Sanctuary from Harm - 8. Sanc Chapter 8

“Very well, continue please Hunter,” Mr Grantley said from beside me, as Scott quietly opened the doorway in the pantry, and tapped on my shoulder, to indicate that it is open, “Ok, first four trustees, hold out your left arm, and a team member will grab hold and direct you from there,” I stated, and I grabbed hold of Mr Grantley’s arm and gently led him through into the pantry.

“Ok, we are passing through a narrow door, then turning left immediately, and two steps before we start to go down some stairs,” I said to Mr Grantley, as I guided him down and into the cellar, before following along the wall, with four turns, before entering the door into the tunnel, as we had rehearsed, instead of just doing a 180 degree turn and going straight to the door, so as to try and disorientate them.

Once we had entered the entry foyer on the lower level of the 2nd warehouse, I instructed Mr Grantley to take off his blindfold. “We are in the warehouse, on the lower level are we not?” Mr Grantley stated, and I chuckled a little as my son arrived with my mother on his arm, followed with Nathan with Christie, and Brent with my father.

“Ok, remove your blindfolds now,” I instructed to the others, and they did, and looked at the small narrow room, with a square room at each back corner, which is the stairs.

“Welcome to one of two main buildings, yes that is right, I have so far only revealed to the trustees, that there is just one building, but this one which is identical in size, but only has three levels instead of four, is just a few metres to one side of the other one. We are currently in the sports and recreation building, which has 4 basketball courts on this lower level, and two indoor soccer pitches on the ground floor.

Also, on this level, we have a multi-purpose hall, while upstairs there is a gymnasium and sports changerooms, and two storerooms and a utility room,” I announced, as the other headed back to get the rest of the trustees. While waiting for them to arrive, I showed my parents Ms Jacobs and Mr Grantley, the sports rooms and hall.

Once the others had arrived, and they were shown the sports courts and hall before Nathan led them all upstairs to the ground floor. “Hunter who is this boy, who seems to have appeared out of nowhere?” Michelle Adamson asked when she finally noticed that my son had joined the group, and both of my parents smiled as I chuckled.

“Why this is our grandson, he lives here with my son, and we are both fine with that,” my father stated, which surprised Michelle a lot. “It is fine Michelle, he is well looked after believe me, after what my grandson went through with his mother and step-father, he is in a much better place here,” my mother stated.

After the tour of the three levels of the second warehouse, I led the way, through the passageway to the main building, turning left at the T junction, away from the way we came before, as we entered the entry foyer on the lower level. “Now I know where we are,” Mr Grantley stated when he entered the foyer.

“Yes, sir, and nothing has changed down on this level, but for the benefit of your two newest members, I will show you all around anyway,” I replied. When we stepped into the garden atrium on the ground floor, the two ladies looked shocked to see such an amazing place, filled with trees and plants, and a huge water feature.

“We wanted to make it look homely for the residents, so we felt it important to have plants, and rooms with various colours on the walls, so as it is not too bleak,” I stated to the two stunned women. “Well it is certainly alive with colour, it is almost like being in Italy or southern Europe” Christie stated, and Michelle nodded her head in agreement to what she said.

Nathan led the way into the open lounge area, with the staff offices around it, and we showed them the tennis courts, before backtracking to enter the dining area and kitchen. Nathan was standing next to me when Mr Grantley opened the door into the loading bay, and he gave me a little nudge with his elbow and indicated that direction, and we smiled, as we waited for Mr Grantley to respond to what he saw.

“So, it is true, there is only one way in and out of here?” he said looking a little surprised. “That is correct sir, but there are two emergency exits, located on the first floor of both buildings, above the loading bays, where there are small balconies, and retractable stairs, to get down to the rear carpark area of both buildings.

We also have fire hoses located at each end and the middle of the ground floor, on the back walls of each building, plus fire extinguishers, are located in key areas, like the workshops, kitchen, and the two solar power stations, which used to be the loading bays” Nathan explained.

After seeing the residential accommodation and lounge areas on the first floor, we made our ways to the top floor of the main building. “On this level we have our gardens, that provide a large amount of our fruit and vegetables, we also have chickens to supply us with eggs, and all the staff are also accommodated on this level, my son and I have our own apartment, located above the billiards room downstairs,” I stated to the trustees.

“Well, I am very impressed with this place, it is roomy, has all the required facilities, has all the safety measures installed, and is extremely secure. I would recommend this place to anyone that needed to come here,” Christie stated, “That is a decision made by the project team and no one else, we have a particular set of requirements for people to enter this place, and we do not accept any recommendations or referrals at this stage,” I said in reply.

“Will that be the case all the time?” Michelle asked, “No, Ma’am, it won’t be, at the moment, we have a list of potential residents or clients, already waiting to enter this facility, not that they know about it just yet, but they will, and our set programme is designed for short term stays, which is a maximum of three months, so until we have the first two or three groups passed through our facility, no there will be no referrals,” I responded.

“How are you selecting these homeless clients that will be entering the project, Hunter?” I was asked by Mrs Grantley, who has until now, remained silent for all of the tours so far. “With the work, I have been doing as a Family and youth counsellor, over the past decade, or so I am fully aware of who are homeless and are at risk, so with that knowledge, I have put together the list of potential clients.

The majority of the clients are male, aged from 16 to 19 years old, with half a dozen females also in that same age bracket, but until we get some female staff working at the project, they will not be entering just yet,” I explained. “All of the clients are homeless because they have been kicked out of home, or have been forced to flee home due to the harmful environment.

Of the 28 male clients that we have on the list, over 30% of them identify themselves as LBGTI, so that has its own problems, on top of being a hormonal teenager, who has been forced to grow up a lot faster than usual, because of their homelessness,” Nathan added.

“I see, well thank goodness that we have a group of angels to help build a sanctuary for them, so they can have shelter, food, clothing and activities to do, to assist them to get through this difficult time,” Christie stated.

“I guess you could say a big thank you to my son Jonah for giving me the inspiration to do this, at first I had no idea what to do with these buildings until I discovered that Jonah had run away from home because of the difficult time he was having at my ex-wife’s home, but thankfully we found him safe and well, and he is now happy at his new home,” I said to everyone gathered.

“After some thought about this, I have come to the conclusion, that there is a tunnel system from below the house that leads to the two warehouses, was this something that you boys had built, or was it already there?” Mr Grantley asked, “It was already in place when I bought the property, and although I knew I owned all three buildings, it was only recently that the tunnel was discovered,” I replied.

“Well, I see why you put us through all the blindfold and everything, but I think that now we know, there is no need to go through all of that on the way back,” my Mum stated, and I smiled and nodded my head. “No there isn’t, so why not head back the way we come, and you will discover where in the house that we end up, and we can head to the main lounge room in the house, which we have set up as a conference room,” I replied.

Once in the conference room, we all sat down, and after a twenty-minute discussion, the meeting was called to an end by Mr Grantley, and Charles and Nathan ferried the trustees back to the Grantley residence, so they can head home, while I made sure that Jonah prepared for bed.

The following morning, Nathan informed me that he had found on a local internet garden page, that a local high school festival was being held today, and that there are lots of advanced trees and shrubs for sale. After completing breakfast, Nathan, Jonah and I headed to the school festival, to see what is available for sale.

I was surprised when I saw a large selection of Ficus trees, the smaller trees being just 60 cm’s tall, and are in 40 cm diameter square pots, while the larger trees are about 1.6 to 2 metres tall, and are in 60 cm diameter pots, and after some discussions with Nathan, we decided to buy eight of the smaller trees, and just four of the larger trees, as that is all that we would be able to fit into our two vehicles.

Once we had bought and loaded the trees into the vehicles, we set off to explore the rest of the festival, and I let Jonah enjoy some of the rides, and for him to buy a few things for himself, before we set off back to the admin centre of the project, wondering how we were going to get all of these plants into the second warehouse, which has no plants in it at all.

With thick glass walls, between the gymnasium and the two soccer pitches, on both levels, and with a glass skylight on the roof, there is plenty of sunlight coming into the ground and upper levels of the second warehouse, and we had decided to place the potted trees on the balconies and the hallways, where all the trees will get plenty of natural sunlight.

With the assistance of the other guys, we managed to get all the trees out of the vehicles, through the house, down the stairs, through the tunnel and up some more stairs, until we finally had all the pots in place. All of us were exhausted after completing that task, and it was decided by the majority to take it easy for the rest of the day since we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.

I was hoping that with our two warehouses, being fairly identical to the other six in the group, that our project would remain fairly anonymous, but unfortunately that was not the case, when I was woken by the smell of smoke, and the sound of breaking glass, and looking out my window, which faces the front carpark and the street, with other warehouses across the street, I was horrified to see that the one directly across the road was full ablaze.

Quickly dressing, I went and woke up Jonah and told him to get dressed, as there was a fire in the warehouse opposite, while I rushed out of the apartment to wake up the other guys, but Nathan was already up and banging on the doors of the other guy's rooms.

“Nate, is the sprinkler system on the roof completed and operational?” I asked him, as the sound of a small explosion shook the building. “Yes, it is, I will go and activate both of them, to make sure our buildings stay safe,” Nathan replied, “Good, and get one of the other guys to go and water down the roof of the admin centre to, in case sparks jump over the building,” I added.

Once we were all outside of the admin centre, with both vehicles parked on the side of the street, in front of the admin centre, Jonah settled into the back of my vehicle to get some more sleep, and I stood nearby, while Nathan was activating the roof sprinklers on both warehouses, and Scott and Charles were nearby watering the roof of the admin centre with the two garden hoses.

“Good evening, do any of you know anything about accessing these two warehouses, as we… Well, I be, hello Hunter, what brings you to this neck of the woods?” one of the fire officers said as he approached us. “G’day Greg, I live here, and I also own the two warehouses in question, and they will be fine, as we have roof sprinklers to protect it from embers and fires” I replied, to one of my former university mates, who had pulled out of his studies to join the fire service.

“Well that is smart thinking, have you been inside to check that all is ok in there?” the fire officer asked, who has two pips on his shoulder, “Yes Greg we have, it is a bit hard to explain, but we are an NGO – Non Government Organisation, working with homeless young people, and we would like to keep it low key as possible,” I explained, “I see, well I am a station officer, hence the pips on my shoulder, I better get back to work, can I get you to give me a call tomorrow morning at around 9 am?” Greg said as he handed over one of his business cards.

“Yes, sure mate, stay safe,” I replied, and Greg nodded his head, before heading off around the corner, to the other street where the fire is located, just as police cars began to arrive, and they began to start evacuating the area, because of the fire.

Nathan arrived and handed me the keys to his vehicle. “I’m heading inside to keep an eye on things inside, it looks like everyone is being cleared out of the area, so I will stay and keep watch on the buildings,” Nathan said to me, before he opened the garage door and dashed inside the admin centre, closing the door behind him.

When Scott and Charles appeared and asked where Nathan is, I explained that he would stay inside and keep guard of the buildings, and I handed the car keys to Charles. “I guess we are heading to my parent’s place, since it is the closest,” I commented, and we climbed into the two vehicles and headed off. During the journey, I called Mum and Dad and explained about the neighbouring warehouse fire, and that four of us are heading over there to camp the night, as the area is being evacuated by the police.

Jonah managed to get back to sleep quite quickly, once he had settled into my old bedroom, while Charles and Scott would share the guest bedroom, with its two single beds, and I would take the lounge. After a hot shower, and a bit of a struggle, I managed to get some sleep, and woke at the sound of noises and cooking smells coming from the kitchen, so reluctantly I climbed off the couch and stretched, to remove the kinks out of my back.

Jonah was already up, dressed and eating breakfast, as were my parents, as I glanced at the clock, with read 8.23 am, before heading to the bathroom to wash up, before knocking on the guest bedroom to wake the others up and heading back to the kitchen.

During breakfast, my parents agreed to look after Jonah, while the lads and I checked on the situation at the project, and we were just finishing when a message came through. “Good morning, the warehouses and admin centre are all fine, although one of the firemen tried to bash down the back door when there was no answer.

Your mate Greg stopped him from getting through, and I saw him before they left, two hours ago, and he explained what had happened and apologised, for the junior firefighters over-enthusiasm. The door will have to be replaced as it is a mess, but it is still secure, only just, Nate.”

I quickly sent a message back, “Hi mate, thanks for the update, we are just about finished breakfast, and will be heading over shortly. Are the roads still blocked off by the police? Have you had any sleep at all?” before letting everyone know about the message that I had received.

“Only the front street facing the fire-damaged warehouse and the street behind it, plus the connecting side street have been closed off, so you should be able to get to the admin centre no probs. I will head to bed after you guys have arrived, I am in the admin centre kitchen at the moment,” Nathan had responded.

“Ok see you soon mate,” I replied, and after helping to clean up the kitchen, Scott, Charles and I headed back to the project. As we approached the street the project, the road ahead was indeed blocked off by a police vehicle, and we indicated and turned left towards the admin centre, which is next door to the corner coffee shop and house that is on the corner, which is closed.

Opposite the admin centre and coffee shop are a number of small businesses, a print shop, a photography studio, and further down the street there is a grounds & garden equipment hire store, and a fuel service station on the other corner, while along the side of the admin centre, there are 4 more houses, most of them built around the same time as the admin centre, with most of then looking a little tired and run down.