No head. The dead pigeon in her hands has no head. But it’s too spongy, giving way, her fingers indenting in its sides. That’s because it’s the duvet twisted up in her fist, not a dead bird, and Pip was awake now. In bed.
She’d fallen asleep. She’d actually fallen asleep. It was dead-of-night dark and she’d been asleep.
Why was she awake now, then? She woke up like this all the time, sleep so shallow that she dipped in and out. But this felt different. Something had pulled her out.
A noise.
It was there now.
What was that?
Pip sat up, duvet falling to her waist.
A hissing sound, but a gentle one.
She rubbed her eyes.
A sputt-sputt-sputt, like a slow-moving train, nudging her back to sleep.
No, not a train.
Pip blinked again, the room taking shape with a ghostly glow. She got out of bed, the air stinging her bare feet.
The hiss was coming from over there, by her desk.
Pip stopped, focused her gaze.
It was her printer.
Something was coming out of the wireless printer on her desk, LEDs blinking from its panel.
Sputt-sputt-sputt.
A piece of paper emerged from the bottom, fresh black ink printed upon it.
But…
That was impossible. She hadn’t sent anything to print today.
Her sleep-fogged head could not follow. Was she still dreaming?
No, the pigeon was the dream. This was real.
The printer finished, spitting out the piece of paper with a final clunk.
Pip hesitated.
Something pushed her forward. A ghost at her back. Maybe Andie Bell.
She walked over to the printer and reached out, like she was taking someone’s hand. Or someone taking hers.
The page was printed upside down; she couldn’t read it from here.
Her fingers closed around it, and the page fluttered in her grip like the wings of a headless pigeon.
She turned it around, the words righting themselves.
And part of her knew before she read them. Part of her knew.
Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?
PS. I learned this trick from you, season 1 episode 5. Ready for my next trick?
The page was covered in Stanley’s not-there blood, leaking from Pip’s not-there hands. No, the hands were there. But her heart had gone, throwing itself down the ladder of her spine, curdling in the acid of her gut.
Nononononononononononono.
How?
Pip swung around, her eyes wild, her breath wilder, taking in every shadow. Each one was DT before it was not. She was alone. He wasn’t here. But how…
Her frantic gaze landed back on the printer. Wireless printer. Anyone within range could send something through.
Which meant he had to be close by.
DT.
He was here.
Outside or inside the house?
Pip checked the screwed-up page in her hand. Ready for my next trick? What did he mean by that? What was the trick – make her disappear?
She should look out the window. He might be there, on the drive. DT standing in a ring of dead birds and chalk figures.
Pip turned and –
A metallic scream filled the room.
Loud.
So impossibly loud.
Pip clasped her hands to her ears, dropping the page.
No, not a scream. Guitars, screeching and crying, up and down too fast while a drumbeat hammered alongside them, shaking the room, implanting its pulse down into the floor and up her heels.
Now came the screaming. Voices. Deep and demonic, barking behind her in an inhuman surge.
Pip cried out and she could not hear herself. She was sure it was there, but her voice was lost. Buried.
She turned to where the screaming was loudest, listening through her hands. It was her desk. The other side this time.
LEDs blinking at her.
Her speakers.
Her Bluetooth speakers on full volume, blaring death metal in the dead of night.
Pip screamed, fighting forward through the sound, tripping over her own feet as she dropped to her knees.
She had to uncover one ear, the sound a physical sensation, tunnelling into her brain. She reached for the electric four-way under her desk. Grabbed the plug. Pulled it out.
Silence.
But not really.
A tinny after-sound, just as loud in her aching ears.
And a shout from the now-open doorway.
‘Pip!’
She screamed again, fell back against the desk.
A figure standing in the threshold. Too big. Too many limbs.
‘Pip?’ DT said again, in her dad’s voice, and then a yellow glow burst into the room as he turned on the light. It was her mum and dad, standing at her door in their pyjamas.
‘What the fuck was that?’ her dad asked her. His eyes wide. Not just angry. Frightened. Had Pip ever seen him frightened before?
‘Victor,’ her mum said in a soothing voice. ‘What happened?’ A sharper one for Pip.
Another sound joined the tinny ghost in Pip’s ears, a small wail down the hall, breaking into sobs.
‘Josh, honey.’ Pip’s mum opened her arms and folded him in as he appeared in the doorway too. His little chest shuddered. ‘It’s OK. I know it was a big shock.’ She kissed the top of his head. ‘You’re OK, sweetheart. Just a loud noise.’
‘I-I th-thought i-it was a b-bad man,’ he said, losing control to the tears.
‘What the f—What the heck was that?’ Pip’s dad asked her. ‘Will have woken up all of the neighbours.’
‘I don—’ But her mind wasn’t focused on forming words. It skipped from neighbours to outside to within range. DT had connected to her speakers by Bluetooth. He must be right outside her window, on the driveway.
Pip scrambled to her feet, launched herself across her bed and pulled open the curtains.
The moon hung low in the sky. Its light cast an eerie silver edge on the trees, on the cars, on the man running away from their drive.
Pip froze, a half-second too long, and the man was gone.
DT.
Dark clothes and a dark fabric face.
He’d been wearing a mask.
Standing right outside her window.
Within range.
Pip should go, she should chase after him. She could run faster than that. She’d had to learn to outrun all kinds of monsters.
‘Pip!’
She turned. She would never be able to get past her parents. They were blocking the way and it was already too late.
‘Explain yourself,’ her mum demanded.
‘I-I,’ Pip stuttered. Oh, it was just the man who’s going to kill me, nothing to worry about. ‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ she said. ‘It woke me up too. My speakers. I don’t know what happened. My phone must have been connected to them, and maybe, maybe it was an ad on YouTube or something. I don’t know. I didn’t do it.’ Pip didn’t know how she’d managed to say so many words without any breath. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve unplugged the speakers. They must be faulty. It won’t happen again.’
They asked more questions. More and more, and she didn’t know what to tell them. But it would be all her fault if the neighbours complained, she was told, and if Josh was in a foul mood tomorrow.
Fine, that was all her fault.
Pip climbed into bed and her dad switched off her light with a slightly strained, ‘Love you,’ and her scorched-out ears listened to the sounds of them trying to coax Josh back into bed. He wouldn’t go. He would only sleep with them.
But Pip… she wouldn’t sleep at all.
DT had been here. Right here. Now he was gone in the dark. And she, she was his number six.
