.

  For a moment I think I’m imagining it but there is definitely someone close behind me, creeping as I am, through the undergrowth, but are they headed for the car park or stalking me? Tiny hairs on the back of my bare arms prickle with that animal instinct of the hunted. To make sure I change course slightly, and he follows. I know now it’s a him, because I smell that naff lemony aftershave. It’s familiar because Leo wears it….oh my god. Surely not? He must know the police are after him, or he wouldn’t have disappeared. Wouldn’t be on a plane to Mexico. Wouldn’t know somebody betrayed his little secret…And he must know it’s down to me…

  “Leo?” I hiss into the darkness, and an owl swoops low in front of my face, feathers almost brushing my cheek. A mouse squeaks in terror.

  Just for a second as I shrink into the tree cover, it occurs to me that I am scared of my own best friend. Who just happens to be a murderer, who also is supposed to be in Mexico. So why is he now stalking me in the woods? My heart is thumping like I’ve drunk a double expresso shot, and I look cautiously around. A couple of yells from different parts of the wood and a loud splash tells me my fellow LiveWire crew are struggling.

  “Leo!” I shout it now, shaking with fear, my voice harsh and strained.

  A figure materialises from behind a tree, and the faltering moon lights its evil clown mask, its right hand moving upwards, with a glitter. Without stopping to make sure I turn and flee, leaping over brambles, trick wire, whatever. I don’t stop running until I come up against a wood and wire fence about ten feet high. In my terror, running from the masked man and his knife, I have of course, gone wrong. The deer park that borders the west of the wood stretches as far as the Road, and as I hear what I think are running footsteps behind me I swarm up the wire without a second thought, leaning to twist and swing. The wet grass drenches my clothes but it is long and stretches way above my head. For a moment I force myself to hold my breath, listening, tearing off the stupid mask, and blinking in the moonlight.

  He is gone. And I’m gone too. Enough of these stupid games. I don’t need a star to prove I can handle myself, I already know it. Like a lightning bolt this new knowledge calms and steadies me, and even when more screams and the sound of gunshots (fake, I tell myself firmly, an airgun maybe) ring out I ignore them, making my way steadily towards to road, and home.

  A herd of miniature deer, raise their elegant necks to survey this strange creature invading their habitat, but I guess instinct tells them I’m just passing, a fellow creature of the night. At long last my phone flashes with a message from Kelly:

  ‘So sorry babe, my mum is in hospital, had to fly back straight away. Gutted to have missed u but catch up on LiveWire soon!’

  Or not. I’m done with LiveWire, and is it my nasty suspicious mind or am I right in thinking Kelly was never in the UK. She just wanted me out on the dare tonight. Exhaustion suddenly sweeps over me in a great wave, and absurdly I feel like crying. Another fence protects the deer from The Road and I climb this one with my last tiny bit of strength, swinging leaden legs over the wooden railing at the top, dropping heavily down onto the embankment.

  My stupid imagination has conjured Leo into the woods, I think exhaustedly; the whole thing is just a crazy fantasy and I’m really insane. Like all those dumb books and films that end with the heroine waking up and going thank god for that, it was just a dream. In the back of my mind, I know this won’t happen, because real life isn’t like that.

  I snap back to the present, and realise I am way too far from the bridge, but I can cross The Road and end up more or less directly on our street, climbing the other side where Matt and I sat on Tuesday.

  Shoving my phone in my pocket I slide on my bum down the slippery slope, make a stumbling jump over the ditch and crawl up the next bit of slope to the edge of the Road. Rose seems very close. Perhaps she even did this. Tired after her row with Ashley, short cutting home, misjudging the traffic, even as I now squint at the fierce headli
ghts on an oncoming stream of cars. Goosebumps make me pause, wary, then I push them away. I’m imagining things. I wait for a gap then run carefully for the crash barrier. No traffic.

  I did it. Jubilant I trek up the far bank, glancing with a pang at the green hollow of yellow and white flowers. Panting, I am hanging onto a stunted blackthorn tree for additional support when a hand comes down over mine. For a second I think it’s Matt, so close is he to the surface of my thoughts.

  “Hallo Caz. You’ve been a long time. Congratulations on crossing The Road. I didn’t think you’d have the bottle!”

  I snap my wrist down and away like they taught us at self defence class, but he laughs and hauls me bodily to the top of the bank. We are still behind the hedge, and he laughs again at my fear, which comes roaring back at the sight of him.

  “Leo! What are you doing? Why aren’t you in Mexico?” I stop fighting and sit where he has placed me, so we face each other like judge and jury, or perpetrator and victim.

  “Mexico? Why would I go there Caz?”

  “But you…..the police said you went through security at the airport. They saw you on the cameras!” I’m bewildered.

  “Oh dear Caz, how silly you are,” he adopts an adult, condescending tone, “It was someone who looked like me. I’m quite good at getting people to do things you know, although I did have to pay him,” he smiles to himself, a huge private joke.

  “Was that you in the wood?” I snap, fear fuelling anger. How dare he treat me like this. My supposed best friend. I inch my phone round, ready to dial 999. Because Leo looks different, gone are the glasses the gentle goofiness, the chinos and stupid plaid shirts. He even looks taller, more threatening. In the half light his eyes are flecks of ice, contemptuous and unfeeling.

  “Yes Caz, I came out to play Teddy Bears’ Picnics with you. Disregarding your rather unhelpful intervention with the police, I wanted to help you get your star you see. Only one more and you would have equalled what Rose did in her first month. Sad that you didn’t make it, it being your last one and all.” He waits expectantly to see the impact of his jibe.

  “But I told you I wasn’t going out tonight,” I’m floundering, trapped in my nightmares, and very aware that in his right hand is the knife I saw in the woods. A small sharp bladed scalpel, almost like a boy scout thing, but deadly enough to kill. I know with a flash of clarity through my sick terror that I have to get away. My best friend is mad at me, and, looking into those eyes, just plain mad.

  He laughs, “But you told Kelly you were.” He waits, passing his touch over his lips like a snake ready to eat, lean body coiled and ready to strike.

  “You know Kelly? Did she really come over…where is she?” Visions of Kelly lying dead in the woods clouds my brain, but I manage to dial the first 9, with a shaking, sweaty thumb.

  “You stupid bitch. I thought you were smart Caz! I am Kelly.” He scowls and looks sternly at me, as if a favourite pupil has just got an E.

  “You….,” words fail me but I have to keep him talking because I manage to dial the last 9 and, am getting ready to bolt.

  “Come on Caz, work it out. Kelly is just a phantom member of livewire. When I first set it up I knew I wanted those stupid teenagers to take as many risks as possible, so I made sure I sprinkled a few ‘dummies’ on the forums. If they looked like backing out I made the dummy do better, and brag about it. It worked so well I don’t do it much now, just in special cases. Actually if I hadn’t been tracking Rose on LiveWire, via Kelly of course, I would never have found you. Ironic isn’t it?”

  Blood is draining from my face and I bite my lip to stop from crying out, “Rose? She was Rose’s friend before I started on LiveWire. Why did you need to….oh my god….you were always going to kill both of us, weren’t you? Weren’t you?”

  “No. Only you Caz. Rose just got in the way.” He is complacent, laughing, actually turning away to light a cigarette, sure of my obedience.

  Now! I shove him as hard as I can and then run as I have never run before, like a hare for home. Down the typically deserted road, yelling details into my phone in a hope that the call has connected. Because I know he will be after me and it won’t be long before he catches up. My legs are like jelly and my lungs raw with effort. Please let them be home. But the drive is still empty, and I waste valuable seconds fumbling with shaking fingers for the door key, dropping my phone, which, I note as I throw myself indoors and lock and bolt the door behind me, has no signal, not even the emergency one. The one remaining battery bar flickers and dies.

  A key turns in the back door, and I remember far too late I gave Leo a spare key in case I locked myself out.

  *

  “Did you always hate me?”

  He thinks about this, lanky legs crossed, hands behind his head, slobbing on my bed like he has done practically every day since we met. For a moment it’s all a nightmare and I am waiting to wake up. And waiting….Just for a second, a flicker of humanity, a tiny bit of old Leo struggles to break through, then it’s gone and his thickly lashed eyes are icy cold.

  “Yes.” He smiles at my terror, “But then I do hate most people, especially, it has to said, stupid, arrogant teenagers. That’s why I started LiveWire in the first place. I knew they wouldn’t be able to resist. It’s only a shame more haven’t died.”

  I must have made some small sound of protest, because he silences me with a cruel hand.

  “The weak ones always need a bit of help of course. My dad used to think I was like that. I can still hear him say it; “You stupid kid, you’d jump off a cliff if I asked you to. You’ll never get anywhere in life.” Lost in the past he brushes his hair back and for second is Leo again; “That was the day before he left.”

  A tiny spark of pity creeps into my head, until I remind myself he is mad, and will say anything, do anything just to get inside my head, mess with my mind. Like he messed with Rose’s. And those other girls…

  “I didn’t like it Caz, when I heard you wimping out at the fairground, but I felt something. I suppose,” he takes on a pious, lofty expression, “I felt I could help you achieve something. Before we came to the edge of that cliff of course!”

  Higham Nature Reserve. Our little camping trip at the top of the quarry. Of course. Dimly I remember how all three murdered girls fell, or were pushed, from a height. An actual cliff top, a mine shaft, some rocky headland…..

  That’s how my body would have been found, I think crazily, sprawled like a macabre doll amongst the rusting machinery, and weed strewn rocks at the foot of the cliff.

  Sick. He is sick.

  Chapter Twenty

  Some whiplash of anger flashes across my brain, and it’s out before I can think of the consequences, “But you didn’t help me did you? You destroyed my family. Is that really why you killed Rose? So you could get on with your stupid game?”

  Fury ebbs and flows, a cloud across his face, and his mouth twists in an effort to contain the emotions. One hand shoots out and grabs my wrist, twisting it until I cry out. Calm again he leans closer and smiles with those mad, mad eyes.

  “Yes. But I enjoyed it. It made me sick the way she trod all over you, and you just took it! When I first saw that stupid picture she put on LiveWire, of you two on the horses, I knew what I had to do. That you would be the next one. And your sister was so dumb! She told me all about you, even, in the end, where to meet you….It wasn’t chance you found your ‘soul mate’ at the fairground that night Caz.”

  “What do you mean?” Breathe Caz, breathe. Even though I could have guessed most of what he is now telling me it freaks me out.

  He ignores my question, still ranting, “But mostly I killed her because she was in the way. So confident.” He spits the word, “So determined that life would go exactly the way she wanted it. She found out you see, and she was going tell you, which would have ruined everything. It was our private game; yours and mine. I had to show her what happens when somebody else takes charge. Teach her a lesson. I put those pills in
her bottle of vodka. We always do shots before a dare, it’s a nice little ritual that I started.” He looks at me for approval, but I am frozen with fear.

  I’m also trying to process the first part of this tirade; trod all over me? Is that what he thought? Matt’s words come back to me ‘…she liked to keep you as her little sidekick, you never got a chance to be yourself.” They are wrong, so wrong.

  I try to read between the lines, “How did she find out about you? You mean the Alexander thing don’t you. Did she know about….about the other girls? And LiveWire?”

  He waves a dismissive hand, “She suspected something. Tried to talk to me in that patronising way she had. ‘You know Leo it’s okay if you aren’t gay. You don’t have to decide yet.’ But yes, eventually she chipped away at my private life until she found out all about Alexander. Not, of course about my game, just enough to ruin everything though. You would hardly trust me if you though I was an imposter, even an idiot like you.

  She was going to tell you that night, but after her row with Ashley she just wanted to forget her problems. I met her in the park. She was crying. I’ve never seen Rose cry…,” he muses for a moment, lost in the memory. “Anyway, I told her she was right about me, but convinced her to do a dare that night. Just me and her. She won, I had to tell you everything. I won and she had to keep quiet.”

  That must have been when she kept asking me if everything was alright between me and Leo, trying to get me to admit I fancied him, “Did she see you with Lia?”

  He snorts, “No, with another girl. Another girl, another dare.” Leo studies me objectively, “Lia looked a bit like you I suppose.”