Us.
Mikey wouldn’t do this without being forced to, right? He’s following someone’s orders. But whose?
“Amy,” I whisper, feeling the urgency vibrate in my words. “You swear Mikey’s never been down here?”
“Why would he…oh.” Her voice gets very small. “Is that why you’re down here? Did Mikey—what the hell would Mikey have to do with any of this?”
“I don’t know!” I gasp. “That’s what I’m trying to understand.”
“I just wish it would stop hurting,” she sobs. I can hear the push of her hand against the concrete floor, the rasp of her pants against my leg, the sound of abject horror and defeat in her words.
“I do, too.” Tears fill my eyes and I let them fall down my cheeks. The act of doing something is better than doing nothing. Even if all I can do is cry.
She says something, but it’s just muttering.
And then she slumps against me.
Her breathing goes regular. She’s passed out. I can’t see her. When she talks to me, it’s like I forget what’s really going on. Forget that someone hacked her arm off.
Forget that she may die, right here and right now, in my arms. Her shock and physical pain must be staggering.
I force myself to breathe in and out twenty times. I ignore the stench of her blood. It’s especially hard to not pay attention to the underlying odor of decay. Infection will set in soon.
I may have found Amy alive, but how much longer can she stand this?
And when will the butcher and Frenchie come back?
I fumble on the ground for my water bottle. Forcing myself to move slowly, I take little sips. We have no idea when we’ll have water again. I pat my purse and make sure the other half of the croissant is in there. In my mind, I run through the contents of my purse.
By my memory, I have a few cough drops, some headache pills, my birth control packet, a tampon or two, my ID and some cash, the one secured credit card I could get with my lousy credit, and my car keys.
The croissant and cough drops are our only calories.
I feel myself calming down as I think strategically. I have no weapons. We have a tiny bit of food and water. Amy’s still breathing. She can move. I am strong and my stomach is full. We’re in the dark, but I can tell that far in the distance, behind Amy, there is a tiny light source somewhere.
We’re alive. We’re together. That has to count for something.
What I don’t know is how long it will take for Mark to realize I’m missing. Also unknown: Mikey’s role in all this. Is he running to tell Landau he has me trapped? Is he working with the dean and Frenchie? Is there some other reason why Mikey would trap me in here? Are Brian and Elaine part of all this?
Does Mikey know Amy and the other victims have been stored in here?
Too many questions. Too many uncertainties. I’m calmer when I inventory what I have. I’m calmer when I don’t think about what I don’t know.
“Calmer” is all in the eye of the beholder. How can I be calm when I’m sitting in a soundproof tomb with my dying best friend half conscious in my lap?
I have to stay focused. Panic will kill us.
Reason and logic are my only weapons.
Amy moves against me, her clothes rustling. I gently shift her, resting her head on my purse, and take some deep breaths. The air is cool and fairly dry. While I can smell our sweat, Amy’s blood, and a slightly musty odor, the room isn’t as nasty smelling as I’d expect.
And then there’s that faint light on the other side of the storage space.
I stand up and something brushes against my eyelashes and nose. I scream and paw at it.
It’s a spider web.
My heart feels like it’s resting under my tongue and beating a thousand times a minute. I frantically clear the web from my face and force myself to stay in place. I’m sure there are spiders and probably mice down here. Maybe worse. I’ve never heard of rats in the old bar, but you never know.
None of that matters right now.
I make myself take a step away from Amy and toward the dim light. One step. I stop.
I did it.
I can do it again.
Ten steps later I find myself off balance. The light isn’t growing any brighter. It’s just a vague, brownish light that I start to think is in my imagination. Maybe I’m going crazy and hallucinating this.
The ground becomes soft, then hard again. I backtrack, shuffling my toes on the ground.
Yes. There’s a divot. A soft spot, but it’s not dirt. More like a rubbery section.
I start to pitch to the left and reach my hand out. It touches wood. Ah, that’s right. The shelving along the walls. I’d forgotten about that. My finger cracks as it strikes a piece of wood, but at least I know where I am. Pain radiates from my finger. I keep walking.
My hand reaches the end of the shelves and just touches the concrete wall. Every foot or so there’s a small indent. The cement blocks are stacked on each other down here for the foundation. I’m feeling the groove where they separate.
And then I hit something made of metal. The cold, stark difference between the cement blocks and the steel makes me squeal. I go quiet, then hear a rustling sound. It’s tiny. It’s coming from in front of me.
Then I hear the unmistakeable sound of a mouse squeaking.
I go into instant panic mode. My eyes widen, desperate to see where I am so I can defend myself. I’m terrified of mice. Have been since I was little. The spider web earlier was freaky enough. A live mouse will make my blood burn and I’ll faint.
Dad used to tease me about my fear. Dad isn’t here. No one is here other than Amy, and I’m the strong one now. I’m her only hope.
I’m my only hope.
An ache for Mark hits me square between the breasts, like an arrow shot through the bone. I’ve been on my own for a very long time. The last three years were all about helping to get my dad exonerated. I know what it means to be completely on your own.
To have no one to lean on.
This is a completely different kind of aloneness.
I am it. It. No one else can save me or Amy. I can hope that somewhere above, Mark has started to figure out that I’m nowhere to be seen, but it could be hours. Even a full day before he figures out I’m not around—and that there’s a bad reason why.
I can’t rely on any assumptions. As I shuffle toward the metal thing in the wall I realize that every breath I take may be my last. Every internal freak out is a roadblock. I don’t have the luxury of having emotions any more.
Emotions are what you have when there’s time to feel.
And that time is gone for me.
The metal seems to be some sort of a handle. Weird. What could be down here, beneath the ground? Water lines, maybe. Electric or gas lines. I probably shouldn’t touch it. The last thing I need to do is accidentally turn on a water line and have this storage space fill up with water. Amy and I would drown.
Then again, if enough water started surging down here, wouldn’t someone in the building notice? The coffee shop isn’t the only business in this building.
What do I have to lose? I literally have nothing.
Nothing.
I feel for the handle and grasp it with both hands. Which way do I turn it? I remember Dad’s old saying:
Lefty loosy, righty tighty.
I turn to the left as hard as I can. It gives a little. I brace my foot against the hard wall and shove. It gives a little more. My knee still aches from being hurt a week ago. God, was that only a week?
Feels like a lifetime.
Three more tries and I feel it loosen. I pause, ready for something to go wrong. Water? Gas? Oil? Anything could come out of that pipe.
Anything.
I pull gently. The metal against metal has a seal, the sound like my dad opening a can of cocktail peanuts when he used to watch football games with Brian on Monday nights.
Hissssssss.
And then—nothing. The metal doesn�
��t creak or groan as I open the hatch. I feel for the edges of the little door, puzzled.
My fingers touch something slick as I feel for the door’s hinges. More blood? No. It’s viscous.
It’s oil.
Someone has oiled this door recently.
What in the fresh hell is this all about?
Wiping my hand on my pants, I brush against my back pocket. I feel a corner of something poking out from under the pocket flap.
Hold on.
Allie’s matches.
Hope sparks inside me.
I have light.
Frantic, I reach back and pull out the little packet of matches. Going entirely by feel, I open the flap and tear off a match. It goes flying into the darkness, my hands shaking and too forceful.
Deep breath, Carrie. Deep breath.
I force myself to slow down. This time, the match is between my thumb and index finger. I feel for the thin strip to strike it on.
Sweet mercy, I’m successful. The room lights up with the small glow of a single match.
Illuminating the true horror of what’s happening to me.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Streaks of dried blood cover the concrete floor. I can only see a few feet from the match tip, so I walk slowly back to Amy. I have to see her with my own two eyes again. I only got a glimpse of her before, when my phone’s flashlight app still worked. I was too shocked to really take in all the details.
She’s asleep now. I can see her chest move. She’s breathing. Thank God.
But her arm. Her missing arm. The bandage is caked with rust-colored blood, and her shirt is torn. I see a mean red streak running from the outer edge of the dirty gauze down into her armpit. It’s thick and angry.
Infection.
How much more is there?
And then the match dies out.
“Fuck!” I blurt out. The instant darkness has an added layer of terror to it. I never thought I’d be so grateful for a pack of matches. Such a simple thing. Something you take for granted.
But when your life is on the line, it’s the simple things that count.
I reach into my back pocket, find the matchbook, and light another one. As it dies down fast, I realize I need to conserve the matches. They are literally a lifeline. With fire and light as a tool, we have more of a chance to survive.
Without them, we’re in the dark.
I look around the room and spot a cardboard box. I peel a tiny bit of cardboard off one flap, then light it. I really need two hands to pull off more cardboard, but if I put the lit piece down, it could die out.
Or, worse, catch the entire room on fire.
Amy makes a groan of pain that makes me jump.
I have to decide fast.
Erring on the side of risk, I set the burning piece of cardboard down on the shelf, next to the box I’m trying to rip apart, and very quickly tear off a big chunk. I roll it tightly, like a torch, and try to light it.
No luck.
I pick up the small, burning piece and use it to light the way to my purse. For the next few minutes I play a game of holding the flaming piece of cardboard to see vs. setting it down to use my hands.
This isn’t working.
At one point, I glimpse a dark spot of blood at the base of one of the enormous coffee bean bags. It looks like a big pool of coffee crusted at the corner.
Weird.
As I inhale through my nose and hear my own breath grate against my skin, it dawns on me.
That’s not coffee.
And that bag is big enough to hold an entire human being.
My breathing quickens. I begin to pant, the room turning into hues of grey and brown, like an oil slick in swirls.
I need light.
I need air.
I need Mark.
I cannot die like this, trapped in a cage and waiting for my fate.
No.
Just no fucking no.
I paw through the contents of my purse, just randomly touching things. I don’t have a sense of meaning in anything I do. I just have to act.
In my purse, I find a lip balm. Perfect.
I feel like Girl Scout. Wax burns when lit. It holds a flame. Lip balm has a lot of wax in it. I take the lip balm stick and turn the base of it, then smear as much of the lip balm all over the inside and the outer edge of the cone of cardboard I create.
I am ignoring the giant coffee bean bag with the stain. If I pretend it isn’t there, I can focus. I can make light. I can give myself something.
I try to light it. No luck.
The flame dies out.
Mark.
His name flashes through my head like a prayer.
Where is he? How long have I been down here? How long will it take before he finds us?
And will he find us before the butcher Amy’s been babbling about gets here?
At the thought of the butcher, I grab the matchbook and work on lighting my improvised torch. I use up three matches in a row before it finally lights.
I could cry tears of joy right now. I did it.
But I have so much more to do before we’re safe.
The matchbook only has about ten matches left, and my torch won’t last for very long. The lip balm makes a terrible amount of smoke, and it smells like burning cherries. Maybe someone upstairs will smell the odd scent and come down and investigate.
I return to Amy and hold the torch up high. It’s burning slowly, so I have time.
I walk back to the hatch I found and hold the torch up to it.
It’s a nasty, foul pipe that is lined with a black gel.
And there’s a dead rat about twenty feet into it.
I shiver at the sight of the dead, furry body. My body crawls with creepy tingles and I feel my teeth crack together.
It’s a pipe, though. I’m small enough to fit in it if I wanted to belly crawl. It’s literally the size of an MRI machine at a hospital. I once had migraines in high school and the neurologist sent me in for an MRI. The tube was claustrophobic. My face was an inch from the machine.
That’s how small this hatch is.
But it may be my only hope, dead rat and all.
Amy groans again and I walk over to her. I can see my water bottle now. I walk quickly down the length of the storage room. All I see are boxes on shelves and bags of coffee beans. The boxes are all labeled with business paperwork names. Invoices. Labor. Accounts Payable. Accounts Receivable.
Where’s the one marked Guns? Working Cell Phone? First Aid? Escape Plan?
First aid. Maybe there’s a first aid kit down here. My mind focuses with pinpoint precision. I have a goal. As long as I create a series of small goals, I can keep moving forward without falling apart.
I paw through the shelves in the tiny, fading light from my torch. The boxes are full of nothing but paperwork. They are properly marked. There’s no sign of a first aid kit down here. No food. No water. No light switch, even.
I do find a box filled with tablecloths, all still in their plastic wrappings. Brand new. They look like they were bought from a restaurant supply company. Those could come in handy. As I open the box, my hand brushes against something hard behind it.
Glass.
I run over to the torch by Amy and bring it closer.
It’s a bottle of vodka, half consumed. Huh. Someone who works at the coffee shop is hiding their alcohol problem.
“Something,” I say in a sigh. “It’s something.” No, I don’t need to get drunk. And alcohol is the last thing Amy needs to drink right now. It thins your blood.
But it’s also an antiseptic. If we are down here for too long, I can pour it on her shoulder socket and at least try to manage her infection.
Finding the bottle of vodka gives me hope. What else might I find down here? I pull the boxes away from the wall.
SNAP!
I jump back and scream. I drop the torch. It fizzles out, leaving me jumping in my skin. What was that sound?
Amy groans and moves around. She stops.
Then I hear the unmistakeable scrabbling sounds of a rodent. It goes on and on. This isn’t a mouse or a rat moving stealthily in the corners.
This is the sound of a desperate animal.
I have to bend down to get the torch. What if the thing is on the floor, though, moving? My agitation takes on human form. It feels like my identical twin, living right under the surface of my skin.
As I take a step forward something brushes against my forehead.
I scream again.
“Is he here?” Amy moans. “I want my arm! I want my mom!” Her voice is weaker and weaker. I stand there, blind and filled with adrenaline that pumps through me like a firehose turned on high.
Mark.
Oh, please. Please, God, send Mark here. Now. Please. Please please please.
I force myself to feel on the ground for my half-burnt torch. I find it, then open my matchbook. In the dark, I count nine more matches.
I light the torch.
And then there were eight.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
A quick search leads me nowhere, but now we have tablecloths as blankets and alcohol. It’s better than nothing. I walk over to Amy and cover her with a tablecloth and place a folded one under her head.
I ignore the sounds of struggle coming from whatever creature is making those brushing sounds.
Finally, though, I have to go look.
It’s a mousetrap. A mouse is caught, wriggling less and less. Its eyes are glassy and it’s panting, the life slowly draining out of it.
I look at Amy.
I look at the mouse.
I look at Amy.
I look at the mouse.
I look at Amy.
I can’t look at the mouse again.
“MARK!” I scream. It’s useless. I know that. But if I don’t do something I will go mad. Insanity is a lot easier to understand now. When all you have is your mind and it gets to run wild on you, you can be fucked.
The shuffling sounds stop.
I look at the mousetrap. The mouse is dead.
I start laughing.
The sound is that hysterical giggle that comes from a place of deep horror. I remember a book Elaine used to read, called Flowers in the Attic. I babysat Mikey a long time ago and after he was asleep, I read it. At one point, the children who were trapped in the attic had no food. They captured mice on purpose and ate them.
Dangerous To Love Page 194
