Endless Winter (Guardians of The Light)

by J Armitage

  So much for the locked-room puzzles she had managed to figure out in seconds. In reality, the answers to this puzzle were just not forthcoming.

  Eventually she fell to the floor exhausted, wrapped herself in the duvet and fell into a fitful sleep.

  She awoke later. Without any reference, she had no way of being able to tell how long she’d been asleep although it felt like a few hours. She stretched her arms and legs which both had cramp as a result of her odd sleeping position on the floor and then rubbed them furiously to get rid of the stabbing pins and needles. She also needed to pee. This was another problem you never seemed to get in movies about being kidnapped. The writers obviously skipped over the dilemma of bodily function in favour of moving the plot forward.

  She crossed her legs and wondered what to do. Peeing on the floor was a solution albeit an unpleasant one. A few seconds later something took her mind from her bathroom needs

  The room was just as dark as it had been before but now something was different. She could smell something. It was a smell that made her stomach growl and her mouth start to water. It was roast beef. She followed the smell across the room, tripping over something on the floor which hadn’t been there before. She bent down feeling towards the floor with her hands and was very relieved to find a large bowl.

  It was made of china and she could feel a handle on the side. Confused she put her hand in to see if there was anything inside but it was empty. She felt its wide shape again and then realised it was an old fashioned chamber pot. She hovered over it self-consciously and gladly relieved herself. Once finished she carried the pot to the far wall, not wanting to knock it over in the dark. Her captor had obviously had the forethought to provide her with a way to toilet, which meant two things. Firstly, she obviously wasn’t going to be let out of this room any time soon, and secondly, he, at least, planned to make her comfortable whilst she was here. Anais wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing so she brought herself back to trying to track down the roast beef smell. Feeling around blindly in the dark she quickly found a small table which had a plate on it. She picked up the plate and sniffed. Yep, definitely roast beef. Her hand felt along the table again and came upon a knife and fork. She guessed that they were made of silver as they felt so heavy in her hands.

  Despite being a light sleeper, someone had crept into the room and left a meal for her without waking her.

  They must have brought the food in silently although it could have been the drug still in her system which made her sleep more soundly than usual. Feeling angry with herself for not waking up, she pushed the food to one side but minutes later she picked it up again. Her stomach was rumbling and it smelled wonderful. It would do her no good to starve herself and she reasoned that she’d need to keep her strength up for the next time they came in. She did her best to eat the food in the dark. It was an unusual experience eating without seeing. She wasn’t sure if it was because she couldn’t see her food that it was delicious but it was genuinely the best roast beef dinner she’d ever tasted. The beef was succulent and practically melted in her mouth, the potatoes roasted with rosemary, the vegetables mixed with some other herb she couldn’t quite place but tasted out of this world. The meal almost took her mind from her predicament, it was that good. Every mouthful left her taste buds eager for more. She finished the meal quickly and then felt around the table to see if it held anything else. She hit a glass a little too hard, spilling its contents over the carpet and the table. Her heart fell. She was so thirsty that her throat felt constricted and her only drink was now soaking into the carpet. She dipped her fingers in the puddle and tasted. It was champagne. She licked her fingers greedily. She’d not touched a drop of alcohol since the day she moved in with Winnie and she hadn’t missed it but she was just so thirsty. Her hands felt the last corner of the table and came across another receptacle. Anais quickly recognised it as a gravy boat. She groaned. She’d already finished her dinner. She picked up the gravy boat and drank it straight down. It was the strangest way to quench her thirst but she didn’t know how long it would be before she’d have anything else to drink. It was salty, so didn’t do a great job of helping her throat. She wondered when she’d next get a drink.

  Her hunger satisfied she had a quick feel around the room to see if anything else had appeared in her sleep. Beyond the food table and chamber pot, the room was exactly the same as it had been previously. She wondered if there was any point in shouting again. She gave a half-hearted shout of ‘hello’ at the door but again, she couldn’t hear anything. Her throat was far too painful to keep it up so she soon gave up.

  She wondered about who had kidnapped her. A man, for sure, possibly two or more. She had not inherited her mother’s petite structure, instead taking after her father, tall and willowy. She would not have been easy to carry for one man. This thought did nothing to make her feel better and she felt panic begin to rise again. She desperately wanted not to think about what lay on the other side of the door but with no light and nothing else to do, her mind wandered.

  One or more men had brought her to this house of that she was reasonably sure but to what end?

  Anais ruled out ransom quickly. As much as she would have preferred this to any other option she had no available money and no family to pay it if she did. At some point she would be able get her hands on her inheritance but that day was a long time away. She hoped she wasn’t to be kept here until that day, possibly months in the future. Besides it wasn’t that much money in the grand scheme of things. It was enough to buy herself a nice house in a nice neighbourhood and possibly some left over for a car and a couple of nice holidays but it hardly made her rich. That was in the future. At the moment she only had Winnie, who judging by the amount of customers she got in the shop was not much better off than herself. She knew that Winnie would give anything to get Anais back, even selling the shop if she had to, but nobody on earth would pick her out as a rich target for kidnapping. She doubted that the revenue she brought in covered much more than the mortgage and paying Anais her wages.

  Anais spent a few minutes in a fantasy that one of the old books in the shop was worth millions and the kidnapper wanted to exchange her life for that book. It was a fruitless fantasy though as Winnie knew every book in her shop and was such an expert that she’d know straight away if she had an undiscovered Shakespearian sonnet or some other rare antiquity. Besides, the security in the shop consisted of Winnie and Anais keeping an eye on the customers. Seeing as Winnie always seemed to be nipping into the kitchen to brew countless cups of tea or make sandwiches, it wouldn’t take a master thief to take anything.

  Anais had pulled Winnie up on it on countless occasions. Told her to fit an alarm system or install CCTV cameras but Winnie steadfastly refused, reasoning that nothing in the shop was worth much anyhow and it was more bother than it was worth. Anais really wished she had tried harder to persuade her to get CCTV because Winnie would at least have something to show the police if Anais had been taken out of the front of the shop.

  So ransom, as an option, was quickly ruled out.

  She didn’t really want to contemplate the other options. She’s heard plenty of stories of girls being kidnapped and sold into slavery and it was a thought that she couldn’t bear.

  Death was the last option on her list. It wasn’t so much the thought of death that worried her, although she didn’t want to die, it was the fact that she hadn’t been killed yet. Her kidnapper had had plenty of opportunities to kill her. She was in a dark room with only a duvet for cover. She was hardly a difficult target. Not to mention her captor had already managed to somehow drug her in her own home. No, the Lunatic wanted to keep her alive, at least for now. Anais hoped he wasn’t planning ways to kill her that involved torturing her first. She was a big fan of horror movies and had no problem conjuring up images of horrific ways to hurt someone thanks to Hollywood and its highly skilled make-up and special effect artists.

  Anais realised that this line of thinking was
doing nothing to help herself. She had been brought up better than this. She was a strong woman and she was not stupid. She would find a way to escape. She fumbled her way back to the bed dragging the duvet with her. What did she have? A duvet, a pillow and a mattress, a table with an empty plate, a glass and a gravy boat. There were plenty of things here that she could use, not to mention that she was now armed with a knife, even if it was only a dinner knife. A plan began to form in her mind. She knew that the lunatic was keeping her alive, at least for now, and that meant feeding her. He would also have to empty the chamber pot unless he wanted his room smelling. He would have to come through the door in the dark. The plan developed. Now was the time to take action.

  She ripped open the duvet and the pillow savagely, sending goose feathers swirling around her like fluffy snow which she could feel rather than see. She emptied the remaining feathers around the door in a pile. She then felt for the small table and the glass that she had put back on it hours before. She smashed the glass on the table as quietly as she could by wrapping it in the pillow case to dampen the sound. The last thing she needed was her captor to hear her and come running before she was ready for him. The broken glass fragments were added to the pile of feathers to form a basic trap. Finally she picked up the small wooden table and swung it as hard as she could against the wall. There was nothing she could do to mask the sound this time so she worked quickly. Four swings later, the small table broke and she quickly took one leg which she knew would make a good weapon.

  She sat on the bed and waited, holding onto the chair leg and dinner knife for dear life. When he came through the door he would be confused by the feathers, possibly trip and she’d take his moment of hesitation and hit him over the head with the chair leg. The glass shards and her knife could also cause some amount of damage. It wasn’t much of a plan, she knew that, but it was the best she could come up with, with what she had. She actually felt better now that she had a plan. Adrenaline kicked in and her palms ed to sweat. She had taken control of the situation and although deep in her heart she knew that only an amazing fluke would get her out of this, she still felt good about it. She sat on the edge of her bed ready at the slightest noise, to jump up and pounce. Her nerves were tingling in a mixture of fear, adrenaline and anticipation. Waiting, waiting for the moment to strike. She listened, head facing the door, trying to hear any sign of movement, any little noise that meant the lunatic was approaching. After thirty seconds or so she realised that she had forgotten to breathe so she took in a few big gulps or air which made her feel dizzy.

  She realised how ridiculous it was, sat, quite literally, on edge waiting for her captor like this. It could be hours before he came back and by then, at the rate she was going she’d have done the job for him by giving herself a heart attack with anticipation. She put her head between her legs and felt the blood returning to her brain, the dizziness fading. When the feeling passed she walked a few laps of the room, being careful to avoid standing on the feathers, glass and the rest of the broken table in her bare feet. The exercise woke her up a little and brought her to her senses.

  An undeterminable amount of time passed and no one came to collect the plate. She began to wish that she hadn’t tried to be so quiet after all. He obviously hadn’t heard her and come to investigate the source of the noise. Brandishing her chair leg she hit the walls and screamed as loud as her sore throat would allow. She even stamped her feet on the floor but the carpet, as thick as it was, absorbed the majority of the sound. Still nobody came. Hours of nothingness went by with nothing to distinguish one from the next. With no light to see and nothing to hear, Anais began to get bored. The feeling of being on edge and ready to fight had long since passed and now she was just tired. She had long given up on making noise and instead dozed fitfully on the bed.

  Finally she heard a noise. Footsteps. Her grip tightened on the chair leg which she had held on to, even as she dozed. The sound of a bolt being pulled back on the other side of the door alerted her to the fact her captor was coming into the room.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Her heart rate once again increased. The door opened with a faint click. A bright light shone through from outside the room momentarily blinding Anais. Her eyes had no time to accustom themselves to the light from the hallway outside after so long in the dark. She heard someone make a soft oh as they stepped on the feathers and Anais decided it was now or never. Brandishing her chair leg she ran across the room swinging blindly in the general direction of the person who she still could not see because of her temporarily blinded state.

  She felt someone grab the chair leg and then all hell broke loose. She was knocked off her feet but instead of hitting the ground she felt herself flying across the room, carried by her captor. She became disorientated. There was a lot of noise and screaming and things were happening which Anais, in her sense deprived state could not understand. She threw her fists around but she was just punching thin air. A couple of clicks sounded near her. She heard a soft voice say sorry and then the door closed and the bolt was once again pushed into place.

  What the hell had just happened?

  When Anais managed to calm her breathing she assessed the situation. Something was round her wrists. Feeling down she realised she had been shackled to the bed. The whole thing had happened so quickly. Seconds! How had her captor managed to get her on the bed and shackle her so quickly? Anais was not a small girl. She was slim but at 5 ft. 9 she was hardly easy to just pick up like a ragdoll. She was strong as well, so how was someone able to just pick her up like she was a bag of feathers? It had been a woman too. She had known that as soon as she had heard her exclaim oh and the sorry had just confirmed it.

  She felt a small moment of relief. She knew that statistically most serial killers were men so naturally wondered what a woman would want with her?

  She didn’t have much time to ponder over it as she once again heard the bolt being pulled back.

  This time Anais sat on the bed and waited. Her shackles prevented her from moving too far but the utter failure to escape her captor previously would have kept her motionless anyway. The pure shock of being outwitted so quickly had her rooted to the bed. Curiosity was beginning to form as she wondered how this woman had moved her so quickly.

  The door opened for a second time.

  Again, the light from outside the room shocked her eyes but after blinking a few times her vision began to clear. There was a woman, not much older than Anais herself, stood in the doorway with, of all things, a dust pan and brush. She moved forward into the room and began to sweep up the glass, and feathers and bits of broken table. The woman didn’t look up at Anais but kept to task, dumping the whole lot into a small plastic bin that she had also brought with her.

  Anais found the whole thing slightly surreal; this woman who had just minutes ago shackled her to the bed was now cleaning as if it was the most normal thing in the world. It wasn’t the normality of sweeping that struck Anais though; it was how the woman looked. Now that she had stepped into the room Anais was able to get a good look at her. She was, to put it simply, beautiful. She was stunning. White blonde hair cascaded freely over her shoulders in waves that shone. Her face was perhaps slightly too pale but its symmetry, almond shaped eyes under perfectly arched eyebrows, straight, slender nose and full lips more than made up for its lack of colour. Anais estimated her to be a similar height to herself which, although unusual, explained how, to some extent, she was able to tackle Anais earlier. She was wearing a tight red t-shirt which showed the woman’s trim waist and pert breasts to full advantage. She also wore low slung fitted black jeans and strangely was also wearing gloves, black leather gloves which covered her hands to the wrist. On her feet were red fluffy slippers. The whole ensemble, coupled with her strange beauty and the inane task which she was doing made it all the more surreal. So much so that Anais had not uttered a word, but just watched this woman going about her work.

  When the last of the feathers had been placed in t
he bin, the woman stole a look at Anais. At once her face fell and her perfect features dropped into a look of shock and concern which only served to make her somehow even more beautiful.

  “Oh I’ve hurt you!”

  Anais followed the woman’s eye line and felt up to her forehead. It was warm and sticky. Blood. With all that had happened in the last few minutes, Anais had not even noticed that she had banged her head in the earlier struggle. The woman ran out of the door, only to return seconds later with a bit of tissue which she held to Anais head. Anais looked at her more closely. Up close, Anais could see the woman’s skin, although pale was flawless and Anais could tell it was naturally this way and not with the aid of makeup. Her eyes were black. Not dark brown but so dark that Anais couldn’t see where the pupils ended and irises began. They sparkled with flecks of light. The woman’s mouth, now smiling, was red with the only make up Anais could see. Scarlet lipstick coated full lips. The woman’s smile did not extend to her eyes which only held a concerned look.

  “Sorry. It’s not much but it’s clean. Hold it to your head while I go and get you a bandage.” Her voice had a friendly singsong quality to it which left Anais mesmerised.

  Being left alone for a third time, Anais had time to analyse her situation. She had not felt threatened by the woman, quite the opposite. Despite being shackled and held against her will, she had actually felt safe and weirdly protected. It was partly because the strange woman had been visibly upset that she had caused injury to Anais but it was the woman’s whole demeanour that had put Anais at ease. She didn’t look like a serial killer either. Serial killers don’t wear fluffy slippers for a start, thought Anais. It was a stupid thought, Anais knew that killers came in all guises, but at the same time she knew that this woman had meant her no harm. It only threw up more questions though, such as, if not to harm her, then what exactly did the woman want with her?