Run (14 page)

Back at Jack’s side I started to work on my ropes. With the nail in my right hand
, I worked on the rope that attached my right wrist to my left elbow. The angle was awkward and before long my arm was burning from the strain. I pricked and scratched myself several times with the nail. I had a brief thought of Tetanus, but pushed the thought from my mind.

There
, I felt a give in the rope. Another few minutes and I felt the rope give completely. I wiggled my hand and pulled. Finally, my wrist was free. My hand fell down, my arm almost numb. I spent a few minutes catching my breath. Once I stopped moving, I felt the pain and aches of my body come rushing back.

Now was the really hard part. The nail was in my right hand. I needed to free my left hand. My left hand was tied to my right elbow. I needed to somehow get the nail from my right hand to my left. With all of the signals my tired body was sending to my brain it was hard to imagine the mechanisms my body would have to go through in order to move the nail less than a foot. With a deep breath I let go of the nail. With the nail on the floor behind me I began to scoot my body down towards the nail. Moving backward was much more difficult than moving forward.
My legs were unable to help me like they had the other times I had moved. Instead, I moved inch-by-inch, slowly, scraping along the dirty floor as I went.

By the time I had moved enough and gotten the nail in my left hand
, tears had begun to roll down my cheeks, tears of exhaustion, frustration and pain.

Fortunately for me
, my left arm was much easier to free than my right. The rope was already somewhat loosened by my freed right arm. Within a few minutes I had managed to free my left arm as well. Shaking, crying, and fighting off my new best friend, nausea, I moved my arms in front of me. My arms were on fire. Hours of being held in the same position with joints pulled in directions they were unused to left me feeling as if the limbs had been beaten and cut. Once my arms were in front of me, I was able to confirm that they felt like they had been beaten and cut because they had been. Bruises from the initial assault, cuts from scraping across the floor and the struggle to free myself decorated my arms. Although free and held loose in front of me, my limbs shook uncontrollably. I sat there for a few seconds shaking, crying, and trying my hardest to not throw up.

Memories of Emily
are what finally prompted me to move. I still needed to free my legs and then free Jack. I was worried about Jack. Aside from a few groans, he had not moved since Pheares had deposited him against the pillar. I needed to get free. I needed to free him. I needed to help him. Motivated, I used the nail to assist me in freeing my legs. Compared to my arms, it was mere seconds before I was finally free and able to move. I stood and fell right back down again. My legs were asleep. It was time to crawl again.

A look to the muted blocks of sunlight on the floor showed that a few hours had passed. Since it felt like days since the killer had left and I had begun my struggle to free myself
, the fact that it had only been hours was surprising and motivating. I didn’t know when he was coming back, but if we were going to get away, it had to be now.

Freeing Jack
was a cakewalk compared to my previous struggles. Once at Jack’s side, I began working on the knots holding him captive. With both of my hands and my trusty nail friend, I had him free in a few minutes. The entire time I talked to him. I told him my plan. I told him what I had done so far. He moaned and moved a little, but he didn’t wake up.

With Jack and I both free it was time to get out of here.

Okay, Charlotte, move
.

The first thing I needed to do was to find a way out.
Before I started looking for a way out, I made Jack as comfortable as I could, rubbing his arms to try to get the blood circulating again. If he felt at all like I did, his arms were going to be sore. Jack groaned and blinked his eyes.

“Jack, Jack
. Come on, please, wake up.”

“Jack
.”

He blinked again but didn’t wake up. O
kay, so I was still on my own. My legs were still a little wobbly but I was able to stand. Every step I took I felt stronger, more sure. Keeping up a running commentary of what I was doing for Jack’s sake (and okay, my own, as long as I was talking I didn’t feel quite so alone); I began a survey of our prison.

My first pass around I found nothing. It was
n’t until my third pass around that I spotted a window about 5 feet off the ground where the boards over the window were loose. It seemed like my best bet. I found a half broken box in the debris pile I had found my trusty nail friend in. Speaking of my trusty nail friend, I still had it clenched in my fist. The nail somehow seemed like security, like it had saved me. Silly, but I found myself unable to throw that nail away … instead I put it in my sweatshirt pocket. With my rusty little friend safe, I started piling the box and other debris under my target window. I was about to step up on the box when a voice I was waiting for carried across the warehouse.

“That’s not gonna work.”

I jumped and spun. Jack was looking at me. He was awake. Before I really knew I was doing it, I was across the floor and at his side.

“Jack
.”

I didn’t have anything else to say
, just his name.

“Hey
, looks like you’ve been busy.” His voice was weak and shaky but he was awake. I didn’t realize how scared about him I had been until I heard his voice.

“Well
, you know, idle hands and all.” I laughed … I sounded a little hysterical.

“That pile isn’t going to hold you
,” Jack nodded across the floor.

“If I can just get the boards off
, we can go out the window.”

“Char
, I’m not going anywhere. I can’t. I’ll help you get out and when you are out, you run, you hear me? You run and you get help.”

“No
, I’m not leaving you. We will get out together.”

He just looked at me.

“Help me up.”

With my
shoulder under his arm, we got him to his feet. Like me, he was wobbly. Somehow he kept himself on his feet. We just stood there for a few minutes. Finally, he nodded and we started across the floor.

It was long
, slow, and painful. Jack was weak and hurt, and while I may have been the stronger of the two of us, I was hardly feeling good enough to compensate for his weakness. Somehow leaning mostly on each other, we made it across the floor and to the window.

Once there
, we rested. Minutes stretched and neither of us moved. We just leaned against the wall exactly as we were his arm still around my shoulder. Part of me just wanted to rest my head against his shoulder and stand there.

Inside
, though, I heard a whisper of urgency. We needed to move. We needed to go. He had been gone so far, but he was coming back and it would be best if we weren’t here when he did.

With urgency pushing me on
, I climbed onto my rather precarious stepladder. Jack used his feet to brace the pile and gave me his shoulder to lean on. Pulling the boards off the window was easier than I had expected. The difficult part was keeping my balance. Each time I shifted my weight, my makeshift stepladder shifted as well. More than once Jack’s shoulder was the only thing that kept me up.

It took me about
fifteen minutes, but before long I had a space large enough to slip through.

“Ok
ay, look at me. Stick to the trees and follow the road. Once you find people, anyone, use a phone and call 911. When you call make sure to mention that there is an FBI agent in danger. They’ll pull out all the stops. Feel free to mention my name.” He grinned. “Okay, be careful.”

All through Jack’s speech I
nodded my head and looked attentive. In truth, I had no intention of leaving Jack behind. My plan was to find a rock, break the lock on the front door, and get us both out of here. I figured that if I told Jack what I was planning, he would argue with me, wasting valuable time.

I have never been the most coordinated person. My climb through the window was a little more like a headfirst fall, but I made it. A few more bruises were added to my collection, but considering my current state, I didn’t let it phase me.

As I had thought, a padlock and chain secured the front door. Time to try my padlock breaking strategy again. With rock in hand I took a few seconds to eyeball the lock. I swung the rock as hard as I could. The lock didn’t budge. The fifth time I hit the lock, it finally broke open. The entire time I could hear Jack inside yelling for me to get out of here. Obviously, I ignored him.

When the padlock finally broke
, I pulled the chain from the door and swung it open to see Jack glaring at me.

“What are you waiting for
? Let’s go.”

I don’t think he was amused
, but he followed me and we headed to the woods.

Chapter
20: April 8, 3:58pm – April 9, 5:12am

Maybe it was the most uneven ground I have ever walked on. Maybe the branches were really reaching up and grabbing me. However, I think it
was more likely that we were just exhausted. Either way, we were not quiet or subtle. We were running almost in a panic, like the hounds of hell were nipping at our heels.

Half
an hour ago when we had finally escaped, our plan was fairly simple. Stay in the woods, follow the road, and get help. That all changed though when we were barely concealed in the trees.

The driveway that lead to the warehouse was gravel. The sound of tires hitting the stones at the end of the driveway was distinctive. Our response was that of a frightened rabbit. We froze then we ran. I could only think of one person who would be turning down that gravel driveway and that one person was the last person Jack and I wanted t
o see right now. We were tired, hungry, thirsty, and beat-up. I had on sneakers but no socks. Jack had on good shoes but no jacket. We were unarmed. It was a good bet that the monster bearing down on us had none of those problems. The only thing we had going for ourselves at that moment was each other.

We pulled each other along, pushed each other,
grasping hands, and kept telling each other that we would make it. When one of us was weak, the other was strong. We were running from our own personal devil.

Each step we ran
, my feet dragged. Dusk was approaching and my drive, that force that had pushed me through this so far, was dwindling. Jack seemed inexhaustible. When we first started running, he had been at times dizzy or seemed weak. Now he was like a machine, he kept going. His hand locked in mine and his arm wrapped around my back was the only thing that kept my feet moving. He was the only thing that kept me moving.

It was only when I
realized I could barely see Jack’s face that I realized it had gotten dark. Jack was squinting in the darkness. When I started to speak, he raised his finger to his lips cautioning me to be quiet.

At the moment I was just happy to rest, even if it was just a few seconds.

“We can’t keep going like this. We need to hide and rest.”

Jack’s voice was hoarse, but his words
were about the most wonderful I had ever heard. My terror and pain had been taken over by exhaustion. At that moment, the only thing I cared about was getting rest. Looking back on it now, I compare it to migraines that I sometimes get. I have gotten migraines where the pain was so bad, so constant, that I would do almost anything to make the pain stop. I have downed what I knew to be way too much medicine in a frantic hope that it would somehow stop the pain. In that moment I don’t care if taking too many pills is bad for me or potentially harmful; all I want is the pain to stop. That night in the woods was the same way. I knew that stopping meant he might find us; that if he found us he would kill us. In that moment I didn’t care, I just wanted to sleep. So when Jack found us a hollow between and underneath two trees, when he dragged branches over the front and swept away our footsteps, I didn’t know or care, I was already asleep.

_____

Emily knelt in front of me. Forever sixteen but with ancient eyes that looked at me as though they knew exactly what would happen next.

“Emily, what are you doing here?”

“You’re almost there, Charlotte, you have to keep going, keep moving. You’re going to get out of this.”

“I’
m so tired. I want to make things right … to stop him, but, Emily, I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I am strong enough. I am so tired and I hurt.”

“You once said that I was strong. You said that he couldn’t break me. You
, Charlotte, you are strong.”

I felt tears slid
e hot paths down my cheeks.

“I don’t
…”

“You can and you will
… He is not as strong or in control as he thinks.”

She looked over my shoulder.

“You have to wake up now, Charlotte. You have to be ready. He’s coming.”

Chapter 21: April 9
, 5:12am – 5:48am