THE SIX: A Dark, Dazzling Serial Killer Story

by Anni Taylor

  For a while, it was okay because Dad and Ben made up for what my mother lacked. But Dad died the year I turned thirteen, of a brain tumour. Ben died the year I turned seventeen.

  Everything turned to ashes.

  Until I met Gray.

  And now I’d gone and burned it all to the ground again.

  My mind replayed something Ben said the month before he died, when he was just nineteen—his voice serious but his eyes smiling: Once you’re born, you have the responsibility of making yourself some sort of a life, something that justifies the grand privilege of having won the race out of millions of sperm and thousands of eggs. You made it. Surely after winning against such odds, there should be a winner’s life ahead?

  I had to start winning.

  At midnight, when the bells woke me, Ben’s words were still in my mind and silently on my lips. An anger seared my insides. Anger at the winner’s life Ben hadn’t had a chance to pursue. Anger at myself for losing at life. Anger at Ruth and the monks and the mentors who were making my time here so hard. Anger at the monastery for making me feel so defeated.

  Good. I’d use the anger to get through this.

  Over half the beds were now empty. There was just Poppy, Kara, Mei, Louelle, Yolanda and myself in the women’s dorm now.

  Poppy and I were in the second group to leave the room. I loved Poppy, but I couldn’t help wishing I’d gotten put with Louelle or Yolanda instead. From what I’d seen, they were better at the challenges. But still, Poppy tried hard.

  Out in the hallway, Duncan met us. I couldn’t conceal my raging disappointment at getting lumbered with him in my team. “You’d better pull your weight, Dunc. If you try to stand there and direct like a traffic controller, I swear I’ll punch you in your soft belly.”

  Poppy inhaled sharply in surprise.

  I wanted to feel bad about what I’d just said and apologise, but I had no apology left in me.

  Duncan’s temples flushed. “Was that necessary? We haven’t even gotten to the challenge room yet.”

  Not bothering to answer, I whirled around and sprinted towards the cloister.

  Poppy caught up with me, panting. “You okay?”

  “No. You?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  We reverted to silence as we ran out into the garden.

  Something had changed in the mentors’ faces. Their expressions were serious, almost unyielding. As if they were guiding us on how we had to be to get through this.

  “This challenge will test you in a different manner to the last,” Brother Sage told us. “It’s mental rather than physical.”

  Bracing myself, I replied, “You mean, you’re not going to try to kill us this time around?”

  “What happened was unfortunate.” Sister Rose’s words limped on her thin lips. “Sometimes people get over-enthusiastic in the challenges.”

  “It’s not enough to keep saying things are unfortunate,” I accused. “It’s not enough.”

  Poppy curled her fingers around my arm. “Let’s just get this challenge done, Evie. At least we know it’s an easy one.”

  Brother Sage raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t say it was easy.”

  I shrugged Poppy’s hand away. “What is any of this doing for us? It’s starting to feel like we’re performing puppets.”

  Duncan’s eyes widened with surprise, looking from me to the mentors and sucking his mouth in—like a small child trying to look pious when another child was being naughty.

  Brother Vito offered me his customary warm smile. “There has been a great deal of value gained in all the previous years. You will see.”

  I held his gaze in mine for a moment. “I hope so.”

  “We can’t hold up the challenges,” said Sister Dawn firmly, holding out the palm of her hand to guide us towards the entry to the inner rooms. “This discussion will have to continue tomorrow.”

  “Please,” Poppy whispered as we walked along the hallway. “Don’t ruin your chances. You’re too close now.”

  “I couldn’t hold back,” I responded. But Poppy was right. I might have just blown it. The first time I’d stepped inside the monastery, I’d told myself to hold it together. But I was either doing a miserable job of that or the challenges really were too extreme and this place really was too strange and too dangerous. I was fast losing perspective.

  I jammed my eyes shut tight as we stepped into the fifth room. I didn’t want to see the dark. I didn’t want to yield to it. Things were going to happen on my terms.

  Yet the sense of being swallowed whole was overwhelming.

  We stopped just inside the doorway. I didn’t trust that metallic creatures weren’t about to swoop on us.

  “Get it started,” I said under my breath, my voice sounding fiercer in my ears than I felt.

  Lights snapped on one by one around me. I let my eyes snap open.

  The room was bare, apart from a tall object in the middle that was draped with a black velvet fabric.

  The object had to be one of the hexagonal boxes, but why was it covered?

  “I’m not touching that,” Poppy muttered somewhere close to me.

  “Well, there’s definitely something under there,” said Duncan predictably.

  I glanced across at him, wondering how he’d managed to get through challenge four. He would have had to run and dodge like everyone else instead of standing and trying to lead the action. A dark part of me wished I’d seen it.

  We were hesitating, losing time.

  Was that what the mentors expected? That because of the last challenge, we’d do anything not to set things in motion? What had Brother Vito told me? He’d said humans were creatures of habit—once stung, forever fearful.

  Stepping up to the stand, I grabbed the edge of the velvet and flipped it over, exposing what lay underneath: six projectors sitting atop the hexagonal box. The projectors were modern, about the size and shape of a large digital clock, all facing outwards. Each of them were clearly labelled from one to six. The hexagonal box merely seemed to act as a stand for them, though I couldn’t be certain of that.

  I peered back over my shoulder at Poppy and Duncan to gauge reactions. Had I triggered something terrible that I wasn’t yet seeing? But the two of them looked nothing more than curious, stepping across to the projectors.

  “They’re all attached to these rings,” said Duncan curiously.

  There were two metal rings running around the top of the hexagonal box—an inner and an outer, the inner ring a little higher than the outer.

  “Should we turn them on?” Poppy widened her eyes at me, as if asking me if it were okay.

  “What does everyone think?” Duncan nodded his head thoughtfully as he crossed his arms. “If we press the on button, what do you think is likely to happen?”

  “We see some films?” said Poppy scornfully.

  “Then we’ll have to make a decision on whether to press the buttons or not. Because touching the buttons could set off a chain reaction we’re not prepared for.” Duncan sounded unaffected by Poppy’s sneer, but he licked his lips anxiously.

  Without looking in Duncan’s direction, I pushed my thumb down on the button of the projector marked with the number one.

  “Evie,” came Duncan’s reprimand, “I don’t think we’d yet decided . . .” His voice faded.

  My eyes tracked the silvery cone of light from the projector to the wall directly opposite.

  The jittery film was old and washed of colour, like something that had once been shot on Super 8 and then copied to a modern medium.

  In the film, a girl of about twenty slept in a bed. A metronome slowly swung to and fro above her on the wooden shelf. There was no sound. The film was shot here, in the women’s dormitory of the monastery.

  “Might as well see the rest.” Poppy seemed emboldened as she took a couple of steps clockwise and turned the next one on. She glanced at Duncan, as if daring him to say something. He didn’t.

  The second film showed the girl pass
ing underneath the bird-of-prey sculpture in the entry, glancing upwards at the bird as she ran. Did the bird mean something to her? Had she been through the fourth challenge and the bird reminded her of that?

  In the third of the films, she continued on outside and through the gates of the monastery and then into the hills. Peacocks scattered as she raced up a steep incline. The girl kept looking behind her. The combination of the grainy quality of the film and the jitter made it hard to see her expression.

  Was she scared?

  Excited?

  God, please don’t let her be scared. After what happened to Saul and Harrington and Kara and even myself, I was already scared enough.

  She stopped at the graves. Stepping forward tentatively, she looked behind her. Who or what was she checking for?

  My skin prickled and grew cold as I viewed the fourth film. Hooded, menacing figures rose and stepped out from behind the graves. They wore long black garb. Their faces appeared painted white, having a luminosity in the night. They stood facing the girl. I could only see the girl from behind, but I could sense her terror by the stiff lines of her body through her thin nightdress. The wind blew her hair sideways as she backed away a step. The figures then filed out from the graves and towards the girl in two lines.

  “What the hell is that all about?” Poppy gaped at the clip before moving on to start the next film and fumbling for the on button.

  I spun on my heel to face the next film clip—the fifth one. This one showed the girl running again, this time along the jagged hilltop that led to the chapel. She dashed inside.

  Breath caught in my lungs as I watched the sixth film. The figures were advancing on the chapel. The film stopped and started several times, the figures advancing on the chapel each time—my heart stopping and starting along with the film. I was terrified for the girl. The rope that hung from the chapel’s bell swung in the wind, reminding me of a hangman’s noose.

  A sick feeling wound through my insides. I wanted to be out of this room and far away from these images. But I was stuck here, with the films looping over and over again.

  “These are insane.” Poppy’s voice held a nervous giggle that she cut short. “I mean, I know the mentors said this one was a challenge of the mind, but this is just . . .”

  Thoughts raced through me. It’s just another challenge. You can and will get through it. Think, think, think . . .

  “What if they’re in the wrong order—the films?” I suggested. “Maybe it’s all just a bad dream. Like, the film of the sleeping girl should be the last film?” Even as I said it, it sounded like wishful thinking.

  “Let’s try it,” said Poppy in a breathy voice. “Anything to get this challenge done.” Frowning, she tried to pick up a projector. “But they’re fixed in place.”

  Duncan screwed up his small, snub-nosed features. “I think you’ll find that the projectors can run around on those rings, like tracks.”

  Poppy glanced up at him. “You’re good for something, aren’t you Dunc? I bet you’ve got model trains at home.”

  “As it happens, I do,” he replied. “I have a working model railway layout that almost entirely takes up a twelve-by-twelve–foot shed. It has mountains, towns and lakes and took me five years to complete.”

  I was worried that Duncan was about to launch into a story about his trains, but instead he applied himself to sliding the first projector around the inside circular track. As the film of the sleeping girl crossed with the fourth film—of the graves—something strange seemed to happen.

  “Wait! Stop it there!” I breathed, pointing at the screen. The two projected films were merged on the wall. The girl in the bed now seemed to be sleeping on a grave, with gravestones surrounding her.

  “Hell’s bells.” Poppy gaped at me.

  “Let’s try the others.” I moved the second projector around on the outside track, trying to find two projected images that made a different scene.

  “There!” yelled Poppy excitedly as the second film superimposed itself over the fifth film. Now, the girl ran along the corridor as before, but the two lines of hooded figures walked in lines on either side of her—looking like ghosts inside the walls of the corridor.

  There was one last set of films to pair up.

  Noticing my trembling fingers, Duncan took over, rotating the third projector around on the metal ring until it overlapped with the only film left—the sixth film. The two films put together showed the girl running into the chapel on the hill, but now the group of hooded figures were circling the chapel, ominously closing in.

  All six films automatically stopped looping and locked into the scenes.

  We’d gotten it right.

  Our heads turned in unison to the clock.

  The light remained red.

  “There must be something else,” Poppy whispered. She turned her face back around to the films. “Oh my God . . .”

  I wheeled around.

  Something was happening with the three sets of superimposed films.

  The films had begun to continue. But each set of projected images now operated as one, as though the films had merged inside the projectors as well. Somehow, there were now just three films, looping in pairs on six projectors.

  In set one, the girl woke on the stone grave on the hill, terror on her face. She jumped up.

  In set two, she ran away towards the cliff. Hooded figures rose from behind the gravestones and filed out in two lines, following her.

  In set three, she ran into the chapel. The figures surrounded the chapel. I held my breath as one of the figures turned and looked . . . at us. His face was completely in shadow inside the hood that he wore.

  Poppy stumbled backwards. “Damned creepy shit,” she muttered.

  What were we meant to do? Hadn’t we already done all we could?

  No, there was something else. Think.

  “Let’s forget about the scary-as-hell fact that it looks like that guy is staring right at us,” I said, “and work out what he’d be looking at in the actual scene.”

  “That would be the cliff edge.” Duncan nodded. “The aspect where he is now, he’d be looking directly that way. I can picture that from the day when we were all out there on the hills. After poor Saul died.” He gazed at the man in the hood as if transfixed.

  The hooded man broke away from the group. And headed towards us. I felt a chill wind up from my stomach.

  Duncan threaded his hands together nervously. “I hardly think this is necessary. What’s this all about? I don’t like this man. No, I don’t like him much at all.”

  For the first time that I’d seen in a challenge, Duncan took action. With quick movements, he rotated the first, second and third projectors back to their original positions.

  Now, there was a film projecting on all six walls again.

  The films all went blank.

  Then every film snapped on again. All showing the same film—of the man on the cliff edge advancing towards us.

  “Oh no,” Duncan muttered. “That wasn’t the idea.”

  The films began showing flashes of something else.

  The girl in the chapel.

  The hooded man advancing.

  The girl lifting something in the chapel—stairs?

  The hooded man advancing.

  A hidden passage appearing beneath the raised stairs.

  The hooded man advancing.

  The girl entering the passage and lighting a candle.

  The hooded man advancing.

  The girl running along a dark passage.

  The hooded man advancing.

  The candlelight showing a door ahead.

  The hooded man advancing.

  The girl opening the door.

  The hooded man advancing.

  A flash of images so quick my mind couldn’t register them.

  A sudden nausea rose in my stomach. It was just the flash of images doing that to me, wasn’t it?

  Duncan and Poppy made gasping, stuttering sounds, no longer
watching but trying to turn away and cover their eyes.

  Panting hard, I rushed to turn off the projectors. Anything to stop those images.

  No, turning them off wouldn’t win the challenge.

  What hadn’t we tried?

  How could I undo what we’d done? How could I send the hooded man away?

  I rotated the first, second and third projectors to align with the sixth, fifth and fourth projectors. The opposite to how we’d done it last time.

  Again, the projected images on the wall went blank.

  The man appeared again, tilting his head at me as if listening to a sound I couldn’t hear. He then turned and walked back to the chapel.

  Holding my breath, I glanced at the clock.

  Green.

  I didn’t feel the usual jubilation.

  Whoever that girl was, she hadn’t won. The film didn’t show her escaping.

  I had the distinct sensation of winning the battle but not the war.

  48. GRAY

  MORNINGS AT THIS REFUGEE CAMP IN Paris were just as chaotic as the nights. Little kids crying and people calling to each other and a general sense of confusion. The fact that I didn’t understand their language, nor that of the host country, only added to my own confusion. I’d fallen back to sleep sometime during the night.

  In a sudden panic, I checked for my wallet and passport.

  Still all there.

  Pulling out fifty euros, I left it on the floor and zipped up the tent.

  As I emerged, a bearded man eyed me in surprise, sizing me up, silently questioning me. Who are you? Why are you here if you’re not one of us?

  I shot him a tight smile and headed off down the street, feeling bad that I got to walk away.

  Sun sparked from a greenish canal, tourists already sitting along it, a couple of them adventurous enough to be splashing about in the water. A sign stated: Canal de l’Ourcq.

  Outdoor eateries were beginning to open up, the smell of coffee and hot food making my stomach feel as empty as a canyon.

  I bought a full breakfast at a café and ate quickly. My heart tugged as I watched children dart and play around the chairs, sun glinting on their hair. If Evie and I had money, it could have been us here on an overseas trip and Willow and Lilly playing tag. Instead, lack of money had seen the two of us just trying to make it through from week to week. And now we were caught up in a world so dark and dangerous that we might not walk out of it alive.