Mark Edwards - Catch Your Death

LOUISE VOSS AND

MARK EDWARDS

Catch Your Death

Dedication Dedication Prologue - Sixteen Years Ago Chapter 1 - Present Day Chapter 2 - Present Day Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 - Sixteen Years Ago Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 - Sixteen Years Ago Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Epilogue Acknowledgements About the Authors Also by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards Copyright About the Publisher

For the kids: Gracie, Ellie, Poppy and Archie.

Contents

Cover

Title Page LOUISE VOSS AND MARK EDWARDS Catch Your Death

Dedication

Prologue - Sixteen Years Ago

Chapter 1 - Present Day

Chapter 2 - Present Day

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9 - Sixteen Years Ago

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12 - Sixteen Years Ago

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Also by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue Sixteen Years Ago Prologue - Sixteen Years Ago Chapter 1 - Present Day Chapter 2 - Present Day Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 - Sixteen Years Ago Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 - Sixteen Years Ago Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Epilogue Acknowledgements About the Authors Also by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards Copyright About the Publisher

The world was on fire.

Or maybe she wasn’t in the world any more. Maybe this was Hell. The heat, the taste of sulphur on her tongue, the sickness, the torment. Screams rang through the air, relentless, monotonous, a one-pitch yell of despair. She opened her eyes and saw a figure stooping over her; a hovering devil, with flaming red hair. She tried to shout but all that came out was a rasping noise, and the devil’s face was close, the brimstone smell of its breath in her nostrils.

‘Kate. Kate, get up. Come on.’

She stared, blinked. Slowly, a face came into focus. Not a devil, but Sarah, her red-headed room-mate.

Sarah pushed aside the thin sheet that covered Kate’s body and took her by the hands, pulling her up. Kate’s pyjamas were damp and cold, but her skin was desert-hot. Her fever was nearing 105 degrees. Sarah was in a similar state, but she’d been lying on top of her sheets, too ill to sleep.

Kate’s bare feet touched the floor. It hurt. Everything hurt. Her body was a bruise, tender to the touch.

‘Come on.’

Kate could still hear the screaming, and put her hands to her ears to block it out. She’d only ever felt this ill once before, as a child. She had the vaguest memory of a nurse with black skin and kind eyes sponging her down with cold, cold water which dripped down her narrow heaving chest, and soaked the waistband of her pyjama trousers. She’d cried, weakly, at the ordeal. Cried for her mother, even though her mother was already gone.

She wished the nurse was here now, to cool her with water, to put out the fire that raged across her skin.

Her eyes fixed on the curtains. At some time during the night, as she drifted in and out of feverish dreams, she had seen little men with malevolent eyes swinging on those curtains. Sarah opened the door and, holding each other up, they stepped into the corridor. Kate had a vague idea that she was supposed to be angry with Sarah but she couldn’t remember why.

At the same time that Kate and Sarah left their room, another couple of young women emerged from the next room. Denise and Fiona, the Glaswegian girls they weren’t allowed to be in contact with, but had communicated with, talking and giggling like boarding school girls through the walls, figuring out ingenious ways to pass notes out of the windows, attached to the end of a cane Sarah had found in the Centre’s gardens.

‘Is it real?’ Fiona asked. Her voice was thick, her nose bunged up. Kate thought she was speaking a foreign language. Or maybe the language of Satan. What if these were all devils, taking her to be tortured, dragging her into Hell? She panicked and tried to pull away.

Denise caught her and she nearly fell, but the Scottish girl managed to stop her from crashing to the floor.

‘It can’t be a drill,’ Fiona said, answering her own question.

‘Let’s just get out of here,’ said Denise, leading the way.

She gripped Sarah by one hand and Kate, who kept pulling back, looking around her with wild eyes, by the other. Where was everyone else? Were they the last people left in the building?

‘We’re going to die,’ Kate said. ‘We’re going to die.’

Denise shushed her. ‘No. We’re not. The exit’s just around this corner. Come on, Kate. We’re nearly there.’

They turned the corner and came face to face with a wall of thick smoke.

‘Oh God!’

Kate emitted a small yelp of fear and struggled, but Denise held tight. ‘Calm down.’

They were all sweating now, as the corridors filled with heat, and the smoke pricked their eyes, bringing forth the tears. Four young women in their pyjamas; holding on to one another, paralysed by the most primitive fear of all.

‘We’ll have to go back,’ Denise said.

They turned round and ran – even the sickly Kate and Sarah, with Denise and Fiona holding their hands. They heard a crack and a crash in the distance and suddenly smoke was filling the whole corridor, rushing up behind them, chasing and overtaking them. It caught them and, like drowning swimmers, they panicked and gulped in lungfuls of the stuff, acrid and bitter and lethal. Coughs racked their bodies.

Sarah fell to her knees. Fiona stopped and tried to pull her back up. Denise let go of Kate so she could help, and as they struggled to get Sarah to her feet, Kate peered ahead. They were engulfed now, the smoke filling the whole corridor, and her eyes streamed as she tried to make sense of what she could see.

There were figures coming at them through the smoke. The devils. Come to claim her. The screaming continued.

One of the devils grabbed hold of her. She tried to fight but the devil was too strong. It lifted her and carried her deeper into the smoke. She kicked weakly. Each of her friends had been taken hold of too. She decided not to fight any more. She just wished she’d had a chance to say goodbye to Stephen.