The Hunt Read Online Free

picked him up and shifted him back a pace, making acceptance of the unbelievable situation easier. He’d felt something like this before. When his father had died three years earlier, there had been none of the disbelief and hysteria he’d been prepared for all his life. A distance had fallen around him, allowing him to cope with the situation and only starting to lift as grief eroded it away. It was a defence mechanism of sorts – perhaps purely natural, or maybe engineered by modern society and family needs – and for a while he’d felt an incredible guilt. But then his mother had told him that everyone deals with bereavement and grief in a very different way, and unnecessary guilt had no place in his heart. He’d loved her more than ever for that. He still did.
    He dreaded the idea of her having to grieve again.
    Chris looked down at his phone.
Don’t call the police or your wife and children will be executed
. The words hung in the air around him as if taking on substance. Everywhere he looked he heard them. He stared at the screen display, thinking, trying to work through the situation. Clicking on the timer, he set it at forty-eight minutes and pressed
start
.
    Several minutes had passed since the man left. Standing in the kitchen, uncertain, he edged towards the back door, lifting the wooden blind aside to look out into the back garden. Maybe he should follow. Or call the police. That was his natural instinct,
anyone’s
first instinct when something terrible like this happened. And how would they know? He should call them, tell them about the intruder and his missing family, and by the time they arrived
…
    He looked at the time on his phone. Forty-four minutes and counting.
    Something moved in the garden. Chris squinted and looked again, scanning left to right across the well-maintained lawn, colourful borders, and the kids’ stuff scattered here and there. Megs loved to play in the inflatable pool when it was warm enough. She said she wanted to swim the Atlantic when she was older.
    ‘Shit,’ he whispered, starting to shake. Fear gripped him. Terror at what was happening to his family, and confusion about why.
    Movement again, and this time he saw the cigarette smoke rising from beyond the garden’s rear hedge before it dispersed to the breeze. There was a narrow, private path behind there serving the several houses that shared this side of their street, and no reason at all for anyone to be standing there.
    Placing his hand on the door handle he pushed it down, slowly, and opened the door.
    A pale shape appeared behind the garden gate. Chris couldn’t see much from this far away, and the gaps between the gate’s slatted wood were only an inch across. But the smoking person was watching him.
    He slammed the door again and retreated into the kitchen. ‘Fuck, fuck, this isn’t happening,’ he muttered, pacing back and forth. He was chilled from the sweaty running clothes he still wore. He should change, get warm, get ready for
…
    …
for the countdown to zero? Was he really just going to wait here like the intruder had told him?
    Bollocks to that.
    He held the menu button on his phone and said, ‘Call Nick.’ The phone called his elder brother, ring tone buzzing again, again, until passing on to answer phone. Chris hung up, pressed again and said, ‘Call Angie.’ She had five kids, an irregular boyfriend, and debt up to her ears, but his youngest sister was always a rock amongst stormy seas. It rang three times before she answered.
    ‘Chris.’
    ‘Angie, it’s me, something’s happened, something awful, and I need you to—’
    ‘I can’t talk right now.’
    ‘What? Something’s happened to Terri and the kids and you have to do something for me, but quietly, carefully. I need you to call the police.’
    Silence. He could hear Angie breathing.
    ‘Angie?’
    ‘I can’t talk right now.’ Her voice broke, just slightly. Then there was the sound of fumbling before the call was