The Well (36 page)

Abby ran into the bedroom. “Sammy’s gone,” she said, her voice full of panic.

Helen threw back the quilt, adrenalin pushing her drowsiness to one side. “Where’s she gone?”

“Where do you think? There’s only one place I think she’d go without telling us.”

“The well?”

Abby nodded. “I should have spotted it. The way she kept saying that we had to help the girl. That’s what she’s gone to do.”

“Get her out?”

“I think so.”

“Shit,” said Helen. She thought for a moment. “How will she do that? She’s not big enough to lift her out on her own.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Abby. “Maybe she thinks if she can throw some rope down, the girl can climb out.”

“Maybe,” said Helen, “Although –”

Abby interrupted her. “There isn’t time to debate this. I have to go and get her.”

“What do you mean,
you
have to go?” demanded Helen. “
We
have to go.”

“You can’t,” responded Abby, sharply. “Look at your arm. Look at what happened yesterday. I won’t let you.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Helen –”

“Abby, we’re a team. A couple. A family. I don’t care what could happen, there is no way on Earth you’re going on your own.”

Abby started to protest, but Helen silenced her. “
None.
And we’re wasting time. Let’s get dressed. You’ll have to drive.”

By the time Abby had dressed, Helen was only just in her underwear, struggling to put her jeans on. “My arm,” she said apologetically. “Will you help me?”

Abby helped her dress. Before they left, they checked all of the rooms again – more to see if Sammy had left a note, rather than with any expectation of finding her.

At the back door, Abby paused. “Sammy’s keys,” she said.

“So?” asked Helen.

“She’s not taken a key. Like she’s not coming back.” Abby closed her eyes and tried as hard as she could to feel for Sammy. Somewhere distant, she had no idea where, she could just about feel Sammy’s determined, resolved mood; nothing more. A thought struck her. “Oh my God,” she said.
Shit, shit, shit. The stupid, stupid girl.

“What?” asked Helen.

“I’m not sure she’s gone just to help the girl out. I think she’s going to offer herself – do a swap. She kept saying that it’s not the girl’s fault.”

“Oh, fuck,” said Helen softly, her hand covering her mouth. “Why would she do that? Doesn’t she realise –”

“I don’t know,” snapped Abby, exasperated. “Maybe she thinks she’ll be a hero. Her generation’s been brought up on Harry Potter and Twilight for fuck’s sake. Like witches and demons are just misunderstood and not actually evil. She’s no idea what she’s getting herself into.”

Abby’s eyes were filling up. She grabbed her keys and mobile phone. “Come on,” she said.

7

When Becca finally woke, she felt as rested as she could ever be. To say she was anxious would be a dramatic understatement: when she considered what she was about to do, she was filled with a fear so deep that it made her feel physically sick. Becca knew her chances of success were remote and had to work continually to keep her tears at bay.

While she had been busy digging, her mind had run over the logistics of what she intended. Now, awake, she set about her preparations as methodically as she could. All the while, she tried to breathe slowly and deeply – partly to keep her panic under control and partly to prepare her lungs, as she would before swimming. Every so often, she would cough, not as uncontrollably as before, but still painfully and usually followed by her hawking phlegm into the water. She desperately hoped that her chest would settle down – if she had a coughing fit once she had started, it would almost certainly be fatal.

The first thing she did was to change. Initially she thought that it wouldn’t matter what she wore, but she then realised that was foolish.
Nothing should be left to chance
, she decided.
Every decision counts.
There was no telling how cramped the tunnel was, so the less she could wear, the better. Her desire for some kind of normality tempted her to change back into her school clothes, but Becca reasoned that her swimming costume was the garment best suited to the task ahead. She considered it fortuitous that she had it in her bag. Of course, this did present another problem, should she be lucky enough to emerge from the other end: walking into town, filthy, in her swimming costume, would be embarrassing. But after the continual degradation of the last few days, Becca found it easy to dismiss this concern as trivial. Alive and embarrassed was preferable to dead and well-dressed. She’d walk home naked if she had to.

Less fortunate was that Becca hadn’t packed all of her swimming kit. She had her goggles, but not her nose clips or swim cap. She hadn’t expected her Friday swimming lesson to be especially demanding, so she’d left them at home – something she now regretted. For most swimming lessons, the nose clips just gave her an additional edge. Today, they could have meant the difference between life and death.

Becca undressed and tried to wash as much mud from herself as she could. It wasn’t easy – partly because she just couldn’t see well enough to know when her efforts had made a difference and partly because she was washing in dirty water. She smiled to herself; even when she was about to embark on an almost certainly suicidal attempt to escape, she was taking a minute to make herself a little more presentable. She felt sure that it wasn’t worth the effort.

Then she put on not only her swimming costume but also her shoes, which she felt would provide a little better traction against the mud and stone inside the tunnel.

When she came to tie back her hair, she looked through her bag and pockets for her scrunchie, missing it for the first time. Unable to find it, she used one of her socks as a tie, after first dipping it in water and wringing it out so she could tie it as tightly as possible.

Next, she emptied the water bottle, after first drinking as much of the water as she could. She shook it dry and replaced the cap. The bottle held far, far less than a lungful of air, but would perhaps be enough if she was desperate. She even considered trying to fill a condom or two with air, but knew that they would be cumbersome to carry and she could only fill them with the useless air she had exhaled. The bottle wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

Her next preparation was, she decided, a stroke of genius. Inspired by how her iPod had lit the inside of the well when it was playing, she realised that it would make a just-about-adequate light. Deep inside the dark tunnel, it should be enough. Of course, it wouldn’t work long under water. She could either put it inside her sandwich box, which was transparent but bulky, or within a carrier bag. Coloured white, a carrier bag would block some of the light from the iPod, but perhaps not all of it. Carrying the sandwich box in addition to the bottle seemed too difficult, so Becca opted to use the carrier bag. Then she realised that the bag had holes in it, by design, and wasn’t watertight at all. For a moment she felt frustrated and then realised that a condom would make the perfect container for the iPod. A bonus of doing this was that, since the condom was so thin, she could still turn the iPod on and off without taking it out.

Finally, Becca sat down to concentrate on her breathing. She was already fatigued from merely changing and preparing herself; dragging her tired body down the length of the tunnel would be by far the hardest thing she had ever done.

Despite growing familiar with the idea of crawling out, her fear at the prospect had never diminished.
This
, she thought,
was not an idea you could ever, ever get used to
.

Becca felt a tear in her eye and brushed it away with a sob.
I don’t want to die
, she thought, certain for one moment that this was not only the most likely outcome, but also the only possible outcome.
No
, she thought.
Staying here is the only sure way to die: at least this gives me some kind of chance, however small.

She paused.
They could be searching here, today. They could still find me. If I stay…
The thought was tempting, but Becca dismissed it.
If they’ve not looked here so far, it could be days more before they do. Oh God. There really is no choice. Am I really going to do this?

She allowed herself a few minutes of weeping, then forced herself to start breathing deeply again, realising that she had begun to consider abandoning her escape.
You have to do this
, she thought,
you just have to. You
can
do this.

Becca kept breathing, thinking in time with her breaths,
you can do this, you can do this.

8

At the edge of the quarry pool, Sammy stopped. Hannah watched her – she seemed to be listening for something. A look of despair crossed Sammy’s face.

“What’s the matter?” asked Hannah.

“We’re too late. By the time we get to the top, she’ll probably have started.”

“Oh, shit.”

They had walked briskly through the fields, frequently breaking into a run. The grass was still wet from the rain and the ground often muddy. Hannah’s tights and shoes quickly had become both soaked and filthy. During the walk over, Sammy had told Hannah as much as she could – but was smart enough to leave out the less believable bits, such as the gypsy woman and her curse. “I don’t know it all,” Sammy had said. “It’s not as if I see what Becca sees. But I can feel a lot of what she feels. What she’s going to do is loud and strong in her mind. But it’s stupid. Her mind is –” Sammy struggled for words, “– jumbled and messy. Because she’s tired and sick, I think. She doesn’t think straight.”

The more Sammy had told her, the more worried and upset Hannah had become. It wasn’t a full story, as Sammy only saw things in random patches, but it was enough to piece together Becca’s misery. When Sammy had told Hannah that she thought Matt was dead, she’d had to stop walking. Despite not liking him, it was impossible not to feel intense grief – not only for him, but for his Dad and for poor Becca, alone with his body. For Hannah, the reality of the situation had transformed the morning from being an adventure into a deadly race.

“What do we do?” asked Hannah.

“Give me the rope,” said Sammy. “You wait here. If she does make it, she’ll come out there.” Sammy pointed to the culvert. “She won’t be able to get down other than by jumping – and we can’t get up. If she can jump, she’ll need you to get her out of the water.” Sammy squeezed her hand. “And it will help her to see you.”

Jesus
, thought Hannah.
How old is this kid?

Sammy started to run up the hill, and turned around. “If I get there in time, I’ll come back and get you,” she shouted. “If she’s already gone in, I’ll wait up there in case she can’t do it and comes back out.”

Hannah watched as Sammy scrambled up the steep side of the quarry, the rope slung over her shoulder. When she got to the top, she disappeared into the trees without looking back.

After the rush of getting to the pool, the near silence that surrounded Hannah was now almost overwhelming. The only sounds were the breeze in the trees and the birds singing. Hannah knew she was too far from town to be able to hear anything else, even traffic.

Hannah paced up and down, glancing from the culvert to the trees, hoping to see either Becca or Sammy appear. Neither did. She sat down on a large stone, watching and waiting.

Without warning, a huge, sweaty paw of a hand clamped itself tightly around her mouth and pulled her backwards onto the floor. She hit the ground hard, mud squelching beneath her. A face loomed over her: a bald man, mean and hard-looking and somehow familiar. She struggled, but he pressed his hand hard into her face while his other hand pushed against her stomach, holding her firmly on the ground while her legs kicked around.

“Don’t move,” said the man, quietly, squatting at her side. “Don’t scream. Don’t struggle. Understand?”

Once he had spoken, Hannah recognised him; panic and fear filled her mind.
Oh God, no, no, no, no, please no
, she thought, writhing as hard as she could, but the tightness of the man’s grip gave little scope to move.

“I said don’t struggle.” He pressed his hand harder against her mouth; so hard it hurt. Hannah slowed her struggles, hoping that Randle would relax his grip when she did so. When he didn’t, she tried again with all of her energy. Keeping one hand firmly on her mouth, Randle raised his other hand and punched her in the stomach, hard. The pain was excruciating and, with Randle’s hand pressed against her mouth, she struggled to breathe.

“The more you struggle, the more I’ll hurt you,” warned Randle.

She shook her head as vigorously as she could, her eyes, full of tears, pleading with him. Randle took his hand off Hannah’s stomach and reached into his coat. When he pulled it out, he was holding a kitchen knife. He brought it slowly up to Hannah’s face.

“I don’t want to kill you,” he said, “but I will if I have to. Do you understand?”

Hannah nodded, eyes wide with fear.

“Do you want to live?”

Hannah nodded again.

“Good girl. Now, I’m going to ask you a question. When I move my hand, you answer it. If you scream, it will be the last sound you make, I promise. Understand?”

Hannah nodded.
Oh God, please, please
, she thought.

“Where’s the other girl gone?” Randle asked. He slowly lifted his hand away. Hannah drew breath, gratefully. “Answer,” Randle demanded, softly.

“Up to the well,” said Hannah, spitting the words out between gasps.

“Is anyone else here? Anyone coming? Don’t lie to me.”

Hannah shook her head. “Just us,” she said.

“What are you doing out here? What’s she doing up there?”

Hannah thought quickly. “We’re bunking off school,” she said. “She wanted to – you know – have a pee. I’m going to follow her up in a bit.”

“Good,” said Randle. Hannah seized the brief opportunity: Randle was holding the knife with one hand while the other hovered over her face. Hannah was pretty certain what was about to happen and was willing to risk getting hurt by trying to escape. She rolled to one side and sprang to her feet. She was fast, but Randle was faster. In one move, he dropped the knife and grabbed both of her ankles. He yanked them hard, pulling Hannah’s feet from under her. She landed with a thud on the floor, face down, her chest and face taking the full force of the impact. Hannah yelped.