Surviving Him (20 page)

“I forgot to bolt the door again. Not that it would make any difference, since whoever that is thought forcing the window was the better option,” I confirm into the dim lit room.

Katy, Mandy, Vicky and Waff stand next to the living room window looking out. I switch off the light so we can see better.

“Logan,” I quietly call into the phone.

“Lee told me, baby. We’re on our way to you, sit tight.”

“Okay,” I say and I press End.

I stare at my phone.

“How do we get ourselves in these situations?” I ask the girls looking outside the window.

“You aren’t going to see anything out there. Whoever that is, they are inside the damn building.” I say.

Everyone turns to look at me ranting with panic.

“We have to get into another room without bumping into whatever maniac is creeping about out there. Or it’s maybe just a random homeless alcoholic type person coming to join the party. But whoever that is, we need to move somewhere, where we can lock ourselves in.”

I let out a massive breath of air I didn’t realise I’d been holding and breathe in again to stop myself from hyperventilating. My heart feels like it’s about to explode out of my chest.

The footsteps are getting louder now. I can actually hear everyone breathing just as loud as my own. I look at Rose to see her expression is one of pure and utter fear. Katy and everyone else has the same look.

“Fuck. Let’s move.”

“Where are we going to go, Dana?” Katy looks down at her hands that are knotting together on her lap. She is shaking like a leaf.

“Somewhere safe my lovely.” I put my arm around her shoulders.

“It could be anyone of our evil ex bastards, Dana. What the hell are we going to do? Whoever it is, not one of them will care who else is here, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

I pull her in a tight hug, trying to comfort her when I am just as broken and as scared as she is.

“That’s why we got to move, chick. We have no choice. That sofa and set of drawers won’t hold for long. Whoever came through that window downstairs, is going to come through that door.”

The footsteps sound like they are fading away from us, but then a banging noise comes through the wall, and I know the psychopath stalking the building has moved to the other side of it.

“We have got to move now,” I almost shout. I secure Amy in my arms and Kayleigh curls her arm in mine.

Rose picks up Annie, and we go to the living room door. The rest of the girls follow behind us.

I pull the door open just slightly and peer out into the dark hallway, breathing deeply, in and out to stop myself from having a major panic attack. Kayleigh’s arm grips tight onto mine as she stands close to my side. We step out into the corridor and check for any signs of movement. I can’t hear anything, but it sounds like my heart is beating in my ears. I turn back to everyone.

“Let’s go. It’s now or never.”

Rose whispers behind me, “This is fucking insane. We need to phone the police. Someone grab the bats at the bottom of the stairs, I think we are going to need them.”

“It took them two hours to get to us the last time we heard noises. They get it all the time babe, and they must think women living in fear are paranoid. there’s that much traffic coming in and out of here every day, calls every week, I whisper. I move slowly down the dark hallway, making my way to the top of the stairs, when I stop dead in my tracks, we all do when we hear the banging still on the other side of the building.

My heart was beating at a million miles per hour, I am sweating and breathing harder. I try to avoid stepping on any creaky floorboards and falling on my ass.

I can hear everyone breathing behind me as we try to step as quietly as we can. I start to walk down the stairs, but it’s even bloody darker.

“Fucking hell,” I say.

“I think I’m going to have a heart attack,” Rose sounds petrified..

“I think I’m going to pee my pants,” Katy murmurs behind us.

“I think I already did,” Mandy says.

Waff and Vicky take deep breaths in and out, and hold onto each other in what looks like a death grip. They are silent apart from their panicking deep intakes of air.

Kayleigh giggles nervously at Mandy’s comment. We make it to the bottom of the stairs and hear a massive bang like a door being slammed shut.

“Quick, run,” I shout. We run as fast as we can to the playroom door, push it open and move toward the basement door locking it behind us. We run down another set of stairs into the basement.

“That’s fucking it! I’m phoning the police,” Katy says in the darkness.

“Where’s the light switch? It’s too dark down here, Mum,” Kayleigh asks as she activates the screen on her phone. It’s the only light we can see.

We search around the walls, feeling our way for a light switch. Kayleigh finds one and switches it on. The basement is where we all do our laundry; it has a big, heavy wooden door, a thick one at that, with a massive mortise lock, and bolts on it from top to bottom.

“We will be safe in here until someone can get to us. I can’t believe this is happening. What if it’s just a random burglar? It could be.”

“Who’s going to want to rob any of us? We have nothing to rob,” Rose says quietly while covering Annie who is still fast asleep.

With that my phone buzzes, giving me a mini panic attack. Once I have control, I hit answer.

“Where are you?”

“We made it to the basement, all of us.”

I tell Logan where we are, and how absolutely terrified we feel. I also make him aware that we have no idea who is in the building terrorising us.

“Be with you as soon as we can. We don’t know where you are. No men are allowed in there or know the exact location, remember?”

He was right. That’s the rule, and it’s a place of safety for women and children in fear of domestic abuse.

“How stupid I am. I really need to start using my head.”

I give him directions and beg him to please hurry the fuck up, as it won’t be long before the intruder would figure out where we all are. Rose and I walk to where the tumble dryer sits; next to one of three old washing machines, the ones that sounded like it would take off at any given moment,
while we washed our clothes in them. I reach behind the tumble dryer and unplug it.

Rose grabs one end while I take the other, and we carry it to the bottom of the stairs and drop it there. We both struggle to carry it because it weighs a bloody ton.

“Mandy, Vicky, Katy, get your arses over here and give us a hand would you. This weighs a ton and we have to get it up there to the top of the stairs.”

I am out of breath as I point to the heavy wooden door at the top of the basement stairs.

At our request they jump up and run towards us. We all lift the massive tumble dryer up to the top of the stairs, and sit it as close to the door as we can get it.

I wipe my brow and let out a big sigh of relief, as does Rose, while leaning against the tumble dryer. Suddenly, we hear another massive bang, and it’s a lot fucking closer than earlier. We sprint back down the stairs at lightning speed and curl up together on the old worn out sofa, which must have been down here for years by the looks of it. Kayleigh is messing about with her mobile phone when she says, “I can get on the internet down here. How cool is that?”

She smiles her gorgeous smile and continues to speak. “I just updated my status saying: Stuck down in the basement with everyone. The building has been broken into, but we don’t know who it is.”

I look to the ceiling for God to give me strength to deal with the information Kayleigh just shared with us, and wonder what in the world the thousand or so friends she has on her page will think of this.

“Please tell me you didn’t, Kayleigh.”

I look into Kayleigh’s smiling, warm, beautiful eyes.

“Mum, its okay. Someone will help us, and we won’t be stuck down here all night.”

Another loud bang and a screeching sound comes from directly above us. We all hold our breath in unison, terrified at the noises we can hear right above our heads.

Kayleigh’s phone sounds in her hand over and over again, notifying her she has comments on her status.

“People will be worried sick. She has all my friends as well as her own,” I say to no one in particular.

I take my phone out of my pocket and check to see if I have any signal, and by some miracle I do. I hit the Facebook app and inspect the comments Kayleigh has on her status. I am shocked to see that there are five hundred of them.

“Oh my god.”

“What’s wrong, chick?” Rose asks while she and everyone stares at me.

“Check out all the comments on Kayleigh’s status. E
veryone’s freaking right out. Shit.”

Only us lot would be checking through Facebook, while our building has been broken into.

Katy reads through the comments on her phone.

“Damn. Oh my God, shit.”

“What is it?”

I look through the thread and people have said
they phoned
the police. Their phone must be ringing off the hook, with a few hundred people phoning in.

“Oh my God.”

We all turn and stare at each other, when we hear the sound of drilling. Yes drilling.

“I can’t stand this, this is crazy. I’m going to wake up any second now,” Rose says under the covers. We huddle in together, almost hiding, while peeping our heads out of the top of the covers to look in the direction of the door.

All of a sudden we hear three shots being fired and then more shots on repeat.

“What the fuck is going on up there? This is absolutely fucking mental,” I shriek.

“What’s gonna come through that door, Mum? I’m so scared.”

Kayleigh is terrified, hanging on to me and her baby sister as tight as she can. Amy and Annie are crying their little hearts out. Amy hides her head further into my chest.

The door at the top of the stairs flies open. Shots are fired and what sounded like the door being kicked off, when we heard.

“It’s the police. Who’s down here?”

Too petrified to move a single inch, we huddle up together some more, tight against each other’s bodies. Hearts racing, deep breaths, totally shitting bricks together. I jump up taking the baseball bat with me, and slowly move toward the bottom of the stairs. Rose comes behind me, breathing in and out and as hard as I am. We see two policemen
standing at
the top of the stairs, and the relief floods through our bodies in a rush for only a split second. When we hear shots fire behind them, Rose and I duck down together at a pathetic attempt to protect ourselves.

The two policemen fall forward; one rolls down the stairs towards us, and the other tumbles and is slumped over the tumble dryer.

“Oh fuck.”

Rose and I run toward the sofa and cover Kayleigh, Amy and Annie with our bodies.

I shush my girls, while holding onto them as tightly as I can.

“It’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay.”

But I don’t know for sure if it will ever be okay ever again. I don’t know if we will ever see the light of day again.

I don’t know anything at all, but then I hear the sound of heavy feet coming down the basement stairs towards us; slow heavy-footed steps. My heart is going to shoot out of my mouth. It is beating that hard in my chest.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Mandy whispers into her cover.

“What the fuck are we gonna do?” Katy says, sobbing her heart out.

I look towards everyone, then at Rose, her eyes peeping wide over the top of the cover. She looks at me and I whisper to her underneath my cover while holding it over my mouth and cheeks.

“We got to take this guy out, chick.” It’s more of a mumble.

Rose’s eyes grow even wider as her jaw drops to the floor in disbelief.

“What the fuck? He’s got a fucking gun, you know, bang fucking bang we’re dead.”

“I know, but what’s the alternative, sit and hide here and have holes put into us, our bodies plastered to the sofa? Or we can try and take him out ourselves?”

“Babe, you’re not kidding are you, and I repeat he’s got a fucking gun?”

She stares at me and I see it flicker in her eyes as it dawns on her that we either try and do this, or just sit here and get shot at, and probably end up dead and six feet under.

“Fuck. Fucking hell,” Rose mutters, as she follows behind me with the other baseball bat in her hands, holding it up in the air mirroring mine. We sneak slowly along the basement wall together at a snail’s pace. Breathing fast and hard, I look to Rose before we round the corner to the bottom of the stairs. She looks back at me wide eyed, mouthing, “One, two, three.”

Both Rose and I swing our bats, hitting Ian.

“Fucking Ian.”

One hit in the chest, one in the head. He falls to the floor, but soon recovers and is straight back up on his feet.

Rose and I back up toward the sofa and stand stock still in front of it. I search Ian’s face. He looks even scarier. He looks evil, like a complete psychopathic murderer, which is what he has just become.

“Fuck.”

I turn my head to look at Rose, who has the same stance as me; arms raised ready to swing in front of her, holding the bat up in the air, legs slightly apart and looking at Ian then back to me.