She knows there has to be at least one more of them somewhere in the house, but she wonders if there are several of them spread throughout this place. It’s a horror story she needs to find the answer to, despite how scared she is. As she makes it to the landing she figures she has to be at least one more storey above ground level. She only has a stinking blanket for warmth and wraps it tighter around her, almost feeling some sort of connection to this bloodied and stained rag. It has been her only comfort for as many days as she can remember; it has seen her through more trauma than she has ever known before. She holds it tight as she looks at each of the closed doors in front of her. She needs to go in, needs to find someone, but hopes with every ounce of her that it isn’t one of her captors that she runs into.
Lucy thinks about moving on, heading downstairs and finding a door, but something stops her. The thought of anyone going through what she has been through makes her want to break down in tears, but it would be even worse to know that she had left other innocent people behind – people who didn’t deserve this any more than she did. She can hear thunder echoing outside the house, somewhere in the distance, and she knows time is running out.
It’s enough for her to grab the handle and push the door open. She stands in the hallway, waiting to see if someone comes running out. When nothing happens she walks in, immediately checking behind the door. The room is empty but she can tell it was not always like that. She looks at the walls, the furniture and the bed, and realises that this must be a child’s room. There are pink decorations everywhere and forgotten dolls all over the floor, which clearly shows that this was once a girl’s room, but there are marks on the bed which show her that whoever was the last to live in this room witnessed many horrors of their own.
She moves closer to it, her eyes fixed on the large, red patch in the middle of the mattress. Maybe there was once a sheet over it and maybe there was a happier time before all this suffering, but right now this room reeks of only pain and misery. She steps back, not wanting to know any more, not able to think that there was someone in here while she was upstairs. The small number of screams she has heard over the last few days have almost helped her, proving to her that she was not alone, but now she wishes it had only been her, that she had been the only one to feel the pain of this place.
She checks the other rooms but finds them all empty. One of them looks like it was recently lived in and also seems like a master bedroom, the bed a mess and the en-suite tiles still damp, with a musky smell and clothes thrown on the floor. It has to belong to a man and Lucy wonders if this is her captor’s room, and perhaps his wife is locked somewhere in the building. She keeps moving, determined to get out before she learns any more brutal truths.
She quietly shuts the door, determined to leave things as she found them, and then starts to walk down the next flight of stairs. She presses her hands against both walls to help her move but the pain gets worse with every step. She reaches the halfway point and stops. Just a minute to catch my breath, she thinks.
As she is counting the six steps to go a man appears beneath her. He reaches the bottom of the staircase, his attention focused on his cell. Lucy freezes like a statue. She knows that he isn’t going to simply walk away, but she’s not strong enough to lunge towards him or run away. She frantically thinks through the options in her mind but hasn’t thought of one before he finally looks up. He takes a step back when he sees her. He clearly finds the sight of someone escaping as surreal as being a captive has been for Lucy.
She starts to hobble back up the stairs, thinking that she will have to find a weapon of some sort – anything to fend him off. She wishes she had grabbed something on her way down; cannot believe she didn’t think of such a basic requirement in this new reality.
‘Come here!’ he shouts, as he runs up the few steps to get her. He’s on top of Lucy within moments, his thick hands grabbing her hair and pulling her back down the stairs. She screams as the pain bolts through her body, but it’s not enough to make him stop. He drags her along the floor, shouting threats and asking where his friend is. He calls out ‘Carlos,’ which she realises is the name of her tormentor. She can’t help but think how much the name suits him.
He doesn’t stop pulling her until they reach the kitchen, when he finally throws her into a chair. ‘What have you done to him?’ he asks, slapping her across the face a couple of times.
Lucy doesn’t say anything and looks around the room, trying to spot something she can use as a weapon, still hoping to make a quick escape.
He sees that she is looking, not paying him a fraction of the attention he wants, and so he slaps her across the face again, this time harder than Carlos ever did. ‘He might have idolised you but you’ll find I have far less interest, so tell me where he is.’
‘He’s upstairs, in my room,’ Lucy says, looking her new attacker in the eyes.
He nods and then grabs her throat. ‘He had better be alive up there because I’m not staying in this wretched place alone, I can assure you of that.’
Lucy spits in his face. ‘Well then, you had best be quick.’
Her insolence gets her another slap and before she realises what is happening she feels her hands being bound behind her back. Her wrists are tied together and then attached to the chair. He leans down to look at her, his face as calm as ice. ‘There is no hope for you other than my mercy, so I urge you to stay where you are and not struggle. If you don’t obey me then you’ll end up outside and I assure you there are far worse things out there than in here.’
She doesn’t say anything as he walks away. She can only look around the kitchen, planning her next escape. She has done it once and she can do it again. She needs to be much quicker and even quieter, but she can do it.
‘Well done!’ I say, as I look up at her and smile.
She looks back at me, the youngest of the three, the one who still hasn’t managed to properly speak. She could only shout and point when she spotted the small piece of string which enabled us to find our way in.
‘How long have you three been here?’ I ask.
They look at each other, as if trying to count up the days. I’m not sure if they are trying to work it out, or if they simply have no idea how long their torment has lasted.
‘I got here yesterday,’ one of them says, looking around, still unsure where here is.
The quietest one nods, tapping her new friend’s arm. She doesn’t say anything but I can tell that her story is the same.
I look at Terry and her face tells a different tale of pain. ‘A week,’ she says, wiping the tears that are flowing down her cheeks.
‘About the same time as Lucy,’ I say, gently rubbing her arm. ‘Do you think you were moved at any point?’
Terry quickly nods. ‘I think I was moved a few times but I was always drugged up so I never knew what was going on. I could tell that I was in a different room, but mostly because the beds were different. Why do you ask?’
I nod, holding up this small bit of string. ‘I searched this house a week ago with the police and we found nothing. The detective was really helpful. He let me search the house and I spent a lot of time down here, because I thought this is where Lucy would be being held.’
Terry looks around the dark room. ‘But you obviously never found her?’
I nod. ‘It turns out the detective was in on this whole thing and I think the reason he was so happy for me to search this place is because I don’t think this trapdoor was here. I think Carlos, the guy who apparently lives here, tunnelled from the other side, using Number 12 to store the equipment and do his work. Detective Marius could never tell his men not to search a property without raising suspicion, but he could easily keep all of you in the abandoned house over the road. No one would ever know because there are many empty houses now.’