One by One (4 page)

And then, without warning, a hooded figure – his face obscured – appeared, holding something out in front of him. It was a crossbow and it was aimed right at us.

‘Run!' I yelled, immediately bolting in the other direction, my head down low as I knocked into Luke. I heard something whistle past my head; heard a scream; and then I was gone, into the trees away from our attacker, running for my life. I pulled off the backpack containing my stuff, not wanting to slow myself down, and threw it into some bushes. I zigzagged between the trees, charged straight through undergrowth, never once looking behind me. Even when I stumbled and fell, dropping my knife in the process, I was back on my feet and moving in an instant, picking it up as I sprung away, all the while ignoring the terrible burning in my lungs.

I don't know how long I ran for but it was probably no more than three or four minutes and then the woods ended abruptly, to be replaced by a wall of rock a good thirty feet high and, at least at the point I was looking at it, totally insurmountable. I ran down alongside the rock wall for about thirty yards as it tapered off before finally giving way to a short but sheer cliff that looked down on the rock-strewn, bubbling sea below.

I thought about following the cliff round until I eventually came back to the beach, but decided against it. There was no shelter for me there, plus the killer might expect me to go that way. I stopped and crouched low behind one of the last of the trees, and forced myself to look back.

There was no one there. I couldn't hear anything either.

I crouched there, panting for a few minutes while I got my breath back, wondering if the others were all right. It wasn't a surprise I couldn't hear them. Like me, they'd be trying to keep as quiet as possible. But I remembered hearing a scream so it was possible one of them had been hit. It had sounded like it had come from a man and, with a jolt of fear, I wondered if it was Crispin. That would be the worst blow. Of all of us, he was showing the most resilience.

I continued to scan the trees, thinking about my next move. I couldn't stay here. I'd be trapped if the killer approached through the woods. Again, I wondered if it could have been Charlie. It was impossible to tell from the glimpse I'd got of him but, as unlikely a murderer as he made, it had to be a strong possibility. I wondered what he'd do if he had me here at his mercy. Could I possibly get through to him? We'd been good friends once. Of all the girls in our group, I'd probably got on with him the best. It was almost impossible to believe that someone I'd known so well would kill me in cold blood, but then if he'd thrust a knife into Louise's heart while she sat facing him, he could probably just as easily do it to me.

In the end, I knew I had to try to make my way back to the house. As I cautiously stood and took a couple of tentative steps into the woods, keeping in the shadows of the nearest tree, it began to rain.

I moved slowly and quietly from tree to tree. A few yards a minute, never out in the open for longer than a couple of seconds, my ears straining against the wind that blew through the wood in a life-or-death effort to hear the slightest noise that might indicate an ambush. Because that's what this was. Life or death. The fear that I might be dead within the next few minutes almost knocked me over with its sheer power and it took every inch of a willpower I didn't even know I had to keep going.

I was moving at what I hoped was a rough forty-five-degree angle through the wood in the direction of the house, avoiding the path for obvious reasons. One way or another, the house represented my best chance of safety now that I knew for certain that neither Crispin, Marla nor Luke was the killer, because I guessed all of them would be heading there too.

The rain was getting harder now and I shivered against the cold, resting for a second in the shadow of one of the pines.

That was when I saw him. Dressed all in black, a ski mask almost completely obscuring his face, creeping quietly between two lines of trees, holding the loaded crossbow in front of him as he scanned the woods for his prey. No more than ten yards away and getting closer.

I pulled my head back sharply behind the tree and kept my gasp of shock inaudible. Had he seen me? I didn't think so.

But what if you're wrong? said the nagging little voice that was always there. What if he's coming towards you right now, finger tensing on the crossbow's trigger, ready to fire a bolt through your brain and ending everything you've ever felt in an instant?

Run.

Stay put.

Run.

Stay put.

I held my breath, not daring to move a muscle, feeling the pressure build in my lungs.

I heard a twig break. Nearby.

It was taking all my self-control not to bolt for it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I turned my head and saw him, almost touching distance away, creeping past the tree I was hiding behind, his face turned the other way as he prowled for victims.

As he turned round in my direction, I jerked my head back, still holding my breath, and inched my way round the other side of the tree, praying he hadn't seen or heard me because otherwise I was dead. I'd had barely a second to observe him – not long enough to confirm whether or not it was Charlie, but I was pretty sure it wasn't. This man moved like a hunter. I'd never seen Charlie move like that.

I counted to ten in my head, every second seeming to drag like an eternity of pure, ice-cold fear, before slowly exhaling and immediately sucking in a deep breath of air, and holding it in.

I counted to ten again and finally risked a glance round the tree.

He wasn't there. My eyes scanned the woods but there was no sign of him.

I didn't like this. He'd been moving slowly. He wouldn't have got more than twenty or thirty feet in the time I'd been counting in my head, but he'd disappeared completely.

Was this some kind of trap? Was he waiting for me a few yards away so he could take me down like an animal with his crossbow? But I couldn't stay here. Eventually he'd come back and discover me. He had all the time in the world. I had none. I couldn't be more than a hundred yards from the house. If I could get there, I was safe. At least that was what I was telling myself. The little voice that was always there was telling me to run. Now. As fast as I could. And hope for the best.

I didn't want to look behind me – Jesus, I didn't – and I had to force myself to slowly turn my head, knowing that whatever was behind me could well be the last thing I ever saw, and it was an incredible relief just to see the empty line of pines.

I made a decision. Taking one last look in the direction the crossbowman – whoever he was – had gone, I peeled myself off the tree and crept as quietly as possible past a fan of mature ferns, using them as cover, until I got to the next tree, then did the same again. The lines of pines had now given way to a sprinkling of oak trees as the woods thinned, and I could see the vague outline of the house through the undergrowth, no more than thirty yards away.

I looked back. Still no sign of my pursuer. For the first time, I felt a thin ray of hope. I took a step backwards, then another, manoeuvring round the tree trunk to make myself as invisible as possible.

And touched something. Something that felt very human.

The shock made me jump forward and I swung round fast, looking straight into Charlie's cold, staring eyes.

He was skewered to the tree by two crossbow bolts. One had been fired through his chest – the entry point very similar to where the knife blade had been thrust into Louise the previous night. The other was jutting out of his throat. There was a lot of blood. Thin rivulets of it ran from both corners of his mouth in long lines, mixing with the thick drying stain that covered his throat and chest, and I immediately recalled what Crispin had said about Louise hardly bleeding at all because the knife thrust into the heart had killed her instantly. This was very different. The killer must have shot him in the throat first, – probably at point-blank range, and let him choke on his own blood before finally finishing him off.

I couldn't help it. Instinctively, I cried out, the sound far too loud in the natural quiet of the woods.

Then, as I tore my gaze away from Charlie's corpse, I saw him standing twenty yards away, the crossbow to his shoulder as he pointed it right at me in a marksman's stance. The man who'd murdered my two friends.

For a second I didn't move. I don't know if, in that moment in time, I'd resigned myself to my fate, but it was almost as if I was waiting for him to fire.

But he didn't. And that hesitation on his part was enough for me.

I dived round the far side of the oak and temporarily out of sight just as a bolt flew through the air, reverberating as it hit a nearby tree. I was on my feet in an instant, tearing through a tangle of brambles, ignoring the pain as the thorns slashed at my face and body, staying low and trying not to keep to a straight line.

I ate up the ground, the house taking shape now. I snatched a look over my shoulder. Saw him running too, the crossbow reloaded, a couple of trees back but keeping me in sight. I turned forward again, almost hit a tree, dodged it at the last second, stumbling on something but somehow managing to keep my balance.

And then I was out of the wood and running across the front lawn. At the last second, I remembered that the front door would be locked and I darted down the path round to the back of the house, flinging open the side gate which clattered shut behind me, praying that the door there would still be open.

Panting, I reached it and yanked the handle.

It was locked.

There was no longer any point in trying to be quiet so I hammered on the door, pushing my face against the glass. The back hallway was empty but there had to be someone in there because we'd left the door open when we'd left barely half an hour ago.

I kept hammering, the glass shaking from the blows, screaming for them to let me in. ‘Help me! Help me!' But no one was in there. No one at all. Surely they couldn't all be dead. But what if they were? What if I was the last one left alive on this godforsaken island with a killer who was hunting me down like a dog?

Which was when I heard the side gate clattering again.

He was here.

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Epub ISBN 9781473535091
Version 1.0

Published by Cornerstone 2015

Copyright © Simon Kernick 2015

Simon Kernick has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Cornerstone

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