Nine, Ten ... Never Sleep Again (25 page)

It didn't take
Astrid
many hours to lose track of time, but she
guessed it was getting closer to nighttime, since she was beginning to become
tired. She decided to lay down a little bit and closed her eyes and soon she
was sound asleep.

It wasn't until the morning the panic erupted
inside of her. She woke up and realized she was still trapped in the bunker and
now she was beginning to feel hungry. She got up and walked to the door again.
Then she started hammering it.

"Help!" she yelled but then felt bad.
Her mother always told her not to raise her voice.

"You're always so loud, Astrid. And shrill.
You should learn to keep your mouth shut. You don't have a pretty voice and
boys like pretty voices, so you stick to what you can do. You cook,
alright?"

"Yes, Mom."

Astrid sighed and decided to try again even if
she didn't like to be loud. "HEEELP! I'm in here! I'm trapped! Christian?
Can you hear me?"

She stopped and listened for footsteps or maybe
even voices. But still there was nothing. Nothing but the terror of silence.

She tried again. This time she clenched her
fists and hammered with all her strength against the iron door, and continued
till they became numb. Then she managed to put her fingers into the small crack
and tried to rip the door open, but it was stuck.

"Help!" she yelled while the feeling
of utter panic grew.

What if no one hears me? No
you stupid fool. Don't think like that.

She tried to scratch the door with her
fingernails, but had to stop because it hurt. Astrid sat down on the step and
covered her face with her hands. She was so hungry now. She looked up at the
ceiling.

Maybe there was another way out? There had to be
an air vent somewhere. Astrid got up and went to the end wall with the shelves.
She removed some blankets and touched the wall behind it, felt it, scanned it
for anything that could indicate that there was some secret passage way or just
a small hole that she could get through.

But there was nothing. She went through the
stuff on the shelves meticulously in the hope she could find something to break
the door open with. But she found nothing but the flashlight. She rose with it
in her hand and ran towards the iron door. While taking the last step, she
swung it and smashed it against the door, but didn't even make a bump.

She cried as she swung it again and again and
destroyed the flashlight, but never harmed the door in any way.

Astrid sobbed and fell to the cold stairs.

You really are no good, aren't
you
? she heard her mother's voice say.
Got yourself into trouble again. I knew you would.
He's not going to take care of you. Be a damned fool if he did.

No, no, Dr. Jansen says I'm
okay, remember? I'm good and healthy and strong. My man doesn't care about me
being smart or anything. He loves me, he said.

You fool. No one loves a
retard. No one, I tell you. No one!

Astrid wiped off her tears in disgust. Why did
thinking of her mother always do that to her? Why did it always make her feel
so bad about herself? No there had to be a way, there had to be. Astrid stared
at the canned food on the shelves, then sprang up and pulled one down. Luckily
it was one of those you could pull open. She didn't even need a can opener.
This was good, she thought to herself as she pulled it and the sweet smell of
ravioli hit her nostrils and tricked her deep hunger even more. This was very
good. Astrid searched everywhere and finally found a bunch of plastic spoons.
Relieved she sat down and started eating.

Things always looked better on a full stomach,
mother used to say. So as soon as she had finished this can, she would find a
way to get out of there.

We took the
last
ferry to get to the island. I had to drive past
the local police station to pick up the key to the house as soon as we arrived.
It was almost midnight as we finally found the right place. Everything was dark
now and the wind had picked up in the almost barren trees outside. I walked
through a pile of dead leaves someone had gathered with a broom earlier before
I entered the small building they apparently called a police station. The kids
wanted to stay in the car. Victor was asleep and Maya was listening to music on
her iPhone. I was tired now and looking very much forward to finally entering
my future home and throw myself on one of the beds. The house was still
furnished, I had been told by the lawyer who gave me the deed to the house. I
took that as a sign that I could move in right away.

"Are you serious?" Maya had exclaimed
when I told her back at the apartment. "Do you really want to live in some
dead woman's old furniture?"

"We'll get our own shipped over there
eventually, but until then, yes. Plus it's a really big house. We don't have
enough furniture to fill it up. I bet my grandmother's was nice. She was
loaded, you know."

"Couldn't she just have left us the money
instead?" my smart daughter argued. "Then we could build our own
house or stay in our own apartment and not have to leave the city for some
deserted island where only freaks would live."

"She left her money to grandpa, who's the
rightful heir to it being her son. I was just ... I'm sorry
we
were just lucky that we got this
splendid house out of it. I didn't expect to get anything."

"How do you know it was luck? Maybe the
house is really her way of getting back at you," Maya said and went to her
room.

I stuck my tongue out after her, and then
returned to my packing.

The police station looked almost deserted as I
entered. There was no one behind the counter.

"Excuse me?" I said and cleared my
throat. "Hello?"

"Freeze!" a voice said next to me.

I gasped and jumped. A guy came out of a door
pointing his fingers at me making them look like a gun. I raised both arms. He
laughed.

"Boy, you scared me," I said and
looked at him the way my annoying teenager did to me.

The guy laughed. I hadn't noticed until then,
but he was quite handsome. Blond with blue eyes, tall and very masculine. About
my age, maybe a little older but it was hard to tell. "I'm sorry," he
said. "I don't get out much as you can imagine. I don't get to have much
fun either. Especially not at night. Boy you should have seen the look on your
face."

"That was not funny. My heart is still
racing."

The police officer grinned. "I'm
sorry," he said again. "I really didn't mean to. It was just so
tempting."

"Okay, okay. I get it," I said.
"Maybe there is reason they don't let you get out much, huh? Maybe they
keep you at the nightshift for a reason?"

The officer tilted his head. "I never
thought about it that way. Hmm. Maybe you're right."

"You bet I am."

"I'm Officer Dan," he said and reached
out his hand. "Dan Toft."

I smiled and took it. "Emma Frost."

"Nice to meet you, Emma Frost," he
said and kept shaking my hand while still grinning.

"Likewise, Officer Dan."

He let go of my hand and went behind the
counter. "What can I do for you at this strange hour? Are you visiting our
island?"

"No. We're actually moving here. I was
supposed to pick up the key here? At least that's what my lawyer told me. I
thought it sounded strange but ..."

I never finished the sentence before Officer Dan
dangled the keys in front of my face. "These should be the ones. We do all
kinds of jobs for the public here on this station. Yesterday I walked Mrs.
Olson's puppy since she had fallen and hurt her leg and couldn't walk it
herself. Keeping people's house keys is the least of our jobs. It's kind of
nice though. We get to know people closely that way."

"Plus it means you don't have much else to
do, which means you don't have much crime here on the island. Must be kind of
nice, right?" I said and took the keys out of his hand.

"It sure is," he responded.

"Well, thanks," I said and started
walking towards the door.

Officer Dan ran in front of me and held it open
for me. I chuckled.

"See you around," he said as I walked
out.

I caught myself thinking I would really like
that.

He was
wondering what
kind of mood the old hag was in today
as he waited for the garage door to open, before he drove into the driveway.
The gravel was loud underneath the wheels of the Mercedes. Why she insisted on
still driving this old car when she could easily afford a newer model, Torben
didn't understand. But it was her car and her money.

Torben had worked for Mrs. Heinrichsen for as
long as he could remember. Drove her around to wherever she needed to be. Did
some handiwork around the house whenever it was needed or at least made sure
the right people were called to fix it. He was her
go-to guy
as they said in the movies. Torben didn't mind
that. In fact he enjoyed being needed by someone. Ever since his wife had
passed away six years ago the old house seemed so empty. The kids had moved
away many years ago, off to the mainland, to the big city to lives of their own
and soon forgot all about their old father rotting away on the island.

Back in the day when Mr. Heinrichsen was still
alive Torben had not liked his job very much. He simply didn't like Mr.
Heinrichsen and the way he treated people. Well the old lady wasn't much better
herself, and age didn't seem to soften her up, but Torben had known her now for
many years now and knew she wasn't so bad once you really got to know her. She
would boss him around, yes, but now that Yvonne wasn't alive anymore he quite
frankly liked to have someone tell him what to do from time to time. It had
that familiar feeling to it. Like he had a purpose.

Torben sighed and fixed his cap and tie to make
sure it was on straight. Mrs. Heinrichsen preferred him to look right. She
didn't like sloppiness and over the years Torben had learned to appreciate it.
You didn't find much of that these days anymore. Discipline, self-control. It
was all in the character and Mrs. Heinrichsen had helped Torben build his
character. She had made him stronger. Not with loving and caring attitude, no
by being harsh and hard on him when he needed it the most. Like when Yvonne
died. It had nearly broken him. He was about to slide into a deep depression,
when Mrs. Heinrichsen told him to stop feeling sorry for himself.

"Just get over it," she had said.

She had given him a day off to go to the
funeral, actually a whole week, but the next day he had shown up at her
doorstep, the cap in his hand asking her if she needed him today. He could tell
by the look in her eyes that she hadn't any plans, but she had come up with
some.

"As a matter of fact you're late," she
had said with her well-known snort that Torben had hated so much but suddenly
found very comforting, very familiar. "I have to see my hairdresser in ten
minutes and with all this traffic it's going to take at least fifteen."

"Then let's get going," he said with a
huge smile, then brought the car out. Of course the old lady didn't have an
appointment, but the hairdressers found time for her anyway. She had a way like
that. She could make people jump for her.

That was when Torben realized the old woman did
have a heart. They never talked about the death of Yvonne or Torben's sadness
again, but they didn't have to. Somehow they had found each other, a strange
sort of friendship in the middle of it all and that was enough for him. He
didn't need her pity or her compassion. He needed everything to go back to
normal, and so it had. It made coming home to the empty house a lot easier when
he knew there was someone needing him in the morning.

Torben whistled and waited in the driveway for
the big old wooden door to open, but minutes passed and nothing happened.
Torben wrinkled his nose. In all the thirty years Torben had worked for the
lady she had never ever been late once. A feeling of unease was starting to
spread in his body as the minutes passed by and shortly after, he couldn't
stand it anymore. Mrs. Heinrichsen was supposed to be at her lawyer's office on
the mainland at ten and if she didn't come out now, they weren't going to catch
the ferry.

Torben knew Mrs. Heinrichsen would be very angry
with him for doing this, but something compelled him to walk up the stairs and
walk into the big old house.

"Hello?" he said hoping Mrs.
Heinrichsen had merely overslept. "Mrs. Heinrichsen? The car is ready for
you? The ferry leaves in half an hour."

As he received no answer Torben's heart started
racing in his chest. This was not good; he thought and ran up the stairs and
down the hallway. He knocked on her bedroom door with the cap in his hand.

"Mrs. Heinrichsen. We're going to be
late."

He knocked twice, three times, and when there
was no answer after the fifth time, he took in a deep breath and did what he
had never done before. He walked into Mrs. Heinrichsen's bedroom.

"I'm sorry to do this but ..."

Torben froze by the sight of the old lady lying
on her bed with her empty eyes staring into the ceiling. Then he cried. Not
because he was reminded of the time he had come home and found his wife in the
same position, dead by a heart attack on the same bed she had given birth to
their two sons, not because he was sad that he was now going to be really alone
since no one would need his services any longer. No Torben cried because of
what had happened to her body. He cried and sobbed because never in his sixty
years of living had he been in the presence of such cruelty.

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