Holiday Risk

by MEGAN MATTHEWS

Why is it so hard to believe I'm a nurse? Don't I look helpful? "Yes, and you really should let me look at your leg.”

  The younger one stops, forcing the older one to walk. "A nurse can be handy. Let's get him to the van and you can look at his leg there." The two of them share a look and then continue hobbling their way to the end of the ally.

  "Here, let me help." I slip my arm around the hurt, older gentleman named Dominic. Using my strength, I take over some of his weight. From how slowly the blood is pooling, it probably isn’t a cut to his femoral artery, which means he’s not in danger of bleeding out in the alleyway, but the two squabbled for so long we’ve wasted precious seconds. I could have stopped the bleeding by now.

  At the end of the alley, a large, white van idles on the side of the road, the passenger door open. I have no idea how I missed this. At first glance, I blanch. It’s like one of those vans kidnappers are always using in movies. The kind decked out with a carpet and mattresses, and the occasional cooler full of dead body parts. In my hesitation, I fall a step behind the two men but am pulled forward by their momentum.

  "Oh God, my leg," he complains, reminding me I’m a professional and have a job to do.

  “Get in the back of the van.” The younger one heads to the van.

  “The back?” I question.

  No one stops walking. “He can lay down there.”

  Something in my gut wakes up and tells me to pay attention.

  My steps slow.

  “Owww. Watch what you’re doing, Jimmy.” The old man’s voice is strained and etched with pain as he maneuvers into the back of the van.

  “Slide back to make room,” Jimmy directs. I lose sight of both men in the windowless van.

  “Are you going to help him or what?” Jimmy jumps down.

  “Yes, right.” Hurt guy. Needs help. On it.

  Years of training and experience kick in, and the world around me falls away, allowing my focus to take over.

  “All right, nurse. Fix me up.” Dominic says, leaning back on the van floor, his loose-fitting trouser leg rolled up to his thigh. The area’s red with blood.

  He’s too far back to treat from the ground, so I slide into the van to get a better look.

  “Do you have anything for me to clean the wound with?” The end of my sentence got lost in the sound of two doors crashing shut.

  “Hey!” I spin around and jiggle the handle, pounding on the doors. They don’t budge.

  The van starts up.

  “What the hell?” I continue my assault on the back doors, not getting anywhere.

  Every alarm bell my brain lights up. There are dings and crashes. Strobe lights and flashes. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know this never ends well.

  My body pitches back with the van when it moves. The space fills with laughter, and I turn around in one slow motion.

  Any lingering belief this is one big misunderstanding slips away when I’m met with the barrel of a gun.

  Where the hell are people hiding them?

  This one isn’t large and shiny silver like the one Spencer pulls out at a moment’s notice. It’s small and a dull black. Toy-like.

  Except I’m not willing to test my luck and find out.

  “The knee.” He waves the gun at his leg.

  I inch closer. “You know guns kill over ten thousand people a year in the U.S.?”

  He laughs harder than before. “Is that so? Betty has only killed two. Guess we have some catching up to do.”

  What sick person names their gun? And Betty? That’s a sweet name for someone’s grandmother, not a weapon.

  “Let’s get a move on before I lose more blood.” He waves the gun around and I cringe.

  We can only hope.

  Call it un-nurse like if you want, but my professionalism goes out the window when someone points a gun at me.

  I inch closer and inspect the open gash. “The bleeding has stopped, but you could use some stitches.”

  “How many?” he asks.

  Three. Maybe five at most. “Ten,” I answer. The worse his cut is, the more he’ll want to keep me around.

  “Can you sew it up?”

  “I’ll need supplies.”

  He rolls his pant leg down. “What kind?”

  “Gloves, needles, alcohol, and floss.”

  “Floss?” he questions with attitude.

  “Or sewing thread.” I hurry to throw in a better answer, even though I’ve never done any of this in a non-clinical situation before. Cinnamon floss might be a problem.

  The van makes a hard left, causing me to brace myself against the cool metal side, and then we slow.

  Two knocks on the back doors reverberate through the small van.

  “Don’t try anything heroic. I can always find a new nurse.”

  His words chill more than the cold December air. He’s right. There’s a whole hospital of nurses he could take after they leave me dead in a ditch somewhere.

  A single door in the back opens, and Jimmy peeks around the corner, a gun in his free hand pointed at us. I almost roll my eyes as he scans the back of the van. What do they think I’ve done back here? Choked him to death with my scarf?

  Actually, that wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

  “Let’s go.” He uses his gun to motion for me to get out because no one around here cares about gun safety.

  I slide out of the van on my butt. My feet hit the ground with a thud, and Jimmy grabs on to the shoulder of my jacket, tugging me forward.

  “Get in the house,” he demands.

  When I don’t move quickly enough, he tugs on my jacket again, sending me in that direction. “I’m going. I’m going. Geesh.”

  “I’ll send someone out for you, Dominic,” he calls back to the van as he follows me up the steps to the house.

  From the direction we turned leaving the mad rush downtown, we’re in the woods north of Pelican Bay proper. The woodland area is full of small hunting cabins built by families over the centuries. There’s no telling what family this dilapidated cabin belongs to, but from the hole in the front porch and sagging steps, it’s been a while since they’ve visited.

  Jimmy kicks the door open with an outstretched boot. It swings and batters against the inside wall before closeing again. With a heavy push, he uses my body to force it open a second time.

  “Someone help Dominic get out of the truck and find me some rope.” The door closes behind us with a hard slam of wood against wood.

  My eyes blink twice to adjust to the lack of light inside the small wood cabin. Three men sit around a lopsided card table in the middle of the room. I watch my breath raise to the ceiling when I release a lungful. It explains why all the men are wearing thick coats inside. A stack of coins and bills in the middle with cards laid out around it. No one jumps up to help Dominic.

  One of the guys in an open tan jacket and a black sweatshirt throws down his cards. They scatter across the table in time to his fist hitting the wood.

  “What in the fuck is she doing here?” he asks.

  Jimmy smiles. “Dom sliced his knee open on the box. I grabbed a nurse to patch him up.” His words are full of confidence, like he had the great plan on his own rather than me falling into his lap.

  “Do you know who in the fuck that is, you moron?” The guy at the table stands, tossing his cigarette on the floor and stomping it out with the heel of his boot.

  Jimmy’s face falls. “No.”

  “You fucking dumbass. That’s Spencer Jamison’s new girl. You’ll have the entire security firm on our asses. Like we didn’t draw enough attention setting off a car bomb on fucking Main Street.”

  “What?” Jimmy twists me around. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  I shrug. “You didn’t ask.”

  “Real fucking great, Numb Nuts.” The leader lights a new cigarette, blowing a puff of smoke out in front of him. “What the hell am I supposed to do with her?”

  “She needs to fix Dom’s knee.”

  “I don’t g
ive a flying fuck about Dom’s knee. That’s his problem. I should shoot all three of you right now and be done with it.”

  Nice to see there’s still no honor among thieves.

  The door opens again, slowly this time. Dominic limps in on his own devices. Guess he’s no one’s problem anymore. He gives the standing guy a glare—he must have heard the conversation—and then walks to an old, dusty couch on the other side of the room.

  “I see you made it in on your own.” The leader of this gang flicks his cigarette, the ashes falling to the floor.

  “Saw myself in since no one thinks it important enough to come help me,” he says, propping his leg up on the couch.

  “You, get to helping him.” Jimmy flips his gun around like he’s working on the set of a western, and I flinch, waiting for it to go off at any moment.

  I take a hesitative step in his direction. “I need supplies.”

  “She needs supplies, boys,” the leader says in a mocking tone. “Someone write down what she needs and go buy it. But go to Whitecap. I don’t want anyone in town until the truck makes it through.”

  My ears perk up, and I strain to hear anything else. Didn’t Spencer say something about running drugs?

  “Don’t worry, Boss. No one is going to suspect a truck full of Toys for the homeless. It’s a perfect plan.”

  I hurry and list off the few items I need to a short, pudgy man from the table and then stand as still as possible so they won’t notice me.

  “It was the perfect plan until someone found a dead body. It became a dumbass plan when I needed to blow up a car to distract Ridge and his crew of merry men.” He flicks his cigarette again, the ashes blowing behind him with the breeze from open door as the short guy leaves with my list. “And now I’ve got to deal with her.” A long, bony finger points in my direction.

  “What should I do with her while we wait for the stuff?” The second guy at the table asks.

  There goes my plan of going unnoticed.

  “Lock her up in the basement for now.” He turns and sits back in his chair. “But if Tommy’s not back with supplies by the time we need to roll out, she’s not coming with us. Capeesh?”

  Capeesh? No, I do not capeesh.

  Jimmy sticks the barrel of his gun against my spine and pushes me forward. I take a few tentative steps. For a fleeting moment, I consider making a run for it, but a bullet is sure to travel faster than me. The woods on the north side of Pelican Bay continues for miles and miles before you hit another town. Even if I made it without getting a bullet in the back, I could spend days wandering the woods just to die from the elements.

  With Jimmy pushing his gun in my back, we walk out the front door and down the porch steps. I stop walking when I reach the base of the creaky steps, unsure where to go and afraid “basement” is gang term for a different location than what I have in mind.

  “Turn left.” He digs the barrel of the gun in my back harder when I don’t immediately move.

  My mind runs wild, most of my fear based around my growing belief he brought me out here to shoot me. Thoughts of escape grow with each step we take to the unknown. I keep my path close to the house, hoping he won’t shoot me so close to their hideaway.

  “Stop. Jump in,” he says.

  My eyes scan the area to see nothing but trees and fallen leaves around the house.

  “Where?”

  Jimmy jerks his gun toward the house. “There.”

  My eyes fall to a horror worse than risking my life on running. “No.”

  “Basement” was a generous term for the hole in the ground I’m faced with now. It reminds me of an old root cellar or tornado shelter you see in movies, but worse. The single wooden door is open, revealing nothing but a small space of mud and darkness. Tree roots wrap around the outside, seeming to grow right from the house itself. I squint, but it doesn’t help me see through the darkness.

  There’s no way I’m going in there. He can shoot me.

  “Get in the fucking hole, or I will throw you in.” He grabs my upper arm, squeezing hard with the threat.

  I hesitate. Please, God, let me live through this.

  My prayer is silent. My continued refusals to get in the hole, not so much.

  “Please don’t make me do this. I’ll do anything.”

  He pushes me two millimeters closer.

  “I’ll stay in the corner. You won’t even hear me,” I beg.

  “Get in the fucking hole.” He waves the gun around in a wide circle and a shot rings out.

  I fall to my knees and cover my ears as the blast echoes in the deserted woods. No one from inside comes to inspect the noise, and eventually, Jimmy kicks me in the back, pushing me to the ground completely.

  “The next one is for you,” he growls out each word.

  “Okay. Okay.” I crawl to the hole and swing my legs out in front of me to slide down into the dark abyss.

  With a deep breath, I close my eyes and sink. My feet hit the dirt floor with a slight thud and I pitch forward, sticking my hands out to keep from falling.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Light spills from overhead, illuminating a small section of the dirt cellar. It doesn’t help.

  “Have fun, sweetheart,” Jimmy says, dropping the door over the tiny opening and plunging me into total blackness.

  “Help!” I scream.

  Jumping as high as possible with my arms stretched out, I push on the door. It barely budges. My efforts allow a small streak of light to shine through the opening then nothing as the door drops again. “Shit.”

  I try a second time with no more success. My feet make contact with the dirt floor unevenly, and I’m forced to step forward. Wet, cold dirt smears over my fingers.

  “Ewww.” I hope it’s only dirt.

  Thoughts of screaming continue to float in and out of my mind, but it won’t do any good. There’s no one around to hear me but bad guys. Quickly, the silence settles around my feet like a thick fog as I do my best not to move. The adrenaline from my kidnapping and being thrown in a dirt hole fades as my imminent demise is no longer staring me in the face in the form of a gun barrel. Panic replaces it, and my calm demeanor disappears.

  A cold-feeling thing ruffles the hair on the back of my head, dragging over and around.

  “Oh my god.” I turn and bat away at the mystery attacker. Flashbacks from the movie Arachnophobia push me deep down a hole of fear. The silent attacker whacks me in the forehead. I slap it away, but it swings back, hitting me between the eyes.

  It swings back?

  I stop flailing and let my arms fall. The suspected vicious beast smacks me in the face twice more—softer each time. On the third bounce, it stops, resting against my forehead and nose.

  With slow fingers—ready to attack again if I need to—I snatch the cord from my face. The cool, beaded, metal chain reminds me of a light pull cord.

  Because it is.

  I tug, hopeful the force won’t cause the whole roof to cave in, burying me in the process.

  A light flickers.

  Turns off.

  Flickers again before turning on completely.

  Sadly, having light doesn’t improve my view. There’s a lot of dark brown dirt. A few smaller tree roots stick out of the makeshift walls, but they don’t look strong enough to use to hoist myself out, even if I could get the door open.

  To the left, someone has installed three shelves. They’re braced against the wall but leaning slightly forward. A few mason jars of canned food rest against the edge of the top shelf. I doubt the criminals upstairs have taken up canning.

  The important item is on the bottom shelf of the plastic unit. A wooden crate flipped upside down and dusty from nonuse. Above me the sound of something dragging echoes from the far corner of the ceiling. Muffled yelling seeps through the walls.

  I carefully pull the crate from the shelving unit, aware that if I can hear them, they can hear me. A door slams shut, and I freeze, the crate held out in front of me.


  “Put him with the nurse until I decide what to do with him,” a deep voice yells above me.

  Moving quickly, I drop the crate on the dirt floor and take a few large steps back to the light, pulling on the cord, sending the cellar into darkness. There’s bumping sounds, a door closing again, and then scraping on the cellar door.

  Slowly, then all at once, the small area is lit up.

  Jimmy peeks his head in the hole, casting a shadow on the ground. Odd. I thought demons didn’t have shadows. “We’ve brought you company,” he says as his head disappears from view.

  A larger portion of the light is blocked out, and something heavy falls from the opening, landing on the floor with an audible thud. Jimmy laughs and his form leaves the door, sliding something heavy over top.

  The floor lump moves, the dirt and loose pebbles scratching together.

  “Are you okay, Ms. Joslin?”

  “Pete!” I squint in the dark, not wanting to turn the light on yet in case they are waiting outside.

  He sits up. “That’s me.”

  “What are you doing here?” It’s a simple question that doesn’t do our situation justice, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment.

  He laughs, the sound quickly turning into a cough. “I saw you get out of the van and knew something was wrong. I thought I’d come and stage a rescue. Fat lot of good that did.”

  “Oh, Pete.” I flick the light on, and bend down to get a closer look at him. “Are you hurt?”

  His wrinkled face is smeared with dirt, and his shirt looks ripped in the shoulder, but there isn’t an obvious wound. He holds out his shaking hands and flips them over. “Just a few scrapes. Nothing to worry about.”

  He’s right and wrong. In a healthy, young person they aren’t concerning, but Pete is suffering from alcoholism. Our prison isn’t a place he should be. Hell, neither of us should be here.

  “Give me a minute. I’m going to get us out of here.” I shuffle back to my crate and place it in front of the cellar opening. Jumping did me no good, but maybe with more height, I’ll be able to push the door and whatever is on top of it open.

  I line the crate up in the middle the door and, after careful consideration, push it a few inches to the side.