Chapter Eighty
Jules steps softly inside the concrete dome.
The bunker entry’s lit by two exposed light bulbs hanging from wires.
The rattle of a generator echoes in the passage.
Down the hall, she comes to an open space.
It smells musty, the floor strewn with debris from another era.
Rusted cans, a coil of barbed wire, trash.
“Hello,” she calls out, her voice shaking. “Hello!” she tries louder. She’s feeling pins and needles. He could be back at any time.
She sees a door to another room. An old storeroom maybe. She tries the handle, but it’s locked. Next to the door is a table with a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter on it.
There’s a slot cut into the door. Like how they feed prisoners in movies, sliding trays through the opening, but this one is at eye level.
For watching. A wave of disgust travels through her.
“Hello!” she calls out.
She opens the hinged cover like a mailbox and she nearly screams when she sees the two wide eyes looking into hers.
It’s then she feels the press of a heavy tube against the back of her head. The muzzle of a gun.
“You’re a feisty one,” the voice says. There’s heavy thud on the back of Jules’s head, blackening her vision momentarily, the pain immense.
From the ground, she watches half-conscious as he rams a key into the door’s lock. The key is attached to a retractable metal cord clipped to his belt. The door to the prison cell opens, and he grabs Jules’s arm, drags her in.
She hears a whimper from someone inside.
In her fog, she sees a mattress on the ground. A figure on it folding into a protective ball. The light powered by the generator flickering.
She smells something, and panic envelopes her as she watches him grip a gasoline can and douse the area.
“Sorry, gals. It’s been real,” he says, as he heads to the door.
Jules marshals every bit of strength she has and lunges at him, reaching only his waist. He backhands her as she clings to him, and Jules falls to the ground. She curls up in a ball, prays he doesn’t realize she’s snatched away the retractable key chain.
She hears crying now; the other prisoner is a woman or young girl. He leaves the room, slams the door.
He’s going to set this concrete dome on fire. Kill them and destroy all the evidence.
Through gulped breaths, the girl says, “He grabbed me after my shift at the mall today … he started to … I want my mom…” She’s hyperventilating.
He must have abducted another May 1st victim, but locked her up here so he could attend the ceremony for Quinn. Then he saw that Jules knew it was him, so he had to take her.
Jules says, “I’m going to get you out of here. You’re going to be okay.”
The girl makes a sickening sound of more gasps for air, more sobs.
It’s then Jules hears voices outside the door.