by W W Walker
Then they knew that within the next few seconds he’d be coming around the back.
Chapter Forty-six
Rhianna was finally free of her lower confines. She stretched her legs and arched her back while still lying on the floor. The freedom she felt was heavenly in that hell. Her hands were still bound, but at least now she could walk…or run.
She struggled to rise to her feet. She felt giddy as if she’d topple over as soon as she got upright. But still, she did it and held herself erect against a wall. She felt so cold. Why hadn’t she worn her jacket when she’d gone around to see Tom?
Tom? Where was he now? Was he even alive? And what of the other women? What was happening to them? Had the man got them too?
She stretched out her arms, while they were still tied together. She would have to use her fingers to feel for obstacles. She was blind now. Her hands were her only way of seeing. “Hello,” she called softly. She was aware that the man could be back any second. For all she knew, he could be standing in front of her as she walked right into him. And then he could kill her, just like that.
“Hello?” she repeated as she kept walking.
When she heard someone calling her name, she found herself at a door. She reached down for the handle and pushed it open.
“Rhianna,” Kiki called. “Is that you?”
Rhianna’s darkness prevailed but to hear Kiki’s voice was like an angel reaching out to guide her. “Yes, Kiki it’s me?”
“Thank god. Can you untie us?”
“I can’t see you.” Her voice cracked into a sob. Without her vision, she was simply fumbling around in the dark. She had no idea how difficult it was. If she ever got her eyesight back, she’d never complain about anything again.
“We’re on the floor,” Kiki said.
“Who’s we?”
“Tyrone. He’s here. He’s been badly hurt, but he’ll be okay. We just need to get him to a hospital.”
Rhianna’s foot hit another foot and she nearly stumbled. Instead of straightening up, she got down on her knees. It was easier that way. She felt her way along the floor and touched legs and arms and then a face. It was Kiki’s. She was sobbing. “Don’t cry,” she said. “We’re going to get out of this. I just know it.”
“We have to hurry. He could be back at any moment.”
Rhianna kept her thoughts to herself. But all she could think of was if the man came back, they were all going to die.
Kiki felt blessed. To have someone else there, appearing from the dark like an angel saviour was what she’d wished for all along. “Ty,” she whispered softly in his ear. Someone has come to help us. Don’t give up.”
He was unconscious and she didn’t know if that was a blessing or not. He couldn’t feel the pain, that was true, but when they were untied, how were they going to get him out of there to a hospital? That wasn’t her only fear. What if Drake Fisher came back to claim her?
She knew Fisher had a soft spot for her. She’d always known it and last year, when she noticed he’d got a job as a handyman working around Seaview, it had freaked her out a bit. She thought he’d been stalking her, but then when she saw no evidence of it, she forgot about him and went on with life as if he’d never existed. At work, last week, when she went to him to ask him to report to Roger Lang’s office, was the first time she’d spoken to him in a long time.
She watched him go in. Roger’s office had full-length windows, and anyone could see in if they wanted to. That’s how she’d seen Jade too.
She knew Fisher was going to be let go.
She felt bad for the other two that were laid off, but not for Drake Fisher. The sooner he left the building the better, she thought at the time. It wasn’t that he’d done anything bad. It was just his demeanour, the way he looked sometimes, the way his eyes seemed to penetrate like they were lasers intruding on your soul. He wasn’t a good looking guy either and he wasn’t married. In fact, according to his records, he still lived with his mother.
Who knew what was going on his mind when he’d captured her and tied her up to Tyrone? What the hell had he been thinking? And Ty, why had he beaten him like that? Tyrone had managed to talk earlier. He’d told her that Fisher had cut his leg from behind after he left her house early this morning. And after he’d dragged him to the empty house, he’d beaten him while he was tied up, and Ty couldn’t fight back, nor resist.
“He wanted my car keys,” he told Kiki in gasps, “But I’d accidentally left them inside your house and I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t want him to go looking for them whilst you were alone.”
She had cried then, cried for the man beneath her, for his bravery in the face of adversity.
Now, she could feel the rope around her feet loosening. Her foot was free. Thank god. Now her hand. Thank god. She could finally move the right side of her body. With her other hand still tied, despite the pain of her body distorting to a different position, she managed to work her way off Ty. Then he breathed as if he’d been underwater and he’d finally found air.
Chapter Forty-seven
Drake saw the door was open and he wondered if the women had fled. That was until he looked inside and saw the old lady in the front room like she was bait. He almost laughed at their ridiculous plan. Whose idea was that? he thought. They’d have to get up earlier in the morning to catch Drake Fisher so easily.
Seeing the old lady inside the room, her yellowed eyes illuminated by the moon finding its way in through the flapping curtains, he was reminded of mother and the occasion of his thirtieth birthday.
She had remained in the bathroom for three hours, talking to him through the gap at the bottom of the door. She’d talked about his cuteness when he was a baby, how he’d made them chuckle with his antics when he was a toddler, how proud they were when he got through school with four GCE O’Levels, and then when he’d gotten the job at Phillips straight out of college. She talked about his birthday and how they could have balloons, jelly and blancmange, presents, and Mars Bars and he softened when she mentioned that one day she would buy him a car.
“So, what do you think, son?” she’d said.
He nodded, until out of his stupor, he realised that she couldn’t see him nodding. “Yes, all right, mother.” He rose to his feet. “You can come out now.”
“I tell you what,” she said. “You go down and put the kettle on and I’ll wait here a while. Then, I’ll come down and make a cuppa and we’ll put a list together for your party. How’s that sound?”
“That sounds good. Okay, I’ll see you when you come down.” He walked down the stairs and into the kitchen to switch on the kettle. It was a warm day in June and the stink from the cellar was wafting up to the lean-to. He should throw some disinfectant down.
He grabbed a piece of string from the messy drawer and a pair of scissors. Then he went back and tied a length of that string to the bannister in the middle of the stairs and hooked the other end to a nail in the wall. He’d hammered that into the skirting board earlier when he’d planned what he was going to do.
He kept silent, waiting for her to emerge from the bathroom.
When she still hadn’t appeared, he called up. “I’ve got the tea brewing, mother,” he said.
Then he waited around the corner with the scissors in his hand, pointing downwards as if it were a dagger.
Now, he imagined the women of Seaview had done the same. Great minds think alike, he chuckled.
Mother had eventually come out of the bathroom, but only when she was sure he had gone, or he’d calmed down. What she didn’t know about her son, was that he could wait for as long as it took, that he had the patience of a saint.
He heard the door open and he heard her at the top trying to look over the banister to see if he was there. Untrusting woman that she was.
She made her descent one step at a time.
He held his breath with a smile on his face as she came halfway down. He heard her reach the middle as she misplaced her step and her ankle sna
pped before she tumbled down sounding like a giant boulder rolling down a mountainside.
At the bottom, she writhed in pain. Her ankle fell at a curious angle and she had a cut on her head where it had banged against the umbrella stand.
In a daze, she looked at his feet standing right next to her. She knew she was dead when she looked up and saw his eyes. When the scissors came plunging down into her neck, she had been right about that.
Yes, how he wished he’d had a wheelchair when he had to drag her body down the hall to the lean-to. It took him a long time to get her there and he was only mildly irritated by the mess her blood made on the linoleum floor, like red tracks left behind a barrow.
When she rolled down those cellar steps and before he closed and locked the door, he thought about his parents, together at last after all those years.
Chapter Forty-eight
From where she was standing, Marigold couldn’t see him waiting outside the open doors, but she knew he was there. The wind still flapped the curtains so hard she feared they’d be ripped from their hooks and then they would really be open to the elements.
What was he waiting for? She held her scissors pointing outwards like a silver dagger.
Next to her, Constance was silently crying and shaking from head to toe. Marigold wondered how much more she could stand. The suspense was clearly playing on her mind as much as it was on Marigolds. And god knows how the others were faring.
She could see Eva and Jade in the shadows across the other side of the room, hiding in an alcove next to the kitchen door. She wished they’d hold their knives closer to their chests, worried he might see the tips of them poking out and they would be rumbled. What was he waiting for?
Gladys was a star. She never complained, even after the day she’d had. She was an amazing woman, a survivor, a credit to them all. There she was, her face stony as she sat in wait, like bait. Marigold was confident he wouldn’t reach her. He’d trip over the string before he got that close. Then they would overpower him, tie him up and let the police deal with him in the morning.
All good in theory.
What the hell was he waiting for?
Eva held her breath without realising she was doing it. At her side, Jade was panting and now she was worried she’d alert the intruder to their presence and all would be lost. She reached up and placed her hand over her mouth. Jade’s eyes widened in the dark. Then she blinked to let Eva know she understood. She pulled up the neck of her sweater and covered her mouth.
Eva had dished out sweaters and coats to everyone before they’d turned off the fire. Eva also wore a woolly hat and gloves since she always felt the cold.
She wanted to peep around the corner of the alcove to see what was happening. Where was the man?
What was he waiting for?
From where she stood at the side of the dresser, next to Marigold, Constance had a clear view of Gladys.
She’d died only five minutes ago.
Constance had seen the look on her face when the heart attack came. Her mouth had gaped open, but, like a trooper, she hadn’t moved from her spot.
Constance’s tears flowed freely when she knew Gladys had gone. She had seen her die, even if the others hadn’t, but only she mattered. Gladys had been her mother for one night only and it broke her heart to realise that their relationship wouldn’t continue after that night. Her heart ached when she saw her just sitting there, unmoving, with her feet flat on the floor. The moon from the back of the house shone inside and illuminated her eyes, making her appear alive and well, like bait.
Now, while she watched the corpse of Gladys, she waited and wondered what the man was waiting for.
Suddenly, as all the women in the room screamed with fright, the man burst in through the front when he should have come through the back.
And as he stood there like a clown ready to do tricks, he had a smile on his face, as if he was about to play a cruel game.
Chapter Forty-nine
The people of Seaview scattered. It would be their one last stand before Drake Fisher got the better of them and killed them one by one.
Eva fled with Jade. They’d tripped over their own trap of string across the doorway to the kitchen. They’d scrambled around on the floor, kicking the door closed before they helped each other rise to their feet. Then they scarpered through the garage to outside where the wind blew, and the rain came down, and the skies looked like hell above their heads. On the eight, outside Eva’s house where inside a killer rampaged, they looked from side to side, wondering where they should go.
Their eyes fell on Rolf’s house next door. No.6. They would go there. And they would hide if it took forever.
Marigold held out the silver scissors as the darkness of the house engulfed her. Her eyes had adjusted to the non-light, but now pixels appeared in them like a kaleidoscope cylinder. She knew what it was. She’d had it before. It was a sugar rush mixed with adrenalin mixed with a lack of food. She slammed her back against the wall after Constance dashed from the side of the dresser.
Marigold held out the scissors in front of her like a sword, waiting for him to pounce.
Constance dashed past the man wondering why he didn’t seem to care if she escaped. It was as if he was just in it for the thrills and when the women panicked, he was immediately pleasured. It spurred him on to go further with his tirade of fear.
After bursting through the front door, as if he’d used a sledgehammer, he’d stepped forward, past Gladys sitting dead in the chair, then he’d paced to the back of the house and calmly closed the doors. When the curtains no longer flapped, and he turned about, it was then that Constance fled from the house, regretfully leaving behind Gladys and her friend Marigold.
She escaped through the front door from where the killer had entered. The whole door had been kicked in and splinters hung from the frame where once the lock had been. Once outside, she didn’t know where to go. She couldn’t go home. He might see her running along the eight and then, by the time she reached it, he would know exactly where she was.
To her left was the small path leading to the big rock, Descend at your own peril…The steps would take her down to the beach where she could hide in the cave. The tide was out now. She would be safe. But the wind was still blowing like a gale. Should she even attempt the steps she had already climbed down twice that day?
She’d have to try. She had no choice.
Kiki was released from her shackles. Finally. Her saviour, Rhianna had loosened the binds that tethered her to Tyrone and now she was frantically grabbing and grasping and pulling at the rope on Tyrone’s limbs.
As she fumbled, she looked up to see the girl with the ponytail. Her eyes were badly bruised and red raw, as if she’d had something sprayed on them. No wonder she couldn’t see. Now Kim would have to be her eyes and get them all out of there.
But what of Ty?
She guided Rhianna’s hands to his ankles, putting her fingers between the ropes. “Do the best you can,” she rushed. She went to the sink and tried the tap, but the water was off. Damn.
Wait.
She buried her head in the cupboard under the sink, praying the plumbing was the same as hers. From memory, in the dark, she found the stopcock. She turned the water back on. Underneath were some old rags, which she soaked with water from the tap and went back to Ty, pressing the cloths against his face and squeezing water into his open mouth. He moaned as he was refreshed.
“He’s free,” Rhianna said.
“Thank you.” Kiki bent down and spoke softly in his ear. “Ty, wake up. Can you get up? Can you walk?”
But he remained unconscious.
“I can’t leave him. I can’t,” Kiki cried as she felt Rhianna next to her on the floor.
“I’ll stay,” Rhianna said. “He’ll be okay. You go and get help.”
“I couldn’t…”
“Look, you’re the only one who can get out of here. You have to leave if you want to save us.”
Kiki l
ooked at the girl who was now the guardian of her man on the floor. She kissed her forehead and then stood up, charging out of the house as if their lives depended on it.
It did.
Rhianna heard her leave. Now she was alone with Tyrone. She tried to rouse him, but he was too far gone. She dabbed more water on his face.
Then, slowly, her eyes began to see. Oh god. Her eyes were beginning to focus. They still stung like bees, but she wasn’t blind. Thank god, she wasn’t blind. Her vision was dim, clouded, but it was enough to see Ty’s face so that she could dab him with the wet cloth.
Then she stopped as everything around her became suspended in time.
She turned her head as her senses alerted her to danger like she could smell it.
Behind her, inside the door frame, was the man.
“Where’s Kiki?” he asked.
Rhianna shook her head. As her eyes focused, she could see the outline of him, but now she couldn’t speak. Never before had she appreciated her senses. Now she relied on them in order to survive, but as her voice failed her, her essential body parts were letting her down.
He came closer. “Where’s Kiki?” he said again.
The moonlight hit his face and she recoiled. He was a bizarre looking person. He had caused all that turmoil in Seaview but now he was standing there as if he were paying a visit.
Her voice croaked out of her. “She’s gone,”
“Will she come back?”
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly his eyes came alive like he’d just woken up from a stupor. “I warned her. Now I’ll have to kill him…” He pointed to Ty. “I have no choice now.”
He stepped closer.