by E J Kindred
I told her about Grandma Natalie’s accident and how I’d moved back to Portland. I remembered to tell her how much Freddy loved the carrot cake.
“Wait, you took my cake to her and didn’t tell me?” She tried to sound indignant, but I could tell she was pleased.
“The surprise wasn’t supposed to last this long. The bakery closed, so I thought maybe you’d want to pick up some extra work baking for the diner. She’s been after me ever since to give her your name, but—” I couldn’t finish.
“But you thought I might be dead,” she said for me.
“Well, yeah, but not really. If that makes any sense.”
“As much as anything else, sweetie.”
As the darkness grew deeper, we finally felt tired enough to sleep, and I knew I needed as much rest as I could get. If Carl kept to his schedule, we’d have to face him soon.
“Rise and shine, ladies.”
I couldn’t believe it. The insufferable prick actually had the nerve to sound cheerful, as if we were guests at a spa instead of shackled captives held by a killer.
I remained in my bed, blanket pulled up to my shoulders. I refused to acknowledge his presence, other than watching from where I lay. Mo must have adopted the same tactic because she didn’t speak, and I didn’t hear the clinking of the chain that held her fast.
Carl unlocked my door and slid it open. He carried a two-by-four, held at the ready in case one of us decided to jump him. I’d considered it, but since he’d already killed once, I decided the risk was too great. Sooner or later, he’d make a mistake, and leave an opening I could use to my advantage. In the meantime, I had to be patient.
He dropped several bottles of water into the box by the bed, along with a handful of wrapped bars.
“You don’t like soup?”
I glared at him without speaking.
He replaced my bucket with an empty one, slid the door closed, and locked it without looking at me again. He repeated the procedure in Mo’s cell, this time without any taunts. She’d told me that she’d developed an undying hatred for canned soup, but it was better than nothing, so he had no reason to make an attempt to tease her.
Our days fell into a routine. We’d have one or two days to ourselves, and then Carl would make his visit, refill our food and water, exchange buckets, and leave. Without planning to, we’d both decided to treat him with silence during his visits. Mo told me that at first, she’d pleaded for release, promising not to tell what she’d seen, begging for freedom, but she realized fairly quickly that he enjoyed her entreaties.
“He likes feeling powerful,” she said.
“Maybe that’s why he became a surgeon, for the adulation.”
I remembered his imperious attitude when he visited Charbonneau, the high-handed way he treated his own sons, especially Eric.
Mo said, “I still don’t understand what he gains by keeping us alive.”
I didn’t, either, but I couldn’t dwell on it. “Let’s work on a way to get out of here. I’m not willing to wait and see what he has in mind.”
Mo and I talked at great length, brainstorming one idea after another, but we couldn’t come up with anything that seemed feasible.
Carl’s choice of a barn was genius. The walls were solid without so much as a crack in the wood planks, and the plywood nailed over what had been a window to the outside was so solidly attached that I couldn’t budge it.
One morning, about a week after my captivity began and the day after Carl’s most recent visit, the barn seemed lighter than usual, as if the sun had somehow grown brighter. I went to the door of my cell, holding onto the chain and dragging the bed frame with me.
“Mo, can you see that?”
Carl hadn’t closed the outside door as securely as in previous days, and the sun shone through the opening. Mo and I stared at it as if we’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“We have got to get out of here,” I muttered to myself.
I turned to push my bed against and wall and the loose leg bent again.
“Oh, stop it,” I said, irritated.
“Stop what?” Mo sounded puzzled. “What did I do?”
“It’s not you. This stupid leg on my bed keeps bending. I think it’s loose, so every time I move the damn thing, I have to fix the leg.”
I bent over to straighten it and push the bed against the wall so it wouldn’t wobble.
“How loose?” she asked.
“What?” I stood up and spoke toward Mo’s wall.
“You said the leg is loose. How loose is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said irritably.
“So look at it.”
She was speaking to me in that patiently persistent voice people use when they think they’re on to something, but aren’t sure enough about the idea to say what they’re thinking. I complied and pushed the thin mattress aside for a clearer view.
The bed frame was a kind of metal, but it was so dirty I couldn’t be sure. The horizontal pieces were bent at a ninety-degree angle. The flat part had holes drilled in it, through which wires were strung to form a base for the mattress. The side facing outward was solid. The leg was also bent in the same manner. A solid piece formed the corner, holding two sides of the bed and the leg together with a nut and bolt.
I wiggled the leg of the bed and the bolt moved.
“Mo, my lovely friend, you are a genius.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I might be able to get the leg off the bed frame. That way, I won’t be chained to it any longer. And it would give me a tool to use.” I didn’t add “or a weapon.”
“Do you think you can use it to get us out of here?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell going to try.”
I threw the mattress and blanket onto the floor and dragged the bed frame to the door of my cell. Carl’s carelessness with the outer door and the early spring sunshine gave me plenty of light to examine the bolt and nut holding the leg to the bed.
When I moved the leg, the bolt and nut turned together. The chain holding me ended in a solid ring that Carl had threaded over the horizontal frame of the bed frame. When he’d reassembled it, he hadn’t threaded the nut properly, which prevented him from tightening it enough to keep it from moving.
“If I can get this off . . .” I was talking to myself, trying not to hope, but unable to resist.
The head of the bolt, which faced outward, had a slot in it. The nut was in a tight corner, and I could barely fit my fingers around it, much less get a grip on it.
“I’d pay good money for a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.”
“Or a shotgun,” Mo said. “A bear trap. Some cyanide capsules. Wait, even better. A horse whip. Yeah, that’s the ticket. We’re in the right place for it.”
“You do realize you can’t kill him, right?” I was still unsure about her mental health.
“I know,” she said with a sigh. “But a girl can dream.”
I had to laugh. Mo was going to be okay.
I was able to turn the nut slightly, but the bolt moved with it. “I need something to hold this bolt still. Do you have anything that would fit in the slot, like a screwdriver would?”
“Um, soup can lid?”
I had to open a can of soup after all.
I rested the bed frame against the wall and reached into the box. The lentil soup seemed less likely to have globs of fat floating on the surface, so I popped it open. The aroma of it, muted because of the cold, made me hungry, so I rooted in the box for the spoon and took a tentative bite. I finished the soup, happy to have food in my stomach.
I didn’t plan to ever eat cold soup again voluntarily, but I felt better than I had since I woke up to darkness in this place.
I wiped the lid with a paper towel and bent it in half as much as I could. Putting it under the leg of my bed and pressing down with my weight made it thin enough to fit into the slot on the head of the bolt.
“Now all I need is a pair of pliers or very strong fingers
.”
The can lid held the bolt fairly well, only slipping off when my concentration wavered, but I couldn’t loosen the nut. When I turned it, the bolt also turned, no matter how hard I tried to hold it in place. I persisted until the light faded when the sun set, and all I got for my efforts was sore fingers and a cut on my palm from the edge of the lid.
I gave up for the night and reassembled my bed. Mo and I spent most of the night brainstorming ways to break ourselves free. Once we’d run out of ideas that we’d dismissed as doomed to fail, she added to her list of weapons to use against Carl. I had no idea a chef could be so conversant in poisons, but what I came to understand was that Mo had kept herself sane and hopeful by plotting the painful and gruesome death of our captor. If I couldn’t figure out how to disassemble the bed frame, I might have to join in her plans.
Over the next several days, I kept working at the bed frame leg in between Carl’s visits. The tips of my fingers were raw and bleeding from the hundreds of times I’d tried to loosen the nut from the bolt. I kept them out of sight when Carl was in the barn. For all he knew, Mo and I were beaten down, defeated, unable to fight back.
Little did he know that I’d gladly bash his brains in, if I could only get that damn bolt loose.
I was working at it again and making no progress. “What I need is some oil. Hey, Mo, think Carl’d bring me a can of 3-IN-ONE?”
She didn’t answer.
“Mo? You okay?”
“What if he already did?”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s been bringing me chicken noodle soup, which by the way, is really gross when it’s cold.”
“I know it is. So?”
“And why is it nasty to eat cold?”
Realization dawned. “Damn, girl, you’re good.”
“I’m a chef. You think I don’t know a thing or two about chicken fat?”
I grabbed the box and sure enough, I had two cans of chicken noodle. I popped one open and there it was, floating on the surface, several yellow-orange globs of fat.
“Do you think it’ll work?” I spooned them onto a paper towel, being careful not to include too much broth.
“Can’t hurt to try.”
“Motto of my life,” I said. “Okay, here goes.”
Back at the bed, I carefully scooped a blob of fat onto my finger and rubbed it into the line where the nut and bolt met. I did my best to lubricate both sides of the nut, hoping the grease would seep in and allow me to liberate the leg of the bed frame.
“You might have to give it some time to work,” Mo said.
“Okay.” I was reluctant to wait too long, but after my first attempt to loosen the nut, I realized she had a point. I used all of the fat I’d harvested from the first soup can and reassembled my bed for the night.
The next day, Carl showed up again. This time, he was careful to close the outer door, but it didn’t matter. I’d worked at the leg for so many hours that, like military teams who are trained to assemble a firearm blindfolded, I could have taken that bed frame apart in total darkness. I was a one-woman bed frame Seal team.
After he’d gone, I threw my thin mattress and blanket aside and leaned the bed frame against the wall. I opened another can of noodle soup and repeated the grease treatment. I secured the bolt in place with my makeshift screwdriver and applied my abraded fingers to the nut. I tried twisting the nut, but my fingers were too weak and too sore.
I looked around for something to hold the nut in place. All I could find was the plastic lid from a water bottle. The lid was only slightly bigger than the nut, but I was willing to try anything by then. I tore the hem off my shirt and wrapped it around the nut a couple of times and jammed the bottle lid onto it. When I turned the lid, the bolt turned.
On my next attempt, I gritted my teeth and held the bottle lid as tightly as I could and tried turning the bolt with my soup can screwdriver.
The bolt held fast.
I strained to turn it, my fingers throbbing.
The bolt didn’t budge.
I took a deep breath and reapplied myself. Nothing.
Just when I was ready to give up, I thought I felt a slight grating sensation. I stopped, barely breathing. Had it loosened, or had my improvised pliers failed? Or was my imagination playing tricks on me? I checked the bottle lid. The fabric was where I’d put it. I applied pressure to the bottle lid and twisted the can lid in the bolt slot.
It moved.
Not much, not willingly, but it moved.
I removed the bottle lid and remnant of my shirt, and peered at the nut. Holding my breath, I put the can lid back into the bolt slot and, with my fingers, tried twisting the nut.
Slowly, with much resistance, it turned. After a revolution or two, I loosened and easily extracted the nut from the bolt.
I took another deep breath and leaned against the wall. “Mo?”
“Mm hm?” She sounded sleepy.
“Chicken fat is magic.”
Chapter Eleven
Our initial elation was quickly tempered by the reality of the padlocks on our doors. I tried prying the latch loose with the leg of the bed frame, but from my position inside the door, I couldn’t get enough leverage. Latches strong enough to hold horses were too strong for me, especially in my somewhat depleted condition.
I had another idea, but I didn’t share it with Mo. We’d kept to our unspoken agreement to remain silent in Carl’s presence, but something needed to change, and it was the only thing I could think of. I pondered it for hours before Carl’s next anticipated visit, figuring the pros and cons. The former could lead to freedom. The latter didn’t bear too much close analysis, or I could lose my nerve. If I could do what I had in mind, success might depend to some degree on the authenticity of Mo’s reaction. I kept my idea to myself.
Two days later, Carl greeted us with his usual obscene cheeriness. I was on my carefully reassembled bed, with my blanket up to my shoulders, as usual. I was sure Mo had assumed her normal posture for his visit.
As he went about his chores, I sat up and rested my back against the wall and watched him silently. I flung the fetid blanket to the end of my bed in case Carl noticed that the chain was no longer connected to the metal frame of the bed.
He gave me a curious glance but didn’t speak. He held the two-by-four in his left hand and rested it on his shoulder.
“It’s about time you showed up,” I said in a cold voice.
“What’d you say?” He swung around and gave me a glare of pure venom.
I pretended to be unaffected, but I kept the two-by-four in my peripheral vision, in case he swung it at me. I was playing a dangerous hunch. I had to keep my wits about me.
“I said you’re late. You should have been here an hour ago.”
He stared at me as if he couldn’t make sense of my impertinence. After all, I’d been as quiet as a corpse for the past two weeks. I was counting on him being thrown off stride.
“Annie, no.” Mo’s voice was soft. “Don’t argue.”
Her protest did exactly what I’d hoped.
“Yeah, Annie,” he said sarcastically. “Listen to your little friend. You’re in no position to talk back.”
“And you’re a shitty housekeeper,” I snapped. “You’d think that with your education, you’d know a bucket of raw sewage is unhealthy. Anyone else would be smart enough to know better, smarter than you, obviously. What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”
He raised the two-by-four, but didn’t try to use it. “Are you suicidal? Do you have any idea what I could do to you?”
“You could give me food poisoning with cold soup, that’s what. Is that what good doctors do?”
Carl’s eyes bulged and his face grew red, but he didn’t speak.
“And it’s a wonder Mo didn’t die from hypothermia. Seriously, you couldn’t have given her a space heater? Or decent blankets? It was winter, you moron. Or here’s an idea. Man up and let her go. Didn’t think of that, did you?”
His mouth worked, but no intelligible sound emerged.
I spoke as forcefully as I could. “You brought her here. You brought me here. You’re keeping us in a barn, for fuck’s sake. No way to stay clean, using a bucket as a toilet. It’s a wonder we haven’t gotten some kind of infection, living where horses used to shit. I thought you were more intelligent than that, but I guess I was wrong. I can’t imagine how you ever got into medical school much less graduated. And to think that people let you treat them.”
With a bellow of rage, Carl smashed the two-by-four against the bars at the front of my cell. Shards of wood flew everywhere. He dropped the remnant and turned back to me, his face purple, his eyes bulging. Blood spotted his face where splinters of wood had cut him.
My heart pounded as if it were suddenly too big for my chest, but I stayed where I was and stared back at him without saying a word. Mo’s crying was verging on hysteria.
He pointed a finger at me, an inch from my face, and screamed, “You will not talk to me like that, do you understand?”
“Why,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster. “Because you’re a hoity-toity surgeon? Who cares?”
He screamed again, an incoherent howl of rage. He was so enraged he was shaking. I remained silent and didn’t let my gaze waver. With too much to gain and far too much to lose, I had to hold my ground. I refused to let him see the fear I felt, the quavering in my bones, the tightness in my chest, the rapid-fire pounding of my heart. I sat still as stone and stared him down.
With another scream of rage, he kicked my makeshift toilet over, spilling the contents. He spun in a wide arc and punched me in the side of the head. I fell to the side, stunned, but still on the bed.
Mo sobbed loudly.
I sat up as quickly as I could and stared at him without moving and I hoped without expression. The side of my face felt hot and swollen. Blood trickled down my neck.
I remained silent and unblinking.
He bellowed again, his rage now sounding impotent. He left my cell and slammed the sliding door so hard it seemed to rebound. I heard the thud of angry footsteps and the outer door slid shut. His car started and wheels spun in gravel as he left.