by Ray Backley
“Help me, Daddy,” Phoebe said.
He so wanted to ignore her. There was no appetite in his mind for the niceties of dealing with children. But it was the right thing to do, so he cleared his throat and tried to speak softly.
“I wish I could, sweetie. I know it’s horrible. You just have to stick with it. Something will happen soon, someone will come free us both, we’ll be fine, he won’t hurt us.”
He almost cried at the lies he was spinning just to keep his daughter’s spirits up.
“But I need to . . . you know.”
A glance at the way she was clamping her legs together told Dan all he needed to know. “Can’t you hold it in?”
“I already did that. I can’t stop myself much longer.”
Dan smiled at her. “Okay, sweetie. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m gonna shout for help, so don’t get frightened when I shout. I’m not angry with you. You okay with that?”
She gave three big nods. Dan sucked in as much dank air as he could, feeling the sinews in his shoulder muscles scream out, as if in overture to his own performance.
He shouted once for help, then again, drawing the word out, ignoring his desperate spittle flying out. He waited, but heard nothing. He waited a little longer, then shouted once more, louder – louder than he ever thought he possibly could, probably because he’d never been so scared. He waited again, but then thought what the hell and just started shouting continuously. It was a while before he realized Phoebe was joining in with him, her high-pitched scream like shards of glass in his ear.
Still, there was no reaction or reply from upstairs.
Dan only stopped hollering when he heard Phoebe crying, then looked at her, saw her struggling to turn away from him, as if ashamed. He cursed under his breath.
“Phoebe! Phoebe!”
“I’m sorry, Daddy. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
“Phoebe. Listen to me. You don’t need to apologize. It’s okay, sweetie. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“But I tried. Now I’m all wet.”
Tears, snot, and dust fought for dominance on her face, just as Dan fought hard to hold back his own tears. He couldn’t even give her a hug to console her. He was beginning to think the unthinkable: that if he got the chance, he really would kill Vinnie and deal with any consequences later. Victimizing him and Cath was, to an extent, fair game; but putting a little girl through this ordeal? No way.
“Phoebe, I know it’s hard, but don’t worry. It’ll all come good in the end. Just try to stay—”
“AAAAH!”
It was that scream again. The one that bounced off every wall, almost getting amplified, searing his eardrums.
Phoebe threw her head from side to side and let rip again, as if her throat were on fire.
“Phoebe! Stop it! Calm down!”
Now Dan’s worry went up a notch; he feared her screaming and thrashing around might do her more damage than being tied up would.
“Phoebe! Just stop that. Do you hear me? Just calm down, just—”
But it was no good. This was the tantrum to beat all tantrums.
“I want Mommy! I wanna go home. Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! AAAAH!”
Dan’s words were having no effect, but he had to persevere; it was his job as a father.
“We’ll see Mommy soon, sweetie. Just stop screaming.”
She took no notice. She’d always been a bright kid and now that showed: she knew he was lying. Dan started shouting out for help again, but gave up after a few seconds, realizing he wasn’t helping, and was only damaging his already ravaged voice box. He turned to Phoebe and told her again to calm down.
But still she screamed, twisting and contorting her body left and right, her head like a pom-pom in full flow. The vision damn near broke Dan’s heart, and even when he closed his eyes the noise was drilling into his brain.
And then, just as he’d decided he could take no more and was about to shout at his sweet little daughter and tell her to shut up, there was silence. He looked to the side. Phoebe had stopped struggling and stopped screaming. He looked more closely – at her hand.
Phoebe, now as still and silent as a corpse, was also just staring down at her hand, streaked with dried blood, but now in front of her. And then she moved. First, she wriggled her other hand free from behind her, then she turned to look at Dan. And then, with both hands held out palms up in front of her, she started crying, her face showing more pain than he’d ever seen in her.
One dry and painful gulp later, Dan called her over to him. She scuttled across, flung her arms around his torso, and just carried on crying into his T-shirt.
Dan couldn’t hold back any longer, and started sobbing too, his tears falling onto her hair.
He could sense her confusion, her despair, and her fear just as surely as he could smell the urine she was soaked in. She was still his little sweetie. And he still couldn’t even hug her back. Dan had never been involved in a fight in his life – there had simply never been the need. At high school he’d had the odd cross word and argument but had largely gotten along with everyone, and had never so much as punched another boy once. He was just the kind of guy that didn’t want trouble. At this moment, however, he swore that Vinnie was a dead man.
He tried to pull himself together, shaking tears from his eyes so he could at least see properly. Now the situation had changed. He looked over to the steps up to the door and prayed that Vinnie didn’t appear there.
“How did you do that, sweetie? How did you get free?”
She didn’t answer. Her crying had subsided a little, but this was still one very upset little girl. He tried again, saying her name softly. On the fourth mention, she looked up.
“How did you get your hands free?”
“Don’t know,” was all she could come up with.
But at least she proved it was possible. He tried once more to free his own hands, tightening every muscle in his arms to pull away. He soon gave up. It must have been her tiny hands, or more flexible joints, or the rubber bones Cath had occasionally talked of.
“Do you want me to untie you?” Phoebe said, her big plaintive eyes looking up and almost making him cry again.
“You won’t be able to, sweetie. You’ll need a knife or a blade of some sort.”
He looked around, scanning the room for anything sharp: cutters, an old penknife, a shard of glass, or even a ceramic mug or bowl that could be smashed to produce a sharp edge.
Nothing.
Well, nothing but a small stack of old paintings and a shelving unit.
“See those paintings?” he said. “Could you go check them out?”
Phoebe wiped her face clean, got to her feet, and went over, tipping them to see every one in turn. “They’re all horses,” she said.
“Do any of them have glass?”
She tapped the face of them all, then shook her head.
Dan cursed, then nodded to the shelving unit. “Is there anything on those shelves?”
She went over, bent down, and started pulling on something. She grunted with the strain, and eventually a large red rectangular object slid off and fell onto the floor with a thud.
Dan’s heart darted around his chest. It was a metal toolbox.
“Bring it over. Bring it over.”
She tried lifting it.
“Just drag it, sweetie.”
She did and soon it was at Dan’s feet.
“Shit!”
“Did I do something wrong, Daddy?”
“No, Phoebe. I just saw it’s padlocked.”
“What does padlocked mean?”
“Look.” He kicked the item in question with his heel. Vinnie was either a very tidy person, or he’d considered all possibilities and planned this well, thought of all eventualities.
Dan brought his heel down onto the box a few times, but the thing was too tough. Of course, a pry bar would have helped him open the thing, and there might have been one inside it. And he coul
d probably force the thing open with his bare hands if they weren’t tied behind his back. It almost made him laugh, but he held it inside.
He looked over to the far side of the room, to the steps leading up to the door. If Phoebe could pull the thing to the top step and drop it off the side, it would fall onto the concrete floor and might break open. Possibly.
It was worth a shot. Anything was worth a shot.
“Can you lift it off the floor?” he said.
She tried a few times, once or twice leaving an inch between it and the floor, but Dan knew his idea was a nonstarter.
“What else is on the shelves, sweetie?”
She went over and came back with a plastic tub full of screws.
“Lift one of those up to me, sweetie, so I can see it.”
She did. The screws were thin and long, but not blade sharp at the tip; there wasn’t an edge Phoebe might be able to use to cut through those damned plastic zip ties around his wrists. There was only one other possibility; for Phoebe to go up the steps and check out the door; if it was open, she could go into the kitchen – if she could find it – and find a knife. Of course, if Vinnie was up there it would blow the plan out of the water, and God knows what the twisted bastard might do to her by way of punishment. Dan had sent Phoebe upstairs once before, and how had that worked out? Did he really want to risk sending her upstairs this time?
While he was weighing up the risks, they heard noises from above. Someone was walking about up there.
Well, that settled it. Sending Phoebe up there would be dumb and dangerous.
A metallic tinkle at his feet momentarily distracted him and he looked down to see that Phoebe had dropped a couple of screws onto the floor. He looked up again.
“Should we shout again?” Phoebe asked.
“No, no. Just wait. Listen.”
Phoebe looked up too, and together they listened to the footsteps coming from above. Floorboards creaked, a door opened, a chair or something similar got scraped across the floor. Whether it was Vinnie or not, this person was still some distance from the door at the top of those steps.
“Daddy?”
“Just a moment, sweetie, just listen.”
“I should pick these nails up,” she whispered.
“Sure. Just hold up.”
“If Mommy was here, she would tell me to pick them up.”
“Of course.”
“If I left the nails there, someone might step on them and get hurt.”
Dan didn’t take his eyes off the bare floorboards above him. “They’re not nails, sweetie, they’re screws, and—”
Now his head shot down, he stared at one of the screws. It was laying on its side, but nevertheless, Phoebe was right: it could hurt someone – well, almost. However, if it was placed pointing upward, what would happen if someone were to step on it?
Yes, given enough force, the thing would probably go through the sole of a sneaker or even a shoe and well into the flesh. Painful. Someone stepping on that – a full-grown adult putting their whole bodyweight onto it – would surely stumble and fall in agony.
Would fall.
Dan’s gaze shot over to the top of the steps.
Would fall.
Down the steps.
Onto the concrete floor.
The footsteps from above were moving toward the door at the far end of this hell-hole – to the door at the top of the steps.
“Phoebe, listen to me. Do exactly as I say. Take a handful of those screws, go to the step one down from the top, and place the screws there with the point facing up. Do you understand me?”
Phoebe looked over. “But someone could tread on them. That would hurt real bad.”
“I know, sweetie, I know. Just do it. Quickly. Please.”
“Are you trying to make the man fall?”
Dan nodded, his wide eyes willing her to just get on with it. In an instant he imagined Vinnie opening the door, not seeing anything in the dim light but an innocent step, putting one foot down, stumbling in agony, falling down the flight of steps or to the side, onto the concrete floor, knocking himself out, possibly even killing himself, leaving the keys to the toolbox free for Phoebe to take, or leaving her free to go fetch a knife.
“Just do it, sweetie. Do it now, quickly. Now!”
She did, planting over a dozen little booby traps on the first step down before running back to rest on his chest.
Dan braced himself and smiled, imagining Vinnie hurtling down the steps and breaking his goddamned neck or skull or spine or preferably all three.
Directly above Phoebe and Dan, Vinnie walked through the hallway and along the corridor, little Benjie in his arms, toward the basement door.
“Now you’ve calmed down, you’re a good little boy, aren’t you? Not crying all the time like your sissy little sister. But you can’t stay up here, boy. I’m real sorry but I have to take you down to meet your dumb daddy and your sissy sister.”
With his free hand he reached for the door that led to the basement.
Chapter 24
A smile that spoke of both triumph and revenge drew itself onto Dan’s face as he listened to the footsteps above get closer to the door, the door at the top of the steps to freedom, the door his stare had rooted itself to.
Yes, perhaps it was someone else mumbling and bumbling about up there, but it was probably Vinnie. And it would only take one step, one surprised scream of pain, and he would fall. If it wasn’t Vinnie, then so what? Either way, he would soon have those plastic handcuffs removed and would be free to go, free to take Phoebe away from this devil’s lair.
“Stay here with me,” he whispered to Phoebe. “Hold me tight.”
Then the lock rattled, the door handle turned, and Dan held his breath.
“Look who we got here,” Vinnie said to Benjie, red-eyed but quiet, nestling in the crook of Vinnie’s arm.
Dan’s throat locked. He so wanted to say nothing, to let Vinnie fall. But if Vinnie fell down the steps onto the concrete floor . . .
“Don’t move!” he shouted across.
Vinnie narrowed his eyes. “Since when do I take orders from you, pussy hands?”
“The step! There are screws on the step!”
Vinnie froze, giving Dan a suspicious, sideways stare. Calm, mouth firmly closed, he peered at the step, then let Benjie down and got on one knee to take a closer look. He picked up one of the screws, cursed it, then stood and swept the rest away with a brisk swipe of his foot.
“Son of a bitch! How in the name of all that’s holy did—”
The words fell off a cliff as he noticed Phoebe on Dan’s lap, hugging him, not tied up where she’d been left.
“And how the hell did that little whore’s daughter get free?”
Vinnie picked Benjie up and marched down the steps.
“Get back where you belong and stay there!” he shouted at Phoebe.
She did as she was told, cowering. Moments later, Benjie was thrown at her, both children falling over and starting to cry. Vinnie gave them both sharp slaps to the head and pointed at them finger gun style. “You two. Either of you moves, I’ll kill both of you. Got it?”
“Leave them alone!” Dan shouted at him.
Vinnie drew a foot back and swung it into the top corner of Dan’s head. Dan blacked out for a second, then woke up with an excruciating pain, mostly in his neck – which had snapped sideways – but also in his eye. Then a second strike came, in pretty much the same place, and now the vision in that eye was completely fogged up, and a constant hum filled his ears.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” he heard Vinnie holler at him. “I’ve earned the right to do what the hell I want with your brats, and as God is my witness, I’ll do exactly that. Now, I got to tie these two back up. Meantime, just shut the fuck up!”
Another kick came to Dan’s head, and he passed out to the sound of Phoebe and Benjie both sobbing.
Dan came round to the shock of a cup of cold water being thrown over his face, unawar
e and not really caring how long he’d been unconscious.
For a second or two, the water was refreshing, the feeling soon giving way to a stinging sensation above his left eye, where he’d been repeatedly kicked. But at the moment, all feelings of physical pain were fleeting and as troubling as a persistent gnat. He looked up to see Vinnie’s figure, standing tall, but also relaxed. He wondered how relaxed the bastard would look with a machete lodged in the center of his chest.
“You have to treat us with a little decency,” he said.
“I don’t have to do shit if I don’t want to.”
“You do if you want to keep coming down here. This place is going to stink like an open sewer if you just leave us tied up.”
Dan waited, preparing his neck for the pain of another kick to the head.
It didn’t come.
Instead, Vinnie looked at all three of them in turn and placed his hands on his hips. “You got a point there,” he said, nodding. “I guess it could get a little shit-creek down here, and I’m not sure I want that.”
Dan fought the urge to ask what the hell Vinnie thought was going to happen to three people tied up and left to rot.
“You’re right because this might become long-term. If you’re all still down here in six months—”
“Six months?” Dan blurted out.
“What did you expect, pussy hands? A long weekend? I’m not going to all this trouble just for a couple of days of fun. Anyhow, I hear what you’re saying. I guess it’s only fair to treat you the way I was treated in prison. So . . . let me think a moment . . . yeah, I’ll untie each of you for half an hour each day so you can have a walk and take something to eat. You can have this room as your prison yard and also your canteen. Of course, I’ll need to remove any items of use, like toolboxes. And I don’t see myself going too far away for a while, so I can also untie you every three hours for the other end. I’ll bring in a bucket for that.”