‘But I can’t see…’
‘You can feel, with your hands. There must be a handle. Something.’ Carly remembered Mr Webster telling the class the decontamination chamber had been built when there was a real threat of gas attacks. He had told them about the chutes where any clothing that might be contaminated would be stuffed but he hadn’t said what would happen after it had toppled into this small space they now found themselves in. There had to be a way to empty it surely, or did they just burn it? Drop a match through the hatch. Carly looked up fearfully as though she might see fire, her panic raging.
‘Carly! I’ve found something.’ Marie was excited, she was always so desperate to please.
‘Good girl,’ Carly said, shuffling around on her knees, arms splayed out before her until she found her sister.
‘Here, on the ground.’
Carly tightened her fingers around a metal ring and pulled as hard as she could. It didn’t move. A chink of light caught her eye. She looked up. Someone had cracked open the hatch.
‘No,’ she moaned as she rattled the handle again.
‘Three blind mice, three blind mice,’ Moustache sang softly. Slowly. She couldn’t hear Doc and she knew he’d be trying to find another way to reach them.
Despite the freezing temperature, she was boiling. She wiped her face with her sleeve.
‘Grab hold of me and pull as hard as you can.’ Carly grasped the ring, tighter now, with both hands, her sisters’ arms wrapped around her waist.
They pulled and pulled until pain seared in Carly’s shoulder joints. She felt her body might tear in two as the combined weight of the twins dragged her backwards.
Carly clenched her fingers harder. She wouldn’t let go.
Suddenly the trapdoor swung open, sending the sisters tumbling like dominoes.
Sobbing, Carly felt around until she found one of the girls and without hesitation she dragged her over to the hole and shoved her down into the blackness. Whatever was down there couldn’t be any worse than being trapped in this tiny space with Moustache still singing above them. It made Carly’s stomach contract to realize that he was relishing the chase. Wanting it almost.
‘See how they run. See how they run.’
‘Carly, I…’
‘Move,’ she snapped, cutting off Leah’s protests that it was too dark, she was too scared. She propelled her into the unknown, after Marie, then she scrambled after them both.
The tunnel was low. Damp. The stench was cloying. Their progress was slow at first. Carly felt around with her hands as they moved, terrified there’d be more to the tunnel than they knew. Different routes. The danger they might spend eternity lost in an underground maze was terrifying and something she didn’t want to be responsible for. Something else she didn’t want to be responsible for. Intermittently there were larger openings shooting off the main strip, which didn’t seem to lead anywhere, almost as though they were passing places but Carly didn’t understand why.
‘I think this is the right way. If we keep going straight, we have to come out somewhere, eventually.’ She crossed her fingers as she spoke. ‘As fast as you can.’
Carly could hear Leah softly crying, the shuffle of the twins as they crawled, and something else.
Rats?
It seemed to take forever, palms pressed into dampness, knees sinking, but in reality it couldn’t have been more than five minutes before the tunnel grew wider, and then she saw it.
Pale light.
The moon. Carly nodded her head furiously, affirming to herself that yes, they were nearly outside.
A sharp blow to the nose, sprang tears to Carly’s eyes.
‘Why have you stopped?’ she whispered crossly to Leah, trying to shove her forwards again.
‘Marie can see Doc’s boots. He’s out there.’
Carly felt angry. Helpless. Scared.
‘Back up,’ she hissed. She retreated, patting the walls, desperately trying to locate one of the pockets they could hide in. Her heart hammered in her chest. She knew if Doc crouched down and shone his torch in the tunnel it was all over.
At last found what she was looking for. She shuffled back even further, ushering the twins inside the cramped space, before she curled herself around them. A comma once more.
They waited.
From outside a shout.
‘I’ve found something! An opening.’
A light sweeping left to right in the tunnel. Carly screwed her eyes tightly closed.
Please don’t spot us. Please don’t spot us.
And then darkness.
Silence.
‘Has he gone?’ whispered Marie.
Carly wanted to scream, ‘I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.’ She knew that was unfair, but still. She didn’t know what to do.
‘I think so but let’s wait a while.’
She pressed her fingertips over the walls, over the low ceiling. She found something smooth and hard, a large stone. They weren’t too far from the outside. Could they burrow out a different way? Potentially Doc and Moustache were waiting at the exit, ready to grab them when they emerged. If they could slip out somewhere else they’d have a chance to reach the road.
Was it silly to try to dig? Could she somehow cause the tunnel to collapse? But knowing that freedom was so tantalizingly close drove Carly to prise her nails under the stone and drag it out of the damp earth.
Suddenly they were all screaming as a deluge of insects poured down on them. Tiny, sharp feet scuttling over their skin. One fell in Carly’s open mouth. She gagged as she flicked it off her tongue. They were crawling over her scalp, tangled in her hair. Slipping down the neck of her shirt. She could feel them everywhere, but she couldn’t see them. She screamed again as something hard and solid rammed into her eye. The elbow of one of the twins who were flailing their arms. She slapped at her shoulders, pushing down on hard shells.
Beetles.
She tried to calm herself, tell herself she wasn’t scared of them but no matter how violently she smacked them away, they wouldn’t die. She could still feel the movement of their legs. Hear them scurrying manically under them, above them, on them.
They stank.
Her head was spinning, panic dulling her senses so she didn’t instantly notice that the space she was in was now bigger. Emptier. The twins had crawled back out into the tunnel. She could hear Leah screaming as she headed towards the exit.
‘No, wait.’ She knew the men could easily have heard their cries. Be waiting to grab them. But the girls didn’t slow and she had no choice but to follow them.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
George
Now
George slips out of the house while Leah and Archie are sleeping. His mouth is still sour with last night’s whisky.
As he climbs into his car he receives a text. Tash. He calls her via his hands-free system.
‘Are you okay?’
‘George.’ Her voice is thick with sobs. ‘I can’t do this any more. I can’t keep lying to Leah. She’s my best friend.’
She’s my wife, George thinks and he does nothing but lie.
‘It won’t be for much longer,’ he promises before he pulls into the car park of the greasy spoon to see the man as he’d arranged.
‘Here.’ George hands the man an envelope stuffed with notes and in return reluctantly takes the box. It feels as heavy as George’s heart as he hefts it into his car. The plan had felt so right, but now it feels so wrong. But he is committed.