could have made it out by now and then we’re fucked. The road is only a few metres away.’
Bitter disappointment crawled through Carly’s veins. They’d been so close. If it weren’t for the fog they would have spotted the fence.
‘Let’s have another scout around outside then, but if we don’t find them soon we’ll have to go. They could have flagged down a car, someone could be calling the police right now…’ Doc’s voice grew fainter and Carly slumped with relief. They were gone.
The urge to burst out of her hiding place prickled at her goosebumped skin but Carly forced herself to remain where she was, to make sure they really were alone. As she waited she turned their words over in her mind. We don’t get the girls, we don’t get paid.
She had thought that this was a kidnap and they had demanded a ransom from their parents but perhaps the men were planning on selling them to someone else? Either way there was a plan for them. Carly needed to get her sisters to safety before it was put in place. The road’s only a few metres away.
It was knowing this that gave Carly the strength and courage to gently push open the door to her locker, wincing at the creak. Moustache and Doc believed that she might have flagged down a car and asked for help and so she too must believe that she could. Determinedly, she unfolded herself from the small space, toes wriggling to chase the pins and needles away from her socked feet. As she dropped to the floor she drew a deep breath, fetid and repugnant, but the air still fresher than it had been inside her steel casket. Hurriedly, she released her sisters, shushing them as she helped them out.
‘We’re almost out of here,’ she whispered. ‘We’re right by the road and once we find it we can go home.’
‘Will Mum and Dad be cross?’ The whites of Marie’s wide eyes were bright in the silver moonlight that pushed through a gash in the roof.
‘Of course not,’ Carly said. ‘They’ll have been horribly worried but this hasn’t been our fault, any of it.’ But even if that was the truth it felt like a lie. She blamed herself endlessly. If only she hadn’t let the twins play with the ball in the garden, if only she had been the one to shut the gate.
If only, if only, if only.
‘Come now.’ Marie and Leah both slipped a hand inside hers, their palms slick with fear. They padded across the room. The rain slipped inside the building and puddled on the ground, but Carly barely noticed as her socks absorbed the water.
They were going home to dry socks. Dry clothes. Food.
Love.
At the doorway she hesitated. Which way? If she turned left she could lead them out the way they came in, but was that the way the men had gone? Unlike the other buildings Carly hadn’t seen any windows that they could climb out of, which was a shame. But they could fit through spaces the men couldn’t. Carly didn’t know if there was another exit and she didn’t want to waste time searching. She retraced their steps, all the while her chest painfully tight, her throat clogged with the scream she kept trying to swallow back down, but her mouth was so dry. They were tantalizingly close to freedom but still light years away.
‘We’re nearly outside,’ she whispered and the thought was both terrifying and reassuring. Fingers tightened around hers as they passed through the corridor where the roof was intact – the blackness swallowing them – and then they were in the shower block. The shower heads bent towards them cackling – you’ll never escape-you’ll never escape. For a split second the room was bright with fluorescent light. Soldiers in the showers rinsing off blood, stumps where their arms should be, crimson water trickling towards the drain…
Carly whimpered.
‘Are you okay?’ Marie’s whisper yanked Carly back to the now where there were no wounded soldiers, no blood, but the fear – the threat of death – was just as real as though it had hung suspended in the air for years, waiting to be reignited.
Waiting for them.
‘Move.’ Carly’s panic lent her feet a sense of urgency. If she had to spend another minute in this place the strands of the past would reach out and wrap around her neck, slip down her throat, trapping her here for eternity. She wouldn’t become a ghost.
A