The Killing Woods

  Is there a whole story of terrible things I did that night, that I don’t remember? Did Mack see it all? Did he take me home and away?

  My throat goes tight. Maybe I should be checking into a mental hospital rather than a police station, maybe Mack was right when he said I was going loony. Maybe Mack saw me going loony that night. Maybe I don’t know anything about who I am – what I’m capable of.

  I put the phone cover in my pocket with Ashlee’s collar, then lay the pieces of her phone out on the rocks. I get an ache thinking about the phone being whole, being held by Ashlee. My hands start shaking again and I almost lose all the bits.

  Could Jon Shepherd have thrown it down here instead? I remember Emily telling me that he was scared of heights, but she could’ve been lying. Couldn’t she?

  I slot the battery in. I have to wedge the back of the phone in hard to make it stick. I turn it on, expecting nothing, and nothing happens. I bang it against the palm of my hand. Now there’s a flicker on the screen: tiny, but there. A spark. I bang it again. And somehow, it works. Somehow this battery still has juice!

  Ashlee’s home screen comes up. It looks kind of disjointed, and the cracked glass doesn’t help, but straight away messages are coming through, hundreds of them it seems, all from me or her friends or her family. They’re all asking the same things – where is she, is she safe, what’s happened – they get more desperate as they come. It hurts to look – it hurts to hold this tiny part of Ashlee in my hands but not the rest of her. It hurts to know that she never read these words.

  I run the back of my hand over my eyes and click on to anything just to make the messages stop. I open up her picture folder, and I feel kind of desperate now. I’m scrolling back to her earlier pictures fast, just wanting to see Ashlee from months ago, wanting to see her alive. I find all the pictures she took and sent me of her in her underwear and pyjamas, but these don’t make me feel no better. I want – need – to see a picture of her and me. In the photo I finally click open and stare at for ages, Ashlee’s got her mouth pressed against my cheek, biting me gently, and I’m staring straight at the camera and grinning like a loon. I got no right to be that happy. It’s not fair that the grinning, thoughtless loser in this picture gets to keep hugging her for always.

  I move the images on. Now I’m surprised. Because there are loads of films here, not just photos. Which is weird, because I don’t remember Ashlee filming anything ever. Even the last two images in this folder are films! And all these films seem to start with an image of something dark and blurred. It’s like they’re all filmed at night. All filmed some place with trees. And now I’m curious.

  I click on the one that’s second to last, just because it’s shorter. The image starts shaky and dark, and, combined with the cracked screen, I can’t make much sense of it. I hold the phone closer and try to work it out. I think I hear wind. Light rain? A rumble of thunder? There’s something about this image that’s starting to feel familiar, horribly so.

  Then the camera flash goes on, illuminating everything. The image takes a second to focus. And I see it then. I see! My breath leaves me in a rush.

  Because in the image is a body slumped on a forest floor.

  And I know who it is. Course I do.

  47

  Emily

  I listen in the dark, but that howling sound doesn’t come again. My eyes are pressed close to the gun slit watching everything: the way the trees move, how clouds smother the moon then let it shine again, how wind skitters leaves along the ground. Dad did this too once, looked out of here and listened. Did he also listen for this noise? Was it the reason he’d started drawing all those wolves in the first place? I know wind can sound strange moving through trees at night. Depending on the tree it moves, though, wind can make a whole lot of different noises: noises like distant traffic, animals, a fire, a roar, water. Maybe I’ve just been thinking of that sketch too much, I’ve got wolves on the brain. Now I’m even hearing them in the wind.

  I don’t move from this bunker, though. Not yet. Because I’m safe here, in the dark. No one can find me.

  As I stay here, listening, I hear other strange sounds in the wood. There are shrieks and laughter like there’s a party going on. And when I start to move again there’s another noise. It’s faint at first, but getting louder. Footsteps? Running? Heavy boots? I feel this strange surge inside me. Has Damon come back here after all? I shrink back into the darkness, watching through the gun slit. I need that sketch he has. Need to talk.

  A few moments more and I see a figure moving fast down the small track that runs the other side of this bunker. He stops, looks around, then veers off, heading straight for this clearing. That decides it for me. It’s like he’s coming straight for me. I move to the entrance hole and pull myself up it, wedge my feet into the sides so I’m half in, half out. I’m about to call out when I see him properly.

  He’s in this clearing when he sees me too. He stops mid-step. Then his mouth drops into a perfect O of surprise.

  It isn’t Damon.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he says.

  48

  Damon

  It’s me.

  This body that’s slumped on the forest floor. This one the camera is focusing on. My face is pressed into the dirt and I’m out of it. I’m wearing Dad’s combat shirt – the same one I had on that night, the same one I got on again now.

  Did Ashlee make a video that night? Did she film me? Like this? Is that what’s going on here?

  My hand is shaking so much it’s hard to keep the phone steady. I jump big as I hear Ashlee’s voice and I have to grab at the cliff face behind me and force myself not to look around for her – she’s speaking from the phone, on this film.

  ‘Oh Damo,’ she’s saying. ‘You’re a bit useless now, honeypie . . .’

  Useless.

  It’s that word again. Is this why I remember it?

  The image jolts forwards and back, goes close on my passed-out face. Blurs. When it clears, I see that my mouth is open, my hair is stuck across my cheek. I’m out of it. Fucking out of it!

  ‘What are we going to do with you now?’ Ashlee’s voice is close to the speaker, singsong.

  A smudge of water lands on the camera screen. That could be the rain starting. There’s wind battering against the speaker too, making it hard to hear everything Ashlee is saying.

  ‘Told you I’d win.’ I hear that. ‘Guess you won’t get my collar tonight after all.’

  There’s laughter. The camera moves again, goes steady. That’s when I see the loser that’s me on this screen wake up; my eyes open and I swat out clumsily.

  I hear Ashlee laughing louder. ‘Knew you’d wake up. Don’t want to miss the fun, do you?’

  I see my mouth open, and I’m talking to her, trying to. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ I sound really pissed off. ‘You shouldn’t have done that with Mack!’

  My throat goes dry as I hear this. What had she just told me? Her secret? Something about the Game she played?

  The shot is steady on a close-up of me. I see the frown in my forehead, the anger I got.

  ‘My collar’s all yours if you want it,’ Ashlee’s saying. ‘Just take it like I said.’

  Then the image shakes all over the place. I get a close-up of leaves. Darkness. Tree trunks. My face again. Hers.

  ‘You’ll have to try harder than that,’ she’s saying.

  Am I fighting her? Is that why the image is jolty? What’s going on?

  ‘Can’t believe you’d do that!’ It’s my voice again. ‘Why would you even . . .’

  She says something that I don’t hear. Only the words Try it . . . Don’t get mad about it . . . Playing . . . and . . . Game. She’s laughing or crying, I can’t tell which. Then the image freezes on dark branches. There’s no more sound. No more movement. Just her laughter ringing in my ears. Just this sick feeling in my guts. Because I’m starting to remember now, ain’t I? I’m starting to think I know what she told me that night
– starting to think I can remember her secret. It’s coming back. I nearly drop the phone into the dark air, my feet have to dig into the boulder to stay firm. Yes – it’s in my head now – this secret. This secret she kept with Mack. I clench my free hand into a fist and slam it into the rock face.

  ‘I don’t want you to be my girlfriend no more.’ That’s what I’d told her that night. ‘I don’t even know you!’

  There’s an empty feeling all through me. That night, had I tried to break up with her? The ache of it gets me hard. She’d been mad about it – I know that.

  I close my eyes to feel cold, sharp air against my eyelids. There’s one more film on this phone. It’s the very last thumbnail image in her photo folder. It has to be from that night too – it has to be the last thing she ever filmed. I click to open it. Because I can’t stop now. I got to know how this ends.

  49

  Emily

  Mack lets out a breath of air. He’s standing in the middle of the clearing, watching me. I see his pupils big in the moonlight.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he growls again. He’s staring at how I’m half in the ground, half out, trying to understand it.

  ‘My dad’s bunker,’ I say, explaining. And it feels strange to say these words out loud, to him – strange to say them now.

  I can’t say how I was hoping to find Damon, though, or how I need to get that sketch back. Something stops me. Mack’s looking all around the clearing then back at me, back at the bunker.

  ‘It’s well hidden,’ he says.

  I nod.

  He digs in a pocket to take out a torch, flicks it on, blinds me with it as he tries to shine it down the entrance hole. ‘Is Damon in there?’

  ‘Why would he be?’

  Mack gives me a strange look. But why did he ask this? Has Damon been talking about me to Mack? Has Damon told Mack everything? Even about being here this morning?

  When Mack comes closer, his boots make sucking sounds in the mud. It’s almost as if he’s going to barrel straight into me, push me backwards into the bunker with him falling on top. I lean away, wedging my shoe tips into the sides of the entrance.

  ‘Why you looking for him?’ I say.

  And again, Mack gives me that look.

  Up close I see that Mack’s eyes are squinting with tiredness, are kind of red. He’s moving in small, quick movements. This isn’t the cool and collected Mack Jenkins from school – not the tough boy everyone knows him as. He starts craning around me to see inside the bunker. I don’t want to let him in but I think he’s going to come down anyway.

  ‘There are no steps,’ I say. ‘Wait!’

  I find myself moving down into the bunker, start feeling for the lamp. Mack must know what’s going on with Damon, maybe he even knows what Damon’s done with the sketch. Maybe I could talk to him. Ask him. Maybe he’s got answers.

  Mack jumps inside before I’ve got the lamp properly lit, I hear the smack of his boots hitting the floor. He flicks the torch on again. In its brightness, the bunker disappears; all I can see is Mack’s face, huge and panicking. I keep my eyes on him as I light that candle, plus two others I find in the drawers. I place them all along the gun slit ledge. If anyone else comes close to us now, they’ll see this. Maybe they’ll find this bunker. Suddenly it seems important that someone else can find me out here. That Damon could. Or Joe.

  Not that Joe would come looking for me now, after the things I’ve just said to him. I feel for my phone, then realise I never picked it up from my bed. I angle myself so I’m closer to the exit.

  ‘What’s going on, anyway?’ I say. ‘Why is everyone so desperate to find Damon? Where’s he gone?’

  Another flick. The torch turns with Mack and I get blinded again. ‘Don’t you know?’

  Mack’s tone of voice is nasty. It’s not just the torchlight that’s too much for down here, it’s him. Mack’s too big, stooping as he walks, buzzing and on edge. It was a mistake letting him come down here.

  ‘Ever since Damon started talking to you,’ Mack says, ‘you’ve made him think everything’s his fault.’

  Up close, I smell booze and sweat on him, I see a streak of mud on his neck. He seems even more jumpy than Damon was.

  ‘I know Damon feels guilty . . .’ I start, hesitantly, ‘. . . about what happened.’

  Another flick and the torch is off. In the candlelight Mack’s face is shadowy and strange, his features distorted. ‘You should’ve kept away from him! I told him!’ There’s a warning in his voice.

  I watch a bead of sweat trickle from his cropped hair.

  ‘You’re the one who started this,’ he murmurs, ‘. . . who keeps telling him he needs to go to the police!’

  I try to back away, but the wall is too close. ‘I never said that!’

  ‘What are you trying to make him do anyway?’

  I can see that Mack is scared. He’s also moved between the exit hole and me. Suddenly I don’t like the thought of being trapped down here with him. I exhale, calmly as I can. Mack’s eyes are moving around the bunker, looking at the pictures, in the corners, on the floor. I can tell he’s freaking out, taking all this in.

  ‘How do I know you’re not trying to set me up too?’ he continues. He moves towards me with his arms out, starts grabbing at me.

  I step away. ‘I’m not trying to do anything!’

  ‘You are! You’re trying to make Damon believe he did it.’ His eyes narrow. ‘You’re trying to make him think he killed his own girlfriend!’

  My breath catches. ‘What?’

  He glares at me. ‘He didn’t, you know.’

  I stay silent, frozen.

  ‘You’ll do anything to get your dad off,’ Mack keeps on. ‘You’re desperate! That’s why you’re here now, isn’t it? You’re waiting for him. You’re waiting to get the info you need to run off to the police.’

  My mind’s racing. I think again of Joe’s words from earlier – how convinced he’d been of Damon being involved that night. And now, Mack bringing it up like this?

  ‘But Damon didn’t . . .’ I start, and then I wonder something else. ‘Is that why you think he’s disappeared? Because he . . .?’

  Mack comes towards me fast, grabbing my coat. ‘Damon couldn’t hurt anything,’ he says. ‘He’s not like that. It’s just what you’re making him believe!’

  He watches me, looking for some sort of reaction. I don’t think he finds it.

  ‘Stop trying to hang this on him!’

  Mack shouts. Mack’s too insistent, too panicked. He’s making me nervous too. And now stuff is nagging at my brain, a whole pile of it – images. The mark on Damon’s face this morning. Joe’s story about him being angry and rough with Ashlee. His expression when I showed him Dad’s sketch. And then, there’s how Mack is acting now.

  Other thoughts are piling up too. There’s that howling noise I’ve heard, there’s Damon being in Darkwood the other night, there’s the way Damon has just disappeared.

  I try to think this through. Try not to react like Mack is. But I have no idea what to believe any more. Has Damon been keeping secrets this whole time? Deep, dark secrets? Is he not who I’d thought at all?

  ‘You were there that night,’ I say quietly, trying to hold Mack’s gaze. ‘What happened, really? You must know, out of anyone . . . How did Ashlee . . .?’

  Mack raises a finger, points it at me. ‘You know what happened! It’s like everyone says! Ashlee was drunk. Your dad killed her because he’s evil! Damon. Didn’t. Do. Anything!’

  He says these last words slowly and deliberately, like each word’s a bullet. I’m not sure he believes his words, though, it’s more like he’s trying to force me to. More like he’s panicking. He hulks over me, his finger close to my cheek.

  ‘You started this,’ he says again. ‘You changed everything. And you’re never going to believe it was your dad, are you? Whatever evidence there is. You’re always going to keep going after Damon!’

  He pulls away to look out of the
gun slit. I notice the pulse in his temple, beating fast.

  ‘I know what you’re doing,’ he adds quietly. ‘You’re playing on the guilt Damon’s got, you’re poisoning him!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You’re trying to scare him into saying something untrue. You’re trying to frame him . . . frame us . . .’

  ‘I’m not!’

  He reaches out, grabs my coat again, his fingers searching through it almost like he’s checking for wires.

  ‘You’d ruin Damon’s life just to get your dad released?’ he’s saying. ‘Even when your dad admitted it? Even when you know your dad wants to be in prison?’

  I pull away from him sharply. ‘I don’t know that. No one does.’

  ‘They won’t believe you, you know,’ he says. ‘At the end of the day, your dad’s the one in prison, not Damo. They’re not going to start all that investigation stuff again now.’

  I’m still trying to shrug his fingers off me.

  ‘Maybe we should find Damon,’ I say. ‘Maybe we need to calm down and get out of this bunker!’

  ‘I’ve looked for him!’ Mack’s arm flings sideways, narrowly missing one of the candles. ‘Has he gone to the police already? Have you told him to?’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that!’

  I’m about to tell Mack that I don’t think Damon hurt Ashlee that night, I’m about to try to make him see that I’m serious about this – but my mouth jams up. I’m thinking of Joe’s determined face, the fear in Damon’s eyes this morning, and that sketch. That sketch! I’m trying to remember how that wolf looked in it.

  ‘It can’t be,’ I say. ‘It just . . .’ But I can’t say it. Because I don’t know who anyone is any more, what anyone is capable of. I look to the wolves on the ceiling instead, back to Mack. He’s as still as a rock, watching me. His dark eyes look glazed and on fire at the same time, a hundred questions blazing out.

  ‘It wasn’t Damon!’ Mack shouts. ‘It was your dad that did everything!’

  I stare at the wolf above me. I’m seeing things, I must be – because now I recognise this wolf’s expression. Right now, I recognise its eyes. I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands, hard – feel that I’m still here, see that this wolf is still there too. I’m not imagining this.