by Pat Connid
Trapped in the darkness, I tried to slow my breathing because the very sound of it, my own terror ringing in each wheezing gasp, just frightened me more.
“Okay,” I said out loud.
I reached out and felt the vehicle's walls. Cold.
“This could still be a part of a dream.” My voice sounded like it was coming from a fried, drive-in speaker as it tumbled around the van.
The tips of my fingers were cold but, thankfully, dry. My breathing slowed a little.
Working up the confidence to get to my feet, once I got halfway up the world spun again as the van rolled.
Falling in the dark-- for a moment touching nothing but air-- it felt like a nightmare spacewalk.
I hit the back door hard, and its handle knocked the wind from my lungs.
My body flopped down onto the ceiling, which had momentarily become the floor. Then, one more spin, and the van was on its side, and I rolled with it like a broken doll.
Everything hurt, but hurt a little more than it should because I'd flexed every muscle, rigid, as I braced for another tortuous spin in the van. Here I was, maybe dying, and I'd reverted to the defense mechanism most often employed by an insect or, perhaps, a member of the British parliament.
Paralyzed.
Don’t move, and it shall pass.
But… truth is, it never does. Unless it passes right over you, crushing you in the process.
Still, I lay there, waiting. Opening and closing my eyes did nothing to change the view-- just a swirling of dark purples and blues. And the more I tried to calm myself, the more one of the most primal of fears came out from its hiding place.
Would I suffocate?
What had that prick said? Right before I passed out. Something about—
O-2 Saturation less than about fifteen percent, well there’s a quick and steady decline
I’d only been down there for about a minute or so, I guessed. There was no way I was running out of air. At least not yet.
My midnight intruder must've tossed me into the vehicle. Had he been driving it then leapt out just before I regained consciousness? I wanted to find the guy. Kill him. Or just hit him with my car.
Top of my To Do List when I got back to the surface: buy a car.
Then, I had to find him. Maybe he inadvertently left behind fingerprints. Hair follicles? Sam's Club card?
“What in the hell is going on?”
It was as cold and lonely as the dark side of the moon, and I could feel the metal around me stealing my body warmth. Feeling around the van's ceiling, I moved from one side to the other, and finally fingered a plastic blister. I found the switch and flicked it.
The van filled with light, chasing away the encroaching deep space, which now retreated to the other side of the windows. Everything in the cargo van was stained a dull yellow. But, man, was I happy to be able to see the world around me again.
Squinting, I pulled the hair out of my eyes and when my hand came back, a pale orange liquid pooled on my fingers.
On my hairline, there was a small split in the skin.
"Certainly not a dream."
Wherever I was, however I got there—with plenty of help from a large, scary, beer-poisoning asshole who clearly had his orthodontist on speed-dial— it was obvious this wasn’t the most tenable position for an overweight, alcoholic movie theater usher to be in.
The metal around me muttered this constant, low chatter, but I wasn’t really worried about being crushed to death by the water pressure—I hadn’t fallen that deep.
Had I?
The last leg of my most recent road trip (ie. plunging to the bottom of a frigid body of water in an airtight van), I'd slept through the whole bit. Had it been just a matter of seconds? Or had it been minutes?
There was no way to guess the van’s depth because, at least from this angle, there wasn’t any light spilling down from above.
The metal grumbled a little louder, a polite warning maybe, and I gagged on a breath.
The water between target and surface is called “the head.”
No phone in the van and, me, I’m one of the few people on the planet left who doesn’t own a cell phone.*
(*Note: this had been a personal choice following a particularly blunderous "drink-and-dial" event which involved too much brandy, too little food, six straight hours of C-Span and the U.S. Congressional online phone directory. The phrase "suspended sentence" kept me "off the grid" for a number of years)
The glove compartment was empty and the seats in the van were so high from the floor, nothing could be tucked under there and be expected to stay put.
I pressed my face to the dashboard and looked upward. Faint. A very faint glow. Still, it might just have been a reflection from the dome light.
The keys were in the ignition, but the engine wouldn’t turn over.
The headlights, dead. Radio, nothing.
But the dome light sill worked.
"That's kinda odd."
The van on its side, I stood on the driver's door and looked up and out the passenger side window. Just black, inky water.
No light at all.
If the van was close to the surface, there should be some light.
Right?
Unless, I wasn't close to the surface.
"Okay, no," I said and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "That is not…not going to be in my head at the moment. Can't control that, either way."
A little black joystick caught my eye, just below where the vehicle’s door met the window. Manipulating it, the mirror on the other side of the window wiggled back and forth. I worked it across a ninety degree angle, then up and back. Nothing. Not even a glimmer in the reflection.
Hadn’t there been blue sky when the van hit the water? Yes. Yes, I remembered that. Then, how far down was I?
My chest got marginally tighter, and I couldn’t tell if it was an acute bout of claustrophobia or… the air.
No, no, no! “That’s exactly what that psycho wants!” I yelled: “You want me worried about suffocating. Well, there’s plenty of air! This van is airtight, baby!”
That thought struck me. How was it there were no leaks? No leaking from the windows or doors or from the firewall between the engine compartment and the rest of the van? There’d have to be some leaks, wouldn’t there?
No time to waste on that. Had to get out.
Eventually, I was going to have to swim it. Shouldn’t be too hard. Take a huge gulp of air and gun for the surface—only way to go was up.
One of the rare perks of lugging around an extra thirty pounds of man-fat was that it means I’ve got a body like a buoy. Whereas this little play on words had always kind of tickled me, this was the first time the notion would play out literally.
Okay. I grabbed the handle to the passenger door and held tight. I wasn’t a great swimmer, but I can hold my breath a good, long time. It’s a bar bet thing. Knew it would come in handy one day so, in retrospect, time well spent.
One.
I sucked in a couple quick breaths, hyperventilating to over oxygenate my lungs.
Two.
White knuckles on the handle, my knee braced into the seat’s fabric, and my shoulder blade flat against the door, I prepared for the deluge of water that would hit me in seconds.
Holding a huge breath—
Three!
--I snapped the handle back, and pushed!
But, the door didn’t open.
I’d forgotten to unlock the door.
The thin, black lock now popped, I settled back into my crouch, ready to repeat. In fact, it would work out better this way… always good to do a dry run.
Ha. "Dry."
Focus.
Again, I drew in deep breaths, but this time they pulled in a little slower as if the air were dragging across my teeth a little. Had to put that out of my mind; just a couple deep gasps of air, then—I yanked hard and heard the latch disengage.
I pressed up, but the water above me held the door
closed. Moving into a crouch, my feet on the side edge of the seat, I used my legs to do all the work.
Steadied my shoulder.
Then, pushed with everything I had.
Harder.
Harder.
My legs began to shake as I strained to force the door open. Sweat burst from the pores along my hairline, making the gash there sting. Rivulets of red-stained perspiration dripped down my face and into my eyes.
I yelled, pushing harder, my muscles aching, and braced for the rush of water.
It didn’t come. Dropping away, I was breathing heavy, trembling as my muscles dealt with the shock of overexertion. I banged the van ceiling with my fist.
"No wonder there are no leaks! The son-of-a-bitch welded the doors shut!"
But, then I remembered.
One foot of water exerts a pressure of .43 pounds per square inch.
That’s what he was saying. Not that the van was going to be crushed but, given the depth and size of the door, with all that water pressure there'd be no way for me to open it.
Luckily, my abductor had been on a budget, and the van had hand crank windows. Readying myself again, I began to turn the crank, but no dice.
I tried the driver’s side. Same result.
Lying on my side and pressing my shoe hard on the crank, I heard the gears inside strip and start to buckle.
One foot of water exerts a pressure of .43 pounds per square inch.
Ah. That's thousands of pounds of pressure. No way the flimsy window crank could overcome that sort of weight.
Then how was I getting out?
Before I passed out in my apartment, he had said: “Lesson begins.”
This was a lesson? What kind of lesson? Or by lesson did he mean "payback"?
What had I done? Had I so completely wronged someone that to settle accounts it meant my death?
Just more and more questions but one thing was certainly turning out to be true: I was actually starting to run out of air.
Lying back, sitting on the seat sideways, I pressed the cold window against my sore neck and shoulders. It helped some, but the worst pain was really my lower back where the—
“TOOLBOX!”
I popped up like a jack-in-the-box and slid between the two front seats into the back of the van where the black, plastic toolbox lay upside down in the corner. I grabbed it, flipping the box over in my hands several times. I could hear something rattling around inside, but the plastic was thick and my pitiful attempts to tear it open didn't leave a mark.
This, of course, from a guy who-- on more than one occasion-- had been summarily defeated by a tenacious potato chip bag (alas, shortly after those temporary failures, my enemy was often quickly slain with a dirty kitchen knife. Or scissors. Or lawn jart. Unfortunately, given the manner of my late-night departure, I hadn't brought any of those implements with me).
Embedded in the plastic was the face of a small combination lock but, flipping the toolbox over a couple times, there was no hint at what the combination might be. No serial numbers, no manufacture date. Nothing.
The numbers had to be in the van, then.
The vehicle had 78,898 miles on it, which meant if those were my numbers I had two two-digit numbers and a one digit number. It took me a few minutes to go through each permutation. Nothing.
Frustrated, I ran through the numbers again. Had I rushed right past the correct sequence? Again, nothing.
Panic gripped my chest. Had he... given me the numbers
Or, worse, maybe he revealed it as I passed out?
I closed my eyes for a second and recalled, exactly, every word of the conversation from the moment he'd entered my apartment.
Nothing, no numbers that seemed like a possible combo.
I searched through my pockets again. Nothing-- they’d been stripped empty. Not only were my keys and wallet missing, but the bastard even swiped the twenty bucks hidden in my black vest. In fact, the entire vest was gone. Jerk.
Staring at the lock, I knew whatever was inside the toolbox was my ticket to getting free.
Slamming the toolbox on the metal walls of the van did nothing but ring my ears. The light went out for a brief instant during one attack, the wiring inside probably shifting, so my failing came to an abrupt end. As scared as I was, it would be a lot more frightening in complete darkness. It was pitiful, but I needed the tiny, orange bulb to keep me company.
“What, then..?”
I stared at the lock and just started spinning it. Three numbers, probably. I tried increments of five. Then, faster, I just tried random combinations of numbers. Still faster. Anything, it didn’t matter—nothing worked.
Calm down.
My mouth was widening, gulping deeper breaths, and I was getting a little dizzy.
He’d warned me of the pressure on the doors. He'd warned of the depleting oxygen. He'd… oh, hold on.
He’d asked about the baker.
Why had he asked about the baker?
Testing me. Testing my recall.
“How the hell had he even known about that?” I said aloud and the voice reflected back to me was thin, shaky.
For whatever reason that seemed to matter to him. He'd needed to check my recall before moving forward. That was what all the baker stuff was about. So, if that meant so much... the answer to my lock riddle would likely be in something he said after all.
Three numbers? Letters, maybe, or…
I had it.
Hell, you must’ve thought it was your birthday and the beer fairy had brought an extra cold one.
My damp fingers fumbled, trembling as I dialed in my birthday, but concentration failing me a little, I passed by my birth month and had to do it again.
Slow.
I had to focus, go slow.
I had to get it right.
Ticking off the three numbers of my birthday in various combinations until—
Click.
Briefly, thrill washed over me like a winter wind, and I popped open the toolbox and reached inside.
A pen. Just a pen.
“What is this?” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m supposed to break out with a clever haiku?”
Or maybe it was for a suicide note.
I was pissed off. Pissed off about being in the van, pissed off someone had busted into my home and pissed off someone had screwed with my beer!
So, I snapped the pen in two.
But it didn’t break. Hell, I was too weak to even bend it.
Then— no, not too weak.
I grabbed either end and used all my strength to bend the pen but it didn’t bend at all.
Holding it up to the light again, I looked at it a little more closely. “This is a really good pen.”
But, this wasn’t the standard Bic you’d pick up at the grocery store. There had to be metal shell underneath the plastic surface. More importantly, it was at least some clue to what I had to do next.
The problem, of course, was the pressure on the door and on the door's window. I couldn’t open either until the pressure equalized on both sides. Like trying to open the van's door while doing eighty miles an hour. Really hard to do. But, open the window, and the door swings a little easier.
Holding the pen like a dagger, I psyched myself up for an attack on the passenger side window above me.
Just as I was about go all Norman Bates on it, it occurred to me that the water falling into the van—all that pressure released!—could knock me out cold. The back window seemed like a better option.
“Okay, here we go.” Grabbing the rear door's interior handle with my right hand, I arched back with my left and came down as hard as I could on the glass. The shockwave rattled up my wrist, arm and shoulder and it felt like Daffy or Bugs had slammed a ball peen hammer into the base of my skull.
“Ouch.”
Instant headache, arm ache, shoulder ache… just everything ache. Thinking back to Psycho, I thought: WWND?
“What would Norman do?”
Natur
ally, Mr. Bates, a slight man, would use whatever body mass he had to put some force behind his thrust.
This time, slipping between the two front seats, I pushed back even farther to the dashboard. The van on its side, my feet gripped onto the back of the driver’s seat like a runner in starter blocks.
I counted off in my head again: One… two… three!
Screaming like a banshee—because Norman would have—I leapt with all my strength toward the back window, arm rocketing forward in a stabbing motion, my feet never even touching the floor, I was in full flight when I reached the door, five feet from my starting point. There was the celebratory shatter of glass then a whoooosh of air.
The water gushing in and all around me was the most beautiful music I had ever heard.
Froth and spray and foam… tried to get a good bearing, but then the dome light winked out.
I dipped down below, into the freezing water, grabbed the handle to the door and pushed it open out. Slowly, it gave way and let me pass into the freezing, black void.
Pulling myself upward with everything I had left, then dug deeper and used that too-- that part, that reserve we never tap into because we fear it would empty us, top to bottom, but still I pushed harder.
The first thing I noticed was the screaming. Not a vocal scream, but the shrill of pain. The water wasn't going to release its prey that easily, and it squeezed my body, my chest, my head… my ears felt as if I were being lifted by a giant pair of calipers, its needle-sharp points cutting into either side of my skull.
I clamped my hands to either side of my head and kicked with my feet, but the pain symphony in my brain didn’t quiet. It felt like my face would surely crack open, the contents behind it bursting through any split, looking to escape the pressure.
My eyes wide open, my lips a vise, I kicked myself toward the sky and slowly saw the black turn to steel gray above me. Brighter and brighter until finally, unbelievably, my body split the surface and took in my first fresh lungful of air in what felt like hours.
Thrashing on top of the water, I greedily sucked in deep gulps of air and yelled at the top of my lungs, took another breath and yelled again. It felt damn good.
It took a full minute to get my bearings, and I swam toward the shoreline. My sweatshirt was weighing me down, so I stripped it off and instantly grew freezing cold, but the swimming was much easier.