Threads: A Thriller

by T. R. Ultra

  Now even my fingers faltered, already fatigued by the strain. My grasp slackened on her skin, my forearm on her throat. Fátima, foreseeing her victory, squealed. Then she tugged at my forearm with one hand, the other one clinging to the phone, and pulled it out.

  I didn’t resist her strength.

  Seizing her back with only one arm, I acted on impulse, on instinct. When she outstretched her arm for the doorknob, a few inches from opening it wide and shutting off my last hope, I went all in and shifted my weight backward. As my right foot stuck to the ground, the left one wedged itself between her shins, successfully holding back the last step that would lead her to open the door and get outside.

  When I pulled her back, and my body twisted, Fátima’s sturdy body faltered. We battled in an ocean of muscle spasms, cramped fibers and pounding hearts. She had the advantage of strength and body weight, but I had the upper hand in terms of position and leverage. Between them, when I was about to give up, our wet skin in contact, her body tilted to the direction of my victory. Backward. She tried to regain her balance, but her legs, now interwoven with mine in a fabric of decay, found no firm ground on which she could sustain herself, and both of us went straight down to the floor.

  I hit the ground entangled with Fátima. Even though I had perched on her back, we fell sideways, both of our right shoulders hitting the cement floor at the same time. It was as though I had undergone a brief deafness: during the fall, only the joyless images inside the building got stuck to my memory, but all painted red due to the pain in my arm, crushed after receiving her weight. In this sequence of events—no matter the buzzing of moans, slaps and bumps—no sound, whatsoever, got caught in my memory.

  On the ground, I tried to pull my arm out from beneath that limp, unconscious mound of flesh, and failed. I tried to push her sideways, but Fátima didn’t move. The phone had fallen a few feet away from me, which was all but close enough to be reached by my body, now nailed to the ground. Then its screen flickered. A message popping up. It was one face of the medal returning her texts. I ought to reach it, to have it in my hands. Than the freezer hissed again, right beside my head. I could almost feel the chill coming out of it. And before I could take further action, everything went black.

  I was exhausted and out again.

  Chapter 29

  The passage of time changed many aspects of that old freezer. Besides the rust and ugliness, the machine had also acquired the ability—and improved it to the extent of perfection—to loan its awkward old-freezer flavor to all products fated for human guts stored inside it. Not to mention the hysterical noise of the compressor as it entered another working cycle. It was almost like an old chef who stubbornly messed with a meal, already on point, only to add his most time-proven seasonings, even though everyone else regarded them as reeking of armpit.

  Time didn’t change the coldness of the freezer’s interior, nor the sharpness of its corners. After I passed out from exhaustion, cold water had been spilled out from it to my cheeks against the floor.

  And that old-freezer scent pervaded every drop of it.

  I raised my head, half of my face aching as though frostbitten. I saw no movement inside the room. The light shaft squeezing past the hole in the ceiling had barely changed its angle, which meant that only a few minutes had passed since my battle against Fátima.

  I was well aware of what had happened. The police were coming up, about to arrive. And that stout woman laid on the ground had been dispatched to guard me.

  Her body remained in the same position after we fell. My forearm was beneath her, but I couldn’t feel it. After struggling on the ground and shifting into a crouching position, I was finally able to make her body roll sideways and release my numb limb from beneath her.

  The color of my forearm had changed from a light pink to a pale purple. A sharp pain bit into the limb as it throbbed back to life. As though a march of a million ants had stopped by to take tiny bites of my flesh, piercing it down to my bones.

  I had no time to suffer. Not anymore. Because the moment Fátima’s phone screen flashed, I knew what I had to do.

  I reached it over and thumbed its cracked screen. A drop of water dripped from my face onto the glass. Than a message popped up, and a fingerprint sign appeared.

  On the top left corner of it I saw the term “4G” accompanied by a display of bars which informed that the mobile phone signal was excellent.

  I only had to rub that woman’s fingerprint over the screen to unlock the window to the world and set my voice free. But at that very moment, when escaping came finally within reach, I froze.

  Since the moment I woke up, turned Fátima’s body around and glared at her phone’s screen, I avoided looking at her face. All because of the sharpness of that freezer’s corners.

  We had fallen together to the ground, but not exactly on the same spot. In her effort to remain still, Fátima yanked her torso as she fell, thrusting her head forward, which brought her into the exact course towards an ill-fated conclusion.

  There were drips of blood scattered over the freezer, next to the corner she had crushed against. Blood streams also flowed sideways from the nape of her neck into her shirt, which created a crimson stain above and along her right shoulder against the floor.

  I was certain Fátima had died in the fall. I avoided taking any additional glimpses of her head. After rolling her body to the side, her face had been turned down, nose against the cement floor. From my position, beside her, I could see her eyelids apart from each other.

  But then she blinked.

  I stared at her. As I did so, I remembered the bandages those hands had offered to me and Renato, the tropical herb teas she had prepared to spruce up our recovery, and the gentle touches on my skin. Seeing her immobilized shifted my perception about her. I got attacked by a sense of pity, even shame, for having clawed at her body and fought against her. Fátima’s life was worth more than that. No one deserved so harsh a sentence.

  Yet, I didn’t ask to be dragged into this situation. It was my life at stake, and I had to protect myself. I needed her fingerprint to unlock the phone and call for help.

  I raised my hand to turn her around, tugged on her arm, and halted. Would I be brave enough to stare at her eyes, still alive, only to furtively make use of her idle hand, walk away, and leave her behind, alone, by herself?

  I faced her, saw the blood on her neck, her eyelids flickering in profile. From the water puddle that had formed on the ground beneath her face, small ripples surged from her nose. She was breathing, and close to drowning in a thin layer of liquid.

  I rolled her over, her back against the floor. Fátima, paralyzed, had the gaped eyes of someone in terror, the breathing of someone in need.

  I grabbed her thumb, she didn’t resist. At that point I knew that, on her fall, some major nerve had been damaged in her neck. Perhaps it was only temporary. Yes, nothing worse would happen to her. I would go back to Atlanta, go back to my good life, and she would return to treating people in Rio.

  Her left hand thumb didn’t unlock the phone. I reached over and picked up the other hand. Fátima’s eyes swept the ceiling, side to side, as I used her body. I was just borrowing it for a while.

  The screen flashed, the case trembled, and her phone finally unlocked. Application icons I could read. Fátima moaned as I started typing in a message to my boss, after logging in to my email account.

  “I’m sorry, Fátima,” I said. Her eyes scurried down to her lower eyelids, shrinking pupils staring at me.

  I finished typing the email, told Joanne I was in Gloria Santa, that I had seen my face on TV, and the story of the scheme the police and drug dealers tried to set up. Then I hit “send.”

  “I didn’t mean you any harm. I only need to get out of this nightmare. I’m sorry, Fátima.”

  Besides the email to my boss, I had also another plan in mind. I’d call the US Embassy in Rio and provide them with all information they might need to come and fetch me. But first I
needed to get out of here. I’d make the call while trudging down the steps and alleyways of Gloria Santa, draped in the white gown, bare feet and starving. Time was against me.

  I got up, staggering. A broom, propped against a nearby wall, became my walking stick. My knee ached, my forearm failed to deliver any trustful grasp. I went across the room. Limping, heading for sunlight. Back to the alleyways. Away from Fátima’s energic, accusatory eyes, which contrasted deeply to her idle body.

  Barkley was still there. The dog had huddled himself in a corner of the building, tail between his legs. He was much more sensible, and much more acquainted to violence than I was. He had eyes scared of what I had done, ears folded down, and at that moment I knew he wouldn’t be tagging along with me.

  But the strongest image in the room, the one that would cling to my mind forever, was that of the paralyzed woman sprawled on the ground.

  I just opened the door and walked outside.

  Chapter 30

  There were just too many things in my head.

  As I moved out of the building where Fátima had been left inside, an elderly man filled his lungs up with the smoke of a smoldering pipe. He sat on a bench in front of a ragged house, its door made from uneven wooden slabs, ground littered with paper and plastic residue. He had foggy, experienced eyes that delivered complimentary messages to me: he not only knew who I was, but he also knew what I had done.

  I walked past him, limping on the broom, with the added burden of his accusatory eyes. This alleyway was narrow, piled up with unfinished walls, locked doors and shut windows. It winded down the hillside, with the eventual sets of stairs etched to it.

  I was trailing what seemed to be an important artery inside the slum. Before long, I got out of the old man’s sight as a soft bend on the path offered me shelter. I had a sense that the alleyway would take me to the bottom, perhaps merging with others on the way, but definitely down. And that was good.

  I could either come across the undercover policemen on my way down, or they could seize me from behind, after that old smoker gave them directions.

  That’s why I stopped, exposed to whoever might be passing by the alleyway, or peeking outside through door cracks. I had no time to lose. My life was on the line. And that’s why telling my story was of the highest importance. If anything, I had to let people know the truth. Otherwise, I might end up taking the whole of that scheme, the whole of the truth, to the grave.

  I went back to Fátima’s phone, unlocked due to my constant tapping on the screen. On Google I found the number of the US Embassy in Rio, and dialed it up.

  “For English, press 1. For Portuguese, press 2.”

  Before actually speaking to a living person, I had to pass through the timegate that talking to a machine represented. I chose the option to “talk to an embassy officer.” A few minutes later, a young woman came on the line.

  “US Embassy in Rio, how may I help you?”

  For a moment I halted over the line, baffled for hearing an English speaker at the other end. I could almost feel the smells of Atlanta Airport, the smells of my room. Her voice was enticing—it gave me back the hope I thought I had lost forever.

  But she had a Brazilian accent. Would the US Embassy hire Brazilians for some of its positions? Maybe. But that wasn’t my biggest concern at the moment.

  “Oh my god, I need help. Someone, anyone. I need help,” I said.

  “Please, lady, stay calm. What’s your name?” she replied.

  “My name is Emily Bennett, I’m lost . . . I’ve been running from the police and drug lords. I’m in hiding in a favela. I’m—”

  “Are you Emily Bennett? Where are you?” The woman said. Her tone indicated she was aware of my disappearance.

  “Yes. I’m inside the Gloria Santa slum, but I’m heading to the bottom. I need your help, please, send help. I’m hurt, I’m hungry . . . I need—”

  “Mrs. Emily Bennett, my name is Claire. I’m already calling my superiors, we’ve been looking for you. But I need you to provide specific directions of where we might find you. We’ve been helping local police scour the area, but Gloria Santa is just too big.”

  I was excited to finally talk to someone I could trust, and exhausted. I couldn’t handle this situation anymore. I could already see everything coming to an end: my going back to my country, to my people. It was real. It would be real. So real that it made the scents around me, the wretched houses, and all the violence that dwelled in Gloria Santa bring me nauseas. We only get used to bad things when they seem eternal.

  The nightmare was about to end. And for the first time I had the sense of air vanishing from my lungs.

  Panic attack.

  “Please, come quickly. I . . . I’m not feeling well. They’ll kill me. Drug lords, they’re behind all this. Too many people died already. They won’t spare my life.”

  “Mrs. Bennett, breathe slowly. I need you to keep talking to me. But I need you to be clear. Where are you?”

  I gasped for air, let go of the broom and shored my back up against an electricity post. Truth was, I had no idea where I was. I only knew I had to go to the bottom. Down to the bottom of the slum. Down to—

  “Gas station,” I said. “I’ll be at the gas station . . . it’s at the foot of Gloria Santa.”

  “All right, Mrs. Bennett. Gas Station. We’ll send a car right away. We’ll also request an escort from the local police. I need—”

  “No. Local police? No, don’t do that. Not them. Local police are working together with Drug Lord Factions. Not them.” My legs started to tremble, my hands to shake.

  “Mrs. Bennett. I need you to remain in touch with me until you’re rescued. How long before you to arrive at the gas station?”

  “I . . . I hope it won’t take long. I’m hurt, walking on a broom. But they’re already coming for me. I might come across them anytime.”

  “All right. Keep calm Mrs. Bennett. We’ll do everything we can to rescue you. Oh, please, just a second,” she said.

  But that second sounded as an eternity. I heard crackling and buzzing and distant voices at the other side of the line. Around me, slum walls seemed to twitch and wave, distorted on the corners of my sight. In my mental clock I knew those coming up for me were about to arrive. I was probably only a couple of minutes away from walking across them.

  Claire went on, “I’ve just been informed that a squad is already on its way toward your location. It appears your location has been reported to the local police.”

  “What? No, that’s a lie. Don’t believe them, Claire. Please. They’ll make something up, they kidnap me. They’ve already killed Renato . . . oh god, please no, Claire.”

  I started walking again with the broom as a crutch. A moving target is harder to hit. My foot scratched the ground, the foot under my swollen knee. The other kept my balance, in coordination with the bristled stick.

  Claire continued, her voice metallic on speakers.

  “Mrs. Bennet, I understand you’re scared, but you need to stay calm. We have evidence that your kidnapper has been neutralized trying to use the cable car at the top of Gloria Santa. We’re unable to foresee any immediate threat to your safety. Stay where you are and—”

  Before letting her finish her sentence, I hung up.

  Chapter 31

  Claire’s Brazilian accent planted a tiny seed inside my mind when we started talking over the phone. That seed rooted as our conversation went on, and before long it had blossomed into a faulty flower that’s smells lashed out my mental nostrils.

  Claire was a liar. She was not an US Embassy officer. Her Brazilian accent betrayed her. Why would the US Embassy hire locals to its job positions? Of course they wouldn’t. Her insistance with establishing contact with the police, slyly asking for my location, and then trying to persuade me into staying where I was while faking a talk to her superiors, proved it all.

  She even dared to talk about Renato being shot to death.

  Fatima’s phone had obviously been fed
with a hacked SIM card. It was part of the modus operandi of local drug factions. Renato had made that clear. Claire was probably someone monitoring Fátima’s line. When she noticed the outgoing call to the US Embassy, she intercepted the line, and began her play.

  I could see it all. She even used my pain, my grief on losing Renato, to trample my feelings.

  I could trust no one. Now I understood why Renato had been so opposed to using cell phones in Gloria Santa. They had been used to weave threads of corruption, which created the filthy mesh that covered the whole of Rio.

  I thumped my foot against the ground. The world receded from its turmoil and recovered its steadiness. I raised my arm, eyes throbbing, and threw the phone . It smashed into the red bricks and bounced on the ground, its case splitting apart. The screen flicked on, although shattered into many cracks, before turning off to blackness.

  One less node in the net of corruption pervading Rio.

  A window squealed open on its rusty hinges. A teenager glowered at me from inside the crooked home, someone who in Atlanta I would regard as a poor, hungry and deprived young girl. But in Gloria Santa, I could only perceive eyes of dismay, and a set of teeth that would give me away to those who were sniffing behind me.

  A sound came from down the alleyway. Something rattled on the ground. A sheet of metal, an aluminum pot? I heard murmurs coming up, trailing along the hillside through veins of stairs and cement. Voices searching for me.

  The girl closed the door. She seemed frightened, that look as though I were the menace, not them. Not everyone else.

  I grabbed the broom. Balanced myself on it. The deadline just around the corner, I had to find a way out.

  I walked my way back up Gloria Santa. Back to the old man with the smoldering pipe in his mouth. Up to where I had been kept by Fátima, to where she had been left paralyzed. That place was the only one I could consciously walk to, the only one I knew. And also where I might find a key to my escape.