Death Run

With a shout of frustration, Jade turned and kicked the wall behind her.

The car stopped abruptly and Rich was thrown forward in the seat. Someone laughed as he collided with the back of the seat in front. Then the door opened and he was hauled out. If they didn’t take the blanket off soon, he’d suffocate.

Indoors again. It sounded large – echoey. Even through the blanket the place smelled old.

Suddenly the blanket was pulled off his head and Rich spluttered and coughed as he rasped for breath. The room was dim and unlit, but he blinked at the relative brightness of it.

A golden gargoyle face was close in front of his own – so close his breath misted its cheek. Then it was pulled off, just as Rich’s blanket had been. A man with short black hair and a neat pencil moustache stared at Rich through disbelieving eyes, and let loose a tirade of rapid Italian.

Rich didn’t understand a word of it, but it didn’t sound polite.

Then, in English, “You are not Chance!”

“I am,” Rich retorted. “Richard Chance.” And he gave a short laugh as he realised what had happened. Despite everything, it was almost funny. The laugh made him cough and he gasped for breath again. “You were after Dad, weren’t you? You just assumed he’d come back to the hotel, and as soon as someone came in you stuffed a blanket over them and bundled them off. Sorry.” He paused for another cough and was pleased to find his throat was easing a little. “You took a chance and got the wrong Chance.”

The Italian stared back at Rich. He didn’t look at all happy. Maybe Rich shouldn’t have laughed at him, but it was too late now. The man stepped back and snarled something at the others. Two of them grabbed Rich roughly by the shoulders and dragged him deeper into the old building. Jade’s foot hurt. She had no one to blame but herself – for everything. She limped slowly along the pavement, walking back the way she had expected the car to come. It must have turned off somewhere between the junction and where she had last seen it.

Five minutes later, she turned a corner and saw the car parked at the kerb. The whole area was run down and dilapidated. The walls of the buildings were crumbling and cracked. The cobbles were split or missing. In the gap between the buildings Jade could see the sunlight reflecting off the water of a canal. The dark shape of a gondola drifted by, blotting out the sunlight for a moment.

The building that the car was parked outside had once been grand and impressive. Flaking remains of gold leaf clung to weathered stone ornamentation round the entrance. The door was a rotting apology of damp wood. It creaked and complained as Jade eased it open. She stood for a moment, half expecting shouts and running men to respond to the noise.

But there was nothing. Was this the right place? Or had they just abandoned the car and gone somewhere else?

Jade went inside, pausing to allow her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. She was in a large entrance lobby. There was a booth on one side, steps leading up to a raised area at the back and then doors off. It took Jade a moment to realise where she was.

She was in the lobby of a theatre. Slowly and quietly, Jade climbed the steps. The main doors were chained shut. She gave the chain a tug, feeling the rust rubbing away on her palm. But it was secure. A side door led to a flight of steps that swept round and up impressively. Except the carpet was worn through and the heavy rope handrails were rotten and frayed.

Jade emerged into the upper circle of the theatre. She made her way quietly down to the front seats to get the best view of what was happening on the stage. The theatre might be old and disused, neglected and in need of repair, but on the stage were four men. Three of them were in carnival masks. All of them were standing round a fifth figure tied to a chair. The chair was facing away from Jade, towards the decaying backdrop of the stage – a faded painting of mountains and a castle. But even so she knew who it was – she recognised the profile and the tousled blond hair.

“Oh, Rich,” she sighed.

The man dressed as Harlequin turned to look up at the circle – at Jade. She ducked down quickly. Had her words carried right to the front of the theatre? She risked a look over the low wall at the front of the circle. Harlequin had turned away again, but Jade knew she had better be very, very quiet.

But the sound carried both ways, she realised, as the man who had removed his mask spoke. “Don’t worry. It won’t be long now.”

“What won’t?” Jade could hear how nervous and frightened Rich was, though he was trying to hide it. “What are you going to do to me? Why don’t you just let me go – it’s not me you want.”

“But you may be useful.” The man’s English was perfect, only the slight accent gave away that he was Italian. “And anyway, it is not for me to decide.”

“Then who?”

“The boss is coming. The big man.” He laughed and the sound echoed round the damp walls of the old theatre. “Doctor Plague will decide what to do with you. I wonder, what will be the treatment? Kill or cure?”

The men all laughed at that. Jade gritted her teeth. Keeping low, kneeling on the floor in the aisle beside the front row of seats, Jade eased her mobile phone out of her pocket. She checked it was set to silent, and selected ‘Send Short Message’ from the main menu.

THE GOT RICH. DLD THEATER.

COME HELP.

She hoped Dad had his phone on. She hoped he knew what to do if he got a text message – Mum had never understood how her mobile worked apart from the phone bit. Jade wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve as she waited. As she thought about Mum – and about Rich tied to a chair on the stage far below.

The phone trembled in her hand. It took her a moment to realise it wasn’t just her hand shaking with emotion. She had a text, thank God!

WHAT DLD THEATRE?

Jade stared at the message. Then she sent back:

DUNNO

A moment later she got:

OK. WHAT STREET?

She almost yelled at the phone. Instead she clenched her mouth tight shut, and sent back:

DUNNO

A pause, then:

SO WHATS NEAR IT?

Jade stared at the phone. She tried to think how she had got here, which turns and side streets she had taken from the junction with the main road, but she just couldn’t picture it. All she could think of was the light reflecting off the water glimpsed between the buildings outside.

ER – A CANAL

She could only guess how Dad would react to that. She sent another text; it wasn’t much, but it was the best she could do:

SIDE STREET BETWEEN MAIN ROAD AND HOTEL. BIG BLACK CAR OUTSIDE.

There was something happening on the stage below. The four men were stepping back as others arrived. Two people – both in masks. The skull-man and the man in the grey, beak-faced mask stepped up on to the stage.

The skull-man pulled off his mask and Jade was startled to see that underneath his face looked very much the same – white teeth between bloodless lips, and skin stretched tight and thin over a pale, bald head. The man’s cheekbones jutted out prominently.

“What have we here?” he asked in a voice that also sounded stretched and thin. “This is not John Chance,” he said angrily, turning to the grey-masked man. “Doctor Plague?!” he demanded.

Doctor Plague turned slowly towards Rich. There was a rumble of sound from behind the mask – exaggerated and distorted by the beaked shape of the mask. But the sound was unmistakable.

Doctor Plague was laughing.

Chapter 3 (#udc61f0fc-478b-5357-808d-801fc1dda3d8)

The sound of laughter echoed inside Doctor Plague’s mask. “This is the ever-resourceful young Rich.”

His voice was a rumble amplified by the mask’s beak-like shape – but still Jade could tell that his accent was different from the other man’s. There was something oddly familiar about his voice, in fact. But the man’s next words made Jade’s heart skip a beat. He stepped in front of Rich and said, “How nice to see you again, my friend.”

Jade leaned forward. The man was facing her. She struggled to make out any features behind the mask. But there was nothing. Until the man reached up and took off the mask to reveal the distinctive weathered face behind. He had dark, thinning hair and a thin, neatly-trimmed moustache.

“Ralph!” Rich’s exclamation masked the sound of Jade’s gasp of surprise.