Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood) (29 page)

Closing her
eyes was a very, very bad idea.

As soon as she
did, the footsteps came. Up and down the asphalt they
click-clacked.

“Scream for me,
little girl. Beg me for mercy.”

The voice was
familiar and full of a calm menace that didn’t quite ring true.
“Beg me for mercy, for pity, and I’ll give you none.”

Katie tried to
open her eyes – or rather, she knew she should try to but didn’t,
couldn’t. Leaving them shut was so easy. And she had to wonder if
fighting this urge was so bad really…

Yes. Yes, it
was.

“Don’t ignore
me, little girl. At least do me the honour of looking at me. If I
can’t hear you then I wanna
see
you scream.”

A blind hate
crept into that voice, subdued but virtually bubbling over with
presence. She snapped her eyes open and saw a man striding up and
down the sprint section of track. He had a whip dangling from one
hand. He was trailing it along the ground and drumming out a steady
boot heel beat.

“Little girls
always cry. You gonna cry for me, little girl?”

“This little
girl has a name,” Katie ground out.

“Oh, of course.
Lady Katie, right? Yeah, he screams your name out every night.”

“Why do you
keep hurting him?”

“Jack? Just
‘cos I can mostly.”

“You’re sick,
you know that? He’s a good guy and you killed him. I have no clue
why but I saw what you did. You whipped him to death and let him
die in pain and bleeding and all I saw in your eyes when you looked
at me was that you wanted to do exactly the same to me. Maybe
anyone else who was handy.”

“Nah, it was
definitely you.”

“Why? What did
I ever do to you?”

“You seen
it.”

“One time. How
does that warrant these cuts?”

“You saw me.
And now, you pay.”

She stilled
herself, held her breath and bit down on her lip hard enough to
draw blood. A scream filled her throat ut the trickle of blood
sated it. Anything,
anything
, not to make a sound.

The footsteps
stilled and Katie saw the man looking at her, although it was much
too dark to really be sure of that. She just saw the shadow of his
head pointing at her and felt the sizzling hate radiating from him.
“I’m a-comin’ for you.” He took one tiny step in her direction and
Katie fell flat on her back, trying to scramble away. Her brain
yelled at her to get up, get away but her legs just weren’t
co-operating. The drumming of his boots started up again, came
closer then stopped right at the edge of the grass. “Not runnin’?
Or maybe you want me to kill you the same way I killed your
boyfriend.” He flicked the whip vaguely in her direction and the
sonic boom it made sounded like lightning right next to her ears.
It wasn’t long enough to reach Katie but she felt the ghost of the
lash scrape across the side of her neck. It didn’t feel like it was
bleeding, or that there was broken skin, so it was definitely all
in her head. Only, somehow, the man with hate in his eyes was
grinning
like he had seen his action shock her.

And shock her
it had. It had demanded her legs stretch out beneath her, push up
and run for her life. It felt as though her legs as they lurched
and locked underneath her body. “Run.”

“Yeah, run,
little girl. I’ll never catch you.”

Ignore him.
Focus on moving,, getting to safety.

Footsteps were
squelching over damp grass now. Katie turned to face him, walking
backwards and looking over her shoulder every few seconds to make
sure she was on course.

“You think you
can kill me? Do it.” God how she wished she was as confident in
that challenge as she was making herself sound. “I mean, you know
I’ll only come back don’t you? And I’ll find a way to stop you one
day.”

“Big talk from
a little girl. Better make sure you can follow up on those
threats.”

“Trust me. You
can scare me, you can kill me in my dreams but I have survived
worse than you this year and you will not break me. You’re
nothing!”

His approach
faltered for a micro-second. Confusion flashed across his face but
he pressed on. There was no way to beat him; he was stronger,
bigger and he had weapons. Even trying to make him feel inadequate
wasn’t working. Killers didn’t really embrace the full range of
human emotions, did they? “And yet I still have this much power
over you.”

“Yes. You have
power over my life. My death. Is that what makes you tick? Feeling
macho and strong because you have the weapons?” She backed up a
couple more steps, out of the glow of the floodlight and into the
inky, airless night. The blurry square of light was between them
now. The bad man was fast approaching it and Katie did not want to
be within reaching distance of that hateful whip. Memories of that
strip of leather arcing across her tender flesh assaulted her
nerves and she once more yelled at her numb feet.

Keep
moving.

“See, what
would make it so much sweeter would be if you came over here and
finished this with your own two hands.”

He tightened
his grip and growled. Honest to God
growled
. He flicked his
wrist and the whip shot out once more. Too far away to carve
another arc into her arm but the sound sent tiny lightning bolts
through her head. Katie put her hands to her face thinking she
could protect herself or
something
but instead lost her
balance completely and fell forwards on to her knees. The man
advanced on Katie. He was in the middle of the white square of
light and Katie could see his tall, thin, tense shadow outlined in
it. The contrast was too harsh to make out any of his features but
Katie didn’t feel at all thankful.

Don’t be
scared until you can see the wrinkles on his forehead, the
yellowing of his teeth.
The movies always made you believe
that; until you knew the face of your enemy, you didn’t know the
face of fear. Katie begged to differ. Not seeing him clearly was
way scarier. “Fine. You don’t want to get your hands dirty.” She
shot over onto her backside and dragged her hands through the
grass, trying to scramble and squirm her way backwards and keep a
decent distance between them. She dug her hands into the mud and
tried desperately to grip tufts of overgrown grass or weed to get
so leverage and pull away faster. If the man could see the deep and
undeniable terror Katie felt then he didn’t show it. “Whatever you
did to Jack, you want to do it to me too. Maybe because you know
you can still hurt him by getting to me. Maybe you’re just a
sadistic old fuck up who enjoys hurting innocent people. But –“

“There ain’t no
innocent people. Everyone’s guilty of somethin’!”

“And guilt
needs to be punished. But not like this!” She felt a curved block
of concrete rising a few inches up her spine and pulled herself
over it. Another foot or so and she backed up against a wall of net
around a round of concrete, a little damp but mostly dry enough to
huddle in a ball and not get soaked through her jeans. Katie
reached out and felt for the steel pole that marked the edge of the
netting. God, she hoped this was the kind of throwing circle that
had a door to the net. It kept kids and undesirables away from the
store of heavy objects when in use. Sure enough, there was a chain
link gate to it. Katie hooked her fingers through the steel wire
and pulled – the hinges squealed and protested but slowly gave in
and slammed into place. She wished she wasn’t alone out here.

You’re never
alone. I
can help you if you let me.
The voice might
have been Jacks but she was so panicked that it could have been
anyones. Even the voice she was speaking to the bad man in was
unrecognisable as her own.

And now she had
locked herself in a cage of steel and string with a mad man
outside, pacing with a whip in his hand and hate in his eyes.

“Your
move.”

Katie blinked
and was instantly back in the room with a Monopoly board at her
feet. Adam was holding the dice out to her and she scooted down to
the floor, rolled a double five and raced ahead to linger in jail.
Jaye, black hair mussed into something the cat dragged in and threw
at her head, scooped the dice up and held them out in a closed
fist. “Kiss ‘em for me. Make ‘em lucky, babe,” she said to Adam. He
did as instructed and continued scrutinising the takeaway menu in
his hand. No-one seemed to want the bother of cooking tonight.

Jaye threw
Katie an odd look as she counted spaces. It was somewhere between
worried and thankful and Katie wasn’t eager to find out what it
meant. It was just too tiring to be holding the complex
conversation she anticipated.

“What just
happened?” Leo muttered across the board.

Katie shrugged
and put a finger to her lips. Jaye and Adam could not know about
anything that was going on. They would only worry and want to help
– which, she guessed, would only make things worse. “I just spaced
for a while.” Her watch only read five in the evening, about
fifteen minutes after getting home.
I’m home. Where I should
be.
The waking nightmare that she had watched in her mind had
felt like it had lasted hours not seconds.

“You okay?”

She shrugged
again. “You care?”

Now it was
Leo’s turn to shrug. He didn’t. Not really. He hadn’t suspected any
of what Katie had told him earlier, had taken Adam and Lainy at
their word when they said he imagined Jaye’s flesh melting beneath
his hand, it was just lightning fast reflexes. He still desperately
clung to the hope he’d just gotten housed with a crazy person but
that was melting away fast too.

Adam got up and
sauntered out the door, phone in hand. Dinner was roughly an hour
away. Wednesdays seemed to be takeaway night.

The door hung
open a few inches but Jaye gave it a swift kick then scooted over
to sit next to Katie. She almost looked like the Jaye of a few days
ago – happy, relaxed. If it wasn’t for the broken and chapped lips
the picture might have been complete. “Thanks for earlier. I don’t
think I would’ve slept without you.”

“No problem.
I’m glad you rested up. You going back tonight?”

“When Lainy
gets back after dinner.”

“You just have
to ask,” she said and leant back against the chair. Her spine felt
as though it was wound into a tight snake, too long for her body.
No amount of stretching was helping. She thought for a moment of
asking Adam to give her a half hour back massage. He could
definitely work out her knots with those muscles and…

“Will you bring
Jack?”

Oh. The fantasy
folded in on itself and fluttered out the nearest window. Adam was
the eye candy of the house, nothing else, it never did hurt anyone
to look though. Jack was her –

“Did you guys
make up or what?”

“He lied to me.
He stole my memories. He’s made me scared to close my eyes.
He-“

“He cares about
you.” Jaye twisted to face her friend, cross-legged and looking
like a pretty/messy Buddha. She reached out and stroked Katie’s
cheek, looking into her soft brown eyes, deep enough that Katie
shivered imagining that Kaye was also stroking the depths of her
mind. Would she understand anything she saw there? Katie wasn’t
sure. “I can see why. I know he told you more than he should and
they’ll deal with that but right now…you just have to believe me.
He never meant to hurt anyone.”

“Who’re
they?”

“They’re the
ones who decide whether we deserve it.”

Another
thousand questions started sparking in her mind but Katie couldn’t
seem to hold on to a single one of them. “Jaye, please don’t blame
him.”

“I don’t. But
they do. He’s guilty of not knowing, not thinking.”

“It was an
accident.”

“I know.”

“But I haven’t
forgiven him yet. Not for any of this.”

Adam barged
back through the door and flopped down on the floor. “Pizza’s 45
minutes away. Anyone moved while I was away?”

“These two had
a moment. It was beautiful.” Leo wiped a pretend tear away from his
eyes and set his face hard as stone again. “Screw this, I’m bored.”
He knocked his piece off the board and stomped off to his room.
No-one was sorry to see him go.

“And the
moment’s gone.” Jaye scooted over to her side of the board and
flattened out on her belly, waving her feet in the air. “We were
talking about Jack.”

“What’s he
done?”

Katie waved her
hands before her. The immediate conclusion Adam had jumped to had
shocked her but not quite as much as how quickly she had got there
too. “Nothing like that!” she promised.
Well, not that you
remember anyway.
She bit her lip, trying to bite the voice into
silence.
I’m in your head, genius. Good plan.

“Am I missing
something here?”

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

When the two
large pizzas they had shared were boxes and crusts, and Jaye had
gone to relieve Lainy at the hospital with Adam as her gallant
escort, Katie locked the door behind them and went to the kitchen
to retrieve the six pack of Red Bull. Someone had already nicked
one. She was going to have to start labelling her stuff. The
remaining five cans went upstairs to her room with her and Katie
popped one open on the way. Living on caffeine, sugar and additives
for the rest of her life was starting to sound like a viable
option.

As she neared
her room, Katie made up her mind to try something. Maybe she could
call Jack and get him to hold and protect her whilst she slept, the
way he said he did. Maybe that was another lie. Maybe the man did
something to her and Jack just made her forget it all.

“This?” Leo was
cross legged on his bed and looked up as Katie walked past. “This
is your answer?”