Had I dreamed it?
No, we"d been through that earlier, and I wasn"t going to bite my cheek again.
I opened both eyes but still kept the breathing and movement under strict supervision.
I rolled my eyes around, taking in as much of the scene as my self-imposed paralysis allowed, the banging continuing unabated in the background. And then the sound of a door bursting open and Jacob ran out and grabbed me by the feet and dragged me.
"Oi!" I said, causing Jacob to make a noise like an orang-utan doing an impersonation of an Irish wolfhound. He dropped my feet then, in an instant, composed himself.
"Come on," he hissed, running back to the store room. "Before it comes back."
I bolted after him and I was glad I did. As it happens tigers can loom out of the darkness of a service corridor pretty quickly and much more quietly than you would expect. I can personally testify that their camouflage is just as effective against bare concrete as it is in the jungle. Jacob began to slam the door even before I"d come through it. Then, once I was clear, he hurled his weight against it, scrabbling with the key as he did so.
Not quickly enough, as something out there slammed hard into the door and the key bounced out of his hand and onto the floor. Erin darted forward and shouldered the door as Jacob stretched to pick up the keys.
There was another horrendous thud against the door of the storeroom we were hiding in. Erin screamed as the force of it threw her down to the ground. I scrambled to take her place, barricading us in and that, dear reader, is the point at which you joined this narrativey-challenged tale of mine in the first place.
So, where exactly did I get to? I lose my place sometimes. The tiger was out in the corridor, that much I know you know. Lori was injured, needed a p.i.s.s, in between barricading the door I was trying to take charge of the situation whilst quashing a minor mutiny from Erin. Insults flew, mobile phones failed and the culmination of all of this excitement was a superb plan and...
I woke up with my head in a stainless steel bucket that smelled of wet dog. I wasn"t entirely convinced that Erin hadn"t put my head in there in retaliation for me being rude to her. She smirked but, then again, I probably would have too in her position. Anyway, enough of that, you"ll be wanting to find out what happened after Jacob kicked a hole in the back wall of the store room I expect?
It"s amazing the force a man can muster when he"s cornered by a marauding tiger. Jacob channelled his fear admirably, kicking, punching and battering a human-sized hole in the plasterboard. I don"t think any of us much cared what was on the other side apart from the apparent absence of tigers.
It was dark out there but once Jacob had broken through he announced, rather unsurprisingly, that it was a corridor, and scrambled out to inspect it.
"It"s fine," Jacob said from the darkness. "Come on, I know where we are."
Erin carefully helped Lori crawl through the hole then flashed me an angry look, before crawling through herself. I could hear the three of them talking as I came through the hole and out of the store room.
"There"s a lift just down here," said Jacob, his outline barely visible. "Follow me."
I reached out to touch the wall to try to keep some sense of direction in the dark. My fingers slid easily along the cold gloss of the paint. The four of us moved slowly and quietly down the corridor and soon the low glowing numbers above the lift became discernable. We quickened our pace and, reaching the lift, Jacob stabbed repeatedly at the call b.u.t.ton.
There was a terrifyingly familiar noise from somewhere in the distance, the low, guttural growl. I froze, a chill hitting me from behind, forcing the hairs on the back of my neck to jump up. I caught a glimpse of the others and we"d all struck the same pose; backs to the lift, silently squinting into the darkness.
The growl grew out of the darkness, louder and more menacing. I imagined I could hear the padding of paws but I hadn"t ruled out the possibility that it was just my mind f.u.c.king with me.
The lift doors slid open and we all stepped backwards, b.u.mping shoulders as we did. I reached out and started hammering at one of the number b.u.t.tons, just to get it to move, but the d.a.m.n thing was refusing. As if that wasn"t bad enough the growling had morphed into what I imagined was a yowling, grating attack call.
I kept pushing the b.u.t.ton, pushing it and pushing it and pushing, willing the doors to close.
Glancing once more at the others, their faces changed from fear to panic, and when I looked back outside I could see why. The halo of light that the lift projected into the corridor had begun to pick out a distinctly tiger-shaped threat.
"Clint," Erin hissed. "Do something."
"I am doing something," I whispered back and pressed the number four again. And then I looked up and saw that the number illuminated above the door was also a number four. I"d been pressing the b.u.t.ton of the floor we were on. Still, no need for any of the others to know that, was there?
The tiger had begun to pick up pace, moving towards the lift. I hammered the "three" b.u.t.ton and the doors began, achingly slowly, to close. As if sensing the imminent departure of its dinner, the tiger pounced and we all hurled ourselves against the back wall of the lift.
There was an almighty metal bang as the tiger made contact with the lift door but it was too late, the lift"s outer doors managed to come together a fraction of a second before impact.
The lift jolted lightly and moved downwards.
Catching this d.a.m.n tiger was going to be a tad trickier than I"d first thought.
Chapter 11.
"So, I think I know what we need to do to catch that bleeding big cat," I said to my captive audience.
They reacted with effusive indifference. Even Jacob"s enthusiasm, which had so far remained stoically intact, seemed to be wearing thin.
"We are going to capture the tiger, people," I began, trying to instil some sort of sense of occasion.
Jacob stood up, negotiating his way past Erin and Lori, and started rummaging in some drawers.
"We"re going to trap it in the caretaker"s cupboard," I continued, unperturbed. "And-"
"Why?" snapped Erin.
"Well, partly because it seemed, geographically speaking, to be in a good position to pull something like this off and partly because I think it"s time we got young Raymond back in the game."
"Young Raymond?" Erin whined.
"Sarcasm, my dear. Ask me when this is all over and I"ll explain it to you," I grimaced at her and she huffed back. "Jacob, my good man, can I ask what you"re up to over there?"
"Erm, yes," he replied. "I just a.s.sumed whatever crackpot idea you were going to suggest was going to involve someone leaving this reasonably safe room and so I thought we could maybe use these instead of the Tannoy."
He placed two walkie-talkies on the desk in front of the monitors.
"Radios the security guards use," he nodded. "Could be useful."
"I should say so," I laughed. "So now all we need to do is go down to the food hall and grab as much raw meat as we can get our hands on. Lori, I think you should stay here and Jacob, you keep one eye on her and the other on those monitors. Erin, you"re with me."
"I most certainly am not," she barked.
"You can carry the walkie talkie."
She grabbed it from the desk and stomped towards the door.
I flashed Lori and Jacob a smile and went after her. The radio almost instantly burped static at us then Jacob"s voice came through. As we moved quickly away from the office the sound of his real voice receded into the distance as his broadcast self remained.
"I can"t see it at the moment so keep your eyes open," he said. "But it"s not in the corridor to the lift. What?"
Static bubbled from the radio.
"Lori says she can"t see it in the food hall yet either, we"ll keep you posted once we locate it."
"Over and out!" Erin shouted into the receiver as she stomped into the open doors of the lift and pressed one of the b.u.t.tons. The doors started to close and I put my hand between them. The doors beeped and re-opened, I stepped into the lift and Erin stabbed at the "G" b.u.t.ton.
"So, Mr Detective," Erin began once the lift doors closed again. "Whodunnit? You seem to be doing a lot more sleeping than detecting. Well, that and running away."
"Apparently you did it because you asked mewhodid it rather thanwhatthey did."
"I"m not an idiot," she said. "You want to catch the tiger so you must be investigating who stole it or something like that."
"Close enough," I replied. "There"s a bit more to it than that but yes, in a nutsh.e.l.l that"ll be about the size of it. And as for whodunnit... "
"Yes?" her eyes lit up at the thought of the gossip.
"It could be any one of you."
"Oh, yes?"
"Well, let"s take you, for example."
Erin huffed and pursed her lips.
"I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I"ve witnessed enough to a.s.sume that you could conceivably be the brains behind the operation. You are conniving, manipulative, bossy and you love to be in charge but above all that you are intelligent. I think it"s entirely possible you orchestrated the whole affair, that you are this elusive Ms Pingoveno."
"Erm. Thanks, I think," Erin stepped out of the lift onto the ground floor. She raised the walkie talkie to her face. "Are we safe down here?"
"Still no sign of it," Lori"s voice spat nervously. "Be careful."
"Of course the same could be said of Lori. And she is, arguably, even more intelligent."
"What?"
"Of course if it was either of you I would a.s.sume you had an accomplice. Not being s.e.xist, you understand. Just the evidence as it presents itself. If Lori wasn"t just blundering around looking for her laptop and she was up to something then she certainly didn"t know how to handle the tiger, did she?"
"No, I suppose not," Erin"s brow creased, the wrinkles drawing together to form a furrow. "Trolleys. Grab one and we"ll fill it. Have you got a pound?"
"Eh? Oh, I see," my hand went into my pocket looking for a pound coin to put in the slot and release the trolley from its chain gang brothers. "Here you go."
"I don"t think it"s Lori," Erin wrestled a trolley free and started pushing it in what I presumed was the right direction. There was a whine of white noise from the walkie talkie and we both jumped.
"Sorry," Lori"s voice was faint. "I dropped it."
We reached the butcher"s section of the food hall and proceeded to fill the trolley with meat. Lots of meat. Chickens, ducks, mince, pork chops, beef joints and then, to top it all off, the head of a pig staring blankly as our trolley"s figurehead. It seemed strangely ominous.
"What if the tiger smells the meat and comes after us?" Erin wrestled the trolley into the lift and pressed the b.u.t.ton to get us moving again.
"Best we don"t think about it," I stepped inside and the doors slid shut. "And anyway, we haven"t covered Ray or Jacob yet. Both of them could be our man."
"Ray"s the type if you ask me. Not even supposed to be here. I"m the one who decides what shifts to put him on and I can promise you he is not supposed to be here. But Jacob? No."
"Jacob? Afraid so. Found this in his car," I briefly brandished the claw in front of an aghast Erin.
"Hiscar? He doesn"t-"
The radio spluttered once more into life. They"d caught sight of it. On the second floor. Where we were headed. This was really not good.
"And don"t even get me started on where the f.u.c.k Ray fits into all this. Especially the fact that-"
I was interrupted by the doors of the lift sliding open. We stared out. Nothing stared back. Yet.
I dragged the trolley pig-first into the corridor as Erin spoke to Jacob on the walkie talkie. Itwasaround on the second floor. They didn"t know where.
"Listen, Erin," I said as I took the radio from her. "Go back up and join them. I"ll find Ray and we"ll do this together."
"Okay," she said. Her face was pale and her makeup had begun seriously to falter. "Good luck."
I grabbed the handle of the trolley and began wheeling it slowly down towards the dead end that housed the caretaker"s office. The steps echoed and I could feel my heart beating heavy in my chest. I tried not to think about it but there wasn"t really any way I was going to be able to get it out of my head.
The door was in sight. I could do this, I thought, looking over my shoulder to make sure there was nothing there. There wasn"t, but I was sure I"d heard something. I stood still and listened.
Nothing. Just the sound of water dripping somewhere far away and something else. What was it? I couldn"t quite work it out. The noise was familiar but I couldn"t quite put my finger on it.
I held my breath and listened harder. A burst of white noise cracked the silence, blaring out from the walkie talkie.
"Clint!" it was Jacob, there was panic in his voice.
There was that noise again. What was that-
Chapter 12.
Ray"s face was upside down.
Oh, hang on a second, no.That"s wrong.He was leaning over me and I was on the floor.I turned my head and could see the grain of the wood on his leg.
"You must have b.a.l.l.s of steel to wander about with that thing on the loose and your condition."
I yawned."p.i.s.s off, peg leg."
Ray laughed and helped me to my feet."Fair enough.So, what the h.e.l.l is going on with all this then?"
"You know how when you go to the zoo there"s big signs saying "don"t feed the tigers"?"