Chapter 14: Prisoner (Mort)

When I came to, I wished I hadn't. I was tied up in an old cellar in an old brick building with thick walls and high ceilings. A small skylight set into a tall shaft the only illumination. The way in and out of the room was blocked by a large wooden door. Even if I could get free, I doubted anyone could escape here without help.

I heard voices outside the door, and then the sound of a key entering the lock. I went slack, and pretended to still be unconscious.

"So this is the monster that consumed your brother," said a voice I only vaguely recognised. "It doesn't look like much"

"It's stronger than it looks. It has a demon's strength, and claws to match. You've seen what it did to my face." said another voice which I recognised instantly as my brothers. So he had been the one I sliced in the van.

"It makes no odds, we will burn the demon out of him soon enough," said a third voice, one I didn't know at all. "What about your sister"

"Dad thinks she is irrevocably tainted, we will purify her after we have done this thing," my brother said.

I was not liking the sound of this. Not only were they planning to burn me, but by the sounds of it, Gwen as well. I had to try and get out of this, and free my sister as well.

My brother, and I guessed, two of his friends, left shortly afterwards and I focused on getting free. I had no plan to get out of the room, but I figured that the first step would be to get out of the ropes. From there I could look at what to do next.

I struggled against my bonds, but they were too tight. I tried cutting them with my sharp nails, but couldn't get at the rope.

I thought for a bit, maybe I could use my double jointed fingers to get at the rope. With some effort I bent back my fingers to the point that I could touch the rope around my wrists, and with a bit of sawing I started to weaken the rope. It took a good twenty minutes to get the rope to the point where I was free.

Running over, I checked the door. It was too solidly built to force, and I could see no way around it from the inside. I could try waiting, rely on my invisibility to protect me, then try and sneak out once they thought I was gone. It would probably work, but it might complicate getting Gwen free. There had to be another way. I looked around me, and tried to think in terms of my new abilities rather than what I had been capable of before.

Then it hit me, the skylight!. While the high ceiling would stop a normal person, I could scale the walls, cross the gap to the shaft, climb it, and get out onto the roof. I would have to take it carefully, I had never attempted such a difficult climb before, however I was sure it was possible. Approaching the nearest wall, I took off my shoes, and tied them carefully to my belt.

Positioning my hand high on the wall, I gripped, made sure I had a good grip, then moved first one foot, then the other up onto the wall. I was now completely clear of the ground, and slowly I began to climb.

I made good progress, and was soon at the top of the wall. That is where things got tricky. Not for the first time, I cursed my lack of a hand, then cursed its slow regrowth. I needed to cross the ceiling hanging from my three limbs, I moved myself as high as I could on the wall then began moving out. Shifting my feet was OK, but moving my hand was tough. I eventually settled on repositioning my feet far apart, for greater stability, before releasing my hand. I could then use my, now stronger abdominals to hold me close to the ceiling. I also hooked my handless arm around the front leg to hold some of my weight, I could then move my hand forward grip and then move my legs up. This was not exactly the most efficient way of crossing the ceiling, but it did work. Eventually I got to the shaft, and after carefully negotiating the lip, I was climbing up the shaft towards the skylight.

I was nearly free, all I needed to do was get out onto the roof. The skylight did not appear to be secured in any way, but it was badly rusted. I tried to move it, to no avail. I had to be careful. One loud noise and I could be found out, I worked the rusted metal, trying to loosen it. Gradually the skylight started to open. It made a few disquieting squeaks, but no one came running, so I carried on till it was open enough to get through. I climbed out of the gap and onto the roof, closing the skylight behind me, not wanting to give my captors any clues as to how I had escaped.

I surveyed the roof. It was a reasonably flat roof that covered what looked like an farm building of some description. It was unlikely that I would be seen from the ground, but just on the off chance, I activated my camouflage. I made my way across the roof, on the lookout for where they were keeping Gwen. A bit further on, I spied another skylight, took a peek, and saw Gwen tied to a post in a room much like the one I had been in. There didn't seem much point in sneaking in and freeing her if there was no way to get her out of that room, since although I could, with some effort, scale the walls there was no way I could carry her back out the same way. I continued down the roof, and found another opening, the skylight was already open on this one.