by JM Addison
*
The force of the blow wasn’t enough to do serious damage to Enrique. At the last moment he saw the object being swung and threw up a hand to attempt to block it. The heavy lid had enough momentum to knock him back and into the door frame and cause some serious bruising along his arm and face. Colliding with the doorframe with the back of his head didn’t improve his situation much either.
While he was dazed by the attack, she dropped the heavy lid and dashed around him, through the door and looked wildly about for some direction to take. The room was pretty cluttered with work tables and equipment of the trade. She could only guess at the gruesome purpose of some of the tools she could see for processing the dead and preparing them for their final presentation in the somber setting of the funeral parlor. She frantically dashed around a work table and crouched down. She tried to peer through the crack between the surface and the base of the unit, but could not make anything out. She could hear him struggling to his feet and kicking the lid out of the way. She thought she could actually hear him chuckle to himself. What kind of demented lunatic was she pitted against? The laughter grew louder. She realized that he was only laughing because he knew she had nowhere to turn. There was no way of escape. He was probably having fun with her vain little attempt at self-preservation.
Well, she wasn’t down yet. Scared? Unbelievably! But she intended to fight ‘til the end. She had to keep moving. He would not have to look too far to find her cowering there behind the work table. The dim lighting both frustrated her and helped to conceal her. She couldn’t see well enough to know what to do next, but it was comforting to be in the dim shroud of concealment. Unfortunately, he would be quite familiar with the layout of the place. She had no idea which way to go.
It looked like there was an exit to either side of the room. The exit to her right was farther, but looked somehow safer, a bit darker. She could use another work table to hide behind and then make her way out. She stayed low and sort of skittered to the next work table. This one had shelves built into the lower portion with all sorts of unrecognizable paraphernalia stored among various bottles of solutions. She gave a frenzied look at the equipment to locate something she might use to defend herself.
She allowed herself a glimpse around the corner of the bench and caught his ghostly silhouette in the light. The half of his face she could make out had streaks of blood running down from the hairline and a dreadful grin stretched across his teeth. A glint of something shiny could be seen in his right hand and she realized it was some sort of weapon. An ice pick perhaps. Her breath caught momentarily and he quickly turned his head in the direction of the sound. She slowly shrank from view and again looked at the shelves. She picked up a polished metal tube that was tapered at one end. She noted that the tapered end actually was cut at an angle and ground to a sharp hollow point, like a giant hypodermic needle. It had some sort of a fixture that must attach to an apparatus of some sort which made a nice grip for her to hold on to.
She held the object tightly and made her way noiselessly further to the right, around the opposite end of the table toward the exit. Not having shoes on gave her an advantage of being able to move quietly. He walked toward her original position and looked under the work table and approached the second table. While he was looking there, she made off down the hall adjacent to the room. The hall made a ninety degree turn to the left and abruptly seemed to end. There was a large steel door that blocked any further progress. She could make out a plaque which identified the room as the ‘furnace’. She turned the large latch to open the door and cringed at the sharp clang of the latch. She slipped into the room and again the door clanged shut. The room was totally dark and she felt along the wall searching for a light switch. After a moment of no success, she heard the distinctive clang of the latch of the steel entry door being engaged again.
Her eyes were well adjusted for the darkness and the dim light from the opening door allowed her to see the room somewhat. It was bigger than she expected. There was a track of some sort entering what was apparently a surprisingly small furnace. This must be the place where they did it – cremated people. And here she was trapped with the only way out through the chimney. That was not the way she planned to exit. She scrambled up on the track and hoisted herself to the top portion of the furnace adjacent to the exhaust. She could feel the accumulated soot that must have gathered here over the years.
He advanced into the room a bit and began taunting her, “Oh, this is just perfect. Now I don’t have to carry you to this room, you’ve cooperated and come all by yourself.
“You can’t go anyplace. There’s only one way out. I could make it quick and easy for you. Some cooperation will help you a great deal.
“You cannot escape…”
He approached further. She shrank back and tried to blend in with the exhaust ductwork, but her light skin and robe made it difficult to hide. While the room was quite large, there was no place to really hide. He must have guessed she was either inside or on the top. He flipped open the door that covered the furnace controls and began the cycle to inurn the contents of the furnace. Somewhere deep in the ductwork, a blower wound up to an annoying pitch and she could feel vibrations within. The whump / rumble of the igniting flames could be heard, but with no screams, the only place left for her to hide would be on top of the furnace.
Enrique hopped up on the track and thought that this would be a great spot to finish this job. He stepped along the track and peered over the top of the furnace. Mara could be seen cowering in the darkness covered with patches of grimy soot.
He laughed out loud, “Ha, Ha, Ha, there you are! Why do you hide from me? It only makes matters worse, yes?”
She had to consciously give thought to not wetting herself she was so scared. She tightly gripped the object which actually turned out to be the long hollow needle or trocar, that was used to suction the fluid material of the chest cavity near the end of the embalming process.
He gave a little hop up enough to seize the lapel of her robe and give her a viscous yank forward. He landed lightly on the track and still had a firm grip with his outstretched arm on the lapel of her robe. She flopped forward and almost toppled completely off the top of the furnace, using her free left hand to catch herself. He harshly dragged her forward to the edge and pressed his face against hers. His hot breath on her face was like poison. She imagined what it must feel like just moments before being eaten by a shark. Out of desperation, she turned the lance to hold it in a dagger-like fashion and brought it around and thrust it towards him. At the last instant he saw it coming and turned his face away and the lance sank deeply into the side of his neck.
He shrieked and jumped backward. The backwards pull of her weapon planted firmly in its target yanked her off the top of the furnace and she went sprawling directly onto him. He stepped backwards under her weight… into nothing but thin air. As he tumbled off the track he twisted in an attempt to land better, and the turning motion caused the trocar to be yanked out of his neck. Mara came down on the track and landed badly on her left wrist and side. She felt something pull sharply in her wrist along with a sound that reminded her of hair being pulled out. She yelped at the pain that shot through her left arm and finally let go of her weapon and heard it clatter to the floor on the opposite side of the track.
She lay still for a moment gasping for breath and heard a groan from Enrique. She swung her legs from the track, hopped to the floor, bent to pick up her lance and fled the room. Once in the hallway, she paused, turned back and slammed the steel door to the furnace room shut. She managed to jam the bloody weapon she was holding into the latch mechanism to prevent it from being lifted from the inside. ‘That ought to hold him for a while’ she thought to herself. She could perceive that her left wrist was already beginning to swell.
She made her way back to through the hallway and laboratory to the original room where she first woke to this nightmare. She found her belongings piled on a cart where she saw them
earlier and quickly removed the soot and blood covered robe. “At least it’s someone else’s blood for a change’ she thought to herself. Even pulling on the rumpled pair of sweat pants was tough with the pain in her wrist. By the time she had a shirt and jacket on, it was really beginning to throb. Her other clothes were still wet from the shower at the motel room so she just stuffed everything into a plastic grocery bag, picked up her purse and the keys he had tossed next to the pile and began searching for the exit.
Her skin began to crawl at the muffled clang she heard from the direction of the furnace room. While she was dismayed that he was apparently able to recover to some degree, she hoped the clang was only an attempt to gain release from his little prison and not the sound of the door coming free. She hurried the other way and eventually found the back entrance to the sprawling facility. It was surprisingly big for what seemed to be a funeral home.
Once outside she found Dell’s little car that he must have used to smuggle her here and got in. After fiddling around with the accelerator a bit to get the car running she wondered how she was going to shift and steer at the same time with such pain in her wrist.