12
The first pop jarred Kyle Spencer awake, redlining his pulse for a quick moment. The top of the casket had been nailed shut, but not as well as before. One side had a crack in it, enough for his vision to cut across the room. He was in the same place, cream walls with pictures of crosses. The Gomez Crematorium and Funeral Home. He didn’t see any set of legs, like he had just before he dozed off. The popping noise had a bit of an echo to it, and it sounded like someone had pulled the tab on a can of beer in a nearby room.
Or was it something entirely different? His body went stiff, and he brought his hands up and palmed the casket, his attention on high alert.
Pop, pop, pop.
Gunshots! Someone was firing a gun. This set of three sounded more like a crackle. He gasped, then choked on his sandpaper tongue, struggling to swallow. Part of him wanted to cry out, hoping a SWAT team had been sent in to rescue him and would soon swoop into the room and finally free him.
Voices, mostly in Spanish, shouted down a hallway. Hard-soled shoes tapped furiously against tile floors. He held his breath, gauging the direction of the sounds. Suddenly he heard someone stumble into his room. He could see legs through the crack in his coffin. Two sets, one wearing old shorts—that appeared to be Wild Hair—the other belonging to the older man, who had on beige cashmere slacks.
“What do we do with our prize hog?” Wild Hair asked.
Kyle could hear ammo being slapped into a pistol.
“He’s safest down here, underground. We can’t let those crazy men find him. CR would have our asses if we let something happen to this cash cow. Upstairs now!”
They ran off. It didn’t seem like they were talking about law enforcement of any kind. But who could it be? A wave of emotion made his skin tingle. A moment ago, he thought the cavalry had surrounded the building and his insufferable torture would finally cease. But now he wasn’t going to be rescued by anyone, or so it seemed.
A thought slammed into his mind like the electrical jolt that had pierced his body days ago. He had to save himself. And he couldn’t wait until they gave him food and water, nursed him back to health. While they had mentioned the possibility of saving his life in the hope they could garner a handsome ransom, did he actually believe that after his mom and dad forked over a hundred grand, or one million, or even ten million, they would let him go? He’d seen too many faces. With his information, authorities would be able to hunt down these animals and throw them in jail for the rest of their lives.
It was now or never. Summoning every ounce of strength he could muster, he pressed against the lid of the coffin. He pressed until his arms shook, until the veins in his neck might burst from the extreme pressure. He dropped his arms as beads of sweat bubbled at the end of his nose. His chest lifted with every labored breath, cracking open scabs from his burn wounds. This wasn’t working. He wasn’t fucking Superman.
Pop, pop, pop, pop.
Four more gun shots and a splintering crash. Sounded like a large window rupturing into a million pieces. Who the hell could be shooting up a funeral home? What were they after? Him? Or was it just some type of statement being made by a rival group? He was almost certain that this new group wouldn’t just let him walk away without something in return. He apparently was a commodity, the value of which, he guessed, was in the eye of the beholder. They might think he was far more valuable as a drug runner, and they would stuff him like a piñata, full of drugs to move across the border.
Who the fuck knew?
He just knew he had been going about this escape attempt all wrong. He was willing to sacrifice anything to get out of this coffin and away from the funeral home. He scooted his body to the side of the crack, then pressed the heel of his palm up against the edge that was cracked the most. He lowered his arm slowly, then channeled all of his energy into a quick thrust of his palm against the plywood. It landed with a dull thud, but the damn board didn’t budge. Not even a hair. He repeated the same routine, and again the board remained intact. He went at it seven, eight, nine times. Nothing.
In between panting gasps, he wiped sweat from his eyes and noticed his hand bloodied. He felt splinters jutting out as if he’d just smacked a cactus. Fuck it. He didn’t care if his hand was split in two, he would do anything to find freedom. To live.
Kyle wedged the tips of his fingers into the crack. He could feel splinters burrowing under his fingernails, the pain agonizing. But it didn’t compare to when they’d tortured him, and this task wasn’t just for the sheer enjoyment of a bunch of perverted pricks. This task had a purpose.
He screamed out as he jabbed his fingers farther into the crack. “Just a little…bit…more,” he grunted out. He couldn’t recognize his own voice. It had been damaged by screaming when he was being electrocuted and having very little water since then.
Kyle finally felt the edge of the board. He rammed his elbow, hoping his hand would separate the nails just a tad. He went after it with everything he had, pounding his elbow, thrusting his weight into it. There—his first knuckle felt the frayed edge of the lid. He’d made progress, and a new dose of adrenaline coursed through his veins.
Without knowing how much longer he had until the room was invaded by his captors or this second group of unknown, gun-toting assailants, he went spastic—wiggling, wedging, prying with his fingers and hand. A second knuckle now touched the edge of the lid. He could, more or less, grab it. He didn’t wait for another burst of energy; he simply changed the angle of his focus. He hammered his elbow, while at the same time thrusting his arm and his entire body upward in that one spot. The nails squealed like a pig that had just been castrated. And it was a joyous feeling. He continued, and the next two thrusts brought two more squeals. He felt a rush of air invade his space. He was close.
More crackling pops echoed in the distance, and he banged and battered his hand against the lid until a nail popped out. With one of the corners now about six inches higher, he raised his knees to his chest. He hadn’t been able to stretch in days. Was this what it felt like to be a hundred years old?
He growled as he shoved his legs upward. More nail squeals from the far corner, and the lid opened another three inches. He did it twice more, and the lid lifted another four or five inches. He turned onto his side, then onto his stomach, and pressed his back against the lid, moving his knees underneath him. Biting down as hard as he could, he propelled his body upward. The board cracked, and he popped up from the coffin as jagged spears of wood punctured his side.
He moved to a standing position, and even with rubbery legs and blood soaking through his soiled T-shirt, he raised his fists as high as they could go and pumped them into the air. “Yes!” he exclaimed.
He took a single breath and swung his sights around, looking for an obvious way out. Two wooden boxes just like his were upright, leaning against a far wall. They must be empty. There was a sign on a black metal door that read “Crematorium.” Stepping out of the box—his undesirable home for the last week—he knew his escape had just begun. His physical condition was probably equal to that of a combat victim, or an elderly person who had just finished surgery on about ten different parts of the body. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a door in the corner. He tried to run, but it wasn’t happening. He shuffled his feet and torqued his body to make it to the door, grabbing walls and beams along the way so he wouldn’t tumble to the floor. Just before the door, there was another coffin. The lid was ajar, and he kicked it off and peered inside. It was stuffed with black bricks of something wrapped in plastic. It had to be drugs. Cocaine most likely. The old Kyle would have been ballsy enough to snatch a brick and take it with him, hoping he could make some extra cash and even have some left over to throw a raging party.
There wasn’t enough money on the planet for him to steal one of those coke bricks now. He wanted no part of it—the lifestyle, the partying, and especially the violence. For all these years, he had separated the violence and killing he’d heard about along the border from the
weed he smoked and cocaine he’d snorted—the drugs he’d also pushed others to use. But now he knew better. And he prayed like hell that one day he’d be able to educate other young people about the ramifications of their actions, the feeding frenzy that ultimately started because they just wanted to party without any restrictions.
Kyle put his hand on the metal handle of the door and pushed down. It opened, and he felt instant relief. In front of him was a long hallway with bare walls and another door at the end. He shot a quick glimpse over his shoulder and listened for a moment. The room was still empty—outside of whatever or whoever was inside the wooden coffins. He could just make out the hollow echo of distant voices, mostly shouting. Had the shootout ended, maybe by the police? He couldn’t wait and hope for law enforcement to arrive and rescue him. Everything else had gone wrong up to this point in this nightmarish fiasco, so there was no way he could rely on the good guys to waltz in and save his ass.
The hinged door clanged shut behind him, and he set his sights on the end of the hall where he spotted a white metal door. He took six steps and glanced upward as he leaned against the wall, his chest pumping out air. It seemed like someone had moved the end of the hallway back another ten feet. He pinched the corners of his eyes and realized his bearings had probably gone to shit. As he pushed off the wall, he noticed he left a trail of blood down the hallway and a smear of blood along the wall. The finger he’d use to pry open the coffin lid was a bloody mess, and while still raw and throbbing, his quest for liberation had blocked out most of the pain.
A few more steps and already he could feel the adrenaline drain from his body as if someone had accidentally pulled the stopper on his energy storage. He grunted in response and pushed ahead, moving as fast as he could will his body toward that door. His muscles sputtered like a forty-year-old car taken out of the demolition pile. A burning sensation shot down his back into his hamstring, limiting his stride to about six inches. His feet plodded along, smacking the gray linoleum floor as if he wore limp fins. Reaching down, he ran his hand along his left calf; it felt like a baseball had been transplanted into his leg.
Looking toward the door, he could feel a swell of emotion. His dwindling energy had allowed the pain to emerge from the shadows of his conscience. A battle of agony between his beaten face, the dozens of points on his body where his skin had been burned, the spider bites, and the lasting impact of being stuffed in a coffin with no way to move or stretch. He released a jittery breath and pressed on, but his pace had slowed. He glanced over his shoulder momentarily, hoping Wild Hair or one of the other thugs wouldn’t burst through, ready to punish him for trying to escape.
As he turned back around, he noticed a tinted glass bubble above his head. A camera? He felt his stomach drop. Were they watching him right now, possibly making fun of every step he took, just waiting for him to get to the end of the hall before they cut him off?
His anxiety kicked up a notch, but he had no other options. He had to keep moving in the same direction. Turning back now was akin to putting a gun to his head—just like his captors had done to him days before. He’d rather die than go back and subject himself to more torture.
He purposely pinched a thumbnail into his damaged finger, using the jabbing prick to center his focus on one goal—reaching the far door. He grunted as he pushed himself to pick up the pace. Even with his mini steps, he could hear the quicker cadence of his feet smacking the floor, and somehow, that infused his body with more energy.
“Come on, Kyle. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Keep moving,” he said in rhythm to each step.
Ten feet.
Part of him just wanted to dive at the door, but falling to the floor would only damage his chances at true freedom. If he fell, he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength or the balance to get back to his feet.
Two more steps….and he lunged at the door handle. It rotated ninety degrees, but his momentum didn’t budge the door. Was it locked on the other side? Maybe it was barricaded. He took a step back and tried to look under the door, but the small crack of space that existed didn’t show any light.
Then it hit him. Was there any guarantee that once he opened this door, he would be outside…in a safe place, finally free? Who knew what was on the other side of the door?
His overworked ticker made a last stand, thumping his ribcage faster and faster, as if it were telling him to take an alternate path. His body, his soul had been held over a fire. That was why his natural response was to run from the unknown. He looked behind him at the droplets of crimson and thought about the life he’d known the last week. That fear was far greater than any fear of the unexpected.
He lunged at the door with everything he had and it burst open, slamming against something hard. He fell to the floor, wincing as his shoulder pounded against cold concrete. He opened his eyes and saw a concrete step, and then another and another. He looked up and saw at least two flights of stairs with a black handrail. Three small pipes lined the wall. Slowly turning over, he felt his shoulder pop.
“Fuck!” He gripped his shoulder while ignoring the fact that his yelling could be drawing the enemy to his position. A pause between breaths, and he picked up a slight buzzing sound. He turned his head and saw four red letters. Four glorious letters that literally brought a smile to his face: E-X-I-T.
Even with his shoulder separated and his back feeling like crushed pretzels, he somehow pushed himself upright and aimed his hands for the exit door handle. It popped open and he took in a clean dose of air. It was dark and humid, but it was clean air. He arched his neck, closed his eyes, and filled his lungs as if he were drinking from a fountain of oxygen.
He opened his eyes and steadied his balance against a wall. It was made of stucco, with prickly edges shooting out from the façade. He saw a small gray and black sign hanging just above his head, acknowledging the building as the funeral home. He pushed himself off the wall and wiped his hand on his shirt. He was done with that hellhole.
He was standing in an alley, only a few lights illuminating the path in front and behind him. He needed water, desperately. And he knew he had to get to a hospital. And the police. But where was he? The funeral home sign was in English, as was another sign just up ahead, although his eyes couldn’t make out exactly what it said. He was probably still in the States. He trudged forward, knowing his freedom would be short-lived if he thought a car would simply drive up and take him around town. Keeping his eyes on the alley coated with black grime, he made sure his bare feet stayed clear of metal cans and pieces of glass. His feet were dirty and disgusting, as was the rest of his body. His own body odor smelled worse than the garbage sticking out of the upcoming dumpster. He almost chuckled at his own filth. What would Mom say?
More important to his current survival, what would any locals think of him? Homeless for certain, and one scary sight. It might take some convincing for any normal citizen to take him seriously. He shuffled another hundred feet or more. He veered to the right side of the path, where a metal bar now blocked his vision of the sign he’d seen earlier. No worries, just a few more steps…
“Fuck!” Broken glass impaled the ball of his foot, and he crumpled to the pavement and squeezed his foot with both hands. He was so close to finding a real human, someone to hopefully aid him with water, food, and access to care and the police.
Just then, a door pushed open, and a woman came out holding a bag of trash.
“Oh, dear God, what are you doing on the ground, son?”
She was older—sixty, maybe more—with curly, gray hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Round, metal-frame glasses matched the color of her hair and her eyes.
“I stepped on a piece of glass. Will you help me?” He peered up at her and hoped she wouldn’t be scared off.
“Are you one of those guys who can’t get a job and just begs us hardworking folks?”
“I’m just a college student. I—”
“College? I guess you do look a little bit younger. Hold on.” She walk
ed across the alley and swung the bag of trash into the open dumpster. On her way back, she kneeled next to him, first eyeing his foot. “Let me take a look.”
He flipped it over, and blood gushed out of the open wound.
“That’s an ugly one. We need to get that piece of glass out.”
“I need a doctor, actually an entire hospital for all the wounds I’ve got.”
“I was a nurse for thirty-two years, working ER for most of it. I’ve done just about everything. By the looks of it, I’m sure I can remove that glass, patch you up. By the way, if you’re in college, then why do you look like you just hiked across the desert?”
He squinted and pointed down the alley. “I’ve been held hostage at the funeral home.”
He turned back around, and her eyes were staring at his jittery arm.
Breaking from her momentary trance, she moved to a hunched position and grabbed under his arm. “Come on now. Let’s get you inside and take care of you.”
He was surprised by the grip of her hands as she pulled him up so he could hobble on one foot. “Did you hear me? I was held hostage in that building by a bunch of crazy people. They had me in a coffin. They took turns torturing me over the last several days.”
She had already wrapped his arm around her shoulder and helped move him a few steps toward her back door. She reached for the knob and pulled it open, using her foot to kick it wider.
He spoke louder. “Are you hard of hearing?”
“It’s okay, kid. I’ve got you, and nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll take care of everything.”
Just inside the door, the woman paused at a sink and opened the spigot into a tall cup and handed him the water. He downed the entire cup in just a few seconds, then asked for more. As she poured him another cup, he noticed blood from his foot drizzling onto her beige entry rug.
“Oh no, I ruined your rug. I’m so sorry. I really think you should call a paramedic and get me to a hospital,” he said as she handed him a fresh cup of water. He didn’t waste time, gulping it all down, a good portion of it dripping down his scruffy chin.
The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2) Page 15
