‘How do we get in?’ Jack mumbled to himself. I ignored him and looked around. We were facing a solid stone wall that continued as far as I could see to my right. Popping my head around the corner to my left, it was the same in that direction too. What I couldn’t see were any doors.
I pulled my head back and leant up against the stone wall, trying to blend in as best I could. Unfortunately fur doesn’t blend in well with stone.
‘How are we going to get in?’ I asked Jack in a hushed voice, ‘There are no doors as far as I can tell.’
‘Not sure,’ he said looking up towards the roof of the building. I did hope he wasn’t planning some sort of acrobatic, down the chimney manoeuvre. Luckily I hadn’t seen any chimneys poking out of the roof. ‘Let’s walk the perimeter. There has to be an entrance somewhere.’
He set off down the side of the building and I followed, treading carefully on the loose stones that lay underfoot, trying to make as little noise as possible. It wasn’t easy. We did a full walk around the building ending up back where we started. There had been a few barred windows that we’d dared to peek through; they had just led into empty rooms. However, the building was definitely lacking doors of any kind.
Jack was looking particularly dejected by now, and my stomach was growling. ‘Why don’t we have another piece of that chocolate,’ I suggested, ‘It might give us an idea.’
He smiled at my hopeful face and sat down, pulling out another chocolate bar. I really hoped we could find some food inside the building. That was if we ever got inside. I’m not sure how I had gone from wanting to get off the island, to wanting to get inside a building that more than likely housed a lunatic who would, no doubt, be delighted to have us wander so willingly into his home. Hunger probably had a lot to do with it.
As we finished the chocolate I was feeling much better. Clearly Jack was too because he was eyeing up the roof again. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said gruffly, ‘I am not Santa Claus. And neither are you.’
He laughed. ‘You got any bright ideas?’
I thought carefully for a minute, pulling a few blades of grass from the ground and running them through my furry fingers so they disappeared into my clenched hand. ‘You said this Doctor is a telepath, and he’s definitely crazy considering his favourite hobby is turning people into monsters; so, what if he’s just playing with us. There’s got to be a door into the building, what if he’s just hiding it from us so we can’t see it?’
Jack looked impressed. ‘You might just be on to something there. Come on, let’s take another walk around.’
We followed the same path as we had before, but this time we ran our hands over the stone wall, feeling for any changes that could suggest a door lay hidden from view. We made it half way round and I was starting to feel like this had been a very stupid idea, when my fingers fell into a deep crack in the wall. One I couldn’t see. This was weird, the wall looked completely solid, and yet my fingers were definitely reaching into a crack that wasn’t there.
‘Hey,’ I said, keeping one hand pressed onto the wall and grabbing Jack with the other, pulling him sharply back to where I stood. ‘Feel this.’ I placed Jack’s hand next to mine on the wall.
‘You’ve got it,’ he whispered excitedly, running his hand down the gap and trying to find a way to open the door. I wasn’t feeling quite as excited. It had just dawned on me that I had found an entrance to the building. To the place that most likely contained the maniac serial killer who had put the werewolf into my head. No, excitement was not top of my list right now.
Within minutes Jack had opened the door and stepped inside, beckoning me to follow him. With some trepidation I entered the building and closed the door behind us. Looking back I checked it was still there a moment later. The disappearing house earlier had given me the heebie-jeebies. We were standing in a long corridor that was poorly lit by small, flickering lights, dotted here and there on the walls. A low humming sound could be heard every time we passed under one of them. The flickering on the walls made me look around nervously; I felt like someone was following us, watching our every move. But there was never anything there when I looked round.
We walked from one corridor to the next for what felt like hours. Jack seemed like he knew where he was going, but I was fairly certain we were walking in circles. This whole place was a maze of corridors. We’d be lucky if we found anything in here, let alone anyone. Not to mention, I still wasn’t quite sure what Jack’s plan was when we found the Doctor. I didn’t like to ask as I had a horrible suspicion there wasn’t one. He seemed like a wing-it-and-see kind of guy.
As corridor after corridor passed us by, my mind wandered to the werewolf. I could still feel him fighting inside me, but Jack was keeping him under control. I had to work out how to do that myself. Jack had explained that the Doctor created monsters by convincing his victims—I hated that word—they had the monster inside them. That it was nothing more than a mind trick. The problem was convincing my mind that it was doing this to me. Mind over matter, that’s all it was.
We were moving slower now, still in circles as far as I was concerned, but Jack seemed confident, so I followed. I held my hands out in front of me and stared at the fur covering them. Focus. I just had to convince myself that my hands were not covered in fur, that they were normal, skin coloured, non-furry hands.
I’m not sure what I expected. The fur to magically disappear because I told it to? Regardless, nothing happened.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it,’ Jack said in an optimistic voice, ‘You’ve got the right idea; you need to show your mind that you’re in control. That you will tell it if and when the wolf comes to life.’
‘I can’t stay next to you for the rest of my life so you can suppress the damn thing though can I?’ I said in frustration.
‘You won’t need to,’ Jack said, glancing around the wall into the next corridor. He paused for a moment and took out the phone from his pocket. Without turning it on he held it up towards my face. After a few seconds I realised what he was doing, trying to use it as a mirror. I took it off him and moved it to different angles until I could see my reflection. Wow, my face was almost beginning to look like me again. Well, except for the fur. I handed the phone back with a huge grin.
He took it off me and put it back in his vest. ‘Keep doing what you’re doing—clearly it’s working.’
The corridors all looked the same to me, but I was pretty sure we’d been down this one before. I recognised the broken light on the wall next to me.
‘You sure you know where you’re going?’ I asked.
‘No idea,’ Jack said brightly. How was he so chirpy when we were lost in a creepy old building, one that had a serial killer somewhere in it who was probably playing games with us right now, and the one person he’d brought with him had a werewolf trapped in his head?
He turned and grinned at me. ‘I can smell food.’
I sniffed the air purposefully and immediately cheered up. He was right. I just had to hope there wasn’t a Doctor eating it. It didn’t take us long to track down the food; we found it in a little kitchen a couple of corridors down and thankfully there were no serial killers in sight. It smelt so delicious as we entered the room, something was bubbling away in a pot on the cooker.
Jack went to the pot and was about to dip a spoon in and taste it when I stopped him. ‘What are you doing? That could be poisoned for all we know.’ I said, holding his arm away from the food.
‘Dan, he knows we’re here, I can feel it. He’s not going to poison us—he wants to play, and I intend to let him if it means I can eat something.’
That did not sound fun. ‘Please tell me you have a plan Jack?’
He didn’t answer.
After we had filled up on water and food, which thankfully didn’t appear to be killing us, we went back into the corridor and continued on our search. We only made it a few metres before Jack beckoned me over towards another room.
Peering t
hrough the open door, I could see a computer, and a desk that was covered in papers and mugs.
‘Looks a lot like my desk at work,’ Jack said grinning. Now why did that not surprise me?
‘See that?’ I said, pointing to the scattered remains of ripped up paper on the floor. Jack crossed into the room and leant down to pick up some of the pieces.
‘An old photo from the looks of it. Strange,’ he said turning the small pieces over in his hands. I left him trying to piece it back together and looked around the room.
It was fairly empty apart from the papers lying in a mess on the desk, and the computer. The walls were bare and a quick search of the cupboards confirmed they were empty. There was no window in the room and the only light came from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, and the glow being emitted from the computer screen. I must have knocked the mouse when I moved past the desk.
Jack gave up with the photo, dropping it back on the floor, and he sat down at the desk to look through the computer. His fingers were tapping impatiently on the wood while he searched.
Standing on the other side of the desk, I flicked through the papers, looking for anything of interest. It’s difficult to find something when you don’t really know what you’re looking for. It mostly looked like gobbledygook to me.
Jack had gone very quiet. That was never a good sign. He was staring at the computer screen, his nose almost touching it. Walking around the desk, I stood next to him and looked at the screen too. In the background there were lots of files that didn’t look like they meant much; they had various numbers and letters on them in no particular order. But currently Jack was staring at a different document that looked like a scanned newspaper. The picture on the scan was of a young woman with curly blonde hair. I read the title; ‘Woman goes missing, mysterious disappearance’.
Jack scrolled down, but not before I noticed the date at the top of the article, and the name in the first line.
‘Is that…’ I started to speak. Jack cut me off.
‘My mother? Yeah.’ His voice was so quiet. I let him study the article for a moment before continuing.
‘Why would the Doctor have a scanned copy of a newspaper article about your mum’s disappearance?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer. I had a feeling he knew more than he was letting on. He moved the mouse and clicked on an icon that was blinking near the bottom of the screen, and a new window popped up. This time it was me who leant closer.
‘Is that a security camera?’ I asked incredulously. Considering all the suggestions Jack had made about this guy being telepathic—why would he need a security camera? Surely he could just look into people’s minds without needing to watch them.
‘Doesn’t always work like that,’ Jack said absent-mindedly, looking closely at the monitor, ‘Sometimes you need to be in the vicinity to get into people’s heads. Although the Doctor does seem to be showing advanced techniques which could negate that requirement.’ I decided not to ask—I’m not sure I wanted to know.
The video had a black and white grainy picture, but there was no mistaking the young girl sitting in the corner of the room. She couldn’t have been much older than fourteen, fifteen at the most, and she was clearly a prisoner.
‘We have to find her, we can’t just leave her locked up here with the Doctor,’ I said.
‘Agreed, and she might know a bit more about him too,’ Jack replied. He tapped the screen, pointing to the top right of the video surveillance window, ‘The camera is labelled ‘Sector 9, Room B12’.’
‘Great, and how do we figure out where Sector 9 is?’ I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from entering my voice. This island was having a very bad effect on me. Or maybe it was the wolf—I was still trying to control him, but he was not making it easy.
Jack turned and grinned at me. ‘The Doctor has helped us with that.’ He clicked once and all the windows disappeared on the screen. We were left with the desktop background, which looked suspiciously like a map.
Jack squinted for a moment and then touched the screen with his finger. ‘We’re here,’ he said, slowly tracing along the lines until he found what he wanted. ‘That’s where we need to be,’ he said, triumphantly.
‘Let’s go then, before the Doctor realises we’ve been playing in his study,’ I said, replacing the papers on his desk in roughly the same place I’d found them. Jack lingered for another moment at the computer before clicking the mouse a few times and following me out the door.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sarah
‘Who knows what’s real and what isn’t on this island.’
I woke up to the sound of bolts being pushed back on the door. Scrambling into a corner, I waited for it to open. I could hear the whispered voices of two people on the other side as the door slid open cautiously.
Sitting with my knees crushed hard against my chest I waited. The first one poked his head around the door, possibly checking to make sure I wasn’t suddenly going to start attacking them. Obviously I passed the test because he smiled at me and came into the room. The other one stayed hidden in the corridor. I’d seen them before of course, but they didn’t know that.
‘Hi,’
The one who had entered the cell was stood in front of me. He had thick, dark hair, and deep brown eyes that seemed to be searching over me.
I smiled weakly back, ‘Hi.’
‘My name’s Jack,’ he said, reaching out a hand, ‘we’re here to help you.’ I hesitated for a moment then shook his hand. Standing up from the rough floor, I brushed the dirt off my clothes and stared at the newcomer with interest.
‘Sarah,’ I replied, glancing towards the open door, wondering why the other one was still out in the corridor. I could hear him shuffling his feet just outside the room.
‘Nice to meet you Sarah. Are you okay? Has he hurt you?’
I shook my head slowly.
‘Good,’ Jack said. He sounded nervous, clearing his throat before continuing, ‘My friend Daniel is in the corridor. I’m going to ask him to come in, but I need you to stay calm. The man who’s keeping you captive here has done a lot of bad things, and Daniel was one of his victims. He is currently stuck as a—well, as a werewolf. But I assure you he is perfectly safe.’
Interesting.
He seemed to be waiting for a response from me before inviting Daniel into the cell. I nodded and tried not to look too obvious whilst staring at the door waiting for him to come through.
He came in cautiously, clearly afraid of frightening me if he moved too quickly. He looked quite funny actually; his clothes were stretched around his body, torn in various places, and covering the fur that had sprouted over his skin. His face looked mostly human, but there was a hint of werewolf features showing through. His nose was a little pointy, his pupils were more slatted than circular, and his eyes were a bright amber colour.
The werewolf just nodded at me and stood near the back of the room. I turned to Jack.
‘Where did you two come from? I thought I was alone here,’ I asked.
‘To be honest, we’re not actually sure how we got here. We tracked the Doctor to an old house, and after stepping inside we found ourselves here.’ Jack looked around and I heard him mutter under his breath, ‘Wherever here is.’
‘The Doctor?’ I was genuinely confused this time.
‘It’s the name we have given to the serial killer that is holding you captive. We refer to him as the Doctor because of the things he does to his victims.’ Jack told me. He crossed the room and looked out through the little barred window.
‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘We stumbled across some kind of study,’ Jack said, ‘and the computer in there had a flashing icon, that naturally needed clicking on. It showed a video of this cell with you in it, and we just followed the location details to here.’
I looked around the cell. Jack followed my gaze, wondering where the camera was hidden. It wasn’t to be found, and there was sympathy in his eyes when we g
lanced back at each other.
‘Thank you for coming for me,’ I said shyly, smiling at him. ‘So what’s the plan now?’ I was keen to get out of the cell, but I was more curious to know how the boys were planning to capture him. I had a suspicion they hadn’t quite thought it through that far.
‘No idea,’ Jack said shrugging his shoulders, ‘I was hoping we would come across something that might help, but so far we’ve only seen a lot of corridors, and a study that didn’t tell us very much. Apart from how to find you of course.’
Daniel was staying very quiet in the corner. I could tell he was watching me, but I resisted staring at him too much. Jack was definitely the more talkative out of the two.
‘I might know a place that could give you some answers,’ I said turning to Jack, ‘There’s a storeroom somewhere in the building that has all sorts of files and information in it. I came across it one day, but didn’t get chance to look through it. It might just give you some of the answers you’re looking for.’
‘Can you take us there?’ Jack asked tearing his eyes away from the window. I noticed Daniel looked more interested now. If I were him I would definitely want to know what had happened to me.
‘I think so,’ I said, suddenly realising I was staring. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I walked to the door and gestured for the boys to follow me. Listening carefully for any noises, and watching for any shadows that might suggest an unwanted intruder, I walked slowly up the corridor.
‘Doesn’t look like he’s around at the moment. We might be in luck,’ I said turning to Jack who was right behind me.
‘It’s strange, we haven’t seen anyone whilst we’ve been here,’ Jack said, a frown creasing into his face.
‘I certainly feel like we’re being watched,’ Daniel said. I looked at him. So the werewolf did speak then.
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