Cruel Summer (33 page)

Katie has gone mad. I don’t want to die. Is Greg dead? I can’t get out. I want to go home.
Panicky half-formed ideas and images ran through Alisha’s head. She wanted
the world to go away, but it wouldn’t let up for a second. She was being deluged.

She knew she didn’t have much time until Katie noticed she had gone. Ben’s delaying tactics would only work for so long. The front door and windows were all locked shut. The front
windows, in typical bloody Spanish style, were covered with ornate iron bars. Katie had seen to it that they were trapped.

Katie. Jesus Christ. Something in her head must have snapped. If the brain’s a machine, then a cog had definitely come loose. Katie had made a point of telling them all how sane she felt,
but Alisha begged to differ. It was also too soon to let thoughts about Greg enter her head. She was going to feel so, so guilty. But not now. And Ben . . . oh God, she’d been so wrong about
Ben.

She’d never been so grateful for giving up drinking. Going tee-total had been a lot easier than she’d thought it would be. All those people who’d called her
‘alcoholic’ could stick that where the sun don’t shine.

The role of ‘hot mess’ had been brilliant when Alisha was fifteen. She’d loved the notoriety. She’d been a freaking rockstar at Longview High. But when all her friends
had gone to university and Greg had moved to Brighton, everything changed. It wasn’t cool being drunk when there was no one to laugh with. More to the point, she couldn’t spend another
year at home. She had to get out, so she had to be sober.

Although there wouldn’t
be
another year
anywhere
if she didn’t get out of this nightmare.

All week she’d been ditching drinks into the sand, pot plants, bushes, whatever was nearest. She had kept it a secret for two reasons. The first was the summer she’d decided to be a
vegetarian. As soon as she’d declared it, people had started wafting bacon sandwiches under her nose – people are tools like that. The second was, if she was honest, she hadn’t
trusted herself not to have a bad day (she’d come
so
close to drinking yesterday), and she’d figured that if she didn’t make grand statements about being sober, then she
couldn’t possibly fail.

Later on she might think about destiny or fate but, right now, Alisha had to survive.
Katie wants me dead. I don’t want to die. I have to get out.

Feet thundered up the stairs. Alisha’s time was up. Her hips and chest were pressed against cold, dusty tiles and, from where she lay, she could see only a section of the landing beyond
the bedroom door. Night was falling fast, too. Only murky grey evening light filtered through the blinds.

A door slammed into a wall – it must have been the bathroom door as Alisha could see the corners of the entrances to both other bedrooms. She heard the telltale shriek of the shower
curtain scraping back along its rail. Another slam and a pair of Converse-clad feet padded from the bathroom into the room Alisha had shared with Katie. Thankfully, Katie seemed to be taking the
rooms in order of proximity, not logic.

How could Katie do this to them?
They’d been friends forever. How can you kill people? It’s not like swatting flies! There must be things inside Katie that weren’t
joined up right, otherwise she just wouldn’t be able to. Alisha knew she’d never be able to. That’s when it hit her: she might have to kill Katie. Her tears pooled on the
tiles.

There was more banging and crashing as Katie turned over their room. Wardrobe doors clattered and Alisha heard the mattress being yanked off the bedframe. Katie was like a bulldozer. Alisha slid
further under the bed, her heart galloping. If Katie chose this room next, there was nowhere for her to go. She considered changing position – moving into the wardrobe or en suite – but
both options felt like she’d be backing herself into an even smaller corner.

Katie’s feet moved back onto the landing. She paused at the open door to the master bedroom. Alisha held her breath.

Katie chose the closed door to Ryan and Ben’s room. This was it. Alisha had to move
now.
She rolled onto her back and found herself staring up at a knife. She had to blink to
check she wasn’t hallucinating, but between the bed slats and the mattress was the dagger from the old shipwreck. Greg must have hidden it under the bed when the detective had visited that
morning.

Oh, this changes everything,
Alisha thought.
Game on.

SCENE 38 – RYAN

R
yan’s eyes opened. He must have drifted off. He remembered Alisha creeping for the stairs, but then he’d faded out. From upstairs, he
heard the bang and clatter of furniture being overturned and wardrobe doors slamming: Katie searching for Alisha, he guessed.

Of course the killer had been Katie. Ryan cursed himself for failing to see it coming. It’s always the second-least-likely person. If
he
was the least likely (as the main
character) then Katie would have been the obvious choice. No one could be as sweet and innocent as she seemed. Even pretending it was telly didn’t make it better, and, anyway, Ryan
couldn’t pretend any more. He loved Katie Grant and she was killing him. This was really happening. Katie’s vengeance was a real, raw red.

Ryan slid off the sofa. Ben was lying on the floor. His long legs stuck out from behind the armchair. He must have tried to make a run for it, too. He’d not made it very far.

Ryan’s head spun. It felt like being eighteenth-birthday drunk, or having a really bad fever, or maybe like going under anaesthetic at the hospital. It was all of those at the same time
and all he wanted to do was sleep – but it wasn’t sleep, it was death. That’s what death is, Ryan realised: it comes to you disguised as sleep, it fools you. He fought to keep his
eyes open.

This wasn’t the ending, Ryan was sure.
This
was how it was going to go . . . He was going to crawl to the knife block on the kitchen counter. If Alisha didn’t stop Katie, he
would. He would ram that thing through her skull if he had to. Then he’d call an ambulance. They’d take him to hospital and pump his stomach or find an antidote or whatever they do.
He’d be in hospital for a few days and then he’d go home to a hero’s welcome. He’d be all over the TV, the guy who faced a crazed psychopath and lived to tell the tale.

‘Ryan.’ He turned around. It was Greg. He was in a bad way, but was clinging on to life. He could barely keep his eyes open but he reached out for Ryan. ‘Don’t
go.’

Ryan rested himself against the now vacant armchair. ‘I gotta get a knife. I need to help Lish.’

‘Please wait with me.’ Greg’s head lolled to one side as if it were too heavy for his neck.

‘Greg, stay awake. Open your eyes!’ Ryan snapped. He crawled back to his friend (oh, he was far too weak to worry about defining their relationship now) and clutched his face, just
stopping short of prising his eyes open. Greg’s heavy lids opened just a fraction, just enough for Ryan to see the ice-blue of the iris.

‘I can’t. I can’t stop falling . . .’ Greg murmured.

‘Greg, please. I need . . .’A fresh wave of tiredness hit Ryan. He tried again. ‘I need to get help.’

‘Stay with me.’ Greg’s eyes fell closed again. Ryan felt fingers intertwine with his. ‘Just for another minute.’

Ryan kissed him, half because he couldn’t resist and half as a tactic to wake him up. It didn’t work. Greg was now sprawled on his side, legs hanging off the edge of the sofa. He was
dying. Ryan realised that he was dying, too. There was nothing he could do to help Alisha; he could barely lift his own hands any more. Perhaps that was right. It’s how it always is –
the hero faces the villain alone. Ryan just hadn’t expected Alisha to be the hero.

Ryan stroked Greg’s beautiful face and, in that moment, he was oddly proud to have had that face in his life, however chaotic their love had been. Seeing Greg peaceful and serene only made
him lovelier.

‘Don’t leave me alone,’ Greg muttered again.

‘I won’t.’ A tear found its way out. Katie could kill him, but she wasn’t having this moment. Ryan rested his forehead against Greg’s. ‘I’m here. I
won’t leave you.’ He nudged Greg’s legs and Greg shifted them onto the couch. Somehow, Ryan dragged himself onto the sofa and lay next to Greg, the room spinning. It was like
being in a centrifuge. ‘I’ll be the little spoon this time,’ Ryan murmured.

Greg wrapped his arms over Ryan’s chest and Ryan recognised belonging for the first time. They belonged to each other. It had come late in the day, but he was so glad it had come. There
was a . . .
warmth
inside his chest.
This must be what proper, nice love feels like,
he thought. He allowed his eyes to close and it was bliss.

The only faith Ryan had ever had was in the religion of the happy ending – that everything worked out in the end and that everyone gets what they deserve.
Is this any less than I
deserve?
(Insert flashback: Roxanne’s head dipping under the black sea.) All those films and shows and books had lied. Not everyone gets a happy ending. But then, this was no fairy
tale.

This was correct. There was no such thing as a ‘Final Boy’, only the ‘Final Girl’. As painful as the truth was, the last survivor was never going to have been him. Ryan
understood that now.

‘I was meant to be the main character,’ he whispered, not sure who he was even talking to – himself, God, the sofa.

‘You are,’ Greg breathed the words into his ear. ‘This is the last episode.’

They let the sleep of death take them together.

SCENE 39 – KATIE

K
atie stood, hands on hips, in the centre of Ryan and Ben’s room. This was
not
a part of the plan. Sweat ran down her back. How
could this be happening? How could
Alisha
of all people be messing this up? Alisha might have been the hardest to kill from a moral standpoint, but she should have been the
easiest
to kill from a practical one. Why wasn’t she dead? Liver damage should probably have finished her off years ago, as it was.

‘Come out, come out wherever you are!’ Katie cried. ‘You know I’m not going to let you go, Alisha, so you’re just wasting your time and mine.’

No reply.

Katie stormed back onto the landing. There was only one room left to search. Of course, the master bedroom. Alisha had probably gone in there searching for the phone. She should have thought of
that. Her prey was now cornered. A smile crossed Katie’s lips as she entered the bedroom, leaning forwards to peer under the bed.

She was so busy looking at the floor, she didn’t see the door swinging for her face. It slammed into her, knocking her backwards. Her vision went black and then sort of glittery before she
landed with a painful crash on her rear. There was a terrible pain in her face. Her hands flew to her nose, which now felt crumbly and wet and warm with blood. Katie howled in pain.

‘I can’t believe you fell for that!’ Alisha lunged at her, from behind the door. There were still silver spots swimming across Katie’s field of vision, but she saw that,
in her hand, Alisha held her father’s dagger. Where the bloody hell had she got that from?

‘Stay where you are!’ Alisha cried. Her face was black with dust but tears had made rivers in the dirt. Her eyes were as wild as the jungle of hair that fell over her face.

Katie pinched her nose. ‘What are you gonna do? Stab me?’ She tried to stand.

Alisha sliced at the air in front of Katie’s face with the dagger. ‘Stay there!’ she squealed. ‘Don’t follow me.’

Katie smiled despite the copper taste filling her mouth. She could feel blood on her teeth. ‘We both know you haven’t got the guts to use that.’

Alisha wiped her face, inching backwards step by minute step. Katie realised this wasn’t going to be easy. But perhaps it had all been going too well. That was the thing with best-laid
plans.

Katie coiled and sprang. The shock tactic worked. Alisha’s instinct was not to slash at her with the knife but to turn and run. Katie reached her at the top of the stairs and grabbed
Alisha’s wrist, holding the dagger as far away as possible. In response, Alisha pushed at Katie’s face, blinding her. They wrestled for a moment and then Alisha slipped on the top
stair. Katie was so entangled with her that she fell too.

They went down in an undignified knot of limbs. Alisha was now spread-eagled across the first few stairs. Trying to disarm her, Katie banged Alisha’s wrist against the edge of the hardwood
step, feeling the bone make contact. If she kept this up, she’d break Alisha’s wrist.
Good luck stabbing me then, you bitch.

Alisha clung to the dagger and wriggled around, using her knees to pin Katie to the wall. Then she seized Katie’s hair.

‘Ow!’ Katie screeched in pain, relaxing her grip on Alisha’s wrist for a split second. It was enough. Wrenching her arm free, Alisha blindly waved the blade around and nicked
Katie’s cheek – an inch higher and it would have been her eye. Katie fell back in shock. Maybe Alisha Cole did have some guts, after all.

Alisha slid away from Katie and down the remaining stairs, climbing to her feet once she reached the bottom.

Oh, no, you don’t
, thought Katie. She could not let Alisha get away. She sprang to her feet and leapt to the foot of the stairs. Paying no heed to the dead bodies on the sofa, she
hurled herself at Alisha, kamikaze-style. Alisha went down like she was made of paper, folding onto the tiles. Katie scrambled upright and straddled her back, pinning her to the floor. Once more
Katie seized her wrist and yanked her arm backwards. It gave a satisfying crack.

‘That’s for stabbing my face!’ Katie spat. This was an adrenalin rush!
Way
better than killing Roxanne, who’d just looked at her with a sad ‘I don’t
understand’ expression. The thrill, so it transpired, really was in the chase.