The Dead Tracks (40 page)

    It
stopped.

    She
looked down. The edge of a black shoe was in view. Nothing else.

    The
ECG screamed. The static bristled. But all she could hear was her heart in her
ears, thumping against her ribs, the noise so fierce it swamped everything
else. From somewhere she summoned enough strength to raise the scalpel up, her
fingers drained of colour, and hold it out in front of her, ready to use. She
waited for him to come into the room.

    Waited.

    Still
he didn't move. Then, from the speaker in the corner of the room, the static
got louder for a second. Crackling. Reverberating. Changing pitch and tone.

    'Where
are you hiding, Sona?'

    His voice,
coming from the speakers above her, and next to her on the other side of the
door. A wave passed through her legs, the fear temporarily paralysing her
muscles. She stepped further back, towards the wall, to prevent herself from
falling completely. The movement made the smallest of noises; a squeak as the
ball of her bare foot slid across the polished floor.

    It
was enough.

    The
door swung towards her so fast she barely even had time to register it. Within
a second, it smashed into her face, the hard wood of the door pounding against
her cheekbone. She stumbled back, trying to keep the scalpel up in front of
her, desperate not to let her guard down. For a brief second, her brain told
her she should be feeling pain in her face now - but instead she felt nothing.

    He
came around the door at her.

    He
was in pale blue medical scrubs, a cap and a face mask. She could see his eyes,
flashing bright blue inside, and a wire, coming out from under the mask, down
under the scrubs. In the split second it took her eyes to flick from the wires
back to him, he clamped a hand on her throat and squeezed.

    Static.

    He
forced her down towards the ground. She looked up at him. At his eyes. They
were narrowed, focused on hurting her. He pushed her down to the floor, her
legs giving way beneath her. He was showing her he was in charge. Forcing her
to make short, sharp choking noises as her lungs tried to push air up through
her throat. His thumb pressed against her windpipe harder. She was bordering on
the edges of a blackout.

    Survival
instinct kicked in.

    Nerves
fired. Muscles tightened.

    She
gripped the scalpel as tightly as she could and jabbed it into the back of his
right hand. He yelled out, his cry initially dulled by the mask, but drowned out
a second later as it screamed from the speakers in a distorted, broken copy of
his reaction. Both hands released her. The sound died down. A wail of agony
replaced by feedback and static.

    Sona
scrambled to her feet, headed around him and out of the door. A long grey
corridor. Concrete walls. Strip lights all the way down. She looked both ways.
The corridor turned at a right-angle to her left. All she could see around the
corner was darkness. To her right was a heavy iron door, huge rivets tracing its
circumference.

    She
headed left.

    'You
fucking
bitch
!'

    She
could hear him but not see him as she ran, his voice coming through a speaker
in front of her, high up on the wall. But then: footsteps.

    She
glanced over her shoulder. He emerged from the doorway, his eyes immediately
fixed on her. Blood ran from his hand down the front of his medical scrubs and
on to his trousers. But he didn't care now. Above her, static hissed out of the
speaker, and then, whispering, his voice travelled down to her: There's nowhere
to run.'

    She
turned and broke into a sprint again. As the corridor kinked left, it opened
out into another, shorter one. A couple of crates leaned against one wall. No
lights above her. There were three glass panels on her left and more concrete
walling on the right. At the end was a door, about forty feet away, connecting
the corridor she was in with a better-lit room beyond.

    'Where
you going, Sona?'

    She
passed under another speaker.

    'You've
got nowhere to run!'

    She heard
his footsteps behind her, but this time didn't look back. Just kept her eyes on
the door at the end of the corridor. Never letting up. Never dropping the pace.
Ignoring the pain that was starting to emerge in her cheeks and across her
forehead. Ignoring the screaming voice inside her that said she was never going
to get away from him.

    Then,
as she passed them, she realized the glass panels were windows.

    The
first window belonged to a room she recognized. White walls. White ceiling. She
could see the table, and the cards perched on top, pointing to the water and
the place where the medical gown had been. In the corner of the room were her
clothes. Left there in a pile. Everything but her underwear.

    She
pounded on.

    The
next room was exactly the same, except empty.

    Then
she got to the third room.

    A
woman was sitting on the floor in the opposite corner, legs up to her chest,
face buried in her knees. Her hair covered her shoulders and arms, disguising
some of the bruises on her skin - but not all of them. Sona slowed a little: an
automatic reaction.

    There's
more like me.

    A
noise from behind her. She looked back.

    He'd
closed on her.

    In
front of her, she could suddenly see a brightly lit room beyond an open iron
door. The room was about thirty feet square, with a thick fire door on the far
side. 'Help me!' she screamed as she ran into the room. 'Somebody help me!'
Through two thin glass panels on the fire door, she could see steel cabinets
and the outline of the hole he'd kept her in.

    She
ran back, grabbed the heavy iron door and started pushing it closed. It cranked
and juddered as it swung inwards. He was getting closer. Twenty feet, maybe
less. She pushed harder, pain suddenly flaring in her face. In her nose. Her lips.
Her cheeks. Then the door stuck.

    He
was ten feet away.

    
Shut
.

    Eight
feet.

    
Shut.

    Six
feet.

    'Shut!'
she screamed.

    The
door shifted and swung shut against the iron frame. She glanced around the room
for something to jam against it. It looked like a submarine door — huge, bulky
and intricate — but there was no revolving lock mechanism, which meant all he
had to do to open it again was push from the other side. Halfway across the
room was a metal pipe — like a piece of scaffolding - propped against the wall.
She went to grab it.

    Then
the door started squealing.

    He
was pushing from the other side.

    She
grabbed the length of pipe, placed one end against a kink in the floor and then
forced the other end into a space about halfway up the door. It would hold for
a while. But not long.

    'Sona?'

    She
froze to the spot. Turned slowly. There was no one else in the room. But on the
far wall, above the fire door, she could make out another speaker. She frowned.
Took a step towards it.

    'Sona?'
the voice said again.

    She
stepped closer to the speaker. Watched it for a moment. Through the glass
panels in the door she could see more of the hole she'd been kept in. Plastic containers
were piled up in the corner of the room, and a ladder was against the far wall,
out of sight. That was how he'd got down into the hole in the first place.

    'You
need to stop running.'

    She
looked up at the speaker again. His voice sounded soft now, almost caring.
Tears filled her eyes. 'Let me go,' she said quietly. 'Just… let me go.'

    'I
will,' came the reply.

    'I
mean it!'

    'So
do I.'

    She
glanced back at the door, then at the speaker. 'I don't believe you.'

    No
reply this time.

    'I
don't believe you!' she screamed, and tears started rolling down her face. She
was scared, desperate. She wiped the tears away, trying to compose herself.

    A
scratching sound.

    
Crank.

    She
turned to face the door. He was still pushing at it. It shifted a little, the
length of pipe bending against the floor. Then, from somewhere above her, she
could hear rain.

    She
looked up.

    Six
feet above, a circular hole had been cut out of the ceiling. A manhole. Fixed
to one side of the hole was a drop-down ladder. She looked around her. On a
wall next to the glass-panelled door were three switches. Two were for lights,
presumably the room she was in, and the room with the hole. The other was set
apart on its own.

    Sona
moved to it. Flicked the switch.

    With
a clunk, the ladder started dropping down, whirring metallically. When one part
of it had extended its full length, the second part continued downwards. It
stopped in front of her, two feet off the floor of the room.

    'Step
on that ladder and I will kill you.'

    She
glanced at the speaker.

    'I
will hunt you down and I will cut you into pieces. I mean it. I will carve you
open if you put one
foot
on that ladder.'

    She
put her foot on the ladder.

    'You
stupid bitch!' A crank. The pipe at the door wheezed as he pushed, bending some
more. He smashed his fists against the other side, hammering at it like a drum.
You are dead! You are fucking
dead?

    Halfway
up the ladder, she paused briefly and looked down into the room. Above, the
rain continued to fall. Below, the door edged inwards even more, and she
glimpsed the pale blue of his medical scrubs.

    'You
will remember me,' he said from below her.

    She pushed
at the manhole cover above her. It moved away from the hole. Rain fell out of
the sky and down past her, to the room below. She placed a foot on the next
step. Then the next. Lifted her head up above the lip of the manhole.

    'Every
day, when you look in the mirror, you will remember me.'

    And
then she hauled herself out — and she ran.

    By
six o'clock it was getting dark and we were sitting in the shadows of an alley opposite
the warehouse. In the office, framed in the glass panel of the door, we could
see Luke Drayton still behind the counter, writing something. The warehouse
itself was closed up now, the huge delivery doors pulled shut and padlocked.

    'How
big was the trapdoor?' Healy asked.

    I
shrugged, keeping my eyes on Drayton. 'Difficult to tell. Most of it was
covered by boxes. It looked like a circular manhole cover. No bigger than two
and a half feet across.'

    We
fell into silence again. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty. At six-forty,
Drayton was still at the counter, writing. He had a calculator on one side of
him now.

    'Maybe
he lives down the hole,' Healy said.

    I
smiled. Occasionally I'd look at Healy and see a brief glimpse of the man he once
was. A different person, not built on revenge and regret, but on better
qualities; on compassion and humour. I liked that Healy, and I wondered how
long it would take him to reclaim that side of himself — and if he ever would.

    A
couple of minutes later, Healy's phone started ringing, buzzing across the
dashboard towards him. He picked it up and looked at the display.

    'Bollocks.'

    'What?'

    He
didn't answer and flipped it open. 'Healy.'

    Even
with the rain, I could immediately hear the voice on the other end. 'Healy,
it's Phillips. Where are you?'