Dead Man’s Footsteps

9

Abby could not believe it – she needed to pee. She looked at her watch. One hour and ten minutes had passed since she had stepped into this bloody lift. Why? Why? Why had she been so bloody stupid?

Because of the fucking builders downstairs, that’s why.

Christ. It took thirty seconds to go down via the staircase, and that was good exercise. Why? Why? Why?

And now this sharp, biting urgency in her bladder. She had gone only minutes before leaving the flat, but it felt as if she had drunk ten pints of coffee and a gallon of water since.

No way, I am not peeing. I am not having the fire brigade turn up to find me lying in a puddle of urine. Not that indignity, thank you.

She clenched her insides, pressing her knees together, shaking, waiting for the moment to pass, then looked up at the roof of the lift again, at the gridded, opaque lighting panel. Listening. Listening for that footstep she was certain she had heard.

Or her imagination had heard…

In movies, people pulled the lift doors open or climbed out through the roof hatches. But in movies lifts did not sway like this.

The desire to urinate passed – it would be back, but for the moment she felt OK. She tried to get to her feet, but the lift swung wildly again, banging into one of the shaft walls and then another with that deep, echoing boooommmmmm. She held her breath, waiting for it to stop moving. Praying the cable was still holding. Then she knelt, picked her mobile phone off the floor and dialled again. Same sharp beep, same no-signal message.

She placed her hands on the doors, tried to force her fingers into the gap down the centre between them but they were not moving. She opened her handbag, rummaging inside for something she could ease into the tiny crack. There was nothing there other than a metal nail file. She slid it in, but after a couple of inches it hit something solid and would go no further. She tried moving it to the right, then sharply to the left. The file bent.

She pressed every button on the panel in turn, then slapped the wall of the lift in frustration with the flat of her hand.

This was just great.

How long did she have?

There was another ominous creak above her. She imagined the cable of twisted wires steadily uncoiling, getting thinner and thinner. The bolts fixed to the roof shearing, bit by bit. She remembered a conversation at a party some years ago about what to do if a lift cable snapped and the lift plunged downwards. Several people said to jump just before you hit the bottom. But how would you know when you were going to hit the bottom? And if the lift was plunging at maybe a hundred miles an hour, you would be plunging at the same speed. Other people suggested lying flat, then some wit said your best chance of survival was not to be in the lift in the first place.

She was with that wit right now.

Oh, Jesus, this was so ironic. Thinking back to all she had gone through to be here in Brighton. The risks she had taken, the precautions to leave no trail.

Now this had to happen.

She thought suddenly of the way it would be reported. Unidentified woman killed in freak lift accident.

No. No way.

She stared up at the glass panel, stretched, prodded it with her finger. It did not move.

She pushed harder.

Nothing.

It had to move. She stretched as much as she could, just getting the fingertips of both hands against it, and pushed with all her strength. But her exertions only made the lift sway again. It bounced off the side of the shaft once more with the same dull booommmmmmmm.

And then she heard a scrape above her. A very distinct, long scrape, as if someone was up there and had come to rescue her.

She listened again. Trying to tune out the hissing roar of her breathing and the drumbeat thump of her heart. She listened for what must have been a full two minutes, her ears popping like they did sometimes on an aeroplane, although then it was altitude pressure and now it was fear.

All she could hear was the steady creaking of the cable and the occasional cracking, rending sound of metal tearing.