Extract from new thriller THE FESTIVAL
My new thriller THE FESTIVAL is out in ebook, audio and paperback on the 1st of August and is very much Glastonbury meets Stephen King. In it I channel all of my fear of those big outdoor music festivals: the crowds, the unpredictable weather, the camping and the very worst bit of all – festival toilets!
Here is a little bit about the book and an extract from the very beginning:
Libby can’t believe her luck when she wins two tickets to the biggest event of the summer: Solstice, a music festival celebrating the longest day of the year.
Wanting to escape their problems for a few days, Libby, and her best friend Dawn head deep into the Welsh countryside for a weekend of sun, fun and festivities. But what promised to be an exciting trip quickly turns into Libby’s worst nightmare.
The scorching heat intensifies, the music becomes wilder, the people more unpredictable. When Dawn goes missing, Libby worries that something sinister has happened to her friend. And as Libby learns more about the festival’s dark origins, she begins to fear that something might happen to her too…
Extract:
Libby Corrigan could smell death on her. An antiseptic odour, it was sweet with rot, collecting into the corners of her eyes like crusted sleep, itching itself into her hair and trapped tight in the weave of her best blouse.
She should not have come.
It had been Dawn’s idea. Most things were Dawn’s idea. Dawn was an aeroplane, gliding in one strong line across the blue sky, firmly programmed to a destination, and Libby was a vapour trail caught in the wake, liable to haze to nothing.
‘What’d you say?’ A man leant in close enough for Libby to feel his breath on her neck. She jerked away, the loud club music a beat that made her skin vibrate, like she could just shrug it off, snake-like and free.
‘I wanted her dead.’ She said the words in the man’s general direction, but they weren’t meant for him. They just needed to be said.
He frowned a little, his eyes slipping from her, glassy from the alcohol or the drugs. ‘What?’
She guessed she was dancing with him because he was moving around her, one of those birds puffing out their feathers and bob-dipping to impress their mate. She stood still. Around them the warehouse thrummed to a rhythm that made the people inside throw themselves into it, arms flailing, sweat flipping from the ends of their hair. It was the kind of music that possessed a person, a demon that needed exorcising. Lights skimmed over the crowd in a wash of colour.
Libby remained still.
Only a few hours ago she had watched as the coffin had been lowered into the hole. There hadn’t been many mourners and her mother had set aside no money for limp sandwiches and beer someplace with a sticky carpet, so Libby had simply planned to go home. Until Dawn had grabbed her by the arm.
‘My mother.’ She didn’t lean closer to the man but made the words loud enough to hear. ‘I wanted her dead.’
And then Dawn was next to her with a drink that was cool in her hand and she had whisked her away to a quieter spot in a corner, one where those sly, sliding lights couldn’t reach them. The music was still trapped in her chest, however, thumping under her ribs, the powerful wingbeat of a bird trying to break free.
‘Is this too weird for you tonight, y’know . . . after today?’ Dawn peered at her, her hair a tangle of blue and pink, her skin sweaty and glittered. She was dressed in hot pants and a crochet top over a T-shirt with a picture printed on it for ‘The Holy Trinity’: Dolly, Beyoncé and Taylor. Libby had nearly ended up coming in her funeral outfit of sensible blouse and pencil skirt until Dawn had put her foot down and switched out the skirt for a pair of Dawn’s jeans, ripped so wide at the knees they looked like flapping mouths.
Libby shook her head. ‘No.’ She meant it. Though she would never have picked this as the place to spend the evening after her mother’s funeral, as usual Dawn had chosen the perfect thing for them to do. The thud of the music beat its way into the dark whispers in her mind and bludgeoned them into silence. Despite being friends with Dawn since they were little, she had never until now wanted to come with her to a place like this, and she tugged at the holes in her jeans, feeling as if she were in fancy dress. It was a new club, Dawn had told her as they’d queued to get in, an opening night Dawn had been invited to as a thanks for signing up to some festival newsletter.
Rubbing at the stamp on the back of her hand, she took a sip of her lemonade. She could hardly remember how she got that ink on her skin at the beginning of the evening, though it must have been from a doorman stamping her hand as proof of entry. The print was now smudged by sweat, and she tried to work out whether it was meant to be a spider or an octopus.
‘Mine is different,’ Dawn placed her own hand next to hers.
‘What is it?’
Dawn peered at her own stamp in the shifting light. ‘I don’t know . . . an arrow? A snake? A worm? Who cares?’
Libby’s next words were a rush of feeling as she clasped her friend’s hand in her own. ‘I’ll miss you when you go back to college.’
Dawn pressed her glittery cheek to Libby’s, deliberately making sure the glitter rubbed off on her, making her giggle. ‘I know, Libs. But we’ve got a whole summer yet. And you don’t have to stay here; you can do anything now. Live anywhere. You’re only twenty. Get your own college degree if you want. Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’ But it was a word with cracks in it.
Dawn raised her bottle of beer. ‘A toast!’
‘Huh?’
‘A toast. To the witch. The witch is dead.’
Libby did not tap her glass against the neck of Dawn’s waiting bottle. ‘Dawn.’ There was a warning in her voice.
‘What?’ Libby didn’t need to say anything. Dawn sighed. ‘It’s fucking true. Having cancer doesn’t change the fact she was a total witch. Having cancer doesn’t make someone a saint.’
And that was all it took. The world around Libby was paper-thin and the heat of her memories burned straight through it. Suddenly she was back in that room and there was the laboured, rattling sound of her mother breathing, reminding Libby of a dying snake, the kind with just enough venom left in its wasted bite. Two years she had cared for her, two years of that dim room, the sick sheen on her mother’s skin, watching as the flesh sunk into hollows creating a new face but one with the same harsh eyes, always watching for something with which to find fault.
Those two years ended in the watery light of a Monday morning. As the street around them had begun to fill with the bustle of people starting their week, her mother had grasped her, nails digging into the soft part of Libby’s forearm and dragged her down so she could whisper her last words to her, breath foul from the rot within.
No.
Libby would not think of those words.
Instead she danced, awkwardly at first, moving side to side with her eyes fixed firmly on the middle distance as Dawn flailed and swayed and lunged and lurched around her in wild abandon. But soon that pounding beat hammered the embarrassment from her and she began to dance more freely, each step stomping on the memory of that sickroom, each flick of her arm pushing it further away.
She tried to smile.
That was when Dawn screamed.
Crime Cymru 