The Return of Locklear

The Return of Locklear (Part 2 of Series)

Fortunately I hadn't yet been stripped of my clothing, so I dug my hands into my pants pocket. My heart filled with ecstasy as I realized he hadn't taken my phone! But instantly that hope was crushed when the screen lit up only to reveal that there was utterly no signal. The disappointment was almost crippling, but I had to keep moving.

Hoisting myself out of the gurney, I finally got a chance to view my surroundings for the first time. It indeed looked like I was in some sort of strange sitting room. There were old moth eaten chairs and bookshelves so dusty I couldn't see the contents. The whole room was quite dark, but I could see my way around thanks to the dim glow of the television.

Without meaning to, I found myself pausing in front of the screen, watching as the anchorwoman commented on the footage of the medical building surrounded by police and flashing lights. According to the date on the bottom corner, this happened a little over a year ago. I started wondering what was so significant about this one news story to the doctor a moment before the anchorwoman answered my question.

"I would advise everyone be on the lookout. Though Evander Locklear only has a history of targeting criminals and those absolved of violent crimes, he is highly unstable and could be dangerous to anyone while he is on the run. According to our source at the Franklin Police Department, he is highly intelligent and likely to continue his spree of madness until caught, so please direct ANY information related to...."

I tuned the rest out at that point. I knew that name sounded familiar. The whole city had been in a panic over his escape from the mental ward, but a few weeks passed and no innocent bystanders were harmed so naturally people just stopped caring. It stopped being interesting front page news, so I guess the whole incident got swept under the rug in our collective consciousness. It's interesting how humans work that way.

Decisively, I turned away from the television. I couldn't waste any more time. There were no more signs of Locklear, but I wanted to get out of there and give myself as big a head start as possible. So turning on my heels, I made a beeline for where I assumed the front door would have been.

I dodged around the couch and turned the corner through a doorway at the far side of the room. It indeed lead to the front door! Running through the foyer, I grasped the handle and turned it quickly... but nothing happened. Tried as I might, I couldn't get the door to budge. Then it hit me. The loon had several sets of deadbolts from the inside, effectively keeping me trapped there.

No worries. Not the time to panic. There's more than one exit after all! Turning back into the sitting room, I ran to the window through which I saw the moonlight. But again, my heart sank. The windows had been nailed shut, and what's more, it looked as though the madman had crudely installed bars from the outside. He had thought of everything. There was no way out.

Things were looking bad, but I wasn't ready to give up hope just yet. There were still other windows and at least one more door somewhere for me to try. So, shaking the sinking feeling off, I turned around once more and headed back through the sitting room, this time going to the opposite side.

The next room I entered was the kitchen. Immediately, I started looking through the drawers for anything that could be useful. Bingo. So he hadn't thought of everything! There was a knife, very dull albeit, but a knife nonetheless. Grasping my new weapon tightly, I worked my way to the back door. As I feared, it was locked just like the front, and the windows were also locked and barred.

I went room to room until I had to come to terms with the fact that there was no way out up here. Which left me with only one option, no matter how unattractive. If I wanted to live, I would need to take the elevator Doctor Locklear had used earlier and hope he's so busy with his current victim that he doesn't notice me looking around for another way out.