by steve higgs
The short man found a doorway that offered some protection so he could shoot back, as others tried to get back around the corner. Now there was a gun fight and it was going to reduce the number against us even more. I was both jubilant and sickened as another one of Lord Hale’s caterers tried to get back to safety only to get hit and sprawl across the floor.
Lord Hale had escaped, that much I could see, though I wasn’t sure which way he had gone until he ran past a camera displaying its feed on one of the monitors. He was heading for the doors and he was going to get away!
I slapped Patience on her shoulder. ‘I’m going after him. If this thing comes back on,’ I jabbed a finger at the console, ‘help the guys. This isn’t over yet.’
‘Take the gun!’ she yelled after me.
I was already running for the door. ‘You keep it in case they get to the control room.’
I didn’t like guns. I saw the need for them, but only because it was impossible to uninvent them. Others had them and were prepared to use them, therefore those who would protect the normal folk, had to have them too. I felt better leaving it with Patience though. The delay created by Alexander meant that Lord Hale’s men might arrive late enough for the console to reboot. That being the case, their target would still be the control room.
I was going after Lord Hale and he looked to be unarmed.
All the doors were still open, which meant I could run up the stairs to get back to the ground floor. I expected to have to find a circuitous route to get there in order to avoid the gun fight, but it had ended. Peering around a corner, the position Alexander had been in was now vastly devoid of a hulking killer, the corridor filled only with the groans and whimpers of the wounded.
I stepped around them, picking up guns as I went; no sense in leaving them armed, then raced through the house and up the stairs to the ground floor. As I came through the door at the top of the stairs, I heard a click and it slammed closed behind me; the control room was live again.
‘Wha-haa-haa!’ the monster’s voice echoed through the house.
Oh, lord, Patience was at the console.
‘I’m gonna get you, tiny white man.’ The monster now had racial motivation it seemed. It was almost embarrassing, but I ran on, across the central atrium which contained the sweeping double staircase and onwards toward the entrance lobby where I was sure Lord Hale had been heading.
As I came towards it, I saw him there, smashing his fists against the doors in frustration. They must have locked again just when he got to them. I wanted to get to him, however, between him and me, was Alexander, his killer’s giant ham fists opening and closing as he stared at Lord Hale and relished the task ahead.
Mist started to seep in, filling the airspace around my feet to obscure them. Ahead of me Alexander began advancing toward his target.
A ghostly spectre appeared from the ceiling, swooping down toward Alexander with a terrifiying screech. Patience was having a great time pressing all the buttons.
Lord Hale held up a hand to ward off his attacker. ‘Alexander, I’m not who you think. You don’t want to kill me.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Alexander replied calmly. ‘I should have got the role. I was far better qualified to be the monster. I even believed the curse was true. I wanted to use the monster suit to kill you, just to make the legend live on. They took it from me though, those damned dinner guests, so I’ll just have to wring your neck instead.’
The time for talk was over, Alexander closing the distance down the corridor with nowhere for Lord Hale to go. It shouldn’t make any difference to me if Alexander killed Lord Hale, but I wanted them both in custody and once he was done with the man he wanted dead, would he then turn his attention on me?
As Alexander closed in, rescue for Lord Hale came in the most ironic form. Along the corridor that led to the large front doors, many rooms opened to the left and right. Lord Hale couldn’t get to the first ones before Alexander so was affectively trapped, but just before the hulking killer got to the final pair of rooms, the monster stepped in front of him.
Alexander was so shocked by the gruesome creature’s unexpected appearance that he threw himself backwards to get away. The large bear-like creature with its glowing eyes and spindly arms stared down impassively at the man on the floor. Then the killer chuckled. ‘You gave me quite the fright. I know it’s a suit though. I’ve been in it,’ he bragged. ‘Now step aside or I’ll kill you first.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said the monster in its awful razor blade on a chalkboard voice.
The stand off lasted half a second; just long enough for Alexander to make a decision and attack. The monster saw it coming, parried Alexander’s leading arm away and kicked out his left knee with a foot coming left to right. As Alexander’s weight buckled, a chop to his throat and elbow to his head put him back down on the floor. At which point, Patience operated the trap door he had come to rest on.
He made a girlish squeal of fright as gravity sucked him down, followed a second later by a heavy crashing noise at he hit the floor below; the chute was still out of place. I ran to stare through the hole to find Tempest and his father wrapping the semi-conscious killer up with parcel tape.
Were we done? Had we won? It seemed so unlikely that I found myself nervously waiting for the next surprise attack.
The monster loomed over me, reached up with both hands and pulled off its own head. ‘That was fun,’ said Big Ben, a goofy grin on his face as usual. Then, in an explosion of movement, he jabbed out an elbow to hit Lord Hale in the face. The old man had been trying to get to a discarded crowbar still lying on the floor from their art-stealing activities.
‘Hey, Tempest,’ I called down through the trap door hole.
‘Yes, babe?’
‘Got any of that parcel tape left?’
Pesky Kids. Sunday, December 11th 0622hrs
With Lord Hale’s hands and feet bound, we set about the task of making sure we had accounted for all twelve bad guys and treated their wounds. Lily was working overtime, dressing bullet holes, a task made all the more difficult because Patience and I insisted their hands and feet be bound before she did anything.
Everyone chipped in. Well, almost everyone. When Gina and the professors asked how they could best help, I asked them to find their way to the tower. I had a hunch that was yet to play out. Mary hadn’t asked how she could help, instead announcing that she was going to help everyone by finding refreshments. Ten minutes later, she returned carrying a heavy tray loaded with drinks from the bar.
We gathered near the entrance lobby, assembling the caterers while Patience made very sure to read each one of them their rights. It was her bust, twelve arrests in one night plus a major art theft, several murders and arson prevented. The chief constable was going to love her; not even Chief Inspector Quinn could claim he had a hand in this one.
Alexander remained in the basement. He was just too heavy to carry back upstairs.
Our dinner party adventure had lasted all night, the first streaks of dawn beginning to light the world outside when the flashing lights of approaching police cars could be seen in the distance. They were still a mile off when we heard a knock at the front door.
We all looked at each other, curious expressions wondering who it could be. Tempest was nearest, swinging the door open and then laughing when he saw who was outside.
‘It’s not funny, Tempest,’ snapped Jagjit. ‘Alice and I have had a terrible night. The car broke down, we couldn’t get a phone signal, we…’ His voice tailed off as he stepped inside and saw the array of broken, battered, and beaten bodies, most of which were bound with tape like prisoners of war.
Alice came in after him, the newlyweds holding hands. ‘Looks like we might have had it easy, sweetie.’
There was nothing any of us could do but laugh.
Two minutes later the police arrived. The first car contained Chief Inspector Quinn, who leapt out to lead the armed response unit as they slid to a gravel-slewing halt nex
t to him. I let Patience go outside to meet them, hanging in the doorway to watch with many of the other dinner guests. She directed the paramedics to Dr Parrish, who was rushed out and away minutes later while Patience explained events to her chief inspector.
There was one important thing left to do; something I had been keeping in reserve for the right moment.
‘They are all under arrest, yes?’ confirmed Chief Inspector Quinn.
‘Every one of them. I read them their rights myself,’ confirmed Patience. She was getting appreciative looks from all the other cops.
‘Then we should determine which need medical treatment and make sure that happens and take the uninjured directly to the station. This is Lord Hale?’ he asked, pointing to the elderly man sitting on the floor.
‘Yes, sir,’ she replied.
‘Actually, it’s not.’ All heads turned my way. ‘This is.’ I beckoned to my right where Gina and the professors were waiting just out of view. They came into sight with an elderly man on Gina’s arm. He was upright and walking but had the gait and shuffling steps of a man in his twilight years. Just behind him was Travis, who they had also tucked away in the tower once he had escorted us to dinner.
Patience’s head swung to look at him and then at the Lord Hale on the floor and then back at the new one. ‘So, who’s this?’
Sniggering to myself as another line from Scooby-Doo ran through my head, I said, ‘Let’s just take off the mask and see.’ In two strides I had covered the distance to him, forcing Chief Inspector Quinn to take a step back. I reached behind his head and pushed my hands down inside his shirt collar until I found the edge. Then I pulled the whole mask off in one go.
‘Ah, nuts,’ said Patience. It was Matthew the hot porter she drooled over on our way in.
He looked really angry, but I couldn’t help myself from begging him, ‘Can you please say, “I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for you pesky kids”? Can you do that for me?’ I was entertaining myself unnecessarily and getting odd looks from everyone else, but I didn’t care. I was still riding on a high and surprised we had won.
I got to quiz Alexander as they were loading him into an ambulance and discovered that he had sent the doctored invitations. Unbeknownst to Tempest and his dad, Alexander broke his pelvis when he fell through the trap door. Not that any of us felt that bad about it, but they gave him morphine and it made him more pliable; I doubt he would have answered questions without the drugs. He had no idea that Matthew was up to anything; he actually thought they were friends but plotted to kill everyone during the first run through because he believed he could pin it on Brian. Brian’s body would go missing, leaving the police to believe he killed Kevin and Lord Hale, Dr Parrish and others. The dinner guests would be witnesses to say they had seen the monster attacking people.
It was actually quite neat. His murderous revenge ruined Matthew’s grand theft; his entire team was a unit of retired military personnel the police had been after for some time but couldn’t be sure even existed because they left no trace. Ever. Just a few whispers and the faint hint of a clue every now and then.
The police found burn points all over the house: a toaster set to short out and sat next to a pile of old newspapers; an unattended candle in a bedroom with a blanket next to it which would have helped the fire leap to a curtain. It went on. Matthew would have retrieved Lord Hale and Travis from the tower, put them downstairs with us and set the house to burn. Evidence gone. No one would look for traces of oil paintings in a pile of ashes.
I think we were all lucky to survive.
Miscount. Sunday, December 11th 0908hrs
An hour later, our wounds were dressed, we had on fresh clothes and our bags were packed. We were all glad to be leaving. Lord Hale had thanked us quite profusely for saving his life and his house and his future business.
The escape room / murder mystery thing had all been his idea. He was the one who hired Dr Parrish, a man whose knowledge of the macabre enabled them to devise all the wonderful tricks, special effects and gadgets. The story of the monster was real. The monster wasn’t, of course, but it was a family legend where truth hadn’t been allowed to get in the way of a good story. The library in the sub-basement was purpose-built for the enterprise but modelled on a real room in the house where one of his ancestors had indeed put much time and effort into researching the legend. Lord Hale had fudged a few facts, changed the dates when his ancestors died to make it look like they had all popped off on their eightieth birthdays and there you had it: a wonderful concept for an ultimate escape room.
He expected to make millions, though now he had a number of setbacks to overcome, not least that most of his staff were dead. Lord Hale was seventy-nine and I couldn’t help wondering, as he waved to us from the steps of his house, what might happen when his next birthday came around again.
We all left at the same time, the academics and the witches, Big Ben and Patience, who were travelling together surprisingly and probably heading back to his place, Jagjit and Alice, Tempest’s parents and then he and I.
The long procession of cars peeled away and snaked back along the road from Hale Manor to civilisation. A yawn split my face, forcing my eyes closed as I put a hand over my mouth. I was exhausted but daylight and natural rhythms were keeping me awake. Tempest seemed okay but a concussion wasn’t something to mess with so he was going to get checked out today and I was driving in the meantime.
Following Big Ben’s car, my mind on idle as I tried to stay awake, I felt a niggle at the back of my brain. ‘Did we miss something?’ I asked. I got no answer and looked across to find Tempest was already asleep. ‘I missed something,’ I said to myself, wracking my brain to make it show me what it was.
Ahead of me, I saw the figure on Big Ben’s back seat sit up to show itself. The short man was in the back of his car! That’s what I missed. My sleep deprived brain looked for twelve people plus Alexander. It should have been the fake Lord Hale plus twelve plus Alexander. I had miscounted!
Big Ben’s car swerved severely, careening across to the other lane and back again as his brake lights flared. I saw a flurry of arms and legs as a tussle broke out in the car. There was nothing I could do except watch.
The car stopped suddenly, the tyres locking up and I slammed on my brakes too.
The passenger door flew open, Patience’s bum appearing as she backed out of the car dragging the short man with her. I could hear a flurry of expletives as she laid into him, punching him in his face and whacking on his arms when he finally got his hands up to protect himself.
Of course, protecting your face in front of Patience just means you have exposed something else. Patience appeared to get both of them with her knee, a huff of breath escaping the man as he sagged to the floor.
Dancing back to see if he had any more fight in him, Patience gave him a second, then looked across and gave me a thumbs up. A final kick pushed him out of her way so she could reach in to get some cuffs from her bag.
As Big Ben loaded the short man into the cargo compartment of his utility vehicle, Tempest let out a snort in his sleep. I put the car back into gear and pulled away again, promising myself that next week would be less insane than the weekend had been. Then I remembered the werewolf case I had already started to investigate and sighed.
The End
Author note:
Hello, dear reader,
As I write this final note it is a cool Tuesday morning in South East England. Christmas is right around the corner, my four-year-old son showing remarkable resistance as he steadfastly only opens one door on his advent calendar a day despite knowing there are both Lego superheroes and chocolates inside. The decorations are up, the elf is visiting daily, and I have the whole family coming to my house on the twenty-fifth. The last bit feels a bit like a threat actually, but I’m kind of looking forward to having a full house and showing off my culinary skills.
We are not particularly commercial, there will be no outlandish spend on jewel
lery or new electronic gadgets, though Hunter will, of course, get some new toys. His little face and the excitement in the build up to the big day is what makes this time of year so special.
I am gifted to have so many great people around me, a belief really driven home when yesterday, a couple we went on holiday with a few weeks ago, announced their divorce. Their little girl is three weeks younger than Hunter.
I am now several weeks into my career as a writer with no other career to underpin me. It is still nervous days, though I have some great books coming (I think). You will have to be the judge of that, but in the winter months, there is very little gardening to distract me, so I expect to get a lot of words down before the cold, dark days are through.
If you pick this book up months or years after first publication in December 2019, you will find hopefully find that there are lots more books by me out there for you to enjoy. Anastasia Aaronson and the False Gods series is my current work in progress. I have great hope for her to bring me commercial success, but we shall see. Whatever the case, what I write are just words until you, the reader, give them life by picturing them in your imagination.
Thank you.
Steve Higgs
PS. There is a FREE book on offer which you may have already found. Under a Blue Moon is the origin story to the Blue Moon Investigation Agency universe. You can find that on Amazon but there is another FREE story – Zombie Granny, which you can only get from me by signing up to my Newsletter.
It’s a fun story and it sits neatly between book 3 – Amanda Harper Paranormal Detective and book 4 – The Klowns of Kent. If you want it, you need only ask. Please click the link below and tell me where to send it. Here’s the link:
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