Creepers

43

It reeked of age and dust. "No," Balenger begged. "Take it off."

"What would be the fun in that?"

In panicked sightlessness, Balenger heard Tod cross the room.

"So long, everybody!" Mack said.

"It's been great!" JD said.

Balenger heard them descending the staircase, the sound of their footsteps getting fainter.

In his tortured memory, he sat tied to a wooden chair in a dirty concrete-block building in Iraq, a sack over his head, while the only one of his captors who spoke English threatened to decapitate him. Until this moment, he was certain that nothing more terrifying could ever happen to him.

Now he realized how wrong he'd been. The second time was worse. This was worse. Thunder booming. Rain pelting. Unable to see anything through the pillowcase except the faint light of the candles and the dim beam of the professor's headlamp pointing up from between his legs. The lamp's glow barely pierced the sheet that covered the headless body.

Yes, this was worse. Duct-taped to a chair. Breathless under the hood. Knowing that three other people shared the same death sentence. Waiting for Ronnie. Not being able to see when Ronnie arrived. Not being able to hear his footsteps because of the wind, the thunder, and the rain. Ronnie might be standing in front of him right now, about to slash with whatever he used to cut off the professor's head.

Balenger's chest heaved. His breathing was so labored, he didn't believe he could survive. Sweat surged from his body, from every pore, more sweat than he thought could possibly gush from him. It soaked his clothes. He was hot and then suddenly cold. Shivering, he told himself that now had to end sometime. It couldn't be prolonged forever. He'd managed to make it last a year since Iraq. A year was something. A year more than he'd expected. But now was about to end.

Thunder shook the building. Was Ronnie standing silently in front of him, about to use a scythe or a sword or a butcher knife? Will I feel the force of the blow before my throat gushes blood and my brain shuts down?

Hero. That's what Tod called me. Hero. A joke. A putdown. Hero? I toss from the same nightmare every night. I wake up exhausted, afraid to get out of bed. I needed every ounce of my remaining strength to force myself to come to this godawful place. All of it gone. Hero? The son of a bitch. Leaving us to die. The cock-sucker. Putting this pillowcase over my head. I won't let him get away with this. I'll find him. I'll track him down. I'll squeeze my hands around his throat. I'll…

"Vinnie!" Balenger's voice was muffled under the pillowcase. "Can you hear me!"

"Yes!"

"Can you move at all? Maybe there's a nail or a jagged edge of wood that you can rub the tape against and cut it!"

"Too tight!"

Balenger heard someone sobbing. At first, he thought he was disassociating, hearing his own sobs. Then he realized they came from Amanda.

"Amanda, we haven't been introduced." Under the circumstances, the normal-sounding statement was insane, Balenger knew. But he had to try to calm her. If they were going to get out of this, they wouldn't be able to do it with someone who was hysterical. "My name's Frank. That's Vinnie over there. And Cora's the gal near you. I guess I'm not supposed to say 'gal.' It's not politically correct."

Amanda's sobs changed rhythm, lessening. Balenger sensed she was puzzled. "So now that we're all acquainted, I want you to do something for me. Do you think you can move the duct tape and get out of the chair?"

"Trying."

Balenger waited.

Balenger sweated and felt time passing.

"No. It's too tight."

"Cora?"

"Can't. While that bastard was feeling me up, he really made the tape secure."

What are we going to do? Balenger wondered. His hot breath accumulated under the pillowcase, threatening to smother him. He strained to remember the room, to identify something that could help them. Glass. Glass on the floor from the table he'd broken.

"Amanda?"

She sniffled. "What?"

"Can you see the broken glass on the floor? Halfway between me and Vinnie."

Pause. "Yes."

"If I can overturn my chair and drag it with me, do you think you can give me directions toward the glass?"

"… Yes."

"I really need your help."

The chair was heavy. Balenger shifted his weight from one side to the other, but the chair resisted. When he shifted his weight harder, faster, the chair started rocking. Abruptly, it was off-balance. Unable to see and judge the fall, he couldn't prepare himself as the chair toppled sideways.

The shock of hitting the floor startled him. He rubbed his head along the carpet, hoping to tug off the hood, but sweat stuck the material to his head. It wouldn't come free.

No time! For all Balenger knew, Ronnie was directly outside the open door, smiling that neutral smile Amanda had described, amused by Balenger's pathetic efforts, holding a knife.

Now! Balenger told himself. Crawl! Although the tape was tight around his ankles, he could move his knees by flexing his lower body and pressing his hips forward. He dug his right shoulder and the side of his right knee into the carpet and did his best to shove the chair along. More sweat gushed from his body. Groaning, he felt the chair move a little.

Harder. Try harder, he told himself. His shoulder and knee felt burned by friction against the carpet. The chair moved a little farther. He gasped with effort.

"Amanda, how close am I to the broken glass?" Under the pillowcase, breath vapor beaded his face.

"Twelve feet."

No! It'll take me forever!

Try.

Can't.

Move!

Thunder roared. The walls shook. Then an eerie silence gripped the hotel. Between thunderclaps and rain gusts, Balenger heard something else. Distant. Faint. From the direction of the stairwell. Echoing up.

A shot.

"What was that?" Vinnie said.

"Don't think about it."

Move! Mustering all his strength, Balenger inched the chair forward. Twelve feet away? Too far. Can't make it.

Another shot.

Several more. Rapid.

"God help us," Vinnie said.

Harder. Try harder, Balenger thought. He heard screams now, far below, magnified by the stairwell, drifting upward.

"Please, God, help us," Vinnie said.

Balenger strained, moving the chair three inches.

"Wait," Amanda said.

"What's wrong?"

"You're going to bump into a coffee table. There's a candle. You'll knock it over."

And set fire to the room and get burned alive before Ronnie cuts off our heads, Balenger thought. On the verge of losing his mind, he wanted to shriek until his vocal cords hemorrhaged.

"Where's the table?"

"About ten inches to the side of your chair."

More screams from the stairwell.

"Where's the candle?"

"On the corner nearest you."

I'm never going to reach the broken glass, he thought. On the verge of exhaustion, he budged the chair in a different direction.

"You're going to hit the table," Amanda said.

"Want to."

"What?"

"Need the candle."

The stairwell was now silent. Twelve feet versus ten inches. Balenger groaned, flexed, and shifted the chair. Thunder roared.

"The corner's in front of your face," Amanda said.

Balenger inhaled as best he could, moisture beading his upper lip under the pillowcase. The tape was around his upper arms, but he was able to flex his elbows and move his forearms. He touched the table's smooth metal leg. Wincing from stress in his elbows and shoulders, fearing he would dislocate them, he groped higher, feeling the table's glass corner. Just a little higher, he thought. His elbows and wrists in agony, he reached over the table's corner and sobbed with relief when his gloves touched the candle.

He pulled it from its base and eased it over the table's side. He felt wax drip onto his Windbreaker. Holding the candle horizontally, he shoved its base between his legs. His thighs gripped it firmly. Seen through the pillowcase, the flame was just visible enough for Balenger to guide his taped wrists over it. He felt heat through his gloves and sleeves.

Duct tape doesn't burn. It melts. He imagined it bubbling and shriveling as he concentrated to pull his wrists apart. The heat intensified. In pain, he felt the tape softening, loosening. At once, the tape parted. He jerked his wrists from the flame and twisted them hard, freeing them from the remainder of the tape.

Dizzy from the accumulation of carbon dioxide, he tugged the sweat-soaked hood off his head and inhaled greedily. It felt glorious to be able to use both hands. He grabbed the candle from between his thighs and drew its flame along his left shoulder, melting the tape that bound his chest to the chair. His Windbreaker started to burn. The heat felt blistering. He transferred the candle to his left hand and used his gloved right hand to stamp out the flames on his chest.

The stench of melted duct tape made him gag, but he stifled the reflex and pulled at the separated tape, freeing his shoulders. Frenzied, he bent toward his ankles and melted the tape that secured them to the chair. He wavered to his feet. Tense, listening for more sounds in the stairwell, he reached down for a shard of glass, only to notice a knife among the equipment that had been dumped from the knapsacks. Sure, he thought, they had more knives than they needed. Somebody wanted to make room for more coins.

A footstep echoed in the stairwell.

Balenger rushed to Vinnie and sliced the tape at his shoulders, wrists, and ankles. He heard another footstep, higher in the stairwell. Vinnie took a shard of glass from the floor and ran to Cora while Balenger ran to Amanda. The two men hacked at the tape, working to free the women.

Lightning cracked. In its relatively quiet aftermath, the footsteps ascended. Slow and measured, they made Balenger think of someone who walked with painful deliberate care because of alcohol or drugs. Or maybe the sound came from someone so confident of the endgame that he didn't need to hurry.

Cora and Amanda yanked away the last of the tape and lunged from their chairs. Balenger noticed the hammer Tod had dropped on the pile of equipment. He threw it to Vinnie, then held his knife in an attack position.

"Turn off your headlamps." In the candlelight, he focused all his attention on the stairwell's black mouth.

The slow footsteps kept rising. Steady. Patient. A shadow appeared. Balenger prepared to attack. An arm waved up and down. A pistol was at the end of it. But the arm wasn't aiming the pistol. It was moving the pistol the way a blind man would use a cane, testing the area before him. A head appeared. Night-vision goggles. Tattoos. Tod. He emerged from the staircase. He looked dazed. In the light from the candles, Balenger saw that he was covered with blood.