Disclaimer: [seepreviouschapters…]
Every movement made is a choice between life and earth.
So every movement made is pretty damn important.
"Ha . . . . ha . . . yeah . . . down the stairs . . . pretty . . ."
Jason had been babbling crap for hours on end. Hours.
"Wooden stairs . . . turn left . . . trippin . . . haha . . . yeah . . ."
Sharpay was so cared she could barely breathe, just sit with her lower half of her body on the other side of the hole that they came through, and listen.
"Black wire . . . don't trip . . . the cellar . . . ha ha . . . ooh . . ."
He wasn't even being tortured yet. That was the most horrible part. Fear was making Jason go insane.
"Gotta be quick . . . ha ha . . . yeah . . . turn the handle . . . gotta be . . . anti-anti-clock-wise . . . uh?"
Sharpay closed her eyes. She didn't know how much more of this she could listen to.
"Knife . . . door . . . far left . . . oop oop. ha. press three quarters from top . . . on the left . . . left? yeah . . . huh? Oh, yeah . . . eh?"
How long had she been here? It seemed like hours. More. Days. She was so scared she couldn't think properly.
Sharpay forced her numb legs and hands into action, feeling around for the boxes so she didn't bump into them, and not making a sound, the reached the lattice door, peering out between the narrow horizontal slits.
Jason was tied up, rocking like a madman, but staring straight at the door the whole time. It felt like her was staring at her. Talking to her. And hell, he wouldn't stop talking. Repeating the same thing. Over and over again.
"Just a bit more . . yeah . . .you got it . . . all the way down . . . end of tunnel . . . go up . . ."
Jason . . . Sharpay needed Jason to survive. She realised now, that there was no miracle to save him – because he usually was the miracle. And now he was tied up. What did she do?
ACP had been gone for a while? Should she risk it and untying him? Just as she was plucking up the courage to do it, APC walked in.
She was so petrified at the thought of what could've happened if she had actually gone, and he saw her, that she almost threw up.
"Look . . . to the right . . . the path . . . go right . . . APC -"
"APC? Please, my dear boy. Don't call me that. You're my son. But you've been a bad boy, haven't you? What a shame. Punishment and sins go together, my dear boy -"
APC suddenly stopped when Jason continued to babble nonsense. Sharpay watched him, (his back was to her, she couldn't see his face) stare at his son.
"What in heaven you on about? Hmm? What do you mean?"
APO looked at his son, disgusted. "What do you keep babbling about? Are you sick? What's wrong with you?"
Sharpay saw APC lean forward and slap his son hard with his right, full in the face, but Jason kept speaking, the left side of his face red and his left eye watering.
"The devil has possessed you . . ." APC whispered, and hurriedly left the room. Jason stopped to listen to the footsteps, making sure that they were going down the stairs and out of earshot.
"Sharpay . . . listen . . . quick . . . you there?"
"Yeah . . ." she said hoarsely.
"My bag . . . I think I dropped it by the hole . . . get pen and paper . . ."
Sharpay hurried searched for the bag, finding it, rummaging in the bag, grapping the pen and paper, and scrambling back to the door, peeking through the slits, but not opening it.
"Jason, I just wanna say – I'm so sorry. If I wasn't here, you probably wouldn't have got caught – I -"
"Sharpay . . . you didn't listen to me before. So listen to me now. Don't come out of that door for any reason until I say so, okay? When you can come out, I'll say BOO, okay?"
'Asinpeek-a-boo?' Sharpay thought, confused, but APC returned, so Jason kept babbling again.
Then, Sharpay realised. It finally, finally clicked. All the things he was saying . . . they weren't just random things. They were . . . directions! He was trying to tell her something. Help her.
"APC has a tattoo that helps him remember which path to take, because he uses the secret exit you're abut to use -"
APC suddenly came in, so Jason started babbling again.
She wrote down as much as she could, and when he kept repeating it, she could fill in the gaps of what she missed, until she was just listening to him say it, trying to memorise it in case she lost the paper.
Out the door of this room. Wooden stairs. Go down. Red Corridor, turn left. Black wire. Don't trip over it. Doorknob. Anti-clockwise NOT clockwise. Cellar. Knife in cabinet. Use it to free the others. Far left from the cellar entrance in a door. Press three quarters of the way down on the door, on the left side. Follow tunnel straight down. Go up ladder. At fork, don't go left, go RIGHT. Lean again right wall to find secret path. Leads outside, about fifty metres from house.
Sharpay kept listening to him say it until he stopped talking, so suddenly, she looked up. A handful of men had entered, carrying some strange things; a bowl of water - holy water? – and a knife. And a cross. A metal one.
And other things too.
They began some sort of ritual. APC drew a cross on Jason's head – with the knife. Jason was silent, but the pain made him bite his lip so hard that blood emerged from there as well. APC sprinkled him with the water. And then . . .
"Jason, I am trying to purify us both before I do this. Because I do not deserve to go to hell. Neither do you. So tell me this, and maybe God will give me the strength to spare you."
APC placed the knife against his cheek. "Where is Sharpay?"
No answer. APC sliced his cheek open from eyebrow to chin. Sharpay squeezed her eyes shut in horror but it didn't block out the screams that would give her nightmares for months.
It went on and on. Jason didn't reveal one bit of information, and even managed to taunt APC with things like, "Keep guessing, dude."
Jason was dying.
"Everyone, leave the room please." said APC calmly, his white clothes clean when Jason was drenched with blood. "And do not re-enter, under any circumstances." APC's men left, and the room was just the crazy guy, and his son.
And Sharpay.
She was scared stiff, but even at times like this, she knew an opportunity when she saw one. She pulled out two penknives that she'd brought with her, one in each hand.
APC was speaking, but she wasn't listening. Neither was Jason. He was looking at Sharpay. But he was speaking as well, antagonizing APC, who kept speaking in his dead, metallic voice like he couldn't hear the other voice, but was becoming slowly irritated.
Then Jason talked about his mother. And as soon as he did, Sharpay already knew that Jason had secured his own death. when APC lunged at him with the knife, and Jason grinned.
"Hey dad, guess what?" APC stopped in his tracks, but the knife had already gone in. Jason croaked, "BOO."
Sharpay sprang to life, bursting out of the closet, and stabbing APC in the back while he was off guard. He roared, whirling around, but Sharpay grabbed the neared heavy object, the laptop in this instance, and whacked APC with it. He crumpled to the floor, face down, but she was so scared that he'd get up, that she did it again, and again, and dragged him into the closet, face down, so she wouldn't have to look at him. She was still scared that he'd get up, so she took her bag and Jason's bag out of the closet, hid the hole they entered through, and locked the closet it up.
Then she ran to Jason . . . "Jason? Jason! Hey, stay with me . . . I'm gonna call a . . . an . . . an ambulance . . . Jason!"
Anger and sorrow choked her, and she couldn't speak, sobbing fiercely but quietly. It was like Zeke all over again, and it tore her apart . . .
She already knew he was dead. He'd lost too much blood from the beginning, from APC's crazy cult thing . . . it was too much to cope with.
Sharpay sat down and cried.
…HSM…
When she woke up, Sharpay was in the same position as before . . . same place . . . and The closet was how she left it. So APC hasn't woken yet either.
And Jason, of course, would never wake.
She cried again, for ler loss, his loss, all th losses, every victim of this serial killer, every life that had been ruined or destroyed because of it.
Sharpay stared to think that it would have been better if she'd just died, from that moment week ago, when Kelsi walked through that door with a lethal collar on her neck and a gun in her hand.
But more would still die at APC's hands.
That's when it hit her. APC was lying, unconscious, in the closet. If the police found him, many unsolved cases would finally be closed. He was be killed in the worst way possible.
Wiping her eyes, she took the laptop that she'd whacked APC with, and started it up. it was a bit shaky, because of the damage, but as there we no softwares other than the basic ones, it was ok. There was only on shortcut on the desktop. Microsoft Word. She opened it, and waited.
The thought of APC henchmen suddenly snapped into her head – APC said not to come back in under any circumstances, no matter how long . . . so they wouldn't re-enter until APC came out and told them they could.
Could she escape? Or were they waiting outside the door?
Word opened. She clicked on file - open. There were no folders, but tons of files and documents - target lists.
And the most disturbing thing was that everyone who'd been captured or targeted on the other target lists, was dead on the very last one.
1.7 for Katy-Rose Roberts, 2.5 for Georgina Florida, and 3.9 for Ellarae – everyone was dead.
Target List Number 3.9
Target Status:
Mr Dicantios . . . DEAD (shot. reported missing)
Mrs Dicantios . . . DEAD (made to look as if she slit wrists in the bath)
Officer Shanice Manning . . . DEAD
Officer Anthony Hoppers . . . DEAD
Unknown Officer replacing Officer Manning . . . DEAD
Julian Hyde . . . DEAD (placed in bathtub of scalding water)
Evelyn Dicantios-Hyde . . . DEAD
OBJECTIVE ACHIEVED.
Alex Lynch . . . DEAD (killed for interference in Target List's 4)
Maye Hyde . . . DEAD (killed for interference in Target List's 4)
Sharpay remembered what Ellarae put in her diary, 'YOU CAN'T ESCAPE'. And now, it shot through her head like bullets. It was like some sort of sick video game to APC.
Shivering, Sharpay opened her set, the 4-point-something ones. She noticed how she had the most lists. It even went to 4.9.2. She gave a grim smile. At least she'd made it difficult for him.
Target List Number 4.9.2
Target Status:
Jason Cross . . . CAPTURED – SOON TO BE TORTURED
Sharpay Evans . . . LOCATION UNKNOWN
Martha Cox . . . STILL DYING (poisoned)
Kelsi Nielsen . . . TARGETED!
Gabriella Montez . . . CAPUTRED
Troy Bolton . . . TARGETED!
Zeke (surname still unknown) . . . DEAD
Ryan Evans . . . CAPTURED
Taylor McKessie . . . TARGETED!
(Unknown Accomplice – Afro-hair) . . . TARGETED!
Sharpay slapped a hand over her mouth. She was going to be sick. Martha was downstairs, slowly dying of poison, with Ryan and Gabriella.
"Oh God." Sharpay whispered, moving back so quickly the chair knocked over. She could have sworn something in the cupboard responded to the noise, but her mind was playing trick o her, because she was so scared of APC waking. She should've tied him up . . .
"I have to get out of here . . ." Sharpay said to herself, petrified. She wanted to print all the target lists, but she's already wasted so much time. She had to leave -
She grabbed her small bag, stuffed it into Jason's large one along with the laptop, and prepared to sprint. Making sure she had tall her penknives, she opened the door as quietly as she could, and that was the start of The Great Escape.
. . . Fin. No, not really! Next chapter is the last. I'm sorry, everyone – a lot of people were asking if this was really the end, so I thought I'd finally post the chapters I had stored on my computer for years. No proof-reading or anything. Just posting. I was like 14, 15 when I wrote these final two, now I'm 18. And still, somehow... this story captivates me.
Totally didn't realise there was a 14 and 15, sorry and forgive me! Enjoy... the end of Sharpay's tale.
Star x x x