Dead By Dawn

Chapter One:

       The flashing lights of the ambulances and police cars coloured the street at four a.m on a cold September Tuesday morning. Seventeen year old Kady Halloway watched from her bedroom window as police and paramedics trudged through the thick snow carrying, what Kady could only assume, was a body bag. If this was a murder, it would be the third one in her block in three weeks. 

     She hadn't left the house since the first murder, through fear she would be next. But, that was her mother's fault. She babied Kady way too much. She had been the one to put the idea in Kady's head that she could be the killer's next victim. Her words most likely fuelled from alcohol, exaggerating the seriousness of all of this. 

    After the second murder, Kady's mother had refused,, for a whole week, to unlock the doors or open any windows. Kady had tried telling her mother, Karyn, that it didn't matter if she was in the house or not, if she went out during the day or not, that the murders had happened at night. 

     If it was the same killer, they wouldn't change now. Despite that, Kady's mother had forbidden her to see her friends the next day, like Kady had planned to for a week.

    A noise in the hallway just outside her bedroom made her jump. Suddenly her mother burst into the room. 

     "Get away from that window!" She snapped. "That's not something you should be seeing at your age!"

    "I couldn't sleep with all the lights flashing and those dumb pigs shouting at each other." Kady mumbled sleepily.

    "They're not dumb, and don't call them pigs! They're doing the best they can to catch this person."

    "Well, they're not doing a very good job," Kady turned to her mother, "are they?" She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm going out tomorrow. Don't try and stop me."

    "Ok." Her mother sighed. "Get yourself killed." The door slammed.

    Kady turned back to the window. An ambulance was just leaving; its lights flashing and sirens on, and crime scene investigators were just finishing up. She closed the curtain and climbed back into bed.

    She couldn't sleep though. She'd spoken to one of the girls who lived in that house over the road only a few days ago, a week at most. She was nice enough. Eighteen years old, blonde and curvy, quite a pretty girl. 

     But her younger sister was much different. At fifteen years old, she had dyed black hair, piercings and always wore black clothes and walked around with her headphones on or left them hanging around her neck.

    Kady hoped it was just an accident, and that the girls hadn't been murdered, but she knew that it was more than likely that one, or maybe even the both of them, had been the killer's next victim.

    It was ten a.m when Kady woke up. She'd finally managed to get back to sleep at six a.m, and could have stayed asleep longer, but a banging on the front door had woken her. She stumbled out of her room, her hair dishevelled and yesterdays mascara smudged under her eyes. "Mom?" she called through the house as she made her way to the door. There was no reply. As Kady opened the door, she had to duck as a fist came at her face when the man at the door tried to knock again. 

     He hadn't noticed that Kady had opened the door as he was too busy watching the house over the road with its police tape outlining the edge of the garden, flapping around in the bitter winter breeze.

    "Dad!" Kady yelled. "Watch it!"

    "Sorry, love. Are you all okay?" Her father's worried but slightly annoyed face was flushed and red, as though he had ran all the way here, but his car was parked haphazardly at the end of the drive, near the mailbox.