The Ensnared (3 page)

“You can’t do this!” Keith
screamed. “You’re supposed to serve and protect us!”

“There are only seven of you and
seven hundred in this city.” the policeman replied.

Melissa looked at the policeman’s
face and saw how scared he looked all of a sudden. When he waved the gun at her
again, Keith pulled her back by her arm. She went backwards and Fiona helped
her get back in just as Keith swung his long legs over the railing, so that he
could lean over to talk to  the policeman.

“Did you purposely trap us here?”
Keith demanded. “We’re all innocent here. How is our life any less important
than the rest of the people in this city?”

“Stay in.” The policeman warned.

“No, we want answers!” Keith said
stubbornly.

Melissa turned to look at the
riders and saw that they had stopped and grouped outside the grocery store
which was undoubtedly going to burn to the ground in a matter of minutes. The
riders still had their helmets on and were discussing something quietly. She
saw them look in their direction several times.

The policeman hesitated as Keith
lowered himself. “Stay there.” the policeman warned again. “I will fire my gun if
you don’t do as I say.”

“They’re just vandals!” Keith said.
“Get a few policemen and arrest them.”

“Keith, just come over.” Rafe said
and reached for his shoulder, but Keith shrugged him off and almost lost his
balance in the process.

“What you’re doing is completely illegal.”
Keith told the police officer. “We could lodge a complaint against you and have
you suspended.”

“This is your last warning!” the
officer said. “I’ll count till three and if you don’t go back in, I will shoot
you!”

“Keith! Please! Just come back!”
Sara sobbed.

“One...”the officer said.

“We’ll figure something else out.”
Melissa said and offered her hand to Keith, who completely ignored it.

“Two...”

“You can’t do this to us!” Keith
screamed at him. “You won’t get away with…”

“Three!” the officer said and
seconds later, Melissa heard a loud gunshot echo through the night.

When the gun had gone off, Melissa
had thought that the police officer had only shot in the air to scare off
Keith, but Sara’s screams proved otherwise.

“Keith!” Sara shrieked and Melissa
heard a loud splash.

“You killed him!” Fiona screamed at
the police officer and pushed against the fence.

“Stay back or I’ll kill you!” The
policeman warned.

Melissa looked at the flickering
light of her cell phone, as a cold shiver went up her spine. She leaned against
the railing and tried to suppress the scream that was building inside of her.
Keith wasn’t standing there anymore and Shane’s flashlight showed a bright red
stain on the side of the metal railing.

“Oh my God!” Jennifer whimpered as
she joined her. “Did he really...is he dead?”

Melissa shook her head. This
couldn’t be happening, could it? It had to be a dream. It just had to be!

“You freakin’ killed him!” Shane
yelled. His words cut through her and she choked on her sob. It was real!
Whatever was happening around her was real!

“Stay back, son!” the police
officer said. His gun was still raised and aimed at Shane’s chest.

Melissa saw Shane getting ready to
charge at him, but Rafe pulled him back roughly. “It’s no use Shane! He’s gone!”

  Sara and Jennifer were still
crying as Fiona kept looking at the lagoon in the darkness. Melissa peered down
and tried to search for Keith’s corpse, but to no avail. Keith must have sunk
to the bottom. Out of all the things going around her, Melissa found herself
trying to remember if corpses floated or sunk in water.

“He just killed an innocent!” Shane
cried. “What the hell is wrong with the people in this town?”

Melissa heard the roar of engines
again and swallowed. She looked towards where the riders were grouped and saw
that they were waiting idly, as if contemplating whether to attack them or not.
She felt her heart beating faster at that very thought.

“Guys?” Melissa tried to say, but
all that came out was an inaudible whisper.

Rafe and Shane were still arguing,
but Melissa didn’t pay any attention to them anymore.  Her eyes were fixated on
the riders across the street. The flames from the store provided her enough
light for her to notice that one of the riders was reaching for a metallic
object from a compartment in his bike.

“Will you guys just shut up?” Sara
yelled at them.

Melissa held her breath as the
rider came up with a chainsaw. As he pushed a button and started it up, she
uttered a low cry.
What was he going to do with that? Kill them?
Her
skin broke out in goosebumps and she tried opening her mouth to warn her
friends, but stifled a scream when she noticed the other riders.

They were all pulling out objects
from their carriers and she gasped when she saw one of them pulling out a
sword. Melissa turned to Jennifer, trying to point them out to her, but she
found herself unable to resist looking back at the riders. They were laughing
now. All of them- as if they were going to pull off a silly prank instead of
killing them.

“I can’t take you guys arguing anymore!”
Sara said suddenly and started to walk away from them. “Keith is dead!” Sara
said, still stepping away. She was so distracted that Melissa noticed Sara
walking right towards where the riders were!

“Sara!” Melissa called. “Come back!
You’re walking towards…them!”

“I bet those guys are way better
than all of you!” Sara said angrily.

“Sara, they have weapons!” Melissa
yelled.

Sara turned around then and looked
at her. “What?”

Before Melissa could open her mouth
to explain, one of the rider’s had closed in on her. He had a chainsaw in one
hand and was maneuvering his bike with the other.

The movement caught Rafe and
Shane’s attention and they stopped arguing. They looked at Sara in horror.

“Hey!” Shane said, recovering from
his shock. He rushed towards Sara and grabbed her arm. “What are you doing? Let’s
go!”

But before they had managed take a
step back, the other riders had already encircled them and Melissa let out a
whine.

Jennifer lowered herself on the
ground and hugged her knees, sobbing softly and covering her eyes. But Melissa
found herself unable to look away from the scene that was unfolding before her.

“We have to help them.” Fiona said,
but before she had taken a step, Rafe had stopped her and was gesturing her to
remain quiet. He pushed Fiona on the ground next to Jennifer and motioned
Melissa to do the same.

“We need to do something.” Fiona
whispered.

“They’ll kill us before we even try.”
Rafe said quietly and pushed a dustbin in front of them as silently as he could.

“They’re our friends!” Fiona
retorted.

“They’re as good as dead now,” Rafe
said.

“I can’t believe you!” Fiona said
and started to get up, but Rafe pushed her down.

“Shut the hell up!” he barked.
Melissa almost jumped at Rafe’s tone and then  turned back to the riders.

“Let us go!” Shane cried as the
riders got off their motorcycles.

Sara hugged Shane and the two of
them stood in fear as the riders inched closer towards them.

Melissa looked around her and
wished she could find something to use as a weapon. She hated to admit it, but
Rafe was right. They were trapped in a cage with no way out. If the riders
spotted them, they would probably kill all of them.

The riders said absolutely nothing
as Shane looked all around him for an exit. Melissa peered through the gap in
the dustbin and saw Sara starting to cry as one of the riders switched on his
chainsaw.

She covered her ears as the
chainsaw sprung to life. She had never felt so helpless before.  Here she was
hiding like a coward when she should be thinking of something to help Shane and
Sara. But the will to live was all too overpowering. The riders looked
dangerous and they had weapons! What chance did they really have?

“Please!” Sara begged. “Help us!”

Melissa uncovered her ears. She
couldn’t just sit here and do nothing as two innocent people were slaughtered
before her. She would never be able to forgive herself if she didn’t at least
try.

She got up from her hiding place
and realized that it was too late as the chainsaw came down on Sara. Jennifer
screamed then and Melissa felt her limbs growing weak as Sara dropped dead on
the ground.

“No!” Shane screamed, but seconds
later, Melissa saw the chainsaw come down on him too.

Melissa felt something warm spray
over her and looked down to see her blue colored t-shirt sprayed with bright
red droplets that were quickly turning purple. Her mouth opened to scream, but
she found herself unable to even breathe. The cold wind was brushing
mercilessly against her, but Melissa didn’t even notice it on her skin anymore.

She stood there, watching the pool
of blood spread on the ground as the riders laughed. She saw two of them reach
down and throw something at the bodies.

“Melissa, sit down!” Rafe said his
voice filling with terror.

Before Melissa could stop herself,
she broke down into loud sobs. She covered her mouth to silence herself, but it
was too late. The riders had spotted her and were walking towards her in rapid
strides.

Melissa felt her cell phone slip
from her fingers as she spotted Sara’s mutilated body on the ground, next to
Shane’s. There was some sort of dirt thrown across their faces and to Melissa
it looked like dried flowers. Although why the riders would throw flowers on
their victims didn’t make sense to her.

From the corner of her eye, she saw
Fiona, Rafe and Jennifer get up slowly. They were caught and now they were all
going to die.

“What do we do?” Fiona cried. “We
need a weapon!”

“I told you to stay down!” Rafe chided,
but Melissa could only stare at him in stunned silence. She wished Mark was
here. Mark always carried a Swiss army knife and he even knew a bit of Tae Kwan
Do. Even though his knife and limited fighting skills would do little against
the maniacal slayers, she knew that if he was here, he would have protected her
at all cost.

Melissa wiped a tear and smiled to
herself. If Mark had wanted to protect her, he would have never cheated on her.
In the end, Mark couldn’t protect her from a broken heart and tonight she was
going to die because Mark couldn’t protect her from this either.

“There’s only one option left.”
Rafe whispered to them. “We have to jump into the water and swim for it.”

“Are you crazy?” Fiona whispered
back, her eyes never leaving the approaching riders. “The cop on the other side
would shoot us dead. Besides how far can we swim in a lagoon?”

“A year ago, they were planning to
convert part of the lagoon into an artificial land.” Rafe said quickly. “They
were going to expand the existing islets into land. The project was stopped
midway, but I’m pretty sure there’s an islet somewhere around here.”

Melissa looked towards the burning
stores and saw that the flames were dying down. “It’s getting dark.” she said.
“Maybe the cop won’t be able to see us if we jump into the lagoon.”

“I can’t swim.” Jennifer said. “I
can’t!”

Rafe looked at her and then at
Melissa. “That’s too bad. We’ll have to go on without her.”

“I’m not leaving her.” Melissa
said. “How can you even think about leaving her behind?”

“Then you can die too.” Rafe said coldly
and pulled himself over the railing.

“Fiona!” Melissa pleaded, but Fiona
had pulled herself over too and getting ready to dive in.

“We have to do this. This is our
only way out.” Rafe said.

“Jennifer!” Melissa said thinking quickly.
“Jump! Then grab hold onto me.”

“I can’t! I’m too scared.” Jennifer
cried.

Melissa pulled herself up on the
railing and held out her hand. “Trust me! I’ll get you through this!”

“Hey!” one of the riders yelled
clearly guessing their intentions.

Melissa took this as her cue to
make her escape and swung her legs around, dived into the lagoon and hoped like
crazy that there weren’t any large rocks underwater that would injure her. The
water however was freezing and she cried out at its sudden touch.

She heard two more splashes beside
her and looked up to see a silhouette of Jennifer in the dark, still standing still.

“Jump!” Melissa yelled, pedaling
her legs to stay afloat. “You can do this!”

“Come on!” Fiona screamed.

Melissa spotted the dark shadow of
the rider standing right behind her friend and screamed. Her screams, jolted
Jennifer into action and she quickly climbed over the railing and jumped into
the lagoon.

Melissa swam towards her and
grabbed hold of her arm. She pulled Jennifer’s arm over her shoulder and
suddenly felt herself sinking.