Hello guys. Thank you for the first reviews.
Yes I am back with a new story. I have tried something a bit different with this one. I usually aim to write 1,000 plus words per chapter but for this one, I have planned to write 2,000 words plus (for most chapters). I hope you like this and don't find it too wordy. I think that the way that I have wrote it as well calls for more words.
Any feedback would be nice on this as I might try and do this more often.
So things are going to be a little different now. I am going to be posting every other day now but only upload one Doctor Who fic and one Merlin fic. With my list of ideas ever growing (see my profile as an example), I want to get these out to you before I forget what the idea was. I am just trying to find the quickest and most efficient way of getting these stories out to you and I believe it is this way. I have had a whole excel document dedicated to trying to do this. My main problem was I was aiming to upload a story before I had aimed to start writing it. This way that didn't happen.
Just a note, you might want to keep an eye on the dates.
So here we go. Please enjoy.
CHAPTER 2
ROSE SMITH
LOCATION: 11 MOUNT EARL, BRIDGEND, BRIDGEND, WALES
DATE: 15TH APRIL 2017
TIME: 05:00
ROSE HAD LITTLE IDEA WHAT AS WAKING HER UP. There was something familiar in the noise but as she woke up, she knew it was early. Her husband stirred as she moved about, trying to ignore the noise and go back to sleep. But it was persistent. As soon as it stopped, it would start again a few moments later. She opened her eyes as it finished and recognised it immediately as it started again. She turned to look at her alarm clock to see that it was just after five am. Why was the phone ringing this early? John wasn't on call. There was no need for the phone to be ringing so early.
She allowed it to ring one more time, hoping that whoever it was would give up so that she might go back to sleep for a little while longer. She sighed in frustration as the phone began ringing again. She pulled herself out of her husband's arms and out of the warmth of the bed into the cooler house. She allowed herself follow the sound rather than actually think about where she was going. She just wanted to get back into bed and back asleep. She was actually rather worried that John hadn't woken up and answered. Was it just because he knew that he wasn't on call? When she reached the phone, she picked it up without looking at the caller id.
"Hello." Rose said sleepily.
"Thank God Rose. I have been trying to call you for ages now. I am sorry to wake you but did you really have to leave it for the hundredth ring before you picked up."
She dragged her hand down her face. "Mum, what are you doing up this early?"
"Well, I was rudely awoken by these men that were looking for you. I told them that you hadn't lived here for sometime now before the started asking more and more questions. The more they asked, the more I got suspicious about what they wanted. I didn't tell you where you lived now but I have this feeling that they might be on their way to you and I don't know what they wanted but it just seemed … strange."
She dropped the phone to her chest. "John!" She shouted before returning the phone to her ear. "Thanks mum for warning us."
"Warning? Rose, what's going on?"
"To be honest, I don't know exactly but we have been told that someone could be after us soon and … well this sound like them." She paused. "Um, there might also be some things that might be said about us. Please don't believe them. This is all I can tell you because this is all I know."
"Rose ..."
Rose hung up before her mum could ask her any more questions. She would definitely not be going back to bed now. If the little bit of cryptic information they had was correct, they would probably be with them soon as they were probably listening into that call and it didn't help that her mum had called her a number of times as well. She ran up the stairs.
"John!" She shouted again when she realised that he wasn't awake yet.
He stirred again and she allowed him the time to wake up. She got dressed before checking to see if her husband was awake.
"Rose, what's going on? It is 5:15."
"You need to get up and get dressed." She said as she grabbed one of the big rucksacks they had brought especially for if this happened.
"Why?"
"My mum has just called me and I think what that note was warning us about is happening."
"Really?" He said throwing back the covers and getting up. "I don't understand why we have to run. We don't know anything."
"I know." She told him as she threw clothes into the rucksack.
"It just makes us look guilty."
"John, if you actually did what I asked you to do and look up the group that I told you to look up instead of just burying your head in the sand with all of this than you would know that they are ruthless and will stop at nothing to get what they want."
"And I told you that we had no problem from that group because they don't exist."
"I think they do." Rose told him before throwing a shirt at him. "Get dressed we are leaving soon."
John sighed before doing as he was told. Rose got the last few bits together, placing the food and money into one of the rucksacks. She opened a drawer and picked out the parcel in it. She poured the contents of the envelope out on the worktop. She picked up the books that were sent and placed them in the rucksack before picking up the note and reading it over one more time. The note was short and sweet. It told them that there might be some people after them, an organisation. It told them that they didn't know when it was going to happen but to be prepared, with supplies and money, as cash. They had to do whatever they could not to be traced.
Rose folded it up and placed it in her pocket. She knew that she would want another look at it later. She returned back to the bedroom to see John ready, with his coat and rucksack on his back. She picked up her coat and put it on before placing the rucksack on.
"Ready?" She asked.
"As I would ever be."
It was now 5:45am. As Rose and John Smith left the house, that they had lived in since they got married a few years ago, the streets were quiet. There was no one about, with all the lights still off in every house they passed as they walked further away from the house they had brought. She pulled her coat closer to her, hoping to keep some warmth in. For an April morning, it was still quite crisp, with a slight chill in the air. Rose hoped that it wouldn't be like that all morning or even all day. They had no idea where they were going but she knew that they would have to walk for a bit before trying to hitch-hike. Anyone that would pass them now would be from where they were running from. They would ask questions that she was sure that they wouldn't be able to answer.
"You know, I do know a shorter route." John said after they had been walking for a while.
"So do I but we need to be keeping a low profile. We have no idea where these people are. It won't be for much longer. Once we hit the next town, we will hitch-hike. We will just have to decide where we are going to go."
"You're thinking about the books again."
Rose turned to him. "I can't help but think that they might have been a clue. I suppose we will find out when we meet the person who sent them to us."
"Did it never occur to you that the people after us may also have sent the books?"
It did cross her mind. It crossed her mind as soon as a package that she knew she hadn't order turned up and what the content was. But she had always wondered why someone would identify themselves, if they wanted them to walk into some sort of trap. It made no sense to her. It must have been sent from someone else. She hoped that whoever it was sent from knew more about it than they did. They had no idea what was going on and what they had seemingly got themselves into.
LOCATION:WOLVERHAMPTON
DATE: 21ST APRIL 2017
TIME: 15:00
The last six days had been exhausting.
They had managed to arrive in Wolverhampton, 115 miles from home. They had managed to hitch-hike quite a bit but they had walked more than they would have liked to. There were also a couple of days when they also slept rough. There was a few B&B that wouldn't accept their money because they couldn't offer them any ID to back up who they were. Rose didn't really think that they could use their own names, especially after looking through a free newspaper and seeing their names printed in there. They had just been dropped off by someone that had picked them up and settled in a cafe as they tried to work out where the were going to go next. Rose looked down at the two books in front of her.
"I still don't understand the books." John said as he joined her, placing down the tray on the table.
"I think they might be a clue as to where we should head to."
"Maybe we should have read them."
"Gawain and the Green Knight is an Arthurian story. I thought that was all set in Cornwall and Devon." John said. "I can't see how it relates to Pride and Prejudice."
"Pride and Prejudice. That is an English Classic." The person on the table next to them said. "Sorry couldn't help but overhear."
They both turned and looked at the man next to them.
"We are doing this treasure hunt thing with our friends." Rose explained. It was the only thing she could think of at that moment to explain what was going on. "We were sent these two books as some sort of clue as to where we are meant to go to meet our friends or pick up the next clue or … I don't know, we just don't know where we are meant to be going."
"Well, I know that Pride and Prejudice is set in Hertfordshire and Derbyshire mainly. Although all the places in Hertfordshire she did make up. I mean in Derbyshire, you have Chatsworth house that was used in one of the films. So my bet would be there."
Rose turned back to John. "How far are we from there?"
John took out the phone that they had brought especially for this. He loaded up the internet before putting in where they were and placing in Chatsworth. As he waited for it to load, he took a sip of his tea.
"Just looked up Gawain and the Green Knight for you." The man said, bringing their attention back to him. "There are people that believe that Lud's Church in the Peak District is the Green Chapel that Gawain went to when he faced the Green Knight. If anything, I think your friends are pointing you to the Peak District."
"It is about 70 miles from here." John offered.
"He could be right."
The whole cafe quietened down. Rose and John looked around to see them looking at them. Rose's eyes flicked to the TV set that was in the corner of the room, showing their faces, with the headline that they were dangerous fugitives and that should not be approached. The reporter when onto say that they had killed many people and any information about their whereabouts should be given to the police. Rose grabbed the books while John grabbed the food that they had brought. They made their way out of the cafe as fast as they could before the police could be called. They made their way down the streets, running like crazy. They only stopped when they reached an alleyway, taking their time to get themselves together.
"I don't think we will be hitch-hiking any more." Rose commented.
"It's going to be a long walk."
"And we are going to have to keep low now."
John let out a groan of frustration. "What is happening? That's all I want to know. Kate hasn't contacted."
"Kate? Who is Kate?"
He looked away from her, staring down the alley. She hoped that he was coming up with a good explanation. He really needed it. She had never heard of a Kate before.
"She's no one." He ended up saying. "We should get moving."
He placed his rucksack back on his back before starting to walk of.
This Kate didn't seem like no one. The way he said it made it seem that this Kate would know what was going on or she would let him know what was going on. There was a part of his life that he was rather secretive about. The part between graduating from university to getting the job he was in now. Rose was going out with him then but he would never tell her what he did for a living. Now she was worried. Did he do something and now was it coming back to haunt them?
