LIFERS Chapter Thirty Nine

Nick pulled his van up just short of Main Street and Jill climbed out to look along the road for the 4x4, not there. That was the good bit. The bad bit came when she saw how much the cloud-cover had lightened over the last half-hour, and in it, slivers of blue on the western horizon crept ever-eastward, toward Martinsville.

The rain was light and fell in a steady shower, but Jill didn’t think it was going to last more than another hour or so.

‘Stay with the van, Nick, I’m going over to take a look in the garage,’ she told him, gun at the ready.

‘Watch yourself,’ he called.

When Jill reached the office window she could see the inner door to the garage had been closed. She turned and leaned against the wall to think through her next move when she noticed something in the road. The blood-bag Gregg shot at had a faint red trail leading from it. She followed the arc of its progress to find it stopped at the base of the shutter. The 4x4 had driven over the bag and was now inside the garage, and its occupants had either captured or killed Gregg, and could still be in there.

Her heart-rate was off the scale as she moved across the shutter to peek through one of the holes the shotgun had made. The 4x4 was there as she’d summised but looked empty, and she couldn’t discern if its occupants were still in the garage or not. She removed a hand from her gun and rapped on the shutter to find out, and after a few long seconds it began to rise, and, just in case it wasn’t Gregg who pushed the button, she stepped to the side and pulled back the hammer ready to blast the first face she didn’t know.

Once the shutter reached around eye-level she wheeled with her gun outstretched to see Gregg standing there, his posture very much like hers.

Both relaxed and Jill put her gun away before she waved for Nick to come over. ‘Did you see them?’ she said.

..

Gregg nodded as he slipped his Colt into the rear of his jeans. ‘There were two of them,’ he told her. ‘And I think they’ve abducted Marianna Brontrose.’

‘The psychic?’

‘No, Marianna’s her daughter,’ he said, seeing a smile form on Jill’s face. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing, but don’t you find it just a little ironic that her mom didn’t see it coming in her crystal ball?’

‘I’ve got a feeling that she did see it coming, on some level.’

‘And would that be on a psychic level?’

Gregg rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, so she’s no more psychic than my toothbrush, but I guarantee she knows more about this place than she wanted me to know. She knows about the people here and exactly what they are and what they do. And for what ever reason they have, they’ve taken her daughter.’

Nick drove into the garage to take up the last remaining space between the hatch and the 4x4; he climbed out and muttered incoherently as he inspected the damage to his van in finer detail.

Jill shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s because she sent you up here.’

‘I don’t think it’s that simple. I recognised Marianna from some photographs her mother had in the house.’

‘And?’

‘The dates on them were wrong, I mean way off, or at least I assumed they were. One of them was dated over forty years ago, and Celia Brontrose was in that picture and didn’t look much younger than she does now. Here, take a look at this,’ he said, and passed Jill Marianna’s driving license. ‘Look at her date of birth.’

Jill did. ‘Looks about right; I’d say she was in her early twenties,’ she said, then handed it back.

‘So would I, but Marianna was also in that photograph forty years ago.’

‘Really?’

Gregg nodded. ‘Really.’

‘So it’s just like the old guy said when he told us he was one hundred and thirty six, yet he looked no older than what? Fifty?’

Gregg nodded. ‘And Celia Brontrose is in league with the lot of them.’

‘So why take her daughter?’

‘You’re forgetting what else the old guy told us. Remember when he said that Martins guy was working on something new, something that could change them? Well, if Celia Brontrose is one of them, that means Marianna must be at least third generation. What if she’s the one who holds the secret to this change he talked about? What if they were hoping to branch out? Marianna sails a boat on the lake where she lives, but if she had any fear of water she wouldn’t do that, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Then that’s the reason they’ve taken her. This Martins guy makes a new virus or what ever it is he does and they get to venture far and wide without fear of what the weather might do to them.’

‘Can you imagine what would happen if they were free to roam city streets?’

‘Then that gives us even more of a reason to wipe them out. But we’ve got to get those kids out first. Speaking of which,’ he said, as he opened the 4x4’s door. ‘Jill Gordon, I’d like you to meet Miss Alicia Vincent.’

Alicia was lay across the seat; she sat up and narrowed her eyes. ‘How do you know my name?’

Jill looked at Alicia then at Gregg. ‘How did you …?’

‘In a moment, Jill. Alicia, my name’s Gregg Pieroni, I’m a private investigator from Richmond and your mom hired me to find you.’

A tear rolled over her cheek. ‘You know my mom?’

Gregg half-smiled, half-nodded. ‘Yeah, your mom and I have spoken a number of times over the phone, and I met with her once in my office. So I know her enough to know she’s worried for you and hasn’t stopped thinking about you all this time.’
Another tear escaped. ‘Thank you for finding me, Mister Pieroni,’ she said.

‘The name’s Gregg, Alicia.’

She used the heels of both hands to wipe her face. ‘Thanks, Gregg,’ she said, and then leaped from the car to wrap her arms and legs around him.

Nick came over after his inspection of the van. ‘Have you seen what they did to … whoa, is she one of them?’

Jill rolled her eyes. ‘No, Nick, this is Alicia Vincent, the girl Gregg came out here to find. Alicia, say hi to Nick.’

She lifted her head. ‘Hi, Nick.’

‘Hello, Alicia. Where’d you find her?’

Gregg prised her from around his neck and placed her back in the 4x4. ‘To be honest, she found me, but that’s a question I’d like to ask you, Alicia. What were you doing in the tunnels?’

‘The tall lady let me go.’

‘The tall lady? You mean Ella?’

She shrugged. ‘Don’t know her name, but she said when I get out of the tunnel I was to give this note to the investigator.’ She reached into a pocket in her skirt.

Gregg looked at Jill and then at Nick; he took the note to see the writing was neat but in a nervous hand, then he began to read to himself.

‘It’s okay for you to read it out,’ Alicia told him. ‘I know what it says because she made me write it.’

Gregg cleared his throat. ‘”Now you have what you came for, take her and leave. You have my word that no one will try to stop you and no one will come after you. But if you chose to stay you will only have yourself to blame for the outcome.”’ He turned the note over and back again. ‘That’s it.’

‘Does this mean we can get out of here now?’ said Nick.

Gregg looked at him. ‘That depends on one other thing,’ he said. ‘Alicia, are there any more like you here? Is anyone else locked up where you were?’

Alicia nodded.

Jill crouched and took her hand. ‘How many more are there, sweetheart?’

‘Two more, Jenny and another girl, but I don’t know her name because she never told us, all she did was cry.’ Alicia held out her left arm to show them a bright, multi-coloured, plastic bangle. ‘I had two of these,’ she said. ‘But I gave one to Jenny for being my friend.’

Gregg tried to recall the name. ‘Jenny … Jenny Walsh,’ he said. ‘If I remember right, she was taken from Little Falls in Fredericksburg about two weeks ago. She’s Senator Edward Walsh’s granddaughter, and just turned thirteen.’

Jill looked up at him; determination in her voice. ‘We have to get them out, Gregg. We have to.’

‘I know,’ he said, not taking his eyes from Alicia. ‘Can you tell us anything about where you were kept?’

‘You mean the room?’

‘Yeah, tell us about the room.’

‘Not much to tell, really. It was small with two beds and a little window that had bars over the outside.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s it.’

‘And when the tall lady came to let you out, what did you see outside the room?’

‘She unlocked the door and told me to follow her. I thought she was going to kill me or something.’

Gregg saw Jill tighten her grip on Alicia’s hand.

Alicia looked at her then back to Gregg. ‘I picked up my school blazer but she told me to leave it behind, then we went downstairs to this big hall where the front doors are and then into a kitchen. That’s where she made me write the note.’

‘Carry on, honey,’ Gregg urged.

‘She opened a door in the floor and we went down some steps to another door, she unlocked it and then pulled me into a small room.’

‘And what was in that room?’

‘Just two more doors in the floor, a wooden one and an iron one, well, I think it was iron. Oh, and a table with about twenty flashlights on it.’

‘The wooden door, Alicia, is that the one she sent you through?’

‘Yes, she told me to go down the steps and straight on until I got to the end of the tunnel, then turn right and climb out to find you. But I saw the light from here and that’s why I didn’t go all the way.’

‘What happened to your shoes?’ Jill asked.

Again Alicia shrugged. ‘Don’t know, when I woke up in the room they put me in they weren’t on my feet, neither were my socks.’

‘Probably to slow them down if they escaped,’ Gregg said.

‘Alicia,’ Nick said. ‘You know this door you mentioned, the one in the kitchen floor? Is it in the centre of the room, or was it tucked away in a corner?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It was in the middle of the floor.’

‘Okay, thank you.’

Gregg frowned. ‘Why, Nick?’

‘Had the hatch had been in a more secluded spot rather than smack bang in the centre of a floor, we might have been able to get in there unseen and have a look round. See exactly what we’re up against.’

‘Nice idea, Nick, but we haven’t got the time to get up there to look the place over. So I’m hoping Alicia can fill in some of those details for us.’ He turned back to her. ‘Okay, Alicia, just a couple more questions and were done. Now, how many others did you see before you left?’

‘Others?’

‘Yeah, people like the tall lady.’

She shook her head. ‘No others. There were other rooms on the landing and downstairs but all the doors were closed.’

‘Well did you hear anyone else while you were there?’

‘When I was locked in the room I heard voices coming from below, where the kitchen is, but I don’t know what they said.’

‘And what about the main front doors in that hall you mentioned, did you see any big bolts holding them shut?’

‘I saw a big wooden beam across them, I don't remember any bolts, though.’

Gregg touched her shoulder. ‘Alicia, you’ve been very helpful, and very, very brave. And as soon as we get out of here we’re taking you straight home to your mom.’

Alicia smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘All of you.’