Читать книгу Seven Days - Alex Lake - Страница 18

Maggie sat on the bed, legs crossed, arms folded, her fingers stroking the smooth skin of her forearm. The light next to the bed was switched on; she had turned it off but there was no other source of light in the room and the darkness was absolute. There was sweat on her back and forehead; although it was not warm in the room she had, for what felt like an age, screamed and shouted and thrown herself against the door in a desperate – and useless – attempt to find a way out.

She was calmer now, but the panic was there, just under the surface.

Because she knew now there was no way out of the room.

There was no way out of the room.

There was no way out of the room.

And there was no one answering her cries. Was that his plan? To starve her to death in here? No – it couldn’t be. There had to be more to it than that.

The man who looked like a geography teacher – she didn’t know why she chose geography, it could have been one of many subjects, but that was the one that had come to her – had done this for a reason. He’d gone to too much effort for it to be otherwise.

Now she was calmer, the room was silent. It was a kind of silence she had never experienced before. At home, even in the dead of night, there were sounds: plumbing gurgling, floorboards creaking, cars passing by.

But in here: nothing. It felt heavy and dead.

Total, deafening silence.

The smell of vomit.

And then she heard a noise. It came from somewhere behind the door. It was a kind of scraping, like a stone being moved or the brakes of a large truck being hit hard.

A door of some kind being opened, maybe.

She held her breath. The scraping noise stopped, then came again.

The stone being put back. The door being closed.

And then a footstep, right outside the door to the room.

And then the handle turning.