With Friends Like These

By Zoe Cannon

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

 

A popular clique with a body count. A teenage girl whose twin sister may be a born killer. A sleepover with life-and-death stakes.

 

In these six short, twisty psychological thrillers, the arena is high school. The game: climbing the social ladder, crushing their enemies, and convincing the grown-ups they're perfect angels. And the prize?

 

They get to stay alive.

 

This collection contains the following short stories:
The Sacrifice
Her Sister's Shoes
That's What Friends Do
Family Secrets
A Little More Ruthless
Crazy Guilty

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zoe Cannon
• Release date: Oct 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223839132

Book preview

With Friends Like These

A Psychological Thriller Collection

Zoe Cannon

© 2023 Zoe Cannon

http://www.zoecannon.com

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Introduction

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

When I was a kid, most of the books that got handed to me were all about friendship. They all followed the same basic template: a group of friends (usually five), where each friend was an easily-identifiable character type. Chances were, most readers would identify with at least one of them. In these books, the problems to be solved were always about relationships (with friends, parents, siblings...), and friendship was always the solution. Think the Baby-Sitters Club. (I was a Mallory, but I wished I was a Dawn.)

I devoured these things. Even now, I could happily geek out about them for hours. I read the well-known ones (Baby-Sitters Club!) and the ones no one but me seemed to know about (Camp Sunnyside Friends! Friends 4-Ever!).

But in real life, a close-knit group of friends was not the solution to any problem I had. Those groups of friends were the threat.

I was the weird kid. I saw the real-life counterparts of those groups I read about, and had enough sense of self-preservation not to get too close—and got burned for it when I ignored my instincts. I smelled the predator in them, and they smelled the wrong in me.

Many years later, when I was all grown up and had barely thought about those books in years, domestic thrillers got popular enough to cross my radar. If you’re not familiar with the genre, one of its hallmarks of the genre is an outwardly idyllic feminine domain—the perfect marriage, the suburban house—that hides a dark world of murderers and madness underneath. I couldn’t get enough of these stories, and I think it’s because their over-the-top darkness told truths that felt more real than reality. No, there aren’t murderers hiding around every corner in the suburbs, but when you feel your neighbors’ judgmental eyes on you, that picture-perfect world can feel as tense as any slow-burn thriller.

And I thought again about those books I had read when I was growing up. Middle school lunch tables aren’t filled with vicious killers, any more than the suburban streets are… but can anyone who has lived through the teenage social gauntlet honestly say it doesn’t feel that way sometimes?

This collection is my attempt to tell stories about those lunch tables (and sleepovers and summer camps) that feel more real than the idyllic fictional versions I grew up with, no matter how sure we are that the events in these stories could never happen. They tell the dark truths underneath the smiling faces on the old book covers. They feature cold-blooded killers and deadly secrets, vicious blackmail and brutal revenge... all set against the backdrop of teenage friendship, popularity, and sisterhood.

And really, how sure are we that there was never a killer sitting at the lunch table next to us?

The Sacrifice

They shook Meg awake in the middle of the night. She had been tossing and turning in her scratchy sleeping bag on the cabin floor, dozing uneasily and dreaming restless dreams of black bears and fires and all the other hazards of the forest. When she blinked her eyes open, she saw the three of them framed by the moonlight, deep shadows cutting across their faces. Their lips were blood red, their lashes long and dark, their nails brightly painted talons. Midnight in the middle of the woods, and they had still done their makeup.

They looked slim and stylish in their silk pajamas, not like her in the frumpy flannel set her mother had made her bring. She stuffed herself deeper into her sleeping bag and pretended to be asleep.

Ashley leaned down and hissed sharply in her ear. Wake up, she whispered in a silk-soft voice. Come with us. And be quiet about it. If you wake the others, you’ll ruin everything.

Meg slipped out of her sleeping bag and gave up the ruse of being asleep. She hoped the night was dark enough that they wouldn’t look too closely at her pajamas. Ashley was there, and Caroline, with Emma lurking silently behind. They gave her simultaneous satisfied nods when they saw she was awake and obeying instructions. Then they turned without a backward glance and padded silently out of the cabin, clearly expecting her to follow.

Meg shot a guilty glance behind her at Paige, who was still fast asleep in the sleeping bag next to hers. Last night they had talked, really talked, for the first time in months. It had been awkward at first—the old bond was damaged, maybe irreparably, and Meg knew that was her fault. But after a few minutes, and a few apologies, Paige had softened a bit—enough to tell her she had finally gotten into that art camp she had been dreaming of for the past two years.

They didn’t talk about what Meg had been doing in the months leading up to the eighth-grade class camping trip. Neither of them had wanted to shatter the fragile peace between them.

A part of Meg would rather have stayed with Paige and fallen back into her sleeping bag—scratchy as it was—to dream of happier times. But no one said no to Ashley and her friends. She slipped on her sandals and followed. Her feet too loud on the rough wooden floor. She tensed and looked behind her. Paige stirred and muttered in her sleep, but didn’t open her eyes.

The four girls crept past the other cabins, including the one on the end where the teachers were sleeping. They slipped into the woods beyond, where there was no trail. The teachers had warned them not to leave the trails. Or to sneak out of their cabins at night. But Ashley and the others had never much cared about doing what they were told. Which meant Meg had to stop caring, now that she was almost one of them.

An owl hooted in the night, and Meg jumped. She clapped a hand to her lips to keep a startled noise from escaping.

Emma shot her a warning glare over her shoulder. Meg took a deep breath, lowered her hand, and pulled her sleeves lower to hide the goosebumps on her arms. Even in May, it was cold enough at night to make Meg wish she had thought to grab her jacket along with her shoes. But she knew that wasn’t the only reason for the prickling of her skin.

The others walked with sure steps, as if they had walked through dark forests at night a hundred times before. Their footsteps were silent. Meg stepped on every twig, and her stupid flannel pajamas caught on every thorn bush. More than once, a thorn scraped at her bare ankles, and she had to hold in more noises. After that first warning look, none of them turned around to make sure she was all right.

The trees opened up onto the lake where they had gone kayaking the previous day. Now the water was dark, except for a circle of white where the moon reflected off the still surface. A bonfire blazed at the water’s edge. The sharp bite of smoke hit Meg’s nose. A half-remembered dream of fire tickled the edges of her mind, and she shuddered.

The rest of Ashley’s crew was waiting there. They sat sprawled out on the thin strip of rough sand, eating chips and roasting marshmallows, laughing as if a midnight bonfire practically under the teacher’s noses was the most normal thing in the world.

Meg stopped at the edge of the sand. Won’t you get in trouble? she asked, hating how small her voice sounded.

Ashley tossed her hair as she looked over her shoulder at Meg. Of course not, she said. Even if anyone finds out—which they won’t—everyone knows better than to get on our bad side.

At that, everyone exchanged secret smiles, like they knew something Meg didn’t. Maybe it was just the way the firelight twisted everyone’s features into something harsh and unfamiliar, but Meg didn’t like the look of those smiles.

Anyway, Ashley continued, "you should be saying we now. You’re one of us—or you will be after tonight."

Meg’s heart beat faster, and not from the danger. She did her best not to let her excitement show on her face. She had caught whispers, here and there, about how she would really be one of them soon. Now she would finally find out what those whispers had meant.

She nodded, cool as a cucumber, like this was no surprise to her. The worst thing a person could do in front of Ashley was look desperate.

Ashley laughed. Don’t try to act above it all, she said. You’re not that good at it yet. Besides, this is a big moment for you. It’s your initiation night. We all remember our own initiations, don’t we? I don’t know about the rest of you, but it was the night that changed my life.

From all around the fire, the other girls nodded their answer.

There’s no turning back after this, Ashley said. The words sounded like a warning. Fire glinted off her ice-blue eyes as her gaze held Meg’s. But you don’t want to turn back, do you?

Paige’s face flashed into Meg’s mind. For a fraction of a second, she wanted nothing more than to sit in Paige’s bedroom, their heads bent over one of their old shared sketchbooks.

She swallowed down the thick lump of homesickness. Nostalgia made everything look better than it had been. Last year, when it had been just her and Paige, she had cried herself to sleep every night. Back when they had been the target of every rumor and the butt of every joke. Before Meg had been chosen.

After tonight, she wouldn’t have to watch herself around the others every minute, constantly afraid she would slip and lose her fragile footing with them. She would sail past all her old bullies with the same ease as Ashley and her crew. And in high school next year, there would be no more lectures from teachers about daydreaming too much. No one dared to give Ashley or one of her friends less than an A.

She had worked for this. Ever since they had chosen her, she had studied their words and clothes and mannerisms, practicing in the mirror, proving herself worthy. Paying her dues. Biding her time.

She was so close.

She shook her head. I’m not turning back. I want this.

Ashley’s lips curved in a smile. Good. I think we chose well with you. Prove us right.

As if on some unspoken signal, the other girls stepped away from the fire. With silent footsteps, they formed a circle around Meg. A shiver came over her as she felt all those eyes on her. She remembered the days when they used to watch her and Paige from across the cafeteria, judging them and finding them wanting. Did they find her wanting now?

She really wished she had fought her parents harder on the flannel pajamas.

Ashley took her place in the circle, directly across from Meg. Who are you? she asked. Her tone was strangely formal, like she was standing on stage in the school auditorium reciting a speech.

Meg swallowed. If there was a script, no one had given her a copy. Um… Megan Laramie.

Ashley tossed her hair. That’s good for a start, she said. "But I don’t need to know what your parents call you. Let’s see if you can do better with the next question. Who were you before found you?"

She didn’t think Ashley was looking for Megsie, the name her dad used to call her when she could barely walk. She pictured the girl she had been before Ashley and her crew had plucked her out from in front of the middle school bullseye and lifted her to a place of precarious safety. Chubby, clumsy Meg, who never wore the right things or said the right things or listened to the right music.

The world had passed her by in third grade, when the other girls had started wearing makeup and asking for cute outfits as birthday gifts. When they had begun clustering together at recess in their little whispering circles—circles Meg and Paige always found themselves on the outside of. The other girls had pulled ahead of her before she had known it was a race, and she had never caught up. She had always been just a step or two behind.

As soon as she caught on to a trend—like those little plastic animals everyone had