Down Demon's Dyke

The next morning, I woke up wishing I hadn’t. The nearby coo of a wood pigeon had interrupted my restless dreams. Startled by its strange clucking I sat up and felt my brain swell beyond the size of my skull. A sudden wave of queasiness only added to my discomfort. It was freezing to say it was June. Where was I? Trees. There were lots of trees. Again, my stomach lurched and burbled. I gazed up at the tree tops as they swirled around me, attempting to avoid the streaks of light that broke through the branches in both intensely bright and shadowy beams. Why was I still in Wharncliffe Woods? What had happened last night? I reached for my phone in the back pocket of my denim shorts. Its screen had been smashed to pieces. The anonymous text I’d received last night, hours before the rave, flashed up: "free rave- get to Wcliffe woods left o Demon’s Dyke tonight." I dialed Danny’s number. The screen went black, its battery dead.

For some strange reason the wood pigeon suddenly fell silent, filling the woods with a menacing and brittle hush. That’s when my panic set in, thoughts racing through my mind. Glancing around for any sign of the others I could feel my heart pounding, almost hear it beating through my ears, every single smack against my chest.

"Danny!?" I shrieked.

I needed to get out of there. Still stimulated by pure panic, my brain demanded the energetic take-off of an athlete, but my limbs would not comply and instead shook violently. Frustrated, I smacked my thighs hard and squeezed them as if it would somehow reboot the function of my legs.

"Chess, you okay? Chess? What you doing? Francesca!"

I looked up. There he was. I tried to hide my relief at the sight of him. He looked as rough as I did. His checked flannel shirt was soiled with mud and torn in several places, revealing sections of his lean pasty upper body. His face was just as filthy but somehow dirt made those cold blue eyes even more striking. Wiping away my tears I walked towards him and punched him in the stomach as hard as I could.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You left me here Danny! We were supposed to go back to yours last night and you left me here all alone in the woods!" I screamed at him.

"Calm down Chess! I woke up here too… I… I don’t really remember much. Must have been a good party." There was a long silence. Flicking the dark dirty hair from his eyes he lifted his chiselled jaw with a proud grin and coolly waltzed over.

"Let’s go back to mine," he whispered, lips brushing my ear.

"Dunno." I shoved him off, always thrown by his continual and unexplainable confidence.

"Oh come on Chess, you said you would!" He flicked his hair again and ushered me along the path. I stayed silent. We’d only been walking for a few minutes when just ahead of us I noticed the rabbit. It laid on its side at an unnatural angle, legs spread apart, and its back hideously arched. Dead. Flies closely swarmed as its blood pooled around it, soaking into its matted brown fur. I shuddered.

"Do you actually remember anything from last night?" I thought about it for a second. Was I really that drunk? I opened my mouth to answer him, but my words were hindered by a sudden nearby scream. A hysterical, terrified, human scream. It was the kind of deafening screech that could tear right through you and make your blood run cold.

"What was that?"

The scream of wild panic came again, piercing the air and echoing all around us. As we reached the clearing I wondered if I really wanted to learn what horror laid before us. By this time, it was too late. It had come from Nadia Hussain who stood rigid in front of us her mouth hung, lips somewhat parted. I remembered seeing her in one of the tents at the rave last night. She was always at every party. Next to her stood Jon Morbin, a boy I’d been in school with since I was five but barely knew. He’d always been the quiet type until he hit seventeen, grew his hair out and discovered class A’s. He now went by the name 'Jay'. His arm hovered round Nadia wanting to comfort her but not daring to touch her. His greasy blonde hair hid most of his face. She’d never normally be seen with him. I noticed her usual olive skin had greyed a little as she, now rendered speechless, pointed towards Demon’s Dyke. Her hands were shaking. Following her gestures, I inched towards it, shuffling my feet to the edge. I knew that whatever was down there it couldn’t be good. I’d walked past Demons Dyke many times and knew it was at least a steep 10 foot drop to the rocky bottom.

"Down here?" I turned to Nadia desperately trying to control the tremor in my voice. She nodded, cowering behind her ratty thick black hair. I looked down and was immediately sent reeling backwards. Unable to comprehend what I had seen, I stood, just like Nadia had, as if we were paralyzed from the neck down.

"There’s a girl down there."

"A girl?" Danny shook his head.

"Yeah a girl. A dead girl."

Dead in that ditch laid a girl, probably fifteen, just younger than us. Her body was sprawled out and mangled across the rocks, her long auburn hair scattered all around her. Some of it was thrown across her face and stained with her dried blood. She’d been at the party, you could tell from the way she was dressed. A black halter neck top with an open front and a matching pair of shorts. One of her eyes was wide open, a bright jade green now glazed over and lifeless. The other eye was completely swollen over in a great purple welt that covered half her face. The blood that had gushed out from her head hitting the rocks had lashed up one side of the ditch in a sickening display of scarlet. The rest had formed a brown pool all around her, clotting as if it might still save the corpse that lay amongst it. All four of us stood starring, stunned into silence.

"That’s Summer Sharpe."

"Who?"

"Summer Sharpe. She goes to school. Two years below us."

"What happened last night?"

"We need to call the police… and an ambulance."

"Hold up guys. We need to think about this for a second."

"What do we need to think about Danny? This girl needs our help!"

"Chess. She doesn’t need our help. She’s dead!" He paused, perhaps realising how harsh that had sounded. He flicked the hair from his eyes. "Don’t you think it’ll look a bit suspicious us four finding a dead girl in the middle of the woods with no one able to remember what happened last night? How do we explain why we, out of the hundreds at the rave, are the only people still here this morning with her body?"

"But Danny, we haven’t done anything wrong!"

"How can you be so sure, Chess? Do you remember everything you did last night?"

I couldn’t answer.

"You can’t seriously be suggesting that we just leave Summer here?"

"No." Danny replied coolly. "I’m saying maybe the police don’t need to be called yet. We should all figure out what happened last night. See if any of us saw anything?"

Jay nodded drooping himself down on the floor. Less willingly, Nadia followed, setting herself down on a rock which was some distance from the rest of us.

"Did anyone see Summer last night?"

"I did."

"When, Jay?" I interrupted Danny’s grilling, keen to speed up the process. It all felt so wrong.

"It was early in the night. She was drunkenly stumbling around, crying because she’d cut her knees on some glass. We sat down on one of those banks overlooking the party and smoked for a while, that’s how I, you know, knew her name when we found her."

"And then what?"

"We were interrupted by Kerth."

My breath caught in my chest and tightened. I’d heard that name somewhere.

"Who is Kerth?"

"I don’t know his full name. He’s a dealer I’ve bought from a few times. He got the same text with the location on for the rave. Said he was looking for someone. I didn’t ask who. He wanted me to go sell some of his stuff. I knew that he just wanted to get rid of me. I’d seen him eyeing her up."

"And you left?"

"Well yeah. I’m not going to mess around with a big guy like that. He’s got a real look about him." He paused. "Nasty."

"What do you mean nasty?"

"Tall, skinhead, looked like he’d been in a fight…you don’t think he hurt her, do you?" He buried his head in his hands. It seemed obvious he didn't want any of us to answer the question.

"If only we’d not drunk so much."

"Drunk so much," Nadia repeated softly. Her eyes were harsh and unblinking, trained on some invisible spectre. She ran her fingers through her hair, teeth tugging at her cracking lower lip. "I made her drink. I remember."

"You saw her last night?"

"Yeah. She’d just arrived. I didn’t know her, but she looked like she was on her own. She had this bottle of vodka. We made her down it."

"Did she do it?"

"Shit, that won’t have killed her, right?" Her voice cracked as if she were to cry. "We were only having a laugh. She looked so sober, I was just helping her have fun."

Could it have killed Summer? I didn’t know. We all knew for sure that it might have helped. There was a long silence before anyone spoke. We watched Nadia progressively slip deep into her own thoughts.

"Did you see her, Chess?"

I closed my eyes to focus. My thoughts shot like electric through my brain, too many short-circuits to make sense of anything. All the while the only thing that surfaced was Kerth. The name Kerth. Where had I heard it?

She’d shouted his name, I thought. "She’d shouted his name!" I repeated this time aloud.

"What?" Danny looked confused.

"I saw her with the skinhead. They were sat on the banks. It looked like they were arguing. It was loud enough to grab my attention. He stormed off, but she called after him, ‘Kerth!"

"She knew him?" There was an element of surprise in his voice.

"It definitely looked that way."

"What about you, Danny?" Nadia sneered as she re-joined the group. "Did you see Summer last night?"

"No."

"Liar. I saw you. It all makes sense now."

"Saw what exactly?"

"I saw you holding hands with a girl. You were leading her away from the party further into the woods. She had red hair and bloody knees."

"I don’t know what you’re on about, Nadia."

"Yes you do." I noticed her knuckles were white from clenching her fists too hard. Her whole posture radiated hatred for Danny, like acid to the skin- cutting, biting, powerful. "You were the last one seen with Summer Sharpe alive. Admit it." Danny squeezed my hand. I felt how cold his fingers were.

"He kissed her, Chess," Jay murmured, unable to look my way.

A swift gust of wind roared through the trees and flowed between the button holes of my summer blouse, chilling my skin underneath. I shivered. There was something about the panic in Danny’s voice. I felt the breeze run sharply around my eyes as they glazed over with a sheen of water. A fierce tension built up beneath them. I stopped myself from shaking it off. Now was not the time to cry.

Danny began pacing up and down the path under the heat of my gaze. He’d become silent, indifferent, as if he couldn't hear what was being said.

"I saw them," Jay continued. "I was taking a piss in the bushes when I overheard their conversation. Danny threatened me so I wouldn't tell."

I swallowed hard, unable to fully contemplate what was being divulged.

"Go on, Jay," Nadia urged him to continue.

"Danny had her pinned up against the trunk of the tree, they were kissing. I couldn't see who it was at first, but I noticed the red hair. When I’d sat with Summer on the banks earlier she’d mentioned Danny’s name."

"Of course she did," Nadia interrupted. "After I made her down the bottle she was more than happy to share her story. In her drunken stupor she admitted to seeing a boy who’d suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth. I guess she must have had her suspicions, why else would she tell me she’d sold him out."

"Summer wouldn’t do that!" Danny snarled. He ran his fingers through his hair twice in quick succession and fixed all three of us in a cold-blooded stare.

I felt sick.

"She sold you out to Kerth because you dropped her like a stone and you owe him lots of money."

"It was all an accident" Danny whispered as he knelt before me, hands clutching my forearms. His head drooped. I watched his tears soak into my shoes.

"I’d stopped seeing Summer. She came to warn me about Kerth. Said he was looking for his money. I didn't have it. I was drunk. In the heat of the moment we got carried away. Jay saw. I made him swear not to tell. When he’d gone Kerth found us. He punched Summer. She got in the way. His balled fist pummelled her cheekbone, once, twice, three times. Her neck flayed so far backwards I thought she’d snap. I tried to break it up. He told us that was for 'messing him around.' Then he said he was going to find you, Chess. Summer was hysterical. 'Who is Chess?' she screamed. 'Who is Chess?' blood pouring down her face. I couldn't bear to see the same done to you. I had to stop Kerth. I tried to grab him, but Summer wouldn't leave. She clung on to me and I panicked, watching Kerth move out of my reach. Without a second thought I threw her off me. It was only when she hit the bottom of the ditch that I realised what I’d done. That noise, the impact, bashed every thread of air from my lungs. Kerth saw it all. 'Nothing ever happened,' he told me. And then he disappeared. I couldn't just leave her. I sat on the ledge for a good hour wondering what to do. I figured I’d pretend we found the body, see if any of you knew anything."

"I thought I'd be able to do it but I can't. I can't pretend. Every time I close my eyes I see her face. The blood."

He paused waiting for some sort of response.

"I swear this is the truth. Now you know everything."

And we did know everything, the four of us. We knew nothing would ever be the same. We knew stupidity had taken a life. Danny had taken a life. He was a murderer. I sat down in disbelief. My legs violently trembling. Danny reached out to touch my hand. I moved away from him as quickly as I could. He scared me now.

"Were going to have to ring the police," I croaked.

...

The next morning, I woke up wishing I hadn't.