Secrets to the Grave

54

The inky black of night paled to charcoal gray. The rain kept coming down.

Even beneath her trash bag garment Gina felt wet and cold to the bone. She had spent the night shaking, drifting in and out of consciousness. Every time she wanted to let go and sink into a deep sleep, Marissa’s voice shouted her awake.

Stay awake, stay alive!

Gina kept one long stick of the discarded lumber in hand to swat at the rats and mice that crept near, smelling her blood, smelling her fear. Though in the dead of night she was no better off than a blind woman with a white cane, feeling around for danger while danger kept just out of reach.

Over and over during the night she had caught herself thinking this couldn’t possibly really be happening. Marissa couldn’t be dead. And she couldn’t have been attacked by someone she had considered a friend. Yes, she had made a threatening remark, but she never would have followed through on it. She had been out of her head with panic. A true friend would have known that. A true friend wouldn’t have shot her and left her for dead because she had said something stupid.

She was so tired. She knew she was in danger of dying from hypothermia. Her body wasn’t making enough energy to try to keep itself warm. With the cold rain coming down, that would only intensify. Dehydration was only making the situation worse.

Her body needed fuel. She hadn’t eaten in—what?—three days now? As enough light filtered down the shaft of the well, she tried to make out some of the garbage that had fallen from the bag she was wearing. She looked for anything that might be edible, something that wouldn’t be moldy or rotten.

Using the stick for a reaching tool, she inched a crumpled potato chip bag toward her, and found a few chips and a mouthful of crumbs. They were stale and soggy, but they were calories, and the salt tasted good. She mentally thanked the unknown teenagers who partied at this desolate spot.

Over the next hour, Gina became more skilled with the stick, snagging a wrapper with three bites of a Snickers bar inside, and a McDonald’s bag with a couple of stray French fries, a packet of ketchup, and a dried crescent of bun from a not-quite-finished hamburger. She ate all of it and prayed it stayed in her stomach.

If I can find enough strength—

You have to, G. You will.

If I can get up—

Get up! Don’t think about it. Get up!

I’m trying!

No, you’re not!

Shut up!

“Shut up!”

The sound of her own voice startled her, making her realize she had drifted off again. She had stopped worrying that she was hallucinating. Whatever dire condition hallucinations indicated, it was better to have company—even if the voice existed only in her mind.

The saltiness of the junk food had made her thirsty. She found a discarded water bottle with half an inch of dirty water in the bottom. Using her T-shirt over the mouth of the bottle, she filtered the water into her own mouth and drank it, grimacing at the taste, and fighting not to gag.

A rat scurried over her feet and disappeared into the empty McDonald’s bag, only its long naked tail sticking out. Gina shrieked and jumped, the pain exploding in her broken ankle and racing up her leg like a wildfire. She swung her stick at the McDonald’s bag and the rat shrieked and jumped and ran backward out of the bag, then leapt onto the thick vine hanging down the wall and disappeared into the crevice where the concrete had broken away.

Gina cursed and screamed—at the rat, at her predicament. But she quickly realized the favor the rat had done her. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins now, bringing energy, dulling pain.

She looked to her right, to the iron rungs cemented into the wall. Her only way out of this hole. She looked up at the doors above her. It had to be twenty-five feet. That didn’t sound like much if the distance was horizontal, but the distance was vertical and more than three times the height of the average household ladder.

Gina had the use of one arm and one leg. Her left arm hung useless at her side. Her right ankle was so badly broken the foot was turned perpendicular to the shinbone.

You have to do it, Gina.

I know.

You have to do it now.

I know. I know! I KNOW!!

Get mad!

I AM!!!

To prove her point, Gina lunged to the right with her upper body, caught hold of one rung, and pulled as hard as she could, a roar of fury and pain and frustration tearing her throat raw.

Her body moved a matter of inches. Her consciousness dimmed. She pulled in a deep breath that burned in her left shoulder and ribs, and pulled again at the rung as hard as she could. She swung her left leg to the side and with the toe of her foot pushed off the wall, shoving herself another few inches closer to the ladder.

She had moved herself a total of two feet. Exhausted, she let go of the rusty iron rung and fell against the filthy wall, banging the side of her head on the next rung down.

She was sweating and weak. All over her body tiny erratic electrical impulses were causing individual muscles to twitch and tick.

And she had twenty-five feet to go ... straight up.