The Ensnared (5 page)

She pulled her arm back and flung
the brick as hard as she could on the glass door of the restaurant. The glass
shattered noisily and Melissa looked around her to see if anyone had heard her.
She was hoping that the noise would bring her friends from their hiding places,
but another thought occurred to her. What if the riders found her instead?

She stepped in through the broken
glass door as carefully as she could. Once inside, she spotted a telephone on
the counter and made her way to it. But before she had even raised it to her
ear, she knew it would be dead and to her disappointment her guess had proven
right.

She flung the telephone on the
floor and started to cry. Nothing here made any sense. Where were her friends?
What was she doing here all alone?

“I’m not supposed to be here!” she
cried. She laid her head on the counter and sobbed loud.

“No you’re not.” A voice said from
the doorway.

Melissa felt her heart skip a beat
as she recognized the voice. She turned around and gasped. Standing near the
doorway was one of the riders dressed in leather. He held a gun in his hand and
he put it down gently on the floor before reaching for his helmet.

Melissa clutched the side of the
table when the rider removed his helmet. She knew who he was. How could she
forget the green eyes, dark hair and broad shoulders? She had left everything for
him.

 “Mark!” she exclaimed.

The minute she had laid eyes on
him, Melissa had felt a surge of hope rush through her veins. Until today, she
hadn’t realized how much she loved Mark and how much she missed him. Seeing him
standing in the doorway like that made her feel safe somehow. Everything would
be fine now because Mark was here to save her.

But as her eyes travelled all over
him, she noticed his leather jacket and trousers and motorcycle boots. It had
been too dark last night, but her eyes had made out the outfits the riders had
worn and if she wasn’t mistaken, Mark was wearing the very same attire. Her
mind screamed that it couldn’t be true. Mark wasn’t capable of killing innocent
people. He had cheated on her, he had been dominating and selfish, but he
wasn’t a murderer!

“Mark?” she asked in a whisper.

Mark stepped inside and Melissa
could hear the glass crunching under his heels. She instinctively started to
search the counter for any sort of weapon, but to her dismay, she found only
ballpoint pens and old receipts stashed away in the shelves underneath.

“You weren’t supposed to be here.”
Mark said disconcertingly.

Melissa went behind the counter and
picked up one of the pens. She might be able to poke him with it before he
picked up the gun from the floor and killed her just like Shane and Sara. “I
can’t believe it!” she said.

“Melissa...”Mark started to say and
then hesitated. He looked all around him with a puzzled expression on his face.
“Is there anyone else with you?”

“Where’s Jennifer?” Melissa asked.
“If you’ve done anything to her...”

“Jennifer?” Mark frowned. “When I
found you, you were all alone.”

“Found me?” Melissa asked. She
glanced towards the exit and wondered what her chances were to escape from
here. She wasn’t quick enough to push past Mark who was taller and stronger
than her. Mark had long legs and before she could have even taken four steps,
he would catch her and kill her right then and there. Plus, he had a gun and
although Mark hadn’t bothered to pick it up yet, it didn’t mean that he didn’t
intend to use it.

“I saw you jump into the lagoon and
swim towards the islet. I made my way quietly in a canoe and brought you back
here.” Mark explained.

“Jennifer was right beside me.”
Melissa answered and hated herself for coming so close to tears, especially in
front of him. This wasn’t the time to breakdown or display her weakness. She
had to think fast.

“There was no one beside you.” Mark
said. “Are you absolutely sure, she was there with you when you fell asleep?”

Melissa looked down at the pen in
her hands and saw that the nib was blunt enough to break the skin but was
likely to do any actual damage. And then she started to think if she would
really have to use it. Mark looked genuinely concerned about Jennifer.

“I can’t believe you killed them!”
Melisa accused. She started to go around the counter so that she was now on
Mark’s right. A few more subtle steps and she could make her getaway. “How
could you?”

“Who else was with you?” Mark
demanded to know. “Who else is left?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Melissa
asked. “What kind of person kills people for fun?”

“It’s not what you think.” Mark
said. “Some deserve to die.”

As Mark spoke, Melissa stepped
closer to the door. She spotted the broken glass on the floor and saw a large
shard that she could use as a weapon. If only she could reach it...

“No one deserves to be butchered
the way you and your friends killed my friends.” Melissa said. Mark had turned
towards her now and he was carefully watching her movements.

“Friends?” Mark scoffed.

Melissa felt a rush of anger inside
her. He knew that she didn’t have any friends apart from Jennifer, but did he
really have to rub it in? She turned around and started to walk away when Mark
grabbed her arm. She let out a scream and lost her balance.

“You are not leaving!” Mark said.

Melissa winced as a small piece of
glass pierced her skin and drew a trickle of blood. She scrambled on the floor
and her hands closed around a glass shard. “Let me go!” she cried, but Mark
dragged her towards him. Melissa drew the shard in her hand and thrust it into
Mark’s thigh.

Mark let out a howl and Melissa
shoved him away. She ran out the broken door and ran outside when a thought
occurred to her. The fence couldn’t possibly be all around the shops could it?
Her mind hoped like crazy that she was right. Would they really take the
trouble to put a large fence and block this whole area?

She ran as fast as she could
through the passageway between the restaurant and the theatre. She turned back
once to see if Mark was following her. She sighed with relief when she didn’t
spot him and ran as fast as she could, before finding herself being pushed back
roughly.

Melissa gasped as she tumbled on
the ground. She looked up to see that she had been thrown back by the fence.
She stared at it as her eyes welled with tears. Her ankle hurt and her hands
were grazed by the metal fence and there was still no way out. She was alone
and she was trapped and the sun was scorching her arms. She pushed herself in
the shadows and sobbed into her hands.

She cowered when she heard a noise.
She got up slowly and pressed herself against the wall. Mark was inside and her
friends were missing, so where were the rest of the riders?

Just then she saw four men walking
towards the restaurant with their helmets on. Melissa wiped her tears away with
the palm of her hands and lowered herself behind the bins.

Don’t let them see you, her mind
screamed. If they do, they’ll kill you and you’ll never be able to do the
things you wished for last night. You’ll never see your family again and never
find out where Jennifer is.

She heard the four riders walk into
the restaurant and listened as they whispered softly amongst them

Melissa pressed her ear against the
walls, hoping to find out what they had done with her best friend.

“Did you find Melissa?” one of them
asked.

“Yeah and she stabbed me!” she
heard Mark say. “Didn’t even give me chance...”

“Were her friends with her?”
someone else asked.

“Wouldn’t say.” Mark replied. “She
barely gave me a chance to say anything. Just stabbed me and ran away
somewhere.”

“We have to find her.” Melissa
heard one of the riders say. “We have to kill them all!”

The theatre wasn’t as small as it
had looked from the outside. There were posters of upcoming movies plastered on
the walls and Melissa found herself thinking if the movies would actually be
coming soon here anytime, considering what was happening around her. The
theatre was deserted, just like the restaurant had been, but the fact that
nothing looked in disarray or broken made her realize something that should
have caught her attention sooner.

The theatre was closed, the snack
counter was closed, but nothing looked as if it was still was in the process of
running before it had to be shut down in a hurry after the incident occurred.

Melissa walked through the lobby in
a daze. She came to the ticket booth and frowned. Everything was put away
neatly here too. No ticket stubs strewn on the floor and no bills lying
unattended. Another thought occurred to her then and she reached for a register
lying on the table. ‘Show timings’ was labeled on it and Melissa knew what she
would find even before she had opened it.

The ticket seller had obviously
kept the register for his own record because the pages inside were written in
casual handwriting rather than printed neatly. She turned the pages to
yesterday’s show and frowned.

There were no shows scheduled after
the afternoon show and the next show listed in the register was scheduled for
next week. She closed the register and put it back on the table. Everything was
planned, after all.

The barricades, the police officer,
the shutting down of all the shops, restaurants and the theatres, had all been
carefully schemed and executed. The people in this city had waited patiently
for new visitors who wouldn’t know about the legend and then ‘feed them to the
wolves’- just the way Rafe had said. Only the gullible population hadn’t known
that who they thought were demons were only a group of cruel and adventurous
guys who enjoyed slaying innocents for their pleasure.

“How could you Mark?” Melissa
sobbed. “How could I be so wrong about you?”

She took several deep breaths to
calm herself down. This wasn’t the time to dwell on these things. She had to
find a way to escape. There was always a way out of any adversity.

Melissa reached for the phone in
the ticket counter and put it up to her ear. No dial tone. She found herself
starting to cry again and slammed the phone down.

Her head was starting to ache and
the theatre was getting hotter by the second. The power was out so she couldn’t
switch on the air conditioners and if she opened a window, the movement would
catch the attention of the riders who were next door to her.

She crawled on the floor and peered
out the window, towards the restaurant where she had seen all the riders go in.
It was too quiet out there and she had half expected the riders to start
looking for her so that they could kill her. There weren’t a lot of places she
could hide, so why weren’t they looking for her?

Melissa wiped a bead of sweat of
her forehead and rolled up the sleeves of her t-shirt. Her head was starting to
swim and although food was the last thing on her mind, she knew she would have
to eat and get some rest while she still could.

She walked towards the snack
counter and picked up a candy bar. As she tore open the wrapper and started to
eat, her eyes scanned the sandwiches packed in plastic containers. The bread
looked too stale and since the refrigeration was off and the theatre was hot
and stuffy, the sandwiches would probably end up giving her food poisoning. She
wrinkled her nose as she saw the mayonnaise dripping into a small puddle inside
the container.

She instead picked up a big packet
of chips and sat down on the floor, leaning her head against the counter. As
she bit on a sour and cream crisp, her mind started to race. Her first thought
was where Jennifer was. Mark had told her that he had found her alone on the
artificial land. But that was a lie. Jennifer was sleeping beside her, Fiona
beside Jennifer and Rafe on the other side.

Melissa reached for a bottle of
water from the counter and uncapped. The water was as warm as the room was, but
nevertheless it quenched her thirst to some extent.

The last thing she was going to do
was to believe Mark. He had lied to her and she could have lived with all his
faults, but how could she forgive him for killing Shane and Sara? Keith had
died because of him too. If he hadn’t concocted the whole tale about a ghostly
gang looking for revenge, the police wouldn’t have been too scared and helped
them all.

Melissa gagged then and spit out
the morsel in her mouth. The sour cream and onion flavored crisp was starting
to nauseate her now, and the heat was now spreading all over her body. She
coughed up once and suddenly found herself throwing up everything she had eaten
just now. Melissa sobbed out loud as she vomited and heaved for breath.

Once the nausea had passed, Melissa
pushed herself away from the counter and dragged herself to one of the couches
in the lobby. She lay down on it as her head spun and closed her eyes.

She found herself sinking towards a
memory and Melissa knew she was falling asleep. In her dream she saw herself as
a twelve year old in her pajamas as she made up a sleeping bag for Jennifer.
Jennifer was a year younger to her and even though they were in different
classes, they had been the best of friends ever since she had moved in next
door to her when she was only six.