she rested for a moment, trying to get her breath as she pulled at the phone wire, bringing books and letters along with the phone crashing down onto the floor.
Trembling, she yanked a slim black notebook out of her other robe pocket, the white pages in it turning red with her blood. She could feel herself starting to black out, the words and numbers on the pages blurring in and out of vision.
Punching out a number whilst grimacing at each movement and every pain wave, Sister Margaret cradled the phone in her arms as it rang.
‘Hello?’
‘Mr Morton, it’s Sister Margaret.’
‘Hello?’
The nun’s voice was almost inaudible. ‘Mr Morton, you’ve got to come. They’re after Alice …’
‘Hello? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.’
Sister Margaret fell forward, the phone dropping out of her hands as her face slammed down onto the hard parquet tiles. Her body smashing against the wood.
‘Hello? Hello?’
In the corridor Alice, hearing a noise in Sister Margaret’s office, stopped, her heart racing not only at the sound coming from inside the room, but also at the trail of blood snaking up the hall. She began to shake again as she listened, panic and dread overwhelming her. But there was silence. Nothing but silence. Then, breathing out to quieten her fear, Alice slowly moved forward and peeked through the crack of the open door.
Gawking in horror, feeling like she were in a waking nightmare, Alice saw the lifeless body of Sister Margaret sprawled across the floor. She ran into the room but immediately slipped on a pool of blood, which threw her forward to trip and fall on top of the nun.
Letting out a small scream, Alice, hysterical, pulled herself into a ball as she began to cry uncontrollably.
‘Hello? Hello? Hello, are you there?’
Quivering and curled up tightly, Alice frowned, straining to hear. Then, almost too traumatised to move, she slowly turned her head towards the sound.
‘Hello? Hello?’
Suddenly realising there was somebody on the other end of the phone, Alice crawled forward, picking up the receiver as her hands shook furiously and her voice trembled. She spoke through dry lips. ‘Hello?’
‘Alice?’
Overcome with emotion, she nodded, breaking down into silent tears as she heard her father’s voice.
‘Alice?’
Trying to talk quietly as she furiously began to hyperventilate, Alice only just managed to get the words out. ‘Dad, Dad, you’ve got to help me!’
‘Alice, Jesus Christ, what’s happening?’
‘Everyone’s dead, they’re dead.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Alice began to rock, sobbing into the phone. ‘Please, help me. Help me.’
‘Alice, you’re not making sense.’
‘Sister Margaret, she’s dead too. I think they all are.’
Cabhan’s voice was urgent and full of fear. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but you’ve got to get out of there. You hear me?’
Alice shook her head, snot and tears running down her face. ‘I can’t, the clowns are everywhere …’
‘Alice, you’re frightening me. Look, we can be there in about an hour, maybe less. We’re already in the area, but you need to …’
Cabhan’s words were cut off as Alice, looking up, dropped the phone, suddenly beginning to scream as a gruesome masked figure at the window stood staring in at her. The man aimed his gun, but as the bullet shattered the glass, Alice Rose turned and ran.
‘You saw her, but you thought it was okay to let her go?’ Salvatore stared at Stefano Greco – an old schoolfriend who’d worked for his family for the past ten years – with unadulterated hatred.
‘I didn’t, Sal, I fired and then she ran off before I managed …’
Standing by the door of the tiny whitewashed chapel of the convent, Salvatore raised his voice, pacing agitatedly. ‘She’s a kid and you had a fucking semi-automatic in your hands. Do the math, Stefano … What did she look like?’
‘Blonde … no, maybe brown hair … I dunno, Jesus. I didn’t see her properly, Sal, but look around you, everyone’s dead, she might be dead already, we don’t even know if that girl was her.’
Salvatore smashed an iron bar into Stefano’s face and listened to his piercing scream as one of his cheekbones splintered in two.
Panting, Salvatore crouched down level with the writhing figure on the floor. Fear knotted Stefano’s insides, suddenly aware that he could easily lose control of his bodily functions, such was the terror he felt.
Salvatore snarled, ‘But we don’t know it wasn’t either, do we? And now it might be too late. If it was her, we need to go and find her. My orders, Stef, were to kill everyone on sight.’
Stefano trembled in pain. ‘Sal, Mi dispiace.’
‘You’re sorry?’
With fear dancing in his green eyes, Stefano nodded. ‘Sì! Sì!’
Licking his chapped lips, Salvatore picked up a taper and lit one of the candles in the rack outside the chapel. He made a sign of the cross before watching it burn along with the dozens of other tea lights flickering in the warm breeze. He smiled.
‘Do you know what these are for, Stefano?’
Nervously, Stefano mumbled, ‘Sì, they are the candles for the dead.’
Salvatore drew his eyes away to look at Stefano. ‘That’s right, and I lit that one for you.’ Then, without missing a beat, Salvatore whipped out the gun he had tucked away in his trouser waist and placed the nozzle onto Stefano’s nicotine-stained teeth before casually pulling the trigger.
Wiping away the blood and pieces of flesh from the front of his clothes, still wearing his clown mask, Salvatore addressed his brother. ‘Bobby, put his body in the car and clean up his mess, we don’t want to leave the cops a calling card. Then take some men and search down by the river. I’ll take the others and go up into the woods. If you see anything, even a fucking racoon, you shoot it dead. You hear me?’
He stopped to point his gun at the congregated men, adding, ‘You understand me, guys? Whoever she was, you bring that girl’s head back to me, unless of course you want to end up like our good friend Stefano. Now let’s go!’
Racing through the trees and across the meadows, Alice tried to shut out the bloody images in her head. She tried to think of something good, like her mother, like her friend Isaiah, but it was impossible because she could still hear the screams, still smell the blood. The scent of death seeped out of her pores and she was scared, terrified and couldn’t think straight.
Running as fast as she could, drenched with sweat and not knowing where she was going, she just knew she had to keep moving. Alice focused on getting away, but the problem was, even though she knew the area so well – had explored every corner of it – suddenly every tree, every bush, every pathway looked the same. She couldn’t remember anything.
The lake house was on the top of the hill, she knew that, but which track to take she couldn’t remember. She was lost and if she wasn’t careful she’d end up back at the convent where the demonic clowns were. Where the blood was. The thought of it made her suddenly gasp and she could hardly catch her breath, but a noise from