Chris Mooney - The Missing

Darby froze. Someone was moving closer.

The next room was bigger, with four doors. One of them was padlocked. She slipped inside and tried one door, and when it opened, she headed into another room, closing the door softly behind her, not wanting to give away her location.

This room had a corridor so narrow she had to go down it sideways. Some of the doors, she noticed, could be locked from the inside. Some had no doorknobs at all. Some rooms had no doors, just doorways. Why the variations?

They hunt their victims down here. They hunt them through this maze and let them try to find places to hide to make the hunt more exciting.

Moving deeper into the maze of changing rooms, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, pieces of her conversation with Rachel came back to her: There's no way out of here, there are only places to hide… doesn't matter if you go right or left or straight, they all lead to dead ends, remember?… There's no way out of here. I tried.

There had to be a way out of here. Rachel Swanson had survived down here for years; there was a way out, or at least a place to hide -

A piercing scream made Darby jump.

THUMP and the woman screamed again – she was close, somewhere behind this thin wall. More doors opened and shut. How many women were down here?

'HEEEEEEEEEEELP.'

Not Carol's voice. Darby didn't know who the woman was, but she was close. Call out and let her know she wasn't alone? No, don't give away your location. Darby crept deeper into the maze, quickly taking in each room's markings as she searched the floors, hoping to find a piece of wood to use as a club, anything.

Here was a room with splintered wood on the concrete floor. Black liquid was leaking from beneath one the doors. Darby knew what it was even before she knelt down. Blood. She could smell it. The door facing her wasn't locked. She eased it open. Please God, don't let Evan be in there.

A woman lay facedown on the floor, blood pooling beneath her. Seeing how she had been butchered caused a scream to rise in Darby's throat.

Darby stifled it back, her whole body shaking, her mind reeling as she looked around – bloody footprints were on the floor. The footprints moved down the corridor and disappeared. Evan was gone.

Faint movement coming from the wall behind her. No door here, but near the bottom of the floor was a rectangular-sized hole large enough for her to move through. Was Evan in there?

Darby had to look, didn't want to look. She got on her knees and peeked through the hole, looking up into the room at Carol Cranmore's small, trembling frame.

'Carol,' Darby whispered. 'Carol, down here.'

Carol Cranmore, crouching down on the floor, stared at Darby through the hole.

'I'm with the police,' Darby said. 'Are you hurt?'

Carol shook her head, her eyes wide and terrified.

'I think there's enough room for you to wiggle through,' Darby said. 'Come on, I'll help you.'

Carol shimmied through the hole of jagged wood and got stuck. Darby grabbed Carol's hands and pulled her through, the ragged ends of the split wood scratching her legs. Carol was barefoot. Her feet and ankles were scraped, bleeding in spots. She was dressed only in her underwear and bra and she was trembling.

'He's holding an axe, I saw him -'

'I know who he is,' Darby said. 'I need to know where he is. Have you seen him?'

Carol shook her head.

'How many people are down here with us? Do you know?'

'I've heard some people – some women – but I've only seen one. She was bleeding. I was trying to wake her up when he came for me and I ran away and saw a skeleton.' Carol's face collapsed. 'Please, I don't want to die -'

Darby gripped the teenager by the shoulders. 'Listen to me. I know you're scared, but you can't cry or scream. You can't do that, understand? I don't want him to find us. We've got to find a way out of here, and I need you to be strong for me. I need you to be brave. Can you do that?'

A woman screamed – too close, the sound coming from directly in front of them.

Darby clamped a hand over Carol's mouth and pressed her up against the wall as a door slammed shut. The woman screamed again, coming from the room Carol was just in.

The woman started begging for her life. 'Please… I'll do anything you want, just don't hurt me, please.'

Carol sobbed beneath Darby's hand, her tears spilling over Darby's fingers.

THUMP and Carol jumped as the woman screamed in horror.

CRACK and the woman's scream turned to a gurgling rasp, Frank Sinatra singing 'Fly Me to the Moon.'

THUMP, CRACK, THUMP, and then there was nothing but the sound of Evan's heavy breathing. He was in the next room. Evan had killed one of the women and now he was tapping the axe against the wall, thump-thump-thump, trying to get Carol to scream, to find out where she was hiding.

The thumping sound stopped. Darby stared down at the hole. Come on, put your head through and take a look. All she needed was one good kick and she could break his nose. If he poked his head through and looked the other way, she could kick him hard in the back of the head and kick him unconscious.

Frank Sinatra started singing 'My Way.'

Evan didn't look through the hole.

Had he left?

Darby waited. Waited some more. Risk it, take a look.

Darby whispered in Carol's ear: 'I'm going to look through the hole. Stay here, and whatever you do, don't move or scream, okay?'

Carol nodded. Darby knelt on the floor.

Past the dead woman's hands, Darby saw black boots standing by an opened door. Evan was still in there, waiting. She saw the bloody axe hovering near his ankle.

Evan headed into another room, slamming the door behind him. Another door slammed shut, Frank Sinatra singing 'The Way You Look Tonight.'

Darby had an idea. Oh God, please let this work.

'Carol, this skeleton you saw, do you remember where it is?'

'It's back through there,' Carol said, pointing at the hole.

'I need you to show me.'

'Don't leave me here.'

'I'm not going to leave you.'

'You promise?'

'I promise.' Darby took off her shirt and handed it to Carol. 'I'm going to go through the hole first. Once I get in there, I'm going to tell you to close your eyes and then I'm going to help pull you through again. Just give me a moment.'

Darby wiggled her way through the hole, the blood soaking through her T-shirt. After Carol came through, her eyes closed, Darby held her hand and led her away from the mangled body on the floor.

'You can open your eyes now,' Darby said. 'Now show me where you saw the skeleton.'

'It's through that door.'

Darby eased it open. The hallway was empty. She closed the door softly behind them. Carol led Darby through two rooms, then a third, Darby staying out front and checking the blind spots while committing each room to memory.

Now they were standing in a corridor with a concrete wall. We must be at one end of the maze. But which end?

Carol pointed to the pitch-black end of the corridor. Lying on the floor was a torn shirt.

'It's down there.'

Breathing hard, Darby led the way through the dark, holding Carol's hand.

At the dead end of the corridor was a scattering of bones small and large – the fractured end of a femur, a tibia and a cracked skull. Darby wondered if Evan and Boyle had left the bones here to scare the other women.

Wait, back to the femur. It was spiked at the end. Sharp. Use that.

Bone clutched in her hand, Darby ran to the opposite end of the corridor with Carol. Only one door down here. Darby eased the door open and came face-to-face with the man from the woods.

Evan's head was covered by the same mask of dirty Ace bandages she had seen over two decades ago, the eyes and mouth covered with the same strips of black cloth. Blood was splashed against his blue coveralls and carpenter's belt, which had been modified to accommodate several knives and a gun holster.