FATAL DESTINATION Chapter Two

In that moment of agonizing realization, all thoughts and actions unified in a panic fueled search. Pete overturned the wooden benches; Daniel opened the only two doors available in the room apart from the outer which remained solidly shut. Only a dingy store cupboard lay beyond one and a disgusting grime infested toilet behind the other.
"Where is she?" Melissa screamed hysterically. "There’s no way out of here. She can’t just have disappeared!"
Agnes took the distraught mother in her arms and tried, unsuccessfully to console her. "There now, she can’t be far away dear." The old woman said.

Daniel tried desperately to replay the previous events through his mind, maybe he could capture the moment that little Isabel made her mysterious exit. Alas, to his dismay and eventual anger he soon realized that the shock and confusion had rendered any memory a distant and blurry cascade of undecipherable images. His mind swirled and raged in a flurry of illogical thoughts, from which not a single conclusion emerged.
One by one each member of the group began to accept the agonizing fact that they had been captured in a mad situation where the only glimmer of hope or escape lay beyond the door that so steadfastly refused to open.
"The windows!" he suddenly yelled. "She must have climbed out of a window and it closed behind her."

No sooner had he said it than all three men moved as one and began frantically pulling and pushing at the old sash windows. Their actions however, proved in vane. Every window remained firmly shut, completely unaffected by the strenuous efforts.
"Stand back!" Gilbert shouted, moving with surprising vigor for a man of his years and grabbing a hefty wooden chair that lay upturned in a corner.
Pete and Daniel turned in response to the old man’s warning, both dodged aside as the wooden missile flew past their ears on course for the grime smeared, and ancient glass. Both men instinctively bent double in a defensive stance to protect themselves from the shower of splintering shards that would inevitably rain down on them upon devastating impact.

What followed was unsuspected and took them all by surprise, freezing every one in instant shock and disbelief.
As the chairs trajectory took it within inches of its target the sound of splinting wood boomed around the room. The ornately twisted spindles that formed its back rest, snapped into kindling, its seat split into narrow spears that dispersed in a wide arch, some bouncing off the wall on either side of the astonished onlookers, while others slide across the litter strew floor.
When the last crazy echo of destruction dissipated into the dusty air, not a word was spoken; all attention was locked in disbelieving stares at the completeness of the window. The chair had never reached its target. Something … Some force … Some inexplicable and invisible barrier had deflected it mid-flight, rendering it a harmless pile of unrecognizable and ineffective rubbish.

"Can you hear that?" Agnes finally announced, in a shaky voice that resonated somewhere between a restrained call and a hoarse whisper. "There’s someone outside on the platform."
"You’re hearing things again!" Gilbert replied, somewhat mockingly.
"Shush! I tell you I can hear someone!"
No one spoke; they all listened as the sound of distant footsteps gradually grew louder.
"Isabel! … Isabel is that you?" Melissa yelled.
Pete made for the door with a renewed desperation to open it. Still it refused to yield.
"Stop it! Get away from the door!" Daniel retorted, his voice raised by a sudden fear. "That’s not Isabel. Listen! Those are too heavy for a child’s footsteps. Besides, Isabel doesn’t have a limp!"
A sense of eerie dread now replaced the desperation to open the door and flee. Each foot fall echoed in the stillness, unhindered by the chaos of the storm which had by now passed by.

"Who is out there?" Agnes called, making her companions jump in sudden shock. "Open the door! We’re locked in!"
The footsteps halted. The sound of heavy booted feet fell silent, only to be replaced by a loud shuffling sound, giving the clear impression that the approaching stranger was standing immediately outside the door.
"Who’s there?" Pete called, bravely edging forward to peer through the window into darkness beyond.
No reply came, other than a faint whistling sound. A whistle that no longer announced the imminent approach of distant train, it was an unrecognizable attempt at a forlorn tune, from human lips.

"There’s something not right here," Gilbert exclaimed.
"Don’t start that again," replied his wife. "Open the door, please, we’re locked in here."
The old woman’s pleas were unheard, or more likely, ignored. The whistling continued, instantly louder, as if in mocking defiance.
"Who are you? Why don’t you help us?" This time Agnes’s voice was broken and frail, suggesting she feared what the reply might bring.
Once again the shuffling sound cut into the silence. All eyes remained fixed on the door handle, now with divided anticipation, suddenly no one felt comfortable with the prospect of the door opening and revealing the ill-imagined identity of the stranger outside.
"What’s that?" The suddenness of Daniel’s exclamation caused yet another unanimous reaction, when everyone took a hasty step back, in an effort to put distance between themselves and whatever could follow.

With nervous reluctance it was Daniel who stood his ground, and watched a small, dirty sheet of paper slide slowly under the door.
Sensing the tension and inspecting his companion’s faces with a searching glance, it seemed obvious that it was he who had been silently elected to retrieve the note and announce its content.
"Oh, for God’s sake," he exclaimed, "It’s a sheet of paper its not going to kill us, is it?" Bravely or foolishly, he was undecided which; Daniel approached the note and grabbed it swiftly. Even a split seconds hesitation could change his mind.
"What doe’s it say?" Agnes asked.

"Is it from Isabel?" Melissa gasped.
Daniel held the note in his shaky grip and tilted slightly towards the pathetic glow of the ancient light bulb, hanging above their heads from the nicotine stained ceiling.
The words he read silently at first were faded and smeared, most probably by the rain.
"It says;
‘1 SOUL IS SAVED. 1 SOUL JUDGED. 5 MORE SOULS AWAIT THEIR FATE!’
Outside the door the footsteps resumed, slowly fading into the distance accompanied by a fearful whistling that echoed through the night with a torturing resonance.