Burning Time

50

It came every few minutes, a sound like thunder. The roar, like an undertow, pulled Emma back to the place she didn’t want to be. It was a noise she knew. What was it?

She opened her eyes cautiously. It roared again and didn’t seem to be in her head, even though a lot of other things were. Terror all the way through, and a fog so dense she couldn’t figure out what had happened, or how long she’d been there. Her throat was dry, and hurt so much she thought he must have tried to strangle her. She couldn’t stop shivering, just couldn’t stop.

He had left the light on. Now she saw the skylight in the ceiling. It had been covered with garbage bags and carefully taped around the edges so no light could get in. What else could she see? She lifted her head. He wasn’t sitting beside her. He wasn’t pacing around the room with the knife or the gun in his hand. He must really have gone.

His face was empty and hard, like a robot’s. She shuddered. There was nothing remotely familiar about him. She still didn’t know who he was, or if she had ever known him. North High School was a long time ago. A year in hell with people she had struck from the record of her life, as she had so many times before. Every time they moved to another base, the life they had before was gone. Everyone they knew and saw every day disappeared, and the system was replicated in another setting. Emma grew up believing that people left behind were erased completely, and that she alone had memories of things that happened.

Her heart wouldn’t slow down. He was going to come back. She was so scared she could hardly breathe. All these years she thought she’d been alone, and she’d never been alone. He had been there all along, following her down the dark school hall that night and watching what happened. He was the only one who knew. And he killed Andy.

She believed him. She had never thought for a minute that Andy’s death, a few days before graduation, was an accident. But she thought she was the one who murdered him. She had made a wish on a star, asked some almighty power she hardly believed existed to kill the bastard. End his life before he got to college. She hated him so much that when he died, there was no doubt at all in her mind she alone was responsible.

Her head hurt. Bits of story lines from plays and movies drifted through, along with her own memories, confusing her. She thought of Equus, the play about a troubled boy who blinded horses because they’d seen him making love. Was this that? There was a psychiatrist in that, too.

It was horrible being naked, unbearable having him look at her and touch her with the gun and the knife point. She tugged desperately on the ropes around her wrists, had to get away. What had Jason said about people who were really crazy, so crazy they couldn’t be reached at all?

When he was in training, he had a patient who got on all fours and barked at him. For months he got on the floor every day and barked back at her. One day the woman got up and sat in a chair.

“You have to enter their world,” he said, “but you can’t go in there with them.”

“Don’t go in there with them,” she muttered. I’m in there with him.

“Oh, God, help me.” She was afraid to scream.

When she was little, her bones were so soft she could get out of any ropes, any wrestling hold. The kids practiced all the time, playing military games. “You’re my prisoner, try to get away.”

“You’re a POW, hung by your wrists with a hundred and twenty rats gnawing at your feet.”

Emma pushed through the pile of images, trying to find the right one. She saw herself sitting on the floor and sobbing as each hostage hit American soil. This wasn’t that.

She didn’t know how he got her there, or when. What did she hear? She heard street noises, the growl of traffic, a truck backfiring. But she also heard the sound of a garage door opening and a car pulling out.

She must be in a house. There it was, the roar again.

She screamed. “Help!”

Screamed again.

“Help me!”

Silence. She had to get out herself, must find a phone.

She turned her head. She could see windows on both sides, but the shades were drawn. There was no clock in the room. The stove in the corner next to the sink was an old one, didn’t have a clock. How much time had passed? The table was bare except for a paring knife. She focused on the paring knife. She had to get out of here. How long did she have before he got back? Five minutes, ten?

Drip, drip, drip.

She lifted her head. The sound of a dripping faucet reminded her that she needed water. The room spun as if she were drunk, or dying of thirst in a desert. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again she had no idea how much time had passed or what she was doing there. Her throat was very sore. She thought about water, then concentrated on the ropes.

The ropes were loose, loose, loose. So loose she could pull right out of them if she moved the right way. Her wrists were covered with Vaseline; and she saw her hands, small as a baby’s, slipping out of the loops. She saw Billy Budd hanging by the neck on the mast. They all went to the same schools, played together, but officers’ kids sat on reserved benches at the movies. Movies every night, from Kodiak to Norfolk to Barber’s Point, Hawaii. Only officers’ kids were allowed in Officers’ Mess with the silver and starched napkins. “No, don’t die, Billy Budd,” she had screamed at the big screen outside, making everyone laugh.

“Slip out.” Before you choke. It’s easy. She folded her left hand in half, squeezing her thumb into her palm and her little fingers together. Her fingers were long and thin. Her hand pulled out. She swallowed back the terror that he would catch her.

Better to move. The other hand was more difficult. The nylon rope bit into her wrist. Then, after a brief struggle, her right hand was out. She sat up. After all these years, Billy Budd was free.