by Keith Knapp
Wiping fresh sweat from her eyes, Rachel sucked in another lungful of air and headed toward the gray smoke.
18.
Alison stared up at him from the hospital bed with almost-dead eyes. Her eyes looked exactly like wet glass, or like one of those marbles he would occasionally get as a child that had weird paint designs inside the marble itself. He would stare at one of the large ones for hours, wondering how they got that paint (he assumed it was paint; he had no idea how they were made and never found out) inside the marble. And now his wife had two such marbles in her head.
Thin sheets covered her legs. Her skinny, skinny legs. They had fully succumbed to atrophy a week ago. She’d been in that bed for six months, so it wasn’t a surprise. They were pretty sure she’d never walk (or do much of anything else) ever again, anyway.
Mike caressed her left leg. He knew she couldn’t feel it, but he did it anyway. So bony. A living skeleton right before him.
The blinds had been drawn.
Alison looked down at Mike’s hand and smiled. Her own hands were useless now, broken beyond repair. Maybe she’d be able to hold a fork again, but probably not. Playing the piano was out of the question.
The heart monitor had been unplugged.
The door to the hospital room had been closed, giving them privacy.
“Alison,” he said, then stopped. Dear Lord, he was tearing up. He didn’t want Alison to see him cry. A crazy thought. If ever there was a time for someone to cry, this would be it. But old habits die hard, and Mike Randal could only show his emotions when he was by himself. He wasn’t sure where this habit had come from, it was just the way he had always been. Real Men don’t cry and all that, so he always hid it.
It had been years since he’d had this much trouble talking to her. Not since they first met, when he was a nervous 22-year old dork and couldn’t get more than a few syllables out at a time. By the time they were married they were finishing each other’s sentences, sometimes to the point where they didn’t even need to talk—they just knew what the other was thinking.
But now Mike’s thoughts were a whirlwind. He wanted to turn his brain off. He wanted to turn the whole fucking world off.
Neither of them were big believers. They were agnostic to the core but nonetheless he wanted to tell her how Heaven was going to be a better place once she got there. That just sounded so clichéd and phony; for all they knew, Heaven didn’t exist.
But they were the only words that came to mind. The only words that seemed to offer any sort of comfort.
“Heaven’ll be a much better place once you get there,” he said, and now the tears were flowing freely down his cheeks. “I’m gonna miss you, baby.”
Now it was Alison’s turn to let the waterworks fly. Her eyes filled with tears, more than Mike thought a human could have.
Through those tears she said, “There are three Colt Bisley S.A. Revolvers.”
Mike’s heart leapt into his chest and got lodged in his throat. He looked at her, utterly confused. She hadn’t talked in weeks.
“They’re in the closet,” she said. “They may buy you some time.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, then-
* * *
-he came to and things were backwards. Suddenly Mike was the one in the bed and he felt like he was the one knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door. Every limb—every pore—throbbed and ached. His mind was a turbulent ocean of memories, the one of Alison in the hospital bed taking priority over all others. Her face. The sunken face she’d had as she lay there dying, not the face he had first met at Pierce College, was forefront. He could see her, staring right at him as if she was in the room. But she wasn’t. Just a stupid-wish-you-could-forget-it memory.
Except for that business at the end about the revolvers. That was new, weird, and largely inaccurate. Alison hated (loathed might be a better word) firearms of any kind. She didn’t even like them in movies. Romantic comedies were her thing.
Night had fallen and the only light in the little shed was from the candles that still encircled the room on their little shelves. The windows were open and the shed had become cooler since they’d passed out. Mike savored the brisk air that now entered his lungs. He could smell the trees of the forest outside, the pine and oak, the grass underneath, some sap from a maple somewhere.
His arms stung. They were asleep and nothing more than dead weights at his side. A stretch was needed to make the waking moment complete. As he attempted to move his arms outward in the classic “I just woke up” motion, he discovered that he couldn’t. He tried to lift his head to see what the deal was and found he couldn’t do that, either. Something around his forehead was keeping his brain-holder in place.
There was something around his wrists, too, made of cloth. He pivoted his eyes all the way to the left and was able to just make out a knot around his wrist, a knot that looked like it was made from one of the sheets. The same type of contraption had been secured to his right wrist, and if he had been a betting man he’d guess that it was a sheet that was holding his head in place, too. Jesus Humphrey Christ on a pogo-stick, what the hell was going on here?
He shrugged up his shoulders, trying to bring his neck down in hopes of giving him a little maneuverability. All he needed was an inch. And then a foot and then a mile as he got as far away from this fucking place as possible. Collapsing his neck gave him a little bit of wiggle room for his head, but not enough to do him any good.
Neck muscles strained, tendons stretched. Using all his strength, he was able to lean up a little—there was that first inch he was asking for—but the burning of every muscle in his neck brought his head back down to the pillow. He still felt groggy from the fall. And all that candle bullshit hadn’t helped, either. At least he had a pillow.
Rolling his neck forward (he had to get some use outta that inch), Mike was able to see that the other prisoner—that’s what they were, prisoners—in the room was tied to their bed in much the same fashion that he was. A tuft of red flannel poked out from underneath the sheets. What had her name been? Jackie? Jasmine? Come on, brain. Snap out of it.
“Hey,” he said, keeping it a notch under a whisper. No telling if those weird women were in the other room just waiting for him to get up so they could do whatever it was they had done to him to knock him out again. Or worse.
Her name leaped into his head. “Jody,” he said, bringing the volume up a tad. No, Jody wasn’t right. That was some kid’s name. This lady was: “Jillian.” The woman didn’t stir. He was pretty sure he had the name right. He’d get back to her.
He returned to the quandary of the sheets holding his arms in place. He began to twist and turn his wrists. Maybe if he did it long enough he’d be able to stretch the knots out and squirm free.
Or make them tighter so that he lost all circulation in his hands, forcing the weird bee-keeper women to amputate them.
Then Mike smelled…flowers.
Roses? Tulips? Lilacs?
Before he could figure it out a pair of hands holding a candle passed before his eyes. They moved over his face, engaged in a slow ballet as if trying to hypnotize him. And it was working. He didn’t have the mental capacity to figure out how the phantom had entered the room without his knowing; his mind was an ocean of memories and images-
-his first time riding a bike on his own around the block, his father watching from the sidelines with a grin-
-the time he had been mowing his lawn and cut off a pinky toe and the trip to the hospital to sew the little piggy back on-
-his first kiss with Alison Sullivan who would one day become Alison Randal.
All of these moments played simultaneously in his mind and it was over in just a few seconds.
“What’s going on?” he managed to mumble.
“Shh,” said the owner of the hands, one of the robed women who had greeted them. Now that she was closer he could see that this one had blonde hair. The net mesh in front of her face made it impossi
ble to make out an expression, but Mike got the impression that the woman gave him the tiniest of smiles.
“Relax,” she said in a calm, soothing voice, forcing the candle closer to his face. The lilac scent drifted away and was replaced with grapefruit. “You need to rest.”
Darkness engulfed Mike Randal yet again.
19.
Sophia Baker fought the haze that surrounded her. She was pulling herself out of a deep sleep, that much she knew. Or at least trying to. Something kept pushing her back down into dream world, like she’d taken a few too many over-the-counter sleeping pills and was now paying the price. Gotta wake up. If she could just open her eyes, get away from him.
He was coming for her. He had knocked the dresser over—holy shit was he drunk and angry, a dangerous combination if ever there was one—and he was coming for her Big Time.
Open your eyes. It’s just a dream. Open your eyes.
But she couldn’t. Her ex-husband slurred his speech—she couldn’t make out a word he was saying, but it probably didn’t matter. She had to get away from him.
The gun. There was a gun ten feet from her. If she could just reach it and-
* * *
-her eyes shot open. There was no gun. No ex-husband coming after her. Jody didn’t…well, she didn’t want to think about that part. It had just been a dream, and that was enough. She couldn’t bear to live through Jack’s bullshit again. At least she was awake now.
And tied to a bed by sheets. This was neither better nor worse than her nightmare. Just different.
She felt ten kinds of drunk. But just her body, but not her mind. It didn’t make any sense to her but that was how it felt. The last thing she remembered was entering the shed, which she assumed she was still in, then she was down and out for the count. Now she was up, but she couldn’t get up. Somehow she knew this was only temporary, that she wasn’t paralyzed forever.
Her head was tied to the bed so her view wasn’t spectacular. Not that there would be much to see. All she could make out were her hands tied to the bedposts above her and the shelf over her head with two lit candles on it. If she strained her eyeballs downward enough she could see that her feet were locked down at the foot of the bed in the same fashion as her hands.
No one else was in the room with her. At least not right now. There had been two—no, three—ladies in white. She’d spotted them in the doorway just before she’d passed out. And where were they now? Enquiring minds wanted to know.
There was a rustle and a moan from the bed across from her. She wasn’t alone. Forcing her head up as far as it would go (which wasn’t very far), she made out the curly blonde hair of someone in the bed across from her. Maybe he wasn’t tied down like her. Maybe he could answer some of her questions—like just what kind of goofy shithole had they found themselves in?
“Hey,” Sophia whispered. “Hey, you. You awake or what?”
Another moan. Another stirring of sheets.
“Pssst. Sleeping guy. Wake up.”
He didn’t.
Sleeping Guy seemed to be as out of it as she must have been a few minutes ago. Would he wake up before one of their captors came back? Could she stand to play that waiting game, or should she just go for broke?
“HEY!” she yelled.
That did it.
Sleeping Guy bolted up. That is, he tried to—he was tied down just like Sophia.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” Sophia said.
“Rach? That you?” He sounded young.
“No, not Rach,” Sophia answered, bringing her voice back down. “Sophia. What’s your name?”
“Brett,” he answered, copying Sophia and lowering the volume of his voice.
“Listen, Brett. We’re in a bit of a jam here.”
“Where’s Jimmy and Rachel?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but we’re here and we need to worry about us right now.”
“I can’t move,” he said. His voice wavered. He was driving quickly down the road to panic. “I can’t move.” His voice was getting louder.
“Just take it easy,” Sophia said. “Keep your voice down and take it easy.” She had no doubt that those weird beekeeper ladies would return if this kid got all worked up and started screaming Bloody Mary. Who knew what that would entail. She didn’t know who those ladies were or what they were all about, but they sure had succeeded in creeping the hell out of her.
“You tied down?” she asked.
“Yeah. With sheets, looks like.”
“Can you get the sheets lose?”
A few moments of skin rustling against fabric.
“No.”
They needed a plan. There had to be some way out of this. Mike and Jillian (those were their names, right?) might be in the other room, but she didn’t know that for sure. She just knew they weren’t in here with her. Maybe they weren’t tied down, maybe they could help. Maybe those freaky ladies were right in that other room with them. Maybe she should just put her head back down and wait to die of starvation.
No, she couldn’t do that. Jody was out there somewhere.
She had to take the chance. So what if the freaks were in the other room? So what if they came back? What’s the worst that would happen? She thought that if death was on their mind they would’ve done it by now. Maybe. Probably.
“MIKE?!” Sophia shouted.
There was two seconds of silence during which Sophia was sure the man named Mike was gone and that all three ladies would enter the room and do whatever was next on their agenda to her, which couldn’t be good considering their plans had started with tying her to a bed.
Perhaps she had gotten his name wrong. Her head was swimming with the debris of memories of the accident, of her car tumbling over and over again, of her and Jody losing each other on the freeway. And of Jack. For some reason, Jack had shown up in her mind.
But that guy’s name had been Mike, she was almost sure of it. Maybe he liked to go by Michael.
Then she heard his voice from the adjoining room and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Are you tied to the bed?”
“Yeah,” came his reply. “You?”
“Pretty much,” she answered. “Are any of those bitches in there with you?”
“No,” he said. A pause. “They in there with you?”
Sophia rolled her eyes. “If they were in here with me why would I ask you if they were in your room?”
Another pause.
“Fair enough,” he said.
Clearly she was not dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer. She tugged on the sheets again and succeeded only in making them tighter. The blood pumping to her hands and feet trickled to a crawl. Her fingers started to tingle as she began to lose circulation. She relaxed and let her arms fall to her sides. Blood rushed back to her fingertips and toes and the prickly feeling faded. There was no two ways about it: Sophia was stuck. Trapped.
They all were.
* * *
Even though he was fixed to a bed he’d never been in, Brett could feel the snugness of something around his arm, and it wasn’t that of a sheet. Straining the muscles that held his eyes in, the soft white cloth of gauze wrapped around his left arm—the one the Ventura Freeway had graded like a block of cheese—came into view. Whoever these ladies were and whatever was going on, they had seen fit to take care of his injury while he was napping.
20.
Rachel had a plan but it wasn’t a good one. In fact, it kind of sucked.
After exiting the woods she had come to a shed, the last puffs of smoke exiting its chimney. She had tip-toed her way to one of the windows facing the forest. She wasn’t sure why she tip-toed—her shoes on the grass hardly made any noise at all—but she had done it anyway. Years of sneaking around as both a kid and as an adult was just something that stuck with her. Inside she saw two occupied beds: one with a man in some sort of jumpsuit, the other a woman in flannel. Both sleeping, both tied to the bed with
sheets. Weird.
Moving to the second window, she had spotted three women huddled over a bed against the wall furthest from her, deep in conversation and thought. One of the women reached out with a thin, pale hand and caressed the bed-ridden woman’s forehead—the woman on the bed had also been tied down with sheets.
In the bed just under the window was another man, also out cold, also tied up. All she could make out of him was his curly blonde hair and the top of Darth Vader’s head peeking out at her from his t-shirt.
Brett.
Not believing her luck, she let out a gasp. The three women inside the shed immediately turned in her direction. They couldn’t have heard her. Impossible. But they must have because they were already parading to the back door.
With the speed of a panther, Rachel had ducked into the woods and hid behind a dying elm where she had a clear view of the entire shed. She crouched close to the ground and picked up a rock the size of a loaf of bread in her right hand. If they had heard her gasp then surely they had heard the sticks and twigs breaking underneath Rachel’s shoes as she ran for cover. So much for sneaking around.
The three ladies in white exited the shed and looked in every direction, animals on the prowl. Rachel couldn’t make out their faces—they had them covered with some sort of masks—but she heard one of them…grunt? The other two grunted back and nodded. Whatever the first one had said, the others had agreed with.
They formed a circle near the front of the shed a few feet away from Rachel, bowed their heads, then began to quietly hum. It might have been more of a moan, maybe a hum-moan. First grunting, now humming and moaning. They weren’t attacking her with hammers, but they were clearly in the psychotic category of the human race. There were words in whatever was coming out of their mouths, but she’d be damned if she could understand them.
Rachel didn’t dare go through the woods to the back door. They’d hear her feet stomping and crunching on the twigs and leaves for sure. She’d have to draw them away from the shed and make a dash for it.
So now here she was, squatting next to a dying tree with a rock in one hand and the other out for support on the ground.
