by Ruby Loren
A door was thrown open. Sylvia Rainford stumbled out dressed in a white nightgown. “Someone was in my room. There was a man! He was in my room!”
“Ma’am, there can’t have been anyone in your room… unless it was one of the other guests. Did you lock your door?” Jack asked, not looking convinced by her account.
“Of course I locked my door!” Sylvia said, her shock giving way to anger. “He didn’t get in that way, I’m sure of it. I left my window open. It’s stuffy. I woke up and he was in my room standing over my bed!”
I walked over to her open door and looked through. Sure enough, the window was wide open. As to whether anyone had passed through it, I couldn’t say. The rooms were on the ground floor of the bunker, but I’d already looked out of my own window and had estimated that we were a couple of metres off the ground. It wasn’t inconceivable that someone had climbed in, but I’d have thought they’d probably have needed a ladder.
“What happened next?” Jack asked, not doing a very good job of sounding convinced.
“When I saw him, I screamed. He ran to my door and unlocked it from the inside, where I’d left the key in the door. Then he was gone,” Sylvia explained.
“I saw someone running down the corridor,” I confessed.
“There! You see? She believes me,” Sylvia said, shooting me a warm look whilst freezing Jack out.
“Where did this person go?” our guide queried, now looking disdainfully at me - as if it were my fault for seeing something that actually corroborated Sylvia’s story.
“Down that way,” I said, pointing. “Does it go anywhere that an intruder might want to break into?”
“It’s a dead end. There’s a door, but it’s locked. I think it leads to an area of the bunker that hasn’t been included in this course. A lot of this old building still needs renovation done after years of neglect. We get to see the nice parts, but there are areas that are very much the original bunker, and they look exactly as you’d expect.”
I nodded, toying with the idea of walking down after whomever it was that had gone that way. Either they would be waiting in front of that dead end door in the darkness, or they must have slipped into one of the rooms at the side when I’d been distracted by Jack’s arrival and Sylvia’s dramatic turn. That was - if it truly was a dead end.
“Did you see who it was?” Jack asked.
“They were wearing a military uniform I think. It was dark,” I confessed, not entirely sure of what I’d seen myself. I cleared my throat, summoning my courage for the last part. “Also… they were glowing with a greenish light. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.” I wanted to make that much clear. I was not claiming anything outlandish or paranormal had occurred.
Jack was looking more cheesed off by the second. “Right. I don’t think there’s anyone around here now. We should try and get some more sleep.”
“I won’t be sleeping a wink after that. It’s outrageous! I thought the whole point of this course was for it to be at a secure location. You can’t have people coming in here as they please.” Sylvia spun on her heel and flounced back into her room. There was a final click as she locked the door behind her.
Jack looked at me in the darkness. “Do you actually think there was someone in her room?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“I really did see that man running down the corridor,” I repeated.
Jack looked a little more unsettled. “Maybe it was someone playing a joke - one of the guests I mean. There really is good security in this place. No one is getting in or out. No one’s ever managed to break-into Fennering Bunker - even after it was retired as a military base. I know a lot of people have tried.” I silently thought of Fergus and knew that Jack was probably alluding to him and other groups and individuals like him. Fergus had told me that he and Jack had some kind of shared history. “I bet she didn’t really remember to lock the door. Or maybe someone did manage to shimmy out of their own window and through hers for a joke. I can’t think who'd have the strength for it. Or the will!” He shook his head. “It’s funny. I thought a group of flower arrangers would be a quiet lot.”
“How do you know Fergus?” I asked, changing the subject.
“We go way back,” he said, echoing Fergus’ own words. “He used to come round and go metal-detecting with my old man. He was like an uncle to me growing up. When I was a teenager, he took me with him when he broke into this abandoned observatory. It was super cool to have an adult around who was nuts enough to do something like that.”
I shut my eyes for a moment. Trust Fergus to be helping teenagers to break the law rather than encouraging them to keep it!
“He’s a great guy,” Jack finished, sensing my unspoken opinion.
“I know that,” I told him, resignation in my voice. I really did. For all of Fergus’ peculiar beliefs and erratic behaviour, I knew that his core was good. He was honourable and he was loyal. He was also a pain in the ass, but deep down, I believed that I would always see him as one of my greatest friends. Possibly even my best friend! I suddenly realised, mentally watching my old friends becoming more distant and Fergus sticking with me. I still wasn’t quite sure how we’d fitted together, but we had. As crazy as it might sound, I was glad.
“Good night, Jack,” I said to the sleepy guide. He lifted a hand in farewell and then walked back down the corridor in the opposite direction to where I’d seen the strange figure run. For the briefest of moments, at that early hour, I considered the possibility of a paranormal explanation. This was an old military bunker. Might both Sylvia and I have seen a remnant of the bunker’s military past, wandering the corridors and vanishing without a trace? I was certainly glad that no one - especially Fergus - was there to witness my moment of doubt. Ghosts were implausible and there was zero concrete proof for their existence. In all of history, no one had managed to provide any evidence to support the physical manifestation of a single phantom. While I was always willing to keep an open mind when it came to science, I thought that the odds were heavily stacked against Casper the ghost.
Someone had been messing around. Perhaps it had even been Jack himself, trying to scare guests. He could have lied about the corridor being a dead end, and he must know the bunker better than we visitors. He might have gone through the window and… I shook my head, deciding I wasn’t going to stay up all night dwelling on it.
I returned to my room, made a sound of despair when I saw the time on the clock, and then slept undisturbed until the morning - when I woke up to the sound of a loud bang and someone screaming.
5
One of us
I blinked at the daylight coming in through the curtains.
Fergus was still snoring.
“Fergus, wake up! There was a bang and then someone screamed,” I hissed, deciding that I wasn’t going to face this fresh incident alone.
“Mmmm what’s happening?” He rolled over and looked at me with clear eyes. “Why’d you wake me up? I was sleeping!”
“Someone screamed,” I repeated, not feeling too charitable towards the man across the room from me. As far as I could tell, he’d slept like a baby. Unlike me.
Fergus rolled over. “Maybe someone popped their clogs. A few of our neighbours did look as though they were buddying up with the grim reaper, if you know what I mean.”
“Fergus!” I said, horrified that he would joke about something like that.
“Death shouldn’t be such a faux pas,” he replied, sitting up and looking at me for the first time. “You look terrible. Is this the truth beneath the make up? I feel like I’ve been deceived.”
“Hey! You’re not a picture yourself, sleeping beauty. I just didn’t sleep well. Unlike some,” I couldn’t help adding.
Fergus frowned. “I thought the beds were pretty comfy. Why didn’t you sleep?”
“I’ll write you a list,” I said drily. I walked to the door and opened it. There was a small gathering in the corridor outside. Lorna was being comforted by Tanya and Bella
. Eamon was looking into the open door of one of the rooms with a grim expression on his face.
“What’s happened?” I asked, noting the looks of distress.
“I don’t think you should come any closer. It’s not a sight for young women,” Eamon said.
I shot him a withering look. “I’ll be the one to decide that. What’s happened?” I repeated.
Eamon stepped back with a shrug of his shoulders, clearly put out. “Christine is dead. She’s lying in there with blood all over her. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. We can’t have everyone screaming the place down,” he grumbled. “When I was passing by, I saw Lorna knocking on Christine’s door. She told me she wanted to check on Christine because of some disturbance last night. She knocked, and when she didn’t get any response, I made the decision to use a bit of force to break the lock.” He puffed himself up with what I thought was probably pride. “It was locked from the inside, you see. Even if we’d had a key, we couldn’t have got in. When I busted it open the key was in the lock on the other side of the door.”
“Has anyone checked she’s really dead? Or called the police?” I added, remembering that it was the proper thing to do. Not everyone had a limp and lifeless local lawman.
“I’d say she’s dead as a doornail. If you’re so keen, go and see for yourself,” Eamon continued, standing there with his hands in his pockets.
I’d sure hate to be a female taking his university course! I thought. Eamon was one of those classic cases where a man believes he is being chivalrous, when really, he is being sexist.
I knew she was dead as soon as I entered the room.
Death had a particular silence and a particular smell. I looked to the left and saw Christine lying face down. Blood stained her back where something had clearly attacked her. Her eyes were shut and there was no grimace of pain on her face. Were it not for the blood, it would have been simple to believe she was still sleeping. Just in case, I checked her pulse. She was ice cold and stiff where rigor mortis had set in. Christine Montague had been dead for a while.
I looked around the room, gathering my thoughts. There was an alarm clock on the floor, the same as in my room. I realised it was displaying the wrong time. The hands showed half-past three, and the plastic front had been shattered. I hypothesised that it could have been one of the series of thumps I’d heard prior to Sylvia’s scream when she’d seen a stranger in her room. There was a shattered mug on the floor and a puddle of liquid surrounding it and the tea bag in a sorry heap. I touched a finger to it but the tea was ice cold. It must have been the mug Christine had broken when she’d seen the spider.
“Oh. That’s going to delay the day,” Fergus said, coming up behind me and sharing some of his characteristically inappropriate wit. “What happened? It looks like she was stabbed in the back.”
He walked over to the open window and looked out across the grounds. “Do you think an intruder came through here and killed her?”
I frowned. “What plausible reason have you got for that being the case?”
“Well… she is dead,” Fergus began. “There could be a psycho on the loose. Perhaps they saw an opportunity and took it. Or, it was a robbery gone wrong. I don’t know if you noticed, but Christine was wearing some pretty big rocks. Where are they now?”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “You can do better than that. You said it yourself - this place is locked down tight. You’ve never managed to break-in. Why would someone be able to do it now? I even asked Jack if that was possible last night after Sylvia saw that man in her room. He claimed there was no chance.”
“Sylvia saw a man in her room?”
“I saw him too when he left and ran down the corridor. I saw someone anyway,” I corrected, still not sure of exactly what I’d witnessed at that early hour. “I thought he was wearing some kind of military outfit.” I was keeping the glowing nature of that outfit to myself for as long as possible. Fergus would have a field day if he caught wind of it!
My companion looked intrigued. “I did hear that this place has its fair share of paranormal phenomena. Perhaps you caught a glimpse of a ghost.”
I looked back at the body on the bed. “It wasn’t a ghost that did that to her.” I bent down and looked as closely as I could at the blood on her back. The covers were off, and on closer inspection, it was clear that the source of the blood originated from the multiple wounds that had been made in her back. The wounds themselves were certainly unusual. They were round puncture wounds. There were so many of them, it was impossible to get a clear look at any one wound. It was obvious that something other than a standard knife had been use to inflict the damage. I looked around but nothing fitting that description had been left lying around in the room. There would probably have been a lot of blood left on the weapon, too.
“Did they get tired halfway through?” Fergus commented, coming closer and pointing to some of the shallower cuts. By contrast, there were some seriously deep punctures alongside them. “And they’re so random. It’s like a frenzy.”
“That is strange,” I agreed, having already noticed the haphazard nature of the attack.
“Maybe they switched hands,” Fergus suggested, miming striking with one and then another. “Two weapons, two hands - one of them weaker than the other - and a whole lot of rage,” he completed.
“You may be right,” I conceded, knowing it would fit with the shallow and deep cut observations.
“Oh, jeez,” Jack said, walking into the room and immediately back out again.
Fergus walked over to him, shielding the corpse from view. “Has anyone called the police?” he asked, reiterating my earlier question that had gone unanswered.
Jack took a couple of quick breaths. “No, we can’t. We’ve got no contact with anyone until the timer runs out.”
“What about sending someone out to get them? We can get outside, can’t we?” Fergus pressed.
Jack nodded, but then shook his head. “Going outside is permitted. I think it even forms part of the course. It was on the itinerary map we were given when Lorna and I got the job. But this whole place is surrounded by some ridiculous fences. There are landmines, too! You can do that on private property. There is no way anyone is getting in or out. The outside is, like, super protected. Not cool, man.”
“Don’t you have an emergency phone? You must have been left with something?” I queried. Even a distress flare would be welcome right now.
Jack shook his head. “We said at the start of the course that there’d be no outside communication. When you handed in all of your phones and devices, that was that. We’ve got nothing either. It’s part of the gimmick, yeah? A complete retreat from reality to learn flower arranging. We’ve got loads of first aid supplies and all that. Even if someone had been poisoned yesterday, it would have been totally fine.”
“How reassuring,” I said, not meaning it for a second. I looked down at the body and privately thought that no amount of first aid was going to bring Christine Montague back from the dead.
“So, what you’re saying is… we’ve got to leave Christine like this for two more days before we can even attempt to contact the police,” Fergus summarised, looking just as bemused as I felt. I understood the whole ‘authentic retreat’ thing, but who the heck didn’t have a phone or some kind of method of communication, just in case the unthinkable happened? Even a carrier pigeon would have been better than what we had now, which was nothing. Nada. Zip.
“We could move her into a fridge or a freezer, or something,” Jack said, displaying knowledge gleaned from too many films.
“No we can’t. It’s a crime scene. It’s bad enough that everyone’s already traipsed through here.” I knew I was just as much to blame as the rest of them on this point, but someone had needed to check that Christine really was beyond help.
“Crime scene?” Jack suddenly looked very worried indeed.
“Come on, lad. She didn’t stab herself,” Fergus said, his mouth tweaking up with bitter humour. “Som
eone killed her… and my money is on it being one of the lot we’re locked in here with. We’re trapped here with a killer. For all we know, they could strike again.”
“Fergus!” I said, horrified that he was putting ideas into the impressionable guide’s head. It was obvious that Jack was traumatised by this incident and he was only going to make it worse.
“You mean it’s murder? There’s a murderer here?” Jack looked like he might be about to faint or run.
“It is probable that someone amongst us is responsible for Christine’s death. That is, unless there is someone else here with us that we don’t know about?” I waited for a beat in case Jack knew something that Fergus and I didn’t. No special surprise guests were lurking around here.
I’d wondered if Christine could have been an actress hired to fake her own death in a strange murder-mystery twist to this extreme flower arranging thing. The whole day could have been focused on funeral flower arranging - which was definitely an art form unto itself. I’d quickly dismissed that idea when I’d got close enough to smell the blood and had felt the cool flesh that couldn’t be faked. I was still wondering if I was the morbid one having ideas like that.
“However…” I continued, wanting to calm Jack down from the state Fergus was working him up into “…I’m sure that there’s a motive for the events that occurred here last night. Someone must know something about it. It could be that there is someone on this course who had a past with Christine that they haven’t shared with anyone else.” I considered. “She’s a pretty big name in the garden design world… from what she was saying, at least. I think Tanya knew who she was prior to this course.” I was remembering back to our introductions and the way she’d shot sideways looks at Christine, hoping for approval.
“Rich works for her. He probably did it,” Fergus decided.
“Fergus!” I protested, annoyed all over again. “It’s important that we don’t throw around baseless allegations,” I said for Fergus’ benefit as well as Jack’s. This was fast spiralling out of my control. If the hysteria spread, then where would we be?
