Kit Crumb - Body Parts

She didn’t know how much time had passed when she opened her eyes again. Her right breast ached clear up into her shoulder. There was still only darkness, and in that void Crystal remembered how Claire’s little penlight illuminated stacks of bodies, how they were everywhere and seemed to come alive in the light. Claire. Where was Claire? She opened her mouth to call out, and realized it was already open. She tasted dirt.

Claire walked bent over holding the penlight in an attempt to track Crystal down the tunnel. Her footprints seemed staggered; first, close together, then far apart. Was she running? Claire crawled on her hands and knees, getting the last of the illumination the little light had to offer. Then the prints stopped. Claire backed up, maybe Crystal had turned, but the last set of prints pointed straight ahead.

The little light glowed a dim yellow, Claire turned it off. She didn’t move, not wanting to erase one of the prints. When she turned the light on, shining it ahead, she gasped and fell back onto her haunches at what she saw. She was less than a foot from a vertical shaft.

She calmed herself, turned the light off and crawled on her stomach to the edge. Extending her arm to its full length, she again turned on the penlight. Nothing. Claire rolled onto her back placing the flashlight back in her pocket and pulled out her lighter. Spinning the wheel on the lighter Claire leaned into the tunnel, “Crystal can you hear me?” To her total amazement, the flame caught and flared. “Can you make a noise?” She slowly waved the lighter back and forth praying the flame wouldn’t go out.

From deep within the abyss came a clicking sound.

“Crystal! Hang on. I’m coming to get you.”

Claire held the lighter out in front of her until she got her bearings then snapped it shut. Making her way to the tunnel wall, she stumbled back to the room with the bodies and found the floor switch. Stepping down on it the room came to life with light from the four floodlights mounted in the ceiling. Once she found the heavy electrical cable that supplied power, she followed it down the wall, then along where the wall descended to the floor, out of the room and down the tunnel. When she came to what looked like an electrical box she began to twist the cable where it attached until it came loose and once again she was cast into darkness. Then came the task of pulling the cable up as she went, following it back to the room.

Madly pulling she managed to wrest it loose from the floodlights. Extracting the lighter, again she spun the wheel praying for a flame. For less than a minute, her prayers were answered; that was all she needed. When she figured she was within a couple yards of the vertical shaft, she dropped to her hands and knees, running her hands back and forth searching for the lip of the tunnel.

How would she secure the cable? She took out her lighter once again hoping for one more light, no luck. Then she remembered the matches.

She didn’t look at the flame as the match flared to life, she didn’t want to waste the time waiting for her eyes to adjust. Holding the match at arm’s length and moving it from side to side, she noticed a pile of debris against the wall across from her. Support timbers, an old iron wheel and spikes.

“Ouch,” she dropped the match, waved her hand up and down and stuck her finger in her mouth.

The wheel was the size of a truck tire. Once she got it upright, it was easy to roll to the edge of the shaft. The timbers were twelve feet long and solid redwood. Moving the one she needed took all her strength and ingenuity. She ended up sliding it, first one end then the other, until it was next to the wheel. Lifting one end of the timber just enough, Claire secured the electrical cable around it, making a loop on the other end. After lowering the looped end of the cable over the edge and calling out to Crystal, who did not respond, she pulled up on the cable only to meet resistance.

“Do you have the loop?”

A faint tremor of Crystal’s voice echoed up the shaft. “Yes.”

“Can you climb up?”

“No.”

“Just hold tight, I’m coming down.”

The cable was wrapped around the beam and she’d managed to flop the iron wheel on top to help hold it in place. Claire pulled on the cable one last time for assurance then slid on her belly over the lip of the shaft. Planting her feet on the wall, she pushed out and began walking down, just like she’d done a hundred times before. She and Rye had made hundreds of mountainside rescues, but they were in daylight. The wall of the shaft was smooth against her feet, but the cable felt secure in her hands. She paused to steady her breathing and thought she felt a tiny slip. First an inch, then a foot. In a panic, Claire imagined the steel wheel sliding towards the rim. She was half right; the wheel had already gone over the edge.

Claire dropped several feet, her hands burning as they slipped when the cable suddenly pulled tight. Gripping it until her knuckles turned white, she slammed against the wall, her feet frantically winding around the cable.

She never saw the wheel as it careened off the wall, but the impact off the back of her head nearly pulled her loose.

Simms walked from the scrub area into the hall of the tiny clinic, where he joined Nurse Clouse.

“Good evening, Bonnie, have you seen Derrick? He was supposed to meet me in scrub.”

“Not since I sent him to finish the prep.”

The phone began to ring in the little office across from the scrub room.

“Excuse me, I’d better get that,” Simms said

With a look of resignation, he picked up the handset. “This had better be important, I just scrubbed.”

It was Hubble and he was all business, as usual. “We’ve had a private investigator asking about the Dodge.”

“Christ, you didn’t let him in did you? And why wasn’t I informed?”

The moment of silence that followed Simms’s question was typical of Hubble, but it still pissed him off.

“The PI was a woman, and you were locked away in your private office.”

Simms couldn’t stand Hubble and would have fired the man except he was a damn good attorney. He was on the verge of blasting him for not interrupting him in his office when Clouse poked her head in.

“Doctor, I just found Derrick, you’d better come quick.”

He hung up the phone, then dashed into the hall where he was met by a limping Derrick. Clouse was at his side offering him ice.

“C’mon, I got kicked in the balls not hit over the head,” Derrick said, grimacing in pain.

“Jesus Christ, what happened?” Simms said.

“I was coming down the hall to prep Crystal when I saw her with another woman heading for the exit. When I asked the woman who she was, well, she kicked me.”

“Did she say who she was?” Simms said.

Derrick looked embarrassed. “Yeah, she said she was Doctor Pain.”

Simms spun around, ducked back into the small office and snatching up the phone, punched the speed dial for Hubble’s office.

“Hubble, here.”

“Your PI kidnapped our patient. Get your fat ass to the clinic, stat!” Simms slammed the handset down.

“Derrick, how sedated was she?”

“Just a heavy local, enough to keep her from walking away. She couldn’t have gotten off the exam table on her own.”

“How long will it last?”

“At least an hour. She’ll be moving at a crawl if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Exactly. You and Bonnie head into the woods. I’ll wait for Hubble.”

The security camera had captured Claire and her Austin-Healey on tape. On a hunch, Hubble had gone out through the gate after Simms’s call, and found the little sports car less than a quarter mile down the road. Moving around the car, he let the air out of all four tires and pulled the registration.