The Hollows(23)

He plucked some grass from the ground with his fingertips. ‘I should delete the post. Maybe make my account private.’

‘That’s a good idea.’

‘Except we can’t get online without going back into Penance.’

‘Actually, maybe we can.’ She stood. ‘Follow me.’

She led him across the grass, towards the reception building. She felt a little reassured. Ryan was probably right. It was nature, that was all. No one had put ants in her bed.

She was hoping her guess would be correct: that if she got close enough, her phone would connect to the Wi-Fi without having to go inside.

There was a small shaded area around the back, with a couple of smelly dumpsters, and she headed for it, getting her phone out and checking the screen. Yes! It had worked. Her phone had remembered the password and she had a signal. She showed Ryan.

He got his own phone out. ‘What’s the password?’

She told him and he tried to connect but it timed out.

‘I guess it prefers my old phone to your shiny new one,’ she said. ‘Here, you can log in to Instagram on my phone.’

She gave it to him and watched as he went through the fiddly process of logging out of her account and logging back in again.

He tutted.

‘What is it?’

‘WhatsApp notifications keep popping up. Whoa, Frankie, it’s an avalanche.’ He paused and a smile crept on to his lips.

She stiffened. Had a message come in from one of her friends? A message about him? Her whole body went hot and cold, and it took all her willpower not to snatch the phone from his hand.

‘Are you logged in?’ she said. ‘I’m worried Greg will appear at any second and catch us.’

‘Chill, Frankie. What’s he going to do? Kick us out for stealing the Wi-Fi? He’s probably too busy, sitting in there watching porn.’

‘Oh, gross.’

He had the grace to look ashamed of himself. ‘Sorry. Okay, here we go. I’m in.’ He angled the phone so she could see it and navigated to the picture that had offended the residents of Penance. ‘That’s good. No new comments. A few likes from my friends back home. And . . . delete. There you go. Feel better now?’

She did. A little. She pointed at the top-right corner of the screen. ‘You’ve got a new message.’

He opened it. It was from someone calling him or herself CC123456. A nonsensical, anonymous username. The message contained three words:

Go home or . . .

‘Short but sweet,’ Ryan said. ‘Go home or what? Go home or stay here, the choice is yours? Go home or go hungry?’

He clicked on the avatar. CC123456 had a private account, which meant they had to approve follower requests, so it was impossible to see if they had ever posted anything. They had zero followers and didn’t follow anyone. It seemed they’d set up an account just to send this message. This threat.

‘Maybe we should tell our parents,’ Frankie said. She felt utterly sick now.

‘No way.’

‘Why not?’

‘My mom and dad act cool, like they’re young and swag or whatever. But my mom’s really strict. She’ll ground me for a month if she finds out about this. For antagonising the locals.’

Frankie thought her dad would be okay about it. Freaked out but not angry. She hadn’t really done anything wrong, anyway. It was Ryan who’d posted the picture. But she thought he might forbid her from seeing Ryan. That alone made her decide not to tell him.

‘I’ve deleted the post now,’ he said. ‘They must know they’ve scared us. They’ll stop now, I’m sure.’

She couldn’t have looked like she agreed, because he put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Trust me,’ he said.

Ryan remembered that he had promised he’d go out on the lake with his mum, so they said goodbye and she watched him half-jog towards the shining water.

Frankie made her way towards her cabin. She wasn’t sure what to think. Ryan was probably right. The rabbit thing was a coincidence, as were the ants and the bed bugs message.

Before they’d parted, Ryan had tried to reassure her again. ‘I know it sucks getting weird threats like this, but I bet they’re all bark and no bite. Don’t worry about it. Now I’ve deleted the post I’m sure that’ll be the end of it. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

She was deep in thought, finally persuading herself there was nothing to worry about, when she heard footsteps behind her. She was so hyped up that her body reacted immediately, her heartbeat accelerating, stomach plunging. But another impulse, the desire not to look stupid or foolish, prevented her from running.

Keeping a steady pace, she slowly looked over her shoulder.

It was them. The teenagers she and Ryan had encountered in Penance. They were behind her, walking at the same pace as her, side by side. She caught the girl’s eye and the girl’s lips curled into a smile. Except it wasn’t a real smile. It was the kind of expression an alien who was trying to imitate human emotion might make. The boy did the same, and now Frankie was certain they were twins. They looked like two dolls who had rolled off the same production line.

Frankie increased her pace, expecting the twins to do the same.

But when she dared to glance back again, they were gone.