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The sand felt pleasingly cold to the mime
as he picked up a handful in his free hand and let it sift down to the ground.
He brushed his hand off on his slacks and sauntered down the beach being
careful not to swing his suitcase too much. He smiled at parents and their
children as they walked past holding beach buckets and little spades. The
parents guided their children to take a wide arc avoiding him. His smile was
possibly a little manic this night. No matter. Eventually he saw the building
he was looking for, a plain square, grey building with “Academy For The
Dramatic Arts” written in a military typeface across the top. There was a light
on in an upper floor. The mime smiled a wry smile, there was always a light on
when it was dark. Yet it always looked abandoned during the day. He hurried
towards the grey rectangle, being careful not to slip in any holes in the sand
then slowed his pace to a regular saunter once he got to the boardwalk.
The mime came right up to the building and
looked at the door in the front. No visible keyhole or handle. No hinges
either. In fact, there was no door at all. It was just a series of planks set
into the brickwork that had been painted to resemble a door. The mime
remembered lessons at this “door”, lessons that had ended with his head being
rammed repeatedly into the wood fresco, every time he got an answer wrong,
every time he made a sound when he should have stayed quiet. Silence above all.
Silence to dodge the music. He was getting carried away with him memories. He traced
his finger along where he remembered his blood staining the fake entrance, they
must repaint it after every student learns that lesson. He shook his head of
the nostalgic cobwebs and went around the corner.
Here he could see a stretch of grey
concrete along the side, with a drainpipe about halfway down the alley climbing
up the side of the building to an ancient looking gutter. He walked directly up
to the drain pipe, counted four segments up, grabbed hold of the pipe there and
pulled as hard as he could. He felt at that moment the pipe ‘click’ just
faintly in his fingertips. He shifted his weight, bent his knees slightly and
then pushed the pipe up. It slid over the segment above it, the back of the
segment having folded behind to allow it room. Once the section of pipe was out
of the way, he pushed the small black rectangular button that was now exposed
against the wall. There were a few muted
grinding sounds and then the section of wall to the left of the pipe slowly
swung back, leading to darkness. The mime’s fear of the dark had long been
overcome and replaced with a menagerie of things much more worthy of fear. He
stepped boldly into the dark and was filled with inexplicable joy at the sound
of the concrete door shifting and sliding shut behind him. There was no escape.
At least, none for those he had come for.
The mime reached into his pocket and
snapped one of the phosphorous tubes in his pocket, bringing it out and bathing
the room in a green glow. It was much stronger than the usual ‘raver sticks’
that some of the lower class clowns on the beach strip would sometimes play
with to entice children to come and buy their cheap tricks. Or something they
would use them just to entice children close enough to their dark corners to
bundle them into sacks and sell them on the black market. Of course, that was
happening less these days with the tourist trade and the police charging more
to turn away.
In the glow of his light stick, he could
see the trap door he was looking for. He walked over and looked at the padlock
that was holding it shut. Hmm, it wasn’t the usual numeric lock that he was
expecting. This was an old-school cast iron lock that looked like it had been
brought there from the 1800’s. He lifted up his stick and stood to sweep the
rest of the room. It appeared bare save for the plain door in the back. The mime walked slowly towards the door. As
he did a flood of memories further assaulted him. His dinner being on the other
side of a brick wall that he had to scale using only his fingertips. The metal
cage with the rusty nails strategically inserted into pits in the bars so if
they scratched, the scratches would puff up and burn for weeks later. The
exotic pets the taskmaster kept to roam and make sure the children were where
they were meant to be. He shuddered slightly but regained his resolve. He
hadn’t come this far to be held back by childish memories. The mime came
forward and opened the door.
Once again, darkness. Once again the mime
put the light stick in front of him to scan the area. To the far left he could
see the edge of a workbench. Tools! He went up to the bench quickly and scanned
the surface. Screwdriver, hammer, saw… bolt cutters. Yes, that would do nicely.
He tried not to think about what the tool had been used on last, most likely it
was not for something as pedestrian, albeit illegal, as what he was about to
use it for. He quickly rushed back to where the trapdoor was, crouched down,
placed the suitcase carefully next to him and positioned the jaws of the bolt
cutter around the padlock. He positioned himself for maximum strength and
squeezed. With a loud snap the lock popped in half and at the same time the
phosphorous stick went out and the mime was in complete darkness with a faint tinge of green as an afterglow in his
eyesight.
The mime quickly reached into his pocket
and wrapped his fingers around another light to snap. As he curled his fingers
around, a familiar smell drifted into his nose. Cinnamon? The donuts? No, this
was different… this was… minty. This was… familiar. A feeling of dread came
over him and he spun around, swinging the bolt cutters as he did. He felt them
connect with something. “Argh!” There was a thump. He felt for the suitcase,
grabbed it, and scuttled back. He could hear nothing now. He quickly broke the
stick in his pocket and pulled it out to hold it in front of his face. He could
see a slumped figure on the floor near the trapdoor, seemingly covered in
carpet. It was who he had feared, but he seemed badly hurt. At least, he was
pretending to be. Keeping his eyes on him, he turned the suitcase to the
combination and popped the locks. He opened it up, noted the gelignite in there
was ever so slightly agitated, and set the ‘kid’s first alarm clock’ in there
to thirty seconds. He closed the briefcase again and slowly inched towards the
trapdoor holding the briefcase in one hand and the bolt cutters in the other.
He got within poking distance of the carpeted torturer from him past and
reached out with the bolt cutters to poke him. No reaction. He swung his other
arm, holding onto the briefcase, near the trap door, then grabbed hold of the
iron ring attached to the door and pulled it open. It made a satisfying creak.
He swung the briefcase over the cavernous black, pushed the little button near
the left latch that set his timer in motion and dropped it in. He could hear
the loud ticking from the toy alarm clock dissipate in volume as it dropped.
OK, time to get out of here. He slowly straightened up and rushed towards the
door he entered with and felt along the wall for the switch. He found the
slight depression and pushed his finger into it till he heard it catch. Got it!
His current light stick chose that moment to go out but it didn’t matter as he
could see the door swinging open. He slid through the crack as soon as it was
wide enough and ran back down to the boardwalk, where he kept up a lively
powerwalk as he moved away from the building. He couldn’t resist a look over
his shoulder though. Miming a regular “walk against the wind” vignette, he
swung himself around 360 degrees and saw a couple of the windows light up that
were previously dark. Then followed the intense smell of sulpher. That’s weird,
he thought, shouldn’t there be a ban… the sound was so loud the force of it
caused him to drop to the ground. He saw the bottom level of the building blow
out, showering the air above him with bricks as the roof simultaneous was
launched up a full five feet above the structure with a burst of white light.
He couldn’t say it hadn’t gone as planned. He squinted at the structure. There
seemed to be a shadow rushing away from the building, in the opposite direction
to the boardwalk. Hmm. He hoped it wasn’t the carpet-clad monster that still
haunted his nightmares. He really hoped he had stayed there, unconscious, to
burn.
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