“mmmppphhh!!!” Victoria moaned through her gag as she struggled against the ropes holding her tightly hogtied on the floor. The teenage girl was soaked with sweat from her exertions and she’d rubbed the bare skin of her wrists raw straining against the coils of rough rope that bound her hands. Despite all that, her bonds remained as tight as ever. The poor girl’s shoulders burned from the strain of the hogtie, her jaw ached from being forced to accommodate the massive wad of cloth stuffed in her mouth to keep her quiet and the thick band that kept her effectively muzzled.

Close by, hidden in the darkness of Victoria’s blindfold, Hilary and Amy sobbed miserably into their own gags. The two girls’ bonds were just as cruelly restrictive as Victoria’s. Amy was still struggling, grunting loudly as she squirmed, but for all her efforts, she remained stringently tied up. Hilary had already given up trying to get free herself, as futile. She lay on the ground, whimpering softly.

Victoria was tempted to do the same, give up, lie down and cry. Everything seemed hopeless. But she knew she couldn’t give up. At the moment, the phantom had left the room to go and collect Bethany from the trap she’d fallen afoul to. Victoria felt this might be her only chance. If she could free herself, while their captor was out, she and Hilary might be able to get away. If not…Victoria shuddered to think what might happen to the four of them, in the clutches of the cruel white slaver…

Squirming furiously, Victoria continued struggling… “uuhghh! Uunghh!” Victoria grunted into her gag. The teenage girl strained to raise her feet up further and further. Sweat beaded her brow, soaking into the cloth of her blindfold. Her shoulders and back burned from the strain but she managed to lift her legs back a few inches further. The rope of her hogtie slacked and her bound hands brushed against the heels of her shoes.

Hurriedly, Victoria felt around, blindly. After a moment, she felt the coils of rope that circled her ankles with crushing tightness. The tips of her fingers felt the knot. As quickly as she could, she began tugging at it, trying to loosen the cords.

“unn…ugghh!!” With a groan, Victoria was unable to keep bent back like that any longer. She slumped down onto the cold stone floor again. The rope running between her hands and feet went taut again, forcing her to keep her legs raised. For a moment, Victoria slumped over, gasping for air around the thick cloth muzzle of her gag.

The teenage girl knew she couldn’t lie still for much longer. The phantom could come back at any moment. Groaning, Victoria again strained to bring the knots binding her feet back into reach of her fingers. This time, she found the knot straight away and went to work, trying to loosen it. She kept at it for a minute longer before the strain of holding the unnatural position got the better of her and she slumped over again.

Occasionally, as she wriggled on the floor, Victoria brushed up against Hilary. A couple times, Victoria had grunted to her friend, trying to get her attention, help her with the ropes, but the young woman hadn’t heard her or understood Victoria’s meaning, lost in her own misery.

Finally, after what felt like hours of struggle, Victoria undid the last loop of the knot. She sighed in relief as the young woman felt the ropes around her ankles loosen, the pressure of the hogtie ropes, around her wrists slacked off. Hurriedly, Victoria kicked off the ropes around her legs and rolled over into a sitting position. She knew she didn’t have much time before the phantom returned.

Grunting loudly through her gag, Victoria strained against the rope cinched tight around her wrists. Now, without the weight of her feet pulling on her arms, the teenage girl was able to twist her arms more, leveraging them against her bonds. After a moment, Victoria began to feel the pressure against her wrists loosen. Finally, with a groan, the young woman slipped her hands out of their bonds.

Victoria sighed in relief as she reached up and quickly pulled the horrid gag out of her mouth and spat out the wad of soggy cloth the phantom had stuffed in to keep her quiet. “Hilary! Amy! I’m free!” She gasped, as she reached up to remove her blindfold. Beside Victoria, her two friends groaned joyfully through their gags.

Victoria struggled to her feet. She wobbled slightly on unsteady legs. They were weak after spending so long tightly bound. Taking a step forward, the young woman peered down the near pitch black tunnel entrance; the one the phantom had exited through. She listened for a moment, but to her relief, it didn’t sound like the phantom was close by.

“Mmmpphhh!!!” Down by Victoria’s feet, Hilary grunted into her gag, trying to get her friend’s attention. She squirmed in her bondage, anxious to be free. Beside her, Amy squirmed around, wiggling her tightly bound hands and feet and grunting loudly, ready to be untied.

“Oh, right!” Victoria said, remembering they had little time. Kneeling down beside the teenage girls, Victoria untied her friends as quickly as she could. They groaned in relief as the ropes circling their bodies loosened.

“Let’s get out of here!” Hilary said, voice quavering, as she pulled her gag off. “Quick, before the phantom gets back!”

“Hang on…” Victoria said, walking across the chamber. “I just want to see something…”

“Victoria!” Hilary wailed. “We need to go right now!” Victoria ignored her friend. Amy shrugged and hurried after her, Hilary not wanting to try and find her way around the tunnels alone, shuffled after the two.

Leaning over the machine, Victoria quickly examined the set up. The brass switches and levers were labeled with small tags. A group of buttons were labeled: First Floor Trapdoors: 1-16. A long series of switches were marked as: Wall Panels 1a all the way to 3z. It all looked very complex to Victoria.

Taped here and there, beside the different controls were dozens of yellow Post-It notes with a cramped, but neat writing on them. Everything from “Broken” to “Needs oiling” and “allow three second delay for activation.”

Lying, half folded up; on the control panel was a set of old, very complex schematics of some sort. After a moment, Victoria realized these were the blueprints the phantom had talked about, showing the entire mansion, including all of the traps and the secret passageways! They to, were covered in extensive notes, in the same neat, cramped handwriting, detailing repairs and modifications made around the house.

“Victoria! Look at this!” Amy said, suddenly, tugging on her arm. The teenage girl tore her attention away from the blueprints to the computer desk beside it. Amy pointed to one of the screens.

Victoria’s eyes widened in shock. As she’d expected, the screens were showing feed from a number of hidden cameras. On the screen Amy was pointing to, she saw the phantom walking down the corridor. Trailing after him, cruelly leashed at the neck by a rope, was Beth! The young woman struggled helplessly against the ropes binding her arms and chest.

“We need to do something!” Hilary said, nervously, peering over the shoulders of the other two girls.

“Right…” Victoria replied, glancing at the number of the camera feed. Hurriedly, she turned back to the blueprints. After a moment, she smiled. Luckily, the phantom had marked the locations of his cameras on the blueprints. After a moment, she figured out, they were heading down a long hallway, towards camera ‘015’. A short ways away, there was an entrance down into the tunnel complex, which according to a note, was accessed via a stuffed moose head.

She looked over the traps in that area of the mansion. It looked as if he was getting close to an icon marked as “net trap no.12.” She pointed this out to Amy and Hilary. After a moment, Amy found a series of levers, on the far side of the panel, which was labeled as “Net Traps”.

Victoria glanced back and forth quickly, between the security footage and the blueprints, trying to gauge the distance as the phantom slowly walked down the hallway, dragging the struggling Beth behind him, while Amy stood by the lever, ready to pull it.  

Gritting her teeth, Victoria muttered to herself. “Right…about…Now!” she shouted to Amy. The teenage girl pulled the lever. Immediately, Victoria realized she’d waited too long. On the screen, she saw a hidden panel on the ceiling drop open, while the phantom passed underneath it. A second later, a heavy net, weighted down, fell over Beth, wrapping up the startled captive girl, pinning her to the floor.

The phantom spun around, just as surprised as his prisoner. Immediately, though, he realized what had happened. Dropping the leash, he sprinted down the hallway, towards the secret passageway. Fearfully, Victoria looked over the plans, desperately trying to find another trap, before the phantom reached the secret door.

The three teenagers scanned the rows of labels, searching for anything they could use.    “There!” Victoria cried out. Near the top, right corner of the control panel was a series of switches. The small sign below them read, “Locking Mechanisms: Entrances… Windows… Interior Doors 1…2…3…” The first two switches were flipped up. She reached up and flipped the rest of them.

She turned back to the security monitors just in time to see the phantom reach the end of the hallway. The man grabbed the doorknob. To Victoria’s relief, the door didn’t open. On the screen, the phantom swore, kicking at the door. The old-fashioned thick oak door held firm under his blows, but sooner or later, it would give in…

The young woman looked back to the chart, to see if there were any more traps between the phantom and them. Victoria’s eyes lit up, a grin crossed her face. Leaning over the console Victoria found the right panel of switches and flipped one of them…

She turned back to the surveillance screen just in time to see the trapdoor open up underneath the phantom’s feet. With a startled cry, the robed figure threw up his hands as he tumbled down the shaft. A few seconds later, tangled up and cursing, the phantom reappeared on another screen, in one of the cells in the dungeon…

***

“I have to say, you ladies are very lucky…” the police officer said. “The FBI’s been trying to catch this guy for months. He’s a suspect in over two dozen missing person cases, all of them involving young women. They’d almost had him back in LA, a few weeks ago, but he slipped away before they could nab him. And now he turns up on the other side of the country, playing ghost in some kind of crazy fun house! That’s incredible…”

It was morning. The storm that had raged most of the night had died out, leaving only a few scattered clouds to mar the early morning sun rise. After freeing Bethany, and making sure the ‘phantom’ wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon, Victoria and Amy had hiked back down the main road to try and flag a passing car.

After a short walk, Amy’s cellphone had picked up a signal, letting them call the police, who’d arrived at the mansion minutes later. The officers had been dumbfounded when the teens had shown them the secret passageways and even more so upon seeing the dungeon underneath and the phantom, trying without much luck to climb back up the trapdoor chute.

Underneath his cloak, the “phantom” had proven to be a man in his late thirties with tangled black hair and a narrow grim face, marred by a knife scar across one side. According to the officers, he usually went by the alias Bart Roberts.

“I’ll get you meddlesome girls for this! Just you wait!” he’s shouted while the police cuffed the man and threw him in a squad car. Now the four girls were standing in front of the house, having finished giving their statements to the officers.

“Thanks to you girls, we’ll finally be able to put Mr. Roberts away for a long, long time…” the officer said, putting his notebook away. “We put a couple gallons of gas in your van, so you should be able to get back to town alright.” He added.

“Thank you.” Beth said, smiling. “We’re happy we could help bringing that crook to justice.”

“There isn’t, by any chance, a reward for his capture, is there?” Amy added, helpfully.

The policeman chuckled. “Not that I’m aware of, but I’ll be sure to let you know.” He opened the door of his squad car and got in. “Have a nice day, girls.” With a last wave, he started the car and drove off.

“Well, that was certainly an adventure…” Beth said as the four got into their van.

“hmm…I think I could do with a break from any more adventures like this, for a while.”
Victoria replied.

“Really?” Amy said. “I’ve heard there’s been a sighting of a sea monster, down near Briny Bay, which has been linked with disappearances of ships in the area.”

“A beach trip sounds like a great idea…” Victoria said with a smile. “though I’m not so wild about sea monsters…”