Entrapped

38 - The shocking discovery

This morning Hunter brought Lyle to Zoey's ward and promised he would be back after visiting hours. He just wanted to go to town to attend an urgent matter. Chloe prepared Lyle on the matters that his mother shouldn't know about at that stage. Cleverly Lyle understood everything and the visit with his mother went well. He refrained from mentioning the accident and strategically avoided unpleasant subjects. They were once again happily together as a family, after of course, the tears when he related his terrible time against the rock face to them because Zoey asked him about that, but eventually, the two of them left the ward full of jokes, laughing and with thankful hearts. Chloe could see that this visit had done Zoey's mood a world of good and that she got new motivation to follow the hard path to full recovery.

Hunter was waiting for them outside the ward.

"Now, this looks much better! The sombre faces vanished and I only see white teeth. You two look like smiling Paw-paws."

Chloe laughs. "When we were inside it was just snot and tears and just see how happy our little Iron Man made us all!" She gives Lyle a fist and he complies.

Hunter smiles broadly and strokes over Lyle's head messing up his hair: "Good work, Champion! Now, I have something important I want to do together with Chloe. Do you know of the new Iron Man film that shows in the Traduna Mall's bioscope just across the road?"

Lyle's face sparkles. "Yes, I heard. I wish I could see it. On the other side of the mountain, we don't have a bioscope nearby. Sometimes they show old movies in our school hall but you can't hear what is going on; the children are too noisy. It just spoils the film you're watching."

Hunter looks at Chloe. "Chloe, what do you think? Why don't we get him a ticket? We then leave him at the Game Centre opposite the bioscope in the Mall and we get him after the show. It will then be just in time for his second visit to his mother this afternoon."

Lyle jumps up and down. "Please Chloe, please! Please!"

Chloe smiles happily. "Okay, I'll give you enough cash to play the machines to pieces! Then we get you again at the Game Centre, okay?"

Chloe wonders what Hunter has up his sleeve but she doesn't want to talk in front of Lyle and remembers him of negative things. Lyle must enjoy his time as much as possible. He went through tough times. She and Hunter will silently fix things. She only wishes she could spare him the news about his father.

***

Hunter wants Chloe to follow him to her home. She suggests they take her Cooper but he insists that she follows him. She dearly wants to inquire what is going on, but he looks serious and it seems as if something is chasing him. She doesn't want to waste time and decides to interrogate him later on.

They are now standing in her kitchen and she doesn't know why. He walks forward and stops in the middle of the room.

"Hunter, what is going on? When are you going to tell me?"

He doesn't answer; only holding his hand up to show her to be silent for now and Chloe shakes her head amazed and watches him. He lifts his boot high and then stamps with brute force down on the wooden blue gum floor and then stands dead still and listens intently at something. What is he doing? Has he lost his wits? Then he walks two paces forward and stamps again and again. He then treads slightly left and then right and to the front and back and eventually it seems as if he has found a place of interest. He stamps violently on that place a few times and then looks through the window and then to the backdoor as if he is measuring something. Chloe can only watch him in silence, too afraid to hinder him.

Hunter quickly goes to the backdoor, unlocks it and descends the stairs and walks around the corner without uttering a word and Chloe follows him curious and amazed while muttering: "What the hell!"

She finds Hunter on his knees on the grass feeling at the panels between the home's floor and the ground. He stops at one panel and wiggles it and the next moment it comes free and he puts it aside on the grass. There is an eerie, dark opening beneath the home. Hunter gets what looks like a bundle of car keys out of his pocket and switches on a miniature LED pocket light and before she realizes what is going on, the old man crawls through the opening and disappears under the house.

Alarmed Chloe shouts after him while she bends to peep in: "Beware of snakes, Hunter!"

Chloe, on her hands and knees, is just in time to see Hunter's boots vanish and all she sees is a dark hole.

"Hunter, where are you? Hunter!" The old man leopard-crawl as if he is still a young soldier. She can't believe he is still so agile. Where is he now?

Chloe listens intently, but it is quiet. No sound at all. "Hunter, where are you?"

She hears Hunter's muted voice: "Chloe, go back and stand at the entrance to your kitchen and look at the backdoor."

Chloe turns around, runs into the kitchen and takes the position. Anxiously she waits. Then she hears a funny sound

from beneath the floor. Is it a latch?

And suddenly she can't believe what she sees right in front of her. A large rectangular part of the floor moves suddenly and rises completely until it stops at a 45 gradient in the air. Two sturdy iron arms with hinges secure it and uncover a dark hole where the floor has been.

Chloe's jaw drops and then Hunter's head comes up followed by his upper body. He smiles at her.

"Oh, here you are, my beautiful, little princess! Must say, you look quite nice with that cute trap of yours hanging open. I just don't know how the ugly Tony could produce such a lovely thing like you."

Hastily Chloe comes forward and looks down in the hole. Hunter is standing on a small ladder in a small cement dam slightly above ground level. He lifts his arms to show her something in his hands and her eyes widen when she sees the used pipe and Rum and Maple tobacco.

Chloe peeps at something dark lying in the cement hole on the floor. "What is that, Hunter?"

Hunter turns, climbs down and picks up the thing. He fondles and looks at a costume made of funny material. He looks up.

"Chloe, go into your room en switch on the alarm when I call, okay?"

Chloe obeys and waits in her room. Eventually, he calls from

the kitchen. "Okay, switch on the alarm."

"Just give him 20 seconds to activate, Hunter!"

He doesn't answer and she waits a while in silence and then she hears a rustling sound from the kitchen and then the bead curtain and the next moment she gets a fright as a strange, black beast comes through the curtain into her room. Then the beast lifts his hands and fidgets at his neck and then he zips the costume open and she sees Hunter inside sopping wet of sweat with a thin pipe in his mouth.

Chloe is amazed. "The alarm hasn't gone off."

Hunter nods: "That's right. Put off the alarm before we forget it and it alarms Robert."

Chloe has a question on her face.

Hunter explains: "It is steaming hot in this costume because it cuts off all the body heat to the outside and that is why the eyes of the alarm don't pick it up. It seems that even the little pipe through which I get air, is going all the way to my feet so that hot air from my mouth doesn't activate the alarm and there are lenses for my eyes through which I had to look. Wait! Let me get rid of this thing. I am sweating like hell. Luckily this thing is made for a giant and it hangs loose on me."

Chloe helps him to get out of this strange costume.