Part 18 (1/2)

'Tilly,' he said, putting his hand up to stop me. But I was unstoppable.

'I thought you were different, Clayton Silver. I thought, I really thought...' I almost sobbed at what I had let myself think. But I'd been wrong, hadn't I? I should have stuck to my original opinion of Clayton Silver-as a self-obsessed show-off. Just like so many of them, with more money than sense and certainly no sense of responsibility, not even self-respect. Why had I let myself be misled? Just because he had a nice smile and liked to invest in paintings, I'd built up a picture of the sort of man I wanted him to be, a picture I'd painted myself and wanted to believe.

'She's right,' I said. 'You're a cheating b.a.s.t.a.r.d and a pathetic specimen of a man.' I was angry with him, and angry with myself, furious and disappointed and hurting so much that it had turned out this way. A small thought at the back of my brain reminded me that Jake had been right after all. That was the final straw.

I turned and fled.

There was a chorus of whistles and catcalls and I could hear Clayton somewhere shouting, 'Tilly! For G.o.d's sake.' But it was too late. I was running out of the h.e.l.l-like room, out of the oak and antlered hall, past the drunk and laughing footballers, past the high-cla.s.s tarts, past the waiters with their foaming cups of bright green liquid and their dead men's eyeb.a.l.l.s and dead men's fingers and the awful awfulness of it all, out into the night where the cold air hit me like a slap.

I stood there in the light from the entrance hall, wondering what to do next when I heard Becca's voice, 'Tilly? Is that you? Do you want to come with us?' I could just see her, standing in the mist by the open door of a waiting car.

'Oh yes, yes please!' I said, almost crying as I ran towards the car. Desperate to get away from Clayton Silver, and even more desperate to escape from the seedy, squalid, sordid world he'd lured me into.

Chapter Twenty-One.

I huddled in the back of the car, wrapping Matty's tiny jacket round me.

'What happened in there?' asked Becca, concerned. 'Are you all right?'

'Fine. Fine,' I lied.

'Where's Clayton? Aren't you...?'

'No.'

I knew I was being rude but I just couldn't begin to explain. Not yet.

'Ah,' said Becca and, to cover my silence, started prattling on about the party, the tarts, the people, the drugs. She was worrying about the girls that she'd seen disappearing with some of the footballers. 'I hope they're all right,' she said. 'They seemed so drunk. They could hardly get up the stairs. Maybe I should have-Hey, Sandro! What are you doing?'

The car had lurched heavily. Sandro was peering through the windscreen and I realised he could hardly see where we were going as the thick fog swirled round the car. It m.u.f.fled us, like a huge damp blanket pressing down. I pushed further into my corner and tried to get Clayton out of my head. But my head was full of him and the strange menacing scenes from the party. Halloween parties are meant to be scary. But this had been different. A very real unpleasantness.

The car b.u.mped again and seemed to slither across the road. Sandro swore and rubbed the windscreen in front of him, trying to see where he was going. It made no difference.

'Where are we?' I asked.

'I'm not sure,' said Becca, her voice anxious. 'We shouldn't be far off from the main road and the turning back up to Hartstone by now.' The car b.u.mped and lurched. There was a sickening sc.r.a.ping sound. 'But it doesn't even seem as if we're on the road. Careful, Sandro! You must be going into the ditch. Get back on the road! We'll stop, see exactly where we are. Unless you've taken the wrong turning.' She peered through the thick fog that seemed to be pressing down on us ever more. 'I can't see where we are. There doesn't seem to be an edge...I don't think we're on the road. You've gone the wrong way.' Her voice was getting increasingly anxious. 'We're not even on the road, we're on a track. Stop so we can see. Sandro! Stop! Sandro!'

It was the last thing I heard. Becca's voice soaring, screaming, as the car left the track and plunged into nothingness. For a brief moment there was a feeling of exhilaration as we lost contact with the ground. 'We're flying!' I thought ridiculously as Becca screamed.

I was thrown forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed back by the seat belt. But I seemed to be upside down, swirling into the fog. Then there was a huge bang and a crash of metal as the car hit a rock and bounced, knocking my head against the window and rattling my teeth together. Then it lurched up into the air again, wavered for a second and then crashed on to its side and slid round with a terrifying grating noise. There was the sudden awful sound of smas.h.i.+ng gla.s.s and a rush of cold damp air into the car. It rocked for a moment, then shuddered to a stop.

Silence. Darkness. No screams. No shouts. Just grey, damp, suffocating silence. And the fog filling the car, bringing the Halloween night in with it.

I don't know how long I lay there, unable to move, unable to think. It could have been seconds, minutes, even an hour. But the silence went on.

I was lying on the side of the car, almost upside down. I could feel the door handle pressing into my hipbone. The car was on its side, the door on the ground. I moved myself slowly, experimentally. I could feel my toes. I wiggled them. My fingers too. My head hurt and, when I tried to lift it, I yelped as my neck hurt too. But I could move it. That had to be a good sign, didn't it? The seat belt was tight round my throat, almost choking me. I couldn't work out where it was fastened so that I could undo it. I had no sense of the right way up, or round, or anything. I put my hand round the belt at my throat and followed it down. Or up. I found the fastener but couldn't remember what to do. Did you press it or what? I prodded around ineffectually for a while, and then suddenly it slipped free. The pain in my neck eased a little as the belt loosened, but I found myself falling further into a crumpled heap behind the driver's seat. But if I tried gently, ignoring all the pains in different bits of me, I could get a grip somewhere and heave myself up.

There! Done it. I was sitting on the door, leaning against the seat.

The others! What about the others? I pulled myself up and I could just make out Sandro in the darkness. His head was resting on the smashed gla.s.s of the driver's window, his face jammed up against a piece of rock. I reached my fingers out, delicately, gingerly, frightened, to see if I could feel him moving, breathing. I felt something wet and sticky on his face, on my fingers. Blood.

Oh G.o.d. Becca was slumped on top of him, her body hanging from its seat belt, her head lolling.

Please don't let them be dead. Please don't let that have happened.

What should I do? I couldn't think. I knew I had to be calm and sensible but I seemed unable to think where to begin.

I moved carefully, frightened that the car would s.h.i.+ft, but though it groaned spectacularly it hardly moved. It was jammed on the rocks and stuck in the side of the hillside. The engine was off, the lights out. Before I could do anything I would have to get out. I tried to move in the cramped s.p.a.ce. Various bits of me screamed in agony, but it didn't matter. What mattered was getting out.

I had to get help. That's it. That's what I had to do. But how? I moved around carefully so I could reach towards the other door. As I groped my way along the back seat, I realised I was groping through piles of plastic that had fallen on top of me. The pumpkins!

Suddenly, in a moment of clarity that later I could never understand, I remembered that the pumpkins were lanterns. I picked one up, embraced it in my arms and felt gently round it. There! A tiny switch. I pushed it and the car filled with a horrifying orange glow from the grinning jaw and empty eye sockets.

And I giggled. G.o.d forgive me. With Sandro and Becca lying there I giggled at the sight of the pumpkin. And I started shaking. I always wondered what people meant when they said their teeth chattered, and now I knew. My teeth were off on a dance of their own and my body was shaking so much that I was almost in convulsions.

But with the glow of the lantern I could find the door handle above me. I reached up. It clicked open and I managed to push the door up and open. I wriggled round and freed my feet. I had no idea how far it was to the ground. I inched myself out and then dropped. The car hardly rocked at all. My legs buckled underneath me and I found myself kneeling on the wet gra.s.s. I stretched back into the car and got the pumpkin and stepped carefully round to see Sandro.

He was breathing. Thank you, G.o.d. But his head and his throat were surrounded by ragged shards of gla.s.s and metal. Just the slightest movement...I needed to smash them off, if I could do it without disturbing Sandro. I tried pus.h.i.+ng it with my hand but the gla.s.s and the pain just sliced into my fingers. I battered it with my elbow and that worked for a moment, but Matty's silk jacket was no protection. I needed something to bash with. The broomstick! There'd been a broomstick, hadn't there? I groped around the floor of the car, located it, and used it to smash as much of the gla.s.s away as I could and then wrapped a plastic witch's cloak into a cus.h.i.+on and gently slid it between Sandro's neck and the window. Just in case. He made no noise but he was still breathing.

Where there's life, there's hope.

I couldn't work out how to get to Becca. I couldn't get through the driver's door, obviously, because Sandro was there. But with the car up on its side, I couldn't reach her from the pa.s.senger door either. With that I heard her moan and mutter something.

'Becca! Becca!'

She groaned and, in the light of the pumpkin, I could see her eyes flutter open. 'The car's crashed,' I said urgently. I don't know where we are.'

Becca moved her head. 'Eerrggh,' she said. 'My shoulder...my arm...'

I looked more closely in the light of the pumpkin. Her shoulder seemed to be sticking out at a strange angle and her arm was dangling down oddly towards the gear stick. I'm sure it wasn't meant to be that short of shape.

'Don't move, Becca,' I said. 'Don't worry, I'll sort something out.'

I scrabbled round in the back of the car. I didn't think my phone would work, but it had to be worth a try. I thought I'd felt something warm and woolly in there too. A blanket maybe. I hauled it out. It was a stylish coat. Sandro's, I guess. I flung it over Becca so it also draped over Sandro as well. I piled some witches' cloaks on top of them. The thin plastic might keep out some of the damp.

'There. That will help keep you warm.' I thought of undoing the seat belt, but then Becca, her crazy shoulder and arm would collapse right onto Sandro. No, I would have to leave her as she was.

Back in the car I had felt something leather. Clayton's jacket. I suddenly remembered what had happened. How he'd proved to be a cheat after all. But I couldn't afford to have principles right now. I shrugged into the jacket, noticed almost automatically, even in my strange state, the luxurious softness of the leather, and relished its warmth around me. There were witches' hats, but I couldn't think of anything to do with them. Devils' horns. I switched them on too. Only a little flickering glow of red, but it might help someone find us. More pumpkins. I found the switches and lit them. Maybe someone would see us. Find us.

At last I found the thin strap of the tiny bag I'd brought out with me. I felt for my phone and switched it on. Its screen lit up but there was no signal. 'No network coverage,' it said. And I sobbed.

Then it dawned on me, horribly, crawlingly, like the fog creeping into the car, that no one would look for us because no one knew we were missing.