Close Your Eyes: A gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist!. Darren O’Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ my pocket I dropped them as my hands were shaking so hard.

      I managed, somehow, to get into my car and start the engine, though I stalled it twice as I tried to drive away. I felt hot, on the brink of passing out, so I opened my window to let the cold air in and it slapped me across the face. It helped. I don’t know how long I was driving for, but once I felt far enough away I turned off the main road and found a layby to park in. A few moments later, or maybe an hour, my phone buzzed in my back pocket. I looked at the caller ID, it came up unknown.

      ‘So, now you’ve been to your old house do you believe me?’

      They knew I was there. They knew I had just left Rachael’s house. They had watched me arrive, watched me leave. They were somewhere very close by. I tried to recall if I saw anything or anyone outside when I got back into the car. But nothing came. Only the image of Rachael and Thomas in the van.

      ‘Please, please don’t hurt them.’

      ‘Do as you are told, and we won’t.’

      Staring out of the front windscreen into the black nothingness of night I couldn’t think, I couldn’t focus. I didn’t know what to do. Sean was dead, Rachael was tied up somewhere, and Thomas was unconscious beside her. Because of my past. Because they believed I had something that didn’t belong to me.

      ‘Don’t hurt them, please.’

      ‘You know what I want.’

      I wanted to say to them I didn’t, that I had no idea because of a car accident fourteen, nearly fifteen, years ago, but I stopped myself. If they believed it, and knew I couldn’t give back whatever I took, would it mean Rachael and Thomas would die like Sean had? So I lied, hoping it wasn’t obvious.

      ‘Give me time, I will get it.’

      ‘That’s the spirit. I’ve left something in the glove box of your car.’

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘Your glove box, look in it.’

      I did as I was told and inside was an iPhone. One that wasn’t mine.

      ‘Take the sim card out of your phone and burn it. Then throw away your mobile, Michael, soon people will be looking for you. I will contact you on the new one.’

      ‘Okay, whatever you say. Just don’t do anything to them.’

      ‘One more thing, Michael. Just so you don’t think about doing anything to try and be smarter than us, we know Katie too.’ He paused, knowing I would wait. When he continued, his tone was harder. ‘We know where she is. We know who she is with, we know everything about her. Get to work. The clock is ticking.’

Chapter 10

      Rachael

      The Garage

      2^nd January 2018, 12.34 a.m.

      With Tom asleep in my arms, the shutter slammed behind us and for around twenty minutes I was paralysed, holding my six-year-old whose weight was making my arms shake. Within minutes I could feel my skin cooling as there was no heat inside. Then Tom stirred again, the drugs like a tide, freeing him momentarily before dragging him back under.

      ‘Mummy?’

      ‘Shhhh, it’s okay, honey.’

      I kept him close, his face buried into my pyjama top and I wrapped him in my arms as tightly as I could to try to use my body heat to keep him warm. It snapped me from my daze and I looked around, taking in the space. It was a single garage, sized about eight feet across and sixteen deep. A bed sat in the far corner to my left, a thin, stained mattress hanging off it like a damp flannel. Beside it, a lamp. I put Tom down gently on the bed before leaning down and switching it on, grateful that it worked. It only lit the room dimly, but enough. On the right-hand wall was a small portable radiator. Between the radiator and bed, a sliding metal door. I tried to open it but, of course, it was locked. Turning to face the way we had entered I wracked my brain, trying to find a way to get things to where they should be, us in bed, at home, dreaming. Shaking the thoughts from my head I moved to the radiator, and thankfully it worked too. We needed to warm up, and quickly. Our pyjamas were not designed for sub-zero temperatures.

      I saw something poking out from under the rusting bedframe. Bending to reach for whatever it was I pulled out three old blankets. They smelt of mothballs and years of dust, but it was better than freezing. I lay one on the mattress and moved Tom onto it and wrapped him in the other two.

      ‘You’ll warm up soon, baby.’

      ‘Mummy, where are we?’

      I looked at him, a fear behind his eyes and I didn’t know what to say.

      ‘Mummy?’

      I couldn’t tell him the truth. I had to protect him from this. If he knew, he would panic, be as scared as I was, and I was frightened what would happen as a result. Somehow, I had to make it all seem like it was a game.

      ‘We are on an adventure, baby.’

      ‘An adventure?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But I’m scared.’

      ‘I know. I’m scared too. But that’s a part of it.’

      ‘Part of what?’

      ‘A story, this is part of the story.’

      ‘We’re in a story?’

      ‘Yes. Yes, that’s it, this is the first chapter.’

      ‘What’s it called?’

      I couldn’t think so I looked around the room, trying to take in something that he would believe. I looked back at him, his sleepy eyes staring into mine, waiting for an answer.

      ‘It’s called, “Waking Up in the Unknown”.’

      ‘I like it.’

      ‘We are the main characters.’

      ‘Are we?’

      ‘Yes, baby, me and you.’ And Sean, I quietly whispered to myself, hoping he was all right.

      ‘What kind of story is it?’

      ‘An adventure.’

      ‘It feels like a scary one.’

      ‘All good adventure stories have a bit of scariness, don’t they? Like, in …’ I paused trying to remember the name of the story he had been reading that I had considered too grown-up for a six-year-old. ‘Wolf Brother. Our story is like Wolf Brother. Remember how scary that is at times’?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And do you remember how it all turns out?’

      ‘Happy.’

      ‘Exactly. СКАЧАТЬ