Harrowing (30 page)

I landed face down with a thud on something not too far below, grateful I’d been able to brace my fall with my hands. I heard an emphatic thump, as if some sort of stiff, heavy canvas had just fallen into place above me. The little vestige of light that was there a minute ago became snuffed out without warning, like a candle.

I’d forgotten about the pit.

Of course. In
The Pit and the Pendulum,
there was a pit too. Not only a pendulum.

I cursed Hugh under my breath. Only someone so convoluted like him would have dreamt up something so perverted, so twisted and perverse.

“Why are you doing this to me, Hugh?” I screamed.

There was no reply, of course.

Hysteria started rising in me. The complete, unbroken darkness, suffocating and oppressive, was more terrifying than anything.

I tried to distinguish a finger held up right in front of my eyes, and I couldn’t see it.

I started groping around myself. There had to be a way out. I had to find it. I began to crawl, feeling all around me with my hands.

Bit by bit, as I felt along in the darkness, I noticed shallow puddles of water underneath my palms and knees. I pulled myself upright, still kneeling, and bumped my head against something. Wherever I was, it had a very low ceiling.

“Hey!” I cried out. “Is there anybody there? Can you hear me? Help!”

My voice echoed back to me. Resounded as if on metallic walls, then faded away.

“Hey!” I screamed again. “Answer me! Please.”

No one answered me.

Whatever this place was, it must either be so far from anywhere public that no one could hear me, or I was so isolated within whatever was encasing me that all sound from within was muffled from the outside.

I decided to continue exploring this minuscule space, even though I didn’t have much hope. Hunching down on my hands and knees again, I began crawling straight ahead, feeling around for the walls. It didn’t take me long to discover that the walls on both sides were so close I could almost touch them just by extending my arms out to my sides.

Whatever this container was, it was long and narrow, like a tunnel. But how long? I crept forward, waving my hands ahead of me as if they were antennae. Almost immediately I came upon the pointed end. Both side walls arched around to meet at the end in a point, like the tip of a canoe.

I groped about the curved end of this space, realized I had no other place to go except back where I’d come from.

I’d barely slunk ahead perhaps eight or ten paces on my knees before I discovered the opposite end, also curved into a point. This place was like a boat. Shaped exactly like a canoe. A metal canoe. Except without the benches to sit on.

I began to slide my hands along the ceiling again, grasping about rather desperately, wondering if perhaps by some freak chance I could somehow pry the roof open. The roof seemed to be made of some sort of weighty, rugged canvas, but so firmly welded to the walls it might as well have been soldered there. I couldn’t note any junctures or joining points.

I glided along the length of this vessel, touching my fingers against the edge of the roof, in case there was some sort of release mechanism there. I didn’t expect to find one, but I couldn’t discard any possibility. What if Hugh intended on keeping me imprisoned in here forever, just as Bruno had done to me in his basement?

As I dragged myself around I noticed that the hem of my knee-length dress was wet. My knees were grazing water. I leaned back and plopped my hands in the slim sheen of water lapping against the floor. There wasn’t enough water to cover my hands. So there couldn’t be any danger from that. Could there?

But... from what I could recall, when I’d first landed in here – it couldn’t have been that many minutes ago – the amount of water had been barely noticeable.

And now I could splash my hands right into it.

Was the water level rising?

It couldn’t be.

This was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare.

What had been in that pit, in that Poe story? Was it fire? Was it a pit of sulphurous, avenging flame, rising from the depths of hell?

No. Now I remembered.

It was a pit of water.

The blackest, deepest, slimiest well imaginable.

With walls a mile long, too slick to climb.

Whoever tumbled in there would be left to trundle about until he fainted from exhaustion and drowned.

A slow, tortuous, agonizing death.

Even as I knelt there, thinking about this, I could feel the water rising up against my knees.

Only a small, barely perceptible amount.

But it was there. The difference was still noticeable.

I wondered, at this rate, how long would I have to find a way out of here? And where was the water coming in from, to begin with? If I could just, somehow, find the opening... Perhaps somehow I could block it. Maybe I could jam my knee up against the hole.

Silly idea. But at least that would allow me to buy some time, until someone could find me, hopefully.

Wherever the water was coming from, it must be near the bottom, since as far as I could tell the walls of my prison were dry.

I plunged my fingers into the shallow puddles and began groping along the bottom. Soon I noticed a teensy, circular opening in the smooth metal. Perhaps this was where the water was entering from. But it seemed tiny. How could so much be coming in through something this insignificant in size?

I continued groping along, almost immediately came upon another of these little round holes. Then another. And another.

The entire bottom of this vessel was riddled with these holes. There was a countless number of them.

And the water was coming in through all of them.

There was no way I could block them. Nothing I could use to jam against all of them at the same time.

I raised my arms and began bucking desperately against the rooftop. It was the only thing I could think of doing. I pounded my fists against that immutable canvas. It held as firmly as concrete.

The water was deeper against my knees now, almost covering my knees completely. I sloshed through the water battering my fists against the edge of the rooftop all along its entire length. I heaved a deep breath, forced myself to go more slowly. To inspect more thoroughly and painstakingly, and leave not a single millimetre untouched.

The way out could be a tiny button, almost impossible to discover. A slight dent. A catch. And if it was, I couldn’t miss it.

Catching it could mean the difference between living and dying.

I felt along every single square millimetre of surface slowly, swiping my fingers against the roof, trailing them along both walls as the water rose implacably in the dark. By the time I’d covered every bit of surface, the water was almost to my waist, and I hadn’t found a single thing.

I started sweeping through the entire space a second time, gasping and sobbing, near panic, my heartbeat thumping noticeably against my ribs. I leaned over and plunged my hands into the water to scrape around on the floor, procuring not to miss a single spot.

After the third pass, I was ready to throw in the towel. The insides of this vessel were as solid and seamless as if they’d all been molten together. I began to pound against the roof and scream instead.

I screamed until I was hoarse. The water was lapping against my breastbone. I sagged against the wall, shivering uncontrollably. I wanted to keep screaming, but I had barely a thread of a voice left.

There was almost nothing left for me to do. My brain was paralyzed. I couldn’t think of a thing to do anymore.

“Hugh!” I cried as loudly as I could with my raspy throat. “Hugh, if you can hear me, what do you want from me? What do I have to do to make you stop this torment? Tell me. Whatever it is, if I’m able to do it, I will. Just please, tell me. Answer me.”

I waited.

There wasn’t a single sound in this pulsating, creeping darkness except the faint lapping of the water against my skin and the metallic sides of my prison, ominous, the pounding of my heart and the blood rushing through my ears.

I began to pass through the area a fourth time for lack of any better plan or ideas, still harbouring the vague hope that maybe, just maybe, it might still work. Maybe there was something there. Something I’d missed before.

The water rose up past my breast. I couldn’t help gasping hard, panting with fear. With bone-deep terror. My stomach clenched up and my legs turned to rubber. I began to beat the heels of my hands obsessively against the roof. I balled up my fists and pounded against the roof with my knuckles until they were raw.

The water rose to my neck. Crept surreptitiously up my chin. I was shaking so hard I couldn’t stay still in one place. I got onto my feet in a crouching position and stretched upwards until my head was touching the roof. My knees were screaming from the strain. I couldn’t hold the posture and crumpled backwards into the water, gasping in a deep gulp of air instinctively before toppling to the ground. Sitting on the ground, my nose was below water level. I hauled myself to my knees in a flash and reached upwards again, sucking in mouthfuls of air greedily, my heart battering away in my throat.

And even so, it seemed to me – almost as if it were an illusion, or a delirium – that the air was thinner somehow. There was less of it. I was panting, and it was from more than just fear.

There was hardly any air left in here now.

I pressed my palms against the ceiling and plastered my head against the rough surface with my nose up right under it.

Two substances couldn’t occupy the same space at the same time.

If the water was filtering in, the air had to be draining out through
someplace.

There had to be
something
there. Something I’d missed.

Frantically, I began digging and scratching at the ceiling again a fifth time, feeling all over it.

At last I saw it.

The barest, dimmest, almost invisible tube of light. Shifting in through the dense shadows at a place just underneath the ceiling, right where the roof joined the wall.

I felt about for the hole.

Unobtrusive. Minuscule.

I wondered how I’d missed it so many times.

I stuck my finger out through this almost undetectable tunnel – and felt someone grab a hold of it.

A jolt of shock coursed through me. Then I recovered my senses.

“Help!” I screamed. “Can you hear me?”

I heard a muffled reply, faint but unmistakeable.

“I’m here!” I screamed. “Help me! I’m going to drown.”

I heard a clatter. A battering against the canvas roof, at the opposite end of the canoe thing. A minute later a shaft of light flooded in.

I snatched my finger out of the hole and swished towards the opening as speedily as the water would let me, grappling against the slimy sides and slipping on the floor in my desperation. The entire vessel was inches away from being filled to the brim.

I reached the hole in the roof, stuck my fingers through it with infinite gratitude and pressed my lips against the opening. My eyes were covered by the roof, and I heaved in a deep breath and moved an eye over the hole so I could see who my saviour was.

It was Calvin.

“Move back, Annasuya,” he said. “I’m going to hit the roof again.”

I slid to one side and the blade of an axe hacked through the roof next to the opening, widening it. I dashed over right away, because I needed more oxygen.

Calvin let me catch another breath, then made me stand back again while he carved at the canvas a third time.

It took several more whacks before he managed to open a space large enough for me to crawl through.

I was trembling so hard I was barely capable of pushing my way through the hole. I felt like a baby trying to worm itself out of the womb.

My knees failed me and I didn’t have the strength to stand up. Calvin grabbed me by the shoulders as I started to fall backwards. Exhausted, I leaned back into his arms with my legs still inside the vessel and just let him cradle me.

He lay me down on the canvas roof and I just drooped there with my eyes closed, extenuated, melting into a shapeless morass next to him. He reached over and pulled my legs out through the hole.

I felt my chest heaving. All I wanted to do was to sleep for a thousand years. Calvin stroked a finger gently along my cheek.

“Annasuya, love, I know you’d like to stay here and grow roots. But we’ve got to get out,” he whispered.

I opened my eyes and glanced around for the first time. I saw that I was in a sort of spacious wooden shed or boathouse, now filled with sunlight. The monumental pendulum was still there, gouging its way through the dirt. I saw double doors cast wide open on one side of the shed.

A figure approached me as I looked around. It was Ursula. I gaped at her in surprise. Before I could say anything, Calvin yanked at my arm.