Behind The Voice

by Cassi Gray

CHAPTER FIVE

  I had been watching the monitor for about thirty minutes in peace and quiet. Left alone to contemplate the advertisements, and news stories, I read about investments, insurance, office printers, and low mortgage rates. All of which were incredibly boring to me on a normal day, but today they were fascinating on a whole new level.

  When it cycled back through to the beginning of which I had already seen, I looked about the elevator. Curious once again where the speakers and camera were, and even more curious about who was controlling this metal box and had my life in their hands.

  On average I was pretty good at reading people. I couldn't so much as get a sentence formed about the man who was behind all of this. He seemed so innocent and naïve, but at the same time he was keeping me trapped in here for his own personal, twisted use. So really, how naïve and innocent could he be?

  Maybe I was the naïve one.

  Maybe this was all part of his game, the innocence that thickly lined his sentences was only a trap for me to feel sorry for him, and make him seem like the good guy.

  He was a very good actor then, pretending to not know what certain things were, sounding completely baffled at other common phrases and objects.

  But yet there was still this needling little voice in my head that refused to believe it was all an act. That he was truly helping me, and that my life couldn't be any safer than in his hands. This thought made me furrow my eyebrows together. What could he possibly be helping me with, other than being late to work? And I needed no help with that.

  My extremely over active imagination was up to the challenge of trying to think up something that would qualify for life saving that involved being trapped in an elevator by a two year old that had the voice of a middle aged man. It fell short, and I couldn't come up with anything.

  Sighing, I rested my head against the elevator wall and stared across the expanse of dull carpet at the opposite side. The dark wood was shining proudly in the glow of the lights from above. I stared at the fuzzy and washed out reflection of myself. A fleeting thought arose that I was looking at another me in a parallel universe. Somehow I had crossed into her realm and was now being held captive by a feisty, living elevator that she surely knew how to handle, if only I could ask her.

  But I couldn’t speak to her. She opened her mouth when I did, but her words didn’t come out, only mine.

  I closed my eyes and removed myself from the imaginative world of other dimensions and a wordless me.

  A few more peaceful, quiet moments passed with my eyelids draped over my blue eyes. I thought I might actually be able to take a quick nap, when his voice needled through my soothing bubble of tranquility that surrounded me, and popped it.

  Cordelia.

  His voice was a lot more hurried this time around.

  Cordelia.

  He almost sounded on the verge of panicking. My eyes snapped open, and I looked around the elevator, again expecting to see someone standing there. His voice sounded so close, I knew I would never get used not seeing someone else in the elevator with me.

  CORDELIA.

  He nearly yelled my name, and I flinched at the booming power behind it. I could feel the vibration from the wall under the bass of his voice as it passed from the wall, through my clothes, and rattled my spine.

  Leaning away from the wall, I casually looked behind myself to check to make sure some strange contraption hadn't formed out of the wall and was trying to burrow into my back.

  Satisfied that there only was the same glossy, dark wood behind me, as in front of me, I responded, "What?"

  Please hold on.

  I tilted my head and stared up at the lights above me, raising an eyebrow and lowering the other one in the universal facial expression of confusion.

  "Please hold-"

  My question began to form, but was immediately cut short as my voice plummeted into my stomach and hit the floor.

  I felt like all of a sudden I was sitting on a very large magnet that only attracted bones. The weight, pressure and force were pulling me down on top of myself, and even though I could breathe just fine, I struggled to take air into my lungs and gasp for breath.

  I was so bewildered at what had happened that I called out the disembodied voice's name. It was not out of frustration, but out of fear and needing comfort.

  I was convinced I was dying. I was free falling to my death this time, no more games from Jeremy, he had let the brakes go, and these were my last moments. And I was all alone, except for his voice. I desperately wanted to hear his voice again. I needed to hear it. The yearning inside me was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Frantically it pulled on every fiber and string that compiled my muscles and tendons, pushed my blood through my veins at break-neck speed only to fill the slippery tubes with hysteria that threatened to rupture them. My heart constricted at the seemingly thicker substance as it found its path to the beating muscle, flicking at it with an evil forked tongue.

  I needed to know he was still there.

  The revelation of my need for his voice was almost as strong as the yearning, and that sent my frazzled mind reeling in addition to what was already physically happening to me.

  How was it possible to need someone so badly, when all he was to me was a voice? When moments ago I was questioning his evil intentions?

  He toyed with the strings of my elevator like a marionette manipulator might do to his misbehaving puppet. Bouncing me around within my little wooden and metal friend so carelessly at times, but then followed it up with a very real worry about causing me pain.

  The mixed signals I was getting from him were worse than a teen aged girl on date night. I couldn’t figure him out, and had a moment of sympathy for all boys on those momentous nights of utter confusion.

  Maybe he was saving my life before, saving this elevator from dropping like a bowling ball with me in it. Maybe he was controlling the brakes and now he's gone, and the brakes are gone with him, and I'm going to die.

  And that’s when it hit me, I didn’t need to hear his voice because I missed him, I needed to hear his voice to know he was still there, and more importantly, he was still in control of the elevator.

  I wouldn't allow myself to cry, for what good would that do? It wouldn't stop the elevator from dropping.

  I blinked at the same time that I realized I wasn't dropping, as if my eyelids brought the realization down upon me.

  The elevator was going up.

  The force was attempting to push me down through the fibers in the carpet because of the g's being caused from going up at such an extreme speed.

  I don't know why, but I just knew that Jeremy was still there and he was doing this to save me. He had to be. Right?

  The pit that had been developing at warp speed inside my stomach was gone quicker than I could be thankful for knowing he was still there.

  When the elevator finally came to a stop, which felt like an eternity, I had a moment of weightlessness, and I allowed myself to smile at the roller coaster feeling. A giggle nearly escaped, but I managed to stifle it when I heard him speak.

  Are you in pain?

  I don't know why he kept asking me that, and it was such an odd way to ask someone if they're okay or not. But regardless of his unusual way of speaking to me, I was thrilled to hear him. My heart fluttered in my chest like I had just received a phone call from a long time crush. Mentally I crossed my arms at myself and took that you’re-in-trouble stance that moms get. I was acting like a love sick school girl and it needed to stop.

  Internally I was every which way but understanding, but externally I had to keep my cool, especially with how quickly he noticed a change in my emotions due to unchecked body language.

  "I'm a little rattled, but not in pain," I paused, and then tried to question him, "What happened? Why did you do that?"

  Knowing full well I was not going to get an answer that was satisfying.

  I needed to in order to keep you safe.

 
; "Why are you trying to keep me safe?" Not that I didn't appreciate it, I certainly enjoyed living and didn't want to stop anytime soon.

  Why wouldn't I?

  His counter-question caught me off guard a little bit and I fumbled around in my head trying to form a logical reason.

  "Well, because you don't even know me."

  That was the only thing I could scrounge up in my discombobulated mind, and I thought it sounded logical enough.

  Do I need to in order to save someone's life?

  He was quick on the responses right now.

  "I would think so." I replied.

  Would you need to know someone in order to save them Cordelia?

  His words made me fall silent as I pondered the question presented to me. Shockingly, I didn't know the answer. I felt like I would need to know who the person was that I was saving, but I didn't want to say it. It made me feel like a bad person for even thinking that.

  My brain told me that I should be thinking that no one deserved to die, and that everyone deserved a second chance. But I just couldn't get the bad people out of my head that purposefully did harm to others. To say someone didn't deserve to be saved, seemed wrong.

  Would you save this person?

  I looked up at the monitor, somehow knowing he wanted me to look at it. There was a picture of a fairly attractive woman on it. She was laughing and the glow from her smile and cheerful brown eyes exuded happiness.

  It was contagious, for I found myself smiling.

  Cordelia?

  "You want me to say if I'd save someone just off of looks alone?" I questioned.

  Yes.

  I studied the picture for another minute or two. You couldn't make out much in the background, but it appeared she was at a park of sorts. There were others dotted about in the shade of trees behind the cherub faced woman. But nothing that would help me determine if she was a bad person or not.

  "This is impossible." I said, slightly exasperated.

  Would you save her?

  The picture remained on the monitor. She just looked so happy, and like such a nice person.

  "Yes."

  She took the lives of her two infant boys three days before this photo was taken.

  My heart sank like he had made the elevator rocket another five stories into the air. I swallowed hard, and looked at the picture again, certain that there was some sort of stamp on her face that spelled out M-U-R-D-E-R-E-R, and I just had overlooked it.

  The only thing that was stamped on her face was a blissful happiness, slight crow's feet wrinkles around her eyes, and freckles.

  I felt sick to my stomach thinking about the poor little boys that must have been so scared and confused as their mother took their lives. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what must have been going through their minds, the sheer terror that surely gripped them as strongly as I gripped the railing of the elevator on my first bounce within it. A white knuckled experience that I’ve survived through so far, but they weren’t as lucky.

  Oddly enough, I didn’t want to hear Jeremy’s voice any more. I wanted him to leave me alone.

  Thankfully, he did. The elevator remained quiet and I was left to simmer and stew in my newly invented emotions.