Hush in the Storm

by Julie B. Cosgrove

  I sighed, and then slipped back into a deep, drugged sleep.

  * * *

  Something woke me. The pitch-black room smelled pungent and musky as if no fresh air had been allowed inside it this century. I eased my body up and tried to adjust my eyes to see through the dark. Clarity oozed in to replace the floating feeling in my brain.

  I raised my hand, but couldn’t see it in front of my face. Why weren’t my eyes adjusting? No thread of light filtered under the door. No flashes of lightning outlined a windowsill, though I thought I heard rumbles of thunder, so it must still be raining.

  I strained my ears, but heard no pattering on a roof above me. In fact, I heard no rain at all. Not against a window, nor on a sidewalk. My heart flinched. Where was I?

  “Tom?” No response. I swallowed hard so I could call out louder. “Tom!” Silence. Why wouldn’t he answer?

  This was why my brain had warned me to not follow him to Bob’s Burgers. My reluctance to listen to it earlier slapped me hard in the face.

  The room sucked the air from my lungs. Nothing seemed right. I squeezed my eyes tight and rubbed them with my palms. A rush of dread flowed over me.

  Then, just as quick, an old childhood prayer zipped into my mind. “God in Heaven, hear my prayer. Keep me in thy loving care.”

  Seriously? Had I ever believed that? I couldn’t remember the last time I felt His loving care, much less know Him to hear my prayers. Not when Mom and Dad died in the mission field. Definitely not when Robert died.

  Instead, Dad’s favorite adage blared in my head. Fear and worry never solved anyone’s problems. I shook off the fright and willed my analytical side to kick in.

  My hands pushed against my temples several times. Tom said goodnight. We left the restaurant at night, in the rain. So, I hadn’t been out of it very long. Either that or I had been unconscious twenty-four hours. No, no. My common sense told me it wouldn’t still be raining. It’s dark because it’s night and there’s no moon shining through the rain clouds. In the morning, there will be light.

  Except for the faded rhythmic thunder, dead silence shrouded the room. I heard no city noises, no hums of electronics, no ticks of clocks. Not even the soft buzz of an air conditioner. No whish of air against my skin. Did it mean no air came into the room?

  I sat erect and inhaled as deeply as I could. See, Jen, you have air. Wait. Musty, damp air. That smell. What did it remind me of? Something horrible, and long ago. A cardiac tom-tom beat in my ears like when my upstairs neighbors turned up the bass on their speakers.

  I swung my feet to the floor. A scratchy rug scraped against my toes. Where were my shoes? I patted the cushions, then the floor around me. They weren’t there. I probed around some more. Nothing. The smell grew stronger.

  “Where’s my purse? And my cell phone?” I spoke into the darkness, as if it would answer me. Duh, Jen. You’re alone.

  I leaned against the back of the couch. Of course. Tom wouldn’t have left my cell phone so I could call the police. Not if he’d kidnapped me. He had, right? But, why? To protect me?

  What about all those times he’d look away quickly when I caught him staring at me across the cubicles? Maybe he brought me here for another reason. I crunched my blouse buttons in my hand. No, I didn’t want to think about that.

  My brain whispered, “No one will know you’re here.”

  I threw off the thought. They will know. I’ll tell them. I’ll get out and run for the nearest store or house. There has to be a way out of here. There has to be.

  I gritted my teeth to keep the anxious feelings inside, determined to get a grip. Somewhere nearby, a tinkle of glass responded to the thunder’s vibration. The water tumbler. I stretched my fingers through the blackness to find the end table with the glass of water Tom had left behind. My mouth begged for more of the cool liquid. I downed a big swallow then halted. Was it drugged? Who cares? My mouth is parched. I took another gulp.

  I stood and got my bearings. My feet scooted along the rug, reaching to feel furniture legs. No coffee table. I inched further and stumbled at the edge of hard, rough concrete. My toes shuffled across the floor five more paces. My hands waved the air in front of me. Why can’t I see?

  Thunk. My fingers jammed into a wall as stone-cold as the floor. Concrete, too? I followed it around to the left, its icy dampness penetrating my fingertips There was a crack, then—ooh, yuk!—a sticky something which kept wrapping around my fingers. A spider web. Like in attics.

  I shook my hands and stomped my feet. “Oh, God. Get it off. I hate spiders.”

  In an instant, hundreds of wiggly legs scurried across my body. I slapped my clothes back and forth. My dad’s voice sounded in my head again. Steady, Jen. Your imagination is running rampant.

  Then Robert’s voice sounded, just as stern. “Calm down, Jen. Don’t be a baby. That spider probably died years ago.” His words sounded so real, as if through a loud speaker. I pressed my temples again. Calm down.

  With a shiver, I continued to probe around the walls. No windows. Surely there had to be one. Then I could open it, get fresh air, breathe, and maybe have light to see. The awful odor would finally go away.

  Within a few sidesteps I reached the corner. My heart leapt. How small was this space? I bumped into the end table. The now-empty glass crashed to the floor with an echoing shatter.

  The noise made me jump back to the sofa like a guilt-ridden child. Crouched, with my chin buried in my knees, I strained to hear Tom’s angry footsteps. He’d told me to rest. What would he do to me? Should I risk getting cut in an effort to clean it up?

  No one came. The initial rush of relief gave way to a niggling question. Why hadn’t he responded?

  Was Tom gone?

  Was I all alone?

  Would he ever come back?

  Would I die here?

  A dizzy dread flooded my brain.

  The dead air was stifling. The stench made me cringe. Why?

  Memory flooded in. The awful smell was like my grandmother’s trunk. The one I’d been locked inside when I was little.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I was five. I’d discovered the trunk in my grandmother’s attic and hidden there during a game of hide-and-seek with my cousins while the adults milled around downstairs at my great-uncle Dave’s wake. The latch accidently fell into place when I pulled the lid over me.

  The clothes stank of old-woman body odor and damp mold. Raised in the city with all the street lamps and neon, I’d never been in real, pitch-black darkness before. No light came through the trunk. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I banged on the lid. No response. I shoved it with both hands as hard as I could. It wouldn’t budge.

  Was this what it felt like to be in a coffin, like the one they’d just buried Uncle Dave in? My first funeral. I remembered staring at the shiny humped box. It frightened me. Had he died in there?

  Dad told me Uncle Dave wasn’t in the coffin. He was in Heaven. Just a shell which was once his body lay inside. I wasn’t so sure. It seemed a horrible place to end up. No wonder he’d died. Probably of fright. Was that to be my fate too?

  I banged and banged on grandmother’s trunk. Tears flooded my face. No one knew I was there. Would I die in there and be left like Uncle Dave?

  I prayed like they taught us to in Sunday school. But Jesus didn’t open the trunk. So I screamed over and over. Finally, Dad found me. He lifted me out and carried me back down the stairs. I clung to him as I cried my heart out. My mother cried as well.

  I had nightmares for weeks. I’d wake up in the dark and shriek again. Dad refused to give me a nightlight. “That’s for babies,” he said in his stern, fatherly voice. “Stop blubbering. You’re a big girl. You don’t need anyone but God in Heaven. Now go to sleep.” He closed the door.

  I whimpered into the dark as I hugged my teddy bear. “But I do need someone. Here. Now. Not way up in Heaven.”

  * * *

  That little girl fear returned now, just as vivid, as I stood in
the darkened room. It edged into my throat and stung the back of my tongue. The darkness pressed hard against me. My mouth tasted the horrible musty odor. I shook my head. “No, no, no. Panic go away. Breathe. I have to breathe. This is not my grandmother’s trunk.”

  I heard Robert’s voice again. “No, it’s not. That was a long time ago. You’re a grown, intelligent woman, Jen. Act like it.”

  My dead husband was talking to me. Was I going mad? My palms became clammy. I wiped beads of perspiration from the corners of my forehead with my shirttail. Yet the trunk-like smell stuck in my nose. I had to find fresh air.

  Desperation forced my body to push through the crushing pain in my chest. Inhale. Exhale. Each breath fought to get out, yet couldn’t. They became more and more shallow. Was I suffocating? Was I running out of oxygen?

  I raised my eyes and almost began to pray. Then my brain clicked. Of course. The ceiling. Small people could crawl through duct work. I’d seen it in the movies. I was petite enough. It would mean an even tighter space, but only for a while. It would lead somewhere, so I wouldn’t be stuck. And there would be air. I had to try.

  I leaned my head back on the sofa and willed my breaths to deepen, to suck in as much oxygen as my lungs could muster, no matter how foul. The riotous heartbeat lessened in my ears. The wooziness faded little by little.

  Okay, Jen. One, two, three. Both hands grabbed for the upholstered backrest. I wobbled onto the cushions. On my tiptoes like a novice acrobat, my stretched-out fingertips scraped across what had to be ceiling. But why so low? It felt solid and cold, just like the concrete walls and floor. No acoustic tiles to pop out. No escape.

  My fingers shook. I couldn’t catch my breath again. Fright pushed hard against my upper body. My stomach burned. I slid back on to the sofa and rocked back and forth, forcing gulps of air in and out through the vise grip around my torso. Sobs stuck in my windpipe.

  I pressed my eyes against the palms of my hands and willed the logical part of my brain to surface. Think, Jen, think. Tom got out, so can you.

  An icy cold splashed my face and spread to my arms. Wait. He’d said goodnight and turned off a light. A light.

  I slapped my forehead. Idiot. Why are you feeling around in the dark getting yourself all scared as if you were back in that trunk? I raised my voice to the ceiling. “Dad, Robert, you’re right. Fear and worry doesn’t do any good.”

  Adrenaline rushed in with renewed hope. I leapt off the sofa toward where Tom’s voice, and the door, had been.

  A sharp sting pierced my heel. Ouch. Glass.

  I hobbled on one foot, pulled out the shard, and tossed it aside. I felt the warmth, then the coolness of my blood as it oozed from the slash. No time to worry about that. I wiped it on the itchy rug strands and ignored the stabs of pain.

  Mime-like, I shuffled across the floor, felt for the doorjamb, then the light switch. Nothing. My hands scooted across the smooth surface to the opposite jamb and wall. Nada. The switch must be located on the other side of the door outside the room. But why? So I couldn’t turn it on? What purpose did it serve?

  I bit my lip and willed my fingers back across the door. No knob? I traced my palms in larger circles. No knob.

  How in the world did this thing open? The door had opened. It had to have hinges, right? Maybe I could ease off the bolts? But with what? My mind pumped questions as fast as my rapidly beating heart.

  I felt for the curled metal of hinges. None. What kind of door was this? This was no ordinary basement room. The door was metal, like an elevator. Except there was no seam where the panels opened. Like a mausoleum vault door.

  Trepidation grabbed my chest. A concrete encased tomb. This room was designed to keep me in. My childhood voice echoed in my brain—a horrible place to end up.

  And I’d thought my cubicle at work was coffin-like. Now I really felt buried—like my Robert. At his funeral, a grave no longer seemed like a horrid place. Remaining alone above ground did. How often, in my grief, had I wished I could dig down to Robert’s coffin and crawl in there with him?

  I cried out to the darkness. “I didn’t mean it, God. I didn’t mean it. Help, me, okay? I’ll start going to church again if You do.”

  The hardheaded, Irish attitude my father tried to instill in me oozed onto the musty floor. I flattened my back against the cold, hard steel to keep my composure from melting into a puddle of helplessness. The room swirled.

  Who was this man named Tom? Why had he brought me here, then, left me alone?

  An image loomed in front of me of a panting tiger, tail drooped, as it paced back and forth on concrete in front of bars. My first trip to the zoo when I was seven. I hated it. Something inside me wanted to release all the animals and yell, “Run.”

  Now, I was that pathetic creature. Tom was my zookeeper.

  In a burst of panicked survival mode, I turned and pulled with all my might at the crevice between the door and the jamb. Again, and again. My knuckles cramped. Three of my nails broke off.

  I suckled my fingers as my shoulder slammed into the rigid door. It didn’t do any good. I stomped my foot in frustration. Ouch. Pain shot into my gashed heel. I slid to the floor and rubbed it, as I sniffled in short, raspy gasps. Now my shoulder throbbed as well.

  Oh, why had I gone to dinner with him? And why had he brought me here? Where was I? Hushed silence crowded the darkness to smother my moans.

  No one knows you’re here. Just like when you were playing hide and seek.

  Nobody would worry if I didn’t come home. My grief-instilled solitude had pushed away what few well-meaning friends we’d had. Life had taught me to rely only on myself. So, I’d constructed a fortress of self-sufficiency to encase my sorrow, like a precious jewel in a locked, velvet-lined box. Not even I remembered the combination code.

  * * *

  We’d only lived in Fort Worth for three months when Robert died. He’d been transferred from San Antonio to the main headquarters of his advertising firm. I loved San Antonio, and after graduating from college there, I’d been ecstatic when I landed a teaching position. But love and wifely duty called. Besides, the private middle school where I taught math was closing due to lack of funds, so it made sense.

  For some reason, Robert didn’t want me to teach in Fort Worth public schools. None of the private schools had openings. His boss’s wife found me the accounting job. We’d also found a comfy, second-level apartment close by. Oh, how I want to be there right now.

  Through the pitch dark, my mind’s eye saw two iridescent green eyes mournfully gazing up at me. They belonged to the only heartbeat who might notice I wasn’t around—a stray cat I’d been trying so hard not to adopt. Who’d feed the poor, helpless kitty?

  A sudden dread swallowed me. Who’d feed poor helpless me? This was Friday. Nobody would phone over the weekend to see if I was okay. The only neighbor I’d befriended, Betty, was out of town visiting her grandkids. I’d stopped going to church years ago, so I had no church family and no acquaintances outside of work. No one would have an inkling I was missing until mid-morning Monday, at the earliest, when some coworker noticed my empty cubicle.

  Oh, no. Tom and I worked together. He’d thought of that, too, hadn’t he? This was all planned out. When he showed up at work on Monday, he could give them some lame excuse for my absence—like the flu, or my back gave out—something to explain my not being at work for several more days.

  A shiver darted through me. Tom could keep me locked in here for a week and no one would be the wiser. Could I last that long, here in the dark with no piped-in air, no water or food? Surely he’d come back. Surely he’d open the door. He’d been nice so far, hadn’t he? He said he was assigned to protect me. To hide me from “them,” whoever they were.

  The seclusion crushed down on me. I wanted someone to find me, carry me out, hold me. I wanted my dad. I wanted Robert. But both lay helplessly in coffins under the earth in the dark. Sort of like me. A whimper stuck in my throat. “I don’t want to be alone anym
ore, Lord.”

  Tears stung my eyes as I gulped back the bitterness in my mouth. I squeaked a prayer through the boulder in my throat. “God, please, please help me. I’m sorry I haven’t been to church. I’m sorry I haven’t talked with You. I was just so mad when You took Mom and Daddy to be with You. I needed them here. I was only in junior high school. And then, You took Robert away.” I twisted my shirt tail through my fingers. “Don’t punish me. I want to live…I do.”

  The dam burst open and my sniveling turned into a wail. I buried my face in my hands. Sobs shook my body.

  Finally, the desperate screams came. They pushed into my throat and out of my mouth, over and over again. “Help! Somebody. Help me.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The metal door behind me disappeared.

  I fell back into air and landed onto Tom’s shoes. Every muscle in my body wanted to fling myself at his feet, beg for mercy, and blubber like a child. I willed myself to resist such a pathetic display of cowardice, but not before a few sobs gurgled through my lips.

  “Whoa, there. Calm down. You okay?”

  Above me was the bottom of a metal tray clutched in Tom’s hands. My nose twitched in response to the smell of butter, scrambled eggs, and toast. And coffee! Freshly brewed coffee.

  My captor stepped back and brushed past me. I fell flat on my back, staring at a dimly lit hall ceiling. The air smelled fresher. I closed my eyes and drank it in. Thank you, Lord.

  I sat up, my legs tucked behind me.

  “Don’t bother running. The hall is a dead end. You can’t get out, Jen.” He placed the tray onto the end table. “Trust me, right now you don’t want to.”

  That word again. How could I trust him?

  Tom stopped, his eyes fixated on the mess now highlighted by the wedge of light from the door. Shattered glass, smeared blood. “Jen?” He turned around and glared at me. “What happened?” His voice echoed across the concrete walls. Loud. Stern.

  “Don’t be mad,” I whimpered. “Please. I didn’t mean to.”

  He rushed at me. I cowered.