by Sam Sisavath
“The teddy bear?” Smith said.
The woman nodded. “That was Matt’s idea. The bear is Veronica’s.” She smiled. “His way of torturing her at the same time.”
“They’re brother and sister?”
“Not by blood, no.”
She crouched in front of him, long elegant hands draping over her bent knees. Everything about the woman was entrancing, and the closer she got, revealing more of herself, the more Smith wondered what he would have done for her if she’d only let him in and he didn’t almost die from Veronica’s bear. Hell, what he might still do for her if she apologized and let him go now…
“You like me, don’t you?” the woman asked.
Fuck. She saw it.
But he said, “I’d like you more if you hadn’t just tried to kill me.”
“It wasn’t me; it was Matthew. Weren’t you listening?”
“They’re your kids.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Aren’t they?”
She shrugged, and Smith thought, Of course they’re not hers. Just like Veronica and Matt aren’t related.
He had encountered plenty of makeshift families over the years, during and after The Purge. What was in a name, anyway? Or blood? Even Smith and his mentor had formed something of a father-and-son bond that had continued long after basic training on Black Tide Island. That unspoken bond had only strengthened once they both went out there to fight for Black Tide.
The redheaded beauty tugged at the rope wrapped around his legs before leaning over and pulling his body away from the wall he was leaning against to inspect the duct tape around his wrists. As she did so, Smith inhaled her scent. Dirt and sweat and even a little bit of mold, but he didn’t mind at all.
Goddammit, man, stop thinking with your small head!
The woman returned him to his original position. “You’re not very big, are you? What are you? One-fifty?”
“Impressive,” Smith said. “Not that I go around weighing myself or anything.”
She smiled, looking pleased with herself. “I’d have preferred if you were beefier, but you look like a lean and muscled one-fifty.”
“Beefier?”
He wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that and was still thinking about a proper comeback when she stood up, LED lamp in hand.
“But you’ll do,” she said. “I think you’ll do just fine.”
“Do what?”
“Tonight,” the woman said. She smiled at him again before turning around and leaving.
“Hey.”
She reached up for his storage unit’s door handle, looking in at him at the same time. “Yes?”
“What’s your name?” Smith asked.
“Allison,” she said, before pulling the door down.
The titanium bottom bar banged loudly against the concrete floor and echoed up and down the length of the building. Allison slid a lock into the latch before turning the key, and then he listened to her footsteps fading up the hallway.
Smith sat in the darkness for a while, trying to decide just how bad of a situation he was in and wishing badly that he had some light to see with. It was pitch dark in his 10x10 prison, but the lone LED light outside in the hallway allowed him to crane his neck and look up at the roof above him, on the other side of a mesh fence that prevented people from climbing from unit to unit but at the same time allowed air to flow in and out.
The room around Smith was empty, but there was something in the air that had been bothering him. It was an odd smell but at the same time, very familiar. It was a thick aroma, and it tickled his nostrils. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on it while the boy and girl were here, and then later, Allison. Hell, he’d been lucky he could think of anything except getting a boner while she was in the room.
He could smell it all around him now, though.
It wasn’t just packed in the unit with him, tainting every inch of space, but it was out there too, beyond his walls. In the next storage to his left, in the one to his right, and in the ones around him.
He knew, even if he didn’t know how or why, that the entire building stank of death.
Four
Smith lost his boner pretty fast after that and spent the next ten or so minutes trying to get a firm grasp of his situation while at the same time waiting patiently for his eyes to adjust to the new darkness. Not that he could ignore the cold, hard truth that he was sitting in some kind of death building, but he did his best to.
Jesus Christ. I can smell it everywhere.
He wanted to throw up, but when he opened his mouth to do that, he only dry-heaved. That lasted for a few minutes before he could again regain control. Smith leaned back against the seemingly colder-than-before corrugated metal behind him and gathered his breath before starting to breathe through his mouth to shield his senses from the lingering foul odor.
At first, he thought he was stuck in a building full of ghouls, but he’d put himself in enough nightcrawler nests to know that he wasn’t. No, this wasn’t ghouls. This was manmade.
He stared forward until he could make out the steel door. Slowly but surely, the ridges came into focus and he was able to distinguish the individual parts of the door, from the galvanized metal that made up the vast majority of it to the small section of slightly shinier titanium strip at the bottom. The door was sealed tight enough that very few streams of light from the hallway could make it in, which helped Smith’s eyes to quicker adjust to his new normal.
Smith took in his surroundings with fresh eyes now. Private Store-It buildings were perfect examples of cost-perfect construction, from the hard steel walls to the smooth concrete flooring. Except for the areas with climate control, there was very little wasted space. Every inch that wasn’t in use was preserved for their intended purpose—generating passive income from renters.
This particular Store-It was much newer than some of the others Smith had been through in previous salvaging trips. It showed less wear and tear, and all things considered, you could find a worse place to shelter during something like The Purge. It made Smith wonder how long Allison and the kids had been here. To get a better sense of the place and how lived-in it was, he’d have to find his way outside and look around.
And that was going to be a problem.
A big problem.
Smith had gotten a better look at the ropes around his legs. They were quarter-inch twisted nylon, which was pretty damn good stuff. They were designed for indoor and outdoor use, and besides being strong, were resistant to mold and mildew. Either Allison or her kids had wrapped Smith’s legs up and done it pretty well, which was evidence they knew what they were doing. Why was that? Was it because they had done it many times before? None of the three seemed to have been especially shocked at how well all of this had gone down. It was almost as if they had planned it.
He found it difficult to reconcile Matt and Veronica, not to mention their gorgeous “Ma,” doing something horrible in this place that would result in such a deathlike atmosphere. But then, all he had to do was remember how he’d ended up in this position.
They’ve definitely done this before. How many suckers have there been before me?
They had taken his tactical backpack. He felt the empty weight behind him as soon as he had woken up. The G-Shock was also gone—he didn’t have visual confirmation but he could feel the emptiness on his right wrist—and they’d taken his ball cap for whatever reason. More importantly, the Glock was missing, though they hadn’t bothered with the holster. That made sense since they’d have to take off his belt first, and that was probably more trouble than it was worth. The sheath on his left hip was similarly empty.
But at least they’d done him a favor by “fixing up” the gash in his temple. Smith wasn’t sure if the bandage was “pretty good” or not, according to Matt, but he wasn’t bleeding anymore. Or, at least, he couldn’t feel blood dripping down his face. And while he had woken up woozy and had difficulty concentrating, both those things had go
ne away. He was feeling more like himself again.
Well, mostly.
There was no way out of his prison while he was still tied up on the floor, and Smith had no intentions of sitting here waiting for Allison to reveal what she was going to do with him. In her shoes, Smith would have shot him a long time ago. There was no good reason to keep a dangerous man alive if you didn’t have to. And Smith definitely thought of himself as too dangerous to leave hanging about. The three Bozos from last night had found that out the hard way.
He also had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what Allison had planned for him. He tried to play back their brief interaction in his head, to see if she’d let anything slip, but couldn’t grab onto anything. There was, though, that back and forth with Matt and Veronica earlier that might hold some clues.
“Go get things ready for tonight,” Allison had said to the boy. “We have to strike while the iron is hot, otherwise we’ll waste too much. Everything’s always better fresh.”
“Strike while the iron is hot?” Smith thought then and did again now. What does that mean? What are they going to do, brand me like cattle?
He wasn’t going to wait around to find out. He wasn’t sure he could stomach the stench of the place for another hour or even day, or however long it would take the trio to “get things ready for tonight.”
God, the smell…
The smell!
He thought he might throw up again. But again, when he opened his mouth, he only dry-heaved for a few minutes.
Jesus, the stench…
He tried listening for sounds of Allison and her kids but couldn’t pick up anything besides his own slightly labored heartbeat. Wherever Allison had sent the kids to go in order to get things ready for tonight, it was apparently not in this part of the building.
That left him to sit in silence, with only the occasional creaking of foundation and galvanized steel around him to keep his ears busy. Not so much that they would be noticeable but plenty obvious to someone like him, tied in place inside a storage unit with nothing to keep him company but darkness and solitude.
Smith focused on his arms behind his back. The duct tape was pretty tight, with one wrist lying on top of the other in an X shape. Both his palms were facing upward, not that that knowledge was of much help. Whoever had wrapped his hands had done a solid job, because he could barely gain an inch of space on the tightness after ten minutes of constantly moving his wrists back and forth.
Fortunately, Smith knew something about himself that his captors didn’t. According to his mentor, Smith always had arms that were “freakishly long.” Not that Smith ever measured them or anything. His captors wouldn’t know that unless they really stopped to observe his limbs, which they hadn’t done. Why would they, after all? They’d likely done this before—knocked some poor bastard out and then tied him up to get him ready for tonight—so why would they believe there was anything special about him?
Maybe “special” wasn’t quite the right word…
Smith slowly tilted his body until he was lying on the cold floor on his left side. The only way out of his bonds was to slide his arms underneath his butt until his hands were in front of him again. Longer-than-normal limbs or not, it was still going to take a lot of work, and Smith was grunting and clenching his teeth to keep from screaming out as he overextended both arms to their limits. He imagined Allison or the kids (but especially Allison) appearing out of nowhere and getting the full sight of him on the floor, bound arms underneath his own ass, while his face was contorted in intense concentration. Talk about embarrassing.
He strained his arms and stretched his tendons to their limits, then kept going. He waited for a muscle to pull and for this gamble to all be over.
But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t.
Lying on his side helped tremendously, and Smith spent the next five minutes slowly sliding his arms back and forth, and at times doing the same with his backside. Slowly but surely, he was able to push his butt through the crooked O of his bent arms a little more each time.
Then a little bit more.
Then a little bit more still…
Smith listened for sounds of Allison and the kids as he worked. The absolutely quiet nature of the building helped with that, and he was able to tune out the natural creaks of the place around him. His own labored grunts were a little harder to shove into the background. It didn’t help that he was still breathing through his mouth, which wasn’t a natural act and took some concentration as well.
With a heaving sigh, Smith slid his bound arms underneath his legs until they bumped into the back of his knees.
Yes!
He bent both legs inward, knees toward his chest, and slipped his bound hands through them until both arms were in front of him instead of behind.
Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!
He lay still for a moment, enjoying the sudden freedom while still keeping both ears open for any sounds other than his own ragged breathing. He was somewhat shocked it had worked. It wasn’t like he’d done it before.
But it’d worked.
It had worked!
Now that his arms were in front of him, it was easy to work on the ropes binding his legs. The knot wasn’t anything he recognized—a series of loops and ties, something a person who’d never been taught proper rope-tying techniques would use. If he’d struggled hard enough he thought he could probably have loosened it somewhat, if not gotten out completely. Maybe.
He didn’t have any trouble loosening it now, pulling at the loops one by one until the nylon unraveled and fell to the hard floor. He stood up gingerly, taking his time. His legs were still sore from all the sitting, then all the effort of bending his limbs at odd angles in order to free his hands.
He leaned against the cold metal wall to gather his breath and to let his legs get used to being upright again. He breathed briefly through his nostrils to give his mouth a rest, but the choking stench in the air around him was too much, and he had to go right back to breathing through his mouth. He might not have noticed it earlier when he first woke up, but now that he did, he couldn’t ignore it.
Goddammit. What have they been doing in here?
He was careful not to make too much noise, but he couldn’t prevent his breathing from filling up the 10x10 unit in quick, slightly excited spurts.
Finally satisfied he could run if he had to, Smith went to work peeling off the duct tape from around his wrists. This wasn’t nearly as hard with his arms in front of him and his teeth available to work. He searched for and found the end of one strip and got a good hold of it with his teeth before pulling his head back slightly.
It took a little longer than he had anticipated—five full minutes instead of the one or two it should have taken—to get the gray tape loose enough for him to slide one hand out of the loop. He took his time peeling the rest of the tape off so as not to rip free more hair and skin than was necessary.
Smith moved to the door and leaned against it. It was as cold to the touch as the floor and the walls had been. Like most storage places, the unit’s door was 26-gauge galvanized steel, and while it looked flimsy, it was anything but. He wasn’t going to be able to break it down with his hands and boots even if he had all day, which he didn’t. He went down on one knee and got a good grip on the titanium bar at the bottom and attempted to push the rolling door up.
Attempted, because he didn’t budge the damned thing even a little bit. The lock wasn’t just in place—Allison had even slipped in an extra padlock. He thought that was a little overkill, especially given his condition at the time, but maybe she knew what she was doing after all.
Pretty and smart. If Smith didn’t have a very bad feeling about his current situation, he would have been tempted to try to get to know her. It had been a while since he’d settled in one place for longer than a week. The last time was in El Paso, but he’d gotten bored of it pretty fast and took off. That was about eight or nine months—
Footsteps!
Not just
footsteps, but whistling, as someone walked down the hallway toward his unit.
Smith hurried back to where he’d been sitting and picked up the pile of duct tape before returning to the door. He slid against the wall and waited, using the moment to untangle enough of the tape to have it ready for what he had to do as he listened to either Allison or one of the kids get closer.
Whoever it was, they were still whistling, and it might just be Smith’s imagination, but he thought he could detect pep in those steps.
Someone’s happy.
They stopped in front of Smith’s door, and he waited in the darkness and listened to a key unlocking the padlock, then a second one undoing the one in the latch. A few seconds later, the latch itself was slid back and taken out of the slot.
Smith resisted the urge to grab the door and jerk it open, surprising whoever was on the other side. But he didn’t move as the door began to slide up slowly, its wheels turning effortlessly just as it was designed to do even without years of maintenance. It didn’t take a lot of strength to push the door open, either. After a brief heave, the rollers took care of everything, using the upward momentum to do the rest of the heavy lifting.
The door slammed into its housing, revealing the girl, Veronica, standing outside holding a pair of keys and the latch in one hand. Her eyes widened when she saw the empty back of the unit. It took almost a full second before she realized what had happened and began turning up the hallway to run.
Too late. Smith grabbed her from behind before she could run off, slapping the sticky side of the duct tape around her mouth—got a lot of both lips and some of her nose—just as the girl opened her mouth to scream. Her voice was mostly muffled, but enough got loose that Smith was slightly annoyed he hadn’t gotten to her faster.
He swung her into the room like she was a rag doll and felt instantly guilty when the girl slammed into the floor, rolled over, and banged! loudly against the back of the unit. She groaned and turned over onto her side, the duct tape hanging off her face like a tattered mask.