The Lonely Mile(55)
She tilted her head back and squinted through her one useable eye to look at that hand. It was bruised all over, featuring various shades of green, purple, and brown. Much of the damage had been caused by the fight last night, but the majority was simply a result of her nearly obsessive scraping of the handcuffs against the cement wall yesterday, hoping over and over that this would be the time she would somehow pull against the bed frame and break free of her bonds.
Carli had once read a statement while doing some research for a school essay that defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different result. If that was the case, she thought to herself, she must have just about achieved clinical insanity by now. She pulled her wrist, listened to the clank of bracelet against metal, and whistled through her teeth from the accompanying pain as a half choked-off sob escaped her clenched jaw.
The basement seemed dim and washed-out; the light filtering through the dirty window was much more diffuse than when she had awoken earlier. Carli thought it must be nearly dusk again, meaning she had slept through most of an entire day. Was that possible? Perhaps her head injury was worse than she thought. Maybe she had a concussion, and that was why she still felt groggy.
Still, she was surprised that she hadn’t noticed the passing of time. And what about her captor? Would he really have left her alone for most of a day? Based on his actions up until the knife fight, Carli would have to say, no, he wouldn’t.
So maybe she had injured him worse last night than she realized. Maybe, after he clubbed her on the head and dragged her back down to this makeshift basement dungeon, he had staggered back upstairs and collapsed from loss of blood. Maybe he was stretched out on the filthy kitchen floor, face-down in a pool of his own blood, dying, or perhaps even already dead.
Carli felt a surge of that same savage, manic glee she had experienced a few minutes ago when she recalled slicing him open, but then, just as quickly, the feeling faded, replaced by a truly terrifying thought. What if the perverted bastard really was dead? What then? Did he have any co-conspirators who might come around investigating when they didn’t hear from him in the next day or so? Or would she simply lie here chained to a bed and slowly starve to death, to be found at some unknown future date by a cop investigating the ungodly smell emanating from the ramshackle home?
Horror washed over Carli like a rogue wave. It was a tsunami of fear, a tidal wave of terror, and it threatened to overwhelm all conscious thought. For the first time since the man forced her off the school bus yesterday (Was it only yesterday? Was that really possible?), Carli Ferguson considered the very real possibility that she might actually die here.
Up until now, the fear had been real enough, but it had never quite advanced to the point at which she thought she actually might not get out of this mess alive. Her father was coming for her; she knew that. But maybe, despite his best efforts, he wouldn’t find her in time, and she would die, tortured by a wrenching hunger and a tormenting thirst; lips cracked and bleeding, and cramps blasting through her suffering body with the force of explosives.
Panic overwhelmed her, ripping through her like a physical force. She yanked her hand against the bed frame, pulling hard, willing the cuffs to break free, barely noticing the pain shooting through her wrist and up her arm. She pulled and twisted her arm, over and over, sobbing and grunting. Without warning, a tremendous crash! shook the entire house on its foundation.
Carli let out an involuntary cry of fear and surprise. Then she realized that it was not dusk after all. She had not necessarily been unconscious for most of an entire day. It might be midday, or late-afternoon, or, heck, it might even be morning. The daylight struggling through the dirty basement window was so dim because a thunderstorm was approaching. And from the sound of the suddenly frenzied activity outside, it was going to be a doozy.
In addition to the tremendous crash of thunder, the wind had picked up, and Carli could hear it roaring through the branches of trees outside the house. It howled around the wooden structure, working its way through microscopic cracks and holes, the sound angry and relentless. It was almost as frightening as the thunder had been. Gust after gust rocked the house.
Another crash! shook the area again, and, incredibly, this one was even louder than the last. Carli wouldn’t have thought that possible. Lightning flashed through the windows, bathing the dusty basement in a light so bright it hurt Carli’s eyes. It was as if a million cars had been positioned just outside the house and they had all flashed on their headlights at once.
Instantly, the flash disappeared, and the afterimage superimposed itself on the retina of her one good eye. And Carli screamed, not from Mother Nature’s handiwork, but from what she had seen outlined in the quarter-second flash of intense light.
Standing stock-still, roughly six feet away, staring at her through eyes wide and unblinking, was her captor. He wasn’t upstairs lying dead in a pool of his own blood, after all. How long he had been in the basement watching her she could not guess, but he looked much more menacing than before, if that was possible. A dread formed of hopelessness and fear filled Carli Ferguson’s gut. Suddenly she knew: last night’s incident with the steak knife had changed everything. All that had happened to her up to this point was merely the introduction; the preview to her own personal horror movie.
The main event was about to start, and it was going to be bad.
It was going to be very bad.
CHAPTER 48