Hide and Seek (19 page)

CHAPTER 39

20:12pm

Peter rounded the corner of Wolviston Road on the approach to the industrial estate. To his right
, over the uneven hills, hiding in the dark was Durden Woods. The same woods he had awoken in this morning - before this nightmare had begun.

As Peter looked at the closed industrial estate ahead of him he suddenly wondered why he had passed a police car coming from
this direction. The brakes of the bike screeched as he came to a stop. He looked behind him but the road was clear and quiet. Earlier he had thought that someone from the police force might be involved and now he had just seen a police car driving away from a derelict site, which also happened to be the same place where Celo had set his next trap. Peter felt uneasy. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Maybe the police car was just doing rounds. But why would someone be doing something as minor as making rounds when surely they must all be looking for the person responsible for today’s events? Maybe Celo or one of his helpers was in that car. It would explain why they didn’t stop him. Surely, if it was a real policeman they would have been suspicious of a man on his own cycling towards a disused industrial estate at night. Peter became convinced that Celo was in that car and felt angry that he was so close, and had passed right by the person he was seeking. For a second he thought about turning around and going after the car but quickly realised that would be useless, it’d be long gone. There was also the more pressing task of finding and saving Steve.

Peter dismounted and placed
the bike against the wall of one of the buildings. The entire site was surrounded by brick walls like a castle, the drawbridge consisting of a metal fence with a chain wrapped around the lock.

He looked beyond the wire fence
to the solitary streetlight which lit the road running through the centre of the industrial estate. The fence in front of him would be relatively easy to climb but the barbed wired - looped in circles at the top of the fence - would not be so easy.

Peter took off
his jumper and threw it over his shoulder. He started to climb the fence, which was flimsy and bowed inwards under his weight, allowing him to use the horizontal bars on the opposite side of the fence as footholds. He threw the jumper over the barbed wire and delicately used his fingers to pad it down. He winced as he nicked himself numerous times on the barbs. He cautiously pulled himself up onto the jumper and then leapt away from the fence and down onto the street. A sharp pain jolted through his legs as he landed and he yelled out. He shook his legs, trying to shake off the soreness, and jogged down the street past the rows of buildings.

He
reached Nelson’s car yard. Yet another fence lay in front of him blocking the entrance to the yard. He peered through looking for signs of anything untoward but all he could see was a maze of abandoned cars spread out across the forecourt. Even in the dark he could tell that some of the cars were relatively new models. He deduced that the car yard must still be in use.

‘Steve,’ he said in a half whisper.

There was no response.

The fence looked harder to climb as it had no footholds and the wire strips of the fence were vertical so he couldn’t grip them properly. He decided to climb the wall instead. He took a run up and jumped at the wall, grabbing the top with his hands, and pulled himself up. He heaved his chest onto the top of the wall and lifted his right leg over to straddle it. He realised that the clue which Celo gave him suggested that the trap had something to do with the compactor. He looked out over the car yard again but could still see no clue of where Steve might be. He lifted his other leg over and dropped down off the wall onto the sandy floor of the car yard.

Over to his right was a steel stairway leading up to the office Portakabin. The lair of Tony and Texas, he thought. To his left the forecourt stretched out, seemingly endless with rows upon rows of stacked cars laid out like the shelving units of a supermarket. He walked along looking down each one as if he were searching for the correct aisle to find the last item on his shopping list.

This time he spoke louder, ‘Steve.’

He heard the rattling of a chain from the back of the forecourt. A large Doberman came around the corner and, upon seeing Peter, started barking and sprinted towards him.

CHAPTER 40

20:22pm

Peter froze to the spot. As the dog flew down the aisle towards him he could see it was leashed and was trailing a chain which rattled across the ground. He had no idea how long the chain was and whether it would stop the snarling beast before it reached him. He ran to the nearest car and clambered onto the boot and then climbed up the next two cars stacked on top like some giant stairway.

The Doberman
reached the first car and stopped. The chain was almost out of length but the dog was close enough. It started jumping, its paws scratching against the passenger side window as it bounced off and came back again.

Peter was stood three cars up on the roof of an old Nissan Micra. The car teetered unsteadily and swayed slightly under his weight. Using the rows of cars before him he cautiously crossed across the roofs making his way towards the back of the forecourt. The Doberman followed
below him, barking incessantly. Peter was wary that the noise might attract unwanted attention. He just hoped that because he was in this deserted industrial estate that no one was close enough to hear the commotion and investigate.

After stumbling across the roofs of at least fifteen cars, the dog following him closely all the way, he reached the end of the row. In front of him the car yard still stretched out for at least a hundred yards
, full of various cranes and grapples. Towards the back right hand corner he could see the compactor. Even after twenty years he reckoned it was the same compactor and was stood in the same place. Like the dog, its jaws were open.

He looked
along the conveyor belt, searching out the switch for the machine. It was covered with a box. The dim light in the yard was still bright enough to reflect off the shiny sleek metallic black surface - instantly recognisable as one of Celo’s designs.

The Doberman continued to take run-up’s at the car
, launching itself upwards. There was nothing Peter could jump onto from his position and there was no way he could get to the compactor without crossing the ground. He looked down from his vantage point at the snarling animal. He couldn’t think of any way to pacify it, and he realised, with mounting dread, he would have to kill the dog. He withdrew the Bowie knife from his waistband.

Before he
figured out how to get near the dog, the Ford Mondeo he stood on swayed unsteadily as he moved to the edge, and - in a heart stopping moment - Peter could feel the momentum of the car tipping sideways. He crouched as the car lurched outwards away from the car underneath it, toppling like toy bricks.

The Doberman, sensing the impending danger,
bolted. And as the car tumbled towards the ground, Peter jumped in midair. He landed on the dusty floor and rolled forward, the knife flying from his grasp. The Mondeo crashed to the ground, and rolled half a turn straight into the bottom car of the opposite row. The resulting smash caused the two cars stacked on top of it to sway and fall away. The second car fell away into the row behind it and the top car dropped down inwards and onto the roof of the Mondeo which was already lying crumpled on the floor. Peter covered his ears at the explosive noise of breaking glass and scratching metal as the cars dropped like dominos around him. It lasted for a few seconds and then there was calm.

Peter rolled over and sat up
. A wall of dust rose up from the metal carnage around him. He was about to get to his feet when suddenly the Doberman was upon him. He instinctively raised his arm in defence as the dog sunk its teeth into his left arm at the exact place where Cas had hit him with the iron bar. He fell back and let out a blood curdling scream as the dog’s jaws locked on. He used his free hand to try and push the face of the dog away but the jaws remained clamped to his arm. Pain erupted throughout his body, pain he had never felt before. In front of him, laid on the dusty ground was the Bowie knife. He reached out with his other hand to try and grip the handle as the dog shook its head violently to and fro, its sharp teeth tearing at his flesh. He could feel blood pouring down his arm. His fingers teetered on the edge of the knife handle, fumbling to get a grip. The dog let out a gurgling growl as it continued to shake its head. Peter managed to get his hand on the handle of the Bowie knife. He lifted his arm up as high as he could to elevate the dog from the ground. In one swift movement he drove the knife into the underbelly of the Doberman. The dog let out a shrill yelp and he could feel its jaws immediately loosen. He withdrew the blood covered blade and drove it in again; punching upwards with such force it lifted the dog clean off the ground. The dog let out another yelp and released his arm. It stumbled away from him and slumped heavily onto the ground. Peter scrambled away on his backside, clasping his arm in pain. The dog lay on its side, mouth open, fangs oiled in his blood, its tongue lolled out onto the floor. The exposed belly of the dog rose and fell quickly and then slowed and stopped.

Peter inspected his arm. The shirt sleeve was completely ripped open and he could see parts of the flesh on the outside of his arm had been torn away. In the middle were two perfect spherical puncture holes which held pools of dark red blood which shimmered like puddles. He didn’t know what to do. He had never been bitten by a dog before. He had seen enough movies to know that he was supposed to wrap something tightly around the wound but he knew
what he really needed was to get to hospital. He pulled at his shirt with his good arm, ripping the buttons and tearing his shirt off, wincing as he peeled it off his left arm as delicately as he could. He threw the body of the shirt over his arm and wrapped the two sleeves over and around his arm negotiating them into a knot. He gripped one cuff of a sleeve tightly between his gritted teeth as he pulled the other sleeve with his good hand. The shirt tightened around his arm and he let out a muffled scream. He released the cuff of the sleeve from his mouth and breathed out loudly. He lay there for a few moments waiting for the pain to subside.

He picked up the knife and shakily rose to his feet. He felt woozy and stumbled forward trying to clear his senses. He had only taken a few steps forward when he heard a heavy clunk ahead of him and the sound of scraping rubber as the conveyor belt of the compactor fired into life.

CHAPTER 41

20:29pm

Peter stumbled forward to the far end of the conveyor belt. The switch was completely encased with
in one of Celo’s contraptions. He punched at the black box with the handle of the Bowie knife but it would not break. He grabbed the ladder leading up onto the conveyor belt. Every rung he gripped with his left hand sent sharp pains up and down his arm. He screamed through the pain in determination as he climbed the ladder quickly.

He ran down the juddering conveyor belt towards the open mouth of the compactor and stopped at the edge to peer inside. Steve Jenkins was laid curled up on the empty floor, still wearing his suit from yesterday’s funeral. A length of rope was wrapped around his wrists and continued down and around his ankles in a figure of eight knot. As soon as Steve saw Peter standing above him, he started squirming on the spot, his eyes bulged and muffled screams rang out from the gag wrapped around his mouth.

Peter was suddenly bathed in light as the lantern above the switch to the machine started rotating and flashing. It was shortly followed by the sound of the warning alarm which started beeping loudly. He jumped down into the belly of the compactor and ran to Steve. Fighting through the pain in his arm again he used the jagged edge of the Bowie knife to saw through the rope between Steve’s wrists and ankles. The walls of the compactor hissed and shuddered as the machine started coming to life. He managed to cut through the rope and then went to work on the knot around his ankles. Steve, with his wrists still tied, managed to grab and claw the gag away from his mouth. His first words were succinct.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

Dust dropped like rain around them as the compactor doors roared to life and started to close.

Peter cut the rope from around Steve’s ankles and pulled him to his feet. He was about to start
hacking through the rope on his wrists when he looked up in panic and realised the doors were closing too quickly. The walls of the compactor were closing in.

‘Come on,’ Peter shouted.

He grabbed Steve by the shoulder and they ran to the exit. Peter jumped half way up the rungs of the ladder leading out of the compactor - stumbling and slipping on each rung as he climbed. Steve followed after him but struggled with both hands tightly tied. The doors of the compactor were more than half way closed and were now folding inwards on their final descent towards closing completely.

Peter rolled out of the compactor as Steve continued to climb behind him. His foot slipped on a rung and he dropped a few rungs back down the ladder. Peter threw out his arms and grabbed Steve’s shoulders and tried to pull him up. Steve managed to get half his body onto the conveyor belt which was flowing against him and trying to push him back into the compactor. The doors closed inwards like a Venus fly trap, its teeth inches away from crushing Steve from the waist down. With one last burst of energy Peter leant over Steve’s body and grabbed the waistband of his trousers and hauled him out. They both fell back onto the conveyor belt and wriggled away as the doors closed behind them with a resounding thud.

Peter helped Steve to his feet and they ran against the stream of the conveyor belt as they heard the compactor beams crunching together and crushing nothing but air. They climbed down and both of them dropped to their knees in relief as they hit safe ground. As they lay on the floor, taking heavy breaths, Peter asked a question which he realised was stupid as soon as it came from his mouth.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Of course I’m not alright. What the fuck is going on?’ Steve shouted.

‘I honestly don’t know where to start
,’ Peter replied.

‘Well the last thing I remember was having a few drinks at Colin’s house. And then I wake up in that
… that thing. I’ve been in there for hours. I could have fucking died in that thing. Did you lot put me in there?’

‘No. We didn’t.’

Peter sat up and looked at Steve. He eyed him cautiously. He had suspected him of being Celo, or one of his helpers, at various points during the day but after considering how close he had come to being crushed by the compactor he was unsure whether he could be involved. Steve was looking at the corpse of the dog.

‘Did you kill that dog?’

Peter knew that Steve was an animal lover; he was often nicer to them than to humans.

‘I had to, it was attacking me.
If I hadn’t, you’d be dead.’

Steve turned his attention to the blood soaked shirt wrapped around Peter’s arm.

‘Okay. Still, seems a bit harsh. Couldn’t you have just knocked it out or something?’

‘Fucking hell Steve. You try and do something nice and humane when you have a Doberman clamped onto your arm.’

Steve had a way of making him feel annoyed as soon as he was in his company, no matter what he said. Peter pulled out the Bowie knife and Steve recoiled from him.

‘What are you doing?’

Peter stared at him angrily. The thoughts he had earlier about people mistrusting him weighed on his mind again.

‘I was going to cut the ropes off your wrists. Or would you rather stay tied up?’

Steve looked humble and apologetic as he held his arms out. Peter’s face softened and he used the jagged edge of the knife to saw through the rope.

‘So what
is
going on?’ Steve said as Peter finished cutting through the rope between his wrists.