“Sorry, Bobbi. This really screws our plans up.”
“Don’t be stupid. If you hadn’t gone back over for our stuff, we wouldn’t have food to eat, we wouldn’t have a change of clothing or anything. Now, lie down and rest. I’m going to prop the door open. If you need anything, shout me.”
“Thanks,” Wren said, holding out her hand. Robyn took it and squeezed. “Love you, sis.”
“You’re really starting to freak me out with that. Let’s just take it as a given from now on,” she said with a smile. Robyn disappeared into the hall and came back a few minutes later with a couple of thin blankets, half a dozen clean towels, and two coats. “Well, it’s not ideal, but hopefully, they’ll keep you warm,” she said, carefully laying out the assortment of items on top of Wren, and tucking her in tightly. “Now try and get some sleep.”
“Where are you going to be?”
“I’m going to block the window in the downstairs loo, and have a look around the place.” Robyn made sure the examination table was pushed right against the wall and the brakes were firmly locked before she headed out. “Have a nice nap,” she said. She went out into the hall and straight to the small cleaning cupboard she had seen earlier on. She took out a dustpan and brush and headed into the downstairs toilet where she proceeded to sweep up all the broken glass. She looked at the gap in the window. She didn’t have any real tools as such, but she would do what she could.
Robyn had not said anything to her sister, but she was concerned about Norman tracking them down. There was definitely something wrong with that guy, and the fact she had specifically asked where the doctor’s surgery was, gave him more than a small clue as to where they might head.
It had never been Robyn’s intention to stay here, just to get what they needed, and then find somewhere else, but Wren was weak, and she needed rest, and to do that in a place full of medical supplies was not such a bad idea. Robyn headed back down the hall to reception. She walked behind the counter and pulled out a tape dispenser and a pair of scissors. There was a large cardboard box in the corner that was still half full of new lever arch files. She emptied them out and took the box with her down the hall, dropping back into the cleaning cupboard and collecting a couple of black plastic refuse sacks, on the way. She held the box up to the toilet window and started cutting out a piece of cardboard to cover the gap. When she was done, she wrapped the cardboard in the plastic bags and used half a roll of tape, securing it to the UPVC window frame. It was suddenly very dark in the small toilet, the only light coming in was from the corridor outside.
Robyn walked back down the corridor and into each of the examination rooms. On the walls were a number of framed certificates for the doctors and other health professionals who worked there. She collected more than a dozen all told before making her way back to the toilet. She leant them carefully against the window. If anyone tried to gain access, there would be an almighty clatter announcing their arrival. Robyn gave her work a nod of approval then went to explore the small kitchen. She opened the cupboards to see half-opened packets of biscuits, as well as coffee and tea. Everybody probably brought their own lunches; it was not as if the small village had a plethora of takeaways or other places to eat. Robyn picked up a packet of chocolate digestives and started snacking on them as she casually stepped back out into the reception and waiting area.
She sat down in one of the cushioned chairs and began leafing through a pile of magazines. As her stomach began to fill, her eyes got weary, and she slowly drifted off to sleep.
chapter 18
“Bobbi! Bobbi!” was the scream that jolted Robyn from her nap. The magazine fell off her knees as she jumped to her feet and ran down the corridor to the examination room.
“What is it?” she yelled, storming into the office with one fist clenched, ready to fight.
Wren looked at her in a daze. “I...I had a nightmare and you weren’t here.”
“Jesus, Wren! I thought something had happened.”
“It was horrible. That guy had come for us. He’d tied me to the table and carried you off.”
Robyn looked annoyed for a second that she had been awakened in such a startling manner, but then she softened. “Well, yeah, I suppose that would make me scream too. Look, it’s okay. We’re safe in here,” she said taking her sister’s hand. “The doors are locked, I blocked up the window, and if anybody tries to get in, I rigged an alarm system.” She reached across and felt Wren’s head. “Your fever seems a little better.” She looked at Wren’s watch. “Wow. That was quite a nap. Another hour and you’ll be able to take some more tablets. I’ll start making something for us to eat.”
“Please not cold beans again.”
Robyn smiled and delved into the rucksack for the small camp stove and pan. “No, we can do better than that. How do you fancy an M&S curry?” she said, pulling out a tin and some couscous.”
“That sounds a lot better than what we have been eating.”
“You need to keep your strength up, plus you need to have food in you to take your tablets. How are you feeling...in yourself?”
“I feel less light-headed, less…clammy.”
“That’s good,” Robyn replied, heading back out of the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the kitchen so I can use the stove without fumes building up in the room. I’ll just get the water on for the couscous, then I’ll come back in.”
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“It’s okay, Wren. You were running a fever, you’re taking tablets, it’s only natural you have weird dreams.”
“I like us like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean...like this. Looking out for each other.”
“I was a pretty lousy older sister, wasn’t I?”
“You were just an older sister. I know a lot worse.”
“Well from now on, it’s you and me. We’re all we’ve got, and I’m going to look out for you, and I know you’ll look out for me.” Robyn immediately put a finger up to her lips. “Don’t say it,” she said, and they both smiled.
They ate well, they talked, Wren took her medication, and as night crept in, Robyn lit a few candles she’d found along with a torch under the receptionist’s counter. Wren had the foresight to pack a deck of cards, and the two of them played like the old days when they went on camping trips with their mum and dad. It was past eleven when Wren began to drift again. Robyn packed everything away, wheeled an examination table in from the next office, put on her jacket, zipped it up and curled up for the night.
✽ ✽ ✽
Robyn felt a hand over her mouth and a blade against her neck. Just from that horrific smell, she knew immediately who it was, but for the life of her, she could not understand how he had got in without triggering her booby trap. “Don’t say a word, pretty, or both of you die,” whispered the voice. Robyn looked across at her sister, who was still doped up and fast asleep, and in that one moment, she wanted to warn her more than anything, but she knew that warning would cost them both their lives.
Robyn stayed silent as she climbed off the examination table. Norman took his hand from her mouth and instead grabbed a fist full of her hair, while still keeping the blade to her neck. He nudged her into the direction he wanted her to walk and the pair of them walked down the hallway and out into the night. The cold ground hurt against Robyn’s bare feet as they traipsed across the car park. Her stomach turned at the thought of walking barefoot over the rodent droppings in Norman’s house. Part of her wanted to fight, despite the futility, but the more distance she put between them and Wren, the better chance her sister would have.
Norman and Robyn continued down the ginnel. His vice-like grip around her hair was painful, but she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that. Nor would she tell him how the small stones on the ground were cutting into her feet and bringing tears to her eyes. When they got to the main street, she began to veer left, but he tugged hard on he
r hair and pushed her to the right, in the direction of the church.
“Where are you taking me?” she said, with the knife blade now warming against her neck as the thinnest trickle of her blood coated it.
“You’ll see. It’s a surprise. Like the one you gave me when I was trying to be a good host, only to come out and find you were trying to leave without so much as a goodbye. That kind of surprise.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about that, it was wrong. It was wrong of us to do it.”
“Yes. Yes it was, very wrong. But now you’re going to make it up to me.”
Tears began to roll down Robyn’s cheeks. “Please...no,” she said, her voice shaking.
“You and your sister. You’re both going to make it up to me.”
“No, not her. She’s only fifteen. Not her,” Robyn sobbed.
“Age has nothing to do with this,” he said, and he guided his captive towards the pavement. “Give me your hands,” he demanded. Robyn put her hands behind her and she felt something being strapped around them. She felt whatever it was tighten. “There,” he said, as he nudged her back into their direction of travel. Despite the dark, Robyn could still make out the looming steeple of the church up ahead, and for the shortest time, she had a feeling that was where they were going, but suddenly, they stopped again. They had just passed a small storefront of some description. It was too dark to see what, exactly, but the large display window was a giveaway. Norman flicked on a torch. They were stood in front of a maroon coloured, wooden door which he levered open, revealing a staircase. “Move,” he demanded, and Robyn began to climb the stairs.
They reached the top and there were four doors. He opened the one to the right and shone the torch inside. It was a living room, once again decorated with the most hideous, old fashioned furnishings Robyn could imagine. He prodded her through the doorway and guided her to a sturdy wooden chair, pushing her down before proceeding to fasten her to it with the same cable ties he had used to bind her hands together.
“What are you going to do to me?” she cried.
“All in good time, Robyn. There’s no rush. We’ve got all the time in the world now, and we wouldn’t want to leave your sister out, would we?
✽ ✽ ✽
The candles were flickering wildly when Wren woke up. She looked across to the window and could see from the edges of the Venetian blinds that it was still dark outside. She looked at her watch; it read four-forty a.m. There was an empty examination table next to hers; it was not there when she had gone to sleep, but she assumed that her sister had put it there. “Bobbi?” she called, but there was no response. “Bobbi?” she called, louder this time, but still there was no reply.
She peeled back the makeshift bedding that covered her and scooted across the second examination table. She carefully lowered herself to the floor. She was still a little feverish, but nothing like what she had been. As her feet touched the floor, she felt the draft more acutely from the gap underneath the door. “Bobbi,” she called again. Wren grabbed the torch her sister had found with the candles and turned it on before stepping out into the corridor. “Are you having a pee?” she shouted, with a small, nervous smile. There was still no response. She began to walk down the hallway, slowly. She gently knocked on the toilet door and opened it. The various picture frames were still in place, leant carefully against the makeshift repair.
Wren moved back out into the hall, panning the torch around until she zeroed in on the front door. She went towards it and immediately felt her heart begin to race. It was slightly ajar. Her hand hovered a moment over the tarnished brass of the knob, before turning off the torch and swinging the door open, stepping out into the cold night air. She stood there on the step, looking out over the starlit car park. She turned the torch back on and shone it around like a searchlight. There was no sign of anything. “Bobbi!” she said in a whispering shout. “Bobbi!”
Wren went back inside and closed the door behind her. What would have possessed her sister to go out into the night without telling her? She walked behind the reception desk and into the small kitchen. She jumped back as the torch reflected in the window and for a split second, she thought it was someone shining a torch at her through the window. “Idiot!” she spat.
She walked back down the hallway, checking in each room as she went. “Dammit, Bobbi, where the hell are you?” Wren pulled on a pair of socks and her boots before reaching for her—her coat—it was still sat on a chair, right next to her sister’s. “Shit!” the butterflies began to flap frantically in her stomach as panic set in. She grabbed her javelin, which was leant against the wall right next to Robyn’s. In the unlikely event that her sister had walked out into the night, for whatever reason, there was no way she would go without her coat and without her javelin. “Oh shiiit!” Wren said looking underneath the examination table and seeing Robyn’s boots.
Wren grabbed her sister’s leather jacket and put it on. She reached into her rucksack, pulled out a Swiss Army Knife, and put it in her pocket. She took the water bottle and was about to take some more tablets when she realised she should have something to eat with them. Robyn had told her there were some open packets of biscuits in the kitchen cupboards. She headed back there, leant her javelin against a countertop, wolfed a few Garibaldis down then threw the tablets in her mouth, taking a long drink of water from her bottle. She picked her javelin up, accidentally knocking it against the mug tree on top of the microwave. The tree tipped, and Wren put out her hand to stop it, but one of the mugs fell to the ground. She waited to hear it smash, but remarkably, it remained in one piece. She picked the torch up from the counter, retrieved the mug and placed it back on the tree. She was heading out of the door again when she stopped in the entrance and went back to the mug tree. She shone her torch on one. NOR…she turned it slightly. M. And again. A. And again. N. She pulled it off the tree. NORMAN.
“Oh no!” The chances of there being two Normans in such a small village was minute. How did he work here? What could he possibly do? It didn’t matter. It made sense now. He had come for her sister. He would probably come back for her too.
She opened the front door, making sure to leave it unlocked before heading out. Wren’s mind raced as a blizzard of nightmarish images came towards her at full speed. Despite her better senses telling her not to, she began to jog through the car park and down the ginnel. She reached the main street and the jog became a run. Wren reached the turn that they had made earlier in the day, when they’d headed towards Norman’s place. She turned the torch off, conscious of the fact it would give away her position. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but now, she could make out the outline of the hedgerow and trees along dark lane. She edged forward and put her hand out, reaching into the night until she felt the cold wrought iron of the gate underneath her fingers. She looked up the path towards the cottage. A dim light shone behind the curtains of the living room.
Wren advanced slowly up the path. The curtains were too thick to make out what was going on in the room, but she could see the flicker of real flames in the fireplace. She went to the door and pushing the handle down, opening it just a tad. The same stale air that had greeted her earlier in the day hit her again now. She fought her gag reflex and focussed, pushing the door open as quietly as she could before stepping into the dark hallway. The living room door was ajar, and the flames continued to dance among the shadows of the hallway. Wren edged down further and further, ready to confront Norman at any moment. She reached the edge of the doorway and stood there, holding the frame, dreading to see what would appear as she entered the room.
Wren took a breath and charged in, brandishing the javelin tightly in her hands. The room was empty.
She flicked on her torch and headed back out of the living room and into the kitchen, finding nothing. She went back down the hall, then began to climb the stairs carefully, stepping lightly, hoping not to hit any creaky floorboards. All the doors were already open, revealing nothing but dark
, empty rooms. She walked into each to see if there was any possible clue as to where her sister might be, but there was not. Wren went to the window in the front bedroom and turned off the torch, looking out over the dark landscape of the village. “Where are you, Bobbi?” The seconds she stood there rolled into minutes as she wracked her brains trying to think where Norman could possibly have taken her sister. Then it hit her.
The first time they had seen Norman that day, he had been running up the street to warn them. Later he had told them that he had seen them from the window of his house...his other house. He might have taken her to his other place, and although she did not really know where that was, she could use her reasoning powers to try to figure it out. There were very few buildings so close to the church that would have a window in the line of sight, and the chances were, if he had taken her there, then there would be some light or candle burning. It was not as though there was anybody else left in the village. She turned around and almost ran down the stairs and back into the fresh air.
Wren kept her torch on as she jogged down the garden path, through the gate, and up the narrow lane. When she was happy she was heading back in the right direction, she flicked the torch off again, letting her eyes adjust to the dark, and continued in stealth mode, looking for the faintest flicker anywhere that might tell her where her sister was.
chapter 19
“Look, Norman, whatever you’re going to do, do it to me. Wren’s just a girl, leave her out of it,” Robyn said as Norman was just about to head out once more.
“No. It’s important she’s here. I want you both here,” he replied, smiling.
“You sick bastard!” she screamed.
“Quiet. You’ll wake my sister,” he said angrily.
“Your sister?”
“Yes. I want you and Wren to meet her.”
“There are ways other than kidnapping people.”
“I was going to ask you, but then you both ran out the door. People are always running away from me.”
The End of Everything Box Set, Vol. 1 [Books 1-3] Page 14
