Cruel Comfort (Evan Buckley Thrillers Book 1) (22 page)

Evan jumped and let out an
involuntary shriek. He dropped the flashlight, spun round and slipped off the
step he was standing on. His left foot landed on the flashlight turning his
ankle over and he went down hard. The agonizing stab of pain he felt told him
it was probably broken. His right hip landed on the claw hammer hanging from
one of the loops on his utility belt making him gasp. At least he hadn't
stabbed himself with one of the chisels.

Standing in the doorway to the
tunnel Hendricks grinned at the pitiful sight in front of him, a Remington
Model 870 pump shotgun held comfortably in his hands. Evan hadn't heard a
thing. He'd even made it easy for him to creep up on him by jamming the far
door open. The soft, dry dust of the tunnel floor had masked his footsteps.
Evan's breathing was coming in short gasps as the shock subsided and his pulse
tried to return to a normal level. He felt pathetic sprawled at the bottom of
the stairs. He started to get up, but his ankle gave way under him.

'I think I like you right where you
are,' Hendricks said and racked the slide. The sound stopped Evan in his tracks
as it was meant to. He settled back down into a sitting position, hoping he
didn't have an embarrassing accident in his underwear. He wasn't used to people
pointing loaded shotguns at him. As far as he could see, Hendricks could simply
shoot him and claim he was defending himself against an intruder - a persistent
intruder at that.

Evan couldn't see any sign of
Adamson. 'Where's your friend?' he asked.

'He won't be joining us tonight,'
Hendricks said. 'Lucky for you. He's a lot more volatile than I am.'

'So you've killed him as well as
Faulkner. Planning on making me number three?'

Hendricks smiled an unpleasant smile
at him. 'Don't try to rile me. Faulkner's okay. I called the hospital.'

Evan noticed how he didn't say
anything about Adamson being okay.

'Then you've got nothing to worry
about. I might as well get out of here.' His ankle hurt like hell so he put a
hand on the stairs behind him to try to push himself up.

'If you don't sit still, I'll shoot
you in the legs,' Hendricks said. 'I'll tell the Police I caught an intruder.'

Evan sat still, fast. He had no
doubts Hendricks would do it. 'Go ahead and call them.'

'We'll see. You've got some
questions to answer first.' He walked the couple of paces across the room to
where Evan was sitting and kicked him sharply in the ankle with the pointed toe
of his boot. Evan tried not to gasp at the pain but failed miserably.

Hendricks pulled some handcuffs out
of his pocket and dropped them into Evan's lap then stepped back again. 'Put
your arms around the pole,' he said, pointing at the metal pole supporting the handrail
running up the side of the stairs, 'and cuff them together. Before you do it,
take off the tool belt and throw it over there.'

Evan did as he was told. Hendricks
put the shotgun down against the wall and picked up the tool belt. He pulled
the hammer out of its loop and tested its weight. 'How's your ankle.'

Evan swallowed and said nothing.

'Let's get some things clear first,'
Hendricks said, slapping the hammer into his palm. 'If you try to kick me or
anything, I'm going to do a lot worse than smash your ankle. Am I making myself
clear enough?'

Evan nodded. He didn't think his
legs would hold him even if he could get up.

'Good. What are you doing down
here?'

Evan hesitated. He didn't know what
to say.

'Not a good start.' Hendricks kicked
him again in the ankle. Evan drew his leg back sharply and twisted his body
away helplessly. The pain was much worse than the last time. 'If you think that
hurts, wait until I get going with this.' He slapped the hammer into his palm
again. 'Let's try again. What are you doing down here?'

'I wanted to find out where you and
your friend disappeared to when the police arrived.'

'What?'

'I was in the house when the police
arrived. I heard you run down into the basement.'

Recognition crossed Hendricks face.
He nodded as things fell into place for him. 'That's why the key wasn't in the
door.'

'We came down into the basement and
you weren't there. I knew there must be another way out.'

Hendricks wasn't really listening to
him. 'Why were you in the house in the first place?'

Again Evan hesitated. He couldn't
tell him the truth. It was the wrong decision. Hendricks crouched down and
swung the hammer briskly into Evan's swollen ankle. A sharp stab of pain shot
up Evan's leg.

'That's just a little tap,
‘Hendricks said. 'Imagine what this would feel like.' He raised his arm above
his head and brought the hammer down with all his strength into the dirt floor
inches away from Evan's leg. Evan let out another gasp. He couldn't help
himself.

Hendricks stood up and walked away.
'I'm getting bored with this,' he said. Without warning he drew his arm back
and threw the hammer as hard as he could into the stairs above Evan's head. It
smashed into the wooden steps and bounced off again. Evan ducked instinctively
but knew that if Hendricks had wanted to hit him, he'd have a caved-in skull by
now.

'I thought this would be fun, but
it's too easy. You're going to piss your pants any minute. I know why you're
snooping around anyway.'

Evan waited for him to go on. This
time he didn't think he was going to be punished for his silence.

'It's about the kid who disappeared,
isn't it? That's what you were asking about when you came out here the other
day.'

Hendricks started to walk back
towards him. Evidently an answer was required this time. It saddened Evan to
realize how easily he had been conditioned. He swallowed and tried to speak but
his mouth was too dry. The delay cost him dearly. Hendricks didn't care if Evan
couldn't or wouldn't answer him and landed the most vicious kick yet on Evan's
ankle. Evan thrashed around and managed to gasp out a
yes
.

'I knew it. I just knew it.'

Evan would have liked to ask why it
had been necessary to go through the previous five minutes of unpleasantness if
he knew the answer anyway, but was sensible enough to keep it to himself.

Hendricks was pacing up and down the
room muttering something inaudible under his breath. He turned abruptly and
looked down at Evan. 'Okay you interfering bastard, I'll show you something - a
lot more than you bargained for, that's for sure. There's just one thing though
- it'll be the last thing you ever see.'

He turned and walked back to the
tunnel entrance. He smiled his joyless smile at Evan. 'Don't you go anywhere;
I'll be back in a minute.' With that he disappeared back down the dark tunnel.
The shotgun was still leaning against the wall but it might as well have been
in the trunk of Evan's car for all the good it did him. Even if he slid down
onto his back and stretched out along the floor with his hands over his head he
still wouldn't be able to get anywhere near it with his feet. He couldn't have
held it and fired it with his hands cuffed together anyway; there would be more
chance of shooting his own feet than hitting Hendricks.

As it turned out he didn't have
enough time to do anything; Hendricks wasn't away for more than a couple of
minutes. He'd obviously just gone into the basement workshop to get some tools.
In his left hand he had a crowbar, but it was the sledgehammer in his right
hand that made Evan go rigid with fear, his muscles tensing and his bowels
loosening. The back of his shirt was drenched with sweat. He closed his eyes
and prayed. He'd seen the movie
Misery
and winced along with everyone
else when Annie Wilkes smashed Paul Sheldon's ankles with a sledgehammer to
stop him escaping.

Hendricks saw his reaction and
laughed. He lobbed the heavy sledgehammer into Evan's lap. Evan managed to
twist away and stop it landing on his balls.

'You've seen that movie too, eh?
Don't worry, I'm not going to use it on you,' Hendricks said. 'I've got
something much better lined up. You'll wish I'd caved your head in with it
before this is over.'

He took off his jacket and rolled up
his sleeves, and retrieved the sledgehammer from where it lay, still nestled
between Evan's legs. Then he walked over to the sheet of plywood against the
wall that Evan had seen earlier and rested the sledgehammer against the wall.
He jammed the crow bar under the edge of the plywood and levered it back and
forth, prising the sheet of ply away from whatever it was nailed to. He worked
his way methodically up and down one edge and then the other. Finally he
dropped the crow bar pulled the ply away from the wall altogether with his
hands. Behind it there was a bricked up doorframe. He tapped the brickwork with
the wooden handle of the sledgehammer. It made a hollow sound.

Evan was filled with a feeling of
impending dread as Hendricks stepped back and squared up to the wall in front
of him. Then he swung the hammer into the middle of the brickwork. It flexed
but nothing broke loose. He took another swing with the same result. He leaned
the sledgehammer against the wall.

'I must have done a better job than
I thought,' he said, turning back to Evan. He slapped his forehead. 'I've got a
much better idea.' He took the key to the handcuffs out of his pocket and
walked over to Evan.

‘Roll over onto your belly.’

Evan rolled over and lay with his
arms outstretched above his head and around the pole. Hendricks put his foot
between Evan’s shoulder blades and leaned down and grabbed hold of one of his
arms and unlocked the handcuff. He dropped the key onto the floor. Then he
stepped back quickly, picked up the shotgun and pointed it at Evan.

'You can do it. Take off the other
handcuff first. And don't try anything stupid either.'

Evan unlocked the other cuff and
slowly stood up. He couldn't put his full weight on his ankle. 'I can't put any
weight on this leg. How do you expect me to do it?' he said.

'I can even them up if you think
that'll help.'

Evan hobbled over and picked up the
sledgehammer. Even if he could walk properly he wouldn't be able to get across
the room before Hendricks blew him into little pieces. He steadied himself as
best he could and started on the wall. His ankle screamed every time his weight
shifted onto it, but it didn't take long before the first brick punched
through.

A draft of warm, dry air escaped
through the hole as the brick dropped into the room beyond. After that the rest
of the brickwork gave way easily and soon the top half of the doorway was
clear. He could easily have climbed through. He could feel a constant flow of
warm air blowing across his face, almost as if he was looking into another
tunnel.

'That's enough for now,' Hendricks
said. 'I don't want too much work to do when I have to brick that up again.’ He
sniggered. ‘Drop the sledgehammer and take a look inside.'

Evan dropped the sledgehammer but he
didn’t look inside. He was overwhelmed by a dreadful foreboding at what might
be in the cavity. Instead he turned to face Hendricks.

'It's too dark. I can't see
anything.'

Hendricks picked up the flashlight
that Evan had dropped. He rolled it across the floor towards him. Evan looked
down at it like it was a stick of dynamite.

'Pick it up,' Hendricks said, the irritation
in his voice growing, ‘and take a look.’

'No.' If Hendricks was going to kill
him anyway, it didn't matter if he did what he said or not.

Hendricks was incredibly fast. He
took a couple of swift paces across the room and kicked Evan's good leg out from
under him. Evan landed on his butt with a thump. Hendricks reversed the shotgun
in his hands and clubbed him on the side of the head with the butt. Evan
collapsed into a heap and lay in a daze on the floor.

Hendricks put the shotgun down and
bent over and twisted Evan's right arm hard up behind his back. He grabbed
Evan’s collar, straightened up again and dragged Evan up onto his feet.

'Time to meet your new roommates,'
he said, spinning Evan round so that he faced the gaping black hole. Evan tried
to struggle against him but he couldn’t focus properly and with his broken
ankle and his arm up behind his back, he didn’t have a chance.

Hendricks jerked Evan’s arm upwards
savagely, pushing his head and upper body through the hole, bending him double
over the edge until his feet were barely on the ground. Evan thrashed from side
to side but it was no use and only made the pressure on his shoulder worse.

In one fluid movement Hendricks
released his grip on Evan's arm, dropped onto one knee and clamped his arms
around his lower legs. He stood up sharply and tipped Evan all the way through
the opening. Evan tumbled down a short flight of steps on the other side and
landed in a heap at the bottom, on top of the pile of broken bricks. Hendricks
bent down and picked up the flashlight, leaned into the opening and bounced it
off Evan's head.

'It would have been much easier if
you’d picked it up when I told you,' he said.

Evan lay still with his eyes closed
for a minute to catch his breath. His chest was heaving from struggling against
Hendricks. Every part of his body ached. His head was still spinning. He could
hear Hendricks moving around on the other side of the wall. Then he heard a
sound that made his stomach turn to ice.

Hendricks grunted as he picked up
the big sheet of plywood and shuffled towards the hole with it. He slid it
sideways over the doorway and everything gradually went black as the wedge of
light slowly disappeared to nothing. Then there was a moment’s silence before
he started hammering the nails back into the wooden frame, the sounds
reverberating around Evan’s makeshift dungeon.