Cruel Summer (34 page)

With glee, Katie sank her teeth into the soft flesh of Alisha’s hand. There was that metallic taste again. Alisha screamed and finally dropped the dagger. Katie snatched up the weapon.
This was going to require a big clean-up effort but, what the hell, nearly done . . .

The ground moved. No, not the ground – Alisha. Somehow she’d managed to rise to her skinned knees and, all of a sudden, Katie was riding her like they were playing a game of horsey.
Caught off guard, Katie tried to regain her balance, but Alisha threw herself backwards, flipping them over.

With a cry, Katie toppled onto the coffee table, sending the jug of poisoned sangria crashing to the floor; little pink rivers surged along the grouting between the tiles. They ran towards
Ben’s dead face, pressed to the ground behind the armchair.

Alisha was already back on her feet. She hobbled to the patio doors. On the dining table was a sturdy wooden fruit bowl. Katie saw her reach for it to smash the glass. Katie still had the
dagger, though, and, therefore, the upper hand.

She lunged towards Alisha, but her feet slid out from under her. Skidding in sangria, Katie tumbled over, giving Alisha the chance she needed.

Alisha half-jumped, half-rolled onto the kitchen worktop. Plates, bowls and glasses clattered and smashed out of her way.

‘Where are you going?’ Katie snarled, chest heaving. ‘There’s nowhere to run.’ Alisha’s reply was a mug flying towards Katie’s face. It missed.
‘Well, that’s rude.’ Katie raised the knife again and strode towards Alisha.

Alisha reached for the knife block, but Katie was quicker. With a swish of her arm it tumbled over the other side of the counter and out of Alisha’s reach.

‘Let’s just get this over and done with,’ Katie said.

But Alisha had other ideas. She took hold of the enormous pan they’d made the paella in.

Katie’s face fell. ‘A frying pan? You’ve got to be f—’

Like a seasoned baseball pro, Alisha swung it right at Katie’s head. A black curtain fell.

SCENE 40 – ALISHA

A
lisha couldn’t quite believe that had worked.
A frying pan.
But it seemed to have done the trick. Hands shaking, Alisha stood over
Katie’s body. There was a glossy black-red puddle fanning out around her head and her eyes were closed. She looked dead. If Ryan were alive, he’d have told Alisha that the killer always
comes back to life; even she’d seen enough crap horror films to know that. Alisha knew she should use the pan to properly bash Katie’s head in – just to be on the safe side
– but, even after everything, that seemed too
monstrous.

Alisha’s wrist was agony. She rested the paella pan on the counter and, stepping around Katie, hurried to the terrace doors. Locked. Of course. This close, she saw the windows were
double-, if not triple-, glazed – the Grants had spared no expense. The glass was as thick as her arm. Breaking it on a good day would be hard; doing so with a broken wrist would be
practically impossible.

She turned back to Katie’s body. The key was probably in her pocket. If Katie was intending to get out once she’d killed them all, she’d have kept the keys on her person,
surely. Everything was messy in Alisha’s head, but she didn’t remember Katie having much time to hide the key after she’d locked them in. It
must
be in her pocket.

Alisha tiptoed back into the kitchen, trying not to look at the couch where her brother and Ryan lay together. She would sit down and cry for a year or two once this was over, but first she had
to get out of this God-awful place. She crouched over Katie’s body. She was lying exactly as Alisha had left her, sprawled on the tiles. Alisha felt warm blood on her bare toes.

Through the gloom, Alisha scrutinised her for signs of life. Katie’s chest didn’t seem to be moving at all. Oh-so-gently, she felt a limp wrist for a pulse. There was nothing
obvious, but she wasn’t sure she was doing it right.

With shaking fingers, Alisha slipped a hand into Katie’s left pocket. There was nothing there.
Damn.
In order to get into the right pocket, she would have to roll the body over.
Grimacing, she took hold of Katie’s shoulder and hip and coaxed her over, revealing the crack she’d made in her right temple. Alisha fought a wave of nausea and hooked her fingers into
the right pocket. The key was there. She could feel the cool metal at the bottom of the pocket.

That was when Katie convulsed back into life. It was so sudden, Alisha felt sure she must have been only
playing
dead. The redhead grasped for her, but Alisha recoiled with a scream,
falling back into the fridge door.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Katie demanded.

Alisha didn’t answer. Instead, she scrabbled to her feet, using the cellar door handle to pull herself up. The cellar!

The look on Katie’s face suggested she’d figured out Alisha’s plan almost as quickly as it had occurred to Alisha. She crawled over the tiles, blood streaming down her face,
her mouth contorted in a red snarl.

But Alisha was quicker. She tugged open the wooden door and slipped through, slamming it shut just as Katie’s hand inched round the doorway. Her fingers trapped, Katie shrieked before
whipping her hand back. Alisha threw her weight behind the door, fumbling for the bolt. It was old and rusted, but it squeaked into place.

She was safe. For now. But the door wasn’t strong and the bolt felt even less sturdy.

Katie knew it, too. ‘Nice try, Alisha,’ she said.

I should have hit her harder
, Alisha thought, starting to descend the cellar stairs. The stone was ice-cold on her bare feet, but it revived her, brought her more keenly into the
present. At the top of the stairs, Katie started to pound on the door, making it shake in its frame.

Alisha remembered that it wasn’t the only way out of the cellar – there was also the door onto the pool terrace. There was even a key for it hanging on a hook. Tiny fingers of light
filtered down from the kitchen onto the stairs. Beyond that there was only pitch darkness. Barely able to see an inch in front of her face, Alisha staggered into the shadows. She collided with the
first wine rack, making the bottles jangle.

With Katie hammering on the kitchen door above, Alisha hurriedly felt her way through the cellar, trying to picture the layout from her previous visit. She could see
nothing.
A Year
Five science lesson chose this precise moment to float back into her head:
we can only see if light enters the eye.
Down here, there was an almost total absence of light. Her eyes were out
of action. Her breath shook and she reached out with trembling hands, trying to find a path through the void. Her fingers finally came into contact with something. She clung to the dustsheets and
gym equipment, hoping her feet wouldn’t land on anything sharp. Baby step by baby step she inched across the freezing floor towards where she
hoped
she’d find the exit.

She stumbled, crying out as she stubbed her toe, but staying upright. Sticking to the wall, Alisha’s fingers finally found the rough wood of the door. She felt along the edges, recalling
the key that had been hanging from a nail hammered close to the top of the doorframe.

‘Give it up!’ Katie screeched. Alisha heard wood splinter and a little more light filtered down into the cellar. Katie was almost through the kitchen door. In haste, Alisha slid her
hands up the stone wall. Her fingertips made contact with something metal, but she was moving too fast and she knocked the key clean off the nail.

‘No!’ she gasped. A second later she heard a metallic clang as the key hit the floor, then a few quieter pings as it bounced and bounced again. Alisha dropped to her knees, patting
the floor in a circle around her. The key could have rolled under anything. Alisha’s hand came up against something hard and cold, wrapped in dust sheets – golf clubs or something. She
tried to feel for the key underneath but she couldn’t reach far and the golf clubs were heavy.

This was useless.
Useless.
Fresh tears ran down Alisha’s face. She’d been so nearly free. She’d found Katie’s error – the cellar door – and totally
failed to exploit it. The kitchen door gave another sickening crack. Alisha was going to die, and all because she’d dropped a key.

Enough candles to survive a nuclear winter.
Suddenly she remembered the armoire. The old wardrobe had been full of candles, and she was
pretty sure
there’d been a box of
matches in there, too. Her candle of hope sputtered back to life. It wasn’t over yet.

Up above, she could hear Katie screaming in rage. She’d be through and into the cellar any second now.

Alisha hurriedly patted her way around the walls until her fingers felt the smooth varnish of the armoire. Not wasting a second, she tugged the door open. Even in the pitch dark her hand could
identify the cool wax of a candle. She grabbed it and felt for the matches. If she was right, they were jammed in at the end of the shelf. When her hand touched the cube-shape of the matchbox she
wept with joy. Actually wept and didn’t care.

Careful not to make the same mistake twice, Alisha controlled her nervous fingers as she felt for a match and struck it against the side of the box. She was acutely aware of every tiny detail.
What is it they always say about being blind? The other senses compensate . . .

On the third attempt, the match sputtered to life and Alisha forced her trembling hand to light the candle. Now she could find the key and get the hell out of here.

She turned to start her hunt for the fallen key.

Alisha screamed. It tore the back of her throat and she almost dropped the candle in her horror. The heavy cold thing wasn’t a bag of golf clubs.

It was Erin.

SCENE 40 (CONT.)

T
he candlelight danced wildly and threatened to go out altogether as Alisha fell to her knees. Shadows swung up the walls and over Erin’s
grey, stony face. Her eyes gaped up at Alisha, utterly lifeless. Alisha sobbed, choking on her tears.

‘I guess you found Erin, then,’ said a sing-song voice from the kitchen. The pounding on the door ceased for a moment. ‘She was all packed and ready to go. I couldn’t
have that. I figured once you’d all died in “the accident” she’d come forward and tell the cops about Roxanne, so she had to go. No witnesses. Shame she ever came,
really.’

Alisha shook her head. Erin hadn’t done
anything
to deserve this. It wasn’t fair. Although her body was mostly shrouded in a bedsheet, there were angry brown fingerprints
around her neck. Greg had strangled Katie and, in return, it looked as though Katie had strangled Erin to death.

Next to the corpse was Erin’s pink Mulberry handbag. Katie must have killed her and then jogged down the beach until she’d got a signal on Erin’s phone so she could text Greg.
Erin had been underneath their feet the whole time they’d been looking for her.

All the fight drained out of Alisha and, for a moment, she wondered if she should just sit here and wait for Katie to break in and finish the job. She could join the others: her brother, Ben,
Ryan. It would be
so
much easier, and she was
so
tired.

But then a silver glint caught her eye. She saw the key resting at the foot of the door and her despair vanished as fast as it had come, replaced by something much more vivid: the urge to
survive. She really, really wanted to live. She crawled past Erin and prised the key out from the gap under the door.

‘Alisha?’ Katie yelled. ‘Why have you gone quiet? I don’t like it.’

Alisha ignored her, placing the squat candle on the floor and seizing the padlock in both hands. The key turned in the lock with a satisfying
click.
Alisha wrenched the padlock off,
slid back the bolt and pushed the door open to be greeted by the combined scent of chlorine and sea air. It was the best thing she’d ever, ever smelled.

The door opened onto the side of the house, just tucked around the corner from the pool. Alisha staggered out, suddenly aware of her bleeding knees and damaged wrist – was it broken? She
hobbled onto the pool terrace, making her way towards the beach. She was out in the open now; all she had to do was make her way to a public place like Zahara de los Atunes. Katie couldn’t
kill her there, right?

Aqua-blue light from the pool swirled around Alisha as if she were in a lagoon. She froze. An awful, awful thought occurred to her. Katie had
all
the keys.

Hardly daring to turn, Alisha looked up at the villa.

The terrace doors were ajar.

And then Katie was on her.

She burst through the air like a banshee, all hair and nails and blood. Alisha staggered backwards under the impact. Too late, she realised what was about to happen – they were going into
the pool together.

The water felt steely and solid as it hit her back with a slap. The chlorinated liquid rushed up her nostrils and the cold snatched her breath away. Alisha tried to roll out from under
Katie’s body.

Red blood clouded the neon-blue glow of the pool. Alisha surfaced, choking and gasping for air. Katie wasn’t far behind. Her hands broke the surface and instantly grabbed at Alisha,
dragging her under. Alisha sucked as much air as she could into her lungs before Katie’s hands thrust her shoulders down.

But Katie was so strong. Alisha felt her hands clamping the sides of her head, holding her under. Kicking, and flailing her arms, Alisha tried to surface, but Katie held fast. Alisha’s
chest burned; her ribs felt like they were about to explode.

She suddenly remembered something she used to do when she was little. She’d blow all the air out of her lungs so that she’d sink to the bottom. It was worth a try. She exhaled, the
bubbles rippling against her face. At the same time, she stopped splashing and, instead, wrapped her arms and legs around Katie.