I am suddenly awakened by Muffin slapping my face.  Meow, meow.=No time for sleep, wake up, people here.  That certainly woke me up in a hurry and I grabbed my gun.  I could hear movement around outside so I quickly put Muffin’s backpack on her and got her slingshot ready.  Then I grabbed my backpack and went to wake up Jenny, which wasn’t easy.  Quickly, I said to her, and quietly, we have been found and we have to hide.  Hide in this small house?  Yes, follow me and we all went into the kitchen.  I had discovered this earlier when I was searching the house.  Just then someone shone a flashlight in through the kitchen window, the only one in the house that didn’t have a curtain on it.  Fortunately we were off to the side enough so they wouldn’t have been able to see us.  When the light disappeared I pulled the table up revealing a trap door that led to the cellar.

Muffin went first, then Jenny and myself last and I closed the trap door.  There was a couple of large hooks to hold the trap door in place.  There, I said, hopefully they won’t try to move the table which is permanently attached to the trap door.  So we should be safe.  How did they find us?, Jenny asked and she seemed genuinely surprised by this.  There was a transmitter in your shoe, I said.  But how?  No one has ever been alone with my clothes.  Same way they got the one in your belt, I replied.  But I just don’t understand how it could happen.  Then she paused for a moment, unless it was the woman at the hotel, she helped me pack and bring my stuff down to the car.  And she seemed so nice too, said Jenny.

Well, right now we can’t trust anyone, I said.  Jenny looked at me, you trust me though, don’t you?  I’m a PI, I can’t afford to trust anyone, not even a good friend.  But, yeah, I do trust you.  Meow, meow.=Me too, I trust Jenny, I can tell she good.  Muffin seems to agree with you, Jenny said.  Meow, meow=She understand me, we take her back home with us.  Hey, not so fast Muffin, first things first, we need to get out of this alive.  Now we could hear our visitors were inside.  They have to be in here somewhere, I heard one of them say.  Then a thought occurred to me and I checked my gun, which was actually the gun the pilot had given me.  Sure enough, in the handle was another transmitter.  This one was quite small, but good enough obviously, so they would know we were still here.

There was a number of rocks in this cellar so I crushed that transmitter.  Hey, the signal stopped, one of them yelled.  He must have found the last transmitter, but we know they are here, there must be a cellar in this place.  We’re trapped, said Jenny quietly.  Meow, meow.=Come, I find something.  We follow Muffin to a spot behind the stairs.  Hmm, a short door.  It opened to a tunnel of some kind so in we went, with Muffin in the lead.  I closed the door and as soon as it clicked shut…there was a large rumbling and the ceiling of the tunnel collapsed!

To be continued.

Steve and Muffin. (For previous chapters and stories, please go to my home page and look under 20/20 Investigations, Inc.)

©2020 Steve McLeod.