The Hollows(37)

She headed towards the noise, holding her phone out before her, trying not to think about the battery and how quickly the flashlight app drained it. She was only on 13 per cent. Unlucky for some, she thought, suppressing a hysterical giggle. Maybe she should turn back, look for Ryan, but how could she? Even if right now, scared like this, her conviction that she never wanted to see him again had weakened considerably, he probably wouldn’t ever want to see her again. She was going to spend the rest of the vacation in the cabin. If Dad asked, she’d tell him she was sick. She’d tell him she wanted to go home.

She reached a fork in the path. Two options, left or right. Both looked exactly the same. Surely right would take her towards the cabins? Without stopping to think too much – fearful she would be paralysed by indecision – she went right. The path curved and quickly became overgrown, like she was heading off the track, deeper into the woods. Shining her phone’s light into the trees, she couldn’t see anything except the black bars of their trunks, the criss-cross of branches. This felt wrong. Again, trying not to hesitate, trying not to let the words You’re lost enter her head, she retraced her steps, back towards the junction.

Except the junction wasn’t there any more. The path kept going on, bending to the right and getting narrower. Don’t panic, do not panic, she told herself, cursing the lack of reception here, seeing that her phone battery had drained to 7 per cent, and she walked faster, convinced that if she was determined enough, force of will would take her to the right place.

She tripped and went down, crying out with pain as she hit the ground.

It was a tree root, stretching across the path. She sat there for a minute, dazed, rubbing at her shin. ‘It’s okay,’ she said to herself, her voice sounding very strange against the silence. She shut her phone light off, not wanting to completely kill the battery. She felt like Gretel, lost in the woods, but with no trail of breadcrumbs to follow.

Heading to the secret cabin in the woods . . .

She killed the thought and, as she got to her feet, checking she wasn’t injured, she heard something.

A soft, high tinkle in the distance.

Wind chimes.

If she could hear wind chimes, she must be close to Penance. That was good. All she needed to do was follow the sound and she would wind up back in town. From there she should be able to find a taxi to take her back to the resort – Dad could pay when she got there.

Switching the flashlight app back on, and wincing when she saw she was down to 4 per cent, she stepped over the root and kept going along the path.

The chimes grew a little louder. She was heading in the right direction, though she had no idea how she had ended up so close to Penance. She must have taken a wrong turn early on. She kept going, walking fast, convinced that any moment now she would recognise where she was, even in the dark, and then she would see the lights of the town. She didn’t even care that this was the town where people who apparently hated her lived. She just wanted to be out of these woods. The wind had picked up and, strangely, it was as if it were pushing her in the right direction, loose leaves and pine needles stirring at her feet.

As if the woods were telling her which way to go.

She found herself at another fork. The chimes were coming from straight ahead but the paths led left and right. She bit down on a scream. If she went left or right she was sure she would get lost again. She was sure the town was immediately ahead. As long as she went slowly and carefully, it should be okay. She just needed to go in a straight line. Follow the sound. Follow the wind.

Frankie left the path and pushed her way through the trees. The scratches on her back ached and the new bruise on her shin throbbed. She could hear things moving in the undergrowth and something else shifting in the branches above, and she increased her pace as much as she could, holding on to trees as she passed them, twisting her body this way and that, using the torch to illuminate the ground beneath her feet. Her phone was on 2 per cent now. She needed to reach the town before the battery died completely, and the wind chimes were loud. She was certain the town was on the other side of this patch.

Suddenly, there were no more trees ahead of her. She was in a clearing, one she hadn’t seen before. Like a drowning swimmer with just a lungful of air left, she struck out for safety, a final push, running across the long grass, a circle of black trees all around her. She was sure Penance had to be just beyond the trees on the far side of this clearing.

Someone stepped out of the trees to her left.

She couldn’t even scream. She stopped and turned. Her phone dropped from her grasp and she was so terrified she didn’t stop to pick it up. In the clearing, the sliver of a moon provided just enough light for her to see.

Enough light for her to see two more figures standing before her.

Two ahead. One behind. They stood still and silent, watching her. And between the gulps of panic, the fear that flooded and threatened to shut down her system, she realised she couldn’t see their faces.

They weren’t human.

A scream ripped out of her and she ran, leaving her phone behind in the grass, running towards the trees and the woods, not thinking, not making any kind of rational decision. The figures – the inhuman figures – didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. They watched her.

She stopped at the tree line. There was a new voice yelling inside her head, telling her not to go back into the woods. Not without a torch. She felt hot tears burning her cheeks. What should she do? What should she do? She wanted her mum, her dad, someone, anyone. She wished they’d never come here, wished she’d never met Ryan, wished wished wished she hadn’t fallen out with him. This was her punishment. These things, these creatures, were going to catch her, kill her, just like those teachers.