A Grave Calling

by Wendy Roberts

  The Jeep swerved to the shoulder, and my body flopped against the door but I couldn’t straighten. I had a sudden very clear thought.

  I’m roofied. Shit! Jonas drugged me!

  Chapter Ten

  When I woke up, I was lying on a cold wooden surface. My eyeballs felt gritty and when I tried to move to a sitting position, my wrists and ankles screamed in pain. They were bound tight with nylon rope. I wanted to shout but there was duct tape over my mouth.

  I wriggled to a sitting position and immediately the world spun out of control. I choked back vomit as I leaned back against the rough walls. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the world to stop spinning. If my experience with binge drinking and hangovers was any kind of indicator, I’d be fine in a few hours. Not reassuring considering Jonas could be back in minutes and I could end up dead and at the bottom of a bridge with a white ribbon tied to me at any second.

  A fresh wave of nausea washed over me.

  When I felt I could open my eyes again without throwing up, I slowly blinked them open. My heart pounded wildly against my chest as I looked around the place of my confinement. I strained my eyes in the dim space but there wasn’t a helluva lot to look at. It appeared that I was in a small windowless wood shed; maybe four by five feet. In the corner was a small tangled nest of old fishing line. A slim ray of light creaked in through a knot in the wood in a top corner. I listened hard for noises from outside but heard no cars or highway traffic sounds, only birds and, somewhere close by, a creek or river. My gaze fell onto a bucket in the corner that reeked of stale urine. I wasn’t the first person to be held prisoner here.

  God, I felt so stupid. I pressed the back of my head against the wood, looked up at the low dark ceiling and tried to swallow the panic. Never once had I suspected Jonas of being the killer. I’d been safe and far away from him and what did I do? I called the guy to come and get me.

  Anyone who spends five seconds with you knows you’re so stupid you can’t tell your ass from a hole in the ground, Grandma would say.

  Gawd, the crazy old bat was right.

  The grades I got in school were always half-decent. Some As, mostly Bs. I’d leave the report cards on the table and she’d toss them in the trash without bothering to read them. The message had been clear all along; there was absolutely nothing I could ever do to please her. The only thing I ever hoped for was to fly under her radar and avoid her wrath.

  She’s having a good ol’ knee slap at my predicament now. She’s cackling in her fucking grave.

  The thought spurred me into action. Using my shoulder to rub against the corner of the tape on my mouth I was gradually able to peel it away. Immediately I took a large gulp of cold air and began screaming at the top of my lungs.

  “He-e-elp!”

  Over and over I yelled until my throat burned from the effort. A few feet away a half-filled water bottle lay on its side. I scooted on my ass to reach it with my bound feet and drag it toward me but when I bent and scooped the bottle up with my teeth I noticed bits of white grounds floating inside. It was laced with something.

  “Shit.”

  I dropped the bottle and used my bound feet to kick it to the side. It rolled and bounced off the pee bucket. It took some effort but I managed to scrape myself over to the door, then leaned back on my knuckles behind my back and kicked my feet against the door with all my might. It did not even shudder in response. Still I tried over and over.

  The twine that bound my feet at the ankles cut painfully into my skin as I kicked. Using the wall as leverage, I managed to wriggle to my feet and then slammed my entire body against the door but it refused to give. There were two double dead bolt locks on the door, one near the top of the door and the other midway. This wooden hut might have been built to resemble an ordinary fishing shack, but it was too solid and reinforced for only that purpose.

  After a while I sat back down in the corner to rest and gather my thoughts. Suddenly I heard the crunch of feet on the brush outside.

  “Hey!” I shrieked. “In here! He-e-elp!”

  The footsteps stopped outside the shed. Abruptly a tiny hinged opening maybe four inches square popped open. It was located on a corner wall near the ceiling and I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Hey!” I screamed. “Let me out. Please!”

  Two water bottles were flung in through the little hatch and bounced off the wood floor near my feet.

  “Jonas?” I screamed. “Let me go, Jonas. You don’t have to do this. I won’t tell a soul. I swear to God. Just let me out.”

  No reply. The opening was slammed shut and latched, followed by the sound of footsteps leading away.

  The water bottles that were thrown inside contained the same white floating bits and crumbs as the other.

  He doesn’t kill them right away, I reminded myself. Then I remembered reading how much weight the girls lost before they died, and I cringed. He knew eventually they’d start drinking the water or die of thirst.

  Instead of kicking and slamming into the door I concentrated on loosening the ties around my wrists. The shred of light was long gone from the tiny hole. Evening had faded to night and I was in complete darkness. My wrists were slick with blood from wriggling and squirming within the ropes. After a while, though, I was rewarded when one strand loosened.

  “C’mon,” I pleaded.

  My throat was burning and dry. I wanted to take just a single sip from one of the water bottles but didn’t chance it. I just kept focusing on getting my hands free, but the more I forced, the tighter the knots felt and the more painful my wrists became.

  After a minute I relaxed my arms completely. An angry curse escaped my lips and my chin fell against my chest in despair. There had to be a way. I began to concentrate on only my right thumb. The area near the base of my thumb felt looser so I twisted and bent the lower joint until abruptly it slid under the rope. Once that thumb was out, I could squeeze the rest of my hand and then both hands completely free.

  Covering my face with my hands I screamed loudly for a few seconds and then I freed my ankles. The charcoal darkness inside the shed was so complete I couldn’t see my hands in front of my face but I raced to my feet and pummeled the door once more to no avail.

  “Think,” I growled in the air.

  Not a brain in that stupid skull of yours, I heard Grandma say.

  “Fuck off!” I shouted in reply.

  Then a flood of quicksand memories washed over me. Grandma locking me in the garden shed on a freezing cold winter night. The recollection was so overwhelming that it enveloped me and swallowed me whole. It was too hard to just keep pulling myself out of that deep quicksand. I could not just keep pretending to be whole when I felt like I was shattered in a million pieces.

  “You win!” I shouted to Grandma who, even in death, seemed determined to fucking fry my brain.

  I fell to my knees and pounded the floor with my fists over and over until I was completely exhausted. My forehead touched the coarse wood floor and my breathing came in hard gasps as I fought my emotions.

  Then I got mad.

  There is no way I survived countless beatings at the hand of a vicious bitch only to be killed by a serial killer. I refused to think that was my entire wasted life. If I did nothing now, I’d be dead. If I’d done nothing in that garden shed when Grandma locked me up in winter, I would’ve been dead of hypothermia by morning. No doubt she would’ve claimed it was an accident and that I must’ve gotten myself locked in and fallen asleep. I squeezed my eyes shut against the memory but it persisted.

  A brief glimmer of something sparked inside my head. The kind of detail that often got buried in trauma because of the need to obliterate all the pain. The reason I didn’t die in that garden shed was because I’d managed to pop off the cover plate and unscrew the bolts of the dead bolt using an old trowel th
at I found near a bucket of garden tools. My fingers had been numb with cold as I worked the edge of the trowel into the screws.

  Sadly, there were no gardening tools in this hellish prison.

  Still, I began groping around on the floor in the dark for something...anything...that could be used as a screwdriver. My hand bumped the bucket of piss in the corner and I gagged as it sloshed over the side. I considered whether or not I could use the water bottles. Maybe the lids or even the bottles themselves could be used as a tool? But after I squeezed them in my hand I realized the plastic was too thin and flimsy.

  Perhaps a loose piece of wood? My hands ran along the boards on the floor and in the corner became tangled with the fishing line. I shook the line off and heard a small solid noise that was far different than the sound a filament of string should’ve made landing on wood. I patted the palms of my hands along the fishing line until I felt something hard. I picked the object up and fingered the details of the thin, smooth and unmistakable shape of a fishing lure blade. I remembered saving up one Christmas to buy some of these for Gramps.

  “They give the lures a sparkle,” he said excitedly. “You tie these to the rigs and it’s like diamonds to a girl. Fish can’t resist ‘em.”

  The thin oval metal might bend, twist then break when used as a screwdriver but I had to try. I groped around along the door until I found the circular plate for the lock and then blindly wiggled the blade into the edge. I pried and coaxed and jiggled the blade until the plate popped off.

  “Yes!” I cried and swallowed the nervous lump in my throat.

  Next, I used the opposite, more pointed, end of the lure as a screwdriver. It took less than a minute to wiggle the first screw out and that bolstered my enthusiasm to unwind the next one. Again, it turned easily and before long I was prying off the inside plate and using my fingers to prod the outside plate until it fell out on the other side. It took some maneuvering to slide the bar out of the lock using my fingers. If I came out of this alive, I promised myself the luxury of my first manicure to fix my splintered nails. Excitedly, I tried to push the door forward but it held fast. I’d forgotten about the second dead bolt above my head.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit!” I moaned.

  With a quick intake of breath I stood on tiptoe and felt around for the lock. I could feel it but couldn’t manage the leverage needed to position the metal correctly.

  “Damn!”

  If only I was a few inches taller. Then I remembered the pee-filled bucket. I gagged as I spilled out the contents of the pail into the farthest corner of the shed. Once I’d brought it over to the door, I turned it over and prayed it would hold my weight. It did. The top dead bolt was identical to the lower one and the plate came off easily. However, while unscrewing the screws the blade broke in half. I jammed the bits into the screw and prayed as I applied pressure and turned. I have no idea how long it took me to get the screws to turn even a minute fraction. It felt like hours. My fingers stung and ached from the effort but, eventually, the screw came out far enough that I could work it the rest of the way out with my fingertips.

  I was free!

  I burst out of the shed and ran. Branches scraped my arms and face as I ran blindly through the thick brush in the dark. I went as fast and as far as I could. Thankfully, it was a clear night, and the moon and stars allowed enough light through the trees for me to find my way to a dirt road. Once I reached the road I back-stepped into the brush alongside. If Jonas came back I did not want to be easy to spot. Unfortunately, I had no idea where I was and could only hope that I’d eventually find a busier road if I followed this one.

  The wind rustled through the trees as I walked. Many times I stopped and strained my ears to listen. I was never quite sure if the sounds that reached my ears were the crash of my own footsteps through the bush, the wind through the leaves, or Jonas hot on my trail. It was the last thought that propelled me faster. I’d never been good at track-and-field in school but there was nothing like the thought of being strangled then chucked over a bridge to make me want to break a land-speed record.

  After walking what felt like miles and miles in the dark, I was out of breath and needed to rest. An icy wind had kicked up, and the stars had begun to be covered with a veil of clouds. I hunkered down against a large rock to get a break from the breeze, and when I crouched something in my front pocket dug into my leg. Katie’s earrings! I cried softly for a minute while I clenched them in my fist. Had she been initially brought to that same fishing shack? Was her urine what was collected in that bucket? Sadness stung my eyes and I wished there was a way to find out if she was okay.

  Then I realized that there was a way.

  Deciding to put my faith in dowsing, I pulled a shoelace from one of my shoes and tied one end to the heavy gold hoops.

  “Show me your yes,” I whispered and watched the earrings swing left to right.

  “Show me your no.”

  They began to swing toward me and away. I stilled the earrings with my hand and drew a deep breath.

  “Is Katie still alive?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation and then slowly the pendulum swung in the yes direction.

  “Thank God,” I breathed.

  “Will I find help?” I asked.

  The earrings stilled completely. No answer at all.

  “Is Garrett looking for me?”

  The earrings wildly swung to a yes.

  “Is Jonas looking for me?” I asked.

  The response came back as a no and I felt my body relax a little. I had time. At least I hoped I did.

  “Is Katie nearby?” I asked.

  The earrings swung to no.

  “Should I continue in the direction I’m going?”

  The answer was yes.

  After a few more minutes I re-laced my shoe and struggled to my feet.

  “I don’t know how and I don’t know when, Katie, but I’m going to save your lying, cheating ass,” I growled. “But first, I’ve got to save my own.”

  My legs protested the push forward but I knew I had to keep going. At one point the dirt road reached a fork, and I once again used Katie’s earring and my lace to find the answer to use the road veering right. Luckily, after less than half a mile, the dirt road opened ahead onto one that was paved and sure to have traffic. Hopefully. Eventually. At least maybe once it was the butt crack of dawn and not the middle of the night.

  There was just one problem getting onto that paved road just ahead.

  A bridge. A nasty-looking rusty trestle bridge that looked like it had stood the test of time but would most likely collapse under my weight and send me plummeting into the ravine below.

  I sank back into the dark bushes and gathered my courage. It wasn’t safe to stay in one place. I had to keep moving forward. I imagined Katie nagging me.

  “Get your ass going, Jules!” she’d say.

  “You’re not the boss of me,” I grumped in return.

  It was thinking about Gramps and Wookie that got me on my feet. They needed me. Thoughts of Garrett helped to propel my feet forward once I was on the edge of the bridge. I remembered the time I did it by following him and I did it the same way this time. I walked down the center of the road on shaky legs that threatened to buckle. It was almost impossible to encourage my feet to go faster but I crossed the bridge deck as quickly as I could. I tried to ignore the small voice inside me that wanted to pull me to the railing. The voice that said that Grandma was right all along and I wasn’t worth the bag of skin I was born in.

  An eerie sense of déjà vu hit me when I was halfway across. Quicksand thoughts that wanted to drown me in the creek below.

  I bit down on my lip, fisted my hands at my side and pushed my trembling legs forward by imagining Garrett on the other side coaxing me onward like a toddler learning to walk. Once I reached the other
side of the bridge, I rushed to the side of the road. My nausea was so great that I had my hands on my knees as I dry heaved. A dozen deep cleansing breaths helped me to find a little calm inside.

  “You’re almost done,” I told myself. “You got out of that shithole shack and you’re on the main road. You’ve got this.”

  Just after my little pep talk I straightened and began the arduous task of once again putting one foot in front of another. Suddenly, headlights were coming over the bridge. I ducked behind a small tree until I made out that the vehicle approaching was a large dump truck. Definitely not Jonas. I jumped into the middle of the road and waved my arms in the air until the driver screeched to a stop.

  A middle-aged woman climbed out and glared at me, hands on her hips.

  “I could’ve run you right over!” she exclaimed. Then, “Oh my God!” as she took in my disheveled appearance and blood-caked hands.

  I’d sunk to my knees right there in the middle of the road with my arms wrapped around myself as if I’d break apart if I let go. It probably took her ten minutes to get me calm enough to explain who I was and what had happened. Once I said I’d been taken like the other missing girls, she helped me crawl inside her truck, locked the doors and called for police.

  State Patrol arrived on the scene first and the officer took me in his car.

  “The entire friggin’ state’s been looking for you,” he remarked with entirely too much happy enthusiasm in his tone.

  I was shaking in the back of the car and couldn’t muster the energy to say a word of protest at his upbeat attitude. He handed me a scratchy and smelly wool blanket from his trunk and told me to sit tight. As if I was capable of doing anything else. Once I was cocooned inside the blanket, I sprawled out on the back seat and passed right out.

  What woke me up not too long afterward was the commotion caused by an ambulance and half a dozen black-and-whites as well as a couple unmarked cars. Even though my eyes had blinked open I didn’t want to leave the safety of that back seat and the coziness of that stinky blanket.