A Good Girl's Guide to Murder(28)

Pip lost interest in the boys trying to convince Lauren so they could play whatever prank it was they had planned. Probably about Andie Bell again. She reached over the Ouija board to grab another bag of crisps and that’s when she saw it.

A white light flash from within the trees.

She sat up on her heels and squinted. It happened again. In the distant dark a small rectangular light turned into view and then disappeared. Like the glow of a phone screen extinguished by the lock button.

She waited but the light didn’t come back. There was only darkness out there. The sound of rain in the air. The silhouettes of sleeping trees against the gloom of the moon.

Until one of the dark tree figures shifted on two legs.

‘Guys,’ she said quietly. A small kick to Ant’s shin to shut him up. ‘No one look now, but I think there’s someone in the trees. Watching us.’





Eleven



‘Where?’ Connor mouthed, his eyes narrowing as they held Pip’s.

‘My ten o’clock,’ she whispered. Fear like a blistering frost dripped into her stomach. Wide eyes spread like a contagion around the circle.

And then with an eruption of sound Connor grabbed a torch and sprang to his feet.

‘Hey, pervert,’ he yelled with unlikely courage. He sprinted out of the marquee and into the darkness, the light beam swinging wildly in his hand as he ran.

‘Connor!’ Pip called after him, disentangling herself from her sleeping bag. She grabbed the torch out of a dumbfounded Ant’s hands and took off after her friend into the trees. ‘Connor, wait!’

Shut in on all sides by black spidery shadows, snatches of lit trees jumped out at Pip as the torch shook in her hands and her feet pounded the mud. Drops of rain hung in the beam.

‘Connor,’ she screamed again, chasing the only sign of him up ahead, a vein of torchlight through the stifling darkness.

Behind her she heard more feet crashing through the forest, someone shouting her name. One of the girls screaming.

A stitch was already starting to split in her side as she tore on, the adrenaline swallowing any last dregs of beer that might have dulled her. She was sharp and she was ready.

‘Pip,’ someone shouted in her ear.

Ant had caught up with her, the torch on his phone guiding his feet through the trees.

‘Where’s Con?’ he panted.

There was no air left in her. She pointed at the flickering light ahead and Ant overtook her.

And still there was the sound of feet behind her. She tried to look around but could only see a pinpoint of growing white light.

She faced forwards, and a flash from her torch threw two hunched figures at her. She swerved and fell to her knees to avoid crashing into them.

‘Pip, you OK?’ Ant said breathlessly, offering his hand.

‘Yeah.’ She sucked at the humid air, a cramp now twisting into her chest and gut. ‘Connor, what the hell?’

‘I lost him,’ Connor gasped, his head by his knees. ‘I think I lost him a while back.’

‘It was a man? Did you see him?’ Pip asked.

Connor shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t see it was a man, but it had to be, right? I only saw that they were wearing a dark hood. Whoever it was ducked out of the way while my torch was down, and I stupidly kept following the same path.’

‘Stupidly chased them in the first place,’ Pip said angrily. ‘By yourself.’

‘Obviously!’ Connor said. ‘Some pervert in the woods at midnight, watching us and probably touching himself. Wanted to beat the crap out of him.’

‘That was needlessly dangerous,’ she said. ‘What were you trying to prove?’

There was a flash of white in Pip’s periphery and Zach emerged, pulling up just before he collided with her and Ant.

‘What the hell?’ was all he said.

Then they heard the scream.

‘Shit,’ Zach said, turning on his heels and sprinting back the way he’d just come.

‘Cara! Lauren!’ Pip shouted, gripping her torch and following Zach, the other two beside her. Through the dark trees again, their nightmare fingers catching her hair. Her stitch ripping deeper with each step.

Half a minute later, they found Zach using his phone to light up where the two girls stood together, arm in arm, Lauren in tears.

‘What happened?’ Pip said, wrapping her arms round them both, all shivering even though the night was warm. ‘Why did you scream?’

‘Because we got lost and the torch smashed and we’re drunk,’ Cara said.

‘Why didn’t you stay in the marquee?’ Connor said.

‘Because you all left us,’ Lauren cried.

‘OK, OK,’ Pip said. ‘We’ve all overreacted a bit. Everything’s fine; we just need to head back to the marquee. They’ve run off now, whoever it was, and there are six of us, OK? We’re all fine.’ She wiped the tears from Lauren’s chin.

It took them almost fifteen minutes, even with the torches, to find their way back to the marquee; the woods were a different planet at night. They even had to use the map app on Zach’s phone to see how far they were from the road. Their steps quickened when they caught sight of distant snatches of white canvas between the trunks and the soft yellow glow of the battery lanterns.