remembered.
‘I’m not lying, Mrs …’
‘Dora. Call me Dora.’ She smiled. ‘I’m not saying you are, my love. I can see you’ve had a terrible time of it.’
‘I need to call the police. My phone’s broken. Do you have a phone here?’
‘Course I do,’ said Dora with a laugh. ‘We might live out in the sticks, but we’re not in the nineteenth century.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Ash, wrapping herself even tighter in the blanket.
Dora put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘I know you didn’t, my love. Now you wait here while I call the police. Then I’ll come back and make you something to eat.’
Ash nodded. ‘Thank you.’
Dora left the room for a second time and Ash got to her feet, the effort making her wince. She could tell the old lady didn’t believe her story, but she wasn’t surprised. It was not an easy one to believe. Three murders, possibly four, as well as at least two killers, all in the same quiet forest in the middle of nowhere. Ash wouldn’t have believed it either. She’d think the person telling the story was high on some particularly intense drugs. But in the end it didn’t matter as long as she called the police. Then they could deal with it.
She could hear Dora’s voice in the next room talking on the phone and she walked slowly over to the door. As Ash stepped into the living room, Dora put the phone down and turnedround. ‘They’re on their way, my love, but they won’t be here for a good twenty minutes. We’re a long way from the station here.’ She wiped her hands on her pinafore. ‘Let me make you some hot breakfast.’
The thought of food made Ash feel sick. ‘It’s all right, Dora,’ she said with a weak smile, ‘I’m really not hungry.’
‘But you must eat something.’
‘Please, can I just have a cup of tea?’
Dora tried not to look disappointed. ‘As you wish, my love. I’ll get the kettle on.’
‘Do you have a toilet I could use?’
‘We certainly do, my love. It’s even an inside one.’ She winked and grinned playfully at Ash as she pointed to a door beside the staircase.
‘I really appreciate this,’ Ash told her. She thought about asking for a shower too but decided against it since she’d only have to get back into her wet clothes afterwards.
‘It’s the least I can do,’ said Dora, shuffling past her into the kitchen.
Something was wrong. Ash had no idea what it was but it was worrying her. Was Dora hiding something? Or was Ash just imagining it? Had the events of the previous night made her so paranoid that she was now suspicious of everything, including even a friendly old lady?
A friendly old lady who lived out in the woods near to where a mass murder had been committed, but who seemed unconcerned by what had happened .
Ash locked the toilet door behind her and took a deep breath, telling herself to calm down. A mirror in dire need of a clean hung on the bare wall just above the sink. Ash wanted to weep when she saw herself in it. She looked exactly like she felt. Her face was puffy and bruised beneath smears of encrusted dirt, and there were scratches all across her cheeks and forehead. One eye was swollen and black, and her thick auburn hair, usually one of her best features, looked like it belonged on a scarecrow. But it was the haunted expression in her eyes that affected her the most. For a good ten seconds she stared at her reflection, finding it difficult to accept it.
Yet when she’d suddenly stepped out of nowhere in Dora’s garden, rather than run a mile the old lady had been kind enough to take her in. Ash was suddenly ashamed for suspecting Dora of meaning her harm.
That was until she turned and saw something on the floor, poking out from just behind the toilet, and her hand went to her mouth to stifle the gasp.
11
ASH BENT DOWN , carefully picked up the heavily bloodstained ball of tissue, and touched it. The blood was dry, but from its colour she could tell it
Kevin J. Anderson
Kevin Ryan
Clare Clark
Evangeline Anderson
Elizabeth Hunter
H.J. Bradley
Yale Jaffe
Timothy Zahn
Beth Cato
S.P. Durnin