Under the Floorboards (and In the Walls)

Lockwood and Co Plan A-George

There was little I could hear save Flo's labored breathing. At least I could be thankful that she was still breathing. And that she had passed out. At least then they had stopped. But they didn't lay a finger on me. Knowing, I'm sure, that nothing they could do to me would make me talk as quickly as doing it to Flo first. I had pleaded with them. Told them everything I could think of. But they didn't stop. Not until Flo slumped down with one last strangled cry cut short. I twisted now to look at her. Her head was hanging forward, a drop of blood fell every couple seconds from her nose. I couldn't see it, but I knew she was developing a black eye. Her t shirt was torn and her bruised skin was visible. I could only imagine the pain she had endured. I was so angry I felt almost nothing at all. A blinding numbness. A single thought.

I wanted to kill them all.

My attention was pulled from Flo to the cowardly group huddled at the other end of the room. They had gathered there after Flo passed out. They were too quiet for me to make out what they had been saying. But now they turned back to us.

"What do you want now." I growled, my vision narrowing in my anger.

"Nothing." The leader said simply. "We have what we need."

If they didn't need us, they would kill us. I knew this in my soul.

"We always knew that you worked at Lockwood and Co. We've seen you there, Mr. Karim. All we wanted to know was if anyone else knew what you found here. Thanks for your blubbering confession..."

I refused to be embarrassed by how much I cried when they literally beat a teenager girl within an inch of her life.

"...we know that no one knows you're here. No one will miss you except your grubby friends, who, lets be honest, won't survive another night in 35 Portland Row. And they'll be too late. You'll be long dead. And then, of course, so will they." The man smiled slightly, I couldn't see his face, but I could hear it in his voice. "I wonder which one will kill them. The phantasm in the coal? The wraiths in the kitchen? Maybe Lockwood will go get a drink of water in the night and oops!"

A few of the scum chuckled at this. The fogies. Lockwood got his midnight drink from the bathroom sink like any normal teenager.

"Or maybe it will be any of the many cold maidens, raw bones, or lurkers we hid in your bedrooms."

They clearly didn't know Lucy and Lockwood. And I clearly did not give as much away as I thought I did. Well done me.

I tried to look unphased, "that's the best you can do? Honestly, I'm insulted for my friends. You couldn't even find one Poltergeist?"

"Like we'd waste it on them even if we did" he sneered. "doesn't matter anyway, you won't be there to hear about it.

Your bodies will probably be found by relic hunters ten years from now when you finally wash up on the riverbank. I can see the headlines now... oh wait, there won't be any headlines. Because you will die as you lived, unknown and insignificant."

"Is that what your mom said about you?"

Flo was conscious again.

Not her best comeback. But I was just glad to hear her voice again.

However, I was not eager to see Flo incur any more of our hooded friend's wrath.

"You talk a big game," I piped up, and the hooded leader turned to me again. "I heard what you said at the Fittes event?"

"You were there, huh? I knew that whole show was a mistake." He sounded angry. And he was right. It was a mistake. It was what keyed me in to how fake they were.