Murder in the Haunted Castle
Missed the story so far? Catch up here: Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-one Chapter Twenty-two Chapter Twenty-three Chapter Twenty-four Chapter Twenty-five Chapter Twenty-six Chapter Twenty-seven Chapter Twenty-eight Chapter Twenty-nine Chapter Thirty
Kim ducked as the butler reached out for her, his huge hands like claws ready to sink into her clothes and drag her to him. She thought about trying to dodge past him and out of the room, but he was too big and he filled the doorway.
Backing up, Kim’s backside knocked against something solid and unmoving. Keeping her eyes on the butler, who hadn’t yet moved and seemed very confused, Kim’s hands felt for whatever it was she had bumped into.
Her hands found a dust sheet, covering something hard and unyielding. Felt like it could be an old-fashioned sideboard. The room was stuffed with furniture. Kim began gathering the dust sheet up in folds beneath her fingers.
“What’s going on here?” Agnes said, her voice sharp and clear.
“You shouldn’t be here,” said the butler, who was ducking beneath the door frame as he entered the room.
He glowered at Kim from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and he didn’t seem at all concerned about Agnes, or what she was doing here.
Kim grabbed the dust sheet and threw it at him. The sheet enveloped the butler in a cloud of dust and he started coughing. Kim took the moment to dash past him and out of the door. Despite the fact that he was still coughing violently, the butler shot his hands out and made a grab for Kim. His long fingers snagged at her clothing and for a moment she thought he had her, but she twisted and pulled in his grip and suddenly she was free again.
Stumbling down the corridor, Kim heard the door slamming shut and the lumbering thud of the butler’s feet as he chased after her. Why was he doing this? Was he keeping Agnes prisoner in that horrible room? Had he murdered Boris?
None of it made any sense.
Perhaps the butler had murdered Boris but Agnes had discovered him and now he was keeping her prisoner. But why not murder her too? Surely that would be easier for him. And why did Agnes suddenly seem to have recovered from her dementia? Surely that wasn’t even possible?
Kim decided she needed to think about this later, and concentrate for the moment on getting somewhere safe, and out of the reach of the murderous butler. That was going to be easier said than done, though, considering they were trapped in this castle.
And whatever else was going on, she had to find James and Maddie.
Kim dashed around a corner, stumbling on the uneven floor. Still she could hear the butler lumbering and wheezing after her. This part of the castle looked even more rundown than the previous section, and yet it looked vaguely familiar too.
On she ran, into increasingly gloomier, darker passages. She had to slow her pace a little, running her hand along the wall as she ran so that she wouldn’t smack into anything.
Suddenly the light began to grow once more and Kim realised she was running down the passage that led past the dungeons. Up ahead took her back to the main entrance and the staircase up to her room. With renewed hope in her chest, Kim started running faster.
Until the suit of armour stepped from the shadows and blocked her path.
Kim screamed and skidded to a halt.
Looking back she saw the butler appear at the opposite end of the corridor.
She was trapped.
Come on, think! What would Detective Frank Caravaggio do in a situation like this?
Start blasting away at everyone with his gun, probably, which wasn’t an option for Kim.
Kim noticed the entrance to the dungeons.
Alright then, what about Scooby and the gang? What would Daphne do?
She would run down into the dungeons. It was the only escape route.
Kim plunged into the cold darkness, almost tripping and tumbling down the stone steps. Managing to keep on her feet, she placed a hand against the cold stone wall dripping with moisture and descended into the depths.
Up above she heard the clanking of the suit of armour as it arrived at the top of the stairs.
Then she heard the butler pushing his way past the suit of armour, hissing, “Out of my way, you idiot!”
At the bottom of the stone steps, Kim took her mobile and switched on the torch function. The light was going to give her away, but she needed to see where she was heading, maybe find somewhere to hide. It was a slim chance, but it was the only one she had.
More confident now, being able to see where she was going, Kim hurried deeper into the dungeon. She squeezed past the towers of packing cases and through the opening into the second dungeon. A group of rats scattered in the light from her mobile phone, and Kim shuddered with revulsion.
In the other section of the dungeon, Kim could hear the butler stumbling between the packing cases and cursing. He obviously didn’t have a torch.
Maybe that gave her a slight advantage, but the fact remained that Kim was trapped down here. The dungeon had been her only escape route, but of course she was now just as hemmed in as she had been upstairs. It was only a matter of minutes before the butler would catch her.
And then what?
Would he murder her, like he had done poor Boris?
Kim ran the torchlight around the dungeon, looking for something to defend herself with. What about the chains, hanging from the walls? Kim grabbed hold of the lengths of cold, rusty chain links and yanked at them.
It was no good, they were attached firmly to the stone walls.
Kim turned around to face the dungeon. There had to be something she could do.
And she saw the opening at floor level, the one that led outside.
It would be a tight squeeze, and what would she do when she was outside, apart from possibly freezing to death?
The sound of the butler bumping into something and cursing reminded her that she didn’t have a choice. Kim had to escape before he caught her. She’d escaped from him once but she doubted that she could manage it again. And once he caught her, what would he do? Strangle her, perhaps, with those massive hands of his.
Her mind was made up.
Lying face down on the damp stone floor, Kim could feel the freezing breeze from the small passage on her face. Extending her arms, she reached into the opening and began dragging herself inside.
“No, stop!” the butler shouted behind her.
Kim hauled herself deeper into the narrow passage. A large, strong hand grasped her ankle. Kim screamed and kicked out, and the hand let go. She clawed frantically at the stone floor and continued to kick out with her feet. The narrow passage was longer than she had realised, but she could see a dim light ahead, and felt snowflakes landing on her face.
She was almost outside.
The butler was still shouting curses in the dungeon. Kim knew there was no way she could go back. Whatever the conditions were like outside, she had to brave them. It was her only means of escape.
Kim hauled herself forward until her head was outside the narrow, low passage. The ground was freezing beneath her hands. The wind whipped at her hair and blew spiky snowflakes into her eyes, making her blink.
Kim dragged her aching body further out of the passage, until suddenly her hands ran out of ground. She looked up, peering into the whirling snow.
The ground dropped terrifyingly away in front of her. Kim’s breath caught in the back of her throat as she realised where she was.
The cliff dropped down, a sheer rock face of ice and snow. This was the rear of the castle, overlooking the river and the rolling hills covered in a blanket of snow.
Kim pulled her feet out of the narrow drainage hole and pulled herself up so that she was sitting with her back against the castle wall, hugging her knees to her chest. The wind tugged at her clothing, none of which was suitable for outdoor wear in a blizzard.
The ledge she was sitting on extended in either direction along the castle wall. It looked wide enough to walk along, but not by much. Kim could imagine easily walking along it if the drop was only a few feet and a gale-force wind wasn’t punching and pulling at her.
But right now? In these conditions?
Not a chance.
But what was she going to do? She couldn’t go back into the dungeon, not with that murderer waiting for her. But if she waited out here long enough, maybe he would get bored and leave. It was her only option. Wait here as long as she could stand to, and then crawl back through the drainage passage and back into the dungeon, hoping that the butler had left.
At least she was safe out here for the moment. He was far too big to be able to fit into that hole.
Just as that thought finished, Kim saw a hand appear from the narrow passage, blindly groping at the ground for purchase.
And she knew she couldn’t stay where she was after all.
See you on Monday for Chapter Thirty-two.
Cheers,
Ken
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