by John Etzil
His right foot slipped off its supporting rock, and his torso tilted in that direction. He stuck his right hand out to stabilize himself. His left leg buckled under the pressure of the added weight and he fell back into the well, cursing all the way down as he entangled himself in the plastic sheet hanging from his belt.
21
Even before he splashed down in the cold water, complete with brand-new cuts and bruises from bouncing off the rock wall on the way down, he knew that he’d get out of the well.
Once free of the plastic sheet, he wiped the water from his eyes and looked up at the shaft of light that pierced the blackness of the well and smiled. The moving of the stone had been the final piece to his escape puzzle.
Now he had the sun to help him as well. The yellow rays, with their promise of warmth, added an element of normalcy to the situation and elevated his mood to the point of euphoria. His pain and fatigue disappeared. Nothing could stop him now.
He took a few deep breaths through grinning lips and went back to work. I will kill that bastard.
With the promised warmth of the sunlight calling for him, Sam made it to the top of the well in no time. He was amazed at how much difference a little light made in foot and grip placement, finding rocks with bigger grips than others, and overall mood improvement. He felt like he’d just done a line of coke and was about to attend his first female-only orgy where all eight women would be fighting to get their hands on him, like they were waiting on line for the stores to open Black Friday.
When he reached the top, he placed one hand on the rim of the well and the other hand against the stone. He pulled on one arm and pushed with the other, and the stone slid open enough for him to slither out of his tomb.
Holy shit, he’d made it. He stood on solid ground for the first time in hours and took a deep breath. The cold, fresh air and the pumping adrenaline invigorated him. He felt like a god. He wanted to scream out, to rejoice at the top of his lungs, but thought better of it just in case the bastard who’d dumped him in the well was within earshot.
He looked around and studied his environment. Other then a few Boy Scout treks as a kid, he’d spent his entire life in urban areas, where vehicle traffic, sirens, and the normal hustle and bustle of city life created a never-ending symphony of sounds that all blended together. He’d gotten so used to hearing them that he didn’t notice them anymore. Here it was the opposite. The quiet tranquility of dawn in the early-winter forest was so foreign to him that it put him on edge and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
He saw trees, many of them evergreens, and with the light dusting of snow reflecting the early-morning sun, the scene reminded him of a Christmas card. There were some smaller shrubs, most of them bare of leaves, and a small narrow path. He noticed tire tracks in the snow that led down the path. The tracks continued as far as he could see, and he realized that was the way he had been brought here. And his way out.
He thought about walking the path, but his whole body shivering reminded him that his clothes were frozen to his skin, and if he didn’t get dry and warm real quick, he’d die from hypothermia. What a waste that would be, after all he’d been through.
He shook out the plastic sheet, freeing most of the water from it, and folded it up. After a lengthy inner conversation that lasted way too long for the seriousness at hand, he decided to swallow his manhood. He draped the plastic sheet over his shoulders to form a knee-length shawl, then looked over his shoulder to make sure that no one was around to see his feminine clothing faux pas.
He pushed the stone back over the well and trotted over to an evergreen tree and broke off a branch. He walked back to the well and smoothed the snow out to cover his tracks in case that bastard who had thrown him down the well came back. The dry snow moved easily under the breeze created from the waving evergreen branch, and he smiled at his ingenious handiwork.
He backed away from the well in the opposite direction of the path, all the while fanning his tracks clean like an expert outdoorsman.
He’d gone about fifty or sixty feet when the ground sloped away at such a steep angle that he thought he’d slip and fall. He kept going, but at a much more careful pace, until the clearing around the well area disappeared from his line of sight. He continued for another fifteen minutes, memorizing landmarks so that he’d be able to navigate his way back to the well area later and pick up the path that would lead him out of here.
When he was satisfied that he was far enough away from the well, he gathered some dead tree limbs. He cleared the snow away by dragging his foot along it and scavenged for some dry leaves. Most of the underbrush was moist from the snow, but after scraping away the top layer, he found some that were dry and would be easy to start a fire with.
He went over to the biggest evergreen he could find, something that would help hide the smoke as it rose from the fire, and shook off the snow from the branches he could reach. He cleared the snow away down to the leafy ground, creating a small fire pit. He laid the dry leaves down in it. He threw a handful of twigs on top, and then placed some dead branches on top of the twigs.
He searched for his lighter and had a brief moment of panic when he couldn’t find it. In the last of his pockets, he felt the cold metal and smiled in relief. Now he just needed for it to work after being soaking wet for hours.
He took out the lighter, its gold casing reflecting the sunlight, opened it, and thumbed the flint. It lit on the first try. He set the dried leaves on fire, and in a few minutes the damp twigs dried out from the heat and started burning. After a few more minutes, one of the bigger branches started to go up in flames and he sat down, his plastic shawl under his butt, ensuring that he didn’t get any wetter. With his back leaning against the evergreen, he warmed himself by the fire.
Thank God for the Boy Scouts.
22
Sam’s exhaustion from being up all night and the adrenaline dump that followed his climb out of the well was bone-deep. He fell asleep in front of the fire within five minutes of sitting down. When he woke up an hour later, the front of him was almost dry, but his back was still wet and cold.
The fire had died down, so he needed to get some more fuel to feed it. He closed his eyes and listened to the silence, making sure there were no out-of-place sounds. He stood up and gathered an armful of dead branches and placed them on the embers. After a few minutes, they ignited, and before he knew it the fire was hot enough to make him sweat.
He tried to swallow, but his throat felt like sandpaper. What irony, spending all night in a well and waking up thirsty. He looked around and spotted a small oval-shaped indent of sunken snow by the fire. It was about the size of a softball and it contained a few inches of water. He leaned over and examined it from different angles. It looked as pure as anything he’d ever seen. He grinned, placed his lips on the surface of the water, and sucked his mini-pond dry. Ahh, that hit the spot.
He stood up, removed his plastic shawl and spread it on the ground. He stood on it, his back turned to the fire, enjoying the warmth that spread across him. He was well rested now and felt rejuvenated.
He removed his boots and socks. He draped the socks over his boots and placed them close to the fire so that they’d dry fast. He took off his shirt and pants and laid them closer to the fire. He took the little Derringer from its ankle holster and examined it. It was damp, but he knew it would work. He placed it on the ground and took off his ankle holster and placed it down near the fire.
He lay down on the plastic and rolled the part furthest from the fire over his body for warmth. He flashed back to waking up in the back of the vehicle wrapped in plastic and had a whole-body shiver before shaking the claustrophobic thoughts from his head.
He sighed. For the first time since he was a kid, he enjoyed the simple things in life that he’d normally take for granted. Heat. Water. And shelter in the form of a little plastic sheet.
But his contentment didn’t extinguish his anger. I will kill that bastard, was his last thoug
ht before falling asleep.
23
A few hours later, Debbie arrived at work and opened the Red Barn for lunch. She hadn’t heard from Jack and was still pissed about last night, and she caught herself slamming the fridge door in anger. Him and his damn work. She knew what it was like to be married to her job, and while it had been exciting in her twenties, she’d grown tired of the one-dimensional emptiness of her life.
Next month it would be two years since her boss had tapped on the side of her cubicle, asking to see her. Her heart had pounded in excitement as she’d followed him down the hallway to his corner office. She’d just returned from an overseas assignment where things had gone well. A good, clean op. She’d expected an “attaboy” or maybe even an award for her mission success.
Instead, she was told that her parents were dead.
They were killed by a drunk driver on Route 88 just outside of Albany. After the initial shock subsided, she requested and received a three-month leave of absence to come home to Cobleskill and clean up their affairs. She’d never left.
And she’d never once looked back. If anything, she regretted spending so much of her early years working so hard.
Foreign travel and eighty-hour workweeks were the norm, and her stress levels were though the roof. Since she’d been here, her quality of life had been a thousand times better. Too bad it had taken her parents’ death for her to realize it.
That was what annoyed her so much about last night, when Mr. Married-to-his-work had ditched her. She shook her head and sighed. What the hell could be so important in Summit, New York, that he had to work? Freakin’ A.
She refilled the bar supplies, pulled the chain of the neon Budweiser sign a little too hard, and sat down behind the bar. She took out her phone to text Jack, frowned, then put it back in her pocket. Screw this.
The door squeaked open and her first customers of the day, two burly corrections officers from the Summit Shock Camp, strode in and sat down at the bar. They were regulars at the Red Barn and stopped by a few days per week for supper after working the midnight-to-eight shift plus a little OT.
“Hey, Debs, how goes it?” Rodney asked.
Debbie smiled at him and placed a napkin and a cold draft in front of him. “Awesome,” she lied. “How about you guys?”
He shrugged. “Ah, I’m okay. You know how it is, another night in the shock camp jungle.”
She put a second draft on the bar for David, who looked up from his paper and nodded his thanks. He took a mouthful and “aahh’d” his appreciation. She smiled at him and turned to start their tab.
Rodney admired her Levi’s, and a grin spread across his bearded face. “I’m much better now, though.”
She turned around and he raised his beer to her with a wink.
“I bet.” She turned around again and pretended to do some work while she watched him study her ass in the mirror. He tilted his head to one side, like a dog trying to figure something out. She flicked her long, straight black hair behind her back in an exaggerated motion for his benefit and tied it up in a knot, turning sideways while her hands were still behind her head. Her breasts strained at her T-shirt, and she saw Rodney elbow David out of the corner of her eye. He hit him so hard that he almost spilled his beer.
David looked up at Rodney, saw his intense straight-ahead stare, and turned in time to catch Debbie’s profile. His mouth opened.
She turned and looked at them, an “I caught you red-handed” smirk on her face, and asked, “You guys having the usual?”
Red crept up Rodney’s neck and under his beard before blanketing his cheeks. “Um, yep.” They both looked down and drank from their mugs.
She wrote down their order and delivered it to the kitchen with an exaggerated bounce in her step. She came back and they made some small talk. The typical male bravado blossomed after only half a beer. Like Rodney’s “When you gone leave that sheriff and date a real man?”
“Soon as I find one.” Her standard reply, which came with an over-the-top disappointed sigh, as if she’d never find one. Although after getting stood up last night by Mr. Married-to-his-work, I might start looking for real.
They bantered back and forth until the cook rang the bell, letting Debbie know that their food was ready. She served them and left them alone to eat in peace.
Two men she recognized from last night walked in. Holy cow, they looked like crap—unshaven, with bed head, wrinkled, slept-in clothes, worry lines painted across their oily foreheads. Must have been one tough night. She wondered where the third guy was. Probably still sleeping it off.
They nodded to Rodney and Dave and walked down to the other end of the bar and sat down.
Debbie walked over with two napkins and smiled at them. “Morning, gentlemen. What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have a Coke and a burger,” the fat one said, rubbing his face with his hand. “Extra fries.”
The skinny one raised a finger and said, “Same here.”
“Sure thing.” She wrote down their order, dropped it off in the kitchen, and got them their Cokes.
The skinny one yawned and rubbed his hands through his hair. He lit a cigarette and exhaled the first drag with a whispered groan. “Oh, man, what a freaking nightmare.” He sounded like he’d just been diagnosed with lung cancer and been given four hours to live.
The kitchen bell twanged and Debbie grabbed their burgers and set them down in front of them. “Anything else I can get you guys?”
“No. We’re good,” the fat one mumbled through a mouthful of fries. “Oh. I do have one question, though. We forgot to tip our waitress last night. Is she working today?”
“Yeah, Mary Sue comes in at four.”
“Thanks.” He smiled, opened his mouth wide enough that Debbie could see his tonsils, and shoved the burger in with both hands. Maybe Jack’s not so bad after all…
Debbie turned and walked away. Hmmm… that was odd. After they’d closed last night, Mary Sue had told her that “those three guys were asses, but at least they tipped well.”
After the lunch crowd emptied out, she grabbed her phone, typed a quick message, and hit send.
24
I was going through Sammy’s smartphone and reading his texts while holding it inside the lead-shielded bag. It was cumbersome work, but I had to make sure his phone wasn’t picked up by a cell tower.
A new text alert went off on my phone. It was from Debbie. My heart rate sped up and I smiled. I hadn’t heard from her since last night, and I was getting a little worried about us. I swiped and read the text. Shit. Not what I’d expected. I’d assumed that it was an “I miss you and can’t wait to jump your hot body” text.
Instead, I got a simple “Call me. Now.”
I did, and in a workmanlike fashion, she filled me in on her lunchtime visit from the two stooges. Then she hung up.
I continued going through Sam’s phone and reading his texts. Most of them were boring everyday stuff, with a low-IQ twist to them. Around three thirty, I turned off his phone and closed up the lead-shielded bag. I jumped in my pickup and headed towards Summit.
My plan was simple. Thanks to HFS and my conversation with Debbie, I knew that hammerheads one and two would be at the Red Barn after four this afternoon to interrogate Mary Sue. I needed to observe them and make sure she was okay, but based on what I’d read on Sammy’s phone, it didn’t look good. The dumbass had told his stooges what he was up to last night, even mentioning her by name. Of course he’d spelled her name wrong. I shook my head in disbelief. I mean, come on, how could you possibly spell Mary Sue wrong? Poor bastard must have been dyslexic…
I arrived at the Red Barn a few minutes before four and parked on Charlotte Valley Road. From my stakeout position, I could see the parking lot, and there was no sign of Ostrich Boy’s SUV. The sun would be setting in about half an hour and the dusk lighting lent a peaceful ambience to the whole scene. Unfortunately for the inner photographer in me, the gravel parking lot had no lights, so I had
to go inside the Red Barn and wait.
I walked in and spotted Debbie behind the bar right away. She didn’t notice me, so I took a seat at a table on the other side of the room next to a small window that overlooked the parking lot. Although the lot had no lighting, I could see cars as they came and went, and the single outdoor light next to the entrance was bright enough for me to be able to see faces right before a person entered.
I looked over at Debbie, a mild knot in my stomach. She was chatting with one of the corrections officers from the shock camp, who was parked on a stool in the corner. My corner. I watched them for a few minutes.
She preened nonstop, tossing her hair, redoing her ponytail. Her breasts drew his eyes like magnets to high-grade steel whenever she looked away to see if anyone needed a refill. He especially liked when she reached down into the cooler, the one in front of my stool, to grab a cold beer for a customer. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed she was doing it in slow motion. He inched forward in his seat, stretching his neck to gawk at her cleavage. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped so far I thought that he was gonna whack it on the bar top and knock himself out.
My neck heated up, and I had to remind myself that I had bigger things to worry about besides a girlfriend who happened to have a job that demanded flirting. If only she wasn’t so freaking good at it. Or so hot. I silently vowed that my next girlfriend would be repulsive to Shrek. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about men lining up to hit on her like they did with Debbie.
“Well, look who it is.” Mary Sue came over and interrupted my self-inflicted torture. Her gait was tense and her face stoic. “Long time no see.” She had an icy mug with my name all over it in bold. She put down a Budweiser coaster and placed my beer on it. I grabbed it.
