Fire in Me

by Dawn Mattox

  I fished the postcard back out of the trash for a third time, studying it again with a fresh charge of anger and frustration.

  I can kill Logan, I thought, weighing my options. This quickly turned into an invitation-to-a-migraine-moment. Something about, “Thou shalt not murder,” thundered through my brain.

  There’s always Plan B. I can kill myself. I paused thoughtfully. Maybe not. I wasn't quite there yet. There were still victims to save, coffees to drink, roads to ride, men to... love.

  “Snap out of it,” I scolded myself, trying to shake off my fears. “Time to pony up.” I decided to go to Feather Falls. The timing was perfect. I would check things out while Logan was busy wasting away in Margaritaville.

  I left a voice mail for Paige to attend court with Amanda. She would be at Jach's arraignment after he had spent the holiday weekend in jail. I told her to be sure to notify Carissa whether or not he made bail. Then I gathered my things and checked out of the office.

  I told Gayle I would be in Feather Falls assisting Keira Gilman in writing a victim impact statement for her father's sentencing hearing on the incest conviction.

  And I did help Keira.

  Then headed for the cabin.

  CHAPTER 35

  I’d stayed up late watching a movie called Apocalypto. My favorite part was when the victim, Jaguar Paw, realizes he is being hunted in the very place he grew up and boldly declares, “This is my jungle!” The knowledge enabled him to turn the tables and defeat his pursuers

  I thought about Jaguar Paw's wisdom as I turned onto the dirt road that led to the cabin and eased the car behind an old slash pile on a logging landing above the property. I left my things in the car and locked up. I wanted to see if the place was empty. My hope was to find evidence that would put Logan away for a long time. He was in Mexico, and this was my window of opportunity. I imagined him being attacked by a shark, and then spit out.

  The old deer trail cut down through the brush and into a dry wash that ran behind the cabin just below the ancient Maidu grinding stones. Following the thicket of manzanita that bordered the wash, I came within sight of the back of the house, not far below the bomb shelter. There was little likelihood of being seen. These were my mountains, and I knew every inch of them.

  The cabin had a new back door and some shutters over the windows. No dogs, no bikes, and no cars. I remained on high alert. The spare key was still under the loose rock that borders the flowerbed. I let myself in and scanned the living room and dining room.

  No one was in the living room. Just a couple of generic beer cans sitting on the living room floor. The air was rank from the stale beer and the soggy cigarette butts floating in them. Nothing more threatening in the dining room than a couple of dirty dishes scattered around a rickety table.

  The mess told a story. No mold on the plates and coffee still floated in the bottom of one cup. The cabin hadn't been empty for long.

  Glancing upstairs, I shuddered at the memory of the brutal rapes. It’s true; I didn't call it “rape” back then. I thought that Logan could do whatever he wanted because I belonged to him. That false belief wasn't just the result of social ignorance and isolation. Outlaw bikers dominate their women and sometimes beat them.

  Looking around one more time, I locked the door and replaced the key. Glanced up the driveway and headed back toward the forest. The underground shelter was about twelve feet wide and twenty feet long, completely buried and naturally camouflaged beneath layers of fallen oak and pine duff. I searched for the key to the padlock, hoping to find it as easily as the house key; under a little cleft at the base of the structure. It was gone.

  I broke into a cold sweat. Panic was building. Whoever was staying here might have ridden into town, or possibly gone on a short run to the Gold Flake for a six-pack.

  I searched, checking around the edges of the hidden steel doors and moved some rocks and logs. I shivered when I finally found the key, stuffed deep inside the knothole of a gnarly oak branch that stretched over the shelter and could have passed for a rotting finger pointing toward a grave.

  The steps lay at a steep angle, securely concealed deep under the natural debris of the forest floor. The lock was corroded but industrial strength and required a short battle before surrendering with a click. The massive double doors groaned and screeched in protest as rust broke loose and the metal hinges released their grip.

  Glancing nervously around once more, I stepped down into darkness.

  Inside, I groped along the cold metal wall, searching fervently for the Maglite where Logan used to keep it. To my great surprise and deep relief, it was still there. Switching it on I breathed a “Thank you” that it still worked.

  Sweeping the light back and forth, I looked for clues. It was hard to believe that I had spent many carefree days of my youth in this place. But there wasn't time for memories. I continued down the steps, casting shadows that tip-toed before me. The chill scent of earth, metal, and rust assaulted my nostrils. The air seemed to pool at the bottom of the steps, thick with the smell of death and decay.

  The shelter hadn't changed much, except the shelves that once held cases of MREs and vacuum sealed buckets of rice and beans had been pried from the framework, leaving sharp, twisted pieces of metal waiting to gore the inattentive. In their place, stacked six-deep on the floor were oblong wooden crates that looked like coffins. Swallowing my fear and focusing the Maglite’s beam, I studied them up close, tracing faded words with my fingers, barely able to read them. Stamped on the sides of the oily looking crates were the words: Silver State Armory, NSM 7th Battalion. M-something-something, followed by some serial numbers.

  Shocked, I stepped back and swept the light again, pointing it toward the back wall. There, in the far corners, was a stack of smaller square, olive drab crates with rope handles stacked to the ceiling. Moving closer I held my breath, then slowly released it, initiating the four-square breathing technique that Chance had taught me—to prevent heart failure—and I was pretty sure I was in serious danger of heart failure.

  Breathe in 1-2-3-4, Hold, 1-2-3-4. Breathe out 1-2-3-4, Hold, 1-2-3-4. Repeat.

  No time. I had to keep moving.

  Setting the flashlight off to one side, I reached up and tugged at one of the relatively smaller boxes. It didn't budge. I set my will against it. Although they were bulky and cumbersome, I grabbed a rope handle, yanking and pulling until one broke free, falling off the stack and narrowly missing my head.

  Panting and sweating as much from fear as the intense heat. Mascara melted into my eyes, burning and producing watery pools with zombie smudges beneath. Swiping at my eyes with the back of my hand, I bent to the new task, wrestling with the metal latch on the box. No luck. It held tight. Tired and frustrated, I grabbed the flashlight and did a quick search within the radius of its pale beam. I noticed metal brace that had once been used to hold a storage shelf, hanging limply from a wall. With great effort, I worked it loose and returned to the mysterious green box.

  Sticking the brace under the latch, I jerked it back and forth and side to side. Finally, the lock cracked and splintered, breaking free. Gasping from exertion, trembling with fear, I stared at the box that gaped like an open wound on a battlefield, exposing its entrails.

  “Oh. My. God.—Oh. My. Lord!”

  The crate held thirty grenades, all nestled neatly inside.

  Then—Boom!

  The sound of grinding, tortured metal banged again. Clang! The percussion jolted every nerve in my body as I spun toward the sound and light. One door was now closed and latched. Looking out, I saw a familiar black silhouette framed against the forest canopy. Logan! Standing, dressed in trademark black; pants, boots, and a sleeveless wife-beater shirt, holding a gun to a man's head. The man's hands were tied behind his back.

  “Well, well. Looky here,” Logan panted. “Hola, little wife! Greetings from Cancun. And you even opened the door for me! Still my best sweetheart.”

  He shoved the man hard with his boot, p
itching him forward down the steps, sending him thudding off each one and landing on the floor of the shelter. Logan laughed. “Looks like I get to kill me two birds with one stone,” he said.

  I dropped everything, rushing to aid the man who lay groaning before me, then just as fast, drew back in fear and confusion. I knew this man! He was the Bandido biker who had tried to kill me in Oakland. The same man Chance had beaten. He should be in jail. Or a hospital.

  “Logan,” I cried out, looking up in bewilderment at the dark frame that filled the doorway, his face masked in shadows. “What is this? Who is he? What's going on?”

  “Get real, Sunshine. I find you hard to believe. Even you can't be that stupid,” he drawled in his old familiar style. “But—no problemo! You two are gonna have lots of time to get acquainted.” He spun away and pulled the second half of the heavy steel doors shut with a groan that unleashed another resounding boom, followed by the scrape of a metal bar as it slid into its cradle. Before I could blink, came the final snick of the padlock.

  Head spinning, heart pounding, I jumped to my feet. Leaping over the fallen man, I sprinted up the steps and hurled myself against the door. Too late! The force of the impact sent waves of pain like aftershocks, rippling through every muscle in my body. We were trapped inside the belly of Jonah's whale. It swallowed both light and air, smothering my very screams.

  I couldn't breathe. The overwhelming stink of unwashed bodies and liquor filled my nostrils, the reek of pot and tobacco-stained hands clamped over my mouth, one after another. There was light. A searing, blinding red light, a pain-filled agony that stabbed into my mind and belly again, and again, and again, until dark rushed in, overshadowing the red and releasing me from the horror. The memory of Sturgis had returned liked demons to a party: a wild, vivid, orgy of cruelty and flesh.

  “The memories. Will they ever go away?” I had asked through swollen lips and tear-stained bruises.

  “No dear, they won't,” Katie, the CMA Chaplain's wife, had said. “But with time and the peace of God, they can lose their power. You will gain control over them instead of them controlling you.” It wasn't the answer I wanted to hear.

  I remembered it all as I clung to the unforgiving door, vividly reliving the horror of my rape. All of the terror and pain returned, yet somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear Katie's words encouraging me. Then I heard another voice, a deep voice that snarled; “For God's sake lady, shut the fuck up!”

  I stopped screaming.

  Breathe in 1-2-3-4, Hold, 1-2-3-4. Breathe out 1-2-3-4, Hold, 1-2-3-4.

  The sweat of my labors had left me icy cold. I shivered and hugged myself as I battled fear. I called on the name of the Lord, but all I heard was the cursing man that moaned in the dark and Logan humming a tune as he raked, burying the door to the shelter under oak leaves and pine needles—burying us alive.

  All sense of time was lost in the absence of light and sound. The total blackness was like a living death. Maybe a coma. I don't know. But as I sat, trembling in utter darkness, my frantic mind latched on to something Lefty had said long ago.

  I only asked my dad once about his experience as a prisoner of war after the two of us had watched a war movie called Apocalypse Now. Our little TV had been powered by a set of jumper cables that stretched through a hole he’d cut in the window screen and clamped onto the battery under the hood of Starla's van.

  I’d taken my dad by the hand and asked, “Daddy. What was it like... being a prisoner?”

  He had paused, his eyes searching mine, perhaps assessing what kind of answer he thought I could comprehend. “It's like being asleep, baby, but with your eyes open.”

  I had been disappointed and thought he was evading my adult question—until now. Right now, for the first time, I completely understood my dad.

  “Sorry.” The man was breathing heavily. “Hey, I know you're scared man, but I need you to help me.” His pained voice called out in the dark, “Help me untie my hands.”

  “You tried to kill me,” I said in my bravest voice, still hugging the door. “You're a lying piece of crap.”

  “If I wanted to kill you, Sunny McLane, you would have never woke up. I just needed you to shut up. Now your husband—I'd like to kick his ass.” He groaned, moaning some more.

  “You shut up!” I yelled. I needed to think.

  It was so difficult to think. It was harder to breathe. I wondered how much air was in this place. I felt trapped in a steel drum, and in a sense, I was. Think, Sunny! I chided myself. Get a grip!

  This is a bomb shelter. There must be a way to filter the air. They wouldn't make a bomb shelter air-tight. I wracked my brain. Things like air, light, and water hadn't top priorities for a little girl at play. The shelter had been my cave, my corral, my palace. Now it felt like my tomb.

  Okay, I remembered. Somewhere, there is a handle that cranks something. And now that I thought about it, I recalled Matt the Rat asking Daddy, “What do you do if a tree falls on the door?” Lefty had laughed and called him a dumb SOB. Why?

  “I'm a cop,” the voice came again with a jolt, shattering my contemplation. “I work undercover with ATF,” he croaked. “Come on, Sunny. Untie my hands. I'm telling you the truth.” I could hear him grunting in pain as he struggled to move about.

  “Yeah, right, and I'm David Copperfield working on a trick to get us out of here. I think you're just another stupid one-percenter, so shut up so I can think. Okay?”

  First, I needed the flashlight I had dropped. It was probably dead, back somewhere by the grenades. Tentatively stretching out an arm, I decided to follow the perimeter and avoid the man at the bottom of the steps. That made more sense than screaming and crying, although I was still on the verge.

  Easing off the side of the steps, I dropped down about three feet to floor of the shelter and slowly groped my way along the wall. Hands out, forward motion. A razor of jagged metal sliced across my face and I cried out, falling backward. Touching my cheek, my hands grew warm and sticky. The metallic taste of blood reached my lips.

  “Oh, God, where are you? I can't breathe. Help me, Lord. I am so thirsty. I need the flashlight,” I unconsciously rambled in prayer.

  “Hey, it's okay.” The voice seemed to reach through my wall of fear, and he continued in a reassuring tone. “Listen, I'm scared too.”

  I could hear him grunt in frustration as I inched forward, terrified that the next piece of metal might skewer me in the eye.

  “Look, you have no reason to believe me, but I really am a federal agent. That's why I'm here. Your, whatever-he-is, Logan, he found out. Someone on the inside blew my cover.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “The guns. They're down here. Aren't they?”

  The sound of metal-on-metal startled me. Hope surged that rescue was in progress and set me screaming for “Help!” then stopped as I keyed into a new sound. What the...? The screeching was replaced by a banging that resonated, sending tremors of fear through my bones. Then silence. We had to get out now.

  Maybe this guy can help, I thought. “Hey, pal. I don't know if you really are a cop or not,” I panted, “and to tell you the truth, I don't give a care. Can you help me push on the doors?”

  “Untie my hands. Hurry!” He didn't sound good.

  It was a risk I would have to take. I made my way toward the voice, nearly stumbling over him. He lay where he had fallen. With shaking fingers, I ran my hand along his muscled arm to the rope that bound his wrists and worked frantically to free him. I knew I would never get out of the bomb shelter alone. I struggled to loosen the rope.

  We stood up and tentatively groped our way up the steps to the doors. We pushed, shoved, and pounded to no avail. They didn't budge.

  The banging above us returned. Louder; like a sledge hammer this time, followed by the chilling rusty shriek of twisting and turning. Then, a small shaft of diffused light spilled in, just for a moment, from a point in the ceiling. It was followed by darkness and mor
e cranking.

  “Oh shit!” My brain screamed be careful what you wish for as I heard... water? “He's filling the shelter with water!” I cried out in desperation as a wave of terror swept over me.

  “Hush. Don't move.” I could feel the man's hand on my arm, and I didn't pull away. I didn't “hush” either. I screamed.

  “Logan! Logan! Let me out of here! Let me out!” I didn't want to drown. I didn't want to die.

  “Wait! Listen, will you? Hush!” The man's voice was deep and urgent. He led me back down the steps toward the sound and waited.

  There it was again: a soft hissing noise. Not water. No, Logan wouldn't willingly damage his arsenal. Arsenal? Nerve gas? Was he going to gas us? I didn't scream. In fact, I held my breath for as long as I could.

  Breathe 1-2-3-4.

  “I don't want to die.” Logan was possessed by demons and capable of anything.

  Again, the brief light. Again, the soft hiss of gas passing through a hose. Gasping for air, I wet my pants. A sign of poisoning by nerve gas? I was shaking so hard with terror that I couldn't be sure. Please Lord, let it be quick. More cranking, then darkness.

  I waited for the white light of death to show me the way home. Then I heard it.

  There is a peace that comes with knowledge. Imagination, the unknown, is almost always worse than truth.

  Reeek! Crank-crank! Shhhh-hissss! There it was again; the sound of metal followed by a flash of light, then darkness, and the sound of metal again.

  The spirit of peace descended upon me when I realized I wasn't going to drown. I wasn't going to bleed from my eyes or blister inside and out from nerve gas. I knew that sound! I knew it well. We were not alone. Logan was dropping rattlesnakes through the airshaft—one at a time.

  CHAPTER 36

  I can't explain the supernatural mantle of peace that enfolded me. I stopped screaming and crying. I could breathe again. My racing heart subsided to a strong, steady rhythm.