Daniel Palmer - Helpless

“What?” Tom squinted his eyes, unsure that he’d heard the man correctly.

“Admit it to me, right here, right now, or spend the night in the cooler,” Roland repeated.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” Tom said.

“Admit it.”

“I’d be lying. That’s not fair to your wife.”

“There’s no other reason she’d have bailed you out!”

“She likes me. We bonded over what happened to Stephen and my struggles with Jill.”

“Bullshit! I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She can’t keep her hands off you.”

“It’s the truth.”

“If you insist on lying to me, then you’ve got to spend the night in deep freeze,” Roland said.

“You can’t make me do that.”

“Yes. I can.” Roland turned to Sullivan and nodded.

Sullivan stepped around Tom, cocked his arm back, and thrust it forward with surprising speed. The general manager hit Roland in the face with a closed fist, hard enough to make a popping sound.

Roland staggered backward, then tumbled over a box of paper goods stacked knee high on a pallet behind him. When Roland got back on his feet, Tom saw a giant welt, red and rising, on his right cheek. Roland was breathing hard. He touched his hand gently to the injury.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tom cried out.

“What am I doing?” Roland said with disgust. “What are you doing? is the better question. Gilly, did you just see Mr. Hawkins here assault me?”

“That’s what I just saw,” Sullivan said.

“And you’d be willing to make that statement to the police?”

“Of course I would, Mr. Boyd. That man just attacked you.”

“What? What are you two trying to do?”

“Assault and battery are serious charges, Tom. I don’t think the judge is going to put up a bail number that Adriana, or anybody else, for that matter, could afford to post. Now, get in the refrigerator, Tom.”

“I’m not sleeping with your wife.”

“Get inside. Sleep on it. Maybe when you come out, you’ll be ready to confess.”

Tom tensed. Moving faster than Roland or Sullivan could react, he lunged forward and seized his former teammate by his suit jacket lapels.

Roland just grinned. “Touch me and I won’t give you the option of not going to jail.”

Tom let go of Roland’s suit jacket. He flashed on the hundred different ways he could snap the man’s neck. Sullivan maneuvered himself behind Tom and opened the door to the walk-in refrigerator.

Tom closed his eyes and balled his fists. He could level these men with two punches. But he knew what outcome that would bring.

Prison. Jill would give up on him. He’d never convince a jury that he’d been framed.

One thing Tom had learned from his time in the navy was that everything with a way in also had a way out. Ducking to pass underneath the low-framed metal doorway, Tom stepped inside the chilling space. The door closed with a quiet click. And Tom plunged into total darkness.

Tom stood still. Soon his eyes began to adjust, until he could make out various shapes within. Shelving units, boxes stacked on the floor. His skin began to chill.

The best way to survive in an extreme cold situation was to have the will to live. Despite the efforts of his BUD/S instructors, will wasn’t something that could be taught. When it came to will, Tom was well aware that some had it more than others. Even the best-equipped individual thrust into a do-or-die situation could perish if he lacked will. Fortunately, Tom had that will in spades.

Most of the blood circulation ran just under the surface of the head. That would be the first place he’d need to protect. Tom slipped off his Windbreaker and forged a makeshift hat from the pliable fabric. He’d scavenge for other warming options in a moment. But first, he wanted to listen.

Through the insulated wall panel Tom could hear Roland and Sullivan talking but could not make out what they were saying.

Tom had taken a visual measurement of the refrigerator door frame just before he stepped inside, and guessed the walls to be about four inches thick. With a couple of well-placed kicks, he could punch holes in the polyurethane insulation. But the only way he knew to get through the stainless steel outer wall required an angle grinder with a steel cutting disc. He doubted he’d find one of those nestled within the Butterball turkeys.

Roland and Sullivan spoke indistinctly for five minutes at most. Then all went silent, save for the constant humming of cooling fans.

Tom had no intention of spending the night locked up, but he didn’t feel like confronting Roland again, either. When Tom felt certain that Roland had left, he searched the walls with his fingertips for an inside light switch. He stumbled upon it, gave the switch a flick, but nothing happened.

Assholes probably took the bulb.

He shuffled back over to the door. His body did what it could to combat the cold. Hairs on his arms and neck stood erect on goose-bumped flesh, trapping in air, which formed a layer of protective insulation. Helpful, but by no means all that warming. What would really help, Tom thought, would be to find the inside release handle. He figured there had to be some type of mandatory safety latch to keep employees from accidentally locking themselves inside.

What he found was a rough steel mounting, secured to the inside wall by three five-millimeter screws. What he didn’t find was the steel rod and flange he could push to trigger the latch and open the door.

A pulse of anger swept over him and gave a brief, but pleasant, rush of warmth. He wondered if Roland had used this cooler as a torture chamber before. It would explain the missing safety release, Tom thought. It made sense they pulled this stunt after hours so that no Plenty Market employees would discover him slowly freezing to death inside their refrigerator. A bunch of yelling and banging would only cost him precious degrees of body heat. Any moves he made to escape would have to be well thought through.

Tom closed his eyes, despite the darkness within, and allowed his body to shiver. Shivering, he knew, would cause the body to produce heat. He was aware it could also produce fatigue, which in turn would lower his body temperature. Still, the air movement from shivering warmed him some and allowed him precious time to think clearly.

Again moving toward the shut door, Tom felt around the sabotaged inside release handle. The hole where the steel rod should have been was smaller than the tip of his pinkie finger.

Tom smiled.

He worked his way over to the shelving unit closest to him and felt three levels of wire shelving fastened to a freestanding structure. Tom removed all food items, making sure he kept the path to the door clear. He removed the top two levels of shelving, leaving the bottom shelf in place. He gripped the sides of the shelf unit and tested its sturdiness.

Good.

Settling into position, he set his foot down atop the bottom shelf. He had enough maneuverability with the other shelves removed to generate significant force with a downward thrust of his leg. They had measured how much force his kick generated in the navy, and it exceeded a thousand pounds of pressure, more than the equal of a good martial artist.

Tom hoisted his foot knee high and brought it down with as much power as he could generate. His body shook from the impact, but he felt the steel rods of the shelf begin to loosen. Again and again he slammed his foot into the shelf, until at last he heard a pleasing snap. Tom removed the broken shelf from the structure holding it in place and felt around the edges for where a rod had separated from the frame. Then he bent that rod back even farther with his hands. He had no doubt the rod he bent would fit inside the hole, but would it be long enough to engage the latch?