Locked Away
Chapter One
Ellie’s body jerked and her eyes
flicked open. Darkness. The sound that came from her mouth was
muffled. Something approximating to mah! For a split second, she could not think.
Then the questions came thick and fast: Where was she? Why was it so cold and
dark? Why was she lying on the ground?
Her breathing quickened. Blinking, her mind still racing, she
suddenly lay still and quiet, playing dead, trying to make sense of what was
happening.
In the muddy darkness she
couldn’t see anything. No matter how
widely she opened her eyes, there was no light. All around, it was deep dark like the dark of a forest at night,
or a cave she’d visited as a child in Wales, where the lights had gone out
before a dazzling show, leaving her thrilled and trembling. There would be no show here. That much was clear. She moved her shoulders and realised her
hands were tied behind her back. It was
an unlikely fact, but she took it in and once more her breaths came short and
fast. Next, she registered pain: her
arm hurt because she was lying awkwardly on it. She shifted again. Her nose
flared and she smelled the dankness of stale earth beneath her, coarse against
her skin, the individual pieces of grit and stone pressing into her.
The last thing she took in was that she really was not able to
speak because there was something covering her mouth. This was somehow much worse than the darkness or the cord around
her wrists. She tried again anyway, but
a stifled note like a muted trumpet was all that came out. Squeezing her tongue between her lips, she
pushed and the tape pulled her skin but would not budge.
All these sensations became clear
to her in seconds, almost but not quite simultaneously. Now she wore them like
a new skin. A skin that made her feel
vulnerable. Exposed.
Stay calm.
Not so easy, when what she felt
inside was panic. A kind of panic that
she’d never imagined she could feel.
Thousands of sensors went off like fireworks in every organ of her
body. At the same time, a terrible
black silence flooded her head.
Where am I?
Ellie was not the kind of girl to
get hysterical. Steadying herself, she breathed in and out through her
nose. Her pulse slowed. She lay still. There must be something to see in the darkness. The more she
stared, the more she could make out. To
her right, quite close by, there was a wall made of what looked like large
stone blocks. She strained her eyes to
see higher. Yes, there was the ceiling,
not level and crossed with shadows.
Beneath her, the floor was hard, uneven and darker than the wall. She
felt once more its cold, grainy surface.
Only then, did she register the fact that her bare skin was touching the
earth. She was wearing a tee shirt and shorts.
No shoes.
The strange air was cold against her body and, for a moment, Ellie
was truly frightened. She knew also
that she had never been really frightened before. Not even as a child. Not
in the Welsh cave, or when she’d heard creaking on the stairs after her mother
had gone to bed. Not when she’d stayed up late to watch a horror movie on her
own. No, not ever. Here, where nothing
made sense, she felt terror rising from her bowels. Wave after wave.
Come on, Ellie!
She gritted her teeth and
banished the fear. Lying on her side, she had limited mobility. She sat up with difficulty, grazing the skin
on her elbow and the side of her knee. When she was still again she listened to
the sound of her own breathing, this time strategically, waiting for the quiet
gaps to search the darkness for something other than the passage of air into
and out of her lungs. And what if she
did hear something?
Wriggling her toes, it was
strange to imagine that her trainers and sports socks had been removed. Perhaps it was a precaution to make sure she
couldn’t run away… The outrage she felt
was tempered by this petty preoccupation: Where were her shoes and socks? Ellie almost laughed. Then, the muscles in her abdomen
tightened. Who the hell had done
this to her? What right had anyone
to do this to her!
It was time to focus, to assess
the situation and do what she could. No
point in dwelling on her plight.
Action. She needed to act! First, she must free herself. The thin cord around her wrists hurt, and
she made it hurt more when she twisted her hands to try to loosen it.
Think, Ellie!
It was made of something strong,
like plastic. It was tight, but she had the feeling that it would stretch if
she pulled at it enough. This thought
gave her hope. This was good. Hope was essential in situations like
this. In films, when victims were
trapped, there was always a way out, no matter how dire the situation. The victims
were actors, of course, and they knew that in the script there was an escape
plan. She must find her own escape
plan. If she were clever enough, there
would be a way out.
As she worked on the cord she was
able to pick out more detail in the darkness.
To her right and further forward, set into the wall, there was the
outline of something regular in shape.
A door. Ellie held her breath
and stared. Knowing there was a way out
was a good thing, but knowing there was a way in...
Stop! Don’t let it get to you!
Okay, so the door was there. Now that she’d seen it, she couldn’t go back
to the time before she’d noticed its fine, firm outline. So she would study it. To be ready, if it should open. It was not like an ordinary door. She remembered films she’d seen about
prisons. The prison doors had a small
window at the top that the guards could slide open so that they could look
inside and check the prisoners were all right.
This door had a window at the top with five small bars across it. Even if the bars had not been there, the
window would surely not be big enough to fit her head through. If her head wouldn’t go through, it would be
pointless trying to fit the rest of her body into it. Pointless.
She continued her painstaking
search. The worst thing was that nothing she saw made sense. Ellie had a
hundred questions going round in her head and no one to answer them. But there
was one question she didn’t want to think about. One question that, nevertheless, kept coming back:
Is there anyone on the other
side of the door?
Although this thought was ever
present, it was important to continue with a logical and calm assessment of her
situation. If there was a person
on the other side of the door, that meant there was someone she could reason
with. Everyone had a weak spot. Even people who were evil.
She knew there were evil people
in the world. Men who killed
women. Men who killed children. Even women who killed. There had been a man in Austria who had held
a girl captive for years, until one day she had been rescued. Peter Sutcliffe - he had hated prostitutes
enough to take them somewhere quiet in his car and strangle them. With her hands tied together, Ellie would
not be able to stop a man strangling her.
Even if she got a chance to bite him, to kick him, and even if by some
miracle she then got the keys, how would she put the key into the lock? No!
She shook her head to get such negative thoughts out of her mind and
worked harder on the cord around her wrists.
She grimaced against the pain, angry with herself for thinking about
kidnappers and murderers and what they could do to her. With her hands free, she would feel better.
Empowered. In the meantime, she should stick to positive thoughts.
The room was wide. She could not
see much to the left or in front.
Looking up again, the ceiling seemed higher and it appeared to be
crossed with beams. There was a smell she recognised, too. What was it? It was
damp and pungent, a bit like leaves in autumn when the rain falls on them and
they turn soft on the street. But this smell was not as nice as wet leaves. Wet
leaves made her think of being outside and looking up at the clouds in a big
autumn sky. Here, there was no sky, there were no clouds, and the smell was
old, like air that had not been changed for days or even weeks. It was not a
healthy place to be and she tried not to breathe deeply, to keep the terrible
air out of her lungs.
And suddenly it came to her. It must be a cellar. Of course!
That meant there was a house above and someone who lived in it. A house with carpets and soft furnishings,
electric light and central heating, windows and a view onto a street. Unless the house was in the middle of
nowhere. In a forest or on a cliff top
with the wind buffeting against it and the sea crashing below. It might be
stormy outside. It might be sunny. It might be night. No matter what it was like, it would be better than where she
was.
Just then, there was a tickle
under her thigh and she was distracted by another scary thought: perhaps there
were insects on the floor or on the walls. Maybe big spiders hanging from the
ceiling, perhaps just above her head, waiting to fall on her. The thought made
her squeak, like a frightened animal. A
small squeak, like a mouse. The sound
of her voice was strange inside the room and the silence after it
stranger. The memory of it echoed
inside her head, until she thought: How can I be afraid of spiders, when my
hands are tied and I don’t know where I am? How can I be so stupid?
Working harder at the cord, Ellie
planned ahead: What shall I do when
my hands are free? When I get the tape
off my mouth should I shout for help, or should I stay quiet? These were
important, practical considerations. It
would be key to her survival that she chose the right option.
Just then, outside the door, she
heard a sound. It was the sound of a muffled cough. And she froze. It proved that someone was there listening and,
what a horrible thought, watching.
****
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