Close Your Eyes: A gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist!

‘If you make a noise, it won’t end well,’ he said, his voice deep and commanding.

I nodded helplessly and, as he hauled me towards the stairs, I looked for Sean, but I couldn’t find him. The man dragged me downstairs, the tops of my feet banging on each step as he did. I tried to beg for them not to hurt Tom. Arms bound behind me, I was thrown into the back of a van. Tom was already laid down inside and I scrambled to him. I tried to wake him by rocking his body with my head, but he was unresponsive.

‘What have you done to him?’

‘He’s been sedated, he’ll wake up soon.’

The van then drove off calmly, like nothing happened. I struggled to see anything; the darkness around me complete. The only thing I could hear was the hum of the engine and the sound of my short and sharp breathing which I was fighting to control.

My hands and lips tingled, and I knew that if I didn’t calm down I would soon pass out. I shook my head, shook away my fear, taking control of my jagged breathing, trying to focus on details. First there was a sharp left out of my road, then after about 30 seconds a sharp right, then uphill. I could picture Waitrose on my right. Panic began to creep in as I knew we were driving out of Stamford.

The van drove for about two more minutes in a straight line. Then it turned right and slowly bent back round to the left before the road became louder as we merged with the A1 southbound. From there we could go anywhere. We were on the A1 for what felt like forever in the dark, before coming off again, first left, then right then over a roundabout.

After some time – I wasn’t sure how much – we stopped and I heard them talking, three voices, arguing in hushed tones. A door opened and slammed shut. Then, the back door swung open and a man who wasn’t either of the two I had seen before stepped in. He took a photo of me, the flash blinding me as he did. He caught my eye, I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was smiling under his balaclava as he closed the door. The slam woke Tom suddenly. He looked at me and I knew, from years of being a nurse, that the drugs still had hold.

‘Mummy?’

‘It’s okay, darling, everything is okay.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘We are on a little trip, that’s all.’

‘I don’t feel very well.’

‘You’ve had a really deep sleep, you’ll feel better soon. Come here, baby, come lay on Mummy.’

Thomas lay on my lap, closing his eyes again. I wanted to stroke his hair, but couldn’t free my hands to do so and it broke my heart, forcing me to hold my breath because I knew I would cry if I did anything else. And I couldn’t cry.

As the van drove, streetlights lit the inside through a tinted vent in the roof. A beam of light would quickly flood through like a Mexican wave. I looked towards Tom and when I could see, I noticed his breathing became deeper, his head heavier as he drifted back into a sedative-filled dream. I didn’t know why we had been taken, but I knew that I couldn’t let this impact who he became in the future.

Eventually, through the combination of the light sweeping in and the adrenaline wearing off, I fell asleep too, my head resting on Tom’s shoulder. I don’t know how long I was asleep for, but I was woken by wide hands grabbing me, ripping the tape from my wrist, making me yelp. I was told to get up and walk. My right leg was entirely numb, making the simple task almost impossible to do. I picked Tom up, my hands hurting as the blood rushed back into them, and moved as fast as I could, dragging my dead limb behind me. Tom woke for a moment, and I saw one of the men start to twitch. What if he shouted out, called for help. Tom didn’t know the rules. I calmly told him everything was okay and that I was carrying him to bed. As I spoke, I kept my eye firmly on the biggest of the three men who were escorting us wherever we were going. I told him without speaking that I would keep Tom quiet so he didn’t need to.

‘Nearly in bed, darling,’ I repeated, to ensure he was content and asleep again. I wondered how long I could lie to him about everything being okay before he realized it wasn’t. The man pushed us along the side of an abandoned building towards a half-open metal shutter. A small light was coming from within.

‘In here,’ he said shoving me towards the opening. The shutter was like the mouth of a monster that was about to swallow us whole.

Chapter 9 (#ulink_23988df5-ee9f-508a-8de4-2b95cf35b8cc)

Daniel

Stamford

2

January 2018, 12.12 a.m.

I grabbed my car keys, and, still in my pyjamas, I climbed into my car. I rang Rachael’s mobile, my heart pounding so hard I was sure at any moment something would rupture and kill me on the spot. It didn’t even ring, instead going straight to her voicemail.

‘Hey, this is Rachael.’

‘And Tom.’

‘We can’t get to the phone right now so leave a message after the beep.’

I hung up the phone and tried to call Sean’s mobile. It too was switched off. Hearing his voicemail kick in I swore loudly and pressed hard on the accelerator, my body and mind on autopilot. I nearly lost control a few times, I couldn’t feel my hands properly. My fight or flight had kicked in and all I could think of was not letting the severity of the situation take over. If I fell apart, like I thought I was going to at any moment, I couldn’t help Rachael. I couldn’t save my son. Not being able to go to the police, I knew I needed to get to their house. The man on the phone’s last words echoed in my mind as I made my way. I desperately tried to quieten the voice, but I was failing.

‘If you call the police, the next time you’ll see your family is on the news when they’re dragging their bodies out of a river.’

It was like a broken record, over and over, and hearing it meant I could see nothing but an image of Rachael face down drifting in a current, Thomas close to her, their hands almost touching as they were carried away into the darkness. I needed to remove it from my mind. Slamming on the brakes, the car skidded before coming to a stop. I got out, staggered around the car and heaved beside the passenger door, and still the image held strong.

I crumpled, clutched my head in my hands, then hit the side of my head with a clenched fist and screamed at the floor, my lips touching the frozen ground until the image, and his words, were gone. The outburst momentarily lifted my adrenaline-fuelled thoughts enough to know that I needed to find something hiding in the grey parts of my mind. I need to find something that could give me a clue as to where to start. I had something of his, he had my ex-girlfriend and my son. My wonderful boy. The image of her tied, and him drugged, in the back of a van caused my eyes to blur. I wiped them and brought myself back to the present. It was time to be proactive.

I had to breathe, just breathe, that was all I had to do.

Back in the car, I jumped a red light, not seeing it until it was too late to stop. Luckily there was nothing coming the other way – though I suppose there wouldn’t be in the middle of the night. The last thing I needed was to be pulled over by the police for speeding or running lights. He told me, if I called the police they would be …

I still hoped it was a sick joke of some kind.

As I pulled onto their drive my headlights lit up the front door. It was slightly ajar.

I turned my car engine off, got out and walked towards the house, looking to see if anyone was there as I quietly opened the door wider, flinching as the hinge squeaked. Once inside I reached for the light switch but thought better of it. I didn’t know who might be in the house.

Quietly moving down the hallway, I stepped into the kitchen. There were some dirty dishes on the side and the fish tank’s light was still on, the fish swimming around calmly, like nothing had happened. Turning, I looked into the living room. Nothing was out of place and my hope lifted slightly.

I walked up the stairs, stroking the wall with my right hand as it was so dark I couldn’t see, but I was too scared to switch on a light and be confronted with the truth. The only light was coming from a dim lamp somewhere upstairs, creating hard shadows on the wall at the top. Once upstairs I was met with the truth of the situation and it forced the air out of my lungs.

In the low light I could see the signs of a struggle. The hallway lamp was on its side and bedding from both Thomas’s and Rachael’s rooms were scattered around the landing along with toiletries, some of Thomas’s plastic toys and a small mirror. I could picture them being lifted from their beds, fighting, throwing whatever they could at whoever took them. Rachael screaming, begging. My baby boy crying, terrified. The image forced me to my knees and I cried until my lungs ached. My little boy, my defenceless boy.

Slowly I made my way into his room and looked inside. His wardrobe door hung off its hinges. His bed was flipped, the mattress cut open. Like they were looking for something; the thing that I was supposed to have.

His favourite teddy, a giant cuddly toy we had named Barnabus that I had got him for his first birthday, lay decapitated with its innards strewn across the floor. I began to make my way towards Rachael and Sean’s bedroom. Looking through the doorway the first thing I saw was blood on the far wall. A lot of blood. Taking a breath, I stepped in. The television was smashed. The mattress had been torn to shreds, and as I stepped closer, I saw a hand lying on the floor between the bed and window, stained dark crimson. Sidestepping I looked around the end of the bed, the image making me choke on my own voice as I tried to scream. Sean lay there, staring back at me, in a dark, almost black, pool of his own blood. His hands covered in it like he had tried to stop the bleeding. His head was forced backwards unnaturally. His throat was cut and the wound messy and uneven, like it had been hacked at rather than sliced. The wound was deep, so deep that I could see his exposed spine with the knife that had been used to do the unimaginable stuck in.

There was so much blood, so much violence. His chest was littered with more wounds, black holes through his ribcage. The wounds hadn’t produced much blood, suggesting they were made after he was already dead. I couldn’t count how many, possibly twenty in all. Each one dark and deep. I thought about the effort needed to do such a thing. It wouldn’t have been a quick death. I prayed he passed out before he knew exactly what was happening to him.

I staggered backwards out of the room, unable to take my eyes from Sean, and I threw up on the landing. Each heave becoming more painful than the last as my stomach emptied onto the carpet.

I needed to get out, fast. I was shocked the police weren’t already here, but then I thought about it; their house was detached, back from the road. Unless you were passing, which was nearly impossible because of it being set at the end of the close, you’d not hear anything from within. But it wouldn’t be long before someone noticed something and called the police. I couldn’t afford to be caught at the scene of the crime. I didn’t have time. I staggered towards the stairs as my legs gave out from under me and I fell down them, hitting my elbow on the hard wooden edge of one close to the bottom. Pain shot up into my little finger where I had hit the nerve and I shook my hand until it eased. It took me a moment to get to my feet and, as quietly as I could despite the sound of blood rushing in my ears being deafening, I left the house, closing the door behind. As I wrestled my keys from my pocket I dropped them as my hands were shaking so hard.

I managed, somehow, to get into my car and start the engine, though I stalled it twice as I tried to drive away. I felt hot, on the brink of passing out, so I opened my window to let the cold air in and it slapped me across the face. It helped. I don’t know how long I was driving for, but once I felt far enough away I turned off the main road and found a layby to park in. A few moments later, or maybe an hour, my phone buzzed in my back pocket. I looked at the caller ID, it came up unknown.

‘So, now you’ve been to your old house do you believe me?’

They knew I was there. They knew I had just left Rachael’s house. They had watched me arrive, watched me leave. They were somewhere very close by. I tried to recall if I saw anything or anyone outside when I got back into the car. But nothing came. Only the image of Rachael and Thomas in the van.

‘Please, please don’t hurt them.’

‘Do as you are told, and we won’t.’