C.J. Skuse - Monster - The perfect boarding school thriller to keep you up all night

C.J. SKUSEis the author of the YA novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC. She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University where she is planning to do her PhD. C.J’s fifth novel THE DEVIANTS will be published by HQ in 2016.

For Jamie, he is my brother

I said there is no other

‘Hell is empty. All the devils are here.’

The Tempest,

William Shakespeare

Jenny Savill at Andrew Nurnberg Agency for your belief when I needed it most.

Anna Baggaley, Sarah Reader and everyone at HQ for your ceaseless support, editorial advice and general love for my little Monster

All my family, friends and early readers—my sister Penny Skuse, Matthew Snead, Laura Myers, Di Toft, Rachel Leyshon and Barry Cunningham. Thank you for all your advice and encouragement.

Hestercombe House and Gardens—a constant inspiration to me. This time round, Bathory School in the flesh.

Connie Bowler—for your very helpful reminiscences about boarding school life.

Judy Wasdell—for having a dog who habitually sniffs out spines.

All the UKYA book bloggers who follow me on social media and regularly spread the word about my books.

As always, a soundtrack of artists helped me knit and unpick this book every step of the way: Aiden, Alice in Chains, Gabrielle Aplin, Avicii, The Bangles, The Beatles, Birdy, Eminem, 5 Seconds of Summer, Foo Fighters, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Ellie Goulding, The Heavy, Hole, Keane, Jay-Z, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, My Chemical Romance, Nirvana, Paramore, Rage Against the Machine, Royal Blood and Slipknot.

And to anyone who has screwed me over, rejected me or even just mildly pissed me off in the last thirty-odd years—you helped too. A lot.

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Acknowledgements

1 I, Monster

2 The Devil Inside

3 Insidious

4 Jeepers Creepers

5 Dead and Breakfast

6 The Thing

7 Saw

8 Scream

9 The Hunger

10 Village of the Damned

11 Near Dark

12 Bride of Chucky

13 Black Christmas

14 The Vanishing

15 Psycho

16 Dead of Night

17 The Cabin in the Woods

18 Don’t Look Now

19 Hellraiser

20 Daughters of Darkness

21 The Omen

22 Possession

23 Let the Right One In

24 Resident Evil

25 The Silence of the Lambs

26 Les Diaboliques

27 The Descent

28 Final Destination

Endpage

Copyright

That last week at school before the Christmas holidays, death was in everything.

In Geography, the sea was eating away the coasts. In English, Juliet was stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Even the school gerbil, Rafferty, was found stiff in his water bowl on Tuesday lunchtime. The skies above us bore a foreboding grey gloom, telling us snow was on its way to suffocate the land. In the dorms, everyone was packing up their trunks for the coming break and preparing to say goodbye to the year.

And in our last floodlit netball practice that Friday evening, I saw the monster.

The thing generations of Bathory girls had nightmares about. The Beast of Bathory.

I watched it in the fading light through the wire mesh of our netball court fencing. A black mass, stalking quietly across the playing fields, its two yellow eyes turning to stare at me every so often as it walked, unchecked. Unafraid.

Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! went the whistle.

‘Nash, pass! Pass! I’m free! I’m free!’

I was watching it as much as it was watching me.

Pheeeeee! ‘Natasha, are you playing netball today? Or are we playing netball and you playing Musical Statues?’

I tried to get my head back in the game. ‘Sorry, Mrs Scott.’

‘Rebound, pink team,’ she called, marching back up the court, whistle ready in her mouth. I sneaked a look behind me to the playing fields, but there was no sign of it. It must have dashed into the hedge. I put my trainer to the yellow line and clutched the ball firmly, looking for a free pink-bib to throw to.

‘Aaaaaaand …’ Pheee!

‘Nash! Nash! Overhead! Here! Here!’ Maggie Zappa was calling for it. Wing Attack, socks at half-mast, hair a mass of black curls. School rebel. I wasn’t throwing to her.

‘Nash! Here!’ Clarice Hoon, Goal Attack, too much make-up, bedmate of half the Lower Sixth St Anthony’s boys. We had a history. I wasn’t throwing to her.

Dianna Pfaff, my opposition Centre, was using everything she had. She wasn’t as fast as me, but she was tall, with a ballerina’s balance, and had several times marked me out of the game. Her thick blonde curls bounced and flew as she darted left to right in front of me, shadowing my every movement with her hands. I had to throw.

I saw Regan. Wing Defence, black plaits hanging down and thick, clear-framed glasses. Way back on the line. She had arrived in the Lower Fifth with a subtle smell of wrongness about her and the appearance of a spinster in her late fifties. She wasn’t even calling for it. I threw to her.

It bounced high off the ground in front of her, and she fumbled it offside.

Pheeeeeeee! ‘Foul ball. Advantage blue team.’

Regan bit her lip. Clarice rolled her eyes.

Maggie Zappa puffed and blew her fringe curls up from her face. ‘Da fuq didn’t you throw it to me? I was free. I had acres!’

‘Margaret Zappa!’ yelled Mrs Scott.

‘But I was free!’ She turned back to me, slapping her hands to her sides. ‘What did you throw to her for? You might as well have thrown it over the fence.’

The blues scored a goal before Mrs Scott had finished dressing down Maggie for a string of ensuing bad language. We all went back to the centre. Dianna Pfaff had the ball.

Pheeeeeeeee!

‘Dianna, here! Here!’

I marked Dianna’s movements like a shadow. She couldn’t pass, couldn’t get to anyone. Frustration screamed from her.

Pheeeeeeee! ‘Possession. Advantage pinks.’ Mrs Scott’s fat thighs smacked together as she marched over to us and pointed to the spot, handing me the ball. I spotted a free pink and lobbed it across the court.

‘Aw, hospital pass!’ cried Mrs Scott, as the ball bounced away from Jenny. ‘Rebound! Advantage pinks. Rebound. Advantage blues. Come on, you’re not nailed to the ground, reach for the ball! Jump for it!’ Goal Attack to Goal Shooter. Score. Pheeeeeee! ‘Pinks lead two to one.’

Dianna threw me a look as the ball was lobbed back in my direction.

Pheeeeeee!

‘Nash, pass! Over here, over here! I’m free!’

‘Nash, for God’s sake!’

‘Natasha! What are you …’

It had stopped there, just in front of the hedge, a black shape moving in the falling darkness across the playing fields. The huge black shape. It was waiting for me to go over to it. I went across the gravel, across the grass of the playing fields to the swings.

‘Natasha, come back here! What on earth …’

I had to see it more clearly. I had to know if it was there for sure, the thing I’d been seeing for weeks now, darting across fields, hiding around corners, vanishing behind trees. The killer of dozens of sheep and chickens. And possibly humans.

But, in a second, it had gone, vanished into the hedge with barely the rustle of a leaf.

Someone was behind me, walking quickly to catch up. I turned. Regan Matsumoto.