Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Gary cannot, at the moment, comprehend how much trouble Isabelle is actually in. He is still expecting her to come through the door at any moment. This is not likely.

Six minutes after Gary got into the house, she was still where she had been for a couple of hours. By the time Gary starts to really worry about her she is still there. She is currently tied up in the basement of a disused building, struggling in vain to get free with only a vague recollection of events leading up to this moment.

She is not in possession of all the facts either. For instance, she has no idea what her boyfriend’s job entails and how he has become part of a group, led by David Oswald, which stops the people who currently have her imprisoned in the substandard accommodations she is currently residing in.

She also has no idea that the men who grabbed her have had their humanity almost snuffed out by forces of great darkness that she was not even aware existed.

The third and final thing that she does not have a clue about is what they want with her. This is the only thought that is conscious in her mind and, is the thought that is the most frightening to her.

So how did she get here?

She had been walking home a little late after one drink too many (maybe two) with one of her friends from work. The thought highest on her mind was whether or not she would manage to get back to the house before her workaholic boyfriend stumbled in with apologies that he had a lot on at the moment. She had almost not heard the noise that came from the alleyway she passed by.

She did not consider herself to be a very brave person so decided to continue walking on her way. Whatever was going on in there had nothing to do with her and she was sure that it was nothing really. But suddenly she heard a voice that sounded more like the way a snake would speak English, if it were able to do so, than a human voice.

It said her name.

“Isabelle!”

She spun round at the sound of her name, spoken in such a horrifying way. Her body started to cool immediately and goose bumps appeared on her arm. Not that she was even remotely aware of this. Her body had simply numbed. She was not a superstitious person but she did not think that it had sounded remotely human. She had seen enough horror movies with Gary (or not seen them, as the case may be, with her face driven into the crook of his arm, asking for him to tell her when the bad bit was away) to know that this was not a good scenario.

Just about then she spotted something that put a lump in her throat and, in a more rational setting, she would have known for a fact that it couldn’t be her heart. But there was no rationale here right now, in this place. The main street that she was on, usually bustling with life at this time of night, was completely devoid of anyone except for her. It was almost as if there was some sort of bad feeling associated with this street, something that had warned off everyone except for her.

Foolish Isabelle, she thought.

The voice came again, as horrible as before. “Isabelle!”

She is still unsure about whether the voice had rooted her to the spot because the hypnotic snake like sound had transfixed her or it had frozen her with some sort of incomprehensible fear.

Now she struggles with her bonds, fearing that her next few minutes might be her last, spent in a stinking disused basement.

The time that she was transfixed would have been enough to make an escape if she had been able to. But she had stayed too long. Suddenly dozens of pairs of arms shot out from the darkness. She could not make out much but could see that her attackers were wearing cloaks, which covered their faces.

At that point, Isabelle managed to let out a scream. She still thought of it as a loud thing, enough to summon someone to help her. But, in reality, it had been nothing more than a dull croak that even her attackers would have had trouble hearing if they had not been close enough to feel her terrified fast breathing on their covered faces.

To say that she went quietly would have been a lie. She tried as hard as she could to fight them off, but the fact of the matter was she was but one woman and there were too many attackers for her too handle. It would come as no relief to her as she did not even know the woman, but Alice Cuthbert would have lost a fight with these odds too and she was David’s best warrior.

As she tried, in vain, to fight the men off, she managed to knock on of their heads back with such force that she was convinced for a moment that she had killed him. But his head came back up from the almost impossible angle that it had been placed in, now minus the hood that he had worn moments before.

He was completely bald but Isabelle did not even notice this. The things that struck her were his eyes. Even now she would have trouble describing them to anyone, despite the fact that she had thought of not much else, but at that point so many thoughts had come into her head to describe those eyes, all of them now gone.

The unmasked man licked his lips and sneered at her horribly as he pushed a wet handkerchief into her face. For a brief moment she could concentrate on nothing more than a very strong smell, which was almost like bleach.

Her nose got used to the smell in a matter of seconds, although to her it felt like a lot longer. Her mind swiftly returned to the bald man. He’s on drugs, she thought. He has to be.

There was no other rational explanation for it.

Rational explanation.

But then the chloroform took effect and she knew no more.

And when she came back round the sight of the man and his cloaked companions was nothing but a distant memory. She has been awake for a little while now and is still in the exact same situation, tied up too tightly to ever hope to escape on her own.

But she is a very determined woman and this little factoid does not stop her from trying. There is no way that she is going to give up. Gary will be worried sick. She wonders if he has called the Police yet.

The thought of Gary is the one thing that keeps her trying to escape. But deep in her mind she is already thinking that she has seen one of her kidnappers faces. There is a very good (if good is an appropriate word to be using in such a situation) chance that she might never get out of here alive. She might never see Gary’s face again.