Callum <8bite
Callum jumped down the hatch and landed on his feet almost without recoil. Seeing that the bound girl remained on the floor in pain, he walked over to the steel shelves and with a fluid movement pushed them to one side, revealing another door.
He opened it - it was not locked - then returned to the ladder and, grabbing the sack which covered her, pulled her to her feet. Compelled by his strength she hobbled through the door into the hidden room - the room with the lead pipe work and the cistern in the middle, and the faintly blood-stained table and chair.
"Stay there." Callum barked viciously, to which command the trembling captive obliged out of sheer terror. Callum strode back into the central room and picked up a large hiking rucksack which was clearly full to bursting point with something or other.
He carried it back into the cistern room, set it down at the girl's feet, then pulled the canvas sack cleanly off of her. Nate could now see that the girl was a short blonde, wearing black trousers and a blue polo shirt embroidered with the cinema logo. Her faced was streaked with tears, her arms were fastened tightly behind her back with a cable tie, and a large bruise was already starting to form on her right arm where she must have landed on it when Callum threw her down the ladder.
With a grunt, Callum spun the girl around to face Nate. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and spat his words with genuine hate.
"I told you didn't I" he said, looking at the girl but addressing Nate, "thousands of people all quite happy to hurt you, whether by malice or ignorance. Take this little bitch Steph here. She's the one who had Julian's attention whilst you were left on your own outside. She's the one your old boyfriend chose to be delayed by." He changed his focus to address Steph.
"Eh? How long does it take to pour a fucking cup of cola, eh? Meanwhile Nate's outside on her own, none the fucking wiser to how her piece of shit boyfriend would rather be sniffing around a kiosk attendant than taking care of his girl. Or how he could care so fucking little about what could have happened to her..."
He shifted his eyes to look at Nate and straightened his mouth into an expression of sober lamentation.
"...that he decides his cola isn't the only thing he's going to take away with him. Not even a second thought for Nate. Just takes whatever's closest to hand. And you were more than happy to be close to hand, eh?"
The girl shook violently with fear, and with Callum's last words she shook her head vigorously.
"No...no I swear..." she sobbed, "I had no idea, he said he'd had a fight with his girlfriend and she'd ditched him....I never meant to..."
Callum cut her off by grappling his arm around her neck and pushing her down onto her knees. With venomous movements he wrapped the straps of the rucksack around her torso then clipped them into place.
"Not to worry Nate." he said, his voice notably softer as he addressed her rather than Steph. "I told you how things are going to be now. The people who hurt you will have me to answer to."
Steph opened her mouth to protest again, but simply uttered another scream as Callum pulled her back over the edge of the cistern. She landed on top of the rucksack, her arms still bound behind her back, and firmly weighed down by the contents of the pack. Callum walked briskly to a point on the wall where an in-line lever-valve protruded from the chase into which the pipe was set.
Throwing the lever ninety degrees, there was an instant, loud rushing noise, and water started gushing into the cistern from four pipe openings set into the rim.
Steph screamed out and spluttered as the ice cold water enveloped her. Her struggles were in vain; the pack was too heavy, and although she tried to call out pleas the force of the water cascading onto her face and body scarcely gave her opportunities to take a breath.
YOU ARE READING
Cherry Bite
Mystery / ThrillerSeventeen young girls have disappeared within the last year with growing velocity and the authorities are dumb with bewilderment. The police have no key suspect, no bodies, no evidence. What they do have is a sense of absence and the knowledge that...