Софи Келли - A Night's Tail

There was no signal.

I rubbed the space between my eyes with the heel of my hand, remembering Melanie telling me she kept her office door wide open because the stone and concrete in this temporary office tended to disrupt the cell signal.

It seemed to be getting stuffier in the small space. Owen nuzzled my chin. “Okay, this isn’t a big deal,” I said. “I’ll just use the phone on Melanie’s desk to call her.” I took a couple of deep breaths. It was definitely getting stuffier.

I made my way over to the desk, using my phone like a flashlight in one hand and carrying Owen with the other. I tried to push what Melanie had said the other day about the phone in her office out of my mind: Some days I have a landline and some I don’t.

I picked up the receiver. Today was a don’t.

My heart raced. This couldn’t be happening. I leaned against the edge of the desk, consciously breathing more slowly, willing my heart rate to slow down. I had a crazy sensation that I was going to use up all the air in the room if I didn’t stop breathing so rapidly.

My knees were shaking and I slid off onto the floor. I was stuck inside this tiny office with no windows, stuck inside a space that was really the bottom of a closed-off ventilation shaft. My chest tightened and I couldn’t get any air. I pressed my free hand to my chest and took several shaky breaths. I really didn’t like small spaces.

Owen rubbed his face against my cheek, reminding me that I wasn’t all alone, reminding me that we’d been in worse situations and gotten out. I swallowed a couple of times and wrapped both arms around him. “Okay, what do we do?” I said.

Owen wriggled out of my grasp. I tried to grab him but he was too fast. He was already prowling around Melanie’s desk. “Forget it,” I told him. “There’s no secret passageway out of here. This is the secret passageway.”

He ignored me, moved round the desk and put a paw on the brass grate on the wall. He looked over his shoulder at me. “Merow,” he said. Was he trying to suggest a way out?

I nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

I remembered Melanie saying the ventilation shaft was made of brick. It was old and maybe worn and uneven enough to climb. I felt like we were running out of air even though logically I knew that wasn’t the case. I knew I either had to climb out or spend the night in the office. Pounding on the door and yelling wasn’t going to help. What were the chances anyone would be in this part of the hotel for the rest of the night?

I looked at my phone again. I still had no cell service, not surprising considering I was at the bottom of an old ventilation shaft. The thought of spending all night in that room left me on the edge of panic. Climb it was.

I used the multipurpose tool on my key ring and got the brass grate loose on one side. The opening wasn’t very big but it was big enough.

“You first,” I said to Owen.

He peered into the darkness and then looked at me. He seemed doubtful.

“We’re kind of out of options,” I said. I shined my phone into the hole and Owen stepped through. I followed him.

Since we were at the bottom of the ventilation shaft there was a floor to stand on. The space was very, very dark even with the light from my phone. I forced myself to take slow breaths. I never should have gotten involved in Marcus’s case. I should have checked the truck seat because I knew how much Owen liked stowing away. I bent down, picked him up and stuffed him inside my jacket, zippering it almost closed so that just his furry head was poking out.

“This is my fault,” I said. “I’m the person. You’re the cat. I’m the one who is supposed to know better.”

“Mrr,” he said.

“We’re going to get out of this. We got out of that cabin before it exploded and we’re getting out of here. And this is the last time I am ever getting stuck in a small space. From now on we’re only going into big cavernous areas. Canyons, hockey rinks, airplane hangars.” I knew I was rambling but it helped distract me from panicking.

The shaft was maybe four feet square, no more. I put my hands out and felt the brick sides. The brick was in much better shape than I’d expected. I didn’t feel any place that I could get a handhold. And then my hand touched something cold and smooth. Metal. I shone the light up and there it was, a ladder mounted flush to the side wall. It must have been something workmen had used to maintain the tunnel. It could be close to a hundred years old. I took hold of the bottom of the ladder with both hands and pulled. It seemed to be fixed securely to the brick.

We could get out.

“You can do this, Katydid,” I could hear my mom say in my head. “Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood . ”

I gave one more yank on the bottom rung of the ladder. It didn’t move.

“Hang on,” I said to Owen. I reached for the highest rung I could grab and pulled myself up. The ladder held. I started to climb.

Because I needed both hands, my phone was in my pocket and I had no light. It was the darkest place I’d ever been in, but eventually up above me I saw a tiny glimmer of reflected light. A way out?

I was wheezing. My arms and shoulders burned. I was doing more pulling myself up the rungs than climbing. As I made my way up, I realized the faint bit of light I could see was coming from another grate-covered opening to my right. I was guessing we were about level with the floor above Melanie’s temporary office. This had to be a way out.

I leaned sideways for a better look. Was that one of the rooms that were being renovated? And how was I going to get the grate off the hole in the wall?

I pulled myself up until my feet were level with the grate. I eased Owen more to my left side. “Almost out,” I told him. I felt his cold nose on my neck.

I moved as far to the right of the ladder as I could, holding on with my left hand and bracing my right hand on the brick above the grate. Then I lifted my foot off the ladder and kicked the grate.

It gave just a little. I waited, listening, hoping maybe somebody would hear me and come to investigate.

Silence.

It took three more kicks but the grate finally fell back into the room. Now all I had to do was shift ninety degrees and reach that opening.

I felt around in the darkness with my foot and found a small foothold, a break in the mortar around two bricks. For a moment it would have to hold all my body weight.

I took hold of the right side of the opening with my right hand, stretching as far as I could. I wedged my foot against the brick. I thought of tai chi, moving fluidly from one movement to the next.

I took a breath.

I let it out.

I moved.

I grabbed the left side of the shaft with my other hand. For a moment I teetered there and then I moved my other foot over, ducked my head and shoulders into the cramped opening and threw my weight forward, rolling to my right side as I did to protect Owen. My right foot slid off its foothold but enough of my body was inside that I didn’t fall.

For a moment I just lay there, half of me in the opening and half of me out, trying not to throw up. Owen wriggled out of the top of my jacket and shook himself. He licked my chin.

“We’re all right,” I wheezed.

After a couple of minutes I pulled my legs into the room and sat up. There was construction debris all around us. We were in what was probably going to be the men’s bathroom. A urinal lay on its side next to me. I started to laugh as much from relief as anything else. This was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done, but we’d made it.

I got to my feet and replaced the grate by propping it against the wall. I brushed as much dirt and dust off of myself as I could.