The Summer I Died: A Thriller (25 page)

Using the wall and the cuff itself, I bega
n bending the tip of the
buckle
arm
at a ninety-degree angle. Despite still being hot and thin, the metal was as strong as the Hulk’s erection and I had to strain to get it shaped into a small hook. It wasn’t a flag but it was probably close enough, or so I hoped.

I put the buckle in my belt loop, the collar strap hanging down near my leg, leaving the buckle arm sticking straight out. Slowly, with grandma speed, I slid the cuff’s keyhole onto the
“
key
”
and pushed it in as a far as it could go. Then, using my wrist, I rotated the cuff.

The buckle arm fell out of the keyhole.

Shit, I mumbled, welcome to Dexterity 101. This wasn’t going to be easy.

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 kn
o
w
s
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 dru
g, 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 fo
rced 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 l
ay 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 return
ed
.

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 b
lade 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 plac
ed a foot on the first step. The
wood groan
ed under my weight, my
leg iron chain jingle
d
. Sunlight came
through under the door at the top of the stairs, a bright blue that caught the d
ust 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 lig
ht? Two days? Three? More? B
efore I could take another step I heard something that nearly caused me to drop the ax.