SHE WAS AWARE of pain first. Darkness second. And—dirt. She was lying somewhere, with her face in the dirt. There was some in her mouth and she tried to spit it out, her throat so dry that she couldn’t. She was too dizzy and sick to lift her head, and everything else hurt so much that she let her eyes close again. She wasn’t ready to deal with this yet.
The next time she woke up, it wasn’t as dark. She lay there for a long time, not trying to move. After a while, she turned her head, lifting it just enough to see where she was. Light. Not much—coming in through boards or something. The air smelled mildewed, but there was also a draft. A cold one. Jesus Christ, was she in a cave?
Okay, okay, it wouldn’t make sense to freak out. Yet. The first thing to do, was to try and turn over. See what was going on. Assess the situation calmly. For all she knew, she was just in a different room, not in a whole new—a room with a dirt floor? But, maybe they’d just stashed her outside whatever building she had been in before, and that wasn’t as scary as—except, wait, that would be pretty god-damn scary, too.
Okay, she needed to get up, and figure out what was going on. Using both hands, she tried to push herself to a sitting position, her arms weak and trembly. There was a heavy cuff of some kind on her right wrist and she pulled experimentally, discovering that it was attached to a chain. A short chain. Jesus Christ.
She didn’t seem to be strong enough to sit up, but she managed, groaning, to turn over onto her back. She stayed there, exhausted by the tiny achievement, letting her eyes—one of which wouldn’t open—get more accustomed to the darkness.
Oh, God, she hurt. Everything hurt. Pain she didn’t remember from before. Something must have happened to—oh, Christ, was she alone? Or was he sitting there, watching her? All of them, watching her. Or—it was so dark.
But, she didn’t see anyone. In fact, she didn’t see anything. Just a tunnel or something. She reached out, tentatively, to feel the wall with her left hand. Rock. Cold, dry, fairly smooth rock. Which established—what, exactly? If she was in a tunnel carved out of rock—well, that sounded a hell of a lot like a cave. She could be near the end, or it could go back for miles—it was too dark to tell.
She made herself listen for a few seconds, still trying to figure out if she was by herself. Wind. What might be a bird. Maybe some creaking, over where the light was. Sunlight? Maybe. Daylight, anyway.
Okay, okay, it was time to find out how badly injured she was—starting with her legs. She flexed each foot, cautiously; moved her ankles, bent her right knee. Small, dull pains; some old, mostly new. Bruises, probably—no reason to panic. Her left knee felt as bad as it had before, and she didn’t try moving it.
One hip hurt a lot, the other one was just stiff. It was her ribs, where the serious new pain started, the slightest breath or movement causing twinges sharp enough to make her gasp. Vaguely, she could remember being punched—repeatedly, by a very large man—before the other man jabbed the syringe into her. Had they kept hitting her after she went unconscious? Had they tried anything else while she was—no. She couldn’t feel anything to indicate that they had done something—awful—and the drawstring—she checked, and double-checked—to her sweatpants was still tightly knotted.
She tried moving her head. Her neck. Her arms. Just bruises. And stiffness from lying in cold dirt for God only knew how many hours. Either she had been battered around during the transfer to this place—she could smell and feel a smear of motor oil across her
clothes—or they had intentionally hurt her, tried to beat her to death, maybe.
Jesus.
She touched the cuff on her wrist, then followed the chain with her fingers to a metal stake driven deep into the rock wall. She yanked on it, neither finding—nor expecting—any weak points. Christ. Her working eye was starting to be able to see better, and she looked around, seeing man-made, but very rough, rock walls, and a thick wooden beam here and there, supporting the ceiling. Was this place a mine shaft, maybe? It obviously went further back—and down?—but, she couldn’t tell how far.
Only a little bit of light was coming in through the boards, and she realized that it wasn’t a door. No, someone had put them across the entrance, and—apparently—nailed her inside. Nailed her in with dirt, and rocks, and—nothing else. No food. No water. No blanket.
No water. She swallowed, her mouth and throat so dry that it was difficult. No water. He and the others might be out there somewhere—but, she doubted it. He’d left her here, nailed in, chained, without any water.
Left her here.
Panicking, she yanked on the chain with both hands, trying to pull free. It wouldn’t budge, but she had to try, struggling with it until she was out of breath and crying, and too weak from pain to continue. She collapsed into the dirt, trying not to pant because it made her ribs hurt so much.
Help. She should call for help. So, she turned her head towards the light.
“Hey!” she said, her voice rasping out. “In here!”
Talking made her throat feel as if it were rupturing and she tried to swallow again, not able to come up with much saliva.
“Hey, help!” she shouted. “In here!”
There was no answer. No sound at all, except for maybe the damned wind.
She felt in the dirt until she found a rock, and then threw it at the boards to try and break them. It fell harmlessly inside, about ten feet away, and she threw another, with the same result. For the hell of it, she threw one towards the back of the cave, hearing it go at least twenty feet. So, she threw a whole handful of small rocks, listening as they hit dirt, other rocks, and maybe some more boards. No comforting splash to indicate that there was a pool of water, or something, back there.
No water.
No god-damn water. The inside of her mouth tasted terrible—blood and dirt, mostly—and she swallowed yet again, the muscles in her throat noisy in protest. Damn it, she had to think. Maybe she could dig for water. Maybe—she fumbled around until she found a fairly sharp rock, and began using it to scratch a hole in the dirt, her fingers cramping with the effort. She would dig as long as she could stay awake—which wasn’t going to be long—and then, when she woke up, maybe water would have seeped into the bottom of the hole, and she could drink it.
Yeah, chalk up another one for Nature Girl.
The ground was hard and rocky, but she was so relieved to be doing something that she kept digging. One inch. Another. The dirt felt very cold. Damp? Maybe. But, definitely cold.
Energy ebbing, she dug another half inch, then was too exhausted to continue and let the rock drop out of her hand. She tried leaning her head against the wall, but it was too uncomfortable, so she curled up in the dirt, trying to find the least painful position, using her right arm as a pillow.
Too tired and afraid to think, she closed her eyes.
“MEG, ARE YOU all right?” she heard someone saying.
A nice voice. She was safe! The whole thing had been a—she smiled, opening her eyes—except, she couldn’t see anything. Oh,
God, she was blind. She raised her hand in front of her face, trying to see it. She was blind! She couldn’t—
“Where are you?” she asked, her voice barely working. “I can’t see you!” She didn’t hear anything. She didn’t see anything. “Talk to me! Where are you?”
As she tried to sit up, she heard the chain clank—and both the relief, and fear, went away, as she realized where she was. That there was no one there. Unless he was in here, unless he was trying to—
“Where are you?” she asked, trying to look in every single direction at once. “Are you in here? Are you trying to scare me?”
Trying? Yeah, right. Succeeding, and then some. Except, she didn’t hear anyone. She didn’t hear anything at all. The wind again, maybe.
She rubbed her hand across her face, feeling dirt, and a thick crust below her nose and lips that could only be dried blood. Her nose was stuffed up—also with blood?—and she was having to breathe through her mouth, which was even drier than it had been before. She licked her lips, feeling more than one crack. Oh, boy. This was getting more and more serious with every—the hole! She felt for the hole in the darkness—so black that she couldn’t see her hand moving—but, finally found it.
An empty hole. A dry hole.
Serious, serious trouble. And her mind just felt numb. Blank. Stupid. She eased herself back against the wall, gripping her ribs with her free arm, and focusing in the direction of the boards. The only thing she could think of to do was wait for morning.
DAYLIGHT ONLY MADE things seem worse. More hopeless. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t just sit here and wait for something to happen. She had to do something. To think of a way out of this place.
The only possible solution was to break the chain, somehow.
How, being the operative word. She didn’t have much energy, so she had to choose. She could chip away at the stake, and the rock wall, trying to loosen it, or she could choose a weakest link, hammering on it until the chain broke. She pulled on the stake, then pulled on the chain. The chain. It wasn’t as thick. She felt for a rock, then pounded at the place where the chain and stake met. Double her odds, that way.
Hammer, hammer, hammer, rest. Hammer some more. And some more. As many times as not, she would miss, scraping her knuckles against the rock wall. When her left hand hurt too much to continue, she switched to her right, hammering and hammering, not sure if ten minutes—or ten hours—were passing.
Her sweatshirt was damp, and her arms were so heavy that it felt as if her strength was draining out, along with the perspiration. But, she kept hitting the chain, trying not to perspire, to lose liquid. Each time she lifted her arm, she wasn’t sure if she could do it again, but she kept going, on the theory that it was keeping her sane. Oh, yeah, terribly. Although there was nothing in there to vomit, her stomach was upset and she wished she could swallow more easily. More often.
Hammer. Hammer. Hammer again. What time was it? What day was it? It had been dark—twice? More times? She’d slept so much that it was hard to tell.
Her hair seemed like a great weight, and she pushed it off her neck and shoulders. It felt disgusting—dirty and sticky, hanging in damp clumps. Talk about gross.
“I’m going to get out of here,” she said, needing to hear a voice. Even a voice that pathetic and hoarse. “I swear to God I’m going to get out.” Which seemed kind of melodramatic. “I’ll never go hungry again,” she said, being Scarlett O’Hara. She laughed weakly. Might as well make jokes. Nothing else to do.
Her hands were numb from hitting the wall by accident so many times, and she dropped the rock, giving up for a while. She should
probably sleep. If she was going to have to die, she’d prefer to have it happen as soon as possible. Survival was too god-damn tiring.
Maybe she was cracking up. Then again, the last few days had been pretty rough—she was entitled.
“Miss Powers, I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re going to have to be put to sleep.”
Sleep. Good idea. She fell forward into the dirt, with barely enough energy to turn her face out of it. She wanted to cry, but couldn’t get any tears out. Jesus, she must be really dehydrated. If she was longing for death, maybe she was getting her wish.
She should sit up. Go out fighting. Try and make herself keep going, no matter how awful she felt.
“‘You’ve got to have heart,’” she sang, and laughed. Could she possibly be getting a little—punchy? Just maybe?
With more effort than it was probably worth, she managed to sit up, but then couldn’t figure out what to do next. She puzzled over that for a minute, then decided to finish the song. It couldn’t hurt. Other than her throat. Which already hurt, so what the hell.
Singing the song cheered her up, so she went into “I Whistle a Happy Tune” from The King and I. “Tomorrow,” from Annie, was probably a little obvious—but, hey. She sang it with enthusiasm. With gusto, even.
Andrea McArdle’s reputation was safe.
Before going on, she suddenly imagined some poor hiker going by, hearing a squeaky little croaking of “Tomorrow”—and being absolutely terrified by the sound. Then, she thought of Bill Murray in Ghostbusters saying, “What a lovely singing voice you must have,” and laughed again.
Not that she had ever been able to sing. She was always threatening to sing for people, but she never did. Except for Vanessa, who would yawn—if, in fact, she woke up, in the first place.
In junior high, she had once cut through what she thought was a vacant lot near the school, singing “I Have Confidence” at the top
of her lungs, when she came upon a group of the very coolest kids in her grade, all of whom were standing around, ineptly smoking cigarettes. They looked at her; she looked at them. She considered her options—die from mortification, or shrug self-deprecatingly and continue on her way, and with her song. To maintain her last vestige of cool, she chose the latter, escaping with the tatters of her dignity. “If you’d been singing ‘The Seven Deadly Virtues,’ you might have pulled it off,” Beth had said later, after laughing for about twenty minutes. “Mmm,” Meg had said, less amused.
But, she would sing it now. What the hell. In fact, since The Sound of Music was her favorite movie in life, she sang several songs from it. Did her imitation of the Mother Superior singing “Climb Every Mountain,” even. The trick, was the quaver.
Gosh, time flew when you were having fun. She looked at the boards, seeing very little light left. Another day over. Christ, was this ever going to end?
“Yes, sports fans,” she said through her teeth, speaking to an imaginary audience. “It’s … Your Musical Journey to Hell. And coming up next, we have—” what?—“that old, that unforgettable favorite, ‘Tea for Two.’” She sang it very sweetly, remembering being on vacation when she was about eleven—her family, on vacation? Unbelievable—and seeing No, No, Nanette in summer stock up in Vermont somewhere. Her father had sung “Call of the Sea” for about the next year. When Meg suggested to her mother that this was very embarrassing, her mother reminded her of the year he’d spent singing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” “Next year, we’ll find a production of My Fair Lady somewhere,” she said, “I promise. We could live with that, right?”
The next year, naturally, had been an election year. Translation: no vacations.
Okay, okay, there wasn’t much point in getting angry. None of this was her mother’s fault. It was just—bad luck. If she’d had any idea that this could happen, she never would have—why did she
think Meg and her brothers had Secret Service protection, for Christ’s sakes? Decoration? If she really cared about them, she—no. Damn it. That wasn’t going to help.
It’d be interesting to know if the country thought she was a selfish, bad parent, or if they thought it was such a terrible thing that they felt sorry for her.
Tough call.
Angrier every second, she picked up the rock she’d been using, taking advantage of the energy to hammer at the chain. And hammer and hammer and hammer. It was almost completely dark now, and she missed practically every time, hammering until her hands were so numb and bruised that she had to stop, loosening her fingers from around the rock with some difficulty.
Her face felt wet and she touched her forehead. More perspiration. Terrific. How much time was that going to cut off her life? Minutes? Hours? She felt new, furious energy and yanked at the chain, using all of her weight, bracing her good leg against the wall. If her stupid hand were smaller, she could pull it through the cuff and—but, it wasn’t. She fought the chain until her muscles wouldn’t work anymore, making no progress, then slumped into the dirt to try and catch her breath, her ribs damn near on fire from the effort.
All she had accomplished was more perspiration. Swell.
She lay in the dark for a long time, too exhausted to think about being angry, or scared—or anything.
Except that death was sounding better and better.