The Ensnared (2 page)

“I knew it!” a boy’s voice said.
“We should have left when we had the chance!”

“Ooh! Is the little baby scared of
the dark?” Another boy teased.

Melissa clenched her hands into
fists. Something had happened and all these boys could do was make fun of
everything. People were scared. Jennifer was scared. She was terrified. And
where were the police to make sure the civilians were safe and able to make
their way to their homes? What kind of city was this?

Melissa stopped suddenly when she
heard a low metal sound. “What was that?” she whispered to Jennifer.

“I don’t know.” she said but moved
her cell phone towards the sound.

Clink! Clink! Clink!

The soft metal sound echoed all
around them and Melissa could feel her heart thudding. She squeezed Jennifer’s
hand who squeezed back.

“It’s coming from right ahead.” Jennifer
said.

Melissa shone her cell phone
downwards so that she could see where she was walking. She hoped they would get
off the streets soon before the battery went out.

“Hey!” someone called them from
behind.

Jennifer let out a small gasp and
pulled on Melissa’s arm, signaling her to stop.

A boy came running towards them with
a pencil light waving in front of him. “Do you girls have a signal on your cell
phones?”

“No.” Melissa said, taking a deep
breath. She shaded her eyes as the boy shone his torch on her face.

“That’s weird, don’t you think?”
the boy said. “I’m Shane, by the way. I was talking to my brother when the call
just disconnected. And then the blackout. How weird is this?”

“We’re making our way back to our
college dorms.” Melissa said. “Do you guys know if we can catch a cab here?”

Shane looked at her thoughtfully.
“You must be new here. No, this is a pedestrian only street. To catch a cab,
you’ll have to take a right from the street corner and then walk for about two
blocks.”

“Great!” Melissa said. “But can’t I
call a cab...? Oh, no cell phones signal.”

“Hey, if you want, we could walk
with you girls and make sure you’re safe.” Shane suggested. “We live in the
dorms too.”

“That’s...uh...”Melissa glanced at
Jennifer who still looked like a scared mouse. It was dark and scary and did
they really want a couple of strangers taking them somewhere?

“Hi.” a girl said. “What’s going on
here?”

“I was asking these two girls to
join us. They’re new here and don’t know the directions.” Shane explained to
the girl.

“Actually, we’re not that lost.”
Melissa said quickly.

The girl looked at her thoughtfully
and in the dim light, Melissa could suddenly see her break into a smile. “Hey,
aren’t you Melissa Torres?”

“Yes? Do I know you?”

“I’m Fiona.” The girl said. “Fiona
Beader? My Dad and your dad are friends. We met like six years ago?”

“Oh, yeah.” Melissa said and smiled
back at her. “How are you?”

“Standing here in the dark.” Fiona
laughed. “Do you go to school here? Which school do you go to?”

“I go to the Fawnstreet Culinary School.”
Melissa said. “You?”

“Law school.” Fiona answered. “This
is so great, seeing you here.”

“Do you live around here?” Melissa
asked.

“No. I moved here like six months
ago. We have like so much catching up to do.”

“Can we get out of here first?”
Jennifer asked. “My phobia is kicking in. Can we please, get out of here?”

“You know what, we should all stick
together.” Fiona suggested. “Rafe here knows the streets; he’ll guide us out of
the darkness.”

“Let’s go!” Jennifer said.

Fiona called to her other friends.
“Okay, quick introductions. This is Shane, Rafe, Keith and Sara. Guys this is
Melissa and...”

“Jennifer.”

“We should walk quickly.” Rafe said
and everyone started to walk behind him.

Melissa wondered again if it was a
good idea to walk with complete strangers, but Fiona wasn’t a stranger, was
she? On the other hand, they weren’t really the best of friends either.

Rafe stopped suddenly and waved his
pencil light ahead of him. “What the hell is that?”

Melissa came up from behind him and
put her cell phone closer to where he was looking. She sucked in a breath as
she saw steel netting right before her. She let her cell phone travel upwards
and a gasp escaped her throat.

“What’s going on?” Jennifer said in
a frightened voice. “Why are we stopping?”

“There’s a fence here.” Melissa said.
Shane walked on their right and followed the fence with his torch.

“It’s like fifteen feet tall.”
Keith said. “Where did it come from?”

Melissa noticed Sara put her hand
tentatively on the metal and wince. “It’s pretty strong. I don’t remember it being
here before.”

“Find an exit, guys.” Rafe said.

Melissa put her hands on the cool
steel and tried to push on it without much luck. Her hands travelled all over
it, but found no opening.

“Let’s just go around the fence.”
Jennifer said.

“It’s not a fence.” Shane said,
coming back. In the dim lights of the torches, Melissa could see how pale has
face had gotten. “It’s a cage. It goes all around. I couldn’t find an opening.”

Rafe let the light from his torch
move upwards and whistled under his breath. “We can’t scale it.” He said.
“There’s nothing to climb on.”

Melissa caught a movement on the
other side and pulled on Fiona’s sleeve. “What was that?”

“Hey!” Keith called.

Melissa peered through the gaps and
saw a young man in a uniform. “It’s a cop.” Melissa told them.

“Get us out of here!” Shane called
to him. “We need help!”

Melissa took Fiona’s torch and
shone it through the gaps at the young policeman. She saw him looking through
the steel fence at them with frightened brown eyes. “Can you help us?” she
asked.

The policeman almost jumped and
started to run, hesitated and then turned towards them.

“Hey!” Shane called. “Get some
metal cutters, and get us out of here.”

The policeman took off his hat and
just stared at them in fear. For a second, Melissa thought he was about to say
something, but the policeman continued to look at them with fright and pity in
his eyes.

“Help us.” Melissa said softly. The
policeman was probably a rookie on his first day and had gotten a little
nervous. If she kept talking to him soothingly, he might help them find a way
out of this cage. “Can you call for back-up? You have a walkie-talkie.” She
pointed at his belt.

“I wish you guys had just listened
to me!” Rafe said and kicked the fence. Melissa saw the policeman take a couple
of steps back immediately.

“There must be something you could do.”
Melissa told the policeman.

“He’s not going to help us!” Rafe
said and Jennifer tugged on Melissa’s t-shirt.

“I’m sorry.” the policeman mumbled
and took a couple of steps back.

“What are you sorry about?” Melissa
asked.

“There was no other way.” The
policeman said and took a few more steps back.

“You locked us in on purpose,
didn’t you?” Rafe screamed. “If you don’t get us out in the next minute, I
swear I’ll kill you!”

Melissa walked over to Rafe and nudged
him back. “Don’t say that!”

“You have no idea, what’s going on!”
Rafe said.

“Dude, that’s a load of...”Keith
started to say, but Rafe pushed him away.

“I’m so sorry.” the policeman said
and ran away as quickly as he could.

“Come back!” Melissa called after
him. She pushed herself against the fence and almost lost her balance.

“Get back here you scumbag!” Rafe
screamed.

“Will you stop throwing insults at him?”
Melissa said. “You scared him! He’s gone now!”

“Of course, he’s gone.” Rafe said.
“I told you guys that we should have left when we had the chance.”

“What are you talking about?”
Melissa asked.

Rafe punched at the fence and then
rubbed his forehead. Melissa saw his skin break on the knuckles.

“They’re feeding us to the wolves!”
he said and wiped his bleeding hand on his shirt.

Melissa looked at him, not
understanding and then suddenly she heard the roar of motorcycle engines again.
Someone or something was coming and by the looks of things, something terrible
was about to happen.

Melissa leaned on the fence and
listened as Rafe and Shane argued about the same thing over and over again.
Rafe had warned them, they should have listened, end of story. But now they
were all trapped. Couldn’t they stop complaining and find a solution together?

She spotted Jennifer leaning
against the railing, sobbing quietly. She considered going up to her and try
comforting her, but found herself being unable to even move. Terror had its icy
grip on her heart, making her incapable of even thinking straight. The only
thoughts that entered her mind provided little solace.
Something weird was
happening here and by the looks of things, something dangerous was about to
happen. Why else would the cop look so frightened?

“Why don’t we...”Melissa started to
say as an idea occurred to her and then realized no one was listening to her.
She took a deep breath and opened her mouth again. “I think I have an idea!”
she almost screamed.

Everyone looked at her in surprise and
Melissa decided she should have used a different approach to get everyone’s
attention. Screaming at them while something strange was going on wasn’t a good
idea.

“There is no way out of here!” Rafe
said angrily, quickly composing himself after her outburst.

“Will you just give her a chance?”
Fiona snapped at him. “Go ahead. What is your idea?”

“We could put our legs over the
railing, hang onto the other side and push ourselves to the left. Then we can
climb back in once we’ve made it away from the fence.” Melissa said, without
pausing for breath.

“That’s an idea!” Keith said. “It
could work.”

“It’s too risky.” Rafe said
quietly. “We could hurt ourselves.”

“It’s a plan and we’re going with it.”
Fiona said determinedly and walked towards the railing.

“What if we fall in?” Jennifer
asked. “I was never even good with the monkey bars.”

“You do know how to swim, right?”
Sara asked.

Melissa saw Jennifer looking at her
with fear in her eyes. Jennifer had never learnt to swim, because she had a
fear of water too. Especially since what had happened with her sister.“We’ll
help each other.” Melissa said and forced a weak smile at her friend.

Melissa started to put her leg over
the railing when she heard the sound of motorcycles approaching.

Her new friends all turned towards
the noise and huddled together. There were five motorcycles and five figures in
dark riding on them. Melissa reached for Jennifer’s hand and let a moan escape
her throat.

One of the figures on the
motorcycle was holding a flaming object in his hand. As he crossed the grocery
store, he hurled the object at it and uttered a loud cheer as the store caught
on fire as if he had just scored a basket.

Jennifer started to cry as the
other riders followed suit and hurled stones and bricks at the store windows. The
glass cracked loudly on impact and shattered into pieces, throwing shards all
over the roads.

“Just a couple of vandals.” Keith
said, but Melissa could hear the fear in his tone.

She turned to look at Rafe and saw
him with a grim look on his face. He seemed distracted by something else
entirely and didn’t even  flinch when the glass shards fell closer to his feet.
She wondered what else he could be worried about.
Was there more to the
story than what he had already said?

“Let’s get out of here!” Fiona
whispered to all of them.

Melissa pulled herself up on the
ledge and swung her legs over the railing. She held the railing fast with her
hands and started to move sideways. Just then, she heard a small clicking sound
in the dark. She saw Keith follow her with his flashlight and peered into the
darkness.

“Go back!” Someone said.

Melissa blinked as Keith’s
flashlight shone on a man’s face. The man was in uniform and unlike the other
policeman; he was much older and appeared fearless.

“Go back!” He repeated. “If you
don’t I’ll shoot you!”

Melissa stared at the gun he was
holding and almost felt her fingers slip off the railing. “Help us.” she said.

“What the hell is going on?” Keith
asked.

The policeman brought is gun
forwards and pointed it at Melissa’s head. “Go back and stay in.” he said
curtly but Melissa also heard a hint of pure terror in his voice. The finger on
the trigger of the gun was also quivering.