by Ken Preston
Nick had thanked him and said he would make sure she attended for police questioning at the earliest opportunity. But that was almost twelve hours ago, and a lot had happened since then. One of the cleaning staff at the Hilton Park Travelodge had run screaming down to reception a couple of hours after the assault in the car park. When the reception staff had followed her back to the room she had been cleaning, they found the bathroom walls, and the bath and the sink, dripping with fresh blood.
Then there had been the discovery of the dead maid at Keele services, her throat ripped open just like the Birmingham Vampire killings in the city. What the hell was he doing? Travelling north?
And now this Julie Carter girl going missing.
What the hell was happening?
That poor boy kept prisoner in the cellar, by the Birmingham Vampire, at the house on Forde Road was Tom Mills’ kid, and Tom Mills was part of the Slaughterhouse Mob. Was it a coincidence that Mills was at Hilton Park services around the same time of the discovery of that blood soaked bathroom? And why had Coffin been there?
But most pressing of all in Nick’s mind was, why had Emma been there?
Nick picked his way carefully through the woodland, wishing he had brought a torch with him. Under the canopy of the trees, he was sheltered somewhat from the rain, but he still had to put up with large drops of rainwater falling from the leafy covering.
He swore as he stepped into a hollow in the ground, almost losing his balance as his foot disappeared into a wet, spongy mass of vegetation, and water seeped through into his shoe. The ground squelched as he pulled his foot back out and saw the hem of his trouser leg was soaking wet.
“Shit,” he muttered.
This was exactly why he had chosen to be a city policeman. He hated the countryside.
“Hey, over here!” someone shouted. “I’ve found something!”
Nick followed the sound of the voice, suddenly losing interest in his muddy shoes and wet feet. The woodland ended at the brow of a small decline, down to a canal. There was a police officer on the towpath, shining his light at an object floating in the dark canal water.
Nick scrambled down the footpath, his expensive shoes slipping and sliding in the mud, threatening to topple him on his backside, and make him the laughingstock of the station.
“What have you found?” he said, when he was beside the constable.
He was young, obviously fairly new on the force. He held out his torch and shone the beam on the object floating in the canal. It was a brightly coloured umbrella, still open, but bashed in, the spokes bent. Nick glanced around until he saw a dead branch lying on the embankment. He picked it up and, forgetting about the mud and his shoes and trousers, he knelt down and reached out to the umbrella, snagging it with the end of the branch.
After a few failed attempts, Nick managed to snag it properly and drag it into the side. Pulling the umbrella out of the dirty water, he got his first proper look at the printed design.
Jessica Rabbit gazed back at him, eyes hooded with desire and faint mockery.
“Put out a call,” Nick said, his stomach and chest tight with fear. “We’ve got another missing woman.”
harry styles
“Julie,” Emma said.
The bloodied girl on the table had curled up into the foetal position, and was crying softly, just audible over the sputtering narrowboat engine. Michael, despite having been given guard dog duty, was curled up in a corner, fast asleep, his thumb in his mouth.
Emma tried shifting into a better position on the floor, in an attempt to ease the pain in her back and shoulders. Abel had tied her up tight, and the rope was biting into her wrists and ankles.
“Julie,” Emma said again, trying to keep her voice low enough not to wake the sleeping boy, but loud enough that the girl could hear her. “Listen to me, Julie. We can get out of here, I can get you out of here, back to your family, but you’ve got to help me first.”
No answer. Just the sound of soft sobbing.
Emma shifted position again. Much more time spent with her back arched like this, and even when she was untied she wasn’t going to be able to stand up. She was losing sensation in her feet, and down the back of her thighs. And all the while, Abel was sailing the narrowboat further and further away from the police, and any chance of rescue.
All Emma could hope for right now was that Abel’s progress was halted by a lock. But even then, what could she do? She had already tried screaming, but that had achieved nothing other than agitating Michael. He had scrambled around the tiny cabin, jumping over the terrified Julie, hooting and yelping, and hissing at Emma, and baring his fangs at her.
That had soon put a stop to any attempts at shouting for help.
And now that he was asleep, she was even less inclined to make a noise. It was a relief to not have him staring at her, licking his lips, a look of hunger mixed with an unsettlingly adult look of desire on his blood-smeared face.
No, Emma’s only hope was Julie. If she could just get her to stop crying and listen.
Emma had been softly pleading with the young woman for help since Michael had fallen asleep, with no reply other than the relentless, exhausted sound of crying. It was time to change tactics. Emma had an idea why they were being kept alive for the moment, but it wasn’t going to last. They were running out of time.
“Julie!” Emma hissed. “For fuck’s sake, pull yourself together! We are going to get out of here, but I need your help to do it, and you’re no fucking use to me lying in a heap crying like a fucking baby.”
Emma stared intently at the top of Julie’s head, her long, blond hair hanging over the edge of the table. The gentle sobbing stopped, to be replaced by snuffles.
Well, it was a little progress, at least.
“I know this is bad, Julie,” Emma whispered. “It’s a complete fucking nightmare, and you’re terrified, I know. I’m scared, too. But we can get out of this, Julie, we can escape, all right?”
The girl on the table top didn’t move, seemed to close herself into her curled up position even tighter, if possible. Emma glanced over at Michael. He was still fast asleep. Emma shifted position again, the pain in her lower spine and across her shoulders becoming intolerable. If she didn’t get released from these ropes soon, Emma thought she might start crying herself.
“Julie,” Emma tried again. “Are you listening to me? Do you understand what I am saying? Speak to me, Julie, let me know that you can hear me, that you understand what I am telling you.”
Emma waited, the silence stretching out beneath the thrum of the engine. Maybe the young girl had lost her mind already, was in some kind of catatonic state of shock. If that was the case, they were most certainly dead.
Or undead, even.
“Oh, fuck,” Emma whispered. “Not that, please not that.”
The note of the engine changed down a notch, and Emma realised they were slowing down, and stopping. What now? Had Abel decided they had moved away from the police presence in the park far enough? Was he hungry, maybe? If he came down here now, and decided to kill them both, Emma was helpless to stop him. He could sink his teeth into her neck, and she could do nothing but lie here, and hope death came quick, and that she wasn’t going to wake up again with a taste for blood and wandering around naked.
The thump of Abel’s footsteps crisscrossed the roof over her head for a few minutes and then stopped. A moment later Emma heard a metallic clanking noise, like a chain being pulled.
A lock! They were at a fucking lock!
This was their best, maybe their only, chance of an escape, while the Birmingham Vampire was distracted with taking the narrowboat through the canal lock, and the boy vampire was asleep.
“Julie!” Emma hissed, ridiculously attempting to keep her voice low so that she wouldn’t wake up Michael, but loud enough to attract the young woman’s attention. “Pull yourself together, this our best chance, right now, of getting out of here. But you have to help me. You have to untie me.”
/> Emma watched the girl, willing her to move, to raise her head, or just speak. Anything to show that she understood, that Emma’s message was getting through.
Julie raised her head and looked at Emma. Strands of her long hair were matted across her face, blotchy from crying. Her eyes were big and round, the lids puffy, and her lower lip was quivering. She was dangerously close to going into meltdown again.
“That’s it, Julie, that’s great,” Emma said, trying to keep her tone of voice even, free from the panic she could feel filling her chest. “Now, I need you to come down here and untie me. I can’t do anything to help you tied up like this, but when you’ve untied me, we can...”
The girl was lowering her head back down onto the table, as though she had given up completely, the thought of escape an absurd impossibility. Emma could still hear the metallic ratcheting from outside as the lock gates were slowly swung open.
She risked raising her voice slightly.
“Julie, don’t you fucking give up on me,” she growled, the pain in her back making her want to scream. “Now get down here right this instant and untie me.”
The young woman slowly raised her head again, as though the weight of it had become a terrible burden. She looked at Emma with pleading eyes.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m too scared.”
“I know you’re scared,” Emma replied, think that at least this was progress, that she was talking now. The problem was, they didn’t exactly have time for a chat. “I’m scared too. But we can’t just lie here, and let that bastard take us off somewhere to drink our fucking blood, all right? We can’t let him do that.”
Tears spilled over the girl’s lower lids, and her lips trembled even more. “But he ... he raped me. He raped me and he made me ... he made me ...”
The rest of Julie’s sentence was lost as she started crying again.
Emma closed her eyes.
She was so tired, and in so much pain, she just wanted to give up now. And this girl, Emma felt sorry for her, but didn’t she understand that if they didn’t get out of here they would die? Didn’t she realise that they had a chance to escape, and instead of acting on that slim opportunity, she was lying here crying?
“Julie, snap the fuck out of it,” Emma said, opening her eyes again. “Do you want to lie down here, waiting for that monster to come back down and rape you again? I don’t care what the hell he did to you last time, he’s got worse in store for you, I guarantee it.”
There was a thud from above them as Abel climbed back on to the narrowboat. Emma listened as he moved around for a few moments, and then the engine picked up a note, and they started moving forward.
Shit! They were moving again? So fucking soon?
Emma’s head sank to the floor, her cheek pressed against the carpet. That was it, they were done for, unless Abel came to another lock very soon. But even then, Emma still had to snap Julie out of her paralysis. What was left then, except to lie here, and wait for Abel to be happy that he had sailed the narrowboat far enough away from the police that he had the time to come down below, and finish them off?
Emma had no doubt that he would rape Julie again, before he killed her. And then it would be Emma’s turn.
The tiny cabin stank of blood, the air thick with the smell of death, and Emma was finding it hard to breathe. Maybe that was because of the unnatural position she was in, her back arched, hot pain across her shoulders and down her spine. She tried moving into a better position, to relieve the pain in her back, but whatever she tried only increased her discomfort.
The barge bumped to a halt, and the engine’s throb settled down to a low rumble.
Stopping so soon? What next?
No, wait. We’re still at the lock.
Of course! Abel had steered the boat into the lock, but now he had to close the gates behind him, raise or lower the water level, open the next gate, and then sail out. They still had time, but they had to act quickly.
The young woman had lain her head back down on the table and was crying again. Emma checked to see if Michael was still asleep, and he was, his thumb stuck firmly in his mouth.
“Julie, you listen to me now!” Emma hissed. “If you don’t pull yourself together, and get off that fucking table and down here and untie me, we are going to die. Do you understand me? I know that you are terrified, that you are just a teenage girl who should be home right now, mooning over Harry fucking Styles, but you’re not home. You are here. With me. And I need you to show some backbone right now, and get up, and come down here, and untie me. And then we will get the fuck out of here, and I will personally buy you front row seats at the next McFly concert.”
Julie’s crying faded away. Emma listened, waiting for her to say something, do something. She could hear Abel struggling with closing the lock gate. He seemed to be having some trouble.
“Julie,” Emma whispered. “Come on, help me out here.”
“One Direction,” Julie said, her voice faint and trembling.
“What?”
“Harry Styles.” Her voice hitched, and Emma thought she might start crying again. “He’s in One Direction, not McFly.”
“You can do this, Julie. Untie me and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Painfully slowly, Julie pushed herself up, her arms trembling with the effort. She glanced back at the cabin door, and at Michael.
“Don’t worry, he’s fast asleep,” Emma said. “But you’ve got to move quickly, we don’t have much time.”
As if to emphasise her point, the two women were both startled by the sudden noise of rushing water. The narrowboat began slowly rising.
“We are at a lock, Julie. We’re going through a lock, and we’ve only got a few more minutes before he’s finished. When the boat finishes rising, that bastard’s got to open the lock gate before he can steer the boat out. That’s going to be our only chance, when he’s occupied opening the gate. He will be down the opposite end of the boat, and with a bit of luck we can sneak off without him seeing us.”
Julie looked like she was about to start crying again.
“I know, I know, it’s a fucking pathetic plan, but it’s the only one I’ve got. We can do this, Julie, but you need to get your shit together, and untie me.”
“I am so scared,” the girl said, her lips trembling.
“I’m scared, too, Julie,” Emma said. “I’m scared of what he’s going to do when he comes back down here to finish off having his fun.”
Julie got herself up to a sitting position, her hands slipping on the blood-smeared table, and she swung her legs over the side. Now and then she glanced back at the sleeping boy.
To Emma, the young woman was moving painfully slowly. But she held her tongue. At least she was moving now, and if Emma tried to rush her, she had the feeling that she would panic her, and halt what little progress they were making.
Julie finally pulled herself off the table and squatted down beside Emma.
The boat was still slowly rising, seemed to have been moving upwards for a long time. But in the dark confines of the cabin, Emma had no way of telling how near the top of the lock they were.
“Untie me, quickly,” she said.
“I ... I can’t, I’m shaking too much.”
“Just take a deep breath,” Emma said, keeping her voice flat and calm. “You can do this.”
What she really wanted to do was scream at Julie. They were so close to escaping, but they had such little time left. Emma could feel the girl’s fingers fluttering weakly against her wrists. Maybe there was a knife in the cabin, something she could use to cut at the rope, instead.
Both girls started at a clunk from outside, and the sound of rushing water stopped. The boat was no longer rising.
Emma wanted to cry.
“Now would be a really good time to untie me, Julie,” she said.
“Wait, I think I’ve got it.”
The rope biting into Emma’s wrists slackened, and then the pressure on her back and shoul
ders eased a little. Stifling a groan as blood began rushing back into her limbs, she pulled her arms free of the rope. Already the pins and needles were firing up in her feet and hands. She wasn’t sure she would be able to stand up, let alone walk.
But she had to.
Abel was opening the lock gate.
“Go and open the cabin door,” Emma said.
Julie stared wild eyed at the sleeping vampire boy, curled up on the seat next to the door.
“Just do it!” Emma hissed.
Holding onto the table to steady herself, Julie edged her way towards the door. Emma, her feet feeling like they were on fire as sensation rushed back into them, crawled after her over the stinking, blood soaked carpet. There was so much blood down here, it squelched beneath her as she moved. How many other people had Abel and the boy murdered on this boat?
Julie reached a trembling hand out to the door and pulled it open. The rattling sound of the chains pulling the lock gates open grew louder, and fresh, cold air rushed inside the foul smelling cabin.
Michael stirred and mumbled. The two women stared at him, waiting for him to wake up. He sucked on his thumb and settled again.
“Just poke your head outside a little,” Emma whispered. “Check where that bastard is, that he’s not looking this way.”
Julie’s eyes were welling up with tears, but she nodded. She grasped the edges of the narrowboat deck with both hands and lifted herself slightly out of the opening. A breeze tugged at her hair. She twisted her head, looking around, and then looked back down at Emma.
“He’s got his back to us,” she whispered. “He’s struggling with the lock gate, he’s bent over it.”
“All right, this is it. As quietly as possible, but quickly too, get yourself onto the towpath and get away as fast as you can. I’ll be right behind you.”
Julie nodded, and without waiting for anymore instruction, she climbed the steps and got out onto the deck. Emma’s hands and feet were still tingling, but the pins and needles had worn off some, and she thought she could walk now. Wincing with the pain, she followed Julie up the steps.
