Deadly Secrets (Detective Erika Foster #6)(81)
‘Oh my god, oh my god!’ she cried, relieved by the sensation of being able to use her hands and breathe through her mouth. She started to work quickly, ripping and pulling at the tape around her ankles until they were free. She rolled her shoulders, and shifted around in the cage into a crouching position. She started to feel around inside the cage. Above her head were thick bars, and she couldn’t stand and straighten her legs. There was a padlock on one side of the cage, and it was fastened securely.
‘Shit,’ she said. It was like a cage for a large dog. There was a click, and the flame lit up the small room. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark now and she could see there was a series of posts mounted on the back wall. She could see shapes and outlines: something long and thin coiled up, and there was a hood with eye holes, and a breathing drum. It was a gas mask. She felt around again. The cage bars were solid, thick metal, but underneath, the base of the cage was wood. Now she had taken off the duct tape, she was able to move more freely around. She swallowed and wiped her nose, feeling the blood starting to clot. She braced herself in the crouching position and put her back against the top of the cage. She rocked from side to side and felt it shift across the floor a couple of centimetres. It wasn’t fixed to the floor. She started to rock it harder, so that it skidded along, away from the brick wall. It took a huge amount of effort and she had to stop a couple of times to catch her breath. She reached through the bars and couldn’t feel the brick wall any more, so she was satisfied she had enough room either side. Moss braced her back against the bars, and rocked the cage from side to side, exploiting its low centre of gravity. The sides of the base started to lift off the floor as she rocked harder. Suddenly, it tipped over and landed with a loud clattering crash which echoed around the basement. Moss cried out as she landed painfully on the left side bars, which now were the floor of the cage.
She took a moment to catch her breath and then she started to kick at the base board of the cage.
‘You. Should. Have. Taken. My. Boots. Off. You. Dumb. Fuck!’ she hissed, punctuating each word with a kick, rhythmically slamming her boots into the base. With each kick, pain jangled in her bones and the metal bars dug into her back and shoulders, but she kept on. Finally, as her feet felt like they were going to explode, the wood cracked – and then her leg went through it. The splinters scraped at her leg and she cried out with pain, but nothing would stop her. She pulled out her leg and started to work on the hole, kicking and pushing and peeling the thick chip board away. It seemed to take forever, but she finally tore her way through, hands and legs filled with splinters. She was free. She scrabbled around in the darkness, managed to find a light switch, and turned it on.
Sixty-Two
Moss had barely caught her breath, when she saw the full horror of where she was. There was another, taller cage in one corner of the room, a set of stocks, and table with leather restraints. There were blood stains soaked into the concrete floor. Pornography was pinned up all over the walls: extreme images of nudity and torture. And there was a large-screen TV with rows and rows of DVDs neatly stacked up on a shelf.
Hung on pegs along the wall were whips and chains, a harness, two full-body latex suits, and at the end was a black gas mask with large glass eye holes and an elongated breathing drum; a series of white squares made it look like a face with teeth.
Moss froze when she heard footsteps outside the door. A bolt shot back in the door, and it opened.
Taro stood in the doorway, shaking and white-faced. In one hand, he held a large syringe filled with a dark blue liquid, and in the other he had a pile of black plastic sheeting. He had come to kill her in the neatest and cleanest way possible, but she had complicated things. She was sure he had wanted to poke the syringe though the bars and inject her. It made her think of a terrible film she had seen, about animals being tested on. The way they shrank away from the bars as a needle was poked through and into their skin.
‘How did you get out?’ he said. His voice was low and even.
‘You can see how I got out,’ she said. He kept his eyes on her and stepped into the room, closing the door behind him with one of his feet. He took another step towards her.
‘Stay back,’ she said.
‘You shouldn’t have come here. I was going to stop. I was going to stop and just melt away… Now I have to deal with you. NOW I HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOU!’
Moss tried not to show her fear. She moved back, putting the cage, lying on its side, between them. He moved closer. She grabbed the top of the cage and tried to slide it towards him as a battering ram, but it didn’t slide smoothly on the floor, inching forward, and she lost her footing and fell forward.
Instantly he was on her, moving quickly around the cage, and grabbing her from behind. She fought and struggled, and saw him switch the grip on the syringe, so he had it in his fist with his thumb on the plunger. He held it up, preparing to bring it down on her.
She bent forward and then threw her head back. The back of her skull struck his mouth, shattering his top teeth and breaking his nose. He cried out and staggered back. Moss ran for the door, but it wouldn’t open. She yanked at the handle, but it wouldn’t budge.
She turned to see Taro staggering around, blood pouring from his nose. He spat out two of his teeth onto the floor, and looked up at her. His face was now crazed. She looked around for something and she saw a table by the door with a large open padlock, next to a chain. Quick as lightning, she grabbed the padlock, and using everything she had, she hurled it at him, aiming high. Time seemed to slow down and it turned in the air, once, twice, before striking him on the temple. He gave her a look of shock and surprise and then crumpled to the floor, his head hitting the concrete with a nasty crack.