Dangerous Games

Chapter 16 part 2

So back we went, hand in hand, our arms waving out to the side, and so this went on for what seemed like hours. I was beginning to despair that we would ever get out of that Hell hole – and, who knows, it could have been Hell that we were in for all either of us knew – when Anita stumbled slightly to her left, then cried out.

"Ah, that's cold. Wait. Yes, it's ... It's metal! That's the door to the lift. I've found it."

This was the best news we'd had since either of us had arrived, whenever that had been, and something a bit like enthusiasm took over if only for a moment. We broke our grip and both lashed out where Anita had been feeling, our arms thrashing about in the gloom. It didn't take long for us to locate the opening – it was indeed a deep alcove with a metal lift door at the back.

If memory served me correctly, the button to summon the lift was ... yes, there it was. I pressed the button with alacrity.

"Don't worry," I reassured Anita. "It won't be long now."

But, my feeling of relief was gone all too quickly. It was Anita who pointed out the flaw in the plan.

"Is that the lift on the right?"

"What do you mean?"

"We have to use the same lift to get back to our world. The same lift that we used to get here."

Lost for words, I didn't reply. She carried on, with more urgency in her voice.

"There are two lifts, on the right and the left. I used the lift on the right. Is that the lift on the right?"

"I ... I don't know. We're going to have to feel around."

Not knowing when the lift would arrive, or how long it would stay, we both felt around quickly. If and when that lift arrived, the urge to get into it would be so strong, we probably wouldn't have been able to stop ourselves. Those lifts had lights in them, and we would finally be able to use our eyes again properly.

Minute after minute went past, with no lift arriving, and no sign of the other lift door either. Our fumblings became ever more frantic. Our lives depended on knowing which lift we were standing in front of. The one on the right – the one we had both used to get here – would lead to home and safety. The one on the left would lead, well, we didn't know where it would lead.

"It's no good," Anita had started to succumb to despair again. "We're never going to get out of here. Whatever we try, something always goes wrong and spoils it." She leaned against the wall behind her and slowly slumped down into a sitting position, her will to fight utterly drained away.

I was growing weary of trying to lift her spirits whenever she let herself go. In fact, I admit, I was getting a little sick of it. I knew this was a thirteen-year old girl who had been in this horrible place a lot longer than I had, but I seemed to be the only one doing anything to get us out of here. All she had done was cry, and moan, and wail about the fact that we were both doomed. I was about to turn and give her a piece of my mind when she cried out again.

"Agh, that's wet. My hand ... it's all wet!"

"What?" She'd wrong footed me. "What do you mean?"

She held up her hand towards me. I couldn't see properly, so I put my face as close to her hand as possible. There was indeed a large black stain on her hand which shocked me slightly. I held out my hand to touch hers – it was indeed wet. Some of that wet stain had transferred itself to my index finger.

I held my stained finger up close to my eyes trying to identify what this stuff was, that was by now dripping down from my finger. Whatever it was, it was certainly very wet and runny and there was plenty of it. I was surprised to find that I could actually smell this liquid, and that the smell was more that familiar.

"My God, it's blood! Your hand is covered in blood!"

She started wailing. "I'm injured. I'm hurt. It's blood. I'm bleeding."

To my great relief, a thought had occurred to me.

"No, wait. You're not hurt. It's my blood, not yours."

This, at least, calmed her down. "I ... I don't understand."

"I remember now. When I first got out of the lift, I fell over and landed on my face. Gave myself a massive nose bleed. Almost choked on my own blood." I didn't make any mention of the struggle that I'd had with the demon woman who had tried to make me turn round, and the fact that it was my supreme effort to tear myself away from her grip that had caused me to fall. I must have lost more blood than I thought. What I couldn't understand is why the blood hadn't dried. A pool like that would have soaked into the carpet, dried off, wouldn't it?

Anyway, thank goodness it hadn't. "Don't you see what this means?" I asked. "When I fell out of the lift, I keeled straight over in front of the door. This must be the lift I came up in. And I made sure I came up in the same lift that you used. This is the lift we need."

As if on cue, the lift arrived, and the door opened. Far from flooding the corridor with the bright light that you might expect, the interior of the lift was, if anything, even darker than the quarter-light that we were currently experiencing.

We moved cautiously into the lift cabin, me on my feet, Anita half walking and half shuffling from her seated position. The moment we were through the door, the door closed, plunging us into immediate utter darkness. This was no longer the dim grey suggestion of light that there had been outside in the corridor. No, this was an inky blackness that pressed down on you like a blanket.

Straight away Anita started sobbing again, and this time, I'm afraid, I lost my temper.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, just pull yourself together! We're on our way home now, isn't that good enough for you?" She quietened down, then stopped.

I racked my brains. What was the procedure for getting home? God, I should know this. I'd spent countless hours scanning those websites becoming familiar with those instructions. Erm, simply go down to the first floor, that was it. But wait, no, that wasn't it at all. No, you only went back down to the first floor if you hadn't originally stepped out of the lift. Okay, not that then. Then what?

Follow the same instructions on the way down that you used to get there. That was it. Was it? Yes, that was definitely what we had to do.

Right, now a different problem presented itself. Neither of us could see a damn thing inside that lift. Honestly, if I'd held my hand an inch away from my face, I wouldn't have been able to see it.

Anita had obviously had the same thought. "What are we going to do? It's pitch black in here."

Think, Tim, think! This is one of those situations where you can't just call for back-up. Perhaps it was just as well I hadn't put in for advancement in the force, as I'm clearly not suitable as a leader of men. Then an idea came to me.

"Anita, do you have a wrist watch on?"

"Yes, why?"

"Does it come with a light built in?"

"Yes. It's one of these buttons, if I can find it."

"Show me."

She shuffled around in the darkness. I could hear her muttering. Then a small spot of light appeared, illuminating about a couple of inches in all directions. I could see Anita's watch, with her thumb and forefinger clearly pressing on a couple of buttons, and also part of her sleeve. Beyond that, everything was again pitch black. Thank goodness at least some machines worked in this realm. Bizarrely, the presence of a tiny island of light only seemed to make the surrounding darkness thicker, as though we were swimming in tar. It gave the disturbing impression that the thick blackness extended forever in all directions.

"Great. Now we're talking. Look, I've got a written list of instructions in my pocket which told me how to get me to this world, and I'm pretty sure it's exactly the same list for getting back out again. Now, come over here with that light and let me look at this list." That was it, firm and decisive. I was back in control.