That was what they wanted, of course. They wanted the one thing she couldn’t tell them. The thing she mustn’t tell them. She frowned and made an attempt to shake her head.
Warren leaned even closer. “You’ve got to tell us,” he whispered. “Or you’ll have to stay here forever.”
He nipped Emma’s cheek painfully, between his fingernails. Feeling his power, and her helplessness. In a minute, Emma thought, he’s going to start enjoying it.
She had a sudden, shameful memory of feeling like that herself. When she and the boys were working out how to save Hope, they’d cornered Warren in the street. You don’t want us poking around in the conservatory, she’d cooed. We’ll have to look for your sister. When his mouth trembled, she’d had an exhilarating sense of control. He’d have done anything he was told, she’d said to Tom afterward.
Now she was the helpless one, and he was doing his best to frighten her. Emma felt the stirrings of a different kind of panic, deep and dark. For the first time, she understood that she might get hurt.
She took a long, slow breath, determined to stay calm. Wrenching her head around, she looked Warren straight in the face. Raising her eyebrows, she opened her eyes wide and shrugged her shoulders, miming as hard as she could.
I can’t help you. I don’t know anything.
Warren’s mouth tightened and he leaned forward so that their noses were almost touching. “You do know where she is,” he hissed. “We heard you on the phone. You’ve got her locked up and you have to tell us where. Because she’s ours.”
Emma shook her head fiercely, trying to get away from the feel of his breath and the glare of his eyes. But there was no way of escaping. This is how he felt, said a little voice in her head. You had him trapped exactly like this and you made him do something he’d been told not to do.
She forced herself not to listen. What they’d done was different. It was all about rescuing Hope. What Warren wanted was to get her back into this horrible prison. Emma clamped her mouth shut, determined not to give in.
When they took the gag away, she wasn’t going to tell them anything. She was going to resist everything they tried—and escape if she could.
Warren saw the stubborn look in her eyes. He frowned and sat back on his heels. “She is ours,” he said. “Look.”
He started to fumble in his pocket, pulling out pieces of paper and dropping them impatiently as he hunted for something. When he found it, he held it up and shone the flashlight at it, so that Emma could see.
It was a photograph of a pretty little baby girl, with her hair tied up in a wispy bunch on top of her head. She was grinning happily and waving her arms at the camera.
It took Emma a full minute to realize that she was looking at a picture of Hope.
“You see?” Warren said emphatically. “She was here all the time. From the beginning. If she has to live anywhere else, she’ll die.”
Helplessly, Emma stared at the photograph. How could anyone be so wrong? Didn’t he understand what his parents had done to Hope? She’d started out as the baby in the photograph—animated and happy and normal—and ended up as a stunted, miserable captive, so afraid of making too much noise that she hit out at her own face.
If Emma had been able to speak, she would have argued and shouted and made Warren understand. But all she could do now was pull faces and grunt. And what use was that?
For a second longer, Warren waved the photograph in front of her eyes. Then he glanced suddenly over his shoulder. As he scrambled to his feet, Emma realized what he’d heard.
Footsteps were coming quickly across the floor above their heads. Someone else was approaching the opening. Mr. Armstrong! she thought, before she could stop herself.
And she felt a jolt of fear that went through her whole body.
10
BUT IT WASN’T MR. ARMSTRONG. IT WAS A WOMAN. A SMALL, slight woman, with a long tail of hair that hung down into the opening as she leaned forward.
Emma had forgotten all about Mrs. Armstrong. She’d dismissed her as a passive, frightened person totally dominated by her husband. But now, as she recognized her, one more piece of the puzzle slid into place and she began to understand her mistake. She remembered the woman in the van.
It was her. She was the one who trapped me.
Mrs. Armstrong peered down for a second and then swung herself expertly through the trapdoor. Crouching under the low roof, she came quickly down the secret room, watching Emma as she came.
For an instant, the two of them stared at each other. Emma heard Warren start breathing faster and she thought, He’s nervous. He doesn’t know what she’s going to do. She tried to hold her eyes steady, but her own breathing quickened, too.
When Mrs. Armstrong reached them, she knelt down on the black plastic, still not shifting her eyes from Emma’s. “I want to know where my daughter is,” she said.
Emma tried to shake her head vigorously, but the cord attached to her braid was too tight. All she could do was grunt behind the tape, getting as close as she could to the words she needed to say. We haven’t got her. It’s not like that. But even while she was making the sounds, she knew they were incomprehensible.
“I gave up my life to keep Hope safe,” Mrs. Armstrong said softly. “For years I haven’t had any friends, or a job, or a holiday. Just her. I’m not going to let anyone take her away from me.”
In the dim light, she looked painfully like Hope, with the same narrow mouth, the same sharp jaw, and finely arched eyebrows. It was terrifyingly easy to imagine Hope herself kneeling just like that in the middle of the black plastic. Except that she wouldn’t have had anyone with her. She would have been down there on her own.
You chose to give up your life! Emma wanted to shout. But Hope didn’t have any choice. You stole hers from her. The words beat inside her head clamoring to be spoken.
Mrs. Armstrong lifted a hand. For the first time, Emma saw that she was holding a small plastic bottle. She brought it around into the flashlight and tilted it slightly so that Emma could see the water inside.
“If you promise to keep quiet, I’ll take off the tape and give you some of this,” she said.
Emma’s eyes locked on to the water bottle and she swallowed dryly behind the brown tape.
“Well?” The raised hand gave the bottle a tempting little shake.
Emma knew what she had to do. She took a quick breath and nodded, as well as she could. Mrs. Armstrong leaned forward and ripped the tape off her mouth in a single, quick movement. It felt like having the skin ripped away, but Emma didn’t let the pain put her off. She opened her mouth and looked up at the square opening, yelling as loudly as she could.
“HELP! I’M A PRISONER UNDER THE FLOOR! GET ME OUT!”
But even while she was shouting, she could hear that it was no use. The earth around soaked up her voice, and any small sounds that reached the outside were hidden by the noise of the television. When she looked back at Mrs. Armstrong, she could see that it had all been planned. She’d been meant to shout, so that she would understand how pointless it was.
When she stopped, Mrs. Armstrong leaned forward and slapped her face. Just hard enough to hurt. “Liar,” she said evenly.
“Why should I tell you the truth?” Emma croaked, hoarse from the shouting. “I don’t owe you anything. You kidnapped me.”
Mrs. Armstrong shrugged. “Please yourself. But if you don’t cooperate, you’ll never get out of here.”
“Yes I will,” Emma said fiercely. “Robert and Tom will guess where I am and they’ll call the police.”
“Not yet,” Mrs. Armstrong said. She sat back on her heels and smiled a small, tight smile. “They think you’re staying at your friend’s house. Remember?”
Emma felt the cold of the earth seep into her bones. She could hear her own voice, calling out to the boys. I’m going to stop over at her house. . . . See you tomorrow night. Where had Mrs. Armstrong been hiding? How had she overheard that?
“No one’s going
to come looking for you,” Mrs. Armstrong murmured. “Not for a long, long time. We’ve got plenty of time to persuade you to tell us what we want to know.”
It would have been less frightening if she’d sounded angry. But her voice was low and even, without any emotion. She unscrewed the top of the water bottle and tilted it again, letting a drop of water fall onto Emma’s hand.
Emma swallowed and tried to ignore it. (How long could a person survive without anything to drink?)
“A couple of words will do for now,” Mrs. Armstrong said mildly, letting another drop fall. “Just give us a hint and you can have some water.”
Emma licked her lips. “Ask your husband what happened to Hope,” she muttered. “He was there.”
Mrs. Armstrong didn’t reply to that. But her mouth tensed and she started to pour the water straight out onto the ground, in a slow, continuous stream, right in front of Emma’s face. When the bottle was empty, she dropped it and pulled a roll of brown tape out of her pocket.
“No!” Emma began to move her head furiously, trying to avoid the tape. “You don’t need to do that again. No one can hear me, anyway.”
It was all useless. Mrs. Armstrong pulled off a length of tape. Then she caught Emma’s bottom jaw firmly with one hand, jamming it shut and digging her fingers in under the chin. With her other hand she plastered the tape across Emma’s mouth, running it from ear to ear to make a tight, efficient gag.
“I know you’ve got Hope,” she said. “Do you think I’m a fool?” Leaning forward, she snatched at Emma’s braid, tugging it free and bringing the end around to flap in her face. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize one of her braids? She did this, didn’t she?”
She plastered another loop of tape around Emma’s jaw and then took a pair of pointed scissors out of her pocket. Before she cut the tape, she held them for a second in front of Emma’s eyes.
“Next time I take off the tape, you will tell me,” she said coldly. “You’ll tell me everything.” The she started to snip.
She began with the parcel tape, cutting the roll free and letting it fall to the ground. But she didn’t stop there. Pushing Emma’s head sideways, she bent closer, working the scissors quickly over her head. Snip, snip, snip.
Emma heard Warren draw in his breath sharply, but it took her a moment to realize what Mrs. Armstrong was doing. As soon as she did, she began to wriggle and grunt in protest, but that was useless. She was rolled firmly onto her face.
“Hold her down, Warren,” Mrs. Armstrong said crisply.
He threw his weight across Emma’s back and she was pushed down onto the wet black plastic. All she could see was the spilled water around her head and the scraps of paper that Warren had pulled out when he was hunting for Hope’s picture.
She strained at the parcel tape, trying to open her mouth enough to let some of the water leak in, but it was impossible. The water lapped tormentingly at the tape and the words on the paper mocked her, dancing in front of her eyes. They were disconnected and incomprehensible, like the weird things Warren had muttered at her when he thought she was dead. Surreal nonsense, scribbled in capital letters.
DRY ME AT HOME . . . MY OTHER DAME . . . HAMMERED TOY . . . MARY THE DEMO . . .
They were totally mad—like everything else in that horrible nightmare house. The phrases danced tauntingly in her head, in time to the snipping of the scissors and the slither of dirty water over the black plastic.
TREAD MY HOME . . . MAD EM THEORY. . . MEMORY DEATH . . .
At last the scissors made their final snip and Mrs. Armstrong stood up, tugging at Emma’s arm to roll her onto her back again. The long red braid was dangling from her other hand.
“This is just the beginning,” she said. Her voice was still cold, but this time there was an edge to it. Emma could hear that she was near breaking point. “It will be worse next time—and every time after that. I won’t give up until I get Hope back here.”
She nodded at Warren and he scuttled back to the trapdoor, taking the flashlight with him. When he had heaved himself out, she picked up the empty bottle and the roll of tape and followed, taking Emma’s braid with her. Emma had a last glimpse of her familiar red hair gleaming in the winter sunshine and then it was gone. The trapdoor thumped down, the carpet slithered over it, and there was a soft thud as the television was lifted back into its place.
Emma was alone, in the dark, lying in a pool of cold water. Her clothes were already soaked. Now, when she tried to move, the water slurped across the black plastic, washing against the bare skin of her neck.
She hadn’t had short hair since she was five.
Her hair had always been the first thing people noticed. Who’s Emma Doherty? Oh, you know. She’s that girl with the wonderful red hair. Now, when she turned her head, all she felt was the prickle of stubble and the chilly movement of the water.
She didn’t feel like Emma Doherty anymore. Emma Doherty was a bright, capable girl who sorted out everyone else’s problems. She was a different girl—thirsty and bald and terrified.
She let her face fall down onto the wet black plastic and cried, without being able to wipe the tears from her face or the snot from her nose. She’d lost herself. She was no one.
The water lapped against her cheeks, and Warren’s crazy pieces of paper brushed her forehead. It was too dark to read them now, but the meaningless phrases had lodged in her mind, mocking her with their nonsense.
MAD EM THEORY . . . TREAD MY HOME . . . HAMMERED TOY . . . MY OTHER DAME . . . MEMORY DEATH . . .
Hammer. Death. Mad. They were nonsense, but they seemed to threaten darkness and violence, stirring up the terrors at the bottom of her mind. She wanted to be positive and plan an escape. I’m Emma Doherty, and I don’t let anything beat me. But how could she be Emma when the things that made her special—the briskness, the upbeat efficiency, even the hair—had all been stripped away? What was left?
Mary the Demo.
The nonsense words resounded in her head, making a raw new picture.
Mary the Demo had short, spiky hair, thick with earthy dust from the torn black plastic. Mary was afraid of the little rustling noises that came through the darkness. She couldn’t keep herself cheerful. She was afraid of hunger and thirst and cold. Afraid of being trapped—
I’m NOT like that. That’s NOT me.
But the picture grew, sucking the strength out of her. Mary was different from Emma. Emma had never thought of wondering how Robert had felt when he was up in the nightbird’s tree with his leg slashed open. When he saw the familiar, terrible view below him and knew that he was shrunken and trapped. But Mary thought about it now. She began to imagine the agony and the panic and the terror—
No! I’m NOT going to give in!
Emma screwed up her eyes and pushed the thoughts away, wishing that Robert was there. For the first time in her life, she needed him. He could have told her how to survive.
11
“YOU SMELL,” WARREN SAID.
He was there when Emma woke, squatting beside her again. She couldn’t believe that he’d come without waking her, but he was there, shining the flashlight full into her eyes. His face was so close that she could have spat onto the end of his nose if her mouth wasn’t taped shut.
“You smell,” he said again. “You need a wash.”
She was completely at his mercy. For an instant her mind raced, imagining horrors. As long as he left the tape in place, he could do anything that came into his weird little head. Anything at all . . .
Then her common sense kicked in. Don’t be so melodramatic. He’s not a Dracula-psycho. He’s just a pathetic fat boy who’s trying to scare you. Stop giving in and THINK.
Warren ran a finger lightly up and down one side of her head, rubbing at the stubble. Was he gloating? Or was he sorry to see her hair cut off? There was no way to tell. Emma realized how little she knew about him.
There might even be a way of getting him on to her side, if only she could find out some more. Bu
t how could she do that? She had no way of asking questions, and no way of watching him, except in this strange underground setting. What could she do to catch him off guard?
As an experiment, she tried pulling faces. She tilted her head to one side and smiled behind the sticky tape, half comic and half rueful.
The hand that was rubbing her bristly hair stopped dead, just above her left ear. Warren leaned closer, peering at her. She let him look for a second—and then winked.
Like lightning, Warren pulled his hand away. He sat back on his heels and the flashlight wavered sideways so that Emma saw his face for the first time. He looked nervous and uncertain.
That wasn’t what she’d meant to achieve, but at least she’d had some kind of effect. What could she try next?
There wasn’t a great deal of choice. She tilted her head the other way, raising one eyebrow, as if she were asking a question. But Warren just kept very still, frowning warily.
If Emma could, she would have shaken him. What do you think I’m going to do? Eat you? For goodness’ sake, REACT! How could he be so frightened of someone who was completely wrapped up in tape?
Maybe it would be better if she tried to make him laugh. She thought for a second and then stuck her tongue into her left cheek, bulging it out while she opened her eyes wide and looked to the right. She counted up to three and reversed the movement. And then did it again.
It was hard work and it made her eyes feel strange, but she kept it up for several seconds. Then she stopped and grinned again. The most uncomplicated, friendly grin she could manage under the circumstances.
“Why are you doing that?” Warren muttered shakily. “Stop it.”
She shrugged and raised her eyebrows again. Then, still smiling, she started wiggling her ears.
For a moment, Warren obviously had no idea what she was doing. He kept looking nervously at her eyes and nose and mouth, waiting for the next movement. It was only when she rolled her head—first one way and then the other—that he saw her ears going up and down.
The Nightmare Game Page 10