“Chloe? Why are you wearing my clothes?”
Identical hair aside, their dress-sense was different. Chloe favoured tighter, more suggestive clothes, and Cassie was a lot more conventional in her tastes. Not dowdy, but not as showy as Chloe. Right now, Chloe was wearing her long, hippy skirt that she had picked up from Bristol market and one of her plain, fitted white t-shirts that she wore more often than not.
“I didn’t bring enough. It’s not a problem, is it? I didn’t think that you’d mind.”
“I don’t like you wearing my clothes,” she said primly.
The worst feeling curdled in her guts, but she wasn’t sure why.
But then, she reasoned, perhaps she did. Perhaps it had something to do with her mum chucking her out. Because in her heart, she knew that whatever relationship they may have once had – no matter how poor – was well and truly over.
“Maybe you should get changed, dear,” their mum said to Chloe. “Cassie was about to start packing, weren’t you?” She turned her icy-blue gaze onto Cassie. “Cassie was just telling me that she’s leaving today, isn’t that right dear? Some drama with the house share, she has to go back.”
Cassie fought back the tears.
“Yeah. That’ right.”
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Chloe said, doing a very good impression of someone that cared.
“What’s happening?”
Their father appeared in the room, and Chloe stepped to one side to allow him to enter. He smiled sweepingly at them all, but Cassie knew that there was no real emotion behind it. She observed him objectively, for perhaps the first time seeing him without the veil of hurt feelings that had always clouded her judgement.
He was wearing a white shirt and jeans – he always wore crisp, white shirts, it was somewhat of a trademark look of his. Like their mother, he was a good-looking man. Tall, just on the right side of fat. Dark hair, and quick, dark eyes. He was square-jawed and conventionally handsome, with the academic credentials to boot.
Yes, he was quite the catch.
Cassie glanced at the clock – it was just gone five. Sometimes, like today, their father showed his face before dinner, before disappearing into the office again after. Unless he was going out with their mother, that was. Not once could she remember him spending an evening with them when they were growing up. Not once.
“Hi Dad,” Chloe smiled. “I’m glad we’re all together, there’s something I want to share with you all. We’re identical in every single way, aren’t we, dear sister? Apart from one, tiny thing. Our fingerprints. That is an absolute pain, but it is not insurmountable.”
Cassie’s stomach somersaulted.
“What are you talking about?” their mother asked. “I think you should perhaps go and get changed, your sister needs to pack…”
From the waistband of her skirt at her back, she pulled out a small gun and pointed it at her mother. The nozzle seemed abnormally long and thin – Cassie was no expert as this was the first time that she had seen a gun in real life, but she still knew what she was looking at. She was looking at a silencer.
“Cassie? What the hell are you doing?” their father asked.
Chloe threw back her head and laughed.
“See, even our own parents can’t tell us apart. I’m dressed like you, Cassie, therefore I am you.”
Cassie’s head reeled, and not least because her own father had just assumed that it was her standing there waving a gun around.
How could he even think that of her?
Because he doesn’t know you and he doesn’t love you? a mean little voice whispered back in reply.
“Chloe? Put down the gun,” their mother said.
“No.”
She swivelled the gun in their father’s direction and pulled the trigger. The muted firing of the gun was still loud enough in the confined space, making her ears pop with the sudden change in the air pressure.
From where she stood, Cassie couldn’t see the exit wound, but she saw the neat little hole appear in the centre of his forehead, and the explosion of gore that sprayed the wall behind him. He crumpled to the ground in a spectacular fountain of blood and brain matter.
The next second, she had swivelled the gun onto their mother and pulled the trigger. Her mum went down, her eyes wide and disbelieving, clutching her torn-apart chest. The gore that erupted from her back splattered onto the television and bookshelf.
A screaming sound reached her ears and Cassie realised that the sound was coming from her. Chloe pointed the gun at her, smiling.
“Upstairs. Now. Move it.”
Cassie barely heard her, but Chloe got her attention when she came right up to her and waved the gun in her face.
“You want to die, Cassie? Huh? Huh?”
On wildly trembling legs, Cassie ascended the stairs, painfully conscious of her twin behind her.
Up in Chloe’s childhood bedroom, a pair of skinny black jeans, black stilettos and a white, boob-tube top were laid out on the bed. Unmistakable ‘Chloe’ clothes.
“Put them on,” she said. “Come on, quickly, or I’ll shoot you in the head.”
On automatic pilot now, she shed her loose-fitting jeans and reached for the skinny jeans on the bed.
“Uh-uh, put these on.”
She chucked a lacy thong at her and Cassie didn’t react in time, the item of underwear falling to her feet. She looked at her sister, the shock cocooning her to a certain extent. A strange, low mewling sound escaped her lips and she became aware of the way in which she was violently trembling. Her attention was once more drawn to the gun and it spurred her on.
A few minutes later she was dressed in Chloe’s clothes, wobbling precariously on the high heels. Chloe bundled up her discarded clothes – including her bra because Cassie was expected to go braless in the strapless top – and she strode towards the bedroom door.
“After you, we’re going to your room now. We’re going to put your clothes neatly away because you, dear sister, are not you anymore.”
* * * *
Back downstairs in the blood-soaked living room, it was all Cassie could do to remain upright. Her mind lurched on being re-acquainted with the carnage. She was barely functioning now, her trauma was causing her to shut down.
“I must say, you’ve done pretty well not to fuss, I’m impressed. Could you go and stand in the middle of the living room, please? Yes, just there…”
And with that, Cassie shot her in the stomach. At first, Cassie didn’t understand what had happened. Brilliant pain exploded in her body and the floor rushed up to meet her.
“You’ll die soon, if my calculations are correct, it’ll take at least twenty minutes for you to bleed out, which is just about perfect.”
Cassie peered up at the undulating ceiling, feeling like she was sinking into a hole in the ground. Her twin’s face came into view, her long, blonde hair hanging down in two glossy sheets either side of her angelic face.
“Why?” she found herself asking.
“Because I want your life. I appear to have fucked up mine. That body in the back garden isn’t going to remain undiscovered forever, I really slipped up there. Plus I’ve dropped out of Uni and your life comes with a readymade degree. And, you know, I get a shit ton of money if all you fuckers are dead. Dad’s life insurance alone is fucking massive.”
Through her haze of agony, Cassie was aware of her sitting down beside her, her arms hugging her legs and her chin resting on her knees. The words washed over her, only partly making sense, but her instinctive desire to survive understood that the more she talked, the greater her chances were.
“Do you remember that time I carved up your back, and then I took a snap of it, on my mobile? That was for reference. I recreated the exact same pattern on my own back. It was always intended to be my future insurance. No one knows about mine, but I bet people know about yours. That nice young man you’re seeing. Jon, isn’t it? I know you, dear sister – I know you would’ve told him that you fell into some bramb
les, or something, when you were a child. I bet others know, too. Your doctor, perhaps. A girlfriend. But no one has ever seen mine. Even when I fuck a guy I keep my back hidden.”
Cassie didn’t know how that would be possible, but right then it hardly mattered. Her twin fell silent for a moment and Cassie lay there in her misery of agony, the buzzing in her ears almost drowning out her twin when she began speaking again:
“So this is what went down, today. Chloe went insane. She shot her parents dead, and then her dear, brave sister Cassie wrestled her for the gun. It went off and it shot the evil twin in the stomach; a wound that would prove to be fatal. The good twin is immediately filled with remorse because she has just shot her own sister.
“But the evil twin is not dead yet. The evil twin manages to reclaim the gun that is near them on the ground while the good twin sobs over her. But she is near death, and her aim is not so great so she shoots the good twin, but only in the thigh. The good twin crumples to the ground with her busted leg. So now the evil twin has the gun again, doesn’t she? She is bleeding out rapidly, but she must finish what she started. Sadly, the gun only has four rounds, but she is not finished yet. The evil twin, who is dying fast, instructs Cassie to retrieve the petrol can from behind the armchair that she stashed there earlier.”
Cassie was slipping in and out of consciousness now. The tide carried her in and out of the darkness, yet somehow, she always heard her sister’s voice. On a deep level that was far from a conscious thought, she understood that this hateful creature was a part of her. She always had been, and always would be. She was the other half of her, the half that was in control of their destiny.
Dimly, she was aware of her other half getting to her feet and walking away from her. When she feebly lifted her head, she saw that she was holding a petrol can. She walked over to where their dead mother lay, talking all the while:
“Her innocent twin does not know that the gun is empty, so she does as she is asked. The evil twin tells her to douse their parents in petrol, which she does. She then instructs her to pour petrol over her own head, but she refuses. The evil twin is mad at this. She screams at her to do this, but still she refuses. Just then, a miracle happens. The mother is still alive! The bullet must have missed her heart. What are the chances? The good twin rushes to her mother’s side.
“‘Hold on, Mum,’ she says, ‘you’re going to be okay.’”
As she spoke, she nudged their dead mother with her sensible, shin-length, black boot. Or rather, Cassie’s sensible, shin-length black boot. The gun still dangled from her fingers as she did so.
“But Mum is not going to be okay, because the evil twin has one last trick up her sleeve. As she lies there on the brink of death, she throws this zippo lighter onto the body of her mother.”
In her other hand, Cassie saw that she was holding a gold lighter, which she then inserted back into the waistband of her flowing, brightly-coloured skirt. Or again, her flowing, brightly-coloured skirt.
“The good twin is frantic, she bats at the flames with her bare hands, but all she achieves is to burn her hands to buggery. And, would you believe, she burns away her own fingerprints in the process? Extraordinary. While her mother is burning to death, the flames creep over to her petrol-soaked father. He too, goes up.
“Now the living room is a veritable wall of flames, and the evil twin is burnt to a crisp along with her cold, wicked parents.
“Good twin lives, sans fingerprints. And that, dear Cassie, is how it all ends.”
With that, she picked up that petrol can that she had briefly placed at her feet and proceeded to douse her dead mother with the petrol. She then went to her father to do the same.
Helplessly, Cassie watched on.
“You need a little too, sister dear. We can’t have your scars on your back giving the game away, can we? And we have to burn away your pesky fingerprints, do we not? Our prints may not be on any official records, but where we both live will be covered in our prints. But if we’re both without prints, it hardly matters, does it? Yes, you’re right, I am a genius. But now it’s time for the not so fun part.”
Cassie watched on helplessly, not grasping until that moment that she was, in fact, going to die. She watched in a kind of detached horror as her twin brought the gun to her own left thigh and pulled the trigger.
The muted gunshot rang out in the room, and her twin tumbled to the ground. She howled like a run-over cat – a sound that made Cassie’s skin crawl, despite the fact that she herself was dying.
“Fuck! That really fucking hurt.”
She groaned and howled and screamed some more, writhing on the ground in blatant agony.
“Fuck,” she said, getting to her feet.
“No,” Cassie cried out weakly, but she was beyond words at that point.
Death was so close now.
She was only partly aware of Chloe hobbling over to her and trying to make her hold the gun. Cassie resisted as best she could.
“Just take the fucking gun, for fuck’s sake,” she said.
But Cassie barely heard her. She was slipping fast now. This time, when her twin wrapped her hands around the hot metal, she was beyond resisting. The room was getting so dark.
Shivering, she drew her final breath and sunk into death’s chilly embrace.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
NOW
Chloe – because right then she was beyond the capacity of fooling herself any longer that she was her dead twin – closed her eyes, remembering her final moments in her childhood home. Remembering how she had placed the gun in Cassie’s hand as her life slipped away, and then set fire to her parents.
She remembered the agony of holding her dead mother as she burnt, the stench of their cooking flesh intermingling.
Her damaged hands flexed instinctively at the memory. It had been so hard, forcing herself to sear her own flesh like that, but she knew that it was a small price to pay for her freedom.
She looked down at her dead ex-boyfriend. Or rather, Cassie’s dead ex-boyfriend.
She had to keep her head screwed on straight if she was going to get herself out of this scrape.
I shouldn’t have killed him.
But she had to. Maybe he did believe her lies – hell, she believed them herself most of the time – but it was still too dangerous having him sniffing around her like that. And that private detective, Christ, she was a fool to get involved with him the way she had.
It takes a liar to catch a liar.
Normally, she felt she would’ve sniffed him out a mile off, but there was no denying the fact that she had liked him. He had got under her skin and it had clouded her judgement.
But the truth was, she just got so damn lonely sometimes, and Ethan, or Craig, or whatever the fuck his name was, had been just so damn cute.
“You killed him. Now what are you going to do?”
She jumped to her feet at the sound of the familiar voice and she spun around. Dr Thornton was standing in the doorway.
“I have no idea. Dispose of the body, I suppose. I guess I’ll just chop him up into little pieces and flush him down the toilet. I don’t want to bury a body in the garden, again. That was a mistake.”
Dr Thornton laughed.
“Spoken like a true serial killer. That will take you weeks to accomplish.”
“Maybe. As long as no one saw him come, here, it’s not a problem.”
“I doubt anyone did. And this will undoubtably be a secret mission on his part. I doubt anyone knows he’s even in Whitstable. Apart from that private detective he hired, of course. You should get on the darknet, find a hitman to take him out. You don’t want to get his blood on your hands, too.”
“Yes, I suppose I should,” she said, wandering over towards the window, parting the blinds and peering out. It was dark out – the chances of him having been spotted would be minimal.
She thought about the darknet – that was where she had procured the gun with which she had wiped out her family. The bo
y from University – that clingy, pain in her arse Bob Logan – was killed with a knife to the throat.
“Didn’t I say that everyone in your dreams are actually you? Or certainly aspects of you. But the Bob Logan thing was just lazy, as far as choosing a name goes.”
She let the blind fall back into place and wandered over towards the bookshelf. Now that her blinkers were off, she saw the house for what it was – a shambles in dire need of a facelift. It was structurally sound, but the furniture was old and knackered, the white paintjob on the walls was yellowing and peeling, there were some damp issues and the floorboards were old and in need of replacing.
That busybody next door was right – the front garden pretty much resembled a jungle.
“Maybe I did get lazy,” she said quietly, running her fingers over the bookshelf.
In her fantasy, her bookshelf was groaning with law tomes and pristine hardbacks, but in reality, the cheap cube design from Argos was near empty. There were a few dog-eared paperbacks, a couple of bestsellers from the library. She picked up one of the shabby paperbacks, turning it over in her hand. It was written by someone called Gavin Henderson. It was a crime thriller, set in Edinburgh, about a lawyer defending a killer. She put down the book and picked up another. This one was called ‘Know Thyself’ and was written by a Dr Frederick Thornton.
“So that’s where my name came from – some stupid, self-help psychology book. Not that I could possibly call that rubbish a book. That trashy, dumbed-down, psychological theory for the masses. You insult me so.”
She laughed at that, turning the book over in her hands. Dr Thornton’s face stared back at her from the back cover. Gently, she ran her finger over the picture of his face, instantly soothed by his be-spectacled visage, by the knowing half-smile and kind, brown eyes.
After She Died Page 15