The Burning Girls

by C. J. Tudor

  I stare at him helplessly. “What uh you gunna do?”

  “Well, we’re going to wait till it’s darker and then we’re going for a drive. Just got to get one more thing.”

  He disappears from my sight, leaving the trunk open. I twist and turn, wriggling from side to side, tugging at my restraints, but it’s no good. I think about screaming, but who would hear me, apart from Wrigley, and I don’t want to make him angry. I hear whistling. Wrigley is already returning. He’s limping very slightly—so he did actually hurt his ankle—and he’s carrying a long shape wrapped in stained bedsheets.

  My stomach lurches and my heart fills with horror.

  “No.”

  He smiles. “Sorry, Reverend. It’s going to be a bit cramped.”

  And then he lays Saffron’s rotting corpse in the trunk next to me and slams the lid closed.

  Her blonde hair is pulled back. She’s dressed down in jeans and a baggy hoodie, hands shoved deep in her pockets. Her face looks pale and contrite.

  Flo stares at Rosie. “You know this could be seen as intimidating a witness.”

  “That’s not why I’m here. Honestly. I just need to talk.”

  “Why?”

  “I…I want to say sorry.”

  “Fine. You’ve said it. Bye.”

  “Wait!”

  Against her better judgment, Flo keeps the door open, just a wedge. “What?”

  “Look, I never meant for things to go this far. Really. It wasn’t my idea.”

  “I find it hard to believe Tom has any ideas.”

  “I’m not talking about Tom.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Can’t you tell me out here?”

  “Please? I brought you this back.”

  Rosie holds out a Jack Skellington sweatshirt. The one Flo lent Poppy on their first day here. It feels like a lifetime ago.

  Flo debates with herself. One on one, she can take this bitch. “Fine.” She snatches the sweatshirt and opens the door wider. “But make it quick. My mum will be back in five minutes—and if she finds you here, she’ll actually kill you.”

  They walk into the kitchen and stand stiffly.

  “Well?” Flo says.

  “Look, I know you hate me.”

  “Can’t imagine why. Shooting at me and Wrigley. Throwing him down a well.”

  “I didn’t throw him down a well.”

  “Oh, yeah. It was all Tom, right?”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “No one threw Wrigley down the well.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Did you see us throw him down the well?”

  “No, but—”

  “Don’t you think it was a bit odd that he didn’t hurt himself?”

  “Maybe he was just lucky.”

  “Whose idea was it to meet up there? Wrigley’s, right?”

  Flo stares at her, a horrible dry feeling in her throat. “Yeah.”

  “It was all planned. The bag over your head. The attack. We tied a rope around him and lowered him down into the well. It was a big wind-up.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why would you do that? Why would Tom do that?”

  “Because you broke his nose.”

  “But you hate Wrigley.”

  “Oh, you are so fucking stupid.”

  She moves closer. Instinctively, Flo backs away.

  “Wrigley and me. We’re together. Soulmates.” She smiles. “If it’s any consolation, he did kind of like you. But I couldn’t have that. So, I made him prove himself to me. By fucking with you.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “He told me to come around here.”

  “And I told you—my mum will be home any minute.”

  “No, she won’t.”

  Rosie pulls her hand out of her pocket. She holds the serrated knife. The one from the exorcism kit. The one Flo swore to her mum that Wrigley didn’t steal. Fear crushes Flo’s insides.

  “We’re going to have so much fun, Vampirina.”

  He watches the chapel. He is lying belly-down in the grass behind a tall headstone. He doesn’t dare get any closer. Not yet. Not till it’s darker. Not after her daughter saw him at the window yesterday.

  He mustn’t make any more mistakes. But it’s difficult. He’s in constant pain. He’s tired. His head feels odd, thoughts slumbering around sluggishly. His whole body feels like it’s slowing down on him, stuttering to a halt.

  Earlier, he heard the drone of the police helicopter. Searching. They must have found the bodies. So far, they’ve missed him. But he can’t keep hidden for long. With his filthy clothes, stench and festering ankle, he’s not exactly indistinctive.

  But he’s come so far.

  He needs to see her, to talk to her. That’s all.

  He messed it up last time. Badly. All those years looking for her—his only clue the one letter she had sent him and a faded postmark. And then, he had found her by chance. In a soup kitchen. He had been shuffling along with the other homeless and suddenly she had been there. Smiling, happy, with her white collar gleaming around her neck. He could barely believe it, but he would know his sister anywhere.

  He hadn’t dared talk to her. He had bided his time, watching her, working out the best approach. He had always been like that. A watcher. Slow to act, except when the anger took over. Like with Mum. She had pushed him too far and he had lashed out. Only afterward did he become aware that he had lashed out with a bread knife in his hand.

  It was the same with the husband. That night in the church. He hadn’t meant to hurt him. Well, maybe just a little. After all, he had seen how he treated his sister. How he shouted at her, hit her. He had wanted to punish him. But he went too far.

  When she came to visit him in prison, she had told him she forgave him. But she made him promise not to tell anyone about them. And he had agreed. He knew he had let her down. She had said she would come back. She never did. But he forgives her for that too.

  She’s not there at the moment. Just the daughter. And a girl has arrived. He’s not sure, but he thinks she’s the same girl from last night.

  When the boy first turned up at the derelict house, he had hidden in the cellar. He’d heard voices above him. And then a scream. He had rushed out. Chased off the attackers and freed the girl. When he realized who she was, he had hidden again. She couldn’t see him. Not yet.

  Confusingly, the daughter has just let her attacker inside. He wonders whether he should do something but, for now, he just watches. Watching over his niece, he thinks. His family. He smiles, then yawns. Soon she’ll be home. They’ll be together. At last.

  I’m not sure how long I lie there, in the darkness, lover-close with Saffron’s rotting remains. At first, I lose it. I scream. I kick my heels against the trunk. I feel the fine threads that tether me to sanity snapping one by one.

  And then a tiny part of my brain reaches out and clutches on. You’ve been here before. You survived then. You will survive now. You have to. For Flo.

  I need to keep calm. Focus on something other than the heat, the smell, the irrational fear of movement in the darkness next to me. The sound of gasping, wet breath and skeletal hands fumbling to pull away the soiled sheet.

  Stop it. Just stop it.

  Saffron is dead. And I need to stay alive. For my daughter. Is she still at home with Mike? Have they tried to get hold of me? Are they starting to worry, perhaps thinking about looking for me, calling the police? Or are they giving it more time?

  Time. How long have I been here? I got to the house around four. My perception is warped. Time moves more slowly in the dark, in fear, in pain. But it must be several hours since I arriv
ed. Eight or nine o’clock. The light outside will be fading. Wrigley said he wanted to wait until it was dark.

  Then we’re going for a drive.

  Can he drive? I have to presume so. Not so unusual in the country. Lots of parents have private land and kids start to learn before seventeen. But where are we going? What is he planning?

  I tense. Footsteps on gravel again, the clunk of car doors opening. Something being shoved on to the backseat. A door slams. Then a creak and lowering in the suspension as someone climbs into the front. The engine starts. We’re moving. I’m bashed and bumped around in the trunk, feeling every pothole in the road through the deflated tires. Thrown together with Saffron’s soft, decomposing body, the damp of bodily fluids seeping into my clothes. Then, finally, it’s over. The car lurches to a stop. I lie, breathing harshly, listening. Wrigley climbs out. He’s taking something out of the back. Then suddenly the trunk opens. Fresh air. I breathe it in hungrily.

  Wrigley reaches in and lifts out Saffron’s body. I try to focus my eyes. It isn’t quite dark. Twilight. He’s putting her body in…a wheelbarrow. Draping a blanket over her. But where are we? I can see sky, a sprinkling of stars. To my right, a fence, a gate. I recognize it. The chapel. We’re at the chapel.

  I should scream, cry for help. My tongue feels like it’s working again. Someone might be passing and hear me. As if reading my mind, Wrigley turns and pulls something out of his pocket. He leans in, grabs my hair and stuffs a dirty rag in my mouth.

  “Be right back.”

  The trunk slams shut again. I scream my frustration through the rag. Although Saffron’s body has gone, the smell remains. I try to roll myself into a better position, to ease the cramp in my arms and legs. Why has he brought us here? What the hell is he doing? And what about Flo and Mike? Fear gnaws hungrily at my guts.

  A few minutes later the trunk opens again.

  “Your turn.”

  He is surprisingly strong. I find myself lifted and dumped into the wheelbarrow. With my legs and arms bound and the rag in my mouth, I can do little to resist. I try to look around. We’re in the driveway outside the chapel. The rear of the car is turned toward the church. In the near dark, the quiet of this country lane, you’d be hard-pressed to see anything, except perhaps a shadowy figure pushing a dark lump in a wheelbarrow up the path. There are no lights, only a faint sliver of moon. I feel despair lie heavy in my chest.

  Wrigley pushes the wheelbarrow toward the chapel. My bones rattle. I glance toward the cottage. The lights are on. But is anyone home?

  “Y’know, this has all worked out really well,” Wrigley says conversationally. “I’d been wondering how to get rid of Mum’s body, but discovering the vault was a gift. Where better to dump a body than in a burial chamber, right?”

  The door to the chapel is open. He must have taken my key. He bumps the wheelbarrow over the threshold and wheels me inside.

  “Home sweet home.”

  There is a clunk as the door shuts behind us, the rattle of the key.

  I stare around. The chapel has been lit with candles. Stuffed into bottles and propped on pews, the altar and the floor. I can smell melting wax and another, harsher, chemical smell.

  But that’s not what causes my bladder to loosen.

  A plastic chair has been placed in front of the altar. Above it, draped over the upper banister, dangles a noose.

  Wrigley plucks the gag from my mouth.

  “Now might be a good time to pray.”

  I stare at the dangling noose, realization dawning.

  “It was you. You killed Reverend Fletcher.”

  “Well, technically, he killed himself. Just like you’re going to.”

  He pulls a small sharp knife out of his pocket, bends and slices the plastic tie around my ankles. “Stand up.”

  “No.”

  He tips the wheelbarrow up, and I fall face-first on to the floor, managing to turn at the last moment and land on my side, just missing a lit candle. I can feel the heat from the flame close to my wrist.

  “How? How did you convince him to do it?”

  Wrigley grins, then sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles. A figure emerges from the small office. Rosie Harper. What the hell? She walks over to Wrigley’s side. He grabs her, hooks an arm around her throat and presses the knife against the soft flesh.

  “Get up on the chair, put the noose around your neck or I’ll kill her.”

  “Please. Don’t hurt me.” Rosie’s eyes fill with tears.

  “Do it,” Wrigley snarls. “Or I’ll make it slow.”

  I stare at them both in horror. Then suddenly, Wrigley spins Rosie around and they kiss, long and hard. My limbs feel weak. They both burst into laughter.

  “Her face,” Rosie says.

  Wrigley turns back to me. “It was so easy. That dozy old goat got right up there and strung himself up. You should have seen the look in his eyes when he understood he’d been played.”

  I push myself into a sitting position, wrist hovering over the flame of the candle behind me.

  “Why?”

  “Because when I was in care, before I was adopted, a priest abused me. Is that what you want to hear? You want reasons? You want a neat confession. Like in the movies. Will that make it easier?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Fine. I’ll play. Fletcher was a faggot and a liar. It used to be just me and Mum, but suddenly he’s around the house all the time, talking to her about books and history and shit. Pretending he’s interested in her.”

  “You were jealous?”

  “No. He was using her. He didn’t like her in that way and she couldn’t see it. Stupid bitch. Then, one day, Mum was out and I was in the garden, doing push-ups. Fletcher walked round the back and saw me.”

  “He realized you were faking the dystonia?”

  “Yeah. He said he’d tell Mum, if I didn’t.”

  “She never suspected?”

  “Mum was so wrapped up in her writing I could have grown another fucking head and she wouldn’t have noticed. Plus, she liked the idea of adopting a ‘broken’ one. It’s why I started faking it to start with—to stand out from all the other unwanted brats. But now Fletcher was going to ruin everything.”

  “And he had to die, for that?”

  “I tried to warn him off, to get him to leave—”

  Something else clicks into place. “The Burning Girls pinned to his door. The fire in the chapel?”

  “Stupid fucker wouldn’t take a hint.”

  “And what about Saffron? Why kill her?”

  “The lying faggot told her anyway. She knew something was up when he died. Kept asking all these questions.” He shrugs. “She was just doing my fucking head in—”

  I can feel the skin of my wrists tightening in the heat, but I can also feel the plastic of the thin cable tie softening.

  “I’m not getting up there. I’m not going to make it easy.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  He nods at Rosie and she disappears back into the office. A moment later she reemerges with another thin, pale figure.

  And I realize that he’s right. I’m going to kill myself here tonight.

  He must have fallen asleep (or maybe passed out) for a while. When he opens his eyes, it’s dark. He’s cramped and cold. Shivering. Apart from his ankle, which feels like a lump of molten lava on the end of his leg.

  It occurs to him dimly that passing out, shivering and burning are all signs of an infection running rampant in his body.

  But he can’t deal with that now. He sits up, orienting himself.

  The graveyard. Yes. That’s where he is. Watching out for her. Is she home? His eyes search the cottage. It’s in darkness. But he can see lights flickering in the chapel. No, not lights. Flames. Like candles.

  Why would there be candles
in the chapel? Something is wrong. He can feel it in his gut.

  He fights through the lethargy and pain, pushes himself to his feet and starts to limp, slowly, across the graveyard.

  “Mum!”

  I stare at my daughter. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Are you all right?”

  Her arms are bound behind her. Rosie has a knife pressed into her back. The serrated knife from the exorcism kit.

  “You were right, Mum. All along.”

  I smile sadly. “I hate to say I told you so—”

  “Sweet,” Wrigley says.

  Rosie shoves Flo toward him and he wraps his arm around her neck. He holds out his other hand to Rosie.

  “Honey, I think I’m going to need a bigger knife.”

  She smiles, taking the small knife off him and handing him the serrated one. He presses the blade to Flo’s eye. And, this time, I know he’s not faking.

  “Now get up on the chair.”

  “Mum,” Flo whimpers. “He’s going to kill me anyway.”

  “And I can do it fast or slow. I can cut her up bit by bit while you watch.”

  “Then what? You think you’ll convince people that I killed my own daughter, set fire to the chapel and hanged myself?”

  “You’ve found it hard to settle here, Reverend. You still feel so guilty about what happened at your old church. Really, it was inevitable.” He shrugs. “You know why I like fire? Fire fucks everything up. By the time the police start to piece it all together, we’ll be long gone.”

  “Sussex’s own Bonnie and Clyde.” I look at Rosie. “You really think someone who can do all of this will think twice about getting rid of you?”

  She snarls, “Shut up and get up on the chair.”

  The flame is so hot against my wrists I want to scream, but I feel the tie give. I tug my wrists apart but keep them behind me. Then I get to my feet and shuffle backward toward the chair.

  Wrigley smiles. “See. Told you you’d do it.”

  I turn. But instead of climbing on to the seat, I grab the chair and fling it at Wrigley.