Big Ben ran up the stairs, throwing caution to the wind as he exposed himself to an attack he would not see coming until it were too late.
No attack came and once we were upstairs, I knew our target wasn’t here, and neither were Jane and Jan. My heart was sinking, the terrible knowledge that I had him in my grasp a few short hours ago burning into my conscience like a red-hot brand.
‘There’s someone out here!’ Amanda’s sudden shout sent a jolt of electricity through me.
I threw myself at the stairs, getting there just before Big Ben as we both clutched at the vague hope we could still find our friends and avert disaster.
Our haste proved counterproductive. In the darkness, I failed to see an object on the stairs. When my lead foot found it, I slipped and fell, pitching forward and grabbing wildly for the banister.
I would have managed to save myself from falling all the way, but Big Ben was right on my heels and moving too fast to stop. Just as I arrested my fall, he piled into me and we both fell, spinning in the air as we sailed the last yards to land in a painful heap in the hallway below.
There being no time to account for our injuries, we got in each other’s way yet again as we both scrambled to get up and get moving.
With a shout of frustrated rage, we burst from the rear of the house, two black-clad warriors ready to hand out a beating to anyone available.
‘What are you two clowns doing?’ asked Amanda, appearing from the shadow under a tree. ‘It sounded like elephants learning to tango in there. I thought you were going to be stealthy.’
Looking around for the source of danger, my senses on high alert, I asked, ‘Where is he?’
‘Who? Oh, yeah, that was a cat. Sorry.’ I could see Amanda’s embarrassed grin in the moonlight.
‘A cat?’ questioned Big Ben, out of breath and nursing his shoulder where he probably bruised it falling down the stairs.
‘I take it there’s no one inside,’ Amanda went around me to enter the house.
I paused for a second, scanning the back garden but there was no shed in which Harry might have stashed Jane and Jan. Wherever they were, they were not here.
Amanda touched my arm. ‘Come on. We need to look for clues inside and the chances are the police are already on their way.’
Jane. Not Alone. Friday, December 23rd 2112hrs
It had been light inside my cell but the hallway beyond was dark. Starkly so after the bright white walls my eyes were now used to. It felt good to be free of the cell, yet really all I had done was conquer one more obstacle. How many more were there before I could be free? If I knew that, I might have cause to rejoice.
Leaving my cell door open cast light into the darkness beyond and created shadows too. The corridor was bare brick – large grey breeze blocks I could smash through if I had a few tools. It was four feet wide and came to a dead end just to the left of my cell door. Turning right led into the darkness as the corridor stretched out before me.
I went that way, doing my best to walk in my boots now that both heels were broken. Three yards later the light from my cell was fading fast, the blackness eating more of it the farther I went. I pushed on, telling my eyes to hurry up to adjust. When I came to a door to my right, I stopped.
On the same side of the wall as my cell, was another one. The door was exactly like the one to my cell. When I looked, I could see at least one more on the same wall just a few yards farther along. Examining the first one, I poked it to confirm it would not swing open and tried the handle.
The handle refused to turn – it was electronically locked just like mine. Was it another cell? The door looked the same, it was locked, and it was located in the same creepy underground bunker.
Underground.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but now I was free of my cell, the air was laden with a damp mustiness I associated with old cellars. I was below ground. Would that make it harder for anyone to find me? Where the heck was I for that matter?
My thoughts that maybe the Sandman had me in a room beneath his house could still be correct but if so he had a big house. The dimensions of the area I was in would not fit beneath a standard semi-detached place and had to be three times the footprint of a terraced house. And that was just the bit I could see.
When a noise came from the other side of the cell door, I leapt backward in fright. So unexpected was it that I almost lost control of my bladder and came to rest with my back pressed against the opposite wall.
With my pulse banging in my ears, I could barely hear the sound but when it came a second time, I realised I was listening to a person. They were trying to make themselves heard through a gag, the words coming out as unintelligible mumbles.
I rushed back to the door, placing my ear right up to the edge where it met the frame. ‘Hello?’ I called into the dark.
There was a moment of silence before the person on the other side said, ‘Ayne?’ I couldn’t make out what he was trying to say – it was definitely a man – yet the noise he made sounded hopeful and excited.
‘Hello,’
