Harrowing

by S. E. Amadis

  I whirled about. Our attacker had Lindsay firmly gripped in his powerful arms and was swinging her up off her feet.

  I remembered the man who had attacked me when I was pregnant. This couldn’t be the same man now. My attackers, the bastards who had killed Eli, were in jail.

  But this mysterious individual was doing the same thing to us.

  And I couldn’t let him do to Lindsay what those monsters had done to Eli and me, so long ago.

  I turned to go back. The attacker ground his fist over Lindsay’s nose and mouth and to my horror, I saw her crumple into his arms, senseless. Seizing her by the shoulders, he began to drag her away across the sand at lightning speed. I had no idea how he was able to move that quickly. He tugged Lindsay around behind the bonfire and when I got there, they had both disappeared.

  I crept around the bonfire but there was no one there.

  He must have pulled her away through the darkness on the other side. But where did they go?

  There was a pile of wood stacked nearby. Loose logs, long boards of timber and construction lumber, crates, pallets. I assumed that was what our attacker had been using to build up the bonfire. I circled about the pile, trying to bore my eyes through the darkness and see if perhaps Lindsay happened to be lying on the ground. Concealed, perhaps, behind some of those loads of logs.

  The light of the flames flickered across the timber, creating eerie shadows, shades with menacing forms. I thought I saw the form of something clawed approaching me and I jumped. But it was only my imagination playing tricks on me. These were just meaningless shapes. There was nothing and nobody behind them.

  And I was nowhere closer to finding Lindsay.

  I returned to the starting point. Our masked attacker was there, alone. Feeding firewood to the flames.

  “Don’t you know making a bonfire here is illegal?” I cried, inanely, at a loss for anything brighter to say that could make him feel threatened. “I could call the police right now and report you for this fire.”

  He lunged for me and grabbed at my purse. I snatched it behind me.

  “You’ll do no such thing, Annasuya,” he cried.

  “Where’s Lindsay? Where’s my friend? What did you do to her?” My voice sounded shrill in my ears.

  The masked man only made a snorting noise, then began edging away from me around the bonfire. Unconsciously, I stepped closer to him, following him, letting him lead me on. Before I knew it we were on the other side again. The dark side. The side where the light from the street lamps couldn’t reach.

  “Do you want to know where your friend is? Do you?” The man’s voice continued to sound like Darth Vader to me.

  I nodded, wordless.

  He bent down and began fingering one of the wooden crates. It was one of the larger crates, wide and long enough to house a person.

  Long enough to house a person.

  I gaped at him in horror, hardly believing he would dare to do such a thing.

  He pulled at the side of the crate, yanking out nails and revealing Lindsay’s peacefully slumbering face. Wispy blond curls flowing. The sequins of her black, sequinned dress, glinting faintly in the light from the bonfire.

  “Get her out of there!” I shrieked.

  “No.” The man grabbed my wrist and pulled me close. “You get her out.”

  I glared at him, then knelt and started wrenching away at the side of the crate. With the efforts of both of us, it clunked down at last to the ground. I reached over and started shaking Lindsay. Behind me, the man snagged some piece of wood and crashed it down against the back of my neck.

  I froze, stunned for an instant. Before I could react, the man grasped my legs and tossed me into the crate on top of Lindsay. I leaned back and threw up my arms instinctively, cursing myself for having played such a fool, but already the man was starting to ram the side of the crate over me. He seized a hold of something, probably a hammer, and began pounding nails into the side. I pushed stubbornly against the hard wooden board, but the nails held too firmly.

  I flayed my arms inside the cramped space and battered against the wood with my heels, tried to squeeze my fingers through the minute openings that remained and shove upwards.

  “Wait!” I cried out when barely a sliver of open space remained, as a sudden idea occurred to me.

  The attacker stopped for a minute. Raised his head and stared at me.

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “I’ve already told you, Annasuya Rose. To keep you out of trouble. And to punish you for your indecent and offensive behaviour.”

  He dropped down and continued pounding.

  “Wait,” I cried again.

  The man looked at me, but this time he didn’t stop working.

  “How are you going to punish me? By keeping me in here? How long?”

  The man grunted.

  “Forever.” He snarled at me.

  The thick wool muffled his voice, making me wonder if I’d heard right.

  But I was sure I had.

  I pressed upwards with my hands against the swollen wood. It refused to budge.

  “Okay. I understand your point of view. You think I’ve done wrong. But I can correct myself. If you’d give me a chance, I can be better.” I heaved a deep breath. “I can be a good girl.”

  The man grunted again.

  “No you can’t. I’ve already given you too many chances.”

  He placed one last slab of wood over the opening.

  “Wait,” I cried out, desperate. “Wait, please. Before you shut me in here, I... I...”

  My mind raced ahead at a hundred and fifty, trying to think of something. Anything at all.

  “I want to know who you are,” I gasped out.

  The man stopped still and studied me. I wondered if my ploy wasn’t going to work. If it was too late.

  But at last he reached up and snagged a hold of the top of his balaclava. He tugged at it, then pulled it off.

  I was staring straight into the boyish, awkwardly grinning face of Hugh.

  *

  Only darkness surrounded us now.

  Vaguely, I could still see the flames dancing against the wood through the minuscule cracks between the slabs.

  Hugh continued to work away close by. I could hear him piling more wood onto the flames.

  His footsteps drew nearer.

  I realized if we were going to get out of this, I needed for Lindsay to be awake. I couldn’t do this by myself.

  “Linds,” I whispered, pounding against her with my elbows. “Lindsay, wake up. I need your help.”

  Lindsay stirred. Muttered as if murmuring in her sleep.

  “Lindsay,” I called, loudly. “Lindsay, wake up. Help me.”

  Lindsay stirred some more. Encouraged, I began gouging my fists into her flesh.

  “Hey,” Lindsay mumbled. “Hey, what’re ya doin’ ta me? Who are you? Fhtop it...”

  “Lindsay!” I screamed.

  Lindsay’s eyes popped open a crack.

  “All vright, all vright, hold yer horses,” she muttered. “I’m comin’.”

  She tried to lift up her arms to stretch. Her eyes opened wider when she discovered she couldn’t move her arms.

  “What the...” she yelped.

  Then she stared hard at me.

  “Why are you so close to me, Annie?” Her voice was filled with indignation. “Why don’t you move your face a little further away? I know we’re besties but this is a bit ridiculous. Come on, man. Give a girl some space.”

  I wiggled a bit.

  “Well, I would if I could,” I replied, peevishly.

  Lindsay came fully awake and started glancing about.

  “Where are we? What happened?” she cried at last.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re trapped together in a box.”

  “Trapped together in a...”

  Lindsay’s eyes started bulging out of her face.

  “Why the hell did I ever get messed up with you and your... wel
l, your goddamn messes?” she exclaimed. “What happened? How did this happen? Who did this?”

  I quickly brought her up to date.

  “And now this... this crazy all-out-of-his-head nutty absolutely scummy schizophrenic sleazebag you call Hugh is going to kill us or something?” she shrieked when I finished.

  I nodded.

  She shoved against me.

  “Well, then we’d better try and stop him. Don’t you think?”

  “I’d love it if you could enlighten me as to how we can do that.”

  Lindsay’s eyeballs rolled about.

  “Do you have your purse here? Do I have my purse here?”

  “I think I probably dropped my purse outside. And I didn’t notice, but you probably dropped yours too.”

  Lindsay sighed, defeated.

  “Then what can we use?”

  I glanced about. It was hard to move my head. I kept bumping into Lindsay.

  “Our brains,” I replied.

  “Well, mine’s at the bottom of the lake, I think.”

  Footsteps scuffled in the sand just outside the crate next to us. A minute later Hugh seized a hold of the crate and started dragging it towards the bonfire. The heat became unbearable.

  “What’s he doing?” Lindsay shrieked. “Oh my God, what’s he doing?”

  I felt hot air prickling along the back of my neck. The wood was smouldering against my hands. I could scarcely breathe.

  “If he’s doing what I think he’s doing, we’re not getting out of this alive,” Lindsay yelled. “Hey, you! You shithead out there. You, Hugh. Can you hear me?”

  If Hugh could hear us, he wasn’t letting on.

  “You bloody hell get us out of here, Hugh!” Lindsay screamed.

  There was no reply.

  “You don’t want to be a murderer, do you, Hugh?”

  Hugh drew the crate up almost touching the flames. I knew at any minute the wood would catch.

  “It’s time you paid for your sins, Annasuya Rose. Both you and your friend.” His voice still came through muffled by the thick wood, as if that Darth Vader quality simply wouldn’t leave him anymore, and already formed a part of his essence. “You need to be cleansed and purified by fire.”

  Smoke started seeping in through the cracks and we both started to cough.

  “We’re gonna burn.” Tears began trickling from Lindsay’s eyes.

  “Maybe we could hang on long enough and once enough wood has burnt we could break through?” I suggested hopefully. It was the dumbest idea I’d ever had.

  “Hugh!” Lindsay made another attempt. But we heard his footsteps shuffling away, and within a minute there was nothing left except for the crackling of the flames.

  We both lay there, quashed and defeated.

  “I don’t believe this. Man, I don’t believe this,” Lindsay began mumbling, hysterical. “Tell me I’m dreaming. Tell me this is just a nightmare. Pinch me.”

  I pinched her.

  “Ow!” she yelled.

  Then I thought of something else.

  “Help me, Linds,” I said.

  “What? What brilliant thing you gonna do now?”

  I started thumping against the side of the crate furthest away from the flames.

  “Maybe we could roll away. Maybe we can make the crate roll.”

  Lindsay scowled.

  “Yeah. Shit idea.”

  But she shifted herself and tried to help me.

  “Push,” she said.

  We both started pushing against the side of the crate furthest from the bonfire.

  At first it didn’t seem to make any difference. We scrabbled and shoved harder.

  “Even supposing this works, what do you think Hughie will do once he realizes we’re far away? He’ll just drag us into the fire again. It would only take him a split second to do it.” Lindsay grumbled. But she didn’t stop pushing.

  Slowly, as if grinding through molasses, the box started shifting. Then with a sudden, unexpected crunch, it tottered over the edge of the corner and hunkered down onto the side we’d been pushing on. Now I was pinned underneath Lindsay. And I had to admit, this was one hundred times worse.

  “Do it again,” I gasped out. I could hardly get any air into my lungs with Lindsay’s dead weight against me.

  We shoved against the side of the box again. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light here, further away from the fire, I noticed something.

  I realized that the side of the box, which had originally been the bottom, was rotten through.

  The box had probably been sitting on the beach during all this time. Who knew how long it had been there, cuddling up against the damp sand. Getting buried under the snows in the winter. Sucking up rain the rest of the year.

  And now it was soft and mildewy.

  If only I could move my legs...

  “Linds. Think you could lift up your legs and kick against this side?” I said.

  Lindsay stopped pushing for a minute to glance my way. I gestured at the rotten wood.

  She looked at me, then raised her legs and began battering her bare heels against the wood.

  “It’s not doing anything,” she said, panting. Then she glanced down at my feet.

  “Hey. You’ve got shoes on. How ‘bout you give it a hand? Or, well, a foot.”

  I grimaced.

  “I would if I could move.”

  Lindsay curled her legs up and held them to one side.

  “There. Now I’m giving you some leg room.”

  I shifted my legs the few centimetres the space would allow me to, then batted my stilettos against the wood. One of the heels punched a hole and slid through. Encouraged, I pulled my heel back and beat against the wood some more.

  After a while I managed to kick off a whole slab of wood. There wasn’t enough space for us to squeeze through yet. I pounded my feet against the remaining wood.

  “What if Hughie notices?” Lindsay whispered.

  “Why don’t we deal with things one at a time?”

  Another slab of wood began peeling away. My heel caught in the fibrous mass, refused to come out. I shook my leg harder. The slab of wood crashed out, taking my shoe with it. Lindsay and I tumbled out of the box. I was too stunned to believe we’d actually made it.

  We glanced about warily, searching for Hugh. We couldn’t see him anywhere.

  “Run!” Lindsay ordered.

  I started to run, but it was impossible with one shoe on and one shoe off.

  “Lose that shoe,” Lindsay hissed.

  I kicked off my remaining shoe and we pelted barefooted across the sand. Laboured breathing behind us near our backs betrayed that Hugh was onto us.

  “Faster,” Lindsay panted.

  We picked up our pace. So did Hugh.

  “Towards the street,” Lindsay gasped out to me.

  I’d never realized that a stretch of sand could be so immense.

  Hugh caught up to me, slipped an arm about me from behind in a stranglehold and slid a foot underneath my heels, tripping me. I crashed onto my back on the cold, silky sand. Straight in front of Hugh’s baleful glare.

  Chapter 37

  I didn’t quite lose consciousness. Or perhaps I did. But I was in a daze. I wondered what Hugh had done to me, to render me into such a helpless state. Or maybe I’d just knocked my brain against the ground. Vaguely I was aware of Hugh dragging me somewhere. Movement, as if someone were transporting me someplace. Someone tying me up. But it felt like a dream. A night terror in which I couldn’t move. Couldn’t open my eyes or wake up or scream.

  After a while he left me. Or at least, I had that vague, hollow sensation that you have when you’re all alone someplace. As I lay there, still in a daze, a slight sound started niggling its way into my awareness. A sharp, metallic zing in the air, as if a butcher were sharpening carving knives on a stone. A rhythmic slashing, the sound of something swaying to and fro in the air above me. A faint whoosh.

  A light breeze started fanning my face, k
eeping time with the swinging sound above. I screwed my eyes open. My lids were still heavy and I felt oppressed, as if I were drugged. I could barely see anything. Only a few cracks of brightness, as in a closed-in space where only the barest, faintest light could pass through to me from the outside.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I started to make things out more clearly. The pale light from outside seemed to grow, as from the sun coming out, shining more clarity on all things. I tried to stretch my arms and wiggle my toes but as I suspected, I was firmly bound up. I thought to call for help, but there was a gag in my mouth. I pushed against it with my tongue and lips. It held as fast as the rest of my bindings.

  As I squinted about me, I could vaguely make out the strangest images on the walls. Figures illuminated in gold leaf, like medieval paintings. A queer old man with a snow white beard trailing to the ground, sustaining an hourglass in his hand. Angels with halos, chanting in a choir. A skeletal figure brandishing a scythe, the death masque grinning grotesquely while sapphires glittered in its sunken eyes.

  And then, the most terrible object of all: a pendulum.

  Swaying from the centre of the ceiling, flaunting a curved half-moon blade of stainless steel, without a smidgeon of rust or neglect anywhere along its vast length. Dropping lower and lower with every beat.

  A perfectly polished scythe, directed straight towards my heart.

  Only the gag prevented me from screaming out loud when I realized what it was.

  In growing horror and desperation, I cast around about myself, glanced over myself for any weakness in the ties that bound me. Any fraying in the cord. Any loose place I could press against.

  I tried to calm my mind down, take measure of the situation and what I had going for me. I slid my sight downwards, tried to count how many times the rope was bound around me. I counted three turns about my chest and upper arms. Perhaps a couple more about my wrists and several loops around my legs.

  Now I recalled all those complicated electronic devices Hugh had designed and displayed so proudly at the temp agency. His brightly painted wooden windmill that spun with the charge from a small nine-volt battery. The much more elaborate elevator. Hugh was a whiz at this. I knew, without a doubt, that he himself had armed this contraption up with his own hands.

  Set it up and hidden it away. Just for me.