The Lazarus Effect (23 page)

The hammering on the glass partition of the security booth startled both Etienne Matongo and Marlon Cloete, one of the junior guards on night shift. Etienne nearly spilt hot coffee onto his uniform and Marlon jerked out of his slumber like a man on puppet strings, his chair perilously close to upending him until he braced with one foot. The two men squinted out of the brightly lit cubicle into the rain, surprised at the commotion on such a slow night. The silhouette outside resolved into a young woman, soaked through, her eyes crazed.

‘Jissis, man.’ Marlon rubbed his eyes. ‘Where’s the fire? Why’s everyone so nuts during the full moon?’

‘It is raining. There is no moon,’ Etienne responded in a level voice. The younger guard gave him a ‘you know what I mean’ shake of the head. Etienne turned back to the glass. His chest expanded painfully when he made out the face. It was Serena Fourie.

‘Go and have a break,’ he ordered. Marlon opened his mouth, and Etienne fished a twenty out of his pocket and pressed it on him. ‘It has been a long night. Have a break and I will handle it.’

Marlon studied his boss as he got to his feet. Etienne was as calm as a bay on Sunday; he didn’t flip moods like the security chief. Etienne met Marlon’s eyes. He knew he wouldn’t disobey. Etienne knew the other guards respected him as an understanding guy, one who projected a quiet authority out of every inch of his considerable height. He was the only senior guard, for instance, who would let a man have a guilt-free nap. Etienne would let it slide, as long as it was for short periods under his watchful eye when there were others on patrol. So he wasn’t surprised when Marlon took the money without a word, only casting a quizzical glance over his shoulder before he left for the hospital cafeteria.

Etienne closed the office door behind him and joined Serena under the protective canopy covering the booth. Hard rain drummed on the tarpaulin over their heads. Shivering, Serena seemed to dance to its rhythm as she hopped and rocked from one foot to the other. Her hair hung to her shoulders like lengths of curly seaweed. She barely noticed when Etienne removed his coat and draped it around her shoulders.

‘It’s Rosie. She did it again. I … I … I …’ Her chin trembled. ‘
I tried
to watch her. I tried, but she sneaked out. I couldn’t find her … the nightmares have started again, and she’s been acting crazy …’

Etienne dropped his head and cursed in a low voice. He had known sooner or later this would happen. Nothing stayed buried forever.

She seemed to take his silence like a slap in the face. ‘I tried! I did everything you told me!’ she wailed, tears running freely
down her cheeks, mixing with rain. She spun away and wept, her back hunched. Etienne let her pour it out, everything she had guarded and fed until it had become too much for her young heart. At last, she gulped down the last of her sobs and straightened up. She slapped the tears off her face as she looked out at the storm, as if only in its chaos could answers to her turmoil be found.

‘What has she done?’ Etienne watched the back of her head. It shook dejectedly, like she was shaking off the nightmare, peeling its talons back to release the hold it had on her. Her seaweed tresses swung from side to side.

‘She took two people,’ she whispered. ‘She took them and locked them up … somewhere.’

Etienne swore quietly. He wished the hands of an angel would come down and cover his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear, to participate in this any longer. He thought of the young girl whose memory he had helped betray for two years, and of his own family, who stood to lose everything through his actions tonight.

‘Those two girls from the magazine, the ones investigating–’ Serena sucked in a deep breath and it gurgled in her throat.

Etienne’s heart, a father’s heart, melted in the face of Serena’s desperation, as it had once before in the past. ‘Where are they? Where is Rosie?’

Serena whirled on him. Her face had aged, its muscles haggard with strain. ‘No, no, no,’ she shook her whole body in vigorous refusal. ‘
No
. You can’t be involved in this any more. I can’t let you. I was wrong to ask you the first time. We were both
so wrong.’ She reached into her sodden jacket and pulled out a thick, crumpled brown envelope. ‘It’s to help. Please take it and go. Go now. Before the police get here and …’

Etienne backed away as if she were brandishing a python. ‘Serena–’

‘Think of your wife and daughters. Do it for them,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s mine, my savings. It’s not a fortune, but it can help you start over. Please, Mr Matongo. Don’t risk everything you have left for us.’ The package wobbled in her outstretched hands, sobs rocking her body. ‘Do it for your daughters.’

Etienne couldn’t move. Serena wriggled off the jacket he had draped around her and wedged the money into its side pocket. She pressed the jacket against his chest and held it there, waiting for him to take it. Still, Etienne didn’t move. Serena flung herself onto his chest and put her arms around him, squashing the jacket between them. Etienne embraced the weeping child that was not his, comforting her in a way she had long wished her own father would.

Serena pulled herself together and wiped her eyes.

‘Please forgive me. Forgive us,’ she said, stepping off the pavement. She flipped the hood of her sweatshirt back up and tore into the rain.

‘I think we’re gonna die in here. This isn’t how I saw myself going,’ Chlöe said.

Vee ran her hands along the cold plastic walls, groping her way around the small space. There were no weaknesses or breaks in the thick material. It had to be industrial-grade stuff. They had tried to rip through it with their hands, but getting traction was impossible, the damn thing was so smooth. From what she could tell, all the walls were lined with it, right up to the roof. The only exception was the bald rectangle outlining the door. They’d tried to kick it down, but all it did was rattle at their efforts. At least they weren’t getting rained on.

The darkness was dispiriting. Vee moved along the walls while Chlöe skulked in a corner, her disembodied voice throwing ink bombs into the already gloomy atmosphere. As long as Vee kept moving, the fist of strangeness that built up in her chest when she was trapped in dark spaces would stay back. There had to be a gap somewhere, and she’d find it soon enough. Something that felt like a spider scuttled over her wrist. She brushed it off with a gentle flick.

‘Nobody’s dying anywhere, so stop being melodramatic. All we need to do is find a way out or let someone on the outside know we’re in here.’

‘Oh, find a way out or send a rescue signal, why didn’t I think of that? You mean signal Rosie the murderer to rush in here and kill us even faster? Like, ‘Yoo-hoo, crazy bitch …”

‘Look, cut that snarky shit out. Now, I know this is hard and scary, but focus on a way to help out.’

‘I’m not scared,’ Chlöe grumbled under her breath. ‘And I told Richie to call the cops, so I don’t know why no one’s come yet. Even SAPS isn’t this slow. It’s been over two hours! Maybe … Jeez, he wouldn’t be such a selfish shit to turn his back on us to cover his ass.’

Maybe the police, like us, don’t know where we are
. Vee kept the thought to herself. ‘Who’s this Richie, now?’ she angled to change the subject.

There was rustling in Chlöe’s corner. ‘Just this guy I know. Forget it.’

Vee paused. ‘Wait, is this Richie the hacker, the one who’s been getting us all the ‘inside’ information? As in The Guy guy?’ She laughed. ‘Is he your boyfriend? What’s his last name?’

‘No, he’s not,’ Chlöe spat. ‘Look, just forget I said anything, okay? It’s nobody.’

Vee shrugged. ‘So if the guy called Richie has no last name … guess I should just call him Guy Richie. Lot better than just The Guy.’ She strained her eyes enough to see Chlöe forcing a wan smile.

‘Your sense of humour sucks in here. And will you stop all that pacing up and down? It’s driving me nuts and it won’t help us think faster,’ Chlöe said.

Vee dropped her arms. ‘Sorry. I’m bad in dark rooms.’ Her flesh writhed, trying to crawl off her body. She tried standing still and was surprised and relieved when her focus sharpened. The outline of Chlöe on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, was off to her right, in the corner with the highest concentration of light. The other centres of light were the door and the ceiling. Darkness pressed back throughout the rest of the space. There had to be another exit, and some kind of implement to help them break through it. More carefully this time, she pressed herself close to the wall and began tracing it, using every inch of her skin to find a snag.

‘I’m gay, you know,’ Chlöe blurted. ‘That’s why it sounded so ridiculous when you asked about a boyfriend. I’ve never had one and wouldn’t know what that was.’

Vee dropped her arms again.

‘Girlfriend, I do have. Had. I got dumped.
She
cheated, and then had the nerve to dump
me
and throw me out of the flat we were sharing. Which is why I had nowhere to stay until my brother let me live at his place. And
that’s
why we stopped at my parents’ house in Constantia that day, so he could give me his spare keys. He’s staying with them temporarily to give me time to figure things out.’ Her face was a tiny oval moon beaming sadness up from the region of the floor. ‘I’m sorry if this is a lot to take in right now. It just sucks that I couldn’t be completely honest with you from the start, ’cause I wasn’t sure
how you’d handle it. But seeing as we’re trapped in here and might not make it through the night …’

Vee cast her eyes heavenwards. Good gracious, the theatre was missing this child. ‘You don’t owe me any explanation about your personal life, Chlöe,’ she said quickly, before the silence got awkward. ‘But thanks for trusting me.’ Her hand turned a corner and she started along the next wall. ‘I know all about being dumped and pathetic; my story would give yours an asswhupping any day, no contest. And to be honest, I was kinda fifty-fifty on whether you were or weren’t. My gaydar’s horrible.’

A giggle drifted from the corner. ‘Really? You’re one of the most bizarrely observant people I’ve ever met, and I’m pretty obvious for the most part.’

‘Ah. Put it down to … cultural conditioning, if you will. Personally, I only care who I’m messin’ with. Everybody else can watch their own backs and mind their own business.’ Vee flexed her arms to loosen out the kinks. She couldn’t keep this up all night.

‘Well, from what I hear you’re fucking half the city, so. No wonder you’re so duh about other people’s sex lives.’

Vee picked up the first object she could get her hands on and threw it. Chlöe squealed, laughed and threw it back, missing by a mile.

‘My life’s no secret, anyway. My dreadful sister found out about my relationship, outed me to the rest of my family and my parents banished me like some medieval outcast who’d shamed the lineage. She and Mum talk about me to everyone
as if I joined the bloody circus.’ Chlöe chuckled sourly. ‘I’m like a celebrity among the more old-school lot in Constantia.’

Vee felt a protrusion in the wall. It didn’t flow right around in one continuous rectangle. She doubled back and probed again, letting her fingers bump up and down against the side of the lump. It felt like a rectangle within another rectangle, a cupboard built against one end of their cell.

‘I’ve just got one question,’ she said.

Chlöe sighed. ‘It’s not just a phase.’

‘No, not that.’ The door, if that’s what it was, was all rough wood, with no covering. Vee didn’t know how she’d missed it. She popped at it with the heel of her palms, careful to avoid splinters. It was about two metres in width, maybe three in length. With any luck it would turn out to be another doorway. ‘You’re twenty-three, with a good degree. Why the hell were you still living with your parents?’

Sensing the excitement of a breakthrough, Chlöe scrambled over to help. ‘Are you kidding me? My parents are loaded. I had everything: credit cards, a great ride, practically a whole floor to myself in the house. Now I’m living at Jasper’s and driving his hand-me-down.’

‘Rich pipo problems, right,’ Vee replied.

They leaned their shoulders into the wood and the door groaned open. An array of objects fell out, clattering onto the floor.

Vee picked one up. ‘I think I know where we are. This is some kinda tool shed. See, this is a rake, and some iron rods for Lord knows what, and … wait a minute, this must be a drill–’

‘Yay!’

‘You need a plug to operate a drill. Definitely no power outlets in here.’

‘What kind of tool shed is this? Why doesn’t it have a tractor or something, so we can crank it up and mow down the door?’

‘It’s not a shed in a Steven Seagal movie, that’s why. But I’ve got an idea.’ Vee gripped one of the iron rods in her fist, weighing its heft.

They went around the floor space one more time, both clutching a metal rod and tapping it against the walls. Chlöe held up her hand when she heard a change in timbre that indicated glass. She drove her rod up until the sound of cracking turned into shattering. They held their breath, waiting for the door to burst open. Nothing. They switched out the rods for the longest and sharpest of the tools, ripped away enough plastic to make a sizeable hole and poked out the rest of the juts of the glass studding the rim of the frame. Wind and rain whipped into the shed. Chlöe whispered ‘window’ like a wanderer who’d stumbled on buried treasure.

‘I think I know where we are.’

‘You said that already. In a tool shed.’

‘No, where the shed itself is,’ Vee said. She couldn’t see much through the tiny window, but there was enough light now to inspect their prison. Her best guess had been a storage container or empty garage on the Fourie property, but that couldn’t be. This gear was way too boutique for a family garden shed, plus smuggling two hooded women, in two separate trips, into a backyard in a suburb was too risky.

‘These are construction materials. That’s what this shed is for. It’s reinforced with plastic so the tools don’t get rusty. We’re still at the WI, at the construction site at the back!’

Chlöe looked sceptical. ‘Rosie could’ve taken us anywhere else, where no one would ever think to look, and she chose
here
? Screw it. I’m done asking questions.’ She scraped glass away with her foot and pushed her skirt up her thighs. ‘The quicker we get out of here, the better.’

They piled every solid, non-sliding object from the cupboard as close to the window as possible. Thigh muscles shaking as she tried to keep her balance, Vee climbed on top of the junk heap and hoisted Chlöe up. It made sense that the smaller and shorter ought to go first. It was also pretty clear that should their captor return and catch one of them, it definitely shouldn’t be Bishop.

Chlöe shot through the window like a human projectile. Vee winced, listening to the thumps and splashes coming from the other side. She waited out the thuds and spray of cursing that followed. Rain pattered into her eyes through the busted window. ‘You okay? Sorry, I think I pushed too hard,’ she said.

‘I’m okay,’ answered Chlöe’s voice, strangled with pain. ‘Landed on my hands. I think something’s broken. Jissis, that hurt!’

‘Sorry, babe, but we can’t stand around making chitchat. Can you see anything?’

Vee heard her footsteps squishing through mud as they moved away. Seconds passed. The footsteps came squishing back.

‘You’re right, we’re still at the WI. Not sure where. I think it’s at the back, where they’re building the sports and gym section.
There’s a tennis court further down and that ugly, big-ass hole they’re turning into a pool.’

‘Find your way back to the main building. Get to a phone, a security guard, the first person you see. Just get help. Don’t stop–’

‘Wait, I’m coming around to let you out first.’

‘Chlöe, just go, don’t–!’

Too late, Vee heard her take off. She held her breath, prayed and waited. The storm and reinforced walls of the shed dulled every sound coming from the outside. Two full minutes ticked by. Her heart sank. The shed was the size of a doghouse; it was thirty seconds max for a blind man on crutches to go around it at full speed. She swallowed and found her mouth was dry.

Seven minutes.

Still nothing.

Seven and a half.

Vee looked up at the window, wondering whether to damn it all to hell and follow anyway. She was taller than Rosie. Not by a helluva lot, but yes, taller. True, for a teenage kid Rosie was built like a prize steed, but Vee could put up a decent fight. It was that or sit tight and wait, and inertia was not her friend right now. Anything could be happening to that little numbskull. Terror tightened a noose around her heart at the thought. Anything could be happening to Chlöe …

She scrambled atop the heap. Her fingers froze on the sill. A scream carried on the wind. The metal catch on the main door
ground as it drew back. Vee jumped and almost lost her footing when the door flew open.

Serena pushed in first, carrying a huge flashlight. In its glow, her face looked terrified yet eerily calm. Chlöe stumbled in after her, her hair wound up in the fist of Rosie, who brought up the rear. Rosie shoved Chlöe into the middle of the room, twisting her ponytail so hard she screamed and staggered to her knees.

‘Rosie, stop that,’ Serena hissed, sounding like a mother chastising an errant child for smearing her best dress with ice cream. ‘Could you come down from there, please?’ she called up to Vee.

Vee realised her mouth was hanging open and quickly snapped it shut. The fact that Rosie was behind this was taking an appreciable amount of cerebral gymnastics, but she hadn’t expected to see Serena here. Vee felt like an idiot the second the thought crossed her mind. Of course Serena would see to cleaning up her sister’s mess; she’d probably been doing it their entire lives. Vee felt doubly stupid for not seeing it earlier. Rosemary Fourie was an unmitigated mess, fifteen years in the making. And unlike Lucas, the most innocuous of them all, Rosie was a powder keg begging to be lit. Little Rosie the overgrown baby, tamped down and boxed in, mollycoddled and insulated by everyone around her. Vee remembered the blaze of rage Rosie had unleashed in the street the first time they met and, looking into her eyes now, it was obvious the kid was a breath away from tipping into the void.

‘Serena …’ Vee began, and stopped. Serena what? How could you do this? Why help your crazy little sister? How could you let it go this far? What choice had Serena had?

‘You have one more year before you graduate. You can still have a bright future,’ Vee told her quietly, which was all she could think of. ‘This isn’t going to fix anything.’

Serena agreed with a distracted nod. ‘I know what I have,’ she said flatly. She looked and sounded exactly like her mother in that moment – dutifully proud in her defeat.

‘Let Chlöe go. This is way out of hand as it is, and she’s nothing but a clueless brat that follows me around. She’s not a part of this …’ Vee spoke fast, ignoring the incredulous whimper that rose from where Chlöe lay on the ground. ‘The three of us can talk, but if anything happens to her … if any white people get hurt, everything gets so much worse. You know how this works.’ The sound from the floor changed to something suspiciously like muffled laughter.

‘Nobody goes anywhere, so shut up!’ Rosie’s breath was a blast of sour air. Watching the dance and twitch of individual muscles in her face, lit by the glow of the flashlight, was almost mesmerising. ‘She stays, you stay,
shut up!
’