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Authors: Margaret Pearce

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BOOK: Invitation to a Stranger
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Chapter
Twenty
-
seven

 

“Maybe the door just shut because it wasn't being held open anymore,” Mike said.

He left the torch off and grabbed Ronnie's hand and moved towards the steps. Ronnie stayed close behind him. They paused a few seconds at the bottom of the steps.

“Here goes,” Mike whispered.

They climbed the steps. Mike pushed at the door cautiously. It swung up and the noise of people fighting and music blaring met them. Mike relaxed and swung it further up, pulling Ronnie out after him.

The passage was very crowded. The queue of dull-eyed men, women, children and animals waited, milling aimlessly and blocking the passage. Men and women still scrambled out of the wine cellar, pushing past the dull eyed people in their way, and climbing up the steps that led to the house. All of them were clutching bottles.

Ronnie and Mike pushed past everyone towards the secret entrance out of the passage. In the brighter light, the dull eyed people all looked thin and fragile with dark shadows under their eyes. Katie stood very still, holding hands with Hayley.

“We can't get through,” Katie whispered. “One of the boys is blocking our way out.”

“It's Drake and Brod,” Ronnie whispered.

“Or maybe the other one, Jerain,” Katie whispered.

Two tall boys fought each other in front of the opened door. Ronnie bit her lip and gazed at them. They were both tall and somehow too thin, and gaunt with long black hair tied in ponytails, and were identically dressed in black jeans and tee shirts. They circled around swinging punches and ducking.

Suddenly she caught the eye of one of the boys. He looked at her desperately before blocking a punch that would have laid him out.

Ronnie immediately knew what to do. She shoved Katie back hard, and dropped to her knees. One of the boys almost grinned as he swung, so Ronnie knew she had picked Drake out. The other boy backed and stumbled over her. There was a sickening “thunk” as the fist of Drake collected. Ronnie turned her head to see the other boy sprawled unconscious on the floor.

“Very good,” Drake said as he reached down to pull her to her feet. “Get the others out as fast as possible.”

“We need some help,” Katie ordered.

“I'll move them along from the back, but try to get out as fast as possible,” Drake urged.

He shoved Katie through the open door and kept pushing the people linked together hands through after her. The people holding hands, with the dogs and cats following vanished through the door, emptying the passage.

“Come on,” Drake ordered, holding the door open.

“Thought you said Brod was a better fighter?” Ronnie said.

Drake grinned. “Yeah, but I've been cheating, and eating proper food and the other two have been fasting, so it gave me an edge.”

“We can't find Jamie or Herbie,” Ronnie suddenly remembered. “Where would they be?”

“Maybe in the secret room, but I don't know where the entrance is,” Drake said.

“Look after the others,” Ronnie said. “We'll keep looking.”

The door closed in front of Drake's worried face.

Mike and Ronnie stepped over the unconscious body of Brod, and headed back towards the wine cellar. The music had stopped, and there were only the shouted comments of the men and women hurrying across the passage carrying wine bottles, and scrambling up the steps that led into the centre of the house.

“That's thieving,” Ronnie said in disgust.

“Not our concern and they're leaving anyway.” Mike stood and watched them with a frown on his face. “The lower basement definitely reached the length of the house. I reckon that the secret room must be on this level somewhere.” He reached out and stopped a bearded heavily built man. “Did you see the stuff they had hidden away in the other room?”

“What other room?” the man asked. His voice was heavily slurred and he was swaying as he glanced around.

“We gotta blow, man,” another man said, pausing on the steep steps up to the house. “The cops are arriving.”

“We're missing the good stuff,” the bearded man insisted.

Two men paused and turned to him. “Good stuff?” one of them asked. “Where?”

“Somewhere ahead,” Mike said. He waved his hand. “This cellar should be the same size as the house area, but it isn't.”

At that exact moment, uniformed policemen tumbled down the ladder. Behind them could be heard the deep annoyed voice of Mr. Demento.

“We did not call you, and we can handle a few gate crashers without any problems.”

“That's all right, Sir,” a voice answered. “We're glad to have the opportunity to hold some of this gang.”

“That's Dad,” Mike whispered. “We've got to get out of here.”

“Not without Jamie and Herbie,” Ronnie whispered back.

Police were coming down the ladder fighting and trying to handcuff the fighting men and women. Bottles of wine were getting broken and there was broken glass and spilt wine everywhere. Ronnie and Mike crouched against the downstairs door out of the way of the swinging fists and boots.

Mr. Purdue tumbled down the steps. He was a big heavily built man squaring up to the bearded man they had been talking to. The bearded man swung a bottle. Mike gasped, but it didn't connect. Mr. Purdue moved in with his head tucked down, and somehow grabbed the man and swung him around so he tumbled heavily into the wall.

The passage wall broke and he went through it. Bright light streamed through the opening in the wall. All the fighting stopped. Everyone stared into the brightly-lit opening. They had found the entrance to the secret room.

 

Chapter Twenty-eight

 

The bearded man sat up, and shook his head as he peered through the broken wall. “Good stuff is right,” he jeered. “Not into that.”

He scrambled to his feet, and fled down the passage towards the door leading out under the porch. The others stopped fighting and fled after him. The police seemed to have lost interest in arresting anyone. They gathered around the broken door and peered inside.

Mr. Purdue took out his cell phone and called orders into it. Ronnie and Mike remained crouched in the darker end of the passage, unnoticed. More and more policemen arrived in the passage.

“Jamie and Herbie must be in there,” Ronnie whispered into Mike's ear.

“Maybe,” Mike whispered back. “But maybe not. It looks like a laboratory. What are the Dementos doing with a fully equipped laboratory?”

“So we ask your Dad,” Ronnie said.

She clutched Mike's hand and walked up to Mr. Purdue. He scowled at them as he put his phone away.

“What do you kids think you're doing here? Mike! Please explain.”

“Rescuing a lot of people we found downstairs,” Ronnie said bravely. She moved back and pushed at the secret door. “They were all down here, and Katie got them out and they should be in the back park by now.”

Mr. Purdue moved forward and peered down the steep steps. He opened up his phone and called out more orders.

“We still can't find Jamie or Herbie, and thought they might be hidden in the secret room.”

Ronnie wasn't sure she liked the expression he was getting on his face. He was scowling worse than ever, and even in the soft light of the passage, his cheeks were getting a rosy tint that was a tell-tale sign of temper.

“The squad will have a look,” he said.

“Jamie is my brother and I want to have a look,” Ronnie said. Mike nudged her nervously. Ronnie ignored him. “We've got all the others except for them, so we have to have a look to make sure.”

Mr. Purdue's mobile phone went again. His eyebrows went up as he listened and he stared at Ronnie and Mike. He shut the phone again.

“Right! Looks like lots of missing persons have turned up in the back park, led by young Katie. Old Mrs. Kotsos is there helping. I think you have earned the right to have a look, but no touching anything.”

He ushered them past the waiting policemen and white coated men who had just arrived.

“Oh,” wailed Ronnie. “It's just a stupid old laboratory.”

“Nothing stupid about it,” one of the white-coated men assured her with a cheerful grin. “This is a very high quality laboratory and most suitable for manufacturing some very illicit drugs.”

“But where are Jamie and Herbie?” Ronnie wailed. “We were so sure they would be in here somewhere.”

“So they're not,” Mike said glumly. “So where else could they be?”

He and Ronnie looked at each other. The dreaded fear that neither of them was prepared to say out loud was evident in their eyes. What if Jamie and Herbie had been already murdered?

 

Chapter Twenty-nine

 

“Fascinating,” one of the white-coated men was saying. “Absolutely fascinating.”

Ronnie looked around. There were benches and test tubes and lots of containers the police were sticking their noses into. Everything under the glaring white light was spotlessly clean.

Mike and Ronnie peered under benches, and opened cupboards. There was no sign of either Jamie or Herbie.

“Maybe another secret room,” Ronnie whispered.

Ignoring the police poking around, the two of them hurried past all the spotless benches, retorts, and odd shining glass tubes to the wall. They glanced around at the panelling covering the walls of the laboratory. There was no sign of another door.

“So it is a secret door,” Ronnie said. “At least this time we know what we are looking for.”

Ignoring the police, they started working their way around the walls, feeling the panelling.

“What do you kids think you're doing?” Mr. Purdue snapped.

“Looking for the other room,” Ronnie explained.

“Think this is it, kids and it's time you were leaving,” was his answer.

“We found the last two secret doors,” Ronnie said.

“Another ten minutes then and you're out of here,” Mr. Purdue warned.

The minutes dragged by, and they kept feeling the panelling. Ronnie's heart sank as Mr. Purdue looked at his watch and then across to them. They had worked nearly around the entire laboratory, and their time was running out.

“What is it supposed to feel like?” Mike asked suddenly.

“A slightly thicker piece of panelling,” Ronnie said. She moved back to where his fingers were sliding up and down, and touched the wood his hand was on. She slid her finger along the slightly thickened wood.

The door slid back easily. A red curtain hung in front of the opening. Mike pushed it back and they walked through. Inside was a small room, but very different from the sterile big laboratory outside it. A red carpet on the floor, and red drapes covered the walls, and was lit by three flickering candles on a long high chest or bench that was covered in more red drapery. Three high pedestals stood in front of it.

“Very creepy,” Ronnie said with a shiver.

“Three candles for three to get changed but why the three pedestals?” Mike murmured.

“Doesn't matter,” Ronnie said. “It doesn't look as if Jamie or Herbie are in here anyway.”

“Why the high chest?” Mike said. “Looks almost like an altar or something.”

“Or something,” Ronnie agreed.

“Hold these,” Mike said as he handed the three lit candles to Ronnie, and pulled the red cloth off the high bench.

It had what looked like a marbled top on it. He grunted as he swung it back. They looked down into the space below. Ronnie held the candles higher. By their flickering light they saw the two bodies stretched out side by side in the bottom of the long chest.

They both gasped. The faces were bone white and gaunt, and their hair dark and lank. Jamie and Herbie didn't have dark hair and bone white faces, but it was definitely the two missing boys!

Ronnie shook so much that the candles flickered and nearly went out. “They're dead,” she quavered.

Mike reached down to lift Jamie out. His body was oddly floppy as he lowered him to the floor.

“Still breathing,” Mike said as he reached in for Herbie. “And Herbie's still breathing as well.”

Ronnie stuck her head out the door. “Mr. Purdue,” she quavered. “We've found Jamie and Herbie.”

 

Chapter Thirty

 

Ronnie put down the candles and rubbed the ammonia soaked hankie over Jamie's nose. He didn't move. His body felt very cold. She tried rubbing the hankie over Herbie's nose. He didn't move either.

“Why aren't they sitting up?” she demanded. “What's wrong with them?”

“The ambulance will be here in a minute,” Mr. Purdue said.

Ronnie hadn't realized he stood in the entrance until he spoke. He stared around at the small room with a worried scowl on his face. “Everyone else is being checked out at the hospital. The medical people aren't at all happy with the sort of coma some of them are in.”

“At least he and Herbie are still alive,” Ronnie said. “Guess it is about time we went home.”

“Guess it is,” Mr. Purdue agreed. “I rang your Dad, and he is meeting you out the front. He will drop Katie, Mike and young Hayley off as well.”

The ambulance men arrived with stretchers and Herbie and Jamie were carried off. Mr. Purdue then escorted Ronnie and Mike out of the laboratory, along the passage and out past the porch and swimming pool and down the driveway to the street.

The normally quiet street was a hive of activity. Police cars with flashing lights kept arriving and leaving. Sullen men and women were being placed in the back of wagons. Ambulances were coming and going. Cars were parked out the front and people were gathered around harassed policemen asking questions.

“What happened about all the Dementos and their guests?” Ronnie asked.

“The Dementos are down the police station helping the police with their enquiries, except the unconscious boy was taken to hospital and the guests seemed to have vanished.” Mr. Purdue said.

Ronnie's father moved forward with Katie and Drake. He had his arm around a weeping Hayley. He looked anxious and worried.

“What is going on? Are you all right, Ronnie?”

“We've found Jamie and Herbie, but they were taken to hospital,” Ronnie explained. “At least they're still alive.”

“We aren't quite sure what is going on,” Mr. Purdue explained. “Lots of illegal drugs being manufactured in a very up to date laboratory under the house, and for some reason, lots of people and animals were imprisoned under there. We hope the Dementos will be able to help us with our enquiries.”

“If they don't get out on bail and go missing,” Drake said suddenly. “They will change identities when things go wrong.”

Mr. Purdue shot him a sharp look. “And you are?”

“Drake Demento,” Drake said. “Except I think Father has changed our name a few times so I'm not sure this one is our original one.”

“Maybe you should come down the station as well,” Mr. Purdue suggested.

“He helped us rescue everyone, so his family won't like him much,” Ronnie said.

“Hum,” Mr. Purdue said. “Don't leave the area and you can come down to the station when things settle down.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Drake explained. “I start work Monday with Ever Win Engineering. I'll be in the office three days a week and two days back at school.”

“And he's staying with us because of what's happened,” Ronnie said.

Her father looked at her. She stared back at him. Mr. Purdue waited.

“That's quite right,” Mr. Campion said. “I will go guarantor for his appearance down at the station when you require him.”

“Very good,” Mr. Purdue said, and turned away, opening his phone to listen and then gave more orders into it.

“Car's down the street. Had trouble finding a parking spot,” Ronnie's father said. “First stop is to drop Hayley.”

“Do stop howling,” Ronnie scolded Hayley as they crowded into the car. “It's all over now.”

“Except I still don't know what happened to me,” Hayley sobbed. “And Sandy, Jordyn and Jenny were taken to hospital. They don't recognise anyone.”

“The hospital will work out what's wrong with them,” Ronnie said, but she crossed her fingers as she spoke, recognizing that she was fibbing.

Jasmine was still in hospital, and still not recognising anyone, and the hospital hadn't managed to cure her. What was going to happen to all those people and the animals if they couldn't be woken properly? More importantly, what was going to happen to Jamie and Herbie who seemed in a lot worse state?

BOOK: Invitation to a Stranger
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