Cody McFadyen - Abandoned

Kirby had grinned down at me as I struggled to catch my breath. Jitter-step, Smoky-babe. One step up, one step down, one step up, one step down, and then, just when they think they’ve got your rhythm, make it two steps, see?

The car moves forward again.

I decide to make my move as I’m climbing out of the trunk, when my back is to him. It should be when I seem the most vulnerable and off balance. I’ll pretend to struggle with the exit, as though I’m lightheaded or faint. I’ll try once, fail, try twice, fail, and on the third time, rather than fail, I’ll kick back, catch him with a foot, and run.

I hope.

The quality of the sounds has changed. They are subtly deeper, as though they contain an echo.

A garage. We’ve pulled in to a garage.

I take a few deep breaths to steady myself and chant one of the phrases Barnaby used later in his lecture. It had seemed cheesy at the time, but it helps me now.

Fear serves me. I do not serve fear.

The engine stops. A pause. I hear a door opening and the muffled sounds of footsteps against a hard, smooth surface.

The trunk pops open slightly, a crack of light. There was no key in the lock, so he must have used the remote on his key fob. Smart.

“I’m going to open the trunk door halfway. I’ll throw in a pair of handcuffs. You’ll put them on. If you make a single move I’m uncomfortable with, I’ll hurt you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

The trunk opens a little more but not completely. The handcuffs are thrown in.

“No tricks. Put them on tight or I’ll hurt you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He sounds bored, as if he’s reading from a prepared script. Just a job, done it a hundred times, same old same old.

I ratchet the cuffs onto my wrists, ensuring that they’re tight. “Okay, they’re on.”

The trunk opens fully. He’s standing behind the car, relaxed but alert. He holds my gun in one hand, pointed at me. The other holds a can of what I assume is pepper spray, also pointed at me.

We’re inside a concrete structure with a roll-up door. The door is up and I can see night sky and a fence behind Dali. Freedom.

“You’re going to climb out of the trunk and stand with your back to me. I’ll walk you forward. You’ll go where I direct you. If you make any sudden move, I’ll shoot you. I’ll injure you if I can, but I’ll kill you if I have to. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Climb out.”

Now or never. This is the chance. Jitter-step.

I struggle to get out and fail.

That’s one.

I take a quick breath, steady my nerves, and get ready to try and fail again.

He sprays me with the pepper spray before I even start. It hits me in the worst way: directly into my open eyes and down my throat. The pain is immediate and excruciating. I scream as my eyes burn, and then I can’t scream because I’m coughing uncontrollably and retching. He continues to spray me, he won’t stop, and I’m unaware of him, of the car, of the fear, because everything is about the agony I’m in.

He kicks me so that I fall back into the trunk, and then he slams it shut.

I cough and retch in the dark. I scream when I can. My skin burns anywhere the spray touched it. I rub my eyes, but that only makes it worse. The pain is more terrible than anything I’ve ever experienced, not in terms of its intensity but because of its inescapability. Nothing I do lessens it, nothing will make it stop.

I burn in the dark, and writhe.

I have no idea how much time passes. Time is measured in suffering, in its lessening, and finally in its ending. Somewhere in the part of my mind that’s still capable of rational thought, I guess that an hour must have passed. I’m covered in sweat; my face drips with tears and snot. I’ve vomited on myself. My muscles are weak, and I’m filled with a deadening mixture of lassitude and despair. A hand pounds twice on the trunk.

“We’re going to try this again. If you attempt to do anything other than what I’ve told you, I will give you the same again. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whisper, my voice trembling with fear and hate.

“Do you understand?”

He couldn’t hear me. The hate rises.

“Yes,” I say, louder. “I understand.”

What else is there to say?

The trunk opens. The scene is the same as before. The night sky behind him, the gun in my face. I gulp in cool night air. I tremble, and hate that I tremble.

“Go on,” he says. “Get out.”

I shake as I climb out, no funny stuff this time. I stand with my back to him. He places a hand on my shoulder. The gun settles into my lower back.

“Walk.”

I walk, aware that the night sky is receding behind me. Is this how the others felt? Is it always the same? The bored voice, the instructions, the fading stars? I think it probably is. Dali is pragmatic, soulless. He doesn’t deviate from what works.

My eyes are still burning, though it’s tolerable now. I try to take in my surroundings as we walk toward a door. I see gray concrete walls, floor, ceiling. The room we drove into was small. The ceiling can’t be more than eight feet high. There’s a single bulb. The door he’s marching me toward is flat gray metal, windowless. Utilitarian. I note a camera in the upper right-hand corner.

Looks like Earl was right on the money, I think. Or close enough.

We reach the door.

“Open it,” he tells me.

I reach out, turn the knob, open the door. Beyond is a concrete hallway, probably thirty feet long. It turns right at the end. There are three doors along the left wall, and it’s all lit as unimaginatively as the room we’re leaving.

“Walk,” he says, still bored.

I move forward. I hear the door close behind us, and now I’m in a tomb. There are no sounds here, just silence and coolness. We reach the end of the hallway and turn to the right. There’s a metal stairway.

“Up,” he directs.

We march up and reach the second floor landing, which is the top. “Open the door.”

I turn another knob and open another door, and now we’re in a new hallway, much more terrifying than the one below. This one has a series of ten doors on either side. These are made of steel, and there are no knobs on them. Padlocks and hasps secure them from the outside in three places. I swallow back bile as I note the locked openings at the base of each door.

That’s where he’ll put the food through.

“Walk,” he tells me, and I walk, helpless to do anything else.

We come to the end of the hallway. As we pass each door, I have to wonder: Are there women in each? The last door stands open, waiting for me.

“Enter the room,” he tells me.

I balk, and the gun pushes into my spine, reminding me of his promise. I have no reason to doubt him.

“Enter the room,” he says again, that endless bored patience.

I walk forward. As I reach the threshold, he shoves me hard, and I stumble inside. The door begins to close immediately, taking the light with it. I scan my surroundings, seeing what I can: a bunk built into the wall, a toilet. Nothing else. I whirl around and watch as the door slams shut.

I launch myself against it. I can’t help it.

“Let me out, Dali, you piece of shit! I’m a member of the fucking FBI!”

I mean for it to be anger, but it sounds like terror. He doesn’t reply. I hear the locks being applied to the hasps.

“Dali!” I scream.

I can hear him walking away.

Then I hear nothing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The darkness is, as Heather Hollister had said, total. I thought some light might come in through cracks in the door, but Dali’s done something with all the seams to seal off any possible ingress of illumination. I hold my hands up to my face and stare at them. This is something my dad taught me when I was girl, when he wanted to get rid of my night-light.