Town of the doomed souls

Chapter 7

Escaped prisoners, as expected, showed up in town after all. They came at night, alarmed owners of the house that was the closest to the forest. The neighbors noticed something was wrong and called the police in the morning.

Andrew and Mikhalich arrived at the scene among the first ones, and the young lieutenant saluted gallantly and reported that the prisoners refused to get in touch.

'Then where is the prove that our fugitives are in this house?' Andrew asked.

'A neighbor who called the police said that she heard the dog barking at night, though not long - someone smashed its skull. According to the agreement the neighbor and the hostess of this house should have gone to our church to attend service, but she didn't show up in the morning. And from behind the door when the neighbor knocked an unknown rude male voice answered, telling her to get away as was rather careless to my opinion.'

'Yeah, pretty stupid. But on the other hand, it ain't necessarily our lags. It can be anyone.'

'But the neighbor says there lives a woman in this house with an elderly mother and a daughter, there are no men and they weren't expected. Our fugitives or not it is hard to say, but there is someone in the house that is for sure. And this one is not very friendly.'

'Refused to communicate you say?'

The lieutenant shook his head in confirmation.

'Is there a phone in the house?'

'No answer either.'

'So we do not know who they are, how many of them, if they are really our jail birds that we trying to catch for quite some time already, they do not make any demands, and we still do not know whether the hostages are still alive ... Great!' summarized Andrew.

There were onlookers assembling around the house retelling the story to one another with some new details each time. Behind a ring of the police cars they shook their heads and craning their necks watched the actions of people in the uniform.

'Sooner or later they would have to let us hear from themselves,' shrugged lieutenant.

'Well we must help them to do it sooner; otherwise it can be too late.'

'I'm all for it. What are the instructions?' said lieutenant imitating alertness. He took Andrew's discontent as a harsh criticism referring to himself. But Andrew did not pay attention to his taunt, because he actually could understand what this young lieutenant might be thinking: even being superior he was a newcomer that already tried to take the lead easily giving orders. They simply did not know him yet, and therefore treated him with prejudice and distrust.

'First, remove the spectators.' commanded Andrew. He took the megaphone and stepped toward the house. But the house responded with silence still. With an imperceptible movement he unfastened the holster of his service weapon under his jacket and walked toward the gate with an easy step.

'Where are you going without...?!' hissed Mikhalich. Lieutenant just sneered, glancing at the bulletproof vest that Andrew ignored.

No one answered as he knocked. Squeezing firmly his gun in one hand, Andrew put his ear to the door, trying to catch any sound at all, but a cry of horror rang out quite from the opposite direction. Everyone turned around. There was a woman screaming in front of a man who held her as a life shield pressing a gun to her head.

'One move and I'll kill her,' he promised, walking slowly backwards towards the forest and dragging his hostage along.

'How did he get here?!' exclaimed Mikhalich, removing his hand from his holster.