SHERLOCK I, II, III & IV • #wattys2016

the corridor

Simon and Charlie woke up back to back. Both their hands were tied together behind them and their feet were strapped together. Rags were tied around their mouths and every weapon and cellular device had been stripped. Simon knocked Charlie with his elbow and Charlie returned in kind. At least they know the other one was alive. Simon, using the strength of his tongue, managed to wiggle the cloth out of his mouth and down about his neck.

“You all right, Charlie?”

Charlie made a high pitch grunt. Simon took it as a positive response.

“I’m going to get you out, all right? I just need to untie myself. Wait, can we both stand up?”

“Why?” Charlie muffled.

“If we can, we’re stuck in a sewer tunnel, if we can find something sharp to untie ourselves that would be fantastic. Now, come on, on three. One. Two. Three!” At the same time, Charlie and Simon hopped to their feet and then wobbled side to side until they found a balance. “Can you see anything? Turn around. No, no, the other way. The left—no ,no, no, my left! Bollocks this.”

Charlie worked the gag out of his mouth and shouted, “I can’t read your mind, Simon!”

“I don’t care if you can’t, now, you see that gate in the far end? It’s just another gate the leads to another…sewer, I think. I actually have no idea why there’s a gate down here.”

“It’s probably like dam, keeping unwanted water from flowing. But I do see it.”

“Move in that direction. We’ll cut the rope on the lock, the handle part, that is.”

“Oh, I see. Hope it works.”

The two of them shuffled over to the crusty iron gate in the back of the sewer. A couple of rats squeaked and scuttled out from their hiding place.  Simon jumped in one direction and Charlie in the other, resulting both of them falling sideways.

“Ow, Simon, why did you do that?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Simon yelled back as he tried to rock himself into the sitting position. It was slightly impossible since Charlie was still lying on the ground. “Get up, you’re hurting my wrists.”

“They took our phones, Simon.  We’re not going to be able to get in without them.”

“Doesn’t matter, we know the entrance code at least. I bet that phone call was from Sherlock.”

Charlie sat up, releasing the strain from his partner’s wrists. Settling back on his sitting bones, he sighed. “You think Andrew’s men are at the safe by now?”

“I don’t know, but come on, back on your feet. On three.”     

The two of them lifted up together and quickly stumbled over to the gate. Both knowing what the plan was, they simultaneously looped the cord over the latch and began tugging and pulling,

“Wait, wait, this isn’t going anywhere,” Simon growled. “You pull forward, I pull back, then you fall back while I pull forward—,”

“Like a saw?”

“Like a saw,” Simon clarified, bracing his wrists for rope burns. “And keep it tight, I want to get out of this bloody thing.”

For about ten minutes, the two of them worked on the rope, popping thread after thread. Simon stopped to take a peek at their work. How discouraging it must’ve felt when he saw they had barely made it through the first layer.

“How are we doing?” Charlie asked breathlessly.

“Not so good. But it’s no use wasting our energy now. Let’s find our way out of the sewer.” Simon turned his body toward the entrance and took hop before being jerked back and falling into Charlie.

“I need to take a breather, sorry. Why didn’t we try getting out in the first place?”

Simon shrugged, “I don’t know. God knows where we are. We could’ve been dumped in Nigeria. Main thing is, though, we got to get out and—,” he stopped in his tracks and looked down at his feet. The rope around his ankles began loosening. Laughing heartily, he began jerking and wiggling his feet until they could step out of their bonds. “Ah, my ropes came off, can yours?”

“I’ll try,” Charlie said doubtfully as he began twisting and pulling his feet apart until the ropes fell off. Charlie looked at Simon with beaming delight. “Now we just got the hands.”

“Let’s run.” The two of them made their way down the dark corridor, the only light being streams of sunlight through the cracks in the pavement above. “If we can find a manhole,” Simon began, “we’ll be good.”

“Yeah, that’ll be fantastic if we both could fit through!” Charlie yelled after him. “Just wish there was a sharp object or something. Are you sure you know where you’re going? I would hate it if the—,”

“Shut it,” Simon snapped, stumbling to a halt. He kept quiet, his head turning to the left, and then quickly to the right. “Did you hear that?”

“No, but I felt the ground shake.”

“Bollocks. We loosened the gate back there with our ropes.”

Charlie’s eyes widened and a lump formed so large in his throat, it hurt. Looking at Simon’s outline, he whispered, “We’re going to drown, right?”

“Keep running forward, we’re bound to find a way out!” With that, Simon rushed forward as fast as he could, hoping Charlie could keep up. “We’ll make it,” he whispered confidently to himself. The image of brown water gushing over them and pounding them to death put a new speed in his feet. Surprisingly, Charlie kept up despite that they were crushed together side by side and their feet kept entangling themselves at the ankles.