by Stella Noir
“You’re right. I have no way of knowing what you’re thinking and I’m sorry for saying what I did, but I don’t think I want to talk anymore. I need to go to work, so you should probably just go to your room.”
“Ok.”
I heard the chair push back from the table and I listened to Avery’s footsteps as she walked through the kitchen and out into the hall and I didn’t move from the sink until I heard the door to her room close. I stood at the sink rinsing the dishes for a long time, but I couldn’t do anything else. I was paralyzed by what Avery had just said. I didn’t want to think about whether she was telling the truth or if she was right or wrong, I just wanted to block everything out. I didn’t want to feel anything anymore.
18
AVERY
I opened my eyes and I felt like I had barely slept. Colin had been gone for three days and three nights and I didn’t know what to do. I was stuck in this room and even though I still had food in my little fridge, it was going to run out eventually. Besides, I was going stir crazy and even though I didn’t understand why, I was really worried about him and I was starting to get scared that something had happened.
Every night he was gone I would lay there and hope that I would feel the bed move and that he would crawl in next to me. That he would wrap his arms around me and tell me that he would never leave again. I could feel his arms and his breath in my ear and those thoughts were the only things that made me feel safe as I waited for him to come back.
I knew there was no way he would have left me here and gone away, so the only other options I could think of were that he was in jail or was dead. And even though I knew it was crazy, that it didn’t make any sense at all, I had come to a decision while I had been laying there that third night all alone in that big, dark house. I decided that I was going to break out of that room and go looking for him.
I could just imagine what Barbara would say if she knew that instead of trying to escape from my prison to go home I was planning my escape so that I could go and find the person who had been holding me against my will, but I had to. I just couldn’t leave not knowing what happened to him.
I kept thinking about what he told me, about the tunnels always being a place where he felt free and about his friend who lived at the end of one of them, and suddenly the diagram in the basement flashed into my memory. Maybe that’s where he went, or maybe his friend knew where he was. Colin told me that he talked to Landen every day, that Landen was his only friend, so he seemed like the obvious place to start, even though the thought of searching for someone who taught Colin how to preserve human skin did not seem like the smartest move on my part, but it was all I had to go on.
I got dressed and started looking around my bedroom and bathroom for something I could use to pry one of the doors open or bust it down and I wound up taking the entire bed frame apart in the process. I smashed the headboard up and freed one of the posts, then heaved the heavy rounded post at the deadbolt at the top of the door until the doorframe splintered and the door flew open.
I was finally free and I couldn’t believe it took this long for me to do it, that I hadn’t tried to get out and leave this house while Colin was at work. It occurred to me that maybe I really didn’t want to leave, that after the first night with him when he talked about wanting to make women beautiful and promised me he wouldn’t leave me in the cage that I had already made up my mind about him.
“Colin?” I called out, but there wasn’t a single sound in the house. I was starving, so the first thing I did was rifle through the fridge in the kitchen and wolf down a sandwich that I slapped together, then I stuck some bottles of water into a backpack that I found in Colin’s closet. While I was in his room I also found a flashlight and a knife and my phone in a drawer. I turned it on and was surprised to find that it actually had a little bit of a charge left on it. I was glad because I wanted to take a picture of that diagram on the basement wall. I stuck everything in the pack too, then headed down to the basement.
When I got to the bottom of the first set of stairs I stood there for a minute. I could just walk straight ahead and out the back door, which is what I knew I should have done, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t know what it was that compelled me to go chasing after some guy in an incredibly dangerous tunnel after he had kept me locked up in his house for three weeks, but that was all I wanted to do.
Am I completely crazy? Why do I feel like I need to help him?
But it wasn’t that I felt like I needed to, I wanted to. I wanted to know that he was safe, and I wanted him to know how I felt. That, for whatever reason, he had become important to me, although I had absolutely no idea why.
I turned the corner and flipped on the light switch. I remembered what Colin had said about the keys hanging near the basement door and there they were. A big rusty ring of old keys hanging from a nail right at the top of the stairs. I grabbed it and ran down the stairs then stopped at the cage to take a picture of the diagram on the wall with my phone. I looked at it again and it was exactly they way he said it would be. A long tunnel that ran further than the main system of tunnels that followed the grid of the city streets.
While I was in there I looked under the mattress on the bottom bunk and I got a lump in my throat when I found what I was looking for. At the very back of the metal bed frame up against the wall was a small key dangling from a paperclip. It was hidden well and I would have missed it if I hadn’t been looking for it and it made me sad to think that every girl who had been held in this cage, including me, had the key to unlock the cage and escape, but they didn’t realize it.
I took a deep breath and walked over to the door that led out to the tunnels, then unlocked it and quickly pulled it open and just as I did I heard a bloodcurdling scream that made my heart stop. I stood there staring out into the blackness with my hands up at my neck when I heard my name.
“Avery? Oh my God, Avery is that you?”
I saw a light moving around on the ground and suddenly Barbara flew through the open door and wrapped her arms around me. I couldn’t even breathe I was so shocked from the scream and then seeing Barbara walk into Colin’s basement from the tunnel.
“Oh my God, Avery, I thought you were dead! Oh my God!” she said as she held my shoulders and stared at me with tears streaming down her face.
“Holy shit, Barbara, you scared the hell out of me!” I yelled and laughed at the same time as my eyes filled with tears too.
“Dude, you scared the hell out of me! I’ve never screamed like that in my life. I didn’t even know that sound could come out of me,” she said as she bent forward, trying to catch her breath.
“What in the hell are you doing in here? Is this where you’ve been all this time? I was terrified, Avery. I totally thought you were dead! I called the police but they didn’t give a shit. They said you probably ran off with some guy. And I fucking came over and asked this guy if he had seen you and he said he hadn’t. What the fuck?”
“Oh, Barb, I don’t even know how to begin and I know that no matter what I say you’re gonna think I’m crazy. I know you are.”
“What do you mean? Are you shacking up with this dude? Like on the sly? When I talked to him he acted like he didn’t even know who you were, but you told me you caught him looking in your window so I knew he was lying. What the hell is going on, Avery?”
“Ok, I’m going to tell you but you have to just listen, you can’t freak out …”
“Hey, you already know my policy. I totally reserve the right to freak out and I have a feeling this is going to be the grand daddy of all freak outs. Just tell me before I have a heart attack in this creepy place. Man, I can’t believe I’m still shaking,” she said as she wrapped her hands around each of her arms. “Just start from the beginning.”
“Ok, remember that day that you asked me to watch Joey and I never came back?”
“Um … yeah.”
“Well, I came in here … into this house. Joey pulled free from his leash and we
nt under the fence into Colin’s backyard …”
“So, the creep’s name is Colin?”
“Yeah, and for some reason the back door to the house was open and Joey just came right in here. I was totally freaked cause I didn’t want to get caught snooping through his house, but it didn’t seem like anyone was home, so I walked all around the house looking for Joey and just as I saw him run back out the back door, he grabbed me.”
“What do you mean he grabbed you? The guy that lives here grabbed you?”
“Yes, I was just about out the door and he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back in.”
“How Texas Chainsaw Massacre of him. What the fuck? Why did he do that?”
“Well … he had a girl the basement … down here … and I saw her.”
“Wait, what do you mean he had a girl down here? You mean like as in I was right? He’s a total freaking psycho?”
“It’s a long story, Barbara, and I want to tell you the whole thing, but right now I have to go.”
“Go? Go where? Where is this asshole?”
“Well, he’s been gone for a few days and I’m worried,” I said as I watched her face turn from confused to angry to horrified.
“Worried about what? That he hasn’t killed you yet? You’re going to go find him and make sure that he does?”
“Look … I know there’s no way you could possibly understand … but I … I care about him and I’m afraid something has happened to him. And I’m gonna go out there and look for him,” I said as I gestured into the blackness beyond the door.
“In the tunnel? Are you fucking crazy? Tell me this is a joke, Avery, please. That this was all planned and a bunch of people are going to jump out from behind all this junk and I’m gonna be laughing here in a few minutes because right now I want to kill you for being so stupid. Oh, wait, I know what this is. This is that thing isn’t it? That Stockholm Syndrome thing? He kidnapped you and he’s gotten into your head and now you think you’re in love with him or something, right?
Let me tell you something, Avery. There is no way that I am buying that you are really in love with a guy that kidnapped you and Texas Chainsaw Massacred you. That’s fucking nuts. I don’t care how hot he is, I am just not buying it.”
“I don’t expect you to believe anything, Barbara, but I’m going in there and I’m going to go and look for him. You can think anything you want about me, that I’m crazy or brainwashed or whatever, I don’t really care. This is just something I feel like I have to do, and I honestly don’t know why myself, but I’m going.”
“You’re going into the tunnels alone. By yourself. Seriously?”
“Well, what the hell were you just doing out there by yourself? You’re terrified of those tunnels.”
“I was looking for you! I care about you, Avery. I couldn’t just pretend you never existed. I had to at least try.”
“Well, now you know how I feel.”
“But this guy is a nutjob, Avery!”
“Look, Barbara, I have to do this. I told you that you wouldn’t like this, and that I was going no matter what you thought of me. I have to at least look.”
“But where? Where are you going to look?”
“Well, I have an idea. Before he left, Colin mentioned that he has a friend, an old friend that he’s known since he was a kid, who lives in a house at the end of one of the tunnels. He told me his name and he said that it was a long tunnel and I remembered that I had seen this diagram on the wall over here …”
“Oh my God, Avery, did he put you in there?”
“Yeah, he did, but just let me finish. On the diagram there’s a long section of tunnel that starts where the other tunnel system stops. And right at that point there’s what looks like a letter L at the end, and his friend’s name is Landen.”
“He told you all this?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you guys must’ve talked a lot.”
“Yeah, we did.”
“But you don’t know that that’s even an L. It could just be some other kind of mark.”
“I’m going, Barb. I have to check it out.”
Barbara stared at me for a few seconds then sighed deeply.
“I cannot freaking believe I’m about to say this, but, I’m coming with you. I can’t let you go wandering off into those tunnels all by yourself.”
“No, Barbara, I can’t let you do that. I would be so upset if anything happened to you.”
“Avery, there is no way I can stand here and watch you go through that doorway by yourself. Seriously, there’s no way. I came this far, and I know it’s only about fifty feet and I just about peed myself in the process, but I did it, and I know I can go out there again with you.”
“I know, I can’t believe you did that for me.”
“You have absolutely no idea how hard it was. And let me tell you, you’re gonna owe me the biggest freaking pizza and pitcher of beer on the face of the earth after this is all over.”
I grabbed Barbara and hugged her and took her hand as we walked out into the tunnel together. She picked up the flashlight she had dropped on the ground and I shut and locked the door, then pulled out my phone and we walked into the darkness, following the diagram.
We walked for about a half hour before we came to what appeared to be a dead end, but eventually I found a hidden doorway behind a wooden support arch and I gasped when I saw a star drawn on the door. I looked at the image on my phone and right at the end of the maze of tunnels, where the long tunnel started, there was a star drawn on the concrete wall. There was absolutely no way I would have noticed the door without the diagram and now that I saw the star I knew I was headed in the right direction. I just hoped that Colin was actually at this person’s house. And that whoever it was that lived there was going to be ok with us showing up unannounced. We slipped through the doorway then shut it behind us and continued on.
“So you’re sure about this, huh?” Barbara asked as we both trudged up the slight incline.
“What makes you think I’m sure about anything?” I said with a laugh. “I’m definitely not sure about Colin. I mean, when I think about everything that has happened and try to rationalize my behavior none of it makes any sense. But when I just go by what I’m feeling … I know I’m doing the right thing. And if you don’t think I know how crazy I sound then you’re the one that’s crazy. All I know is, I feel something for him … and I don’t think it’s because of any syndrome.”
“I think that’s part of the syndrome, Avery,” she said with a slight chuckle. “Well, ok, I have to admit you had me fooled. From the minute I met you I believed you had your shit together, otherwise I never would have left Joey with you. And he’s been your number one fan from the very beginning too. Maybe we both knew something you didn’t. And speaking of Joey, you know, every time I take him for a walk he barks his head off when we pass that guy’s house. I should have listened to him.”
“I’m so glad he made it back home safe.”
“Yeah, I found him sitting on the porch, but man I can’t believe that guy. I knew he was lying. I should have just had the cops bust his door down.”
“Thank you for trying to find me Barbara. That really means a lot to me.”
We continued walking without saying much for the next fifteen minutes or so, but then suddenly a light appeared in the distance. We both stopped walking and grabbed each other tighter, but we had no way of knowing what was up ahead.
“Are you sure you want to keep going, Barb? I won’t blame you if you want to turn back.”
“No way! I’m not walking back through this whole thing by myself.”
“Ok, well, will you ease up on my arm little?”
“Oh, sorry,” she said as she loosened her grip.
We kept moving forward and the closer we got to the light the clearer it became. It was a doorway that was slightly ajar and when we got about ten feet away it opened up a little further and the silhouette of a man appeared.
“It�
�s a little early for trick-or-treating, isn’t it ladies?”
Neither one of us could move or say anything. We were both completely petrified and just stood there shaking and waiting for whatever was going to happen.
“One of you must be Avery,” the man said as he stepped out into the tunnel. “Colin told me about you.”
“He did? Is he here?” I asked as I took a step toward the man in the doorway.
“Yeah, he’s here. Would you two like to come in?”
19
COLIN
My eyes opened a little but I was having a hard time figuring out where I was because everything was a big hazy blur.
Where am I? Is this my bedroom? It doesn’t seem like my bedroom, I thought as I tried to focus on something, but everything in the room was just a blur. I moved my arms up so I could rub my eyes but a sharp pain shot through my lower back and I had to put them back down.
“Colin?”
I heard a faraway voice that sounded like Avery, but everything kept slipping away from me and it seemed like it wasn’t real. I opened my eyes again to try and see her but there was nothing there.
It’s a dream, that’s all it is. Just a dream, I thought to myself as I started to drift back into the haze. But then a hand gently touched my face and it felt too real to be a dream. I open my eyes one more time and turn my head toward where I heard the voice and in the darkness I could see the outline of her long, dark hair.
“Avery? Is that really you?” I tried to ask, but my voice was so weak and gravelly that it barely came out as a whisper.
What’s going on? Why can’t I just wake up?
“Yes, it’s really me. How are you feeling?” She asked as she ran her fingers through my hair. I wanted to tell her how incredible that felt but I was too tired to keep talking so I just thought please don’t stop over and over until I passed out.
WHEN I OPENED my eyes again I was staring straight up at the ceiling, but it wasn’t my ceiling, and I wasn’t in my own bed. The room was familiar, but I didn’t know where I was. I vaguely remembered talking to Avery and feeling her touching me but that had to have been a dream. I was starting to remember; I had left her at my house. I was angry and in a really bad place and when a girl came into the salon without an appointment in the afternoon I didn’t even think twice. I stuck her out in the tunnel and told Jade I was done for the day and left right through the goddamned tunnel.