Roadkill (LiveWire) (19 page)

I could hit him with the lamp, I’m shocked to find myself thinking. It’s a heavy metal based silver lamp, and heavy enough to probably kill him, hopefully at least incapacitate him. Even as I gingerly slide more weight onto my left foot, preparing for the manoeuvre, Leo swings round, appraising me. Trying not to look guilty I imagine my sister again, confused, dizzy, but determined to see it through. She would never back down from a challenge. That same fire that had won her countless athletics medals, led her to die at the hands of a madman.

Who is now chilling in my bedroom. Way to go Caz. I lean forward, studying my best friend. The man who killed my sister. Without his glasses, those dumb shirts and geeky chinos he is good looking in a pretty boy, razor cheek bone kind of way. His blonde hair messy instead of lank, and he has this easy way of moving, of speaking, that is totally different from the awkward shambling persona he adopted. Oh yeah, and six years older.

“I want to play ‘chicken’. Just you and me.”
             

“What?” That rattles him.

“Tonight, at your stupid Dead Hour. You get one go, I get one go. Deal?” My heart is racing and I reach up a hand to nervously twist my curls, forgetting once again my hair is now straight and short.

A long moment of silence, then he reaches down to me, fingers tipping my chin back, studying my face for tricks. I try to look innocent, which isn’t hard as I don’t have a plan in mind, apart from obviously getting this freak out of my house. Then
he kisses me, once on the lips, his mouth cool and dry.
Shocked, I let him, safe in the sudden knowledge that in two hours I will avenge Rose’s death. Or die trying. Dead Hour right? ‘When you are neither dead, or alive.’ And I won’t be alone. Somehow I need to call the police.

Leo picks up his water bottle and computer bag, turning to go and grinning, my dopey, shamefaced mate once more. Only his eyes betray him; if eyes really are the window to your soul, this man has nothing there. A blank of colour, and then swirling blackness.

He opens my bedroom door, listens, then slides out, “You’re on. See you later Caz. By the bridge at 2am.”

I wait, holding my breath to hear the front door bang, but it doesn’t.

“Leo?”

No sound from downstairs, so I slip out into the landing. The phone is in the living room, again I curse myself for not charging my phone.

From the walls, Dad looks concerned, just as the television blares on and I start shaking with fear again. How stupid to assume he would just go.

Of course he hasn’t.

I am right, Leo has taken up residence on the sofa next to the phone. My mobile charger lies next to him, neatly coiled.

“What do you want for dinner? Do you fancy a takeaway or shall I cook?” He laughs that inhuman laugh, just a shade too harsh, ringing on and on, while I clutch the door frame and shake. I am so scared it actually hurts to breath.

“Leo, I just er…need the loo.” Pathetic, but my brain is not working.

“No Caz, I want you here where I can see you. Sit on the sofa over there and watch the telly.”  He might as well have been commanding a dog, and not a very well loved one at that.

The phone makes us both jump, and Leo slides his knife from his pocket, putting it unsheathed on the low coffee table in front of us.

“Answer it. Say everything is fine. Get rid of whoever it is.”

Eyeing the weapon like it’s a bomb about to explode I shakily press ‘call’ on the phone.

“Caroline. Don’t worry he’s fine. It was a false alarm….they really don’t know who sent those messages but the police are dealing with it. There are enough materials here to make someone suspect a terrorist link. These crazy people he gets mixed up with. Are you sure you’re okay love?”

She goes on to tell me they will stay the night as Garry’s brother is a bit shaken, but will be home tomorrow lunchtime.

“Is everything alright with you love? Have Leo round if you like,” I wonder if she senses my fear. It is possible as just at this moment Leo has the knife positioned at the side of my neck, sharp point digging to the flesh beneath my jawbone.

My mouth is dry, my tongue clumsy, “Fine Mum. Must go my mobile’s ringing,” and I disconnect, trying to send her SOS thought waves.

Leo rummages in the fridge, eventually clattering round with pans. He cooks bacon and eggs, watching me all the time. I almost can’t stand it, want to scream, make a run for it. But some animal cunning tells me to play it on his terms. For the moment.

“You sent those emails to Logan didn’t you?” I study his face. Concentrating carefully on the task in hand he looks like my best friend again. “There isn’t really a terrorist attack going to happen is there?”

“Yes and no. I needed a clear field, because I was going to end it tonight anyway. Time for me to head off somewhere else,” he smiles absent mindedly. Such a shame you weren’t up for camping. ”

Sod it, I think I’ve got nothing to lose. Plus I am curious.

“Did you kill those other girls? The ones on LiveWire?” I already know they answer but I want to hear him say it.

“Yes I did. I’ve always liked to play games…..My dad liked chess apparently.” He is off on a tangent, gazing dreamily into space. “I was terribly unhappy when my mum died you know, much as you were when you lost your dad. Really, I think I must have been going a bit mad,” he tells me seriously. “I went to see a counsellor, one of your Vultures, ironic isn’t it? She was very nice to me, and she suggested that I take up a hobby, a new sport….a new game, to kind of help me through it. So I did.”

Obviously.

“Why did you pick them, and me, I mean, out of everyone on LiveWire?”

He sighs, obviously I am being tedious again. “You were all weak, pathetic creatures I could train to do anything. Ultimately it was always their choice. Did they jump off the cliff when I asked?”

“And if they didn’t I suppose you pushed them anyway. Don’t you think that’s cheating?” I snap, recalling the news article on Victoria. The unexplained bruises. She fought back… I am also remembering the ‘…case inconclusive, police are seeking a white male, slender build seen running from the scene….’ on Agatha Maynard’s news report.

To my surprise he doesn’t take the bait, “LiveWire is my own creation, I could do what I liked with the people who played it. You are like….” He searches for an analogy, “Those little plastic game counters you get in a cheap box of snakes and ladders!”

I remember us playing snakes and ladders with Melissa and a couple of others on New Year’s Eve, turning it into truth or dare, adding vodka shots. Twisting an innocent game into something naughty.

Chapter Twenty
-One

That’s what Leo is doing to the world, twisting it, trying to manipulate it to his own crazy rules.

“That’s why you picked me? Because I’m pathetic?” I am angry now and this is good.

“I was sent a box of my mother’s things from our house in London. The china doll was in it, and while I was unpacking it I found that photo of you on LiveWire, trying to horse ride. It was as though Mum was telling me this was my biggest challenge. I was just about to introduce you to LiveWire myself when Rose found out. She was always in the way.” His face darkens again.

You can’t reason with someone who always thinks they are right. Is he insane? He’s certainly a murderer.

“Come on Caz. We need to get ready or we’ll miss ‘Dead Hour.” His voice is gentle and I fight an overwhelming urge to just hit him. Hard.

He continues “Now I am going to the toilet. I’ve double locked both doors and if you try and use the phon
e, it’s been disconnected. Hmm…
anything else? Oh yeah, don’t try climbing out the windows because I’d be happy to kill you now, even if I am mid piss.” He leaves the door open, watching from across the hallway.

             
It’s another game. He is testing me, so I am careful to play along. Just for now. Dad is watching me from the desert as I edge slowly to the sink, making sure I keep in Leo’s line of vision. Reaching for a glass and running the tap, I slide a small vegetable knife into my left pocket, and gulp the water, although it feels as though it might choke me.

I imagine Dad looks slightly disapproving. Makes no difference, I tell him, crossly, as though he has argued. You killed the baddies, and I’m doing the same.

Next I am clumsily dealing with a shoelace that has worked its way lose. There was a packet of pills in the cupboard next to my head, and as I wonder how the hell I am going to get them Leo curses.

Headlights are flashing on the road outside and my heart gives a mad jump.
“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t move.”

He darts back to the living room, is gone for a couple of seconds. Not long enough for me to get to the door or anywhere useful. I lean heavily against the cupboard door to press it shut. It’s true I didn’t have a plan when I suggested the game to Leo, but it came to me later that this was what I should do.

I’m going on instinct. Perhaps even, Rose and Dad are guiding me.

All the time that little chime in my head “My sister is dead, my sister is dead…..” Murdered. It makes a difference, I discover, to find that it wasn’t just a random accident. It wasn’t even a tragic LiveWire dare that went wrong. Leo meant to kill her, to ‘teach her a lesson’. My fists are clenched, waiting for a knock at the door. Anyone, even a Vulture would be just fine.

It’s great to find that I have been the subject of a psychopath’s experiment for the last six months. I feel sick, but strangely detached. In my mind I’m already running for my life on The Road.

“Just a taxi turning round. Let’s go.” He is back, laughing, pleased at my obedience, and I try to slow my breathing. In my right hand jeans pocket is a small plastic bag, its white powder contents seem to burn a hole in the rough denim. I scrunch it harder with a shaky fist to break up the pills.

The hall clock crawls towards midnight, then 1am, and my adrenalin is pumping, crackling painfully through my body. The man in my kitchen has now thrown on his coat, and is waving a set of car keys under my nose.

“My car is just down the road.”

“The police are watching the house you know. I expect they’ve found your car already.”

He laughs and links arms, hauling me close like a lover, whispering “No they won’t and no they aren’t Caz. They’re all in the next county with your mum and that idiot Garry. And I’m in Mexico remember.” He sighs, warm breath on my frozen cheek, “Sometimes I think you forget how smart I really am.”

A few yells from a house party across the street, booming music and spewing people over the lawn. Nice. I want to cry out, to scream for help but Leo is holding me close, knife pressed against my ribcage. The other dares I’ve done have been as Rose, and I’ve always been with other LiveWire aficionados, shattering this still time. Even the stars seem to watch with a kind of superior interest, waiting to see what this silly pale girl, so fragile and inconspicuous, will do. They don’t care, with the wisdom of the ages clouding their glittering stillness. Leo slinks beside me, all casual animal, in his lazy confidence; Top cat in the jungle.

My throat is tight and dry and I wince from the knife as though it has already driven home. I’ll paint the stars when this is all over, I think, stumbling slightly, breath rasping with fear. If I don’t die now, a little voice reproves me, and for a split second I nearly go to pull out my phone. This is wishful thinking as Leo has seen to it that my phone is still dead. It’s just him and me.

“You go first. I mean you drive first.” The slip road is silent, empty of traffic, and Leo parks neatly in the lay-by. Luckily, or unluckily, as with the night Rose died there are no lorries parked up for the night. Impossible to see his averted face in the darkness, but his voice is all business.

“Give me the keys then,” I’m overlooking the fact that although I’ve had lessons I haven’t got a licence, and to be honest am a crap driver. Whatever.

“Sure you want to do this?” Again that disconcerting flicker of his alter ego, two people sharing the same body. As before it is terrifying.

“Leo?” I’m confused, but warily clutching my bag, unwilling to be outmanoeuvred by the psychopath who murdered my sister.

“I’m giving you a chance to back out Caz, the same as I gave your sister!” he laughs and Alexander is back, his face an evil mask of spite, so much so that I shrink back into the weeds.

A car flashes past, lights slashing the darkness. The bridge echoes the crazy yellow patterns, then flings then up to the stars. We are both silent, then a walk towards the beat up green corsa.

“Leo I want to know why. Why did you pretend to be someone else, if it’s not really you?”

He yawns, bored with my probing, “I already told you. It was fun, and the counsellor was right. I haven’t thought about Mum for ages.” Anger flashes again, “You ruined it. It’s your fault this is happening. You changed after Rose died…and now you are wrecking the game!”

“After you killed Rose. She didn’t just die!” I snap, forgetting I am supposed to be playing along, keeping him calm.

“Whatever.”