As Good as Dead

by Holly Jackson

  OK, she was alone, Pip settled on that, but she couldn’t linger in that momentary relief. Now on to the next problem. The terror wasn’t locked up, like she was, in the back of her head. It was everywhere. It was in her taped-down eyes and her taped-up ears. In every beat of her overused heart. In the raw skin of her wrists and the uncomfortable bend of her shoulders. In the pit of her stomach and the deep of her soul. Pure and visceral, fear as she’d never known it before. Inevitable. The segue between being alive and not.

  Her breaths were coming shorter, too short, panicked spurts of in-and-out. Oh fuck. Her nose was blocking up, she could feel it, every breath rattling more than the last. She shouldn’t have cried, she shouldn’t have cried. The air was struggling, scraping its way through two tightening holes. Soon they would block up entirely and she would suffocate. That’s how it would all end. Dead girl walking. Dead girl not breathing. At least that way DT wouldn’t get to kill her, not his way, at least, with a blue rope around her neck. Maybe it was better this way, something out of his control and closer to hers. But, oh god, she didn’t want to die. Pip forced the air in and out, feeling light-headed, though she no longer had a head, just two shrinking nostrils.

  A new chorus in her mind. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

  “Hey, Sarge.” Ravi was back, inside her head. Whispering into her taped-up ear.

  “I’m going to die,” she told him.

  “I don’t think so,” he replied, and Pip knew he was saying it with the trace of a smile, a dimple carved into one cheek. “Just breathe. Slower than that, please.”

  “But look.” She showed him the restraints: her ankles, her hands tied to a cold metal pole, the mask around her face.

  Ravi already knew all that, he’d been there for it too. “I’m staying with you, until the very end,” he promised, and Pip wanted to cry again but she couldn’t, her eyes were forced shut. “You won’t be alone, Pip.”

  “That helps,” she told him.

  “That’s what I’m here for. Always. Team Ravi and Pip.” He smiled behind her eyes. “And we made a good team, didn’t we?”

  “You did,” she said.

  “And you did too.” He took her hand, bound behind her back. “Of course, I supplied all the devilish good looks,” he laughed at his own joke, or hers, she supposed. “But you were always the brave one. Meticulous, annoyingly so. Determined to the point of recklessness. You always had a plan, no matter what.”

  “I didn’t plan for this,” Pip said. “I lost.”

  “That’s OK, Sarge.” He gave her hand a squeeze, her fingers starting to fizz from the awkward angle. “You just need a new plan. That’s what you’re good at. You’re not going to die here. He’s gone, and now you have time. Use that time. Come up with a plan. Wouldn’t you like to see me again? See everyone you care about?”

  “Yes,” she told him.

  “Then you better get started.”

  Better get started.

  She took a deep breath, her airway clearer now. Ravi was right: she’d been given time and she had to use it. Because as soon as Jason Bell walked back through that door with the shrieking hinges, there was no longer a chance. None. She was dead. But this Pip, left alone and bound here to these metal shelves, she was only very likely dead. Not much of a chance, but more than near-future Pip had.

  “OK,” she said to Ravi, but really to herself. “A plan.”

  She couldn’t see, but she could still check her surroundings. There hadn’t been anything in her vicinity before DT taped over her sight, but maybe he’d left something nearby after the mask was done. Something she could use. Pip swiped her bound legs in an arc, to one side and the other, straining her arms to reach farther out. No, there was nothing here, just concrete and the dipped-down channel running beneath the shelves.

  That’s fine, she hadn’t expected there to be anything, don’t sink back down into despair. Ravi wouldn’t let her, anyway. OK, so, she couldn’t move, she was stuck here to these shelves. Was there anything there that could help her? Vats of weed killer and fertilizer that were useless to her, even if she could reach them. Fine, so what could she reach? Pip flexed her fingers, trying to bring the feeling back to them. Her arms were bent behind her back, pulled up higher than they should be. Her wrists were taped to the front metal pole of the shelving unit, just above the lowest shelf. She knew all that, had taken it in before her face was taken. Pip shifted her wrists against the tape and explored with two fingers. Yes, she felt the cold metal of the pole, and if she stretched her middle finger down, she could just feel the intersection of the shelf, where it attached to the pole.

  That was it. All she could reach. All the help she had in the world.

  “Maybe it’s enough,” Ravi said.

  And maybe it was. Because somewhere, in that intersection between shelf and pole, there had to be a screw, to hold them together. And a screw could be freedom. Pip could use that screw. Pinch it between her thumb and finger and pierce holes in the tape at her wrists. Keep piercing and ripping until she could tear herself free.

  OK, that was it. That was the plan. Get the screw from the shelf.

  Pip had that feeling again, like there was a presence in the unknown around her. And not just the Ravi in her head. Something malignant and cold. But time didn’t wait for anybody and it definitely wouldn’t wait for her. So how was she going to get the screw?

  Pip could only just touch the top of the shelf with one finger; she needed to somehow move her wrists lower, so she could reach the underside of the shelf. The duct tape was wrapped around her wrists, sticking them to this exact part of the pole. But if she shifted around, maybe, just maybe, she might get the tape to unstick from the metal. It was just on one side. Only an inch or two of contact. If she could unstick the tape there, then she could slide her hands up or down the pole. She’d struggled and she’d left herself a little room inside the tape, inside Jason’s grip. She could do it. Pip knew she could.

  She walked her legs in so she could push her weight back against the tape. Shoved her hands farther into the shelves, fingertips brushing the plastic edge of one of the vats. She pushed and she strained and she shifted and she could feel it give. Felt one side of the tape coming unstuck from the metal.

  “Yes, keep going, Sarge,” Ravi urged her on.

  She pushed harder, she strained harder, the tape cutting into her skin. And slowly, slowly, the tape came free from the pole.

  “Yes,” she and Ravi hissed together.

  They shouldn’t have, because she wasn’t free. Pip was still stuck to this pole, her wrists bound tight around it, still very likely dead. But she had gained something: movement up and down between two shelves, her restraints sliding against the pole.

  Pip wasted no more time, dropping her wrists as far as they could go, resting just above that lower shelf. She felt her way around the corner of the shelf with her fingers, and there, on the inside, she felt something: small and hard and metal. It must be the nut, secured to the end of the screw. Pip pressed her finger hard against it. She could feel the end of the screw, emerging from the nut. It wasn’t as sharp as she’d like, but it would work. She could still use it to hack away at the duct tape.

  Next step: remove the nut. It wasn’t going to be easy, Pip realized, as she shifted her hands again. There was no way she could get either of her thumbs around that side of the pole; they were stuck here on the outside. She would have to use two of her fingers instead. Her right hand, obviously. It was stronger. She positioned her middle finger and forefinger around the nut, clamped them together, and tried to twist. Fuck, it was screwed on tight. And which was the right way to loosen it, anyway? Was it to the left, so her right?

  “Don’t panic, just try,” Ravi told her. “Try until it gives.”

  Pip did try. And she tried. It wasn’t working, it wouldn’t budge. She was de
ad again.

  She shifted and tried the other way, struggling with the angle. This would never work. She needed her thumbs: How could anyone do this without their thumbs? She pushed her fingers together around the metal and twisted. It hurt, right into the bones, and if she broke the fingers…well, she had more of them. The nut shifted. Barely, but it had shifted.

  Pip paused to stretch out her aching fingers, to tell Ravi about it.

  “Good, that’s good,” he said to her. “But you’ve got to keep going, you don’t know how long he’ll be gone.”

  It might have already been a half hour since Jason left, Pip had no way of knowing, and the terror moved time in strange ways. Lifetimes in seconds, and the other way around. The nut had hardly loosened at all; this was going to take a while and she couldn’t lose focus.

  She shifted her fingers again, clamped around the protruding metal nut, and pulled it round. It was stubborn, moving only after she’d given it everything, and hardly moving at that. Every time it gave, she had to reposition her fingers around it.

  Shift. Clamp. Turn.

  Shift. Clamp. Turn.

  It was only a tiny movement, in one hand, and yet Pip could feel the sweat running down the insides of her arms, into the fabric of her hoodie. Sliding against the tape at her temples and her upper lip. How long had it been now? Minutes. More than five? More than ten? The nut was loosening, giving a little more each turn.

  Shift. Clamp. Turn.

  It must have made a full turn by now, growing looser against the screw, against her fingers. She could turn it in quarter circles now.

  Half circles.

  A full turn.

  Another.

  The nut came free of the screw, resting on the ends of her fingers.

  “Yes,” Ravi hissed in her head as Pip let the nut drop to the floor, a small tinkle of metal in the great, dark unknown.

  Now to remove the screw and hack away the tape at her wrists. She was only likely dead now, not very. But she might live. She might just. Hope discoloring some of terror’s dark edges.

  “Careful,” Ravi said to her as she felt for the end of the screw. Pip pushed it, driving it back through the hole. She had to push hard, the weight of the shelf and all those vats leaning down on the screw. She pushed again and the end disappeared inside the hole.

  OK, breathe. She shifted her hands once more, reaching for the front side of the metal pole. This was better: she could use her thumb now. Pip felt for the protruding screw, found it with her finger, and hooked on, holding it between her finger and thumb.

  Don’t let go.

  She tightened her grip and pulled out the screw, a grinding sound of metal on metal.

  The shelf tilted forward, losing its front support.

  Something hard and heavy slid down it, knocking into her shoulder.

  Pip flinched.

  Her grip loosened, just for a second.

  The screw fell from her hand.

  A small clatter of metal on concrete, bouncing once, twice, rolling away.

  Away into the dark unknown.

  Nononononononono.

  Breaths rattled in and out of her nose, hissing against the edges of the tape.

  Pip swiped with her legs, feeling out the unknown, this way and that. There was nothing around her but concrete. The screw was gone, out of reach. And she was dead again.

  “I’m sorry,” she told the Ravi in her head. “I tried. I really did. I wanted to see you again.”

  “It’s OK, Sarge,” he told her. “I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you. Plans change all the time. Think.”

  Think what? That had been her last chance, the last sliver of hope, and now the terror was feeding itself on that too.

  Ravi sat with her, back-to-back, but he was actually the heavy vat of weed killer leaning against her, pushing down on the loose corner of the shelf. The metal groaned, bending out of shape.

  Pip tried to take Ravi’s hand behind her and felt the drooping corner of the shelf instead. Felt the tiniest gap between the lopsided shelf and the pole it was supposed to be attached to. Tiny. But enough to slide her fingernail through. And if it was big enough for that, then it was big enough for the width of the duct tape wrapped around her wrists.

  Pip held her breath as she tried. Lowering her hands, forcing that empty side of tape through the gap. It caught on the shelf, so she shifted and jerked, and it came free. She slipped her binds below the shelf, and now she was attached only to the lowest part of the shelving unit. Just this small length of pole and the ground it rested on, that was all that was keeping her here now. If she could somehow raise the leg of the pole, she could slip her restraints down under the end and out.

  She shuffled her bound feet, feeling around the area, careful to keep blocking the vat so it didn’t fall. Her legs dipped down into the lowered channel running through the concrete floor. That was an idea. If she could drag the shelf forward to that gutter, there would be space beneath the pole leg for her to slip out. But how was she going to drag it? She was attached to it by the wrists, arms locked behind her. If she hadn’t been able to fight off Jason Bell with her arms, there was no way she could lift this heavy shelving unit with them. She wasn’t that strong, and if she was going to survive, she had to understand her limits. That wasn’t her way out of here.

  “So what is?” Ravi prompted.

  One idea: the duct tape had snagged against the uneven shelf as she’d lowered her hands. If she kept passing the tape through that small gap, kept snagging, maybe it would start to tear small holes in her binds. But that would take a while, a while she’d already spent loosening the nut and removing the screw. DT could be on his way back at any time. Pip must have been alone for over an hour now, maybe more. Alone, even though Ravi was right here. Her thoughts in his voice. Her lifeline. Her cornerstone.

  Time was a limitation. The strength of her arms another. What was left?

  Her legs. Her legs were bound at the ankles, but they could move, as one. And unlike her arms, they were strong. She’d been running from monsters for months. If she was too weak to drag or lift the shelves, maybe she was strong enough to push them.

  Pip explored the unknown with her legs again, stretching out to the back pole of the shelving unit. Through the fabric of her sneakers, she could feel that the back of the shelves wasn’t against the wall—it stood a few inches in front of it, at least the width of her foot. Not a lot of room, but it was enough. If she could push the shelves back, they would overtip, landing against the wall. And the front legs would stick up, like an insect on its back. That was the plan. A good plan. And maybe she really would live to see everyone again.

  Pip swung her legs forward and dug in her heels, using the lip of the gutter to push against. She propped up her shoulders against the front of the shelf, still blocking the nearest vat from sliding off.

  She pushed down, into her heels, and raised herself from the floor.

  “Come on,” she told herself, and she didn’t need to hear it in Ravi’s voice anymore. Hers was enough. “Come on.”

  Pip screeched with the effort of it, the muffled sound filling up her death mask.

  She threw her head back against the pole and pushed with it too.

  Movement. She felt movement, or hope was only tricking her.

  She shuffled one foot incrementally closer, and the other, and she drove them into the gutter, ramming her shoulders against the shelves. The muscles up the backs of her legs shuddered, and it felt like her stomach was tearing open. But she knew it was this or death, so she pushed and she pushed.

  The shelves gave way.

  They tipped back. The sound of metal meeting brick. A crash as the vat of weed killer finally slid free, cracking open against the concrete. Others sliding, thumping against the back wall. A sharp chemical smell, and something soaking into her
leggings.

  But none of that mattered.

  Pip lowered her binds down the metal pole. And there, at its end, was freedom. It stood up only about an inch from the concrete, that’s what it felt like, and that was more than enough. She slipped the tape over the end and she was free.

  Free. But not all the way.

  Pip shuffled away from the shelves, from the liquid pooling around her. She lay on her side, tucked her knees into her chest, and slipped her bound hands over her feet, arms now in front of her.

  The tape came off easily, one hand slipping out of the space left by the pole, then freeing the other.

  Her face. Her face next.

  Blindly, she felt around her duct tape mask, searching for the end DT had left. There it was, by her temple. She pulled it, the tape undoing with a loud rip. It pulled at her skin, pulled out eyelashes and eyebrows, but Pip tore it off, hard and quick, and she opened her eyes. Blinked in the cold storeroom and the destruction of the shelves behind her. She kept going, pulling and tearing, and the pain was agonizing, her skin raw, but it was a good pain, because she was going to live. She held on to her hair to try to stop it from pulling out from the root, but small clumps of it came away with the tape.

  Unwinding and unwinding.

  Up her head, and down her nose. Her mouth came free and she breathed through it and breathed hard. Her chin. One ear. Then the other.

  Pip dropped her unraveled mask to the floor. The duct tape long and meandering, scattered with hair and small spots of blood it had claimed from her.

  DT had taken her face, but she had taken it back.