#2 In The Dark

Chap. 7_raised eyebrows and flawed scenarios?

Rob and Frank were at their table. Rob had stayed sat down, even when he'd realised that the ten minutes were gone. He hadn't felt the hope that Sarah had, if only for an instance. He knew that there had to be something wrong. And he was right.

Frank was still sitting too. Though his face had changed very quickly from the looks of admiration he'd gazed at Sarah with, to a look of expectant despair. He was sort-of in between Sarah and Rob. He wanted there to be hope, so very much, but it broke his heart to see Sarah think the same. Because he had a feeling that despite the optimism of the moment - that small surge that everything was OK – something had happened. And he was proven right.

Sarah had paced over towards them, but instead of stopping by their table, she'd simply whispered a few words in passing.

"You deal with this," she'd spoken, quietly but with immense force. "Rob you check the bodies, and Frank you go clear up this mess."

And she'd carried on walking. She wasn't asking. She was telling. And it was a new side of her, that neither Frank nor Rob had seen before. She was scary when angry.

They both got up unobtrusively, and started to walk towards the group of people, huddled on the other side of the room. The triplets sat, not moving or talking or making any noise at all. Their blank-faces couldn't even show a fraction of what they were feeling inside. The Babbits were in a 'group-hug' formation and the others were still on their tables.

Rob started to look over the two bodies. And Frank started to comfort.

*****

We've lost, Sarah, there's no way out. Even the small moments of happiness are shattered by instances of immovable grief. There's no way to say that even if we do work out all of the killings, that they'll set us free. They're playing us. Taunting us. Taunting us with death. Getting us into such terrified situations that panic simply takes over.

She'd given the boys her instructions, and was now slumped against the corner of the restaurant closest to the exit, hands over her ears. She needed time to think. To unpick the puzzle. But the word 'terrorism' kept coming back into her mind.

Is this really terrorism? It is killing, by means of terror, but it's not open. It's not in pursuit of anything political or religious. It's simply for fun. It's like it's all been planned and carried out for someone's entertainment. Or maybe we're guinea pigs for an experiment. Some freak is trying to find out how people respond in these circumstances. Maybe that's it. Or maybe they're just sitting laughing at the stupid little humans dying.

She started to think of all the people. All the silly little lives that had gone to waste in this sadistic game.

Mark. Alison's husband. The man who hadn't even spoken a word, but still been massacred. Eve, stabbed. Yasmin, hanged. The two Askhams. They were random people. People who had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or, Sarah suddenly began to think, were they? Were they just random? Or had this been planned so far in advance that all the people in the room were there for a reason? What if the people in the room had somehow done something wrong, and they were all coaxed into coming here, just to be killed? What if the people dying were all criminals? Or if they'd all killed people and that the voice up above was just trying to get some justice for some crimes that had gone unpunished.

No, she thought to herself, that's far too 'Agatha Christie'. It's all far too fictional. In fact, the whole thing is far too fictional.

This is real life. This isn't a dream. This is a genuine scenario. So why are there so many flaws? Why are all the people here so genuinely dull? Why don't they have any background? There's no-one really trying to kick up a fuss. There's no-one here who's outspoken or loud or anything like that. They're all acting as though someone's died. But they're acting too hard. They are acting.