After the Darkness

by Brown, Honey

  Bruce heard us enter and turned his head in the hood. His body twisted and he pulled down on the top restraints. The ties were leather, held in place by the closed cabinet doors. I could hear him breathing; he sounded cleaner, more like Bruce. The drug couldn’t have worn off that quickly, could it? Perhaps he’d been given a second drug to counteract the first.

  Reuben said to me, ‘You can see.’

  I had been standing with my head turned towards Bruce. When Bruce heard Reuben speak, he exploded. He thrashed against the cabinet doors. He stepped back as far as he could and pulled, roaring, against the restraints. Reuben grew still and watched him, plainly enthralled. I understood then, this was what Reuben wanted – to have Bruce mentally and physically present and to watch his reactions. When Bruce stopped to gather his strength, I heard the soft clunk of the cabinet as it settled back against the wall. I don’t think Reuben heard it. He was too caught up in watching Bruce. I became surer of what I’d heard – Bruce had pulled the top of the long and heavy cabinet from the wall. I hoped he still had enough rational thought to grasp the implications of that. I hoped some part of his brain knew what to do.

  ‘Bruce,’ I said.

  He tensed, stopped pulling. I heard his breathing change.

  ‘Trudy?’ he said, confused.

  Reuben kept as much distance as he could between Bruce and me. He led me down the right side of the workshop, while Bruce was on the left. Objects in the workshop jumped out at me – the lathe, the drill press, the saw bench, the vices, the chain block above my head and the gantry. All the smaller items that were usually found in sheds were not in evidence – stored away, perhaps, out of sight. At the back of the workshop were rubber and steel moulds and boxes of sand. There were glass beads in big open bins. Reuben took me to this glass-making area of his workshop. In the middle was an oversized table made of heavy stainless steel. Each corner leg was solid. I saw two coffee mugs sitting on the table – the cups from upstairs. There was something small in one of the cups, but the angle made it difficult to make out what it was.

  ‘Get on the table,’ Reuben ordered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if you don’t, I’ll hurt you.’

  Having heard this, Bruce rested his head against the cabinet door and began rolling it back and forth. He breathed hard and made guttural noises, behaving not unlike a bull contained in a stockyard crush.

  I didn’t know what to do. Trying to run or lashing out didn’t seem to be options. I felt powerless. There was no obvious restraining apparatus on the table. It was large enough for me to crawl away from Reuben and get some distance. I was like a child being asked by an authority figure to hold out my hand to be smacked. I leaned the top half of my body on the table and let him lift my legs. I sat with my knees up and used my feet to push back, away from him. He came around the other side and I turned and pushed myself in the opposite direction. I knocked over the cups. I kept moving backwards. My fingers fumbled, and brushed against a piece of card. I felt the glossy finish on the paper. It was our business card. One of the cups rolled off the table and smashed on the floor. I started screaming. If I screamed and screamed, it might somehow help.

  ‘Quiet!’ Reuben shouted.

  He didn’t seem very adept at dealing with hysterical females. I was meant to be passed out, in a drug delirium, at the bottom of the staircase.

  ‘Shut up,’ he growled.

  My screaming stopped dead in my throat the moment I looked above me and saw the large cowling overhead. It was attached to the roof by chains, and Reuben was lowering it. What I had thought had been a table, was, in fact, the base plate of a furnace. The cowling had a vent and a chimney. Once lowered over the base it would complete a furnace. Like in the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, I had climbed into an oven. I began to scream much louder then. The fear I felt overrode any urge to obey. I scrambled to the edge, fell onto the floor, got up and ran. There was nowhere to escape to – the door was locked – so when I got to the other part of the workshop, I ducked under a big central table. It had a bench below the tabletop. I hunched down low under this shelf.

  Reuben followed me, cursing. He got down and tried to reach me. His face was screwed up and angry. The mask had dropped. He was some freak whose frontal lobes had been damaged, physically shaken in an accident, or mentally shaken by abuse. How he got to be like that didn’t matter, it didn’t alter the facts – he was crazy and deranged. He got down on all fours and looked at me with contempt.

  ‘Get out,’ he snarled.

  He moved around to my side, and I shuffled away. He got down on his belly, about to crawl under the table to reach me, and I inched closer to the other edge, ready to duck out while he was on the floor and vulnerable.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘you wanna play?’

  I didn’t want to play. I wanted him to let us go. He began pushing the heavy wooden table across the floor, up the workshop, away from Bruce. I shuffled along under the table, going with it. I had no plan and no idea what to do. Reuben pushed the table as far as the stainless steel furnace base and then stopped.

  There was a quiet moment. I could see Reuben’s lower legs and his boots. He was standing with his feet apart. I began twisting my wrists and trying to stretch the knot in my bindings. A piece of fabric wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good long-term restraining solution. Reuben had tied my hands with the aim of getting me to the workshop and onto the table, and no more than that: furnace on, problem over, annoying woman silenced. I was meant to be dead already. I worked on loosening my restraint. I wriggled my hands and felt a tiny amount of give. I wondered about the key to the workshop door. I didn’t remember Reuben putting it down when we’d entered. It must be in one of his pockets.

  Reuben went over to Bruce, leaving me under the table. I put my head down as low as I could. My hands, bound behind by back, were now pressed up against the shelf. I couldn’t work the knot and watch what was happening at the same time. My vision was at about thirty per cent. Detail was lost. Bruce groaned. I blinked the haze from my eyes. Reuben had pushed Bruce’s shirt up. He was reaching around to the front of Bruce’s open pants. Bruce jerked and shuffled forward in his manacles to press his body against the cabinet. I began shouting and hollering. Noise was my only weapon. Reuben pulled Bruce forcefully back from the cabinet by the hips. He applied some sort of pressure-point hold to the back of Bruce’s neck. Bruce barked in pain, twisting his shoulders.

  I screamed. ‘Bruce, pull back!’

  Perhaps the shock of Reuben’s touch gave Bruce the strength he needed. He turned his body to one side and heaved on the top restraints. At first nothing happened, and Reuben stood there smugly – of course nothing would happen, he wasn’t so stupid as to tie a person to something that could be moved. I began to doubt what I’d heard. But on the second attempt, Bruce pulled with enough might to lift the top of the cabinet from the wall. Reuben was surprised. He did a foolish thing – he left Bruce’s side to put one of his hands on the cabinet, as though he didn’t believe it had moved, or as though he would right it if it tipped too far.

  ‘Bruce, move backwards! Pull!’

  Bruce shuffled back. He did it without creating any slack, so the cabinet remained tilted slightly forward. It took some strength. He was groaning with the effort, and I heard in his voice what it took. Reuben had underestimated my husband. Bruce was not an overly big man, he was not rippling with muscle and hugely tall, but he did have uncanny strength when it came to lifting and pulling. Maybe it came from his labouring days as the lackey on worksites. He pulled the cabinet and it tipped forward further. There was a clear area behind him. It was where the table had been, the table I was still under. In his anger Reuben had moved the one obstacle to the cabinet, allowing it to come down cleanly, without anything to break its fall.

  I didn’t need to tell Bruce. He knew the tipping point of the cabinet was a split second away. He shuffled backwards as best he could, and as far as the restraints would allow him. Reuben realised
his error too late. The cabinet was coming down before he could even try to right it. It was too heavy to stop from falling once it had started. Bruce scrambled backwards, and I lost sight of him as he backed up. The cabinet came crashing down; everything inside it slid and clattered about.

  In an instant my fear switched from the two of us to just Bruce. I couldn’t see him. I was sure he would be caught under the cabinet. A leg or an arm would be broken. I got out from under the table, and in the time it took, my fear was palpable in my chest. I was softly whining. My teeth were set. I struggled to my feet.

  Bruce was face down on the floor, the top of his head touching the top of the cabinet. His hands were still tied to the unit, his body stretched out behind him. He must have escaped by the barest of margins.

  I ran to him. His hands would have been crushed under the unit if the straps hadn’t been long enough. When I reached him I saw that Reuben’s body had caused the cabinet to bounce, saving Bruce’s hands from the worst of it. The cabinet now sat a little way off the floor. Reuben was holding it up.

  ‘Get this off me,’ Bruce said, meaning the hood.

  ‘Wait, I’m tied.’ I looked around. I went to the nearest bench and stood with my back to it to pull out a drawer. I had to put my face close to differentiate between the different items within.

  ‘Take it off,’ Bruce was saying. His voice was still not his own.

  There was nothing sharp in the first drawer. I opened a second drawer. I bent down and looked. Pencils and sketchbooks. I gave up looking and ran to Bruce. I knelt beside his head, my back to him, and felt for the hood. It was wet in places. I pulled it off by grabbing bunches of the material. I leaned my body forward for the last bit. Bruce took a breath of fresh air before turning his face towards me.

  ‘Where is he?’

  I couldn’t properly see my husband’s face to tell how drugged he was, though his quick questions were heartening.

  ‘He’s under the cabinet. I’m going to find something to cut through the ties.’

  I got up and began searching again for something sharp. In a cupboard I opened, there was a gimp mask. I shut the door quickly. I blocked the thoughts of what was happening to us. Finally I found a Stanley knife. I took it over to where Bruce was and I knelt beside him; in the time it took to saw through the material around my wrists I could look at my husband’s face and be near to him.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  He tried to stand, as though he had forgotten his predicament.

  ‘I’ve got a Stanley knife. As soon as I’ve got myself free, I’ll get you out.’

  ‘Where are the children?’

  ‘They’re not here, Bruce.’

  Reuben was motionless beneath the heavy cabinet, and trapped by the weight of it. Judging by his silence, I believed the cabinet had knocked him unconscious. We would have lots of time to act if he began moving. If his head appeared, I would hit him with something until he didn’t move any more.

  ‘Reuben’s trapped,’ I said. ‘He can’t get out.’

  Bruce twisted his head from side to side, relieving muscles, or trying to think.

  ‘You’ll be okay soon. You were drugged.’

  ‘Are the kids in the car?’

  ‘Bruce, they’re not here.’

  It took a while to cut through my bindings. I had to hold the Stanley knife at such an angle that I couldn’t apply any pressure. I sawed slowly. I thought about putting the knife in a vice so I could rub against the blade, but then I would run the risk of cutting myself. It was distressing listening to Bruce talk. He kept referring to the children.

  At last I was free of my ties.

  I started immediately on Bruce’s leather straps. They were the thickness of a belt. I gripped the Stanley knife properly and it took no time at all to cut through the leather.

  Once free, Bruce pushed himself away from the fallen cabinet and tried to stand, only to be hampered by the feet restraints. He fell awkwardly back. I touched his arm. He sat up, his legs out in front of him, splayed apart in the manacles.

  His shirt was open. I wanted to button it up for him. He was wet. I wanted to dry him. His fly was undone. I wanted to zip it up. The manacles around his legs were held in place with a simple screw, and I started undoing one leg as Bruce leaned forward and began on the other. I couldn’t believe the way he worked his damaged fingers. They were bruised and bloodied, some of the skin was open and split, his nails already turning purple. Maybe the drugs dulled his pain. He finished before me, and opened the steel clamp around his ankle. He got his other ankle free and sat the whole restraint aside. He handled the steel contraption as though it was a common item, stored in the boot of his car.

  ‘We have to go now,’ I said.

  I went to the workshop door. It was a sliding one made of thick steel. I attempted to open it despite the chain and the padlock, but it was no use. I looked for a smaller access door within the sliding one. There wasn’t one.

  I said to Bruce, ‘I’m going to look for another door.’ The words spooked me. I thought by saying it I might feel braver about doing it. It didn’t work. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  I approached the stainless steel furnace base. The cowling was still lowered. It was shiny and industrial-looking. There was no smell of soot or ash; it wasn’t that sort of furnace. It burnt clean. The lights down this end of the workshop weren’t turned on. It was dim, and that cut my vision to about ten per cent.

  I knew I should be searching under and behind things, looking for a hidden door – it would be Reuben’s style to have it concealed – but I couldn’t bring myself to. There were disturbing shapes everywhere I looked – half-finished sculptures and strange moulds resembling sawed-through limbs and body parts – and lumpy bags full of things I didn’t like to distinguish or categorise. Bruce was too far away from me. My eyes were tiring. There was no door that I could see. I returned to my husband.

  ‘We have to cut through the lock on the door,’ I said.

  The light above him was bright, and as quickly as I looked at it I recoiled. Bruce rested his fingertips on his forehead and exhaled – a long, steadying breath. He was getting his wits about him.

  ‘Come and see,’ I said. ‘There must be some way to cut through the chain on the door.’

  I took his hand and led him. I kept my head low and used my vision in quick, sparing grabs. Once at the door, I rested with my eyes closed.

  ‘What will get through the chain?’

  Bruce felt the lock and chain. In a way that broke my heart, I could see him trying to think rationally. I had posed a question. He felt compelled to answer it.

  ‘It’s high-tensile steel,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘We need a key.’

  ‘But we can saw through it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? What about the lock? We can saw through that, can’t we? Bruce?’

  ‘We need the key.’

  I squeezed his lower arm. ‘We don’t have the key. I don’t know where it is, but Reuben probably has it. Please think hard. How can we open the door without it? We’re in a shed full of tools – we must be able to open the door. We have to do it quickly. Someone else might be here.’

  I moved past Bruce to the wall where the cabinet had been. It was concrete. I looked at the shelving beside me, and at the long lengths of timber stored in order of size on each shelf.

  ‘A drill?’ I said. ‘Could we drill through the lock?’ I went around the fallen cabinet and began opening cupboards and drawers. ‘I’ll call things out as I find them, and you say if they might work –

  even a slim chance. Okay? Bruce? Think of whatever way possible. Whatever it takes.’

  I remembered the chain block and the gantry. I squinted up at the chains hanging from the roof and tried to see past the glare of the lights.

  ‘The chain block,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t we attach the chains to the door and pull the door from its runners? We could do that, c
ouldn’t we? A chain block would be strong enough for that?’

  Bruce didn’t respond. I dismissed the idea on my own. I saw that the chains wouldn’t reach. The gantry ran down the centre of the shed, but it stopped short of the door. We could perhaps rig up something – find more chain, extend the reach, but we needed a quicker and less complicated exit. I kept on searching. I jumped at the sound of a timber beam falling onto the floor. Instinctively I lowered to a crouch. I peered to see across the workshop.

  ‘Bruce?’

  Another piece of timber fell onto the floor. I tentatively stood. Bruce was pulling the timber from the shelving.

  ‘What have you thought of?’ He picked up one end of the length of timber he’d chosen and began dragging it towards the cabinet. I stepped in front of him. ‘What are you doing?’

  He stepped around me and dragged the timber to where he’d been tied to the cabinet. He slid the end of the square beam under the small gap, as far as it would go, and came towards me for the second piece of timber. His determination made my heart flutter.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He picked up the second length of timber and dragged it around toward the first piece, sliding the second piece of timber in tightly next to the first one.

  ‘Don’t lift the cabinet, Bruce. We haven’t got time for this. The cabinet is too heavy. Leave him there. Don’t go near him. There’ll be some other way.’

  Bruce straightened and looked above for the chain block. The chains were hanging down from the gantry, but his perception of depth was out. He reached for them, and missed.

  ‘Bruce, please, you’re drugged. I’m begging you – don’t lift the cabinet.’

  He took hold of the chains and pulled the chain block along the gantry track. Its very purpose was for lifting heavy objects off the floor. Bruce positioned it above the cabinet.