I felt newly found energy surge through my body. Everything became clearer. More focused. Ginny said her keys fit almost every lock in the house. That had to include one of these. I felt along the door until I found the hole of the lock. My fingers were shaking so hard it was difficult to put the key in the hole. It was too dark to read the labels so I had to try each key separately. I went through each key, muttering under my breath.
Despite the fact that it was about fifty-five degrees in the room sweat broke out around my hairline. My heart was pounding and I wasn’t sure why. I tried to calm myself with rational self talk but it had the opposite effect. I stopped at one point and leaned against the wall to catch my breath. The slightest exertion wore me out. I went through the ring twice. None of the keys fit. I threw them across the room in frustration. I started to whimper. I knew I was pathetic but I couldn’t help myself. I was going to die. I pulled at my hair in frustration and was mortified when some of it came out in my hands. My head started to spin and I went back to sit down. To drink some water and think.
I leaned to get my water bottle when I saw the small penlight discarded where Harrison had been sitting. Left here on purpose or forgotten, it made no difference. I had light. I turned it on and shined it around me. The light hit my hand. I was a mangy old animal. My hands and arms were caked with dirt and blood. My clothes were soiled and stained. I sipped some water and inspected my prison closely. I had less than a quarter of a bottle of water, one set of keys, two post hole diggers, one rusted shovel, an assortment of plastic sheets in different sizes, one piece of burlap, a section of an old hose that was cracked and split, one small metal can that held oil or gas and four bags of peat. Now if only I were McGuyver I’d be out of here in no time.
I thought about all the useless crap I had learned in twelve years of school, four years of college and two years of graduate school. I could tell you anything you wanted to know about Freud, Jung or Adler. I was pretty well versed in twentieth century history and could speak French well enough to have a basic conversation with anyone in France. I was well read and could probably match any line from Shakespeare to its respective play. I knew the difference between Donne and Milton and it was all useless. I was sitting in this fucking basement and none of it was going to get me any closer to the outside. I picked up the keys from the corner where they’d landed when I threw them. Suddenly I had an idea. Maybe one of the keys fit the lock to the other door. It had been used at one time by the gardener to get in and out.
The door had the same kind of lock as the other one. I started at the beginning of the ring and tried each key in the rusted mechanism holding the light in my teeth. When I got almost to the end of the ring I was surprised when one seemed to fit. It went in but wouldn’t turn. Afraid that the key would bend or break if I tried to force it, I went back to the corner and picked up the oil can and shook it. I sniffed at the top; it smelled like oil but I wasn’t sure. The can was more than half full but it had thickened with time. I held the key with trembling fingers and shook the can violently over top of it. Oil oozed out, thick and black. Excess goo seeped onto the floor. This tarry substance seemed to have an effect on the tumbler; the key turned in rusted metal. I pulled the key out again and put the lip of the can to the lock, my eyes peeled on the other door. If Cora came in right now I’d be caught and subjected to torture the likes of which I couldn’t even begin to imagine. The oil that was left in the can came out onto the surface of the lock. I did my best to get it to go into the mechanism itself by using the key and my fingers. I reinserted the key again and wriggled it back and forth until it turned. The lock was open but the door was another story. It hadn’t been used in years and was stuck. The old metal door groaned when I pulled it. I had to stop periodically to catch my breath and take a sip of water.
It took about a half-hour by my best estimation but I finally managed to get the door open wide enough to squeeze through. I was so exhausted that, for a moment, I was tempted to lie down and take a nap rather than try and escape. I drank what was left of my water, took the shovel and went through with the penlight clenched between my teeth. Pulling that door closed behind me would have been impossible. When those two ventured back they would know how I’d gotten out but by then with any luck, I’d be at Dylan’s and it wouldn’t matter.
The tunnel on the other side was different. It was very damp and narrow; moisture clung to the walls. I felt something brush by my leg and I froze, petrified to look down. It never occurred to me that there were rodents down here. I hate, hate, hate rats. Mice too. I would rather be covered with snakes and spiders than even see a rat at seven paces. The light trembled in my lips and I didn’t know what to do. I forced myself to walk, one foot at a time straight ahead. My shoes became seeped with the cold water that had pooled and it chilled me to the bone. I could hear scuffling of little feet near me and I knew if I saw anything that would be it for me. I’d have a final mental collapse and they’d find my body here years from now so I just put one foot in front of the other and kept going.
The tunnel got smaller as I went on and I had to flatten my body against the walls in places to pass. I stopped, unsure whether to turn around or keep going. It was getting hard to think. Something scuttled over my shoe. Something heavy. The light bounced in between my lips and I couldn’t make it stop. I wiped at my face with the dirty sleeve of my shirt. Just then I this singsong game popped in to my head. It was a jump rope game but I’d used it since childhood to calm me down. Before exams or presentations in college, before job interviews. A my name is Alice, my husbands name is Albert and I come from Alabama and I sell apples. B my name is Beatrice my husbands name is Burt, I come from…Berlin and I sell bacon. I stood there pressed against the damp wall, covered in grime making my way up the alphabet. My breathing slowed. By the time I got to G, I was ready to move on. God, I was losing my mind.
The ceiling of the tunnel got smaller and smaller until I couldn’t stand up straight. But before I could question my decision to keep going, the walls widened. The ceilings got higher. I shined my light around me. I was in a small room. Every wall was covered in shelves. The remains of a wooden staircase sagged against one wall. The root cellar. Cora had told me the tunnels were originally airshafts from the root cellar and had been dug out later on to make passageways. If this was the root cellar, the stairs had to lead to the pantry. Slats were missing and the railing was held in place only by a few rusty nails. I tested my weight on the first step and heard the old wood begin to crack. I dropped to my hands and knees to distribute my weight more evenly and crawled up the steps dragging the rusty shovel behind me. Spider webs hit my face and mouth but I didn’t care. One step at a time, I reached the top.