While Potter finished filling the tank, I climbed from the car and walked over to where the camera was fixed. I looked up at it and studied the position it was facing. I turned my back to face it and looked out at the view that the camera had. I could see the whole of the forecourt and beyond, where to my delight, across the street was the entrance to the Seven-Eleven.
“I wonder?” I whispered. “I wonder?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kiera
We went into the kiosk and Potter paid for the petrol in full from my savings. I didn’t show my badge before the petrol had been paid for, as I wasn’t sure if this was something else Banner and his merry men expected discount on. The girl behind the counter was chewing obnoxiously on a piece of gum. I showed her my badge. She raised her eyebrows as if to say ‘What now?’ and then said, “What can I do you for?”
“I’m investigating a missing person enquiry and I was wondering if I could view your CCTV footage for yesterday.”
“How’s that?” she mumbled, removing the gum from her front teeth with her tongue.
“How’s what?” Potter glared at her.
“Why do you want to watch the CCTV?” she asked him.
“Because we’ve had information that she may have been in the area yesterday, so we need to check it out,” he said bluntly.
“What, she came in here did she?” the girl asked.
Potter sighed and managed a false smile as if he was fast losing his patience. “I don’t know. That’s why we need to view the CCTV.”
She eyed us momentarily and blew a large pink bubble from between her lips. It popped and she sucked it back into her mouth.
“Sure, it’s all in the back,” and she nodded towards a door that had PRIVATE - STAFF ONLY written across it.
“Thank you,” I smiled and headed towards the door.
The backroom was poky and smelt strongly of stale tobacco smoke. There was a table and a rubbish bin that was overflowing with empty cans of Coke and cheeseburger wrappers. The table was littered with crumpled magazines and newspapers. Fixed to the wall was a TV monitor which showed the gas station forecourt. I watched it and could see a car pulling in. In the distance, I could see across the street and customers entering the Seven-Eleven. It wasn’t the clearest picture in the world but it would do. I guessed that if Emily Clarke was in that store yesterday, I would be able to make her out on the footage. After all, she looked just like her sister, Elizabeth. On the wall beside the monitor was a shelf which housed a bunch of discs in plastic CD cases. I ran my fingers along their spines and stopped when I had found the previous day’s disc. I plucked it from the shelf and placed it into the DVD player beneath the TV.
The monitor went blank then flickered into life and once again I was viewing the gas station forecourt from the previous day. It was like going back in time. In the right-hand corner of the screen flashed yesterday’s date and time. It read 07:13 hrs. I held my finger down on the fast-forward button and whizzed through the next few hours of footage. Banner had told me that Emily’s credit card had been used in the Seven-Eleven store at 10:30 am, so I let the DVD run at normal speed from 10:25 am just to make sure and take into account any timing discrepancies.
We stood in the staffroom and glanced anxiously up at the screen, both hoping that we would see Emily. The clock on the film ticked round to 10:30 am and we still hadn’t seen her.
“Come on,” I breathed, hoping for just one break.
“Take it easy, tiger,” Potter said, sensing how anxious I was becoming.
By 10:31 am there was still no sign of her. The minutes seemed to take an eternity to pass. Now 10:32 am - nothing. Then, as the clock turned to 10:33 am on the screen, I saw something. I quickly pressed the pause button and the image froze. I moved closer to the screen until my nose was almost pressed against it and I screwed up my eyes and stared at the screen. I didn’t recognise the person leaving the store a few moments after Emily’s credit card had been used but it definitely wasn’t Emily Clarke. Even through the grainy black and white image on the screen I could see that it was a man. He was tall, with black, swept back hair, wearing a black suit.
“Who do you think that is?” Potter asked me.
I had never seen McCain, but from the grainy picture on the screen, the image of the man looked just how Elizabeth Clarke had described him.
“McCain,” I said, unable to take my eyes from the TV.
“How can you be so sure?” Potter asked, peering over my shoulder.
“I can’t,” I told him, taking the disc from the DVD player. “Let’s just hope that Isidor has done his homework in researching this McCain.”
“Let’s hope,” Potter said, sounding unconvinced.
“But one thing’s for sure,” I said, looking at him. “Emily Clarke didn’t use her credit card yesterday. So where is she now?”
“Beats the shit out of me,” Potter said, heading back through the kiosk.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” the girl with the gum called out as we headed out of the door.
“Maybe,” I smiled, leaving the kiosk.
Chapter Twenty-SixKayla
We waited for lights-out, and for the school to fall into silence before we dared leave our rooms. With his head bent low, and crouched over like a crab, Sam made his way down the narrow staircase at the end of the corridor. I followed him down the spiral stairwell and into the bowels of Ravenwood. The school was in darkness, and I felt my way down the staircase by brushing the tips of my fingers against the stone wall, listening to the snap-snap sound of Sam’s shoes ahead of me. Reaching the ground floor, Sam crept through the passageways which stretched throughout Ravenwood. I followed.
Ahead, oblong shards of moonlight fell through the corridor windows and lit our way. I could hear the sound of Sam’s racing heart and it was almost deafening in the desolate corridors. My stomach tightened and I felt sick. Back in my bedroom, the idea of searching out Emily Clarke’s bedroom seemed exciting, but Sam hadn’t mentioned anything about how creepy the school was during the night and in the dark. Every shadow we passed I eyed with dread, fearing that a Grey would appear from within the gloom and come racing towards me, sizzle-stick in hand, its end pulsating with shocks of electric blue light.
The hallway windows looked out across the grounds of the school. As we neared each one, Sam would flap his hand in a downwards motion, signalling for me to drop. Crouching as we passed beneath the windows, the white light from the search towers flooded the hall then swooped away again. Standing, with backs arched, we moved off again. Ahead, the hallway veered to the right and I followed Sam down it. Not once did Sam falter or stop to wonder what direction he should take. He seemed to know where he was heading. As we rounded the bend, I stopped, threw my arm out against Sam’s chest and pressed him to the wall.
“What?” he said, looking startled.
“Shhh!” I hissed. “Can’t you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Sam whispered.
Then, the sound of crying – no pleading – that I could hear, seeped up from below.
“That!” I said, my eyes wide like saucers.
The sound came again. But this time it sounded more like whimpering than sobbing.
“Where’s it coming from?” Sam asked, taking one of my hands in his. It felt nice to be holding his hand, but his flesh felt cold like a corpse. Sam glanced to his left and then to his right, as he tried to find the whereabouts of the noise in the pitch blackness of the school.
It came again, but this time words could be heard between each sob and whimper.
“Nooooo….Pleeeaaassee stop! I beg you!” The voice sounded like the person was being strangled. Whoever had muttered those words was in complete agony.
I followed the voice in the darkness and it led us to the top of a narrow wooden staircase fixed into the corridor wall. The stairs led down beneath Ravenwood.
“I’ve never seen these stairs before,” Sam whispered behind his hand.
“I think we should head back…” I started, just wanting to contact Kiera and tell her what I had discovered. But what had I discovered? Not much. No proof yet of what had happened to Emily.
A splash of light from the search towers illuminated the corridor. It fell across our face. And seeing the fear in Sam’s eyes, I knew what he had meant when he said I looked as if I were about to shit myself. We dropped to the floor and lay on our stomachs. I could hear a scratching sound from beside me and I rolled onto my side.
“What’s that noise?” I whispered.
“What? The scratching noise?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s me,” Sam said.
“What are you doing? Someone will hear!” I groaned.
“Shhh!” Sam said. “I’ve found something.”
“What?”
“The reason why I’ve never seen this stairwell before,” Sam told me.
“How come?”
“They’ve had it hidden behind this bookcase,” Sam whispered. “They just slide it aside when they want to go down…”
“You’re hurting me,” the voice from below came again, and it sounded weak and petrified. “I don’t know anything about any….no! Pleeeaaassee stop!”
“I think we should get outter…” Sam started.
“No - wait. I want to listen to this,” I whispered, my head tilted towards the top of the stairwell.
“Are you out of your tiny mind?” Sam whispered.
“Shhh!” I told him, putting a finger to my lips.
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about…” the voice echoed up from below again and this time I got the sense that the voice belonged to a woman. “…Just let me go...I promise I won’t say anything!”
We were so intent on listening to the woman’s pitiful voice that neither of us heard the sound of footfalls climbing the stairwell which led up from the basement. Searchlight flooded the corridor again and poured down the stairwell. In the flash of brilliant white light, I saw a shadow creeping along the wall of the stairwell as someone came up from the depths of Ravenwood towards us.