Ryan Thomas - The Summer I Died

“Roger?”

“Yeah?” The gag was loosening a bit.

“Promise me if we get out of here, promise you’ll come to California with me.”

The moment was so unreal I started laughing. Right there in the middle of all this death and torture I just lost it. Imagine it, Tooth and me on the beach, smoking weed and riding the surf, talking to hot women in bikinis, laughing about the time we were chained up in some madman’s basement. I wanted that more than anything. I wanted to be so far away from reality I started to smell the sea and feel the breeze in my hair.

“Sure, I’ll go with you. You’re right, there’s nothing here for me,” I said.

“Except Lucy Graves’ tits.”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “those are pretty nice.”

He winced as he shifted his leg. “Someone’s bound to see the car. Rangers patrol there daily, right? All we got to do is make it through tomorrow and hope a ranger notices the car sitting there for two days and comes looking for us. I figure it’s got to be around midnight now. That psycho ain’t been back in a while and my guess is he’s sleeping. Let’s just make it through the day. We can do that.”

“But a ranger won’t hear us down here,” I said. The walls were concrete and even though the ceiling was made of cheap, rotting wood, with enough rugs and furniture over us our yells would go unheard. “Plus,” I added, “if he doesn’t have a warrant he can’t come in anyway.”

“He will if we’re loud enough. We just have to listen carefully, make as much noise as possible. Scream like crazy. I’ve made some calculations while you were blacked out. That door there in front of us is a stairwell, most likely the one we saw from outside. That means the driveway is out that door and if someone were out there. . Remember when we heard the woman? The sound does carry. We can be heard if we yell loud enough. This door over to our left must go under the main part of the house. Under the living room and stuff. So if he lets anyone in the front door, they won’t hear us because he’s probably sound proofed it somehow. But if someone comes up the driveway, we’ll hear the car and can yell our asses off.”

“Have you heard any cars?”

“Not yet. I heard the door at the top of the stairs when he left. The hinge squeaks a little. And the ceiling above us connects to the whole house. Sometimes the dust shakes off it and I figure that’s him walking around.”

“But what does all that mean? How does that help us?”

“Not sure. But it gives us a heads up when he’s coming anyway.”

I watched the glowing stove in the corner of the room. The wan light from the slats in the door illuminated the nearby dog dishes. Something was in the dish though I couldn’t make out what it was. Then again, I didn’t need to. I knew it was the woman’s arm, or what was left of it.

“How’s your leg?” I asked.

“Hurts like a bitch. I think the bone is broken.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know. I can’t really wrap my head around all this. I keep waiting to wake up.”

Good ol’ Tooth; as usual he was on the same page as me.

The human brain has a difficult time rationalizing the absurd. It’s like watching aliens land in your backyard and take a dip in your pool. You think, “This is a dream, any moment now I’ll wake up.” And then you do wake up. And you laugh about it and go back to sleep.

Only we weren’t waking up.

“But did you see what he did to that woman?” I asked. “What kind of sick fucking maniac is this guy? Why did he do that? He’s not human. Do you hear him when he speaks? We or us or they. Is he talking about the dog or the voices in his head?”

Out of nowhere, I started crying again. My emotions were bubbling like a tar pit. Tooth had cried some, too, but mostly he was just mad. Somehow I knew that without him I would have broken down and given up long ago. He wasn’t optimistic, but he wasn’t giving up yet either.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “when I get loose I’m gonna kill him. I’ll feed him to his own damn dog.”

“My parents are in Providence and Jamie thinks I’m at your house. What are we going to do? We can’t just sit and wait for a park ranger. You need to get to a hospital.”

“I know, I know. But these chains. . I can barely move.”

“So we’re done.”

“Maybe not. Can’t think like that anyway. Look, they lock into these steel plates in the wall, and maybe if we pull hard enough we can start to loosen the mortar around them. But be careful, I cut my wrist already.” He started writhing again, yanking the chains from the wall. He rocked back and forth with all of his body, careful not to let his neck take too much of the weight. We both did this for several minutes until we grew tired. Then we stopped and leaned back against the wall.

My eyes had adjusted enough I could finally see the poster on the door. A sunset, a fucking joke. Something to get his victims thinking about life, I suppose. But I didn’t think about life, I thought about pain, and how we’d stand up to it, and how long I’d go before giving in to it, and how long before I accepted my inevitable death.

I could also see the swelling of Tooth’s face, which had blown up like a bunch of grapes.

“It’s no use,” I said. “I’m tired.”

“Okay, let’s take a rest, conserve our strength.”

I knew he said that for me; I knew he’d go all night if he could.

Some time went by and we didn’t say anything. We tried to break the chains again and when that failed I resorted to sniveling. Tooth calmed me down and started talking to me about comics. “You know, I never read Silver Surfer. What does he do?”

I knew he was trying to get my mind off the present, and although it didn’t work, I appreciated the effort. “He rides a silver surfboard and saves people.”

“Yeah? That’d be nice about now. How come people are always saying Batman is the shit? I don’t get it. I mean, I like Batman and all, but he’s not like Spider-man or Ghost Rider or anything, he’s just a guy with gadgets.”

“But that’s why he’s so cool. He’s just a normal guy with guts and skill. A regular Joe who doesn’t take shit from nobody, minds his own business, makes some bad choices once in a while, but ultimately does the right thing. A true hero.”

I thought about Batman, the Dark Knight, and how easy it would be for him to escape these chains. He’d have some gadget on his belt or up his sleeve that would melt these cuffs and then he’d torment his captor and make him pay. I had nothing in my pockets, and Skinny Man had our gun. Tooth had his cell phone but neither of us could reach it. What a cruel joke.

“Hey,” Tooth said as he rocked against his chains, “let’s work on the chains a bit longer. We gotta keep it up if we plan on getting out of here.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, but before I could start he spoke.

“I’m sorry, Roger.”

“For what?”

“For this. For getting us captured by a bloodthirsty lunatic.”

Wasn’t much to say to that so I just nodded like an idiot.

We worked at the chains again but it was the same old song and dance-they weren’t budging. I quit pulling and put my head against the wall and tried to find a comfortable position to rest in. Normally I would have found leaning against a cold stone wall on par with getting kicked in the back, but I was sapped of morale and energy. I barely remember shutting my eyes before I was out.

I saw my parents. They were standing outside of a jail cell, shaking their heads at me. Their look of disappointment ate away at me like acid and I felt ashamed and embarrassed, though I wasn’t sure why. My mother pointed an accusatory finger at me and frowned. My father put his arm around my mother and looked away. Why was I in jail? What had I done? Nobody spoke to me or tried to offer any assistance. I was alone.