by Susan Murray
All was well. Except, were those footsteps on the second floor below?
Marley felt a flash of pure fright as the footsteps grew louder then headed up the narrow stairway to the attic in a rush. Not again! With a feeling of utter disbelief Marley ran to the attic door and locked it quickly, slamming the pathetic metal rod home in the flimsy bolt lock.
She backed away as someone clumped up the last few steps and banged on the attic door until it shuddered. “I know someone’s in there. I heard you moving around. Now open the door.” It took Marley a minute to identify the voice but then she realized it was The Dark’s assistant, Benny, speaking.
“Benny? Is that you?” Marley called tentatively. “What do you want?”
There was a long silence, then, “Ms. McCormick? Is that you?”
“Well who else would it be? What do you want?” Marley felt silly crouching with her face against the door, talking through wooden panels with The Dark’s none-too-bright employee.
“My boss just left here a few minutes ago, he said I should.. I’m supposed to clean up in there, check things out,” Benny finally blurted.
“Clean up what? Check what?” Marley asked, disturbed by the implications of his words in more ways than one. Then it dawned on her that if The Dark had just been in her attic minutes ago then Marley hadn’t merely hallucinated his attack after all. And if his attack had been real. . then .. she felt more confused than ever.
“I don’t need anything cleaned.” Marley replied. “Please go away. I’m calling the police.” She bluffed. There was no phone in the attic.
Following her words there was silence on the other side of the attic door and then the muffled sound of a one-sided cell phone conversation. Marley could tell what was going on out there because first Benny spoke and then silence ensued as he listened. Then he said something else. Pressing her ear to the thin wooden panel Marley tried to eavesdrop. She heard her name mentioned twice but Benny mumbled his words so she couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Finally Benny hung up and loudly addressed her again. “Ms. McCormick, why don’t you just open the door and come on out. The Dark wants to talk to you.”
“Leave me alone! I just called the police!” Given the circumstances Marley had no qualms about perjuring herself in a lie.
“No you didn’t. I have your phone right here.” Benny replied and there was silence again. “Open the door!” Benny began battering on the thin wooden panels and Marley crossed the attic to open the window-seat. Reaching in for the metal fire ladder stored there, she found nothing. Uncle Max must have moved the ladder. Marley fumbled with the window latch, sliding the window open. Leaning as far as she could out the window Marley screamed, “Help!” Her words whipped away on the wind. “Help!” She tried again.
Looking hopefully across the yard at her closest neighbors’ house Marley saw nothing. There was no response to her shout and all the lights stayed off inside their house. Either nobody was home or they were all asleep.
At any rate it was clear the cavalry wouldn’t be riding to her rescue anytime soon, so Marley decided to save her breath and come up with a plan. The attic door was already beginning to splinter under Benny’s blows and there was no place to hide once he broke in. Given what had happened to Gillian and her brother, Marley didn’t want to face The Dark’s assistant.
But if she could make it across the roof to the other end of the house she’d be able to swing down onto the second floor balcony outside the master bedroom. From there she’d have a decent chance to get to a phone or at least find a good hiding place.
Then again. ..
Marley closed her eyes against the debilitating wave of panic that froze her in place. She had something in common with Gillian Folsom. A fear of heights had been part of her life since childhood, and just the thought of climbing out onto the roof made her knees weaken, threatening collapse. She couldn’t even handle taking the glass elevators up five floors at the shopping mall. There was no way she could do this. No way.
But she had to. The attic door wouldn’t hold forever.
There was just enough room for Marley to crawl out the window and onto the roof outside, so she did. It was a tight fit, but she made it through and closed the window behind her, reminding herself not to look down. Then the moon emerged from behind a cloud and illuminated the slanting roof quite clearly, showing Marley the full extent of her predicament. The ground was miles away. She closed her eyes.
The attic door gave way with a splintering crash.
Opening her eyes again, Marley looked around. The roof sloped downward for about thirty more feet and then there was a steep and dangerous drop of an apparently endless distance to the ground below. Nothing along the way for Marley to hold onto if she began sliding down. Nothing to stop her from going over the edge of the roof and falling splat! to her death on the ground so very far below.
Face your fear, Marley told herself as she crawled a mere few inches out onto the roof and then a little farther. But don’t look down. What was it that The Dark and his disciples had said? PAF! Summoning the mojo of PAF, Marley scrabbled further out over the slippery surface, trying to forget the daunting drop below. She had crawled more than twenty feet away from the attic window by the time Benny finally figured out where she’d gone.
The window slammed open with a bang and Benny shouted after her. “Hey! Get back here!”
These words distracted Marley and she glanced back at him long enough to lose her tenuous grip on the roof. For one long, scary moment the only thing she could do was slide downward and hope she wouldn’t fall over the edge. Then somehow miraculously she managed to snag a corner of the chimney and stop her downward skid.
Benny tried to follow Marley out onto the roof but got stuck in the window, and while he struggled to free himself Marley continued across the roof. Doing her best to think about nothing besides survival and focusing on just moving one inch at a time, Marley finally made it to the dormer window at the other end of the house.
Channeling Lara Croft, Marley swung out over empty space and dangled. It took all of her courage to let herself fall ten feet down to the balcony below. Landing painfully, Marley fell hard onto the second floor balcony. For a moment all she could manage to do was lie flat and get her wind back, staring up at the moon and giving thanks to be alive. Her gamble had paid off.
But alas, before Marley could even get to her feet, let alone to the phone, Benny slid the balcony door open from inside the master bedroom and scowled down at her. He hadn’t followed her out onto the roof after all. He’d taken the short way around. Instinctively Marley crawled away from him, desperately seeking the sanctuary of the balcony’s edge. At this point even a straight drop over the side would be preferable to letting The Dark’s freak catch her.
A car drove by on the street below, its lights cutting through the darkness. “Help!” Marley screamed, hoping the driver would see the two of them struggling on the balcony but the vehicle kept going.
“Save your breath.” Angrily, Benny grabbed her ankle and hauled Marley kicking and squirming back inside the master bedroom. “Now don’t make me use this!” Which was when Marley realized that he had a gun.
CHAPTER 29
October 31st – 1:00 a.m.
The gun changed everything, especially when Benny pointed it right in Marley’s face. She came unresisting when he pulled her upright more or less by her hair. “You’re a real pain in the neck,” he told her, “Get downstairs. Now.” It was an order, not a suggestion.
“Keep moving,” Benny told Marley curtly when she lagged a little, “all the way down.” It was clear he’d push her down the stairs if she didn’t go voluntarily so Marley reluctantly went. For such a squidgy little guy, Benny sure w
as aggressive.
Once they reached the first floor Marley tried to stall him until she could think of a plan. Keeping her tone casual, she said, “Look Benny, why don’t we talk about all this. What’s going on here?”
Benny gave her a cold look and snapped his fingers loudly. “Hey guys!” Two tall, heavily muscled men in matching black suits and starched black shirts wearing sunglasses (even though it was dark out) walked into the kitchen.
Marley recognized both men from the night she’d interviewed The Dark. They were the same fellows who’d dragged Gillian Folsom screaming from The Dark’s suite back at the Marquette Hotel. What on earth were they there for? Marley had a sinking feeling she didn’t want to know. Neither of the men introduced himself and Marley didn’t ask for names.
“Let’s go. The boss needs to talk to you about the book.” Benny gestured Marley toward the back door with his gun.
“If it’s all the same to you I’d really rather not.” Marley replied quite sincerely. “I’ll catch up later, okay? You go on ahead without me.” Instead of laughing at her feeble little joke, Benny’s henchmen grabbed Marley then shoved her out the door and across the back yard to a big black SUV parked in the alley. It looked like the same vehicle that had struck down Gillian Folsom’s brother and Marley fought hard against being pushed inside.
It was three against one plus a gun though, so Marley ended up wedged tightly between the two thugs in the back seat while Benny got in front, started the engine and pulled out into traffic. And so it was that Marley found herself speeding down Lake Street toward the freeway, on her way to see The Dark and his disturbing pet once again.
Swallowing her terror, she wished she’d been able to leave the Eye of Inanna back in the attic. On the other hand, if worst came to worst she’d be able to give The Dark what he wanted to save her own life. After all, despite her hallucinations it was just a piece of metal. In the meantime, The Eye felt heavy in her pocket.
The windows of the SUV were tinted so heavily that she couldn’t identify a single landmark they passed. After traveling in a generally westerly direction for about twenty minutes the vehicle finally came to a stop.
“Out,” this order came from Benny, and when she was slow to obey Marley was hauled bodily out of the SUV by his thugs who escorted her along quite rudely.
“Okay, okay. I’m going.” Marley tried to work her arms free of their hurtful grasp without success. Every time she tried to drag her feet and slow things down the two men simply picked her up by her elbows and carried her along, dangling her between them like a rag doll. This was so embarrassing and painful that eventually Marley realized the futility of her struggles, quit fighting, and simply let them hustle her along.
They left the SUV in a deserted parking lot behind a flat-topped brick and concrete warehouse building with an asphalt roof and the words “U-Store” spray painted in large block letters on the side. At the far edge of the parking lot Marley saw train tracks and the silhouette of abandoned brick buildings beside an empty field. She would have screamed for help but for the fact that the place was obviously uninhabited.
Benny strode on ahead of Marley and her two escorts, disappearing inside the U-Store building by way of metal stairs which stretched up along one side of the building to a metal door embedded in the wall five feet above the ground. The two men shoved Marley up the stairs after their boss.
At the last minute Marley tried to make a break for it, but again they caught her easily and pushed her on ahead of them, into the warehouse and down a wide aisle filled with shelves that held hundreds of black cardboard boxes stacked on racks extending upward toward a ceiling several stories tall.
While Marley looked surreptitiously around herself for possible escape routes Benny’s two associates herded her toward a door in a corner wall at the far end of the big space. When she tried to slow down again, they pushed her ahead of them. Marley stumbled but regained her balance.
“In there,” Benny’s surly friends gave Marley a final massive shove then slammed and locked the door behind her as she fell sprawling to the floor.
It was dim inside the small room and at first all Marley could see was the murky outlines of office furniture shrouded in shadows. Getting to her feet slowly, Marley investigated her prison. It contained a couple of battered empty wooden desks, two chairs, and a dusty filing cabinet. There was a pull string attached to a bare light bulb dangling from the center of the room which, when tugged, illuminated speckled grey linoleum covered with a thick layer of dirt. The walls had been painted generic beige.
A small cloud of dust flew out when Marley sat down on one of the rickety wooden chairs and assessed her situation. The forecast was definitely cloudy in Marleyville. In fact it felt as though the entire world was conspiring against her.
Drawing her knees up and hugging them to her chest, Marley huddled in a semi-fetal sitting position while she reviewed events of the past week. First her Uncle Max’s death, then the burglary, then the attack in her attic and now for the second time in a single night she had been kidnapped by crazy people. What next?
CHAPTER 30
October 31st – 1:30 a.m.
When Janus finally awoke he found himself lying on his back under the bushes at the front of Max Sherman’s house where someone had dragged and dropped him. Groggily, Janus felt for and found a tender lump on his skull just above his ear, where his scalp had split under the force of the blow. A brief, grim smile twisted Janus’ lips as he realized that the steel plate in his skull, (a souvenir from his service in Afghanistan), had probably saved his life.
Chagrined, Janus reached for his cell phone, tapped in some numbers, then spoke. “It’s me. Sorry man, but they hit me over the head and got her. No, I’m fine. Yeah, The Dark and his guys.”
A long pause, then, “Not long ago. I’m still tracking her, they’re heading west on Highway 7. Okay, I’ll be there soon to get you.” Janus limped rapidly to his van, started the engine and headed out to pick up Max Sherman.
CHAPTER 31
October 31st – 2:00 a.m.
A sudden rush of self-pity washed over Marley and hot, angry tears leaked from her eyes. Her angst was not entirely psychological in origin since she had an entirely new set of bruises blooming on her backside where she’d landed on the balcony, as well as other sore spots from where the thugs had tossed her to the ground. She hurt like a home run hit baseball.
Marley rubbed her angry tears away with the back of one hand and examined her small office space prison more thoroughly. At the farthest end of the room there was a single window that had been nailed over with boards on the outside so firmly it would require real tools to pry them off. This was the only window.
So she checked to see whether the wall was made of drywall thin enough to kick through (ouch, it wasn’t) checked to see if there was a dumbwaiter, mail drop or laundry chute somewhere in the walls (nope) and even checked the ceiling tiles and air vents to see if she could find some kind of ventilation duct to escape through (no such luck).
A wall jack had been installed in the north wall to accommodate a telephone line or modem but nothing was plugged into it and Marley could find no phone, fax, or other electronics. If the U-Store warehouse building had been up to code with a smoke detector hard-wired into the electrical system, then Marley could have somehow triggered the smoke alarm and maybe sent a signal to the local Fire Department.
But the U-Store facility wasn’t up to code. The smoke detector was a battery powered unit attached to the ceiling by two small screws, incapable of sending an alarm anywhere past a ten-foot radius. And because the door opened outward Marley couldn’t even unscrew the hinges and find freedom that way.
Marley had run out of possible escape options when she heard a muffled scr
aping sound outside, like someone was messing with the window while also trying not to make much noise. Walking to the back of the room, Marley pressed her ear against the boards that had been nailed over the broken window. There it was again, that soft scraping sound. Marley reached up and tapped quietly on the boards.
There was a brief silence then someone tapped back.
“Hello?” She called very softly.
“Marley?” To her utter astonishment it was Uncle Max’s voice, she could hear him quite clearly. “Are you all right?”
“Is that really you?” Despite her shock and surprise, Marley kept her voice low. Uncle Max said something unintelligible and the muffled scratching noise resumed. In a moment this turned into a splintering sound and then after that Marley could see moonlight through the boards. There were a few more cracking noises as he pried the final board off the window and then her Uncle Max peered in at her. He was sporting a full beard but it was plainly him. Marley recognized the man who’d turned away from her on the street earlier.
“Are you okay?” He whispered.
She’d never been so glad to see another person. “I’m fine!” Marley whispered back, “How did you know I was here?”
“A friend of mine has been keeping an eye on you for me. Now hang on, we’ll have you out of here in a jiffy.” Uncle Max disappeared from view.
“We?” Marley whispered, once more alone in the room.
The door to Marley’s improvised prison cell opened quietly about two minutes later and a stocky man stood in the doorway, surveying her with keen blue eyes. Her knight in shining armor was wearing a nondescript brown work coverall and cradled a shotgun in his right arm. Across his right shirt pocket were inscribed the words, “ACME Transport”.
