Jack Kilborn - Endurance

The corridor ended at a right turn. Kelly paused. The iPod light wasn’t strong enough to illuminate more than a few feet.

“JD?”

No answer.

I should go get Mom.

Then she heard another yelp. Closer this time.

“I’m coming, JD!”

Kelly rounded the corner, picking up her pace. She held out her free hand and touched the wall, her fingers trailing along rough, unfinished wood, and stopped when she touched something that moved.

Kelly flashed the iPod light at the object. It was a small, square piece of plywood, swinging on a single nail like a picture frame. She touched the bottom and swivelled it upside down, revealing...

A hole. It’s a hole in the wall.

The hole was perhaps the size of a quarter, and there was a faint light coming from it. Kelly’s finger probed the outside. She got ready to stick her finger in, then halted.

Bad idea. It could be a rat hole.

But what if it’s another secret door?

She poked the tip of her index finger inside, ready to pull it back if she felt anything sharp. Her finger went in to the first knuckle...

The second knuckle...

And then it touched something cold and flat.

Glass?

I guess I have to look.

The hole was high enough for Kelly to have to stand tippy-toed to see through it. She pressed her nose against the wall, the wood smelling really foul, and squinted into the opening.

Kelly saw a toilet. She gasped when she noticed the toilet seat had Lincoln’s face on it.

It’s the toilet in my room.

Kelly backed away from the peep hole, turning to run back to the room. This was bad. This was really bad. That creepy old lady was spying on them, and Kelly had to tell Mom and Grandma.

“ Help me.”

Kelly paused in mid-step. The voice belonged to a girl. A young girl, from the sound of it. Coming from the same direction she’d heard JD yelp.

“ Please help me. My name is Alice and I’m scared.”

Kelly peered over her shoulder, into the dark. She knew she couldn’t leave a little girl behind. Fighting panic, she managed to sound calm when she said, “Where are you, Alice?”

“ I’m here. There’s a doggy with me. He’s hurt.”

“How is he hurt, Alice? What happened to my dog?”

“ He’s limping. His foot is all twisted up.”

JD cried out, a pitiful sound that made Kelly want to scream.

“I’ll be right there, Alice,” she said, racing ahead, frantic with fear and adrenalin, coming to another turn, thinking about poor JD with his paw broken, and then coming to...

A dead end.

Kelly stared at the wall, wondering what to do next, and noticed another hanging square of plywood.

“Alice?”

“ I’m stuck in here. Please help me.”

The voice was coming from directly behind the wall.

Kelly sidled up to the wall and stretched to look through the peep hole. She saw only darkness.

“I can’t see you, Alice. Is my dog in there?”

JD yelped again.

Kelly pushed on the wall, but it didn’t budge.

“ You need to pull it,” Alice said.

Kelly had no idea how to pull a flat wall forward, then decided to stick her finger in the hole and try tugging on that. She put it in carefully, gripped the side, and then...

“Uhhhhn....”

The pain was so sudden, so shocking, that it literally took Kelly’s breath away. She tried to yell, but nothing came out, and at the same time she tried to free her finger from the hole and only succeeded in making the pain worse.

Something had her finger. Something sharp and tight that wouldn’t let go.

Kelly dropped her iPod. It landed face-up, its gel case working as advertised and absorbing the shock. In the dim light it emitted, Kelly could see that there was blood leaking down her hand. She pulled again, determined to rip her finger off if it would free her, but the agony made her cry out. Kelly beat against the wall with her fist, then kicked it, filling her lungs to unleash the mother of all screams.

Then she abruptly stopped when she heard something behind her in the corridor.

Is it JD? Please let it be my dog.

It wasn’t her dog.

“I told a lie,” Alice said, walking closer. “A bad lie.”

Kelly buried the scream, instead starting to cry. “You have to help me, Alice. My finger is stuck.”

“My name isn’t Alice,” the approaching figure said. “It’s Grover.”

“I don’t care what your name is,” Kelly said, anger joining up with her pain.

“Alice was Theodore Roosevelt’s first daughter,” Grover said. “She had pretty hair.”

Then Grover stepped into the faint light of the iPod. He stood over six feet tall, and was wearing stained overalls and a faded plaid shirt. His eyes were tiny, too close together. His jaw was big, and it stuck out like Popeye’s, but his head got thinner toward the forehead, almost like a Halloween gourd. Perched crookedly on his head was a curly, blonde wig.

“Do you think I have pretty hair?” the grown man said, still using the voice of a little girl. He touched one of the curls.

Then he yelped like a hurt dog.

Kelly began to scream, but Grover put a big, rough hand over her mouth and nose, holding it there and giggling hehehehe like a five-year old.

Kelly kicked and punched and struggled to take a breath.

But he wouldn’t let her.

# # #

Mal gripped Deb’s arm, first pushing her off balance, then steadying her. The darkness felt like a weight pressing down on Deb, threatening to push her into the earth.

“Where is it?” he whispered.

“Bushes,” Deb said.

She’d seen the deadly, gold eyes of the cougar a second ago, but they’d retreated into the black.

“You sure?” Mal asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“Smell that?”

Mal sniffed the air. “Rank.”

It was an odor Deb would never forget. “Big cat smell. Back up slowly. And let go of my arm—you’re gonna knock me over.”

Mal released her. Deb had no problem walking backwards in the Cheetah prosthetics on flat land, but the wooded terrain proved difficult. All she could think of was being batted around like a ball of yarn, each swipe of the cat’s hooked claws digging into her skin and sending her rolling across the ground. She had scars all over her body from such an experience. In a way, it was even worse than shattering her legs.

Deb was so worried about the mountain lion springing on her, she wasn’t paying close enough attention to her footing. Two steps later she was tipping backward, her arms pinwheeling to regain balance.

Mal caught her shoulders, held her steady until she could get her feet under her.

“Thanks,” she managed.

“You sure there’s a cougar?”

“I’m sure.”

“How sure?”

Deb didn’t like his doubt. She’d seen the lion’s eyes. Seen them as clearly as she was looking into Mal’s.

But then, Mal had been pretty sure their tire had been shot out, and he’d apparently been wrong there. So his questioning was no more than...

“You must be Deborah Novachek, and that reporter fellow.”

The voice came from the same bushes Deb had seen the cat. It was a female voice, friendly enough.

“You don’t happen to see a mountain lion around, do you?” Mal asked.

Deb frowned at him. Mal shrugged.

“A mountain lion?” the woman said. “Heavens, no. Though they are known to hunt in these parts. Y’all had better come inside. I’m Eleanor Roosevelt, the owner of the inn.”

Eleanor stepped through the bushes, and Deb played the pen light across her. She was a large woman, and carried herself in a strong, sturdy way that belied her advanced age.