Play dead

SEVENTY-THREE
1:25 AM

Lilly had heard the vehicle pull away from the house, but she dared not move. She counted off three minutes. When she heard nothing else she slipped out of bed. Her shoes were neatly arranged at the footboard. She put them on.

Her legs were a little wobbly, but she soon recovered her balance. She moved to the window, gently pushing aside the velvet curtain. Beyond the iron bars she saw streetlights through the trees, but little else. She wondered what time it was. Outside was pitch-black. It could be 10:00 PM or 4:00 AM. It suddenly occurred to her that, for her whole life, she had always known where she was and what time it was. Not knowing these two simple things was as unsettling as any of part of this predicament.

Lilly turned, got a better look at the room. It was small, but nicely decorated. Everything looked like an antique. There were two drawers in the nightstand nearest to her. She pulled on the handle of the top drawer, but the drawer didn't move. Must be stuck, she thought. She pulled again, a little harder. Nothing. She tried the drawer below, with the same result. She walked around the bed to the other nightstand. The drawers were all nailed or glued shut. She gently shook the table, but she heard nothing inside.

It was as if she were in a zoo, or a museum replica of a bedroom. Everything was fake. Nothing was real, nothing worked. Fear wormed its way up from her stomach. Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to calm herself, then stepped up to the door and pounded on it with the heel of her hand. She put her ear to the surface.

Silence.

She looked at the bed. It was a single with a polished brass headboard. She lifted the down comforter and sheets. The frame was metal. If she could get the frame apart somehow, she could break the windows and start screaming. She didn't think she was close enough to another house to be heard, but you never knew. Besides, if she could get off one of the slats, she could use it as a weapon. She got down on her knees, felt beneath the bed. It all seemed to be welded together into one solid piece.

Fuck.

She sat on the nightstand and looked at the large painting next to her. It was of some castle on a hillside, surrounded by lush forest and flocking birds. Must be nice, she thought. The painting was crooked again. She must have brushed up against it. Without getting up from the nightstand, she reached out, pushed on the edge of the huge gilded frame.

She heard a noise, a low reverberating sound. She ran to the window. No headlights slicing through the darkness, coming or going. Either he had already pulled into the driveway and garage, or it was not a vehicle. The sound continued, growing a little louder. It was not a car. It was in the room.

Suddenly it stopped. Lilly glanced back at the wall opposite the door, and saw a passageway. A small door in the middle of the wall.

Lilly rubbed her eyes and looked again. She was not hallucinating.

No way it had been there before. Cautiously approaching, Lilly stopped at the door first, listened to the hallway. Still quiet. A loud noise made her jump.

The passageway was gone. Closed up.

She felt along the paneled wall, but there was no catch, no seam. It had vanished.

It took her ten minutes to figure out the sequence of events that led to the noise and the revelation of the door in the wall.

She had been sitting on the edge of the nightstand, her feet on the floor. She had reached over and pushed on the edge of the painting.

She did it all again, exactly the same way. A few seconds later the panel raised, and there was the little door again. It seemed to lead into a dark room, a dark space, a dark corridor, but none of that really mattered to Lilly. What mattered was that it was big enough for her to crawl through.

This time, she did not hesitate.

Before the panel could slide shut again, she crossed the room. She propped her shoes in the opening, entered the portal, and slipped into the blackness beyond.