Extract - The Unforeseen Children Of Olive Shipley
The room was like a small changing room. Protective suits hung in plastic bags from the hooks in the wall, with more suits folded in the far left corner.
“How did you know that code for the door?” whispered Isabelle to Robert.
“I work here,” he replied, taking Danny back off the Inspector. “This was the room I was talking about, I think it was lucky that this place was on route to the nearest exit.”
“Now what?” asked Tabatha.
Suddenly, the scratching started. It was as if the hands of twenty Hollow began to claw desperately at the locked door. The residents of the room stood in silence, looking at each other, frozen, unable to think, but the cry of little Danny woke them from their frigidity.
“Keep him quiet,” snapped Isabelle, “I don’t care how, but keep him quiet.”
Robert bounced Danny in his arms and whispered calm words into his ear.
“There is no better time to try the suit idea,” said Isabelle, and began to find the suit best fitting to her short, stocky stature. Tabatha copied Isabelle’s actions. “We have ten minutes at most before they’re through that door.”
“Robert, put a suit on and then fashion one for Danny,” said Isabelle. Robert did not want to leave a crying baby but was forced to when Isabelle snapped at him.
Danny cried all through Robert’s attempt to wrap him up in a suit. The baby’s head and shoulders managed to fit in the head space of the suit and Robert tied the arms and legs short. Isabelle walked over and patted Robert on the shoulder. “Nice work,” she said through the plastic visor. Robert turned and looked at both Isabelle and Tabatha dressed in the ill-fitting white protective garb. The legs were fixed onto white rubber boots and the sleeves ended in tight fitting white gloves. A thin hood clung its elastic embrace along the hair line covering the back of the head. A helmet, that was transparent soft plastic at the front and white around the back of the head, attached to the shoulders. From the back, a length of black tubing ran from the back of the helmet down the spine and fixed into the oxygen pack attached to the waist band. As Robert began to secure everyone’s oxygen packs, the sharp talons of the Hollow made their first hole in the door. Robert looked up and then feverishly made sure everyone’s suit was air tight and able to provide oxygen before picking up Danny and holding him close. He continued to rock him in his arms, hoping his cries would cease. Eventually they subsided when the Hollow clawed and splintered away their only obstacle to the room.
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“A realistic gripping thriller set in highly descriptive prose, the author creates a vivid tale that is both frightening and horrifyingly believable.”
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