David Morrell: Long lost

There wasn't one.

The smell of the gasoline was stronger. I saw a three-foot section of pipe on the floor, probably left over from a trap. I ignored it, stared again at the tools above the workbench, looked back at the pipe, and grabbed it. Gagging on fumes, I raced along the tunnel. I used the chisel and the hammer to pound at the concrete next to the middle hinge. Again, chunks flew. My arms cramped. Ignoring the pain, I hammered more fiercely against the chisel. My aim missed. I struck my fist, screamed, ignored the blood oozing from my knuckles, and pounded the chisel with greater force. When a hole opened, I dropped the hammer and chisel, rammed the pipe into the hole, and levered with all my weight. Sweating, I pushed relentlessly against the pipe. Suddenly the door budged. I strained. The gap widened. I stumbled, nearly falling as the door popped loose, leaving me sufficient space to squeeze through.

Please, God, let them be alive, I prayed.

I lurched into a room the size of a garage. A woman and a boy cowered, straining to get away from me. Each had a five-foot-long chain that led from a shackle on a wrist to a metal ring secured to the wall.

"Kate! Jason!"

They looked dazed. The pupils of their eyes were unnaturally large, black squeezing out the white around them. I could think of only one thing that would do that. Gader had told me that one of Lester Dant's numerous crimes had been drug dealing. I looked down at something I'd knocked over when I broke in. A waste can. Empty vials and used syringes had tumbled from it.

You son of a bitch, you drugged them! I inwardly screamed.

Kate and Jason kept cowering. They wore the kind of clothes that I associated with going to church. Kate had dark pumps, a knee-long modest blue dress, and a matching ribbon in her hair. Jason had black Oxfords, black trousers, and a white shirt topped with a bow tie. Their hair was meticulously combed, with the not-quite-natural look when someone else does the job. Their faces were pale, with hollows under their eyes. Kate wore lipstick, which was smeared.

The only furniture was a bed they'd been slumped on until the noises I'd made crashing into the room had terrified them.

"Kate, it's me! It's Brad!"

They cringed, desperate to keep a distance from me.

"Jason, it's Dad!"

Moaning, the boy squirmed back to the limit of his chain.

They'd never seen me with a beard. The drugs had so fogged their minds that they didn't recognize me. All they knew was that the violence of my entrance made me a threat.

"Listen to me! You're safe!"

I returned to the tunnel for the hammer and chisel. When I rushed toward Kate and Jason, they thrust their arms over their heads to protect themselves.

"You don't have to be afraid anymore!"

Their whimpers were obscured by the clang of the hammer against the chisel as I struck next to one of the metal rings embedded in the wall. Concrete flew. The fumes from the gasoline hadn't yet reached the chamber. For the moment, the danger of sparks didn't worry me as I slammed harder at the ring and the concrete around it. No longer whimpering, Kate and Jason were speechless with terror. Suddenly the ring to which Jason was anchored thumped onto the mattress.

I redirected the chisel toward the ring that held Kate. As I struck concrete above her head, she trembled. She reminded me of a dog that had been intimidated so often that it cowered at the sight of its owner.

My God, that's what she thinks, I realized. I imagined the drugged haze through which she and Jason must have been seeing me. My beard was the most pronounced thing about my appearance. Petey's beard was the feature they'd have most noticed in the swirl of their half-consciousness. Sweet Jesus, they thought I was Petey.

In outrage, I realized what had happened. Petey had tried to condition them, to make Kate call him Brad and Jason call him Dad-more important, to make them believe it. He'd drugged them until they didn't know who they were. Day after day, he'd persisted in the same routine, determined to take away their will and resistance, to mold them into the obedient, worshipful wife and son of his fantasies. He didn't want a wife and son who had minds of their own. What he needed were puppets who acted out his delusions.

"It's me! It's really me!" I pounded the chisel against the wall. "It's Brad!"

Their eyes widened with greater terror.

"Jason, I'm not who you think I am! I really am your father!"

I didn't have time to explain. I had to get them outside before the fumes spread farther and the house exploded. With one last frantic blow, I knocked away the ring that held Kate to the wall.

She and Jason were too frightened to move.

I grabbed their chains and dragged them toward the gap in the doorway. I squeezed into the tunnel and used their chains to-pull them through one at a time. Immediately, I felt light-headed, realizing that the fumes were starting to suffocate me. Tugging Kate and Jason along the tunnel, I was again reminded of dogs that refused to go with their master. I reached the basement, seeing smoke billow from the fake light switch that had almost electrocuted me. The detonator. When it burst into flame, the house would blow up.

Daylight gleamed through the open trapdoor.

"You're almost free, Kate! Jason, you'll soon be out of here!"

But as we started up the stairs, Jason gaped and jerked back. He screamed. Above us, a shadow loomed into view, blocking part of the light. Then the light was blocked totally as Petey slammed the trapdoor shut.

Smoke billowed thicker from the fake light switch. I coughed but couldn't clear my lungs. A rumble above the trapdoor warned me that Petey was sliding the heavy workbench onto it. I drew my pistol and shot toward the noise. As four bullet holes appeared in the trapdoor, I realized in dismay that the muzzle flashes from my pistol might detonate the fumes.

My ears rang from the shots. Gasoline now covered most of the floor. Frantic, I looked around for a way to get out. Above the laundry sink, the boarded-over window caught my attention. I ran back for the hammer, raced toward the laundry sink, and pried the boards from the window.

It was the type that had to be pulled up on an angle and held in place by a hook in the ceiling. When I opened it, I heard the wind, which had become even stronger since I'd entered the house. Feeling a gust hit my face, I lifted Jason. He struggled as I pushed him through the opening. I lifted Kate, shocked by how little she weighed. The sight of the outdoors, of freedom, gave her some life. With greater energy, she squirmed through the window's opening, desperate to get away from me.

Any moment, I feared, a searing blast would rip me apart. I climbed onto the sink, and just as I shoved my chest through the opening, the sink pulled away from the wall, crashing under my weight. I grabbed a branch on a shrub and dangled. The branch bent. I sank.

I clawed at the earth, kept slipping back into the basement, braced my elbows against each side of the window, and stopped. Below me, the concrete wall tore my jeans as I kneed against it, struggling to squirm upward. Even with the wind at my face and the smoke coming past me through the window, I smelled the gasoline.

I grabbed another branch and pulled myself hand over hand through the opening. But the buckle on my gun belt wedged against the sill. I tried to raise my hips, working to ease the buckle over the sill. I heard it scrape on the concrete. I sucked in my stomach, raised my hips as high as I could, felt the buckle slip free, and tugged forward harder, inching through the opening. My hips came through. My thighs. As soon as I was on my handstand knees, I surged up.

Adrenaline burned my muscles as I raced from the bushes at the side of the house. I saw Petey's truck, which the boards over the window had prevented me from hearing when he'd returned to the house. I didn't see Kate and Jason, but I was certain that, even dazed, they'd have known enough to run in the opposite direction from the truck. I whirled to charge after them toward the back of the house, to cross the clearing and reach the cover of the forest…