The history of the military is one of dealing with fear. We train soldiers to “obey orders, no matter what.” Desertion is frequently a capital offense, punished by a firing squad.
What’s it all show, though? He’d leaned forward a little to emphasize his point. Obviously, that fear is a natural response. In fact, in my years of command, it was always the fearless men who gave me the most trouble. They generally had a screw loose.
The audience laughed, and you could sense in that laughter a low relief, as though we were all being given a sudden pass on some hidden shame, a time we’d felt fear and had to hide it.
Fear is probably one of the oldest biological imperatives. It was developed to keep the organism alive. Fear demands flight from the stronger opponent, because, at the animal level, might does tend to make right. The bigger opponent will generally be the winning opponent.
Things have changed. We can think, and because we can think, we can create advantages that nullify the size or superior armament of the enemy. At this level, fear still serves a purpose, but only if we learn to harness it for our own ends. He smiled. Fight or flight, everyone’s heard that one, and it’s true. Fear was designed to encourage us to run, but it had a fail-safe: If running wasn’t an option, it delivered the adrenaline we’d need to put up a good fight. So there’s a flip side to fear. It tells you that you’re in danger, that you need to get your shit together quick, and that you need to either retreat, or fight, or die.
So the first step of conquering your fear is to embrace it. It’s telling you something. Listen. Don’t resist. That’s the first mistake, and it’ll be the one that kills you. You’ll be so distracted trying to push that fear aside that you won’t notice the guy with the gun ’til he’s right up on you. Fear freezes us first, and that’s a problem in a combat situation.
You have to take fear out of the instinctive level. It’s just an indicator, like a speedometer or your blood pressure. Apply your intellect to the indicator. Observe it. What’s it telling you? Is flight the answer? Could be. How about fight? Maybe. Observe it, embrace it, intellectualize it. When you do that, fear becomes a tool, nothing more or less, and you lose no forward motion.
Stop treating fear as a defect or something alien. It’s probably the oldest part of you.
I close my eyes and force myself first to breathe and then to examine my fear. Why am I afraid?
Number one is the visceral answer: because of what Sands did to me. I’ve been in the hands of a madman before. It almost destroyed me. It’s happening again, here, now, and the possibilities terrify me.
I examine this and throw it aside. It’s neither pertinent nor helpful. Dali is not Sands. There’s no indication that he’s a rapist. His attitude with Heather Hollister seems to have been that of a zookeeper with an animal. He might beat me, but he probably won’t fuck me.
My heartbeat slows a little bit.
Second: Heather Hollister herself. She wasn’t a weak woman, but eight years alone in the dark drove her crazy. She was a strong woman, a competent, confident police officer; now she picks holes into her skin and talks in circles like a child.
I group this one with the third and fourth. Third: Dana Hollister. What if he decides to lobotomize me in the same way? What if he makes the darkness last forever? And, finally, fourth: He could just decide to kill me.
These things, on the advice of Barnaby Wallace, I embrace. They’re real. They make sense. They are things that could actually happen and thus are the problems to solve.
My heartbeat and breathing have both returned to normal.
Thanks, Barnaby. You go on the Christmas list, if I make it out of here cognitive.
So, fight or flight? Which makes the most sense in this situation? I tick off the factors in my mind. He’s got the weapons, which gives him a distinct advantage. If he’s had military training, he’ll be conversant in close quarters combat. The most troubling thing is his experience. He’s been doing this for years. He knows what to expect when that trunk opens.
Flight, then. But how?
I remember what Heather Hollister said. She’d been ready to jump out and attack when the trunk opened. She’d been pepper-sprayed and stun-gunned for her efforts. It was the most obvious tactic, and the first one he’d be braced for. Jitter-step.
It was one of Kirby’s words. She’d challenged me to a little hand-to-hand combat one weekend, and I’d accepted. I prefer my gun but am aware it’s not always an option, and I knew my jujitsu could use some serious updating.
We had a good time, and Kirby, as it turns out, was a good instructor. She was skilled but never brutal, and she was able to explain everything she did. At one point I thought I had her. I’d caught her from behind, in a headlock, and she was straining hard to escape. She suddenly relaxed, sagging, then strained again, then sagged further, then strained again. It was confusing, and I found myself off balance, struggling to anticipate and react. In the midst of this calculation, she went from straining a little to a huge burst of resistance that threw me off utterly. She surged forward and flipped me over her shoulder. I landed on my back, hard.
Kirby had grinned down at me as I struggled to catch my breath. Jitter-step, Smoky-babe. One step up, one step down, one step up, one step down, and then, just when they think they’ve got your rhythm, make it two steps, see?
The car moves forward again.
I decide to make my move as I’m climbing out of the trunk, when my back is to him. It should be when I seem the most vulnerable and off balance. I’ll pretend to struggle with the exit, as though I’m lightheaded or faint. I’ll try once, fail, try twice, fail, and on the third time, rather than fail, I’ll kick back, catch him with a foot, and run.
I hope.
The quality of the sounds has changed. They are subtly deeper, as though they contain an echo.
A garage. We’ve pulled in to a garage.
I take a few deep breaths to steady myself and chant one of the phrases Barnaby used later in his lecture. It had seemed cheesy at the time, but it helps me now.
Fear serves me. I do not serve fear.
The engine stops. A pause. I hear a door opening and the muffled sounds of footsteps against a hard, smooth surface.
The trunk pops open slightly, a crack of light. There was no key in the lock, so he must have used the remote on his key fob. Smart.
“I’m going to open the trunk door halfway. I’ll throw in a pair of handcuffs. You’ll put them on. If you make a single move I’m uncomfortable with, I’ll hurt you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The trunk opens a little more but not completely. The handcuffs are thrown in.
“No tricks. Put them on tight or I’ll hurt you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He sounds bored, as if he’s reading from a prepared script. Just a job, done it a hundred times, same old same old.
I ratchet the cuffs onto my wrists, ensuring that they’re tight. “Okay, they’re on.”
The trunk opens fully. He’s standing behind the car, relaxed but alert. He holds my gun in one hand, pointed at me. The other holds a can of what I assume is pepper spray, also pointed at me.
We’re inside a concrete structure with a roll-up door. The door is up and I can see night sky and a fence behind Dali. Freedom.
“You’re going to climb out of the trunk and stand with your back to me. I’ll walk you forward. You’ll go where I direct you. If you make any sudden move, I’ll shoot you. I’ll injure you if I can, but I’ll kill you if I have to. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Climb out.”
Now or never. This is the chance. Jitter-step.
I struggle to get out and fail.
That’s one.
I take a quick breath, steady my nerves, and get ready to try and fail again.
He sprays me with the pepper spray before I even start. It hits me in the worst way: directly into my open eyes and down my throat. The pain is immediate and
excruciating. I scream as my eyes burn, and then I can’t scream because I’m coughing uncontrollably and retching. He continues to spray me, he won’t stop, and I’m unaware of him, of the car, of the fear, because everything is about the agony I’m in.
He kicks me so that I fall back into the trunk, and then he slams it shut.
I cough and retch in the dark. I scream when I can. My skin burns anywhere the spray touched it. I rub my eyes, but that only makes it worse. The pain is more terrible than anything I’ve ever experienced, not in terms of its intensity but because of its inescapability. Nothing I do lessens it, nothing will make it stop.
I burn in the dark, and writhe.
I have no idea how much time passes. Time is measured in suffering, in its lessening, and finally in its ending. Somewhere in the part of my mind that’s still capable of rational thought, I guess that an hour must have passed. I’m covered in sweat; my face drips with tears and snot. I’ve vomited on myself. My muscles are weak, and I’m filled with a deadening mixture of lassitude and despair. A hand pounds twice on the trunk.
“We’re going to try this again. If you attempt to do anything other than what I’ve told you, I will give you the same again. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whisper, my voice trembling with fear and hate.
“Do you understand?”
He couldn’t hear me. The hate rises.
“Yes,” I say, louder. “I understand.”
What else is there to say?
The trunk opens. The scene is the same as before. The night sky behind him, the gun in my face. I gulp in cool night air. I tremble, and hate that I tremble.
“Go on,” he says. “Get out.”
I shake as I climb out, no funny stuff this time. I stand with my back to him. He places a hand on my shoulder. The gun settles into my lower back.
“Walk.”
I walk, aware that the night sky is receding behind me. Is this how the others felt? Is it always the same? The bored voice, the instructions, the fading stars? I think it probably is. Dali is pragmatic, soulless. He doesn’t deviate from what works.
My eyes are still burning, though it’s tolerable now. I try to take in my surroundings as we walk toward a door. I see gray concrete walls, floor, ceiling. The room we drove into was small. The ceiling can’t be more than eight feet high. There’s a single bulb. The door he’s marching me toward is flat gray metal, windowless. Utilitarian. I note a camera in the upper right-hand corner.
Looks like Earl was right on the money, I think. Or close enough.
We reach the door.
“Open it,” he tells me.
I reach out, turn the knob, open the door. Beyond is a concrete hallway, probably thirty feet long. It turns right at the end. There are three doors along the left wall, and it’s all lit as unimaginatively as the room we’re leaving.
“Walk,” he says, still bored.
I move forward. I hear the door close behind us, and now I’m in a tomb. There are no sounds here, just silence and coolness. We reach the end of the hallway and turn to the right. There’s a metal stairway.
“Up,” he directs.
We march up and reach the second floor landing, which is the top. “Open the door.”
I turn another knob and open another door, and now we’re in a new hallway, much more terrifying than the one below. This one has a series of ten doors on either side. These are made of steel, and there are no knobs on them. Padlocks and hasps secure them from the outside in three places. I swallow back bile as I note the locked openings at the base of each door.
That’s where he’ll put the food through.
“Walk,” he tells me, and I walk, helpless to do anything else.
We come to the end of the hallway. As we pass each door, I have to wonder: Are there women in each? The last door stands open, waiting for me.
“Enter the room,” he tells me.
I balk, and the gun pushes into my spine, reminding me of his promise. I have no reason to doubt him.
“Enter the room,” he says again, that endless bored patience.
I walk forward. As I reach the threshold, he shoves me hard, and I stumble inside. The door begins to close immediately, taking the light with it. I scan my surroundings, seeing what I can: a bunk built into the wall, a toilet. Nothing else. I whirl around and watch as the door slams shut.
I launch myself against it. I can’t help it.
“Let me out, Dali, you piece of shit! I’m a member of the fucking FBI!”
I mean for it to be anger, but it sounds like terror. He doesn’t reply. I hear the locks being applied to the hasps.
“Dali!” I scream.
I can hear him walking away.
Then I hear nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The darkness is, as Heather Hollister had said, total. I thought some light might come in through cracks in the door, but Dali’s done something with all the seams to seal off any possible ingress of illumination. I hold my hands up to my face and stare at them. This is something my dad taught me when I was girl, when he wanted to get rid of my night-light.
“But it’s dark, Daddy,” I protested, eight years old and using my best little-girl-in-distress voice, the one that never failed to bend him to my will.
This time, he’d held firm. I saw my mother behind it. “It’s never completely dark, honey,” he said. “Look, I’ll show you. I’ll turn off all the lights, but I’ll be here with you when I do it, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed, doubtful.
He flicked the switch and everything turned to black. I felt the old panic rise, the same panic that told me to beware, there was something under my bed, something with the voice of a snake and the claws of a beast, waiting to grab my legs when my feet hit the floor.
“D-Daddy?” I whispered.
“I’m here, baby, don’t worry. Now, I want you to do something for me. I want you to put your hand in front of your face, and I want you to stare at it.”
“Why?”
“Just trust me, honey.”
I had no longer been afraid, of course. My father was with me, so the monsters would stay away. I brought my hand up in the darkness and stared.
At first I saw nothing at all, but as the moments passed, I became aware that Dad was right. The darkness wasn’t total. The moon, though only a quarter full and hidden behind a blanket of clouds, provided the barest hint of illumination through the curtains. The street-lamps in the distance bounced off the clouds and sent faint light my way. My hand ghosted into view. Just an outline, but it was there.
“I see it, Dad!”
I try it now. I stare and stare and stare. Time passes. I see nothing. Nothing but blackness.
“Shit,” I say, alarmed at how shaky my voice is already. I lower my hands. The clink of the handcuffs is strangely comforting in the otherwise complete silence.
“Work out your surrounds,” I say aloud.
I picture the room as I’d seen it before the door closed.
“Bed should be to my left.”
I move left slowly, until I feel the metal edge of the cot. I reach down with my hands and run them over the cool metal sides. I find the blankets, which are sparse and rough. A sheet covers a thin mattress, and a lumpy pillow sits at the head. I fumble further and find the bolts that were used to secure the cot to the wall.
“Like a prison bed,” I mutter.
It was apropos. This was a cell, right?
I straighten and turn, putting the bed to my back.
“Toilet should be to my right in the center of the wall.”
I walk to what I think is the center of the room, and then I face right and walk forward. I keep my hands out in front of me and soon touch cool concrete. I hunch forward, searching.
No toilet.
I remain bent over and crab-walk to the left. A moment later I feel the toilet, which is made of metal, not porcelain. Again, like a cell. Porcelain can be broken; its pieces can be made into knives.
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br /> “Don’t want anyone slitting their wrists, now, do we?”
I realize that the darkness throws off almost all of my spatial sense.
I was certain that I’d walked to the middle of the room, but I’d been off by almost three feet. My admiration for the blind is rising by the minute.
I decide to pace off my cell. I follow the front wall back until I reach the side wall to which the cot is bolted. I put my back to it and walk slowly, counting as I go. I keep each pace to what I think is a foot. I reach twelve by the time my toe contacts the far wall.
“Twelve feet. Okay.”
I walk the distance between. It’s five feet.
“Twelve by five. Gotcha. Bed, toilet. Blanket, pillow.”
I find my way back to the bed and sit down on it. I stare out into nothing. The blackness is oppressive in its completeness. I cock an ear and hear the low swish swish of air being pumped into the room. There is nothing else. I lay back on the bed and stare into the blackness that leads to the ceiling.
“Jesus,” I whisper, and it’s almost a sob.
I’d judged Heather Hollister. It’s a natural reaction. We see someone sicker or weaker and we’re stronger and healthier and we assume at some unconscious level that there’s an innate difference between us and them. Be it luck or karma or inner strength, we must somehow be superior, else we would be like them.
I sit now in the darkness and the silence and the swish swish swish and I understand. Eight years of this would destroy anyone, anywhere. The fact that she could still string words together into sentences was a sign of tremendous strength, not fundamental weakness.
“I’m sorry, Heather,” I say aloud.
I have no problem speaking to myself. I’ve done it, off and on, since the loss of my former life. I realize it’s not healthy, but it was my original truce with insanity. It’s worked so far.
“We’ll have whole conversations, Alexa, if I’m here long enough.”
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