Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

and shoulders that when she carried on the vlog slid around the corner and disappeared again. Rewinding and playing it again only made her more certain. Someone was there. Not Lorcan, and not Naiyana who was capturing it all on her phone. It might have been Dylan checking out the town, let loose by his parents. She had no one left to confirm it with. That was the problem.

24

Emmaline

The figure in the vlog and the question of who Lorcan Maguire might have met in Wisbech plagued Emmaline the whole night, her sleep intermittent before the yearning for answers forced her to drag the thin curtains open and let the morning light flood in.

She ordered Barker, Rispoli and Anand back in to search the town. There was something here that would explain the disappearance, she was sure of it. The ground couldn’t just have opened up and swallowed the family despite the many mines and the history. She wanted every inch searched.

So they returned to exploring buildings, slowed down only by the need to check that the structures wouldn’t fall on their heads. This was still Barker’s number one bet on what had happened to the family, even though from the videos Emmaline thought it unlikely that they had been big into group activities.

Once again she teamed up with Rispoli. Their first date had been scouring abandoned buildings, so why not repeat it on the second.

Near the crossroads came the first building of interest. A tin and brick structure when it had been intact but the front wall had given out, the remaining walls unable to support the roof which lay at an angle, the rear desperately clawing the wall, the front biting into the dirt.

‘Over here,’ she called to Rispoli.

‘What is it?’

‘I want to check under this building.’

‘Why? It’s collapsed.’

‘Yeah, I think it collapsed recently.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘It isn’t covered in dust like it would be if it had been in this position for a long time.’

‘Maybe a gust of wind swept it clean.’

‘Maybe.’ Emmaline worried that although the family might not have been into group activities, they might have just got unlucky. Calling the other two over, Rispoli and Anand each grabbed the front of the tin roof and lifted it, jackets wrapped around their hands to counter the sizzling heat and sharp edges of the exposed metal. It came up intact. But barely.

Sliding onto her stomach, she peered under. Dark. And dusty. Lacking the unmistakable stench of decaying flesh. A positive sign.

‘You sure you want to go under there?’ asked Barker, perched on one knee beside her.

‘Not sure at all,’ said Emmaline. ‘But I have to.’

Reaching out she started to claw her way under, pushing chunks of destroyed brick and stone out of the way. As the light diminished the temperature rose. Thirty to a hundred in a second. It was like crawling into an oven.

‘I hope you’ve got your tetanus shots,’ shouted Barker after her. Helpful as ever.

Emmaline slid a little further in, moving as fast as she could. She didn’t want to be under here any longer than needed. No one had called out for help when it had been lifted and the air held no indication of death. She didn’t want to be the first to cause either.

‘Have you still got it?’ she asked, choking in the dust.

‘We’re good,’ said Rispoli, his voice strained. It didn’t fill her with confidence.

With the roof angle and the space closing in, she got flat onto her stomach, dragging herself over an old, bone dry wooden stanchion that tore at her blouse as if trying to stop her from venturing any further.

From behind, Barker ordered her to hurry, backed by muted grunts from Rispoli and Anand, the tin oscillating above her now, brushing the crown of her head.

She had crawled to the middle of the building now. Her eyes scanned the darkness and she reached out for the brush of clothes, flesh, anything. She found nothing.

‘I’m coming out,’ she announced, backing up rapidly, her head scraping the rusted tin, tasting the flakes of oxidized metal in her mouth. An awkward and hasty retreat back into the light.

The instant she was clear, Rispoli and Anand, supported by Barker, dropped the sheet roof with a crash, turning away from the cloud of dust.

‘Anything?’ asked Barker, flexing his arms, his hands a fiery red.

Emmaline shook her head, enduring a mixture of relief and disappointment. The family had not been crushed by the collapsing building. But they were still missing.

The search resumed. A couple of plots along from the collapsed house, Emmaline pushed a piece of sheet metal aside and entered another crumbling building. There the inner wall had partly collapsed turning the ground floor into a single room. There was no furniture inside. No bodies either, but she could see that it had been one of the fancier houses in its time, with a kitchen that had been gutted apart from an old yellowing refrigerator. She checked inside. The family weren’t entombed within.

‘How was the caravan?’ asked Rispoli as they made their way to the next dwelling.

‘It looks and smells like a smoker’s lung,’ said Emmaline.

‘Webster was a sixty-a-day man.’

‘Was?’

‘There’s a reason it was available on such short notice.’

That ended the conversation. Briefly.

‘I went into Hurton last night,’ she admitted.

‘A hive of activity, I bet.’

‘I found out a few things.’

‘Such as?’ asked Rispoli as they entered the next building. It was wooden but the walls remained solid. It was also better furnished than most of the others as if the occupants had recently vacated, much like the Maguires.

‘The family were rarely seen together. Spotted on their own in town mostly.’

‘While the other remained here?’

‘I assume so. The father also met with someone apparently. In Wisbech.’

‘Family?’

‘No.’

‘So who?’

‘We need to find out…’ said Emmaline. The sentence tailed off. She moved to one of the abandoned cupboards and looked at the floor.

‘This has been moved,’ she said.

‘I’m sure it got moved all the time,’ said Rispoli, peeking into the