Dr Chloe Stanton remained quiet as the armed waiter retrieved the unfinished remnants of her lunch, then exited the room, allowing the solid steel door to lock shut behind him with a clink. The numerical keypad flickered from green to red, as it always did, leaving her alone in the small room measuring only three metres by six. The walls were totally bare, although a small writing table with several choice novels stacked on it had offered her a modicum of distraction during her visit. Of course, being kidnapped and then locked away here over the last few days did not, in her mind, constitute an agreeable visit but rather a sentence, and she lay on the basic metal-framed single bed and mulled over the same thing that had preoccupied her since arriving. How to escape.
The size of the building beyond the door was unknown to her because she had been blindfolded instantly on being snatched by two large men wearing suits in the car park of Blackwater asylum when she arrived for the morning shift. She had not even noticed them coming, though the darkness of the early hour before sunrise without doubt accounted for that. The next few hours had been terrifying, and at first she thought it might be a rape attack or worse, but when she was bundled into a plane, for a flight lasting hours, she had realized it was something worse still – if that was possible – and sex trafficking had come to mind. Finally, after the flight, followed by a short car ride, she had been dragged to this cell and her blindfold removed. Only after the guard had given her a brief set of instructions and the door was locked behind him did she burst into tears – not from fear but from frustration, and the additional worry that her boyfriend Alex Harker was most likely now in a similar predicament.
This was partly confirmed when she was dragged from her cell to a creepy red-lit room and told to announce her present predicament to Harker himself over the phone. The old man instructing her – one Jacob Winters, if that was his real name – appeared to be pulling all the strings, and he had allowed her to just say hello before she was rapidly frogmarched back to her cell. Since then her thoughts had consisted of a muddle of questions revolving around why, where and what; at the forefront was Alex, and the trouble they were both obviously in.
With a Ph.D. in psychology, Chloe Stanton had hoped to use her acquired skills to garner as much information as possible, and since her arrival she had put all her focus on the one person she saw regularly: namely the armed man who fetched her meals. This, frustratingly, had proved useless since the man never said a word, or even attempted to interact with her, except to give instructions upon her initial arrival: ‘Stay here until you’re summoned. You’ll receive three meals a day and I won’t tolerate any talking or screaming.’ That was all the man had said before tapping his gun threateningly, then leaving the room.
By the second day, and realizing that any form of further communication was never going to happen, she had instead turned her attention to the numerical code lock on her prison door. There wasn’t a chance she would crack it, because she lacked both the skills and the tools to do so, so instead she had decided to remain vigilant to the waiter’s comings and goings during mealtimes. Every time there was a knock at the door, she would instantly lie down on her bed and pretend to be asleep. Then, as he left, she would open her eyes just enough to watch her ‘waiter’ tapping on the door keypad.
After quite a number of meals, and almost getting caught staring at the keypad, she had managed to identify four of the five digits he pressed in order to release the door. Now, with her latest lunchtime meal, she had managed to catch a look at the final one.
Chloe slid quietly off the bed and pressed her ear to the door apprehensively. So long as her carer kept to his normal timetable, it would be another five hours before supper arrived and, with that in mind, she risked tapping in the five-digit code. To her relief the door unlocked.
She peeked out into the corridor and scoured its length for any sign of movement but there was none. So she crept out, closing the door quietly behind her. She had already thought about leaving it ajar in case the outer keypad code differed from the interior one and she needed to make a hasty retreat, but that consideration had been made days ago, before the intense feeling of desperation to escape had set in. This was now a one-way trip and she was not about to allow herself the opportunity to retreat back to her cell if fear got the better of her. She was getting out of this place right now and that was that.
Chloe made her way down the corridor and past the barred windows that let in welcome rays of light across the floor. Her cell had no windows and, except for that single visit to see Winters, she’d had only the flickering strip lights for illumination. Chloe briefly enjoyed feeling the warmth of the sun against her skin before she continued along the corridor, already knowing where she was heading. Oddly, she had not been blindfolded upon being taken that time to see Winters, and she found herself now retracing the way she had been led. The dark red-lit room had contained a telephone and a window without bars, and there she hoped to make a call and then make her exit, no matter what the drop. Better to face a sprained ankle and a slow getaway than await her fate uncertainly in that confined little cell.
She edged her way around the next corner and into a large circular walkway with extravagant cracked grey marble flooring. A number of small pillars lined the walls, supporting a selection of busts and, although she did not recognize most of the faces portrayed, there was a dark bronze one of Charles Darwin which she remembered passing the last time she had come this way.
Chloe headed past it and off down a corridor with a thick red carpet she recognized from before. As she came to the door at the end, and with a final look behind her, she clasped the shiny brass handle and eased it downwards noiselessly and then poked her head inside.
The familiar crimson bulb overhead bathed the entire room in red and, despite her fear of stumbling into Winters or one of his guards, the place was empty so far as she could see. Leaving the door slightly ajar to allow more of the outside light to penetrate the room, Chloe made her way further inside and over to the desk with the telephone. Despite the sliver of natural light shining through the doorway, it was still extremely difficult to see properly and, with one hand now resting on the receiver, she closed her eyes and counted slowly to five.
When she reopened them her eyes were beginning to acclimatise to the red gloom and so she picked up the receiver and began to dial the operator. It was only after a few seconds’ silence that she realized the phone wasn’t working. No dial tone, nothing. She was continuing to pat away at the switch hook frantically when the sight of something lying on the desk made her pause. A white – or red under the light – iPhone lay flat on the desk and she immediately scooped it up and began to tap into it. There was no lock on the mobile and within seconds she was successfully dialling, but any feelings of optimism were dashed once she heard the automated beeps of a disconnect.
Chloe glanced down at the screen and noted the signal bars were empty. ‘Shit.’ From what she had seen so far, the walls of this place were constructed of solid stone, which might explain this lack of reception.
She made her way over to the covered window and already had one hand on the heavy curtain, ready to pull it back, when she became aware of a soft whirring noise coming from the other side of the room. After a pause she slowly tiptoed towards what at first she assumed was a wall, shadowy in the red light but, upon reaching it, she realized it was a large velvet drape hanging from the ceiling as a room divider. With one hand she gently drew it back, cautiously at first and then all the way, as she peered to see what was behind it.
In the corner she could make out what looked like a large cylindrical barrel, resting on one side and supported by thick trestles. She moved nearer still and to one side, so as to prevent her shadow creating even further gloom, then touched the object. It felt cold but not like metal, rather plastic, and she directed the light from the iPhone towards it until she could now see it was a capsule made of white Perspex. At one end an assortment of tubes and electrical cables ran from it directly into the wall.
Chloe slid her hand along the capsule’s smooth surface and up over the top, where she found a small square window cut into the surface. With the mobile still held out in front of her, she peered inside.
It was difficult to tell exactly what was contained within because there seemed to be layers of plastic sheeting, like shower curtains, concealing whatever it was. But she could just make out the shadowy outline of what might have been a head.
Chloe moved her face to within centimetres of the window and squinted inside, moving the mobile from side to side in an attempt to get a better look…
And that’s when it happened.
Something slammed against the window, and with that the entire capsule began to shake violently. The impact made her jerk backwards against the wall and sent a metal tray crashing to the floor. The capsule was now shaking so hard that the supporting trestles began to sway.
As Chloe backed away from it, she could hear voices outside and further down the corridor. She ran to the window and tugged at the curtains, but they were firmly held in place by the railings above, and so she slipped behind them and began to fumble with the locking clasp as the daylight from outside stung her eyes.
Within moments the clasp finally gave way as the voices behind her got louder. She pushed open the window and looked downwards and, although her vision was dazzled by the natural light, she could tell that the patio floor was only a few metres below. With little else on her mind other than just getting out of the room, she hauled herself out and jumped, then rolled as she hit the ground, ending up crashing into a small hedge that brought her to a stop. Her vision had now adjusted and her eyes darted around as she took in her surroundings. It was a lawned garden surrounded by trees, and as the sound of voices emerged from the window overhead, she crouched down and hid herself in the bushes closest by.
The voices were muffled by a sound that must have been the capsule still rocking back and forth, and Chloe waited for what seemed like forever until she heard the window slam shut again.
There are times when the most obvious hiding place is the most easily overlooked; figuring that if the voices were aware she had just jumped out of the window they would surely be searching for someone making a run for it, Chloe decided to stay put for the moment, hidden in the bushes. She glanced down at the iPhone still in her hand and a wave of relief washed over her as she saw the reception bar was now full. She dialled the operator and could almost have cried when a woman answered.
‘Good day, how can I help?’
‘I need to be put through to the emergency services immediately,’ Chloe gasped, keeping her voice low and cupping the receiver with her hand.
‘Which service do you require?’ the woman replied in a pleasant and professional way.
‘Police…definitely the police.’
There was a pause followed by a series of clicks and then the same woman came back on the line. ‘No, Dr Stanton, I don’t think we’ll be contacting them.’
This reply and the realization that came with it had Chloe dropping the phone just as behind her a pair of gloved hands grabbed her around the waist and began to pull backwards, uprooting a chunk of the hedge along with her.
‘We’ve got her,’ a voice called out above the crackling of a walkie-talkie as the foliage wrenched from the bush still smothered her face. ‘Better get Winters.’