Due or Die

by Jenn McKinlay

Lindsey turned to find Edmund Sint standing beside her, surveying the damage.

  “It sure was,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as I was when the lights came back on.”

  “Yeah, I have to agree. Those were two of the longest days of my life.”

  “I suppose we should be glad the damage wasn’t worse,” she said. “Then again, if the storm didn’t cause this…”

  Edmund turned to study her. “You don’t think the storm did this? Really?”

  “Someone mentioned to me that it could actually have been a break-in,” she said.

  “For books?” he asked and then he laughed. “I love a good read as much as the next guy, but that’s extreme.”

  He made a comical face and Lindsey had to laugh. He was right. Even if this had been done on purpose, surely the person hadn’t been trying to break into the Friends’ vault. No one even really knew what was in it. There was no inventory. Who would risk it in the middle of a storm, not knowing what they would be getting?

  “You’re right,” she said. “That would be crazy.”

  Heathcliff pranced up on his big feet, and Edmund squatted down and made a snowball for him. He threw it way out into the drifts and Heathcliff took off after it. As the only light available was coming from the large bank of lights Owen used for security, Lindsey marveled that the puppy could find the snowballs he chased after.

  “Edmund, are you ready?” Bill called to his nephew.

  He did not acknowledge Lindsey, letting her know he still considered her responsible for his removal from office.

  She sighed. Edmund put his hand on her shoulder. “He’ll come around. You’ll see.”

  “So long as he’s still a member of the Friends and is talking to Carrie, I’m fine,” she said. “I can handle a little misdirected anger.”

  “That must be why you’re such a good librarian,” Edmund said. He looped her free hand around his elbow and led her back to Carrie. “All of those unhappy taxpayers blaming you when the book they want isn’t in must have given you a thick skin.”

  Lindsey smiled. He certainly understood the life of a public servant. Carrie and Beth met them halfway to their cars.

  “I’m just going to check the last few boxes,” Carrie said. “I want to make sure they’re sealed up tight.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Lindsey offered.

  “Me, too,” said Beth, cradling her own cup of cocoa.

  “Thanks for your help, Edmund,” Carrie said. “You and Bill were great.”

  A horn honked and they all glanced up to see Bill sitting in his car, glaring at them. Mimi and the other volunteers returned his glower, but Bill didn’t seem to notice.

  Edmund sighed. “I’d better go.”

  The three women waved and trooped down to the new shed. It was dark, but Carrie had brought a flashlight. The boxes were stacked floor to ceiling, with a narrow aisle running down the middle to give access to the books at the back.

  “We’ll have to schedule a warm day in the spring to do that inventory,” Beth said. “It’s too cold in these sheds to do much in the winter.”

  “Maybe we’ll get a nice day in the sixties soon,” Carrie said. “I’d really like to find those rare books that were donated. It seems a shame that no one remembers what boxes they were in.”

  “Not even Bill?” Lindsey asked.

  “No, he said he couldn’t recall,” Carrie said. “I didn’t press since it was nice of him to come out and help.”

  Beth and Lindsey exchanged a look. Lindsey didn’t voice her doubt aloud, but she couldn’t help but feel that Bill probably wouldn’t have told Carrie even if he knew. She suspected he could be passive-aggressive like that.

  “So, how about those open boxes?” Lindsey asked.

  “Right here,” Carrie said. “Beth, will you hold the flashlight?”

  She handed the flashlight to Beth, who aimed the beam at the top of the box. Lindsey held the lid closed while Carrie fumbled with the roll of box tape. She taped down the lid and they moved on to the next two, with Beth following them with the beam of light.

  Once they were done, Carrie pocketed the tape and Beth handed back the flashlight.

  “Okay, now where did I put the Master Lock?” Carrie asked as she shone the light across the floor and over the boxes. Lindsey and Beth began to look, too, but there was no sign of it.

  “I must have left it on the latch outside,” Carrie said. She stepped forward toward the large steel door, but it slammed shut with a clang.

  “Whoa, the wind must be picking up,” Beth said. “Let’s get going before we all freeze to death.”

  Carrie turned the handle on the inside of the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She handed the flashlight back to Lindsey and said, “Could you shine that on the handle?”

  Lindsey did and watched as Carrie struggled with the door. The handle would move just a fraction of an inch but wouldn’t open.

  “I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Beth said.

  “Don’t panic,” Lindsey said. “Here, let me try. You’ve had your gloves off, Carrie; maybe your hands are just frozen.”

  Carrie stepped back and took the flashlight while Lindsey put her muscle into turning the handle on the door. She couldn’t get it to unlatch either. She put her shoulder into it, but no luck. The door was stuck.

  Lindsey turned to face the others. In the reflected beam of the flashlight, she could see they both looked wide-eyed and worried. She hated to confirm their fears, but there was no getting around it.

  “We’re locked in,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  22

  BRIAR CREEK

  PUBLIC LIBRARY

  “That can’t be,” Beth said. She handed Lindsey her cocoa and tried the door herself.

  Lindsey watched her struggle, popping out some rather salty language for a children’s librarian before she gave up and slumped against the door.

  “This cannot be happening,” Carrie said. “I don’t like enclosed spaces. I don’t even use the elevator at work when I can avoid it.”

  “Maybe if we all try it together, we can open it,” Lindsey said.

  Lindsey put down Beth’s cocoa and the three of them shuffled around the boxes until they each found a spot against the door.

  “On three,” Lindsey said. “One, two, three!”

  With an ear-jarring clang, they all rammed the door at once. It didn’t budge.

  “Again,” Carrie said. She counted off and they did it again.

  “I think I felt it move,” Beth said. “Come on, one more time.”

  They tried several more times. In the end, they created quite a racket, but the door remained shut and locked.

  Exhausted but warmer from the exertion, they each found a stack of boxes to lean against. To Lindsey, the flashlight beam seemed to be getting dimmer.

  “I think we’re going to need to conserve that light,” she said.

  Carrie looked stricken, but she nodded. Lindsey switched off the light and the shed went dark.

  “So, any idea how we ended up locked in?” Beth asked.

  Her voice had a disembodied quality, probably because Lindsey couldn’t see her, that made it creepy coming out of nowhere. Lindsey kept waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, allowing her to make out shapes but, no, it was just relentlessly black.

  “I’d blame it on Batty Bilson, but she wasn’t here tonight,” Lindsey said.

  “Unless, she arrived late,” Carrie said. “Maybe she was watching from somewhere else and came when everyone else had left.”

  “Maybe,” Lindsey said. She remembered the message on her phone this morning. Batty had said she’d be watching her. Lindsey shivered and not just from the cold. Although, now that she wasn’t moving, she could feel the cold closing in on her extremities. Her nose, her fingers and her toes were beginning to stiffen and prickle with pain.

  “So, who has a cell phone?” Beth asked brightly. “Mine is in the car.”

&nbs
p; “Mine, too,” Lindsey said.

  “Same for me,” Carrie said.

  Beth sighed.

  Lindsey pulled down her glove and pulled up her sleeve. She felt her wrist. Yes, she was wearing her sports watch and it had an indigo light.

  “I have a light on my watch,” she said. “Hang on.”

  She had to remove her glove to press the button. When she did, a faint blue glow lit up the storage area.

  “It’s just after eight o’clock,” she said. “It’s not too late for someone to come by.”

  She could see hope flare in both Carrie and Beth’s faces. She hoped she wasn’t wrong.

  A scratching noise sounded at the door and they all jumped. Someone was out there.

  “Hello?” Lindsey shouted. “Is anyone out there?”

  Beth went to cry out, but Lindsey held up her hand. They were all silent, straining to hear a voice or a footstep or anything that verified that someone had come to their rescue.

  Then very softly, Lindsey heard a whimper, followed by a scratching sound, the sort made by claws against metal. Heathcliff!

  “Heathcliff, is that you?” she cried.

  The whimper turned into a yowl, and his puppy feet pounded frantically against the door.

  “Turn on the light!” Lindsey said.

  Beth reached over and flicked on the flashlight. Lindsey ran her hands along the bottom edge of the door. Maybe there was a way to pry it or jimmy it open. There was nothing.

  She felt a burst of panic at the thought of Heathcliff out there in the cold. He was just a puppy. He couldn’t handle being out there indefinitely. He would freeze to death! Lindsey couldn’t bear it. Why had she brought him? What had she been thinking?

  He continued to whimper and scratch against the door.

  It was heartbreaking. Lindsey laid her hand flat against the metal, wishing she could reach through and pick up her boy.

  “We have to scare him away,” Carrie said. “For his own good.”

  Lindsey nodded, knowing she was right but not sure if she could do it. She didn’t know the puppy’s life story, but she suspected it wasn’t one full of love and affection.

  She felt sick to her stomach as she put on her tough voice. “Heathcliff, go home!”

  The scratching stopped but the whimpering continued. Lindsey turned to face the other two women.

  “I can’t do this,” she whispered.

  “You have to,” Beth said with a bolstering arm about her shoulders. “He might stay out there all night unless you scare him away. It’s bad enough we might freeze to death, but he’s out there. He stands a good chance of being found.”

  “It’s the right thing,” Carrie whispered.

  “Heathcliff, go!” Lindsey yelled. “Go home, now. Get!”

  The whimpering stopped and all was silent. Lindsey held her breath. The lump in her throat burned like a hot coal, but she knew if she cried, Heathcliff would never leave, and she just couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to him.

  She stared at her watch; after five minutes, there was still no sound from outside. She hoped he had run away even as it broke her heart to send him.

  Beth opened her arms and pulled Lindsey close. She held her tight, and Lindsey choked back the sobs that threatened to overwhelm her. After a moment, she reached out and pulled Carrie into the huddle as well.

  The three of them stayed like that for a long time, not speaking. Finally, when the beam started to dim again, Beth shut off the flashlight.

  “He’ll be all right,” Beth said.

  Lindsey nodded, but then realizing that Beth couldn’t see her in the dark, she said, “I hope so.”

  “How are you two feeling?” Carrie asked. “Do you have any numbness?”

  “No,” Lindsey said.

  “My feet hurt,” Beth said. “I think they are on their way to numb.”

  “That’s not good,” Carrie said. “Hypothermia is a sneaky bugger. We’re dry and out of the wind, at least, but if either of you start to feel numb or tired, let me know.”

  “Okay,” Lindsey and Beth agreed.

  “Let’s stay huddled up,” Carrie said. “It’ll help to combine our heat. Also, be sure to listen to each other speak; slurred speech is another indicator that hypothermia has set in.”

  “So we need to keep talking?” Beth asked.

  “Yes,” Carrie said.

  They were all silent.

  “I have nothing to say,” Lindsey said. “Probably I would but now I feel pressured.”

  Carrie chuckled. “Isn’t that always the way?”

  They were silent again.

  “I can teach you some of my story time finger plays,” Beth offered. “How about Ten Fat Sausages?”

  “That’s going to make me hungry,” Lindsey said.

  “Yeah, maybe one without food,” Carrie agreed.

  “So, One Potato, Two Potato and Five Fat Peas are out,” Beth said. “Okay, let’s try Here Is a Beehive. Now make a fist but put your thumb inside.”

  It was dark, so she could have faked it, but Lindsey did as she was told, hoping it would take her mind off Heathcliff and the cold at least for a moment.

  “Now repeat after me,” Beth said. “Here is a beehive, but where are the bees?”

  Lindsey and Carrie dutifully repeated the words.

  “Hiding away where nobody sees,” Beth continued and they repeated.

  “Watch and you’ll see them come out of the hive,” Beth said. “Now as you count, release a finger until only your thumb is left.”

  “One, two, three, four, five…buzzzzz!”

  Lindsey felt a thumb jab her in the cheek. “Hey, quit that.”

  “Sorry,” Beth said, but Lindsey could hear her laughing. “I usually wear a little bee puppet on my thumb and it always flies into the kids and tickles them.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lindsey grunted. She wasn’t positive, but she thought she could hear Carrie laughing, too.

  “Come on, let’s do it again,” Beth said.

  So they did. Five more times to be exact. Then Beth got them moving a bit more with Ten Puppies in the Bed and Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree.

  Lindsey had a feeling that Beth had enough finger plays, poems and rhymes in her repertoire to keep them going all night. And she would have bet dollars to donuts that Beth hadn’t considered this a life-saving skill back in library school.

  Donuts. Why had she thought of donuts? Her stomach grumbled and she had to shake her head to clear it of the image of a ginormous raspberry jelly covered in powdered sugar. She felt a little drool pool in the corner of her mouth and wiped it away with her glove.

  “How is everyone doing?” Carrie asked as they took a break. “Any numbness, nausea or disorientation?”

  “I’m okay on the first two,” Lindsey said, “But given that it’s pitch-black in here, my internal compass is a bit wonky.”

  “Good point,” Carrie said. “We’ll let that one go unless you start to fall over.”

  “So, who wants to learn Five Enormous Dinosaurs?” Beth asked. “We get to roar,” she added as if this was a huge selling point.

  “I love you, Beth,” Lindsey said with a chuckle. She told herself she wasn’t saying it because this night in the shed might turn out really badly, but rather because it occurred to her that she didn’t say it enough to her loved ones.

  “I love you, too,” Beth said. She took a deep breath and began the chant with Lindsey and Carrie repeating her.

  They performed it three times, and Lindsey figured if they ever got out of here, she would be officially certified to perform story times.

  “Well, what next?” Beth asked as they paused to catch their breath.

  “We could—” Carrie began but Lindsey hushed her.

  “Shh, I hear something,” she said.

  There it was, the distinct sound of a man’s voice and a dog’s bark.

  “There’s someone out there!” Beth cried.

  As one, they bolted for th
e door and began to bang on it with their fists. “Help!”

  “We’re in here!”

  “Let us out! Please!”

  There was no answer.

  CHAPTER

  23

  BRIAR CREEK

  PUBLIC LIBRARY

  “Are we suffering from group delirium?” Beth asked Carrie. “I could have sworn I heard something.”

  The screech of metal sounded and they all jumped back from the door. A terrific bang sounded and the door popped open.

  Backlit by the security lights of the storage facility, Sully stood in the doorway, holding a crowbar with Heathcliff at his side.

  Heathcliff bolted for Lindsey and wrapped his paws about her leg as if he’d never let her go. She bent down and hefted him into her arms, letting him lick her face while she buried hers in his fur.

  “Oh, buddy, you came back,” she said. “And you brought help.”

  As if he understood, Heathcliff barked and licked and wiggled closer against her. Lindsey was afraid she might cry. She had been so worried about him and now he was here and he was okay.

  Carrie and Beth hurried out of the shed, leaving Lindsey to follow with Heathcliff.

  “How did you find us?” Lindsey asked Sully.

  “Heathcliff,” he said. “I was driving home from the pier and I saw him on the side of the road. I stopped to pick him up, but he wouldn’t get in the truck. He kept barking and dashing down the road, so I followed him.”

  “And he led you here?” Carrie asked.

  “Yep, he ran right to the shed,” Sully said. “I had to park and follow him. I heard you banging, and I saw the lock on the door was fastened. I tried to yell to let you know I was there, but you’re a noisy bunch.”

  “You should have heard our dinosaur roar,” Lindsey said. The three women laughed at his bewildered look.

  “Anyway, I knew something was wrong, so I went back to my truck to get my crowbar and managed to bust the lock off.”

  “Our hero,” Beth said, and she gave him a one-armed hug.

  “No, I’m just the muscle,” Sully said. “He’s your hero.”

  He reached over with his large hand and gently ruffled Heathcliff’s ears. Heathcliff barked and licked his hand as if in agreement. Lindsey couldn’t help but laugh.