LIFERS Chapter Eighteen

Jill fared no better in getting to the patrol car this time than she did last time out, and as the storm buffeted the car, she sat in the driver’s seat and realised just how much this whole nightmare had gotten to her. From the minute she left the highway nothing had gone right, the worst bit being her lifelong friend getting brutally murdered whilst she’d been helpless to act against it. She wanted to make them pay for that, wanted so much to see each and every one of them swing for what they’d done. And if the fastest way to achieve that goal was to drive all the way to the next town and back, then bring it on.

She hitched-up the jacket sleeves, swallowed, and twisted the ignition key to feel the low, even hum of the car’s engine. At long last, something to smile about, but forming that smile she found hard to do under the present circumstances. She slipped the lever into drive and applied pressure to the accelerator. The car lurched forward, stopped. She tried again; the car lurched forward, stopped.

She had to get it moving, had to, but fate, or what ever she chose to call it, wouldn’t let her get it around one shitty little corner, a distance she could probably spit further than. She pushed on the accelerator once more, this time for longer, but achieved even less forward movement. She pulled the keys from the ignition and climbed out to see the wheels buried over half their depth in mud.
She gave up.

To get back inside without the crowbar was tough, plus the bitter feeling of disappointment in her failed efforts to get them out of there had taken its toll on her. In a rage she slammed shut the stationroom door, flattened down her hair, and tossed the keys back to the desk where Gregg was.

He rose. ‘No car?’

‘The ground’s too soft, it’s stuck.’

‘And going back out and trying again won’t free it?’

‘No, it’s hopeless.’

‘Well I ain't heard no fat lady,’ he said, turning to the cupboard.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going out there.’ He grabbed a blanket. ‘I’ll wrap this around my head and get to the car that way.’

‘And you won’t last five seconds before that wind turns you into a kite and drags you off.’

‘Right now that car’s our only hope. I’ll need my jacket.’

‘Are you that stubborn that you can’t accept the fact that I tried and it didn’t work? And do you really think that if you try all of a sudden it will?’

‘It’s worth a shot … jacket, please.’

She squared-up to him, zipped up the jacket and pointed. ‘If you go out there I know you won’t be coming back, and I’m not going to let you leave me here alone to deal with all this.’

‘Do you see an alternative?’

‘Thinking, we’ll think our way out,’ she said.

He paused. ‘Okay, but if we don’t come up with something soon, I’m going out there.’

‘Fine, have it your way,’ she said, fingering back wet hair. ‘But right now let’s take a few minutes to sort through our options, okay?’

‘Options?’ he said, dropping the blanket.

Jill sat on one end of the desk with Gregg on the other. She looked over at Vicky and decided it was time she covered her friend, but as she bent to pick the blanket up , the map of Martinsville pinned to the wallboard caught her eye.

She fetched it over. ‘What do you suppose this could be?’ she said, pointing to a black line that ran from Chambers to the town hall.

He took it. ‘It could be an electrical cable, a gas main, a water pipe. But to be honest, ordinance survey really isn’t my thing,’ he said, passing it back.

‘I think it’s a tunnel.’

‘And what makes you say that?’

‘That Ella mentioned a tunnel to Hal just before she left.’

‘Can you remember exactly what she said?’

‘Something like, “If it rains before you’re done, use the tunnel.”’

‘Let me see that again.’

‘Do you think that’s what−?’

He stood, walked off.

‘Where are you going?’

‘That’s what that hatch must lead to, it’s not a basement down there, it’s the entrance to a tunnel and I need to get it closed and locked before they use it to come looking for these two.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘You can’t, you have to stay here.’

‘No I don’t.’’

‘Trust me, Jill; you really don’t need to see what’s in that room.’

‘And I really don’t want to stay here on my own, either,’ she said, looking again at Vicky and the others.

He relented. ‘Okay, but when we get to Chambers you’re waiting outside, no arguments.’

Jill accepted the terms and followed him to the courtroom, but neither of them made it to the short hallway leading to Chambers as the solid galumph of boots on wood and a solitary voice muttering incoherently halted them. Gregg drew his gun and ducked behind the witness box and flapped his free hand in a patting motion to instruct Jill to conceal herself, but she’d already slipped behind the door.

*

Zach stomped his mud-clogged boots down the length of the hallway as he complained to himself about having to come looking for two people who should know better than to piss Ella off, not to mention making him use those tunnels again. He reached for the door handle at the end of the hallway and froze.

A door that’s never left open, left open?
Splinters of wood?
A crowbar?

He licked his dry lips drier and moved into the courtroom where he caught the scent of blood. He turned and raised his hand to the section above the door; the key was still there; so it wasn’t Hal or Billy who’d done this. He should to turn back and report his find, but he wanted to know what had gone on here. He wanted the full story before he headed back. No point in going off half-cocked. He crouched, picked up the crowbar and shook it, its weight felt good, manageable, it would make a handy weapon should the need arise.

‘Hal … you there, Hal? Billy?’

No answer.

He took short tentative steps and made his way to the stationroom where the scent of blood was the even stronger, and judging by how strong it was, there had to be a lot of it. Next he heard the wind and rain coming through the hatch, and there was Hal, shackled to the floor with what might have been Billy Fisher lying face down on top of him.

His eyes followed a trail of blood leading from one cell to the other. The blonde, the one Hal fetched in earlier with the dark-haired girl, she lay on the floor with Hal’s happy-stick poking out from her chest. But where was the dark-haired one? And that investigator, he should be the one lying in the shackles, not Hal. They must’ve done all this and escaped. He’d seen enough, time to head back.

Zach spun to see a gun pointed at his head. The missing investigator was on the other end of it with that dark-haired girl standing right behind him.

‘Oh fuck,’ he said, and then swallowed hard as the crowbar and flashlight slipped from his fingers.