The Abduction of Monica 18: Home Invasion - Leila's Story
by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)
(story continues from The Abduction of Monica 17: Flight)
I came awake the moment the tape was pressed hard against my mouth. This was the same instant I felt the man’s weight on top of me, trapping my arms beneath the bedclothes.
I’m a stomach sleeper – normally face down on my tummy – which, when you have someone on top of you and tape covering your mouth - leaves you in a decidedly bad situation. So it was with this man. I had no idea who it was and I was petrified! I struggled mightily but he was big and heavy on my back, and I could do nothing as he grabbed one wrist under the covers and pulled it clear behind me. In an instant I felt a cable tie encircle it, slipping home with the fast ratcheting series of clicks. A second tie was already looped through it and seconds later the other wrist was secured and I was helpless.
Who was this person? It was pitch dark in my bedroom save for the radio clock, and that gave me no clues. I was still mmmphing behind the tape, trying to work my mouth free when several more pieces went over my eyes and more over my mouth and that was that for Leila. God! What was happening?
Like most of the girls, I sleep naked, and knew there was nothing I could do to defend myself in these circumstances. Mine was the second room of the sleeping quarters – a kind of bunkhouse behind Bilboes with a long external verandah giving access to the six double bedrooms. On one side was Steven’s room, on the other Emma’s then Jill, Trish and Mary at the end. It was a kind of seniority thing, I guess, with Mary being the eldest and strictest and therefore having the room furthest from the chatter of younger voices. But Mary was not here, of course. Neither was Steven.
My mind came alive with what we had seen on the latest video that had arrived just hours ago. It must be one in the morning now, at least. The dread of a daily emailed video had turned to horror when an apparently unscheduled one had arrived just as we were preparing to go to bed. In addition to further tortures of Monica and Mary, it had shown Steven and Sofiya – all four bound and gagged inside some sort of room lined with wooden slats where they were secured to the wall.
Of course we had dragged poor Paul out and gone through everything we knew about Steven and Sofiya’s movements – which was precious little. We appeared to have lost the only weapon in our locating armoury – Sofiya. Now all four were captured and we had little idea of their whereabouts. Steven had promised to advise as soon as they had any strong leads, but since one email from a place called Wellsford there had been nothing, though I suppose that was a start. Paul had been working with the New Zealand police since then, but of course these things take time, and in the middle of the night in some sleepy-hollow town... well we didn’t expect miracles.
We had all gone to bed depressed and exhausted. Things were getting worse, but we had not expected anything else to happen so suddenly after that disaster. I had locked my bedroom door when I had retired, but it had not kept out my assailant. I felt the bedclothes pulled off and I got slapped across the side of the head for my troubles as I tried to wriggle from my attacker’s grasp. Not surprisingly my ankles were quickly trapped in more cable ties and I could do nothing but try to focus and control my panic.
What was he going to do with me – or to me? I was fearful of either option. Whatever it was to be, it was clearly not happening in that place, for moments later the man hoisted me over his shoulder like a sack of grain and eased his way out of the bedroom. I tried to struggle, but he had one arm around my legs and with my head halfway down his back it was useless. The warm night air blew over the exposed skin of my bottom pointed to the sky, but I was unable to attract help. I could whine and moan for all I was worth, but unless Emma was already awake next door, she would never hear it. The dividing walls between the bedrooms and their ensuites were of solid, concrete-filled block – very sound-proofed, as we knew from experience. I knew Jill and Emma often got together in one or other’s bedrooms of a night, but I hardly ever heard anything, despite Emma being a bit of a screamer if given the chance.
My captor moved swiftly and quietly and I figured he was wearing sneakers of some sort. He carried me down the verandah steps and across the lawn to the house, but instead of perhaps going up the main steps at the rear we moved down the sloping lawn until I heard the crunch of gravel under his feet. There was a faint creak of a door and I realised we must be going in through the steel emergency door that led directly into the basement corridor.
The implication dawned on me then that not only was I in trouble at a personal level, but we all were. This man had the run of Bilboes and was intent on something awful. He carried me inside and along the corridor past the Post Room and the store room, then around the corner to the base of the stairs. Here were several niches under the stairs themselves where we often locked prisoners, depending on how long their stay was to be with us.
I heard another creak of an iron grille and felt myself deposited on the ground then rolled over into “Little Ease”. Little Ease was the second to lowest of the spaces under the sloping stairs. The higher wall was about a metre and a half, and the lower wall half of that, the depth of the space being the width of the stairs which formed the roof. It was named after a similar medieval version in the Tower of London, so called because regardless of any restraints worn by the occupant, there was insufficient room to stretch out fully or to stand up.
This was a bit academic for me, in my bound, gagged and blindfolded condition. I heard the clang of the grille and the sliding of the bolt, which I knew was around the edge of the grill and out of reach of any prying hands, much less when they were bound behind one. I lay on my side in my darkened world, my naked body trembling against the cold of the concrete floor. The fact that I had been dumped there made it obvious in my mind that I was not the singular target but that most likely the man had gone off to seize the others one by one.
I hoped Jill and Emma might be sleeping together, for they had been lovers for some years, but not such that they didn’t value their own space. If they were together there might be a chance that they could escape this man’s clutches and his unknown mission.
Perhaps ten or fifteen minutes passed – I lost track of time. You’d think after all the hours I’ve spent bound in some dungeon or cell with no recourse to seeing the passage of time that I would in fact become adept at judging its passing. Yes, many were the times that I had tried counting seconds and minutes, but usually the intensity of my surroundings and circumstances would put paid to that and I would lose the plot and slip into sub-space, where time just ceased to have meaning.
My thoughts were distracted by the opening of the grilles again and the depositing of a warm body next to mine. I felt long hair and full, warm breasts and knew – perhaps predictably enough – that it was Emma. We mmphed at each other in recognition and in the way that you do with a fellow captive without necessarily making a lot of sense. What this meant, however, was that with a second person there I could now use my hands to get at the tape over Emma’s eyes and mouth – or she to mine.
It sounds easy, but when you’re in a tiny cell in the darkness and unable to communicate, it takes a lot of squirming to get where you want to be. In Emma’s case the tape had been wrapped right around her head. With a lot of effort and grunting I had almost got to the point where I had found the start of the tape, when the grille opened again and Jillian was shoved in with us.
Space was now really tight and it took some time to get the tape off Emma’s mouth, then to allow her access to mine. After that it was easier as we could speak and direct each other.
“Who the hell is this?” Jill whispered finally. “Did he say anything to you two?”
“Not a word,” I breathed, as Jill worked on the tape over my eyes. It pulled clear with a painful tug, but the darkness didn’t ease up any. No lights were on in the Bilboes dungeons.
“What does he want?” Emma ventured, her voice low in the darkness, for all of us were scared that we would be overheard. Distantly I thought I detected sounds upstairs, but the old house often creaked of its own accord. None of us could answer the question.
“What about Trish?” I said suddenly, for I thought if he was overcoming us one by one, Trish must surely be the next – and last – victim, because Shawnee was away studying for university exams for the next few days.
“I thought she was going to the Brimstone Club to take her mind off things,” Jill said.
“So she might not be here?” Suddenly there was a ray of hope that one of our number might not have been caught in the net. A few minutes more passed – sufficient time for us to remove the last of the tape from our heads and to convince ourselves that Trish was not going to become prisoner number four.
But amidst this brief optimistic thought there was the sound of the door opening at the top of the stairs and feet coming downstairs over our cell. They were clearly not Trish’s – rather, being those of our captor. He did not stop to check on us but continued on in a hurry. There came the sound of another door opening – perhaps that to the store room.
Things went momentarily quiet and we seemed to collectively hold our breaths. Then we all seemed to sense it at the same time – a distant roar, like the wind in the trees, and a faint crackling.
“What’s that noise?” Emma whispered fearfully.
That was the moment when another, closer noise reached us – a soft whoosh and the sudden smell that made our blood run cold.
Fire! Bilboes was on fire!
A second later there was a glare from down the corridor and a horrific scream...
* * *
06.09.09
story continues in The Abduction of Monica 19: Home Away From Home
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