Deathwatch (10 page)

Cat thought nothing of it, other than to feel that familiar fear that she felt whenever she thought of terrorists. When wars were in other countries, they were horrible, but far away. They made her feel bad inside, scared, sad, but they didn’t affect her life. The threat of terrorism felt like something against her, her future. She needed not to think about it. She needed her life to stay safe. How did people manage to cope with danger in their lives every day? She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to feel unsafe when you went out of your front door. Did you get used to it? Or did it eat you up?

Her dad was swearing now. A motorbike was driving too close behind them. He pulled over to the left very suddenly and for a moment it seemed as though the motorbike would pull over too, but at the last minute it sped past, the leather-jacketed rider peering round at them and glaring.

“What’s his problem?” muttered her dad. “Maniac!”

“I think it was a woman, actually,” Cat said.

“Maniac, anyway.”

Once home, Cat went to the kitchen for a snack, took it upstairs, and had a shower. She came out feeling better, clean, warm, comfortable. While she waited for her hair to dry, she went on Phiz. Just planning to chat with her friends while she ate her snack, before doing her homework.

It didn’t happen like that.

When she clicked the Phiz icon to launch it, the screen started to behave oddly. The background seemed to quiver, as though breaking up into millions of pieces.

Phiz took ages to launch. Irritating. Maybe she needed her laptop repaired. Perhaps she could get someone to take a look at it at school. Marcus was good with computers – maybe he could sort it out. Danny could have done as well, but how likely was she to ask him?

Eventually the Phiz screen launched. And slowly came into focus.

A small, hollow groan escaped her lips.

The whole screen was full of flies, crawling everywhere. Thousands, millions maybe. A distant buzzing came from the computer. She turned the sound back up a little, and quickly turned it down – she’d hoped it might just be the sound of the speakers, but it wasn’t. Even with the sound turned down, she could faintly hear the noise.

The flies began to shrink, and to swarm quickly towards the top-right corner. There, they poured into a small black hole and disappeared. And when they had gone, Cat could see what the small black hole actually was.

A spider with an open mouth. The spider was back.

HORROR
crawled through Cat’s body. She could not take her eyes from the screen. She slid the laptop from her, slowly, touching it with only the tips of her fingers. Her breathing quickened, raced. Something stuck in her throat. Nothing around her seemed to exist except for this screen and the buzzing.

Footsteps on the stairs.

“Catty?” Her mum.

“Yes?”

“Can I come in?”

“Why?” she snapped.

“To say good night. Ask you about your day. Is that a problem?”

“No. Goodnight.” Cat closed the lid of the laptop.

Her mum came further in. “What’s wrong? You look awful.”

“Thanks a lot. I’m just tired.” She knew her voice sounded tight. She couldn’t help it.

“Don’t snap, sweetheart. I’m only asking. Anything wrong at school?”

“No. Nothing.”

“You sure? Swimming go OK? You up with your schedule?”

“Fine.”

“I’m sorry Dad and I have been a bit preoccupied the last few days. It’s sorted now – you know that Gulf War syndrome article? Well, it’s fine. A journalist phoned twice, but I gave him nothing and he won’t bother me again. Nothing to worry about.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure you’re OK? You look really stressed. Has something happened?”

“Stop going
on
, Mum, OK? I’m just tired. I’m going to bed now.” Her voice was snappier than she wanted, but she couldn’t stop it.

“OK, sweetheart. Just tell me if there’s anything I can do, OK?” And her mum came, kissed the top of her head and left. Cat did not move towards her, though a moment later she wished she had. The scent of her was so familiar, so warm. She felt a sudden need to bury her head in her mum’s shoulder, as she used to do. Not to have secrets. To tell her mum everything, because her mum always used to make everything all right. But the words would not come. Because everything now seemed complicated and tangled in dangerous truths.

If she gave any hint that something was wrong,
everything
would pour out.

Besides, this started with Phiz. It was her fault, they’d say. Her parents had forbidden her to have an account. She’d probably wrecked her laptop and it could cost a fortune to sort it. She could not tell them. And she’d have to talk about Danny and that was off-limits with parents. They wouldn’t take it seriously. Or they’d take it too seriously.

Her mum was gone.

She opened the laptop again. She needed to talk to Bethan or Ailsa. Or Marcus, to ask if he could help with the laptop.

She went onto another site to talk to them; see who was there.

They were not online. None of her close friends was there. And there wasn’t enough credit on her phone to speak to them: there never was.

She was on her own.

Cat slept badly again that night. Every time she closed her eyes she saw that spider, heard the flies buzzing. Every time she opened her eyes she saw darkness.

At one point she got out of bed to open her shutters and lighten the blackness of her room. Outside, grey moonlight shone through a sky patched with clouds. A glow came from the sallow orange streetlights.

Something moved in the undergrowth of the garden opposite the house, a back garden of a house in the next street. A fox, maybe. There were lots of foxes around here. Polly regarded it as her night-time duty to follow their smells on her bedtime walk.

Through the branches of the surrounding trees, Cat could see the lights of windows. Many leaves still remained, though each windy day shook more away. Soon she would be able to see more windows. Now it was only the highest ones and some in the distance. Cat was not worried about people looking into her window; she was high enough to look down on most of them. And the others? Well, she wouldn’t have her curtains open if her light was on, obviously. But if her light was off, no one could see her: her dad had explained it years ago when she’d been about six and worried about it. He’d done an experiment to prove it. It gave her a good feeling. Of being invisible.

She gave no thought to who might be behind the lit windows. The fact that she couldn’t sleep; the fact that she had stupidly let a virus into her computer and might get into trouble, or lose the work on it – her coursework maybe; the fact that she had creep Danny plaguing her; the fact that tomorrow was fencing again: these were the things that mattered.

Not who might or might not be behind those windows. Watching.

CAT
grabbed hold of Marcus as soon as she saw him the following morning. At the school gates. Stamping her feet in the cold of a late September sun. She’d been waiting. Bethan had arrived first and Cat had told her half the story when Marcus turned up. With Ailsa. Walking quite close together. Anyway, she started to tell him about the laptop as they all walked towards the classroom. Josh had joined them, tagging on to Bethan, the two of them messing around together. Cat ignored them.

“You’ve got to help me, Marcus. And I don’t want everyone to know about this. You’ve got to promise.” He nodded. And they all started listening – a secret was always worth attention. Cat told them what had happened with her laptop.

“How could Danny be such a creep?” asked Ailsa. “What a total loser!”

“I didn’t even know he was that clever,” said Bethan.

“Actually, you don’t need to be that clever. There’re sites that sell small viruses, bits of code you can upload to someone’s computer if they give you access. He could have bought one.” Marcus was in his element, his eyes thoughtful beneath his dark floppy hair.

“I don’t believe it was Danny,” said Josh. “He’s not like that. He can be an idiot but he wouldn’t do something like that. That’s sick.”

“He would,” said Bethan. “Where Cat’s concerned he’s lost the plot.”

“But it’s OK,” said Ailsa. “It’s easy to get rid of a virus.”

They looked at her. “My dad does this stuff,” she said. “He had to deal with my computer in the holidays because I’d got a virus and he said it had come from Phiz. That’s why I got banned.” Cat remembered that Ailsa’s dad worked in computers. “Anyway, it’s quite interesting, actually.”

“You got banned?” asked Marcus. “But you were on yesterday.” Oh, so, not when Cat wanted to speak to them, then.

“Yeah, I got banned. But so what? They’re not going to watch me every minute, are they?”

“But can you get rid of it without my parents knowing?” asked Cat. “They’re going to kill me if I’ve wrecked my laptop.”

“Easy,” said Marcus, and Ailsa nodded. “At the very worst, I’ll take it back to factory settings,” he said. “Have you got the recovery disk?”

“I haven’t a clue. What’s that?”

“Your mum or dad will have it,” said Ailsa. “You’ll just have to find where.” Cat knew where it’d be: her mum was organized like that, had everything to do with various electronic stuff in a box. Everything labelled. It wouldn’t be a problem.

“Have you backed up your stuff?” asked Marcus.

“What do
you
think?”

Of course she hadn’t. Not recently anyway. They’d been warned about it at the start of the school year. All about taking responsibility now that they were working for serious exams. But Cat hadn’t taken much notice. It had seemed like one of those dire warnings that teachers give, but it’s never going to happen. She’d backed up once, the day they’d been warned, but hadn’t done it again. She felt slightly sick.

They had to go to registration then. Josh and Bethan, whispering about something. Ailsa and Marcus, discussing computers. And Cat. Ready for a bad day.

Later, she was on the receiving end of a row from Mr Dawson about not having her homework from last night. Well, OK, not last night. Yes, she should have done it over the weekend … yes, she knew she’d had a whole week to do it … yes, she knew she shouldn’t have left it till the last minute … sorry, Sir … thank you, Sir. The thank you was because he said he’d let her off but, he added, “Only if I have it by tomorrow. Without fail.”

Which she’d had to accept. Though even if Marcus and Ailsa between them were able to fix her laptop, the chances of her being able to get the work done in time were minimal. But that was a row to deal with when it came. Better tomorrow than today.

She’d also face hassle tomorrow if the two bits of work she had already started for other teachers ended up disappearing into the great graveyard of homework in the sky.

Gloom settled on her. It was a day when everything was going to go wrong.

The day dragged its way through double English and religious moral education in the morning; dragged its way through lunch of a huge grey baked potato with the choice of fillings being cheese or not cheese, and a salad of wet tomatoes and lettuce with beige edges; and finally dragged its way through French and maths, ending with another row for forgetting her calculator.

The only good thing was that since Danny wasn’t in her set for maths, French or English, she barely saw him.

Until fencing.

Bethan, Marcus and Josh had gone to drama, with Marcus promising to come to her house later on to deal with the virus. Emily was at cookery. Ailsa normally did fencing but she had to go to the dentist. Priya was off sick. Cat was on her own.

She was aware of Danny as they prepared for the class in the school gym. Both in their protective kit already, they each selected foils and masks, along with everyone else. Danny’s left hand had a small bandage on two of the fingers.

Cat wanted to cool the situation. She didn’t like confrontation, though she wouldn’t run away from it if it came. But she wasn’t about to make it worse. So she looked at Danny casually, even slightly smiled. He looked away. Whether he’d seen her and deliberately looked away, or just happened to be looking away anyway, she couldn’t tell.

She avoided being paired against him. Made sure she was already partnered with someone whenever Mr Boyd was allocating opponents. She worked hard too, trying to please Mr Boyd, concentrating on what she did well: anything to do with sport.

She felt the strength in her thigh muscles as she lunged and parried, focused on the correct position of every part of her body. She listened carefully when Boyd taught them a new move. Did everything she was told. But praise never came. He didn’t seem to notice her. When she executed a new move perfectly in one practice bout, he wasn’t even looking in her direction.

Sometimes you want to be invisible. Sometimes you don’t.

At the end of the lesson she pulled off the sweaty mask and shook her hair free.

Frustrated.

Right, she would deal with this. She walked over to Danny. Spoke to him quietly. This wasn’t something for everyone to know about.

“Let’s call it quits, shall we?”

“What are you talking about?” He spoke loudly. One of his friends turned towards them.

“You know. Phiz. All that stuff. I’m sorry, OK? Now can we just move on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What about Phiz?” Was that knowledge in his eyes?

“Forget it, Danny.” And she walked away, her jaw tight with irritation. It had been stupid. She was no closer to any kind of resolution. No closer to knowing if he’d really done it.

Of course he had. But Marcus was going to get rid of the virus thing and after that she could just forget about it. Maybe one day Danny would grow up and it would all blow over. She’d been stupid to think she could have made it up with him so quickly.

She hurried home, among the first to leave, not wanting to have to share a bus with Danny. Darkness was falling and a breeze rustled in her ears. On the bus journey, she plugged in her iPod and immersed herself in the music.