David Wiltse - Into The Fire

She unzipped the sack and found that it was crammed with groceries and supplies. What bothered her most was the quantity of canned food. It must have been the cans that caused the thudding noise, she realized, and there were dozens of them, beans and peaches and spinach and baby peas, and dried apricots, too, and dried sausage and a plastic bag full of hard rolls. Four plastic quart bottles of water, two containers of paraffin oil for the lamp. And three cartons of cigarettes. He was planning a long stay, Aural realized with a sinking feeling. There was enough food for weeks.

The lantern was wedged between pillows and wrapped inside a sleeping bag. There was a pack of dinner candles, red and white and blue, and extra bulbs and batteries for the headlamp. Lighter fluid and flints and even extra wicks. He was taking no chances about running short. But there were no matches. Later, when she had time to think about it, that detail frightened Aural most of all. There were no matches despite all the other flammables, she realized, because in the high humidity of the cave, matches would soon become sodden and useless. He knew this from experience. He had been in this situation before.

The terrifying deduction from that was that he had not only done this with another girl, but he had gotten away with it or he wouldn't be free now. He had done it@ he had learned, he had perfected his method, eliminated his mistakes.

He ignited the lantern with a cigarette lighter which he returned to his front pocket, then placed the lantern in her hand. She thought of swinging it into his face, but his eyes were on her the whole time and she decided to wait.

She had to have either her feet or her hands free before she tried to get away; she had no chance without the use of one or the other, even with him as injured as he was.

If he could drag the sack all the way, he still had a great deal of strength left in him.

"Take it to a flat spot," he said. "Then come back and get the bag."

When she had the lantern in her hands he turned off his headlamp.

Aural carried the lantern back towards her hiding place, studying the details that now sprang up in the increased light. The vertical waves on the wall remained dark, but the rest of the rock took life in a fantastical way. The whole cavern seemed to be tinted a dull yellow, as if it were carved from pure gold. Everywhere she looked, wars, ceiling, or floor, the light reflected back to her with an aureate hue, so that the very light itself seemed composed of the finest translucent golden dust. Under different circumstances it would have seemed a fairy cave rather than a dragon's lair.

"Pretty, isn't it?" he asked, as if reading her mind.

"If you like this kind of thing " she said.

"It's sulfur oxide," he said. "And pyrite, too. Fool's gold."

"Figures. I finally land in a gold mine and it's a fake," she said.

"That's far enough," he said. "Put the lantern down."

Aural continued until she was close to her boots before setting the lantern on the rock floor.

"Now come back."

She hesitated.

With an effort, he rose to one knee.

"Oh, you don't want to make me come after you," he said. "That wouldn't be smart at all."

Leaving the lantern by her boots, Aural returned to the man.

"What friend of mine did you run into?" she asked.

"He didn't tell me his name," he said. "I didn't ask.

People like that don't need names, anyway. They're all just the same."

"I wonder if you couldn't say the same for men in general," she said.

"Oh, not me," he said. "I'm not like other men at all.

I'm what they would want to be if they had the courage, but they don't.

You'll find that I'm quite special." He sounded convinced and proud.

"Not that I've noticed so far."

"But we haven't really gotten to know each other very well yet. You'll think I'm special, I promise you."

"You guys all think you're different."

"I like your courage," he said. "I like that you think you can talk back to me and get away with it. You'll change your mind, but it's nice for now."

He rose to his feet as she approached him. He was unsteady on his legs, as if his balance were off, but Aural realized that she had already waited too long. His strength was returning rapidly. She should have hit him with the lantern when she had the chance; she should have followed her first instinct and gone after him with the knife when he was still supine and had his eyes closed.

"Pull the bag over there," he said, pointing towards the lantern.

When she bent over to grab the rope, he hit her from behind, hammering both hands together into her kidney.

Aural fell onto her knees, gasping.

He waited until she could hear him clearly before speaking.

"I apologize for being so crude about it," he said. "I detest that kind of brute violence, but you really must learn to do what I say, exactly when I say to do it. Next time I tell you to put the lantern down and return to me, you do it right then, right that instant, not when it pleases you. Do you understand?"

Aural nodded her head.

"Well, good. Everyone's entitled to a first mistake.

Let's not discuss it any further. Pull the bag over to the lantern."

Aural was surprised at how easily she could drag the sack. It seemed to slide across the floor as if it were lubricated. When she got to the lantern she could see that the bottom of the sack was coated with a sort of gray slime.

"What is it?" she asked. He had kept pace with her as she dragged the bag, seemingly unable himself to walk any faster than her six-inch stride would take her.

"Guano," he said.

"What's that?"

"Bat shit, honey."

She noticed now that he had the same slime on his boots, his pant cuffs, some almost as high as his waist.

He must have waded through it at some point, dragging the sack.

"It doesn't smell bad," he said. "Isn't that interesting?

It's because of their diet."

"I'm glad you told me."

"You don't have to worry. The bats never come in here."

"Might have made a nice change."

"Nothing ever comes in here," he said, giggling.

"Except you. On your belly."

He started to say something, then put up a hand to cover his swollen eye and held his other hand out for balance. He swayed, then stepped back, away from Aural.

Now, she thought, take him now, leap on him and pound his head against the rocks. But she did nothing but watch him.

"Kneel," he said when he had recovered himself somewhat. Aural knelt, facing him. Here we go, she thought. Now he unzips his fly and reveals his ambition.

She thought of the woman she had spoken about to Rae who had cut off her husband's penis and thrown it out of the car window. I'll bite it off, she thought. That ought to distract him for a while. But he made no gesture towards his fly.

"Now onto your stomach," he said. Aural moved forward as she slid onto her stomach, getting as close as she could to her boots and the knife's hiding place without moving the boots. When she was still he knelt on her back, freezing her into position with his weight. His hands fumbled at her waist, undoing her jeans, then struggling to pull them down her legs. She tried to raise up to assist him but he pushed her back down.

"I'll do it," he said brusquely. When her jeans were as far down her legs as the ankle irons would permit, he sat with his full weight on the small of her back and undid her handcuffs. Aural thought of going for the knife then, was about to try to roll him off and lunge forward to the hiding place, but he moved much too quickly for her.

With a motion that had the sharp precision of practice, he yanked her onto her side and refastened the cuffs on either side of the ankle-iron chain so that she was now bound with her hands at her feet, forced by her constraints into the fetal position.