Constant Fear

CHAPTER 20

The darkness was total. Whoever had blindfolded Andy had done a fine job of it. He couldn’t move his arms or his legs except to wiggle them back and forth a little. He still had circulation in his limbs, but those were starting to throb. The fear became something Andy could actually taste: sour, acidic, all-consuming.

Where he was, Andy couldn’t say. He was seated on a hard-plastic chair somewhere in the school. Even if he’d had the forethought to count his steps, Andy didn’t know which direction they had walked, or the precise distance between the Terry Science Center and any of the surrounding buildings.

The speed at which everything had happened bent Andy’s mind. Space and time seemed to fold in on each other. One moment, Andy and Ryan were squared off, ready to go at it, and the next he was tied to a chair.

He called out for help, but a gag in his mouth silenced those cries. The blindfold covered his ears, and Andy could hear his own muted grunts as if they were coming from inside a seashell.

Andy thought back to the moments before his abduction.

When the man wearing protective chemical gear appeared in the abandoned second-floor hallway, Andy figured the fight with Ryan was over. He lowered his arms. Ryan, with his back to the stairs, kept a fighting stance. The man tapped Ryan several times on the back and pointed to the stairs. Maybe he couldn’t be heard through the protective hood covering.

Get out, his gestures conveyed. Get out now.

Ryan hesitated, but the man pointed at the stairs with added urgency. Ryan held his ground. He wanted to be left alone to finish what he had started. The man stepped into the hallway, spun Ryan around, and shoved him hard from behind. Ryan stumbled toward the stairs. The man took a few threatening steps toward Ryan, who turned-no hesitation now-and bolted down the stairs as though the hallway were on fire.

What got Ryan so spooked? Andy wondered.

Andy went to join Ryan, but the man in the suit reached out and seized him by the shoulder as he passed. He held Andy in place, watching the stairs. Waiting. What was he looking for? No one was there. They were alone in the hallway. Andy tried to pull away, but the man held on.

Without provocation, the man unleashed several quick jabs into Andy’s gut. Andy’s mouth opened wide. His face writhed in pain, but the screeching alarm swallowed every bit of his scream.

The attacker shoved Andy down the hall in the opposite direction of the stairwell. Andy regained his balance and whirled around, thinking only of escape. He juked left and went right, but the man wasn’t fooled. Inside a breath, he clinched Andy in a crushing embrace. Instinctively, Andy pushed his hips back to try and create some space from his attacker. The key, he knew, was not to panic, but Andy was caught by surprise and reeling from those punches to his gut. He executed the move properly, giving a little bend at the legs before he unleashed a powerful strike to the face. The blow struck hard against the man’s face shield and caused no damage. Panic had got to Andy after all. He had done exactly as his dad taught him, but failed to account for all of the variables. A fight with Ryan Coventry was one thing, but a real life and death struggle proved to be something else entirely. A second later, the man had his hand wrapped around Andy’s throat.

The pressure on Andy’s windpipe was excruciating. He kicked his legs frantically, but had no leverage. The man pushed him back into a wall.

“No te muevas o mueres.”

Andy wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. He’d studied Latin in school, and while it helped with translation, the gun pressed under Andy’s chin made the order terrifyingly clear. The weapon seemed to have materialized out of the ether. With quick, fluid motions, the man wrenched Andy’s cell phone from his back pocket and shoved him into a nearby classroom. The man slammed the door shut.

Andy went to the windows. From there he could see students piling into waiting buses. Andy was about to open a window to scream for help when the man returned.

“Aléjate de la ventana,” the man said.

The man spoke Spanish. Who was this man? Where had he come from? What did he want? The hood made it hard to hear his attacker’s voice, but Andy understood the man’s gestures just fine. He moved away from the window.

The attacker removed Andy’s backpack; then he wrapped rope around Andy’s wrists. How could he say “too tight” in Spanish? Instead, Andy said it in English. No adjustments were made. The man knotted a blindfold over Andy’s eyes and slipped a gag into his mouth. Pressure on Andy’s shoulders settled him to the floor where he waited perhaps thirty minutes, maybe more. He didn’t dare try to escape. He couldn’t tell if the man was still in the room or not. He was helpless to do anything but wait. Then he was on the move. Escorted down a flight of stairs.

He felt cool air against his skin and figured they had gone outside. He had never heard the campus so quiet. Even weekends had some commotion, but now it was just birdsong and distant sirens.

Soon he was inside again. He was led down a hallway and into a room, up a short flight of stairs, where a chair was waiting for him.

Andy pounded his feet against the floor. It made a hollow sound. He thought the floor was made of wood. Hard to tell. He concentrated. He had nothing to focus on but his fear. The tightness in his chest could snap his ribs. His heart rattled about as if it had broken free.

Andy hollered and again made only unintelligible grunts. The gag made breathing difficult, and his lungs felt like they couldn’t get enough air. Andy inhaled a bit more oxygen through his nose, but the ache in his chest remained. He fought against his restraints, but managed only to chafe the skin. So Andy settled into his seat and he waited. If they wanted him dead, he would already be dead, Andy told himself. Something would happen.

It did.

Laura didn’t know these woods at all, but she wasn’t concerned about getting lost. The kid she spoke with at the regional high school told her about the path. According to him, it was a couple miles long, easy to follow. It had been easy to find, just as he promised. She was told the cross-country team used the path to train, and it was the fastest way from The Pep into town for anybody riding a bike.

The entrance to the path was nothing but a weed-strangled pullout on the side of a single-lane road several miles from where the chemical truck had crashed and spilled. Laura had seen where police had blocked off the access roads to the school and surrounding area, but a path through the woods was not worth guarding.

After she parked, Laura locked the car doors and set off on foot. The flat ground made it possible to walk quickly, but she was badly out of shape and could not keep a pace. Almost immediately Laura’s lungs began to ache. She regretted every stupid cigarette she’d ever smoked. She also regretted every major life decision she had made. She had left her home, her husband, and her son in search of a better life, only to find broken promises, lies, and missteps all along the way.

There were men, slick charmers or even worse, abusive men. There were hangovers, no shortage of those. And plenty of highs-coke, pot, Ecstasy, magic mushrooms. For Laura, avoiding heroin and meth had felt like a commendable display of willpower. When she got clean, she got clear and she could finally taste the ruin of her life. Her friends were people of convenience who went to the same parties, hung out at the same bars, and screwed the same guys. Take away the drugs and booze, and everybody in her life had the staying power of a lit cigarette.

She’d come east looking for Andy and Jake, ready to embrace them in whatever shape that took. She had no grand vision of a happy family reunion. In this way, Laura was not naïve. Maybe in time she could establish a meaningful relationship with Andy. It would start there, with her son. And there was no denying her feelings for Jake. Even so, it made her sad to be with him, causing her to focus on all the “what-ifs” of her life. It was a dangerous game to play. What if I didn’t leave? What if I weren’t so angry with Jake?

That was what had pushed her away. He had been selfish. He drank away their future. Her answer was to make a clean break from it all. Start over. And so she left on a multiyear walkabout, and was now on an unfamiliar path based solely on a hunch that her son was still at the school.

I’m looking forward to seeing you.

That was what he wrote in his last Facebook message to her sent yesterday. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Those few words meant so much to Laura. Men had told her they loved her. Friends had confided in her. But their words, which at the time had seemed so personal and intimate, paled in comparison to Andy’s simple six-word message. Andy’s words brought meaning to her life. Real meaning. She’d turned her back on her son. She vowed never to do it again.

The path narrowed. The clear and crisp morning had given way to afternoon cloud cover, and a misty rain fell and thickened the muddied earth. Her footing slipped as she quickened her strides.

Laura’s imagination dictated her pace. In one scenario, Andy was facedown in a hallway. He had inhaled too much of the chemical and was frothing at the mouth. Nobody was there to save him. His heartbeat was fading. But Laura would come to him. To protect against the chemicals in the air, Laura would wear the painter’s mask she bought at the hardware store. Perhaps it wouldn’t fully safeguard her from the fumes, but she could at least get Andy to safety. Her cell phone worked. She could call for an ambulance.

In another version, Andy was roaming the empty school with his pals like a pack of wolves. It wasn’t like he forgot about his meeting with her, more like he had to take advantage of the opportunity. No faculty. No other students. He and his friends would have the run of the place. Andy would be playing Frisbee on a quad, Laura imagined. Laughing with his friends. Laura would be able to hear him from the woods. She would emerge from the forest path, and Andy would see her. She’d be dirty, soaking wet, looking like a lost hiker.

She wouldn’t be upset with him. No, this was a demonstration of her commitment to their nascent relationship. She and Andy had made a plan to meet and she was damn well determined to keep it. And Andy would smile at her. At least in her mind, he would. He’d come to her, and they would actually hug. And he’d say, “Laura, what are you doing here?” Of course he’d say, “Laura,” not “Mom”-not yet… anyway. And she’d shrug and tell him nothing was more important to her than being with him.

“How’d you figure out where I was?” Andy would ask.

“I thought about what I would do when I was in high school,” Laura would say.

And then they would share a laugh.

At least in her mind they would.

The path widened, and Laura entered a wide clearing. The grass was dewy from the rain. In the distance, Laura could see the brick buildings of Pepperell Academy. She could see The Quad, too.

Nobody was outside playing Frisbee.