Shut-In
by Josh Smith
I awaken
with the groggy head of a man drugged. This has happened before, but something
tells me that an accidental roofie at a house party years ago has no comparison
to my present situation. It is dark, cold. Smells of mildew and sour earth. I
stumble around the room, fumbling for something – anything. All I find is a
single lamp. Switching it on, I begin searching for clues.
Memory slowly crawls back into my head. A drink after work at
my local dive, minding my own business, just trying to- him! It had to be Pete!
Shit! I knew something felt odd. He could’ve been sitting right next to me and I
would never have known it. Pete, my wife’s crazy ex-husband. Everyone always
says their ex is crazy, but hers is a documented lunatic. Shortly after they
were married, he began beating and torturing her. Somewhere amongst details too
painful to reveal to me, she escaped long enough to contact the police. Twelve
years now he’s been gone, and last month we got a letter announcing his parole.
She was terrified and I’ll admit I was worried – apparently not worried enough.
There is no hope of escape. The only two exits; a shuttered
window and a door, refuse to budge. Probably boarded up. Not a crack anywhere
large enough for me to pry at. I whack at the window with my shoes to no avail.
I shout every ounce of air from my lungs, but the sound seems to stick to the
walls and die instantly. I scour the room again, hoping to discover anything
useful, but there is still only the lamp. My only light. My connection to the
world outside. To my wife. For a guy he’s never met, that bastard really wants
me to suffer. I wonder how long he’ll keep me in here.
Six hours. Yeah, probably six or seven hours I’ve been in
here now. My stomach is grumbling and still a bit sore from the secret
ingredient Pete slipped into my whiskey. I’ve bounced myself off every inch of
every wall in this place with nothing to show but sore, bruised up shoulders and
a shortness of breath. This room is like a fortress. Must be soundproofed too,
I’ve screamed until my lungs and throat felt scorched. Still no sign of that
bastard. He’ll probably let me rot in here all night. I know he’s got her by
now. I can’t even bear to think what he’s got in store for her.
The air smells more and more putrid as time passes and I sure
as hell don’t see any ventilation. He’s not gonna just let me fucking die in
here is he? Suffocate me? Starve me? Let me fucking die in this shitbox room
while he has his way with her? I gotta get the fuck out of here now! I take aim
at the door, near the knob and give it a kick that would easily bust any
double-reinforced lock, but it doesn’t even budge. It’s probably the strongest
surface in this place! He’s gotta be fucking with me. I know it. I try the walls
again, kicking, ramming with all my might until I collapse next to the lamp,
with the moldy, dead stink of the floor crawling all over my skin. I’m fucked.
It’s a mind game. It has to be. Any second, that perverse son
of a bitch will come strolling in here like nothing happened and put a bullet
between my eyes. No, that would be too easy. He’ll show up with her. Beat me,
tie me down, force me to watch him rip her to shreds. Inside and out. Kill us
both slowly. I have got to get those images out of my mind. I need to relax and
get myself out of here. There has to be a way, I have to be missing something. I
sit down against the wall, click the lamp off and breathe as deep as I can
without gagging on this stale air.
I hear something scraping, is there someone outside fucking with me? I switch the lamp back on and run circles around the room, pressing my ear to each wall but I hear nothing. I sit back down and kill the light. Again, A deep scraping noise. Lights on. Nothing. Off. Scrape. On. I get up and walk from heel-to-toe the length of the room. About twelve and-a-half steps one length, fourteen the other.
Sit down.
Lights out.
Wait.
Listen.
Lights on.
Heel-to-toe.
Just shy of twelve? No, that’s not right. Check again. Not quite twelve. But, no, th- no I, I must have miscalculated. Once more, same result. The first time, the first time must have been wrong. It had to have been. I don’t want to check the other distance.
Slowly.
One.
Step.
At.
A.
Time.
One.Two.Three.Four.Five.Six.Seven.
Eight.Nine.Ten.Eleven.Twelve.Thirteen . . .
I wake up with my stomach screaming for food. I woke up.
That means I slept. I turn the lamp back on, cringing from its glare. I’d eat a
fucking bug right now if there were a crack for one to crawl in through. Pete’s
gotta come soon. He’s gotta know his mind fuck is working. I make another
inspection of the room. Looking for a way out, looking for a small set of
tracks, looking for a pulley system, looking for a tiny camera lens hidden
somewhere. There is still only the lamp. There is still only the ever-growing
stink of rot. The lack of air. I sit down, frustrated, hungry, exhausted. How
long could I have slept here? Too cold and uncomfortable for it to have been
long. Not to mention I don’t feel the least bit rested. More worn out, if
anything. Are the walls really coming for me? Where is my wife? What is he doing
to her?
No one deserves to be shut up like this. Pete knows that.
Killers, rapists and child molesters all get to go out in the prison yard. Even
guys in solitary confinement get to eat. I’m sure Pete spent his fair share of
time in solitary. Even he doesn’t know how this feels. I’ve never been locked
up, but if I make it out of here alive, I’ll never be concerned about it. Sure
it lasts longer, but being stuck in this shitty, moldy little room for what? One
day? Maybe two? Regardless, it feels like a fucking eternity. Like a year in a
dim, confined desert. Fuck, I’m thirsty.
I need out. I need to get the fuck out of this place. I need
her. Pete was here, but he didn’t come in the door. No, he came up through the
floor, appeared in the dust. He stank. I think he’s dead. Buried under this room
and I’m next. I’m going to choke on the dust and mold and die and become the
floor. That stink will be my rotting flesh sinking into the fissures of the wood
just like old Pete. Pete didn’t put me here. Pete’s here too. Pete was here
first. He wouldn’t fuck me like this. He’s never even met me. No no no not old
Pete. Pete’s a good man. At least he was. I killed him today. Yep. He came in
through the floor, that fuck. He came in running his mouth. I tied her up. I
beat the shit out of her. I fucked her while she screamed. She screamed until I
knocked all her teeth down her throat, he said. So I busted his head open with
his own lamp. Hit him hard enough to kill him. The lamp, anyway. I killed the
lamp. The lamp that killed Pete. Pete, the fuck who put me in this stinking,
rotten fucking box.
Been here in the dark for a while. Slipping in and out of
consciousness. Reality. This is it. I’m dead. I’m cold, weak, can hardly
breathe. I’m going to die in this terrible little room. How do you spend the
final moments of your life? Most people go skydiving, visit an exotic location,
spend time with family, with friends. Eat their favorite meal. I draw dead men
in dust that I can’t even see. I cut myself with ineffective shards of busted
light bulb. I choke on the last of this fetid air. I howl to no one until my
throat is too dry to produce anything but an abrasive cough. Futility. I never
had much of a grasp on it until now. Now it is all I have. Futility went from
being an intangible idea to the only real thing I can grasp in this deep
blackness. Except this lamp, and what the fuck am I going to do with a ruined
lamp?
Throw it, apparently. I didn’t even realize I was clutching
it until I heaved the battered lump of metal and wire across the room with more
strength than I knew remained in me. Just before the knock of it hitting the
ground, there was a different sound. A strange, small tapping. Lots of small
tapping all at once. I haul myself up and stumble forward through this vast,
silent nothing until I reach the opposite wall. Feeling around, I get a splinter
in my right index finger – the lamp split a board from the window shutter!
Still, no light came through. There was something else beyond that window, and
as I knelt, I understood.
Grains of sand surrounded the bent shape of the lamp. Sand.
Pete fucking sealed me in a room and buried the entire thing? He must have met
up with some kindred spirits in the joint to set him up with such a secure
little torture chamber. Somebody had to help him fix this place up, some guys
with construction know-how, some guys with connections. Some absolute
sociopaths. No one could do this on their own. There’s no point in pondering it
if I’m just going to die here, so I take up the lamp and set to work chipping
and prying the boards from the window, the dirt pouring in around my feet. Thank
God they didn’t cement me in.
I keep digging with the flat base of the lamp. The
possibility of escape, of living, has rejuvenated me enough to dig, but I cannot
deny the aches of my fatigued body. Survival first, recovery later. Then I’m
going to fucking murder Pete.
Feels as if I’ve been digging for hours. Mouthfuls of dirt
suck the last of the moisture from my glands. The weight of it around me – all
around me – presses what little air remains out, allows even less back in.
Claustrophobia takes on a whole new meaning. I scoop dirt past my body, hoping
that it continues to enter the room through the window somewhere below. I scoop
the dirt from above hoping that there is nothing ahead but more dirt, and then –
and then! The possibility of air. Of freedom. It’s not even a promise, but the
simple possibility is enough to keep me burrowing.
No sign of light. I’ve got to be above the room by now. The
process is slow, but all progress is. I have got to keep going. Taste a good
meal. Taste anything other than dirt. Taste her lips. Taste Pete’s blood. Smell
something other than sickness and decay. Feel something other than my imminent
death.
The dirt! I… I can see it! It’s got a visible texture! Just a
little farther and I’m free! Just a little more. Just… just a little more…
strength.
