The Summer I Died

CHAPTER 22

I repeated the process ad nauseam. Sticking the “key” out, pushing the cuff on it, turning my wrist. Hour after hour I kept at it, until I could faintly hear birds singing the ain’t-it-great-to-be-alive song in the trees outside. And then, as my eyes were sliding shut. . the key flattened the lever, and the cuff opened just enough for me to slide my hand out.

And that was that. No fireworks, no dancing bears, no parade. Just me holding my hand in front of my face, straining to see it in the dark, and feeling my lips spread wide in an involuntary smile. I stood like that for who knows how long, motionless, sweat dripping down the nape of my neck, not believing what I’d just done. How long before I was able to get my head straight? It felt like it had been in a blender, shot into space and time-warped back.

I went to work on the other cuff, which was much easier to manipulate with my one hand free. Working furiously, I picked it the same as the last one, but for some reason it wouldn’t come open, the “key” felt wrong, like maybe I had bent it out of shape somehow. I tried to pull it out to check on it, but it was stuck inside the lock. FUCK! I nearly screamed. Instead, I jimmied it and prayed it would find the lever. My desperation to escape was now beyond need, like a drug, an impulse I couldn’t fight.

The whole while the voice in my head kept saying, Calm down, you can do it, don’t give up. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that voice sounded as if it came from somewhere else in the room as well. But I didn’t think on that too long. Besides, I was tired like a man forced to listen to a congressman’s speech, so I couldn’t be quite sure of what I was seeing or hearing. I just hoped it wasn’t a dream, because if I woke up and found myself still bound, well, I didn’t want to think on that either.

Maybe a half-hour passed, the faintest glow of light now seeping in under the door, when the cuff snapped back and the “key” dislodged.

I was free.

Soon as I rubbed my wrist to ease the pain I heard the voice again. Don’t stop, get free now.

Wasting no time, I went straight for the neck iron. Skinny Man was smarter than he let on, because the clamps around my neck prevented me from just leaning forward and stretching out for one of the tools against the far wall. Skinny Man was also a sly man.

I felt for the keyhole and plunged the sharpened buckle inside and rooted around. The lock was a different type than the cuffs, bigger and older. It probably used a skeleton key with several teeth. Of course, I couldn’t be sure in the dark, but I had seen the one used on Tooth so I figured it was the same.

Out of nowhere a cool breeze ran across my face. It smelled like the trees in the mountains outside. It smelled like freedom. Where it came from I didn’t care, under the door, a crack in the foundation, it didn’t matter; it spurred me on despite my heavy fatigue. A fatigue that had me feeling like I was walking in a dream.

The makeshift lock pick was having about as much effect on this lock as a finger would have on a woman with ten kids. It was just too small for the hole. I ran the dog collar through my belt loops so it wouldn’t fall to the ground, and with both hands, grabbed the chain that connected the collar to the metal plate in the wall. It was stuck fast. Yanking only hurt my arms and back, and the metal plate had obviously been built into the wall somehow and wasn’t budging.

Spinning myself around, my legs in a painful X, I faced the wall and got my first real look at what was holding me. The chain from the collar was welded into a link in the wall plate. No way it was going to come loose no matter how hard I pulled. The back of the collar had a hinge, and unlike the front which was locked with a padlock, it was held tight by a long screw. The screw allowed the collar to open and close, but true to Skinny Man’s precautions, it had no crevice for a screwdriver; it was smooth and solid and held tight by a nut on the bottom. Years of rust had fused the nut to the screw and the top of the screw to the collar, and no matter how hard I twisted it wouldn’t come undone.

With a wrench I could make a go at it, but with nothing but a dog collar I was back to square one. At this point I was a firm believer in making do with what I had. If a wrench was what I needed, a wrench I would have to make. So taking my new wonder tool from my belt loop, I turned it over in the wan sunlight, thought about how to modify it. I stuck the flat end of the buckle under an exposed lip in the wall plate and bent it upwards. You’d be surprised how strong the metal of a dog collar buckle is. Small and thick, it damn near refused to give. I was forced to bend down and use both my legs and shoulders, thrusting my body up before it started folding. The pain this caused the palms of my hands was excruciating.

I kept at it till I had folded it at about a sixty degree angle, forming a V. Once bent, no amount of prying by my bare hands would open it, which hopefully meant it was strong enough to counter the screw’s resistance. The nut, to my surprise, fit snuggly in the V. There was no time to ponder the convenience of it all-I just gave the collar a hard turn. With the screw rusted to the hinge, the nut began to give. My heart was beating fast, my tongue hanging out in some stupefied expression of determination. I twisted harder, till my back cracked like a brick of firecrackers, until the nut spun free. I grabbed it and twisted it, spun it faster and faster until it fell to the floor. Then ramming my palm against the bottom of the screw, I shoved it up and out of the top of the hinge. I pulled the clamp apart and let it swing back against the wall.

Rubbing my neck, I felt the cheese grater scars the collar had inflicted. Terrified as I’d been, I hadn’t even noticed how it had eaten away my skin.

Clomp, clomp, clomp.

Footsteps echoed above me and before long dust was trickling down from the beams overhead. My heart did zero to sixty in one second, slamming against my ribs, trying to escape my body. My stomach was doing somersaults. If Skinny Man came down right now I was a goner, my legs still shackled as they were. I thought about slipping the collar back on and putting the handcuffs back, but loose enough that I could pull free if I needed to, but I knew he’d never be fooled. The footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs. He took out his keys and unlocked the door. I froze.

The door didn’t open.

“Butch,” he said, “get yer ass out here and stop trying to get in the garbage. Sometimes you piss me right off. Always cleaning up after you. C’mon, get out here now. Now sit and listen up. We got a lot to do today and I’m gonna need your help so stop messing around. First thing we gotta do-what the? Where’s your collar?”

My heartbeat went from sixty to one hundred. He knew! Trying desperately to be quiet, I put my arms over my head and slid down out of the waist chain and stood back up a free man but for my feet. Quickly, I sprawled out across the floor, and reached for the big ax that lay in the light spilling in under the door. It was close, my fingertips brushing against it, but I couldn’t get a good grip on it.

“Did you leave it downstairs?”

The door at the top of the stairs opened. Stretch, I told myself, stretch!

“It better not be festering in your food.” His footfalls bumped down the wooden steps.

Stretch! Just a little more!

Footsteps halfway down the stairs now. My fingers touching the handle but not enough to grab it. More steps, closer, near the door. Another couple steps and he’d be here. My fingers, walking on the handle, inching it into my grasp. There!

I worked it backwards with my fingers, grabbed the hilt like Babe Ruth and stood ready to swing. My heart was beyond miles per hour; it was doing warp speed. My palms filled with so much sweat the ax kept sliding around. Then Skinny Man stopped.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Did you bury it? Jesus Christ, you did, didn’t ya? That’s the millionth collar I’ve bought you this year. If you buried this one too, I’m gonna make you regret it. No, I don’t want to hear your excuses. Do you think I’m made of money or something? Shut up and let me talk for once, you don’t always need to interrupt. I’m not gonna buy you another so I suggest you go out and dig it up. Whatdya mean, ‘Help you?’ Why should I help you, you did it? Do you see me in the backyard digging up the dirt with my hands, dropping my shit in it and covering it up? When was the last time you saw me do that? Yeah, okay, Mr. Wiseguy, but aside from that, you’re the only one who buries shit out back. I swear it’s like you got the O-C-D. I couldn’t find the butter last night, did you bury that, too? What happened to the butter? Probably resting in a shallow grave out back, I bet. God, you make me so mad. No, I will not help you go look for it. Why should I, give me one good reason?”

There was a pause. I stood waiting, my sweat dripping down the ax handle.

“You better hope I don’t find anything else I been looking for out there. I swear, why you gotta bury everything is beyond me.”

He went back up and closed the door. Then the driveway door opened and he and his maniacal mutt drifted away. Thank God for insanity, I thought. With those two out of the house, I figured I had a couple minutes to improve my situation. I glanced at the ax. From the dim light I could see it was still covered in blood, most likely my sister’s, but I forced the image out of my head. What was important was that it was sharp and it was heavy.

Enough adrenaline was coursing through my body I felt I could jump to the moon. But it was also making me shake and I needed steady hands if I was going to get out of this alive. I took a couple deep breaths until my ability to focus returned.

I raised the ax over my head and brought it down on the chain connected to the leg irons.

CHUNK!

Metal and dirt resounded off the walls as the weapon struck. Weapon, I thought. Was it wrong I saw the tool as a weapon? I guess I always saw tools as weapons because of the horror movies I’d seen, but this was different; I honestly could not find another use for the instrument in my hands other than chopping someone up.

CHUNK!

I hit the chain again, tiny bits of dirt spitting up at my face. I hit it a third time and a fourth time and a fifth, fearing that each bang would bring Skinny Man running down the stairs with a knife in one hand and butter in the other.

CHUNK! CHUNK! CHUNK!

The chain broke, just a little, but I was able to slip the broken link off the rest of it. The leg iron was still attached to my ankle, but I was mobile. I hit the other chain that connected the other leg iron as hard as I could. Two times. Three times. Then the blade bit through one of the links and I separated the cuff, still on my leg, from the chain.

I was free. Totally free.

First thing I did was listen for signs of Skinny Man outside. I could barely hear him, so next thing I did was go to the basement door and check the knob, which I already knew was locked. Using the ax, I slipped the blade into the door jamb and worked it like a crowbar. The cheap wood buckled easily with a loud crunch and the knob cracked out and fell to the floor. Again, I listened to see if the noise would bring Skinny Man but I could still hear his voice coming from outside.

Like a man playing with dynamite, I cautiously opened the door and placed a foot on the first step. The wood groaned under my weight, my leg iron chain jingled. Sunlight came through under the door at the top of the stairs, a bright blue that caught the dust motes and swirled them about like an enchanting spell. I took another step, listening to my heart pump a tribal drumbeat, squinting into the sunlight. How long had it actually been since I’d seen this much natural light? Two days? Three? More? Before I could take another step I heard something that nearly caused me to drop the ax.

I heard a moan. And it came from Jamie’s room.

My gut felt like lead, my knees buckled, I spun around and fell to my ass. It couldn’t be. She was dead, I had listened to her die. Oh God, my sister was alive, and I was suddenly so terrified I couldn’t bring myself to go back down the few steps I’d ascended. She moaned again, a guttural, confused tone that reminded me of a cat I’d once seen crawl into the woods and die after getting hit by a car. Then she coughed and went silent.

I sat for a few seconds, slowly going out of my mind once more, losing any sense of control I had maintained to this point. I felt my shoulders shaking and my head bobbing a bit. I saw the waves in California come back like a tsunami, rolling over me with oblivion. At some point, I could feel myself rising and walking over to the door that hid my sister, though my mind was beginning to drift away somewhere else, erecting defense barriers to deal with what I was about to see.

Oh God, oh please God, oh please don’t let it be bad. Oh, Jamie, I’m sorry, please don’t let it be bad.

I stepped into the room. Everything was black, cast in shadows. The windows had been covered with spray paint or marker or something. A putrid smell hit me full on and would have caused me to vomit had I not already been breathing death for so many days. Still, it was stronger in here than where I’d been. If you painted the walls with a thousand years of decayed flesh, that’s the smell I was experiencing.

Through the distant noises from the backyard and the wind blowing by the windows, I could hear the shallow, labored breathing of my sister from somewhere not far away.

“Jamie?” I called. “Please, Jamie, if you can hear me, just make a small noise.”

There was no reply other than her raspy breath. Feeling around the door jamb, I located a switch and flicked it on, but it did nothing. I walked through the room, sweeping the ax handle in front of me in case there were any traps or sharp objects. I cleared a path through a collection of metal objects that littered the floor, some little, some big, all indistinct.

As I got closer to one of the blackened windows, I could hear Jamie’s breathing getting louder. The stench grew more caustic. Paint was flaking off one of the nearest windows, and some light drizzled through enough that I could see her silhouette. Unlike me, she wasn’t chained to a wall but rather lying on the ground. I stopped a few feet away, afraid to see her up close.

For one thing, from where I stood the shape on the ground looked too small to be Jamie.

I took another step.

Candles had been placed on the floor in a circle around her, most of them now burned down into puddles of wax-like Mystery Woman, I thought.

Another step.

My foot nudged something and I caught a flash of reflected sunlight from a small blade. Assuming it was a knife, I reached down to pick it up and felt many more sharp blades resting near my feet. Knives, handsaws, nails, barbed wire, a hammer, a circular saw blade, several blunt objects that were sticky, lots of rags. I also picked up something smooth and light, and held it up into the thin ray of sun falling through the window.

It was a human bone. And that’s exactly when Jamie’s body lurched.

I jumped back and landed on something sharp, cutting open my hand. In front of me, Jamie’s body bounced up and down like a fish out of water, arcing into the sunlight and slamming back down into shadow. Up and down, up and down, and breathing as if a small rodent was trying to run down her throat. Chains jingled and hit the floor while she thrashed, held tight to what looked like stakes driven into the ground. I caught strobing glimpses of her body in the light. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t anything-a creature that had crawled out of hell, asphyxiating on earth’s atmosphere.

With my hands walking over all the blades, I crawled backwards to the door, my breath caught, the whole while thinking there was no way that thing was my sister. Still clutching the ax, I found my way out the door back into the room I had called home for too long, stood up and took it in. The stove, its small door open with the shovel still sticking out, the fire long since dead. The hedge cutters leaning against the wall. The various devices Skinny Man had left on the table. The bloodstained chains dangling from the wall. The pile of gore in the dog dishes at my feet, with Tooth’s jaw sitting like a crown on top. The sticky puddle of skin from Mystery Woman, who had been so close to freeing us, if only she’d had a few minutes more.

The dice. On the floor near the door, sitting in the sunlight. Two red cubes of terror that had saved my life.

I picked them up, held them in my hand. My number had never come up. Was it luck that had spared me? Or something else? Tooth’s father’s words ran around my mind once more: Got to have a purpose in life.

I put the dice in my pocket. I don’t know why, it just felt right, like I was acknowledging something higher than myself, something ethereal. I think maybe I figured they’d protected me this far, it might be good to have them around.

I saw California again. It came in bursts like that now. One minute I’d be staring at so much blood and horror, the next I was watching the Pacific. I couldn’t control it anymore, something more instinctual was taking over. The sensation of sand between my toes, the smell of salty air in my nose, the susurration of waves in my ears-it was all too real. Part of me wanted to sit down and enjoy it, but instead I headed up the stairs. The thing that used to be Jamie was still alive.

I needed to call for help.