Gripping Thrillers

by Iain Rob Wright

  The TVR’s headlights remained on, and they lit up the tunnel in a pair of disorientating, crisscrossing cones. Cheryl stumbled and struck her hip against the bonnet. Biting down on the pain, she felt her away around the vehicle until she found the handle to the driver’s side door.

  “You think you can hide from me in the dark?” Leo shouted after her. His silhouette grew in the headlights like a monster from her nightmares. “This only makes it more fun.”

  Wanting as many barriers between her and Leo as possible, Cheryl yanked open the TVR’s door and leapt inside. She slammed it shut and searched desperately for a locking switch. As she frantically pawed at the dashboard controls, her elbow knocked a stalk to the left of the steering wheel. The tunnel flooded with light. Leo yelled and shielded his face with an arm. She had knocked on the high beams. Leo groped blindly, unable to see a thing in the blinding light.

  Again, all she had done was buy herself time, but maybe this time she had bought enough.

  I have to get back to that hatch.

  She opened the car door again and made a bolt for it while Leo was dazed. She skirted around the edge of the headlights and tried to avoid Leo spotting her shifting shadow. It worked, and he completely missed her. In fact, he swore and cursed at her as if she were still inside the car.

  Her ankle buckled with every step, the injury growing worse, but she kept on running, would have kept on running on a bloody stump if she had too. She was getting out of there. No way was she going to be a victim of a sadist like Leo. No way was she going to end up like Polly.

  She limped back inside the sandy cell just as the lights in the tunnel came back on with a loud clunk. Happy was conscious, up on his knees and clutching his head. When he saw her, he immediately lit up. “Cheryl, you’re alive!”

  Seeing the kindly old man shattered her resolve. All of her defiance and anger fell away and she was once again desperate to be saved. “Help me get out of here, Happy. Help me!”

  “Yes, of course.” He pointed up at the ceiling hatch. “Come on, climb into the hatch. There should be a ladder you can pull down. Get out of here, Cheryl.”

  A ladder? Yes, please let there be a ladder.

  Happy helped her climb back up onto the chair, and this time she was able to reach inside the hatch and grab hold of something. Whatever it was, it came away easily when she pulled it. A folding ladder slid out of the hatch.

  “That’s it,” said Happy. “Quickly, get up it.”

  Cheryl dropped the ladder down towards Happy who anchored it in the sand as deeply as he could. It wobbled slightly as Cheryl placed a foot on it, but it was solid enough. She began to hyperventilate, excited by the prospect of freedom.

  Leo shouted from out in the tunnel. He had clearly found her missing and was now stalking her. “You think you can run from me bitch?”

  Cheryl yelped and covered her mouth. Happy slapped at her thigh. “Go, get out of here.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to deal with the monster that raped my niece.”

  Cheryl knew there was no argument to be had just by the look on his face — Happy wasn’t about to be persuaded. It was now or never, so she placed both feet on the ladder and began to ascend.

  Leo rushed into the cell. “Got you, you bitch.”

  Happy turned to meet him. “Your days of hurting young girls are over.”

  “You’re a dead man.” Leo smashed his fist into Happy’s face and sent him onto his back. Then he booted the man in the side of his head. Again and again and again. Cheryl didn’t know how much trauma the human skull could absorb, but she knew that even if Happy was alive he wasn’t getting up to save her.

  Leo stopped his vicious assault on Happy and glared up at Cheryl. She had only taken the first two rungs, but she realised now she needed to take more. And quickly.

  Leo snatched at her ankle, but this time she was too fast. She scuttled up the ladder and pulled herself up into the crawl space. The mechanism used to release the sand hung above her head, and she struck her temple against its edge. The side of her face grew wet, but she did not care. She shook the pain away and started crawling for her life.

  The ladder below rattled as Leo climbed it. He was giving chase. “I’m going to do things to you, Cher, you wouldn’t have thought possible. Things you won’t even be able to forget when you’re dead.”

  “You’re finished, Leo. The truth is out. Everyone will know what a sad little loser you are. You can’t get a girl so you have to force yourself on one. The world is going to laugh at you.”

  Leo roared again, spitting and cursing until his voice cracked. “I’m going to kill you!”

  Cheryl had the advantage in the crawl space, she was smaller and had more room to manoeuvre. Her desperate panic also helped propel her along. Ahead of her, the crawl space opened up, and a shaft of light spilled in from somewhere. It was like a beacon of hope. She shuffled herself along, twisted ankle getting stiffer and stiffer as it swelled. It was slowing her down.

  “I’m gonna get you, slag. I’m finally going to get you to myself. I told you how this night would end. I told you all along.”

  Cheryl was too tired to reply to his taunts anymore, so she focused on that shaft of light and kept on moving. Once she reached the light, she discovered another ladder. This one was bolted firmly in place and stretched ten feet upwards through a shaft of wood and soil. At the top she could see the night sky, starlit and clear. Beautiful.

  Groaning with pain and exhaustion, she grabbed the first rung and pulled herself forwards. Her face was dripping wet, and she had to wipe herself with a hand. Her fingers came back bloody. Her head was sliced open, but right now it didn’t matter. She was alive and had to stay that way.

  She took the second rung and began dragging her body upwards and out of the crawl space. Then she was standing again, stepping onto the first rung and climbing.

  Leo lunged out of the shadowy crawlspace and into the shaft of light. He grabbed Cheryl’s shoe, making her scream. She shook her leg, kicking wildly, then gasped with relief as her trainer slipped off. If she’d been wearing anything tighter he would’ve had her.

  Leo was still confined in the crawlspace, yet to pull himself clear, so Cheryl started up the ladder as fast as she could. It was a massive height to climb when exhausted and wounded, and her swollen ankle had become a lifeless, dead weight hanging off her leg. Yet, she made progress rung by rung.

  “You’re mine,” said Leo, starting up the ladder below her. “All that’s waiting for you up there is an empty field. And you only have one leg to run on.”

  His mocking laughter echoed up the shaft beneath her.

  Cheryl started sobbing because she realised he was right. She had a head start, sure, but once she made it out onto open ground he would catch her in seconds. Getting out of this hole didn’t mean she was free. There was still nowhere to run. No safety within sight.

  Yet all she could do was keep going.

  Mum, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for abandoning you. For leaving you alone.

  Cheryl neared the top of the tunnel, and even though it didn’t offer her safety, it filled her heart with hope at the thought of being outside again. At least she wouldn’t die buried beneath the ground.

  “Just give up,” said Leo. “It’ll be so much more enjoyable if you open up and accept what’s coming to you.”

  Cheryl grabbed at the next rung, almost at the top. Then she slipped. The blood on her hands dripped and made the metal slick. If she hadn’t managed to steady herself just in time, she would have dropped right back down the shaft. A fall high enough to knock the wind out of her and leave her at Leo’s mercy.

  Due to the slip, Leo was now one rung closer. She still had a head start, for he was battered and bruised as well, but she had to keep moving. Using all of her remaining strength, she propelled herself upwards, praying she did not slip again. One more slip and she was done for.

  Leo kept shouting and threatening, but sh
e ignored him. Thoughts of her dad spurred her onward, reminding her that not all men were like Leo, and that her mother needed her to get safely back home.

  And I need you too, mum.

  She made it to the top, shuddering as the freezing night air slapped her. It was a glorious feeling, like an injection of life. She was back out in the world.

  But Leo was right behind her.

  If only he would slip and break his back, she thought, wishing that some act of God would save her. But God was a man who had made beasts like Leo. A woman had no choice but to help herself in this cruel world.

  The thought struck Cheryl like a bolt of lightning, and she wondered for a moment if God had put it there. Maybe it was the throbbing in her thigh — an ache where the Vaseline tin had pressed against her muscle in the crawl space, or maybe it was the slickness of the blood on her hands.

  Cheryl yanked the Vaseline from her pocket and pulled off the lid. She felt stupid, even childish, but this plan was the only one she had. She leaned down inside the shaft, digging her toes into the mud to anchor herself, and got to work. She smothered the top three rungs in the lubricant and a thick helping of her own blood. The slickness of the steel in her hands was satisfying, and her hope began to grow anew.

  I’m not going to die out here in the middle of nowhere, you piece of shit.

  Cheryl stared down into the dark shaft. Waiting.

  Where are you?

  Where are you, you son-of-a-bitch?

  Leo leapt out of the shadows like a shark escaping the water. He grabbed hold of her wrist, and the sheer weight of him dragged her along the grass on her tummy. She tried to steady herself with her other hand but, ironically, she couldn’t get a grip on the slippery rungs. The only thing that kept her from falling headfirst into the shaft was her toes. They had dug a furrow in dirt and anchored her a mere second before gravity had claimed her.

  But Leo was still pulling at her arm. He twisted at her wrist, yanking himself upwards so that his face was right next to hers. He snarled at her, hot spittle spattering her cheeks. “I’m gonna shove my cock so far down your throat, you’ll have no choice but to swallow.”

  Cheryl surprised herself by snarling back. “Sorry, loser, I don’t swallow. I spit!” She hacked up a mouthful of snot and spat it right into Leo’s face. It hit him in the eye and startled him, causing him to instinctively let go of her wrist and try to clear his vision. As he did so, he lost his balance. Letting out a stream of profanity, he reached out to steady himself on a rung. His hand slipped on Vaseline and blood. The sudden shock caused one of his feet to slip off the rung, and all of a sudden he was swinging by one hand and one foot.

  “You bitch! What until I get up there. I’m going to—”

  Cheryl rotated onto her butt so that her feet were dangling at the edge of the shaft. She took aim at his burnt hand gripping the rung, the one she had helped patch up earlier. “Shut the fuck up, Leo.”

  She booted his injured hand with both of her heels. The blow launched Leo backwards and he hit the opposite wall of the shaft. Then he fell.

  Cheryl heard the painful crunch ten-feet below and smiled. She leaned forwards, staring into the shaft. The moon glowed just enough to present her the dim, grey image of Leo clutching a badly wounded ankle. Unlike her injury however, this one was no mere sprain. His foot dangled limply from his shin like it wasn’t even attached. “Ah, shit, my ankle. It hurts.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure the police will get you some medical attention, asshole.”

  “I’ll kill you. I’m gonna fuck you.”

  “No thanks. I don’t fuck losers.”

  “You slag.”

  Cheryl slumped backwards on the cool, caressing grass and closed her eyes. Yeah, she thought. I’m the slag from your nightmares.

  And it’s time to wake up. It’s over.

  But it wasn’t. Not yet.

  A man approached.

  Cheryl sensed the presence behind her, heard the footsteps on the icy grass. She tried to get up, to make a run for it, but she was beat. No more. Whatever horror awaited her, she just wanted it to be over. The best she could do was roll onto her side to see who was there.

  She wished she’d kept her eyes closed.

  The man without eyes stood in the field, and somehow, despite being blind, he looked down at her. “Are you okay, miss?”

  “Never been better. If you’re going to kill me, can you please make it quick?”

  The strange man muttered something over his shoulder and someone else appeared. It shocked Cheryl enough that she managed to sit up. This second man also possessed no eyes, and was dressed in a white cloak matching that of the other man. The newcomer handed Cheryl a flask of water, which she drank from greedily. Then he stepped away, leaving the original stranger to deal with her.

  Gasping from having gulped so much, Cheryl looked up at the grotesque man and asked, “W-Who are you?”

  With a slight grin, the man lifted his arms to either side of him and a dozen figures shifted in the darkness. All of them had no eyes. “We are Justice, and tonight it has been served.”

  “I…” She wondered how many times she had said this particular line today, but she wanted very much to reiterate it once more. “I’m not meant to be here.”

  “Indeed, you are not.” The eyeless stranger offered her a hand, and she surprised herself by taking it. His palm was warm, and it made her suddenly realise how freezing it was out there in the night. As if having read her mind, another stranger appeared and wrapped her in a blanket.

  “You’re not going to hurt me?” she asked.

  “Do you deserve to be hurt, miss?”

  “I… I don’t think so.”

  “Then we shall assume you do not.”

  Cheryl looked back at the hole in the ground. She could hear Leo still swearing down in the shaft. He didn’t know there were other people here — and probably still hoped to rape and murder her.

  “He shall be dealt with shortly,” said the man with no eyes, somehow seeing where she was looking. “We should move away.”

  He started walking, white cloak flowing behind him, so she stumbled after him. Her ankle felt like it was made out of wood. “What are you going to do with me? I witnessed everything.”

  “What do you propose we do with you?”

  “Um, let me go?”

  “Then we shall let you go.”

  Cheryl studied the man’s face, then decided it was impossible to read someone without any eyes. “What’s to stop me telling people about everything I saw tonight?”

  “Nothing. You may tell. You will not be believed.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there will be no evidence of this night. People will think you insane.”

  “Um, there’s a giant torture chamber under the ground. That’s enough evidence as far as I’m concerned.”

  The eyeless man stopped, and she suddenly cursed herself for irritating him. Why was she so intent on arguing with a disfigured man who had just killed six of her co-workers? Was she crazy? Despite her fears, the man didn’t strike her or attempt to kill her. Instead, he pointed. “Losing Happy was a great failure on our part, as was your arrival, yet all must be put right. You may wish to look away for this part.”

  Cheryl frowned, and it wasn’t until she felt the ground vibrate that she looked back towards the hole. What looked like a petrol tanker began backing up towards the shaft, and she watched in horror as a team assembled and opened up a valve at the vehicle’s rear. Petrol cascaded into the hole, causing Leo to shout and curse even louder from below. At first he sounded startled and confused, but then he panicked. “Please, Cher! Don’t do this. Don’t burn me.”

  Cheryl gasped. “He thinks I’m the one doing this. He thinks I’m going to burn him alive.”

  The man with no eyes smiled. “An ironic twist, don’t you agree.”

  “You can’t do this! You don’t have the right.”

  “Justice needs no
right. And it is done.”

  One of the other eyeless men threw a lit match into the hatch and hurried away as an inferno took ahold beneath the ground. Leo’s screams hurtled towards the stars, making Cheryl weep, not for the victim, but that such an amount of pain could exist in the universe. His howls went on for several minutes.

  More vehicles started to arrive. Cheryl recognised a digger, and what looked like a cement mixer. There was also a small crane.

  “The containers shall be dug up and removed,” said the man with no eyes. “Then the hole shall be filled. It may look suspicious, but that is all it will be. No one in authority will make a fuss, they never do.”

  Cheryl shook her head, trying to understand. Then she did. “You have people working for you in the police. The government?”

  “Justice rules all. You shall remain in our care until the site is made good. Then you may return home, unmolested.”

  “Unharmed? Ha! I’m going to need therapy for the rest of my life. Not to mention the company I work for has just been murdered.”

  The eyeless man shook his head like her dad had used to whenever he thought she was being cheeky. “You shall be made whole. Three years of whatever salary you are on, up front.”

  Cheryl balked, doing rough numbers in her head. “Wow that’s, um, not nothing.”

  “And yet it is.” The eyeless man turned to face her fully now, and he sighed, as if fed up with the very entirety of the world. “Use the money wisely, miss. Live a good life, one for yourself and for others. Fail to do so and we could meet again.”

  “I promise. Only the straight and narrow for me. I mean, I wouldn’t do something as horrible as trapping people in a hole and killing them.”

  “A debt was paid tonight. Judgement was passed. You may keep yours. Go with my colleagues and attempt to remain quiet.” The eyeless man walked away, replaced by another almost identical. Within a few seconds, it was impossible to tell who she had been talking to. They all looked the same. Several dozen eyeless men now milled about the field in their white cloaks, busily taking care of the situation. The one nearest to her ushered her away, leading her to safety. Safety in a world where Justice was an army of eyeless men dispensing justice to the unrighteous via deadly games.