Ghastly Glass

by Joyce; Jim Lavene

  “Yes! Look to your right,” the voice (starting to sound familiar) instructed me.

  I turned to my right and shined the flashlight against the other side of the wall that had prevented me from seeing him. “Jeff? Is that you?” As I rushed over to him, I noticed another form close by.

  It was Chase. He was still in his boxers and lying silent on the concrete floor.

  “Thank God you found us,” Jeff cried. His dirty, heavily bearded face was streaked with tears. He pulled at the rusted chains to show me he was bound to the wall. “He just brought Chase in last night. He’s still out. We have to get out of here before he comes back.”

  “You mean Lonnie?” I shined the flashlight on Chase and took a deep breath before I touched him. He was still warm, still breathing. It might be just as well that he wasn’t awake, although we’d have to rouse him somehow to get him back out through the tunnel. I couldn’t even imagine how Lonnie had fit him through it.

  “Yeah. The little snake. He hit me in the head and dropped me down here. I don’t even know how long it’s been. He fed me, but that’s about all. Didn’t anyone even notice I was gone?”

  “Of course. Everyone noticed. Your sister came looking for you. It’s just that we thought you’d moved on.” I shined the flashlight on Jeff’s wrists. I wanted to help Chase, but I would need Jeff’s help. My plan was to free him, then Chase, and get us all out of this nightmare.

  “What is this place?” I asked, trying to divert Jeff’s attention as I examined the manacles around his wrists. “Are we under the dungeon?”

  “It’s the old Air Force jail. Chase knew it was under here. I guess everyone assumed when they built the dungeon over the top of it, there was no way into it. They were so wrong. Can you unfasten the manacles?”

  The manacles attached to the chains that held Jeff prisoner were rusted but still strong. I doubted if even Bart could break them. The skin on Jeff’s wrists was bloody and raw. I winced when I looked at it.

  “I don’t know.” I pulled at the chain and Jeff moaned. “Sorry. I just wanted to see how strong they were.”

  “I thought of that. Actually I haven’t thought of much else for . . . how long have I been down here?”

  “About a month. It looks like there’s a screw thing holding the manacles together. Maybe I can unscrew it.”

  “Don’t you have a two-way with you? Can’t you call for help?”

  I didn’t go into why I didn’t have a two-way. Instead I handed him the flashlight with instructions to shine the beam on his left wrist. “I have a cell phone with no bars. We’ll have to get out of this ourselves.”

  The screw thing wouldn’t move when I tried to turn it. It was too rusted. I needed to get a better grip on it. I pulled my T-shirt up to use it as a buffer between my fingers and the rusted metal, then tried turning the screw thing again. This time it budged a little. Now I really wished Bart was here. He could probably get this open in no time.

  I kept working on it, conscious of every little sound, worried about Lonnie coming back and hitting me in the head. Who knew someone so small could be so vicious? He had to be strong, too, since he took out Chase and Jeff. I thought about him carrying that heavy keg of ale by himself. Good going, Sherlock. You could’ve remembered sooner. But who knew that would make any difference?

  I finally got the first manacle off. It dropped to the concrete with a loud clank.

  “Geez, Jessie! Don’t make so much noise!”

  “Hey, I’m doing the best I can! I didn’t know it was going to do that.”

  Jeff was going to take off the second manacle while I went to revive Chase, but he couldn’t move his hand enough to work the screw thing free. “You’ll have to get this other wing nut off of here,” he said. “And hurry. I don’t want to be here when Lonnie comes back.”

  “Like I want to!” I gave him the flashlight to hold in his free hand while I worked on the wing nut (yeah, like that’s a real name).

  I heard a sound off in the darkness. “Is that Lonnie?”

  “No. That’s just the rats. Ignore them. They won’t bother us as long as we’re moving.”

  I worked on the wing nut until I felt the manacle loosen. This time I held it in one hand so I could catch it when it opened. I put the manacle on the floor and took the flashlight from Jeff.

  He massaged his wrists, probably trying to get some feeling into them. I helped him to his feet. Thankfully he could stand without falling over. “Is Chase chained, too? Let’s see about getting him up.” I shifted the light to Chase’s inert form.

  “Whatever. I’m out of here. That lunatic could come back any minute. Don’t worry. I’ll send help.”

  “You can’t do that! I need you!”

  But it was too late. Jeff had already melted into the darkness. I silently called him every foul name I could think of. Not that it did much good. I was so going to hurt him if I ever saw him again. How could he leave me down here with Chase unconscious after I’d freed him?

  “I guess that’s an important lesson to learn, Jessie,” I said to myself. “Never help the other guy before you help yourself.”

  I turned Chase over so he was on his back. He was manacled as well but only by one hand. Lonnie must have been in a hurry when he locked him up. Maybe there was only one manacle over here. Whatever the case, I applied myself to opening that manacle, going over and over my escape plan in my mind to keep from panicking. Free Chase. Wake Chase up. Get both of us the hell out of here.

  The single manacle was harder to open than both of evil Jeff’s (I guess that’s why Lonnie used only one on Chase). I fought with it, gritting my teeth and swearing under my breath, but I couldn’t get it open and my fingers were already raw and painful from twisting the rusted metal on evil Jeff’s manacles.

  Chase groaned and moved his hand to his head. I stopped trying to open the manacle and considered that my plan might have to start with wake up Chase. I could always go to step one after step two. The important part was getting to step three.

  “Jessie? Is that you? What’s going on? Why does my head feel like it just had batting practice with the Diamond-backs. Where are we?”

  “It’s me. Lonnie apparently knocked you in the head and dragged you into some underground military prison. I think that answers all the questions.” I tried to resist hugging him, but it was a useless endeavor. I was scared, glad he was okay, worried about Lonnie. No way I wasn’t going to hug him.

  He groaned again. “Could we hold off on that until we get out of here and I find the back part of my head? What do you mean Lonnie hit me in the head?”

  “I don’t know how else to say it.” I told him about Jeff and that Lonnie had been fired by Adventure Land before coming to work with him. “I don’t know why he did it. But he doesn’t know I let evil Jeff go or that we’re trying to escape. We have to get out of here. Only I can’t get the wing nut in the manacle loose.”

  Chase dragged himself into a sitting position with his back against the slimy wall. “So, where did Jeff go?”

  “That’s why he’s evil. I’m never helping another human being escape from an old prison again. They’re just too ungrateful.”

  “He ran off and left us?”

  “Exactly. Oh wait. He said he’d send help. Totally evil. We have to get your hand free.”

  “Shine the light on the manacle. Let’s see what I can do.” But Chase’s best efforts were useless as well. “It’s no good. We need some WD-40, maybe a pair of pliers. You’ll have to leave me here and go get them since I’m assuming we have no way of communicating with the outside world.”

  “No bars. Sorry. I’m so getting a new cell phone company.” I leaned my head against his (carefully). “I can’t just leave you here. What if Lonnie comes back? There has to be some other way.”

  He kissed my forehead. “You have to leave me here and go for help, Jessie. It’ll be okay. If he wanted to kill me, I’d be dead already, right?”

  “Not necessarily.” A larg
e flashlight beam hit us.

  The sound of another voice, particularly since it was Lonnie’s voice, made me jump to my feet. “The police are on their way,” I told him. “You’re going to jail. Too bad it can’t be this one instead of a clean, nice jail.”

  He laughed at me, an ugly little rat laugh. “You know I always liked you, Jessie. You’re so cute and sexy. Otherwise, you might be down here instead of Chase. I guess you are down here now, but I wish you weren’t. Just don’t lie to me. I’m not stupid, no matter what everyone else thinks. Chase wouldn’t tell you to go for help if help was on it’s way, would he?”

  “Why are you doing this?” Chase demanded. “Is there some weird plan or are you a few cards short of a full deck?”

  “It’s simple, really. Adventure Land fired me. They told me to leave the only real home I ever had. I couldn’t do that. So I created a position for myself by putting Jeff down here and becoming his replacement. But I still couldn’t forget what they’d done. I just wanted the Village to close down. I thought it might after Death died. Then I thought it might after Roger was attacked. But it just keeps going. I think one more person dying might do the trick. What do you think?”

  “You killed Death? I mean Ross? ” I asked in disbelief.

  “It was an accident, really. We were horsing around and the big guy fell on that piece of rebar. I tried to help him get up. It was too late. Then I looked at him and realized I could use his death to get what I wanted. So I wrote Death shall find thee on his chest. I never meant to really hurt anyone. That’s why I left Jeff alive.”

  “You expect us to believe that? Did you beat up Roger, too?” Chase demanded. “Did you have anything to do with those two visitors dying from heatstroke?”

  “I don’t care what you believe, Sir Bailiff. But it was an accident, and no, I didn’t touch Roger. And I sure didn’t have anything to do with those visitors. What was really funny is that I only wrote that phrase two other times. Someone else did it the rest of the time. Good thing, too. That pig’s blood was expensive. Cool, huh?”

  I could feel Chase still working on the wrist manacle, trying to free himself. I made sure my body shielded his actions from Lonnie’s flashlight. I hoped he could do it, but I wasn’t sure he could protect us from Lonnie. In any other circumstance, no problem. But he was injured and would probably be unsteady on his feet.

  “What do we do now?” I tried to keep the conversation going until I could think of a better plan.

  “One of you is going to have a terrible accident.” Lonnie’s evil smile made me shiver. “I’d rather it be Chase so I can keep you here with me, Jessie. I’m sure in time you’ll come to appreciate me.”

  I wasn’t sure how far Chase was from getting loose, but I knew I had to act. I pulled my sword from its sheath in one smooth movement. The light from both of our flashlights gleamed on the silver blade. It was fake, but Lonnie might not know that. He’d seen me use the real thing at the castle.

  “You’ll have to kill me first,” I challenged him.

  He stepped back and his flashlight wiggled. “Come on, Jessie. I can’t believe a nice girl like you could hurt anybody.”

  I advanced another step toward him. “Try me.”

  He retreated, and I advanced another few steps. “Let’s talk about this. Are you really prepared to cut me open? I don’t think so.”

  I made a bold move and brought the sword quickly under his chin so he could feel the point. It wasn’t real, but I knew it felt real. “You’re talking about killing the man I love. Think about it, Ratboy. Do you really think I wouldn’t kill you?”

  I could see he was scared and the wheels were turning in his brain. I just hoped he didn’t get brave and push against the sword. Maybe he’d just drop down and surrender. I don’t think I’d ever been as scared as that moment. Everything was riding on pretense, just like the Village.

  “Jessie—” I saw his eyes roll up in his head, then he slumped to his knees and finally to the floor.

  I couldn’t imagine what had happened until Bart stepped into the light. “I hope you didn’t mind that I smashed him in the head.”

  The sword sagged in my hand and I collapsed on the concrete. “No. I don’t mind at all.”

  “You were doing a very good job considering your sword isn’t real,” he said. “I just got tired of waiting. Is that Chase over there?”

  While there’s nothing better than being at Renaissance Village, sometimes even the most die-hard, character-bound actor needs a break. I thought a lot about that while waiting for hours as they examined Chase at the hospital. We both needed a break, I determined, after our experience in the old Air Force jail. If Chase survived all the poking and prodding, we were going to get away for at least a few hours. Just the two of us. Someplace nice.

  So, two days later, we were sitting in an oceanfront pool at a swank hotel on the Grand Strand. A friend of ours (and part-time actor at the Village) leaves the sliding glass door open for us a couple nights a month. We have the whole place to ourselves. The hotel (not mentioning the name so our friend stays anonymous and employed) has an excellent pool and huge lazy river. You can float in it all night long looking at the stars through the glass roof.

  Unfortunately, Chase and I weren’t the only ones who needed a getaway. It wasn’t as romantic as I wanted it to be, but I floated in the warm, chlorine-scented water with Chase beside me and decided it wasn’t too bad.

  You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen Death in a bathing suit floating in an inner tube. But I’ll always love Bart for the gentle way he lifted Chase off the cement floor in that old jail and carried him out the secret trap door that led back into the dungeon. Thankfully, we didn’t have to crawl back out through the tunnel.

  Bart had been watching the dungeon and had seen Jeff run out. He didn’t get very far before Bart caught him and he pointed to the trap door.

  “The one thing that puzzles me,” Rafe said, still wearing his pirate bandana as he floated in the lazy river, “is how that little guy got you into that jail, Chase. Come on! You had to help him out, right? He’s half your size. I mean, a good swat with one hand would’ve taken care of him.”

  “How about he hit me in the head with a piece of concrete and I fell down the opening that led into the old jail.” Chase nudged my inner tube and smiled at me. Lonnie kept using the banshee to try and keep people from noticing what he was doing in the dungeon.

  Chase’s head was in pretty good shape, according to the doctor. They’d tried to get him to stay at the hospital at least overnight, but he’d refused. I’d promised to keep an eye on him. So far, he seemed okay to me. Maybe a little too quiet. Was he still thinking about when he woke up in the old jail?

  “Maybe we should fill that jail in or something,” Grigg suggested. “It’s a hazard. Someone else could fall down there, or the whole place could sink in.”

  “Already taken care of it.” Merlin had refused to take off his robe (probably just as well) and was drinking a martini as he came down the waterslide. Of course, when he hit the bottom, the water splashed up and took care of the drink. But he ate the olive, then set the glass to the side and whooped as he ran up the stairs to go down again.

  “What’s going to happen to Roger’s nephew?” Crystal cuddled her baby on her lap as she floated.

  “Who knows?” I answered. “Roger says he’ll testify against him and won’t give him bail money. Mary’s trying to talk him around. I guess we’ll see.”

  Chase and I hung around for a while with all the other Village lunatics that had managed to escape for the night. They were too busy enjoying the benefits of living in two worlds to notice when we left. That’s part of the beauty of being in the Village instead of really living in the 1500s. You can always call out for pizza, watch TV, or go out to play the lottery at Phil’s Convenience Store on the corner.

  We drove back from the hotel silently. Traffic was heavy on Ocean Boulevard, but we made good time back to the Village. I turned
off the car (first time I ever drove Chase’s BMW—sweet ride!), then I turned and looked at him. “A gold doubloon for your thoughts.”

  He smiled at me, but his eyes were still sad and thoughtful. “I don’t know if they’re worth that much.”

  “What’s up? You’ve been really quiet, and you didn’t even get your hair wet in the pool.” I traced the shadows on his face with my finger.

  “Nothing. Nothing really. I guess I’ve been wondering what would’ve happened if you hadn’t crawled down that tunnel and rescued me.”

  I thought so. Latent survival thoughts. LST. It will get you every time. “You would’ve figured out something else to do. I’m sure it was easier because I was there. But you would’ve been okay. I have faith in you.”

  “Faith, huh? Does that mean next time I get to save you?”

  “You already did. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t saved me from the pirates. That makes us even. Your turn next. Okay?”

  He smiled and pulled me close. “Okay. Maybe not tonight. But later.”

  The zombies were trying out the spiderweb idea again when Chase and I walked back into the Village. The night was cooling rapidly, a stiff breeze blowing in from the ocean. The smell of salt air mingled with burning pumpkin flesh and roasting barbecue. Tomorrow would be another big day at the Village with the news of Lonnie’s capture and the underground-jail hostages. Jeff had been on the news at least ten times in the past forty-eight hours.

  “Don’t you just love to watch the zombies at work?” Chase wrapped his arm around me as we walked to the dungeon.

  “Why yes. I find them quite colorful. Maybe we should stay outside for a while and take in the sights, Sir Bailiff.” I kissed the side of his face and neck.

  “Yes. Forsooth. We shall take in the color, my lady. What say you to a turn in the Swan Swing?”

  “My lord.” I curtsied deeply. “I would do anything to please you. But art thou certain to be up to the experience?”

  He smiled. “I believe I am. Wouldst thou fetch the Joan of Arc garb?”