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The banging on the door didn’t stop until Howie woke up and asked who was at the door. “Just wanted to make sure you were up for your lunch.” They heard Andy yell back. He opened up the door and slid in their food. “You were asleep during lunch but the boss told me to bring you a little once you woke up. Hope you enjoy.” With that he slammed the door shut leaving them staring at the small amount of food in front of them. “Well, let’s ration this out.” A.J. said trying to bring their spirits up some. It was still freezing cold in the room and they weren’t given any blankets. After they had lunch, they went back over their plan. “Should we split up?” Gina asked. Kevin thought for a minute and then shook his head. “I don’t think so. We tried that last time. I don’t think we should try it again. If we do the plan where we take the hinges off the door and go out it, then we should take our shoes off and walk as quietly as possible in a line against the wall.” Gina nodded, and Kevin went on. “A guy should be in the front leading and another one in the back with the girls in the middle. Is that okay with you?” He asked Nick, Howie and A.J. They agreed and then A.J. said, “Alright, what if we can’t get the hinges off. We’ll go to plan B, which is to go out the window. If we do that, then we’ll have to take the glass out of the window and tie some of our jackets together to make a rope so we can climb down. We won’t take our shoes off though because the rope probably won’t be long enough and we’ll have to drop. Trust me that hurts if you don’t do it without shoes too!” They laughed and then he continued. “Like before a guy will go down first, and then the girls, with the other guys in the back.” Howie took a deep breath and said, “This isn’t going to be easy. I think we need one more escape plan to get out. Just in case those other two don’t work.” Nick shrugged, “Have you got any ideas?” He asked Howie. “Well, sort of. The last thing we could do if the others don’t work would be to try and get out when they bring us our food. We could try and knock the guy out and then get out.” A.J. nodded. “Okay, we now have 3 plans, what about when we get out of the house? We try and go out the back gate, if that doesn’t work, then we try going over the fence. And if that doesn’t work then we have to try for the front gate, which would be the hardest.” Liz sighed, this was not going to be easy and she prayed that they would be able to get out. None of them said a word for a while. They were al thinking about the plans, hoping that one of them would work. “We’d better get a little more sleep. We shouldn’t even try to get out until it’s dark.” Once again they laid back down and tried to go to sleep.
Liz woke up a few hours later and glanced at her watch to see what time it was. Five ‘o clock. Quietly she got up and looked out the window. The sun was starting to set. She covered the window again and walked around the room. They was nothing in the room that would help them get out. They was no furniture or anything. Nothing was on the walls. She wondered what the room was used for before these men had gotten a hold of it. She also wondered what would become of the house if they were caught. It was suck a beautiful house she hoped that someone would buy it and take care of it. She laughed quietly, here she was thinking about what would happen to the house when the men were caught and they hadn’t even escaped yet. She sat back down and tried to go to sleep again. Two hours later Heather, Gina and A.J. woke up. They were talking quietly when Nick woke up thirty minutes later. Once again they were discussing the plans. “Are you guys still talking about that?” Nick asked. Heather nodded, “We sure are, want to join us?” Nick came over there and sat down with them. “Is Liz still asleep?” He asked casually as he looked over at her. “Yea, why?” Gina asked with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “I was just wondering.” Nick replied, blushing. They continued to talk until the others got up and by this time it was six-thirty. “I wonder when they’re going to bring us our dinner.” Heather said. No one knew, but they didn’t have to wait long. Thirty minutes later John came up with some food. There was more food this time. “Here, I put some more food on there. Eat is fast and don’t let anyone know I gave you more.” He quickly gave them the food, locked the door and left. Howie, who was the closest to the door and had the food, was still in shock. “Did he just do something nice?” He asked puzzled. “I don’t think he even wants to be here.” Liz said. “I’ve watched his facial expressions when Joe said some things and he didn’t look to happy.” Gina nodded, “I know, Kevin and I overheard him talking to Andy and he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of ‘getting rid of us.’ He was upset and didn’t say much after that.” They ate their dinner in silence as they thought about John. After they had finished eating they tried to think of something to kill time. They had at least two and a half-hours before they would even consider escaping. They were really thinking about leaveing at midnight, just to be safe. Which would mean they had four hours to find something to do. None of them were tired because they had slept all day. “Ok, does anyone have any ideas of what we can do?” Nick asked. Howie raised his hand and was waving it around like a four-year-old. “Oh oh! Can we play hide-and-seek?” The others laughed as he pretended to look for them. “Where are you?” He stopped because he was laughing so hard he couldn’t talk anymore. “Does anyone have any practical ideas of things we could do?” He asked again after everyone had finished laughing. No one had any ideas so they started talking about how well the concert went and how many more concerts they had left to do. Somehow they went from talking about that to what they were getting people for Christmas. Then when they finished talking about that they started talking about the weather. Liz had been talking about how she wished it would snow when she stopped talking mid sentence. No one moved, except for Kevin who looked at his watch. It was now eleven-fifteen. “What is it?” Heather asked Liz. Liz didn’t say anything but motioned for them to be quiet. Then they heard it; there were footsteps on the stairs. There was only forty-five minutes away from their escape time and someone was coming up. She hoped that this wouldn’t change any plans.
The footsteps stopped at the door and slowly they heard the key turn in the lock. Then the door opened and John looked into the room at the shocked faces. He told them to be quiet and not to say a word. Then he said, “I heard you talking about your escape plan and I wanted to help. Take your shoes off and get your things.” No one moved and then Nick said, “How can we know that you’re helping us and not on their side?” John sighed, “I guess you’ll just have to trust me. I thought at first that I was on their side until they started talking about…” He shifted uneasily as if he didn’t want to say the words. “well about killing you. I thought that all they wanted was the money and I needed some and decided to help. I didn’t know anything about killing people; otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten into all this mess. Whether you believe me or not is up to you.” Liz took off her shoes and slowly stood up, and walked over to John. Still none of the others moved. “What are you waiting for?” Liz hissed. “Even if he is on their side he knows our plans and we would never get out. This is our only chance now, and we have to take that chance.” Nick took off his shoes and stood by Liz and then the other soon followed; though they were hesitant. “Ok, stay close behind me and walk as quietly as you can.” Then he led them down the hall and into the last room. Then he took them down a different flight of stairs that led into the kitchen.