Against the Clock, John Carson [digital ebook reader txt] 📗

fast, and just as Harry was about to think there was no end to this tunnel, it opened up into a small room. There were panels on one wall. And a steel door. It looked old, with paint chipping off it.

‘If this doesn’t open, we’re fucked,’ Stewart said.

It opened.

Forty-One

Vern’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out and read the text. ‘It’s from Robbie,’ she whispered. ‘He’s there now. Lillian’s with him, but he’s going to need help. Things are moving fast.’

‘Let’s get a move on then. If what we think happened did happen, then it’s going to end tonight.’

Muckle looked down the stairs into the basement at the faint light and started making his way down, keeping Sparky on a very tight lead. At the bottom, a wooden door stood open. Inside was a false shelving unit that had been pushed to one side, revealing a steel door. That too was open.

They stepped through the door and into a hallway and could see the light was coming from round the corner. Muckle walked forward, still keeping Sparky on a short lead. The dog growled.

‘Easy, boy,’ he whispered.

They walked round the corner and saw a couple of dim bulbs lighting the hallway and pipes high up on the wall.

The hallway turned left and then they were in a larger hallway. Several doors led off this and Muckle looked through a doorway. There was a large room, but he could only see as far as the shaft of light from the open door would allow. He stood on the threshold and suddenly the lights came on in the room.

Shug was sitting on the floor, his hands behind his back, presumably tied, his mouth gagged with a cloth.

There were steel beds lined up against a wall, and some steel lockers formed a wall facing him. Muckle felt his heart beat faster.

Sparky started growling as Mike Morton stepped out from behind the lockers, holding a shotgun.

‘That’s it, son, keep the dog under control, or I’ll shoot it.’

‘You shoot my dog, I’ll kill you afterwards.’

‘Oh dear, I was afraid this was going to happen.’ Morton pointed the shotgun at Shug’s head. ‘Both of you, come further into the room, or the first cartridge will kill your friend. And I have plenty of ammo.’

Muckle hesitated. He heard shoes scraping the concrete floor behind him. He and Vern turned to look.

‘You need to listen to him,’ Marshall Mann said.

They moved further into the room, towards their friend.

‘Why couldn’t you three have minded your own business?’ Mann said.

Vern walked over to Shug. Morton pointed the gun at her, but she ignored him and took the gag out of Shug’s mouth.

‘He’s not a bloody animal, for God’s sake.’

Morton laughed. ‘It doesn’t matter now. It was only to stop him alerting you.’

‘The place is well alight. It’s going to be an inferno shortly. I set the fire along the corridor,’ another voice said from outside the room. Agnes Morton stepped in. ‘He’s right; you should have minded your own business.’

‘What was all that shite you told McNeil?’ Muckle asked. ‘Your wife died and you met Denise and she’s moving in with you and you don’t look at school lassies. Isn’t that what you told him?’

Mann laughed. ‘I did. And I thought he fell for it. Obviously not, though.’

‘I think the news article about your kids dying and your wife surviving might have had something to do with it,’ Vern said.

‘You told him that?’ Morton said to Mann.

‘No. I just said my wife died years ago. I didn’t go into details. Who cares? This place is going to go up like a bonfire now that we’ve switched the sprinklers off.’

‘What is this place?’ Shug asked.

‘It’s a nuclear bunker,’ Morton said.

‘Where are the kids?’.

‘Safe. For now,’ Agnes answered.

‘Did the three of you kill those other girls?’ Muckle said.

‘It was an accident,’ Mann replied. ‘That’s the God’s honest truth.’

‘Was it?’ Muckle looked at Agnes. ‘Why don’t you ask him about it?’ He nodded to her husband.

‘What does he mean?’ said Agnes.

‘Nothing. He’s playing games with us,’ Morton answered, but Agnes and Mann were watching him.

‘What? I tried fixing the boiler and something went wrong. They died of carbon monoxide poisoning and we kept them in the big freezer. You both know all of that. We had to get rid of them. For his wife. My sister.’

‘The wife who isn’t dead,’ Muckle said, still keeping a tight hand on his dog.

‘That’s right. My kids died in the car crash,’ said Mann. ‘My wife, Mike’s sister, she’s the one who survived, but she was mentally broken and half her face was burnt off. She needed taking care of, so we decided to let her live down here. She has absolutely everything she would have up in the real world. Except her freedom to go about. We missed the girls so much.’

‘So you replaced them with three new ones,’ Vern said. ‘Let me guess; those girls were the same age as your own children when they died.’

‘They were. They got used to living here. They were my family. I told them at first that if they left, I’d kill their own family. They got used to being around us after a while.’

‘Until Mike here killed them,’ Muckle said.

‘I told you it was an accident,’ Morton said, getting agitated.

‘Really? Or was it getting rid of the evidence? Easy enough to tamper with the boiler in that room. Did you tell your wife that Sandra was pregnant?’

‘What? You’re a liar,’ Agnes said. ‘Sandra wasn’t pregnant.’

‘That’s not what the pathologist told us. Three months. It was time for her to go, so nobody would find out he was interfering with them. Is that why you took Ashley and Simone? So you would have older ones right away to assault, instead of having to wait years again?’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Morton said.

‘Is it true?’ Agnes asked him, stepping closer.

Tendrils of smoke began to enter the room.

‘I asked you if it’s true!’ she shouted at her husband.

He started