Tiona shuffled over to where her Mom stood looking desperate with the cup of Tide in her hand. She said, “Until my wrists and ankles are free I’m not good for much but I can be the ‘Tide tosser’ Mom. If I take over that job, can you search for stuff to plug the duct for Dad?”
Lisanne got up and went to the dryer. Sure enough, there was a load of clothing in it. She passed a double handful to Vaz. She felt good to be doing something instead of just waiting, hoping that she would be able to do some good throwing detergent.
Dante had moved the washer and climbed behind it. After turning off the water he unscrewed a supply hose. He thought for a moment that both of them were too tight to undo. Just before he said it wouldn’t come undone he remembered how strong his dad was and thought about how embarrassing it would be if the old man undid it after he said it couldn’t be done. Besides, their lives could depend on this! He wrapped his sleeve around the fitting and taking a two handed grip lunged against it. That broke it loose, though he saw it had torn the skin in his thumb web a little.
After handing the hose to his dad, Dante watched as his dad fed the hose down into the air conditioning duct.
Vaz had Lisanne wet down some of the clothing from the dryer using the water tap to the washer that Dante had taken the hose off of. He packed wads of wet clothing in around the hose in the duct opening to plug it against any back flow of air from the vent.
Because walking around with his bound ankles was irritating, Vaz had Dante open the door so he could see the contents of the cabinet. Bring me some of those gallon bottles of ammonia and bleach.”
Dante brought the chemicals and set them beside Vaz on the floor.
Vaz pointed to a quart bottle of fabric softener and said. “Dump the contents of that one into the washer.”
Lisanne said, “The iron’s hot.”
Vaz shuffled over and sat on the concrete floor by the ironing board, “Hand it down to me.” When she did, he put a corner of the hot iron onto the cable tie between his ankles. It softened and after he thumped it a few times with the edge of the iron, the cable tie parted. Next he tried it on the bottle of fabric softener Dante had emptied and found that it melted quickly through the wall. This allowed him to remove the bottom of the bottle. He handed the iron to Tiona so she could work on her own cable ties.
Vaz walked back to the furnace and duct taped the top of the fabric softener bottle onto the end of the hose to act as a kind of funnel.
Holding the fabric softener bottle/funnel upright Vaz said, “Dante, pour the bleach down this.”
Dante picked up the jug and unscrewed the top. “I thought we had to mix it with the ammonia?”
“We’ll let it mix down in the furnace rather than out here in the room with us.”
Dante pursed his lips and started pouring the bleach down the hose, careful not to let it overflow onto his dad’s hands.
Once a gallon of the bleach had gone down, Vaz said, “Lisanne, can you hold the funnel while he pours in the ammonia?”
Lisanne came over and took the funnel while Dante unscrewed the cap from a jug of ammonia and started pouring it down too. A small puff of noxious fumes wafted out and Dante coughed, but then it stopped.
Dante cleared his throat, “That stuff is nasty! How come it stopped coming out?”
“The hose is full of ammonia. It’s pushing the bleach down and blocking any back flow.” Vaz looked around the room. He grabbed a couple of t-shirts from the pile of clothing, wet them and wedged them into the crack under the door at the top of the stairs. Then he climbed up on the dryer and pulled the vent hose off its fitting.
Tiona frowned, “Why are you doing that?
“Let a little clean air in for us from the outside.” He peered into the duct. “Bring me a wire coat hanger.”
Tiona brought him a hanger from the hanger bar near the ironing board. Vaz squished it nearly flat and pushed it out the vent to hold the flapper valve open. As he hopped down from the dryer his eyes narrowed as he saw a puff of vapor coming from a leak in one of the ducts. He picked up one of the strips of duct tape left over from undoing their wrists and, holding his breath, walked over to seal the leak. He sealed another with the last of the duct tape and covered a third with a soaking wet t-shirt from the pile of clothes Lisanne had found.
His family glanced intermittently and wonderingly at Vaz. Lisanne felt bewildered by the way her husband had stepped up to handle this situation. For years she, despite her love for Vaz, had kind of thought of him as a third kid that she had to mother. In her heart of hearts she would have expected him to completely decompensate in a situation like this. She would have expected to have to deal with their captors on behalf of the family herself. She would have never dreamed that he might fight back.
Dante watched his dad with awe and pride, increased exponentially from what he’d felt the evening he had seen his dad win that MMA bout.
Tiona felt gratification over his quick uptake and use of her idea with the cleaning solutions. Putting the chemicals in the AC and letting the house’s ducting take the gas to their captors would never have occurred to her.
Unfortunately, as usual, Vaz wasn’t quite sure what their expressions meant when they glanced at him. Wrapping a t-shirt around each hand he walked over to the bottom of the stairs. He picked up the abandoned cup of Tide, “I’m not sure how noxious the gas will be to them up there. They might open the door and come down to stop us, in which case I’m pretty sure I can take some of them out. Maybe they’ll flee the house, in which case we’ll break out of the basement and run ourselves. Much as we’d like to stick together, we should all go different directions. Only one of us has to get free to call the police and the game will be up for these guys. We’ll have a lot better chance of that if we go different directions.”
Lisanne said incredulously, “How are you going to ‘take them out’?”
Vaz blandly said, “Hit them,” as if he thought it was obvious.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise that he could think that, “Come on, Vaz, those guys are huge… you’re not a fighter!”
Vaz looked blankly at her, wondering how to explain.
Dante said, “Mom, you saw him punch that one guy out.”
Lisanne, “He surprised that guy when the bottle blew up.”
“Mom, that wasn’t luck! Dad’s is a fighter. He’s been in some amateur MMA bouts and he’s good!”
Three sets of eyes turned to stare at Dante in astonishment. Vaz horrified that Dante knew about it, Lisanne and Tiona unbelievingly in regard to Dante’s outrageous claim, “What!!” they said together.
Vaz shrugged with embarrassment but said, “It’s true,” he said, “Better kink the hose,” he pointed at the hose which—as the last of the ammonia drained away—puffed a cloud of noxious gas at Lisanne. She coughed and kinked the end of the hose. Vaz said, “I think you should pour another gallon of bleach in now.” Dante picked one up and started unscrewing the cap.
The air in the basement had begun to become slightly irritating from small amounts of the gas leaking out of the duct system and the furnace itself. Vaz said, “If we can’t get out and the air gets too bad, remember we can stand on the dryer and take turns breathing at the hole where the dryer vented to the outside.”
Though she wanted to ask about Dante’s MMA claim, Tiona focused on the issues at hand, “Dad, if they don’t open the door how are we going to get out of here?”
He looked at her with some surprise, “I’ll kick a hole through the sheetrock into the hall.”
“Oh!” she said with some embarrassment, turning to look up the stairwell and realizing bemusedly that sheetrock walls like these couldn’t actually hold them. She frowned, “Why would they think that they could lock us up in here?”
Vaz shook his head, “Damned if I know. Maybe they’re just counting on guarding us? But I think it’s simpler. Like most criminals they aren’t all that bright. Let’s be ready to run though.” He focused his gaze on Tiona, “‘
T,’ you’re our best runner. So, once we’re outside, you pick what you think is the best direction to get help. The rest of us will scatter other directions.” Vaz, being a terrible runner, didn’t plan to run at all but didn’t want to tell his family that. He’d try to delay the men that might be going after his family. Besides, he was looking forward to hitting some more of them.
Stillman Davis got up from where he’d unsuccessfully been trying to break into Gettnor’s AI. He’d realized that it was too well protected and he wasn’t going to succeed. He’d just have to get Jerrod to threaten Gettnor’s family until Gettnor opened it for them. He looked at the screens which had displayed the interior of the basement. They were dark. Stillman said, “Hey what happened to the view of the basement?” He looked at the four remaining men and saw to his astonishment that they were playing cards at a little table near the door to the basement.
Stivitz snorted, “The girl stuck her gum on it.”
“Aren’t you going to check on them and take it off?” Davis asked in surprise.
Stivitz shrugged, “They’re locked in a windowless basement laundry room with a reinforced door. What’re they gonna do, wash their clothes?” He sniggered at his own joke.
Davis looked around, “Where’s Jerrod? We’re gonna have to make Gettnor give us access to his AI.”
“Takin’ a nap. Said it would do ‘em good to stew for a while down there.”
“Where’s he at? I’ll talk to him about it.”
“Wouldn’t do that, were I you.” Stivitz said without looking up.
Davis grunted, “Where’s he at?”
Stivitz pointed down the hallway past the stairwell down to the basement. “Second room on the right… your funeral.”
Davis got up and started that way, feeling a little nervous. He wondered if Jerrod might really be that irritable? He stopped to listen outside the basement. He heard a cough but it sounded like it came from down the hall. As he walked on down the hallway he heard someone begin coughing steadily in one of the rooms ahead. He raised his hand to knock on the second door but it slammed open and Jerrod, coughing violently, stepped out followed by a puff of acrid smelling smoke. “What the hell?” Davis said, giving way as Jerrod brushed past him, hacking like he could barely get his breath. After he got a breath of the smoke Davis coughed too. He followed Jerrod back down the hall. To his dismay he now heard coughing from the big room where the men were. “Is something burning?” he asked plaintively.
By the time Davis got back to the big room, the air there was bitter and acrid also. He coughed some more. Not realizing that the gas came from the AC ducts and that there weren’t any ducts in the hallway, Davis wondered why the air in the hall was better than in the rooms at either end. Jerrod and the men were heading for the door to the back yard. Davis shouted after them, “We’ve got to get the Gettnors out of here!” But when he refilled his lungs from the shout he gasped at the burning sensation. He bolted across the big room to the door, feeling like he was coughing up chunks of his lungs.
Once outside Davis gasped a big breath of clean air, wiped his streaming eyes and turned to Jerrod, “What the hell is that smoke?”
Jerrod coughed a couple of times and blew his nose. He rubbed bloodshot eyes, “I don’t know! I was taking a nap, what the hell were you guys doing?”
“Just watchin’ ‘em, boss man.” Stivitz gasped out between hacking.
Davis wheezed “I haven’t been able to break into Gettnor’s AI. We need to drag him out of there and make him open it.” He looked back into the house with concern, “Better get him out of there before the house burns down and kills our ticket.” Damn, he thought, I shouldn’t have left them in there!
Chuck said, “Doesn’t smell like smoke to me. Smells like chemicals.”
Jerrod and Davis turned to eye Chuck speculatively.
At the top of the stairs Tiona used the measuring cup from the box of Tide to listen at the door. She had the open end against the door and the other end against her ear. “For a while I heard a lot of coughing, then I heard a sliding glass door slam, now I don’t hear anything. I think they’ve gone outside!”
Dante said, “Let’s get out of here!”
“Dante, how do you think we’re going to get out of here without getting gassed ourselves?” Lisanne asked.
Vaz opened the cabinet the bleach had been in. “We can hold our breath long enough to get out the door but we need to protect our eyes.” He pulled out a box of clear plastic wastebasket bags, taking one himself. “Here, pull a bag over your head as you leave the room and hold your breath.” Then he climbed the stairs, stepped up onto the top stair and kicked a hole in the sheetrock wall on the side toward the hall outside. He grasped the edge of the sheetrock and pulled big pieces out until they had a large opening through to the sheetrock on the other side of the wall. He looked at his family, “Ready?”
They all nodded.
“OK, remember, scatter. Get to someone’s house and get them to call 911.” Vaz pulled the bag over his head and kicked out the sheetrock on the other side of the wall. A faint white cloud came in as he kicked out more sheet rock and forced himself through the opening he’d created into the hall. Stepping briefly out of the hall he saw the men outside in the back yard. Several of them were bending over, hands on their knees, coughing.
As Dante, Tiona and Lisanne came out he helped them up into the hall and directed them out the front door, using some of the lungful of air he’d been holding to admonish them to “run like the wind.” As Lisanne went out the front door, Vaz turned back and headed for the glass door to the back yard. He saw the men there in the dim twilight. They looked up in surprise as he approached the door.
As Vaz pulled the door open and pulled the bag off his head Jerrod said, “Good, glad to see you made it out. Lie down there…” Jerrod was still pointing to the ground at his feet when Vaz lunged out, punching Davis in the head with a hand wrapped in a t-shirt. Jerrod backed up, pulling a pistol out of a holster under his shirt in back. Stivitz and the huge Jason advanced on Gettnor, arms out but Gettnor lunged again, punching Jason in the stomach and folding him in half. Stivitz grabbed him from behind but Gettnor’s left elbow rocketed back and hit him in the temple. It didn’t knock him out, but Stivitz let go and staggered back, dazed.
Mike and Chuck tackled Gettnor together, bear hugging his arms to his sides and dragging him to the ground with them. Jerrod watched in amazement as Gettnor, with two huge guys trying to hold him, flopped and flailed in their grip. His eyes widened as it began to look like Gettnor would wear the two men out and break loose. Chuck let go with one hand and pulled it back to hit Gettnor in the head, but then suddenly flailed back away from him. Jerrod could see that Gettnor’s hand had gained some freedom when Chuck let go. It had immediately clamped onto Chuck’s crotch. Chuck howled in agony and grasped at Gettnor’s wrist as Gettnor’s white-knuckled grip appeared to be crushing his genitals.
Jerrod fired a round into the ground by Gettnor’s head. The three men suddenly stopped moving. Then Chuck moaned and rolled away, curling around and holding his crotch. Jerrod squatted and put the barrel of his Glock against Gettnor’s head and said, “You will hold still, understand?”
Gettnor calmly said, “Yes,” and laid unmoving.
Jerrod said, “Mike, get us some cable ties.”
Mike looked nervously over his shoulder at the house. “But boss man, what about that gas… or smoke or whatever?”
“Open the door and let it air out.” There was a pause and he said, “Go around front and have the AI open that door too, we’ll get a little cross wind going through the house.” He turned narrowed eyes on Gettnor, suddenly noticing that the man’s eyes weren’t red and he hadn’t coughed. “Why didn’t that gas or smoke or whatever hurt you? Did you make it somehow?” Gettnor just lay there unreadably eyeballing him which Jerrod found vastly annoying. “Answer me, dammit!” He swung the Glock back to pistol whip Gettnor but as the pistol left his head, Gettnor
reached up and grabbed the gun. Wide eyed, Jerrod involuntarily squeezed another round off into the dirt as his left hand darted over to help his right turn the pistol back toward Gettnor. Unsuccessfully! Gettnor brought his other hand up to Jerrod’s wrist and despite Jerrod’s best efforts, Gettnor easily rotated the gun to point at the sky.
Wide eyed Jerrod glanced at Gettnor and saw a gleam of excitement in his eyes. Then Gettnor’s right hand left the gun and drew back. Despite only Gettnor’s left hand immobilizing the gun Jerrod couldn’t turn it back on to Gettnor even using both of his hands.
Gettnor smiled and his right fist flew toward Jerrod’s face. Jerrod’s world disappeared.
Mike came back around the house, “Boss man, the front door was already open. I think those people might have gotten away…” He stopped as he saw Gettnor standing over a cowering Chuck, holding Jerrod’s Glock. Davis and Jerrod lay sprawled bonelessly unmoving; both bleeding from their noses.
Gettnor pointed the weapon at Mike and said, “Don’t move.” He nudged Chuck with his foot, “Get up.”
At gunpoint Gettnor forced Mike to go into the house and bring out a bundle of cable ties, then use them to bind Chuck’s wrists and ankles. Gettnor took the bundle of ties and set the Glock down, saying, “Hold out your wrists.”
Mike threw a punch at him instead, intending to connect one good one then run.
But Gettnor’s forearm blocked it to one side and a punch Mike never saw landed in his gut doubling him over. Mike fell to the ground. As he frantically gasped for breath he felt Gettnor calmly pick up his hand and slip a cable tie around it. In the distance he heard sirens approaching.
Epilogue
Late Saturday afternoon Lisanne sat on the couch in their family room trying to come to grips with the events of the last 24 hours. The house they’d been captive in had proved to be somewhat rural. Tiona had had to run almost a mile to reach the nearest neighbor and get them to call the police.
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