Allison Hewitt Is Trapped (24 page)

She’s right on me now, so first things first. I check for a gun but don’t see one, not in her pocket or tucked into her waistband. She’s a solid linebacker of a woman so they must not have armed her. This is going to be worse, much worse than I thought. When she’s bent over to look at the screen I spring into action, snatching the power cord from behind my back and throwing it around her neck. She straightens up in surprise, staggering backward a few steps. But I’m ready for her, I have been for the last hour, and I jump to my feet, faster, more agile. I grab the other end of the cord and pull, hard, tightening the plastic around her neck.

I hear Ned’s hands hit the wall, his fingers tightening around the chains.

The laptop is open, the screen pointed at us, the pale, stark light falling on our struggle. Helga has almost a foot on me and when she bends over it lifts me right off my feet. My grip is good and strong and I tighten it again, the cord meeting the hard knot of her throat. This looks so much easier in the movies. She decides she won’t throw me off her back that way, so she slams herself backward against the concrete wall.

This is an unfortunate and unexpected turn of events.

My spine shudders as she tries to crush me against the wall, sandwiching me between her sweaty back and the concrete. But I won’t let go and I realize now that who lives and who dies depends on which of us can stick to our guns.

“Allison! Allison, no!”

I can hear Ned screaming wildly, shaking the chains of the wall. His voice is starting to fade, though, as I feel my lungs giving way from Helga grinding me against the wall. My vision is getting bad, blurry, and it’s becoming impossible to breathe. But I imagine my mom, the Post-it note and her face, her voice urging me on, telling me not to quit.

My hands are slipping on the hard plastic cord but it’s not from my sweat. There’s something slippery on the cord, and seeping in around my fingers. I can’t let go, can’t let my grip go for even a second. I pull harder, the last breath in my lungs coming out in one long scream as I feel my fingernails digging deep into my palms. Helga is making this terrible noise, gargling and grunting and flailing back against me. She’s covered in sweat and I can feel the front of my shirt getting soaking wet. It hurts and hurts, my chest aching like I’ve just gone round after round in a boxing ring. My heart and lungs are going to explode any minute, and if I can’t get one more gasp of air, just one, I’ll be dead. Ned’s voice is rising higher and higher and the chains are rattling and rattling …

If only the cord weren’t so damn slippery, if only I could breathe, if only my eyes would hold on for one more second …

Then it all goes slack and dark and I’m pitching forward. I don’t know if I’m dead or alive, if Helga has won or finally given up. I hit the floor hard, my elbow screaming with a hundred pinpricks as it hits the concrete. Maybe my arm is broken, maybe I’ve finally run out of air …

When I wake up my arm is aching and my head feels like it’s been split open again. I can hear someone crying softly, sobbing.

“Ugh.”

“God!” Ned practically screams. “Fuck! Goddamn it, you’re alive! Damn it, Allison, don’t fucking … God … I thought you were dead.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two minutes maybe.”

I slowly sit up, maneuvering the laptop until I can see what’s all over my hands. It’s blood, tons of it. Helga is on the floor a few inches away, facedown with the computer cord still looped around her neck. I roll her over with my foot and see that the plastic had started to chew into her skin. I wipe my hands off on her sweaty shirt and take a moment to steady myself. My chest still aches but air is getting to my lungs and my pulse is starting to regulate itself.

“I can’t believe it.”

“No shit,” I say, getting shakily to my feet. We need to get going fast before someone comes to check on Helga. I pack up the laptop and wipe the cord off on her jeans. I take the keys and let myself out and then unlock Ned’s padlock. His bright blue eyes meet me at the door. My hands won’t stop shaking.

Ned picks me up and we hug for a long minute, relieved, terrified, his whole big body trembling like mine.

“Let’s go get your kids,” I whisper and together we skulk away into the shadows, Helga’s flashlight in one hand and the ring of heavy keys in the other.

COMMENTS

Isaac says:

October 28, 2009 at 11:07 am

Yes! I knew there had to be more.

Allison says:

October 28, 2009 at 11:45 am

Sorry for the delay. Takes a while to type all that shit up.

Isaac says:

October 28, 2009 at 12:09 pm

Well then type more … and faster!

Andrew N says:

October 28, 2009 at 12:17 pm

No more word from Elizabeth? The ocean seemed feasible but now we’re going to port, maybe for good. I’m afraid of the cold but more afraid of starving on a boat. If we’re lucky we can avoid the crazies hiding out in the woods and the hordes swarming the cities. I wish I could promise to stay in touch, Allison but I think we’re going off the map. When I think of you I’ll imagine you’ve found your mom, that you two are safe and sound.

Allison says:

October 28, 2009 at 1:52 pm

Andrew, I’m glad to hear you’re still going. Be careful, especially with those crazies. Seriously, they’re no good. I was hoping you and Elizabeth could meet up but at least you’re not stranded. Check in if you can, maybe we’ll catch up when things quiet down.

October 28, 2009—The Fires of Heaven

“Tell me it’s going to be okay.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“Now tell me we’re going to get our asses out of here alive.”

“Allison, I’m getting your ass out of here alive,” Ned replies. It sounds like a promise.

“Ned?” I ask.

“Yeah?”

“I know you might never meet her, but promise you won’t tell my mom I did that, okay?”

“You got it.”

From the moment we leave our prisons behind I can feel him closing in on me, staying close, hovering over me like I’m still in danger of dropping dead. He senses, as I do, a disturbance in the Force. This is a bad place, a very bad place, and we’re only now going to discover the thick of it.

We have the flashlight but I’m afraid to use it. I know we don’t have long. Soon someone will realize that Helga hasn’t returned. Her blood is still caked beneath my fingertips, ground into the cracks on my palms. We move as quietly as we can through the murky darkness of the basement. Without an ax or a gun I feel naked, but the only baseball bats we find are covered in foam and nothing can be fashioned into a respectable weapon.

I trip over a step and find the stairwell leading up and out of the basement. There’s a door at the top of the stairs faintly glowing from a crack of light. At the bottom of the door I see the shape of feet moving slowly back and forth, back and forth. We take a moment, huddling just on the other side of the door. If she’s facing away we might have a chance to get the upper hand, but if she’s watching the door then chances are we’re screwed.

Holding my breath, I slowly reach out and nudge the door open. By some miracle, the hinges are silent and the door opens a few inches. She’s facing the other direction, a soda can dangling from her left hand and a pistol tucked into the back of her high-waisted jeans. I recognize the pistol; it’s the kind we’ve been using for target practice at the arena. It makes me wonder how long they’ve been planning this exodus, how long they’ve been stealing supplies and scheming. At what point did they decide that just holding prayer circles wasn’t enough? On what day did they decide to abandon faith and brotherly love for zealotry?

I yank the pistol out of her waistband. She gives a startled, helpless little yelp but when she spins and finds the pistol aimed at her face she gets quiet real quick. I can’t even imagine what I must look like to her: my hair matted with sweat and blood, a laptop bag strapped across my chest, my hands and face streaked with the last gasping life of another human being. I can already feel the deep, aching bruises forming on my back and chest. I’m more or less sure that one of my ribs is cracked, because the pain there is constant, radiating upward toward my throat in red-hot waves.

“Where’s my dog?” I ask. She opens and closes her mouth a few times. She’s wearing a silver chain around her neck with a cross and a few little people made out of pewter. There are three little people charms, one for each child maybe. I take the pistol and grasp it by the cold barrel and let it fly. The grip hits her right across the cheekbone.

God I’ve always wanted to do that.

She flinches but Ned is silent and still at my side. I can feel his focus, his attention directed entirely at her, at our objective.

“I’ll ask you one more time,” I whisper, pulling the slide back on the gun, just to illustrate a point really.
“Where’s my dog?”

“H-he’s in the cafeteria at the end of the hall.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes, one hundred percent.”

“And his kids?” I ask, nodding toward Ned. Her gray eyes slowly shift toward him and a tremor starts in her chin as if suddenly afraid. I raise the gun barrel, making sure it’s level with her nose. “Answer me or I’m sure you’ll regret it. One hundred percent sure.”

“D-down the hall, east wing,” she says, pointing to our right.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Molly, Molly Albertson.”

“I’m sorry about this, Molly.” I hit her again, much harder this time, and she crumples against the wall. Ned lets out a long, deep breath and I do too. I didn’t realize I had been holding it in. He puts a hand on my shoulder and I find that my whole body is one stinging loop of tension.

“You any good with that thing?” he asks.

“No,” I reply. “Not really. Give me a good solid ax any day of the week.”

“Then give me that, you big baby.”

Ned takes the pistol, and just from the way his fingers wrap around the grip I know it’s best that he has it. He checks the magazine and frowns.

“Full clip,” he says. “I doubt she even knew how to fire it.”

“We can boo-hoo about that later. Kids first, dog second, conscience a distant third.”

It’s eerie, this place that should be a sanctuary, this graveyard of a building that should be filled with laughter and learning. It’s a relief that the halls aren’t crawling with more people like Molly, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder where everyone is. The feeling of wrong, pure, bone-chilling wrong returns, and I clench my fists to keep a shudder from rocking through my spine. We crouch as we slink along the walls. Why do we crouch? If they see us they see us, but for some reason this makes me feel stealthier. We pass classrooms, open doors, closed doors, and each room is painted in a different color theme—red, blue, green, indigo, daisies, roses, clouds. But everywhere there’s evidence of struggle, of death. There should never be blood on the floor of a preschool, but here it’s on the walls, the floor, the ceiling, sprayed in every direction as if Jackson Pollock had a massive, day-long seizure. Interior design by Ed Gein.

I let Ned go first since he’s got the gun. Every time we pass a classroom I experience a sickening jolt of fear, expecting anything and everything to burst out from behind the toppled desks and piles of miniature chairs. But no one comes for us. There’s nothing in the hall to focus on, but far ahead, at the end of the hall, I can hear a bizarre sound like a drum.

“Kumbaya Hour at the loony bin,” Ned mutters, shaking his head. We’ve almost gotten to the end of this corridor and so we begin checking every room carefully, searching for any small sign of Mikey and Evan. I want badly to believe that they’re fine but the empty halls and the strange, pulsing drums farther on are giving me an inescapable feeling of dread.

“You okay?” Ned asks.

“Me? Yeah, fine. Why?”

“You’re just … breathing awfully heavy, that’s all.”

“Sorry. Lungs hurt.”

“You are one lucky son of a bitch.”

“Daughter.”

“My point stands.…”

We reach a fork, with two hallways going in opposite directions. It smells like something is burning, not the pleasant wood-smoke you smell outside in the fall, but bitter, acrid, like burning plastic or singed hair. It’s coming from down one of the halls and a pair of big, steel doors that look like they lead to a cafeteria or gymnasium. The distant, echoing beat and the emptiness of the hall is making me nervous and panicky, and I can’t help but glance in every direction as we try silently to decide which way to go.

“Look, let’s just go that way. If we get to the doors and there’s no sign of your kids then we can turn back,” I say. Ned is sweating, a dark ring forming around the collar of his T-shirt, his brassy hair wet at the temples.

I don’t know what it is about preschools but they’re bizarre, especially when you can feel the weird unrest of angry souls flickering around you. Why are little kids so scary? They’re just children. Maybe it’s our expectation that they’ll be innocent and pure. Corrupt that expectation and adults squirm like they’ve sat on a pile of snakes. There are no devil children here, but there’s the indelible presence of eyes, many eyes pressing and watching.

We keep checking doors, our movements becoming quicker, sloppier as we become desperate to find Evan and Mikey. I can feel Ned getting more and more nervous, and I know he’s wondering if Molly fed us a bunch of BS. The smoke and the smell are nauseating, the air thickening with a dark, ashy fog. We check room after empty room, coat closets and maintenance lockers and then finally, at last, we find Evan and Mikey in a teachers’ lounge just a few feet away from the big steel doors that are shut, the smell and the smoke belching out from the cracks along the floor and ceiling.

“Daddy!”

It’s a heavenly sound, so simple but filled with enough relief and excitement to make your heart spin. The boys give me a hug after they wrestle out of their father’s arms. Ned’s face is wet and he turns away to wipe the tears off his cheeks. The boys are a little dirty and scraped up, but otherwise healthy. It appears Corie has at least kept part of her wits about her.