They Disappeared

44

Somewhere in New York City

Cole woke in darkness.

His heart was beating fast because today they were going to get away.

But he didn’t move a muscle.

Ever since they’d found the handcuff keys he prayed that the guard wouldn’t realize that he’d dropped them. Chances were good they would not be missed, because ever since Cole and his mom were taken, the guards had only used the keys once to release Cole’s mom when they took her away.

Cole and his mother had held off acting on their discovery.

“We have to wait for the right time,” she had whispered.

Buoyed by the hope of escape Sarah decided they must make their move when their captors were at their weakest.

In the predawn.

“We’ll do it before sunrise,” Sarah had told Cole last night before urging him to get some sleep.

Now he was wide-awake, his heart racing as he checked on his mother lying on her mattress near him.

Sarah was awake, too, keeping vigil of the men far across the old factory floor where the scene was akin to a military encampment.

Snoring and coughing echoed in the still air.

Most of them were asleep in cots, or in sleeping bags on air mattresses. In the ambient light she saw a couple of them at the tables working at computers, talking softly on cell phones or to each other. The various tiny lights of their equipment winked and light reflected off the metal of equipment peeking from tarps.

Sarah studied their guard.

He was wearing a holstered gun.

He was in a padded high-back office chair some ten feet away where he’d spent much of last night in a lip-smacking feast of spicy-smelling food from a plate on his lap.

Now, his chin was on his chest and he was snoring.

Sarah gathered her chain and inched closer to the guard.

The luminescent digits of his watch showed 3:39 a.m.

The guard was out cold.

Sarah glanced toward the others in the distant darkness.

Now, she thought, we have to do this now.

Sarah moved to Cole, who retrieved the keys from their hiding spot.

When he tried the first one in his mother’s cuffs, it didn’t work. Neither did the second key. He glanced fearfully at her. She bit her lip, checked to make sure the guard was still sleeping, then tried the key in Cole’s cuff.

It clicked open.

She gasped, clasped her hands over his cuffs, then freed Cole from the chain. She closed his open dangling handcuff around his wrist so it would not make a sound. He now had two cuffs closed on one wrist.

“Heavy,” Cole said, testing the weight.

The metal against metal made a little noise but not too much.

“Okay, honey, are you ready?”

Fear flooded Sarah’s voice as she fought to stay calm for Cole.

“I think so.”

“Remember what we talked about?”

“Yes.”

“Each time I went to the bathroom I loosened the cover of the air shaft,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it leads to the next room.”

Cole nodded.

“Pull it off and find your way out of here. Just get out and tell the first person you see who you are and to call 9-1-1 and send police.”

“I’m scared to leave you, Mom.”

“I know but you have to be brave. I want you to get out and be safe.”

Sarah took Cole’s face into her trembling hands.

She couldn’t believe any of this, couldn’t believe all that had happened, that she was now pulling her son so tight to her that he nearly cried out.

Am I making a mistake to send him off like this? What if something happens? What if I never see him again? I’ve already lost Lee Ann. I could not bear to lose him. But it’s his only chance to get free, to be safe.

Cole stood; she kissed him frantically, squeezed his hands, tight.

So tight.

“I love you so much, honey!”

“I love you, too, Mom!”

Cole hugged her and she heard him gasp for air.

Then he moved soundlessly, crouching and gathering his chain, pulling it into the bathroom and carefully closing the door. If the guard woke it would appear Cole was using the toilet.

Their guards didn’t pay much attention to Sarah and Cole when they used the toilet because they were chained.

She watched as his tiny figure vanished in a blurring stream of thick, salty tears.

Inside, Cole flushed, using the loud splashing to mask the sound of him removing the air-shaft cover. He lowered himself, then entered the hole, glad there was enough ambient light for him to quietly squirm and crawl along the tin shaft until he exited through an uncovered end that opened into another large room that flowed into the rest of the factory.

Cole stood, then hurried from the room and across the edge of the factory floor.

He was nearly blinded by the dark.

Fear tightened his chest. He had to take baby steps.

I gotta get out of here.

As his eyes adjusted, Cole distinguished a dark minefield of shattered glass, pieces of twisted metal, broken boards with exposed nails and drums filled with unknown liquids. The scratching sounds and squeaks of small living things scurrying near him made his skin crawl. This place stinks. Holes in the floor opened to the lower level, like portals to an abyss. If I fall in one of those, I’m dead. And everywhere, bird droppings and the flap and coo of pigeons.

He tried to get a sense of the layout, a sense of direction.

I don’t know where to go. How do I get out?

The factory windows were at least ten feet from the floor, so trying a window wouldn’t work. Cole decided to stay close to a wall and follow it, hoping he would come to a door. Taking a moment to get his bearings, straining to see in the darkness, he slowly began navigating his way around stacks of pallets, crates, abandoned lathes and heavy motors smelling of oil, rubber and hydraulic fluid.

As he got closer to the wall, he was certain he’d glimpsed a metal railing for stairs. It looked like a landing and a door. Cole inched his way toward the stairway. He grew more certain it was a door out. His hope rising, he tried to hurry when the air exploded with the metal rattle of a steel bucket crashing a great distance.

He’d stumbled and kicked it.

Cole froze.

They must’ve heard the noise.

Cole headed for the landing and the door.

Please be the door out of here! He seized the handle and pulled but nothing happened. The door was sealed. Cole’s heart pounded with ferocity.

Should I go back and help Mom? Should I keep running?

Before he could answer he was moving fast along the wall until he spotted a set of metal stairs leading to a darker, lower level. There was a handrail; he seized it and as quickly as he could descended the stairs.

He nearly gagged at the smells of feces and sewer.

Holes in the floor above allowed for dim, diffused light.

Cole recognized the shapes of drums, a network of pipes and the outlines of massive generators.

Help me, please help me find a door, a window, something!

His pulse pounding, Cole spotted the shape of a door on the other side of the section. Hurrying toward it, he felt the odd sensation that he was flying, no, falling, into blackness…falling, falling-his stomach lifted to his mouth…oh, God, Mommy, Daddy-falling, then he was wet because… Water-he was completely submerged and sinking. His ears rang and he felt his body lifting. Breaking the surface, gasping; swinging his arms wildly, Cole seized a steel beam and felt a stone wall.

Brushing water from his eyes, Cole lifted his head to the gloom above, realizing he had fallen into a deep pit.