The Lake House

Chapter 22

A/N: This chapter as well as the next one is dedicated to SKD; the character "Megan" was inspired by her.

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I woke up shivering. It was freezing.

I had fallen asleep on Pete's chest, who was nice and warm compared to the weather. He was wearing a black jumper with the words "Billabong" written all over it in red. He loved that jumper. But it was now ripped in many places and faded and dirty. It still made a good pillow, I thought to myself.

He moved a lot while he slept, so I half woke up a lot during the night.

The sun was barely up so I figured it would have been around five o'clock in the morning.

I heard a loud BANG.

It was Jake trying to break down the door. He must have been really keen to get in the house. I understood his motives however, it was freezing out here.

Hayley, who had been sleeping on Jake's chest, had woken up and was with him in an instant. Together they tried breaking through. Pete and I got up to help them. The door was nearly off its hinges and we knew that it would not take a lot to break it down.

"One, two, THREE!" Jake yelled out as we all stumbled into the door and broke through it in one quick motion. The door went crashing onto the floor and the four of us fell on top of the door.

Struggling to get up we dusted ourselves off as there were a lot of dust and spider webs everywhere.

My eyes familiarised themselves with the room. It was completely empty.

If it wasn't for the slightly familiar front of the house, I would have thought we were in the wrong house. The house looks completely different with the empty rooms.

"Hmm mmh hmm" I heard a soft mumble coming from the next room.

Megan. I thought.

I ran as quick as I could to the next room to find my best friend. There was some sort of tape over her mouth. She was cuffed to a chair. Her legs were tied to the legs of the chair with a nylon rope. She tried to smile as she saw us, but tears came streaming down her already tear-stained face.

I started towards her when I felt everyone in the room suddenly stiffening. Something caught my eye.

No way.

It can't be.

This is just a bad dream.

Directly above Megan's head, hanging from the roof, was a screen with red numbers on it. It was counting down.

A bomb.

"SHIT!!!" I heard Pete yell out. "We've only got three minutes!!"

I sprinted towards Megan in attempt to pick her and the whole chair up and carry it all outside to save time. But the chair was bolted to the wooden floor.

While I was trying to untie the ropes around her legs, Hayley took the tape off of her mouth. Megan starting thanking us for showing up and helping her and how grateful she is to see us. She was telling us how much she missed us and how much she wanted a hot shower. She obviously did not know about the bomb.

I knew she would freak out and we would not be able to concentrate if she knew about it, so we all kept quiet about it.

The rope was tied really tightly. I remember getting knots like the ones that the rope was tied with in a subject I had at school. So i knew how to undo the knots, but they were so tight that it took ten times the time it would have taken me normally.

"TWO MINUTES!!" Pete declared with a shaky voice.

I knew that we would be able to concentrate better without Pete counting down but we also had to know how much time we have left.

"The cuffs need a combination to unlock!" I heard Jake yell out. Hayley walked around to him to help him with the combination. They had not idea what it might be. Maybe if they knew who the kidnappers were they could have at least guessed the code. They went with trial and error.

Meanwhile I had already undone half of the knots and Megan could start moving her legs.

"ONE MINUTE AND THIRTY SECONDS!" Pete yelled even more fear in his voice than before.

"There are four digits in the number! Think what it could be people!!" Jake said sternly.

I could not concentrate on that as well. I was already too busy trying to undo the rest of the knots.

"Are you guys trying to save me in a certain time? That's pretty cool! You guys love challenges don't you?" Megan laughed.

"ONE MINUTE! We need to get moving!" Petes words made my hands shiver even more.

I saw Pete looking around out of the corner of my eye. He went into the next room and came back wide eyed. "There's lots and lots of C4 in the next room. We're gonna get blown away even if we were 100m away from here."

I finally finished untying the knots and Megan's legs were free. Thanks to Pete, Megan now knew about the bomb. And as I predicted, she did not take it well. She was freaking out.

With Megan's legs free we could break the chair to get her arms free. She stood up, her hands still cuffed.

We ran. As fast as we could, we reached the room before the door and we ran to the door. Hayley, me and Megan were in the front. We were scared to death. We all were.

We leaped out the front door and ran towards the nearest trees we could find. We ran full speed. Not looking behind us and focusing on the ground in front of us we ran and ran and ran. Behind us we could hear a loud blast. Some of the force of the blast lifted us up and threw as about five metres.

Loudly we crashed into the ground, dirt in our faces and all.