Page 86 of Then She Vanished

Amongst the commotion, she heard the dog barking again. ‘Marie said that Albie had a dog called Luna.’

Her work phone rang. She pulled it out and answered.

‘Guv, we’ve found something amongst the paperwork at the Moores’ house. It’s the invoice we were looking for.’

‘Where is it?’

‘It’s close by to Bishops. His business is called APH Building Craft Experts and it’s unit seventeen.’

‘We’re at twenty-four.’ Gina glanced at Jacob and nodded. ‘We’re on our way.’

FIFTY-SIX

RUTH

What was happening? Ruth must have fainted. How long had she been out? It felt like ages. She’d had so many weird dreams. She prised an eye open and realised the hell she’d fallen unconscious to hadn’t miraculously disappeared.

An emergency red light started to flash on and off as the dark figure pulled Ruth into another room. The door clicked again, locking them both in. Ruth reached up and pulled at the mask that had been pressed to her face and flung it across the room.

‘Get off me,’ she murmured, as she pushed the frail figure away. Whoever was trying to kill her had backed off.

The emergency light went off again. She listened as the other person in the room began to scrat around on the floor, before retreating back to the far end. Then the hissing noise started again.

Ruth gasped, unable to take in much air. Her head felt clammy and her mouth dry as a bone, despite the bit of water she’d drunk from the tap.

The figure began to scurry close by. Ruth’s stomach clenched as she held her breath in the hope that whatever strange creature of a person she’d encountered would back off. The red light flickered again, shining a light on the straggly-haired figure. Thepale bruised face stared back, the mask sealing her mouth. It flickered off again.

Screaming, Ruth reached for the door handle and kept pulling and pulling to no avail. She was locked in with whoever that was. When the light flickered red again, she tried to take in her surroundings. The human in front of her had an open sore on the hand that clasped the mask in place.

It went dark again. The girl was upon her, touching her hair, touching her face and her arms. Ruth flinched and shuffled out of the way, tears pricking from her eyes.

It wasn’t Elissa. The girl in the room was a child.

Gasping for air that wasn’t satiating her lungs was using up the last of Ruth’s precious energy.

The hissing sound got closer and, once again, something was pressed around her mouth. Only this time, she knew it was a mask and she knew that the unkempt girl was trying to help her, not scare her. She greedily breathed in several times, taking in all the lovely oxygen.

The light flickered again and Ruth shivered at the sight of a chessboard on the table. The girl placed an arm around Ruth and began to rock her.

Who was she? This girl with the birthmark on her cheek and arms so frail they could be snapped like twigs.

‘I’m Ruth,’ she said as she pulled the mask aside.

The girl took the mask back and inhaled a few puffs of air.

‘Luna,’ she replied.

Ruth coughed and inhaled sharply. ‘How do we get out of here, Luna.’

‘I live here,’ she replied in a drawn-out way. ‘We never go out. It’s too dangerous because there is nothing out there. The world has died, silly.’

Ruth took another breath through the mask. ‘Sweetheart, there is a whole world out there. The world hasn’t died.’

Her eyes watered up. She knew exactly what she was dealing with now. A young girl who had lived here for so long she believed there was no world out there; a girl who had never seen the light of day, and a girl who had never been hugged tenderly by a parent.

Ruth was sent to be her mummy in their dying moments.

‘No, we are all going to die. We have run out of everything and this is all we have left.’ She placed the mask over Ruth’s mouth again. ‘When this runs out, we will die, too.’ The girl paused. ‘I’m happy not to be dying alone.’ The girl’s cracked lips spread into a smile.

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