Screamscapes: Tales of Terror (4 page)

It would be at least a week before his wife would return; what if he really were trapped under here? Would he still be alive by then?

Would she even bother to call to check on him while she was gone, he wondered. It was unlikely. And if she did, would she be concerned if he didn’t answer the phone? He guessed not. If anything, she would probably think he was back to moping in bed and wouldn’t bother trying to call again.

Thinking about his wife calling to check on him reminded him of his own cell phone – it was in his pocket right now. Getting reception at the farmhouse was a fifty-fifty chance at best, and that was being charitable; but trying to make a call from under the house was definitely worth a shot, Tom thought.

If he could get through to Miranda, even for a second, she could come and set him free. She would come running to help him. Then, afterwards, they could have a good laugh in a hot bath about his misadventure.

Tom eagerly slipped his hand into his pants pocket to retrieve his cell phone; not finding it, he remembered putting it in his coat pocket – and his coat was outside.

His momentary hope deflated faster than a balloon in a pin factory, but all was not lost. Miranda would be here tomorrow. No matter what happened, the very thought of her, his new love, always filled him with hope. He was sure he would find a way to get out before then, but if worst came to worst, at least she would be here soon.

He decided not to let it come to that; he would find his own way out of this predicament.

Tom took stock of his equipment: A small flashlight, a box cutter, four rolls of plastic sheeting, and the wet muddy clothes on his back. The box cutter might be useful, he thought, and perhaps he could use the plastic sheeting to keep warm.

He rolled onto his knees next to the crawlspace door; the space was so tight that he couldn’t lift his head without hitting the floor above.

He pulled his filthy gloves from his fingers and inspected the door frame of the entrance. The doorway was about two feet high by three feet wide, constructed from solid steel tubing welded at the corners. Whoever had built the door had wanted to make sure it would never need to be replaced.

He ran his fingers around the edges of the steel frame. The door fit so snugly that he was unable to slip even a fingertip into the hairline crack that remained between it and the jamb.

The steel door extended over the jamb on the side opposite the hinges, and he realized kicking it open would be impossible. He would have to pry it open.

He tried his best to move the door back and forth, pushing lightly and releasing. But the door had zero give, not even the slightest hint of a jiggle.

His flashlight was starting to give out. He turned his attention to the crawlspace door, hoping to unscrew the two big hinges with the blade of the box cutter. But the screws had been welded into place; escape was going to be trickier than he had hoped.

No, he decided, he would have to find something he could use to pry it open. Maybe a forgotten tool, a loose pipe – he might have to pull out his own plumbing to climb out through the floor, he thought. Whether or not he would have to do something that drastic before the day passed - before Miranda got here and could help him out - he wasn’t sure.

He remembered that the door had been propped open with a crowbar; perhaps it had fallen over in the soft mud and was lying somewhere nearby?

Tom shone the flashlight around, illuminating the ground near the crawlspace door.

To his left, he could clearly see a hole in the mud, now half-filled with water, the spot where the crowbar had been. He maneuvered his head to the left and the right, careful to avoid striking it on the low-hanging beams only inches above, feeling for the crowbar in the sludge, but it wasn’t there. Whoever had closed the door must have taken it out.

Tom turned around and rested, with his back pressed against the sealed exit, his neck bent sharply forward due to the low clearance. He wished desperately that he could sit up straight, for even one minute.

He panned the weak light around the crawlspace again, intently looking for anything useful. The mag-light was only bright enough to see a small radius of the ground around him. The naked incandescent bulb still burned steadily in the center, but he wasn’t ready to try to crawl back to the far side of the house to look around just yet.

He leaned his head back against the steel door and sighed deeply. His breath emerged into the cold air as a phantom of steam, illuminated in the flashlight’s dim beam.

He set the flashlight on the ground beside him to put his gloves back on. A reflection in the light’s beam caught his attention, something small and white on the ground a few feet away from where he hunched.

He dropped his gloves, picked up the flashlight and scooted himself through the mud to see what it was. It seemed odd that anything he might find in the muck under the house could look so shiny and new.

It was a small piece of glossy paper, sturdy cardstock with handwriting on it. Tom peeled it gently from the mud. The ink was smudged, but the neat manuscript lettering was still very legible.

“Enjoy your fresh young meat,” it read.

What the fuck?
Tom wondered.

He flipped the paper over to find the other side completely smeared with mud.

He wiped it clean with his thumb, positioning the flashlight to get a better look.

It was a photograph.

The face of a beautiful young woman beamed a smile at him through the grime, her eyes sparkling and full of joy.

His curiosity turned into shock as he realized who she was; the realization felt as though someone had kicked him in the stomach.

It was a photo of Miranda - the only one he had of her. He kept it hidden deep inside his wallet, and would pull it out whenever he was alone and feeling sad. Seeing her face, even in a photograph, always made him feel so much better.

But right now, here, her photo had the opposite effect. Seeing her face smiling at him through the smeared filth felt like an icicle plunged deep into his heart.

He flipped the photo back over to take a second look at the writing. Everything was coming together now – the handwriting was unmistakable, he was surprised he hadn’t recognized it instantly.

It was Kelly’s.

He began to shiver uncontrollably, hugging himself for warmth, but to no avail.

Kelly had found out. That was what had happened. She had found out about his affair with Miranda and now she was punishing him. He almost felt relieved at the thought.

He had been planning to tell her, he knew it was the right thing to do, but the right moment had not yet presented itself. That was the only way he could explain his procrastination.

So much for that now; things had never felt as out of order as they did at that precise moment.

A new realization struck him - he now had hope of getting out of the crawlspace today. He imagined how events had played out: Kelly had found the picture and decided to get revenge on him, to shake him up. She had dropped their daughter at her nanny’s house this morning instead of going to visit her family, and had then come back here to confront him. If that was what had happened, that would mean she was
here
. No wonder she had been so adamant about him promising to finish this job. She must have been planning to lock him under here as punishment for his indiscretion all along.

He took some comfort in the understanding that no matter how angry she might be, at least it meant he was not alone. The thought of being trapped in this crawlspace - even for one day – scared him more than almost anything else he could imagine. A pissed-off, cheated-on wife was a frightening thought – but Kelly was no killer. She would relent, she would let him out. She would probably be crying in his arms looking to him for comfort by the evening’s end.

She was probably standing outside of the door right now, he thought, trying to decide what to do next. God, he hoped that was true. He realized he hadn’t looked forward to seeing his wife’s face so badly in a long time.

He slid the photo back into his pocket.

“Kelly?” he called in a gentle voice through the steel door.

“Baby? Are you there? Talk to me.”

He heard nothing but icy silence, but in his mind he saw her standing there, fists clenched, mulling over her next move.

“Kelly, I know you’re there and I know you’re very upset with me…” He paused for dramatic effect. “…and I know I deserve it.”

He smiled to himself. This was a game he knew, a game he would win. That bitch wouldn’t know what hit her, after he manipulated her into letting him out of here.

Shit, I might lock her ass under here and be done with it,
he thought to himself.
I like the sound of that.

He pressed his ear against the stinging coldness of the door and listened with all his might for her reply, for a muffled sob, for the sound of the padlock being lifted out of the collar, anything.

Silence.

She was being exceptionally stubborn, he thought. It wasn’t like her for more than thirty seconds to go by without some sort of bitching spewing from her mouth.

“Sweetheart?” he tried again, using the most humble voice he could manage. “I never meant to hurt you. I love you. I am so, so sorry. Let me out so we can talk about it, okay - about where we go from here.”

There was still no response, only maddening silence. Minutes ticked by. Without his watch or his cell phone, he had no way of knowing how much time had passed.

OK, think, Tom, think.
How long can she keep me under here before she gives in? When did she find the picture – this morning? Last week? What else could she know about it, other than the fact that he had a picture of someone she didn’t know in his wallet?

He didn’t know how long Kelly might have had the picture. He hadn’t looked at it recently himself. It had only been two days since he had last seen Miranda in person, so it was possible that Kelly had taken it several days ago, if not more.

She would cool down, Tom knew. She couldn’t leave him under the house forever; she wouldn’t kill him, it wouldn’t be worth it. He had not been the best father lately -that was true. But Kelly would not take her daughter’s daddy away.

It wasn’t like she had had much use for him since he had been laid off anyway, he figured. They hadn’t had anything resembling a true conversation for months. Now that she knew about the other woman, she would probably be glad to see him leave, to be able to get on with her life.

Regardless of how she had found out or how she felt about things, here he was: trapped under his own house, freezing cold, soaking wet, and powerless to do anything about it.

Fuck that,
he thought,
and fuck her. I’m getting out of here, and she can go fuck herself. There’s got to be a way out. I’m not going to lay here and freeze my ass off while she sits upstairs fingering herself while I suffer.

Tom scanned the crawlspace in earnest for any other way to escape. He knew there was only one door, but he scanned the perimeter of the foundation.

The usual small vents usually built into the foundation walls were missing, since the house had been built long before building codes had required them. He wouldn’t have been able to fit through a little vent anyway, he knew. It would have been nice to be able to see sunlight, though - for his sanity’s sake if nothing else.

Previous owners had upgraded the house’s heating and cooling to a central system decades ago, but the air ducts ran inside the attic, not the crawlspace. Unfortunate, because that eliminated the possibility of pulling an air duct loose from the floor and breaking his way up into the house through the hole.

Too bad,
he thought. He could’ve knocked loose one of the air ducts to blow warm air down here while he plotted his escape.

His flashlight was losing its brilliance and cut weakly through the darkness. He thumped the head of the flashlight against his palm, and it brightened back up. Near the front corner of the house, he could make out what looked like a neat stack of objects, but details were lost in the gloom. Cinderblocks, he guessed. Maybe an abandoned tool might be nearby?

He crawled forward to inspect, full of renewed hope. His elbows and knees made a wet sucking sound as he pulled them from the mud.

After sloshing his way through twenty feet or so of mud and muck, he was surprised to find himself looking at several very new-looking, shrink-wrapped packages of bottled drinking water.

He wasn’t sure what to make of this discovery. Did the plumbers leave this when they were working down here a few months ago? If they were that forgetful, perhaps they had left some tools behind too - a wrench, hopefully a crowbar?

No, a crowbar was too unlikely, a fantasy - but a wrench? That was possible. Didn’t all plumbers carry giant monkey wrenches around with them? If he could get his hands on one of those, maybe he could bust his way through the foundation and create a hole big enough to escape through.

He surveyed the immediate vicinity around the bottled water for stray tools. Then he saw something, something odd-looking in the corner. He shoved the cases of bottled water excitedly out of his way and crawled towards it as fast as he could manage. It looked like a duffel bag – what if it was full of tools?

Something thin and shiny stuck out from one end of the sack. It reflected the beam of the flashlight back towards him from the sea of near-total darkness; some sort of tool, perhaps? Maybe a screwdriver?

He covered the ground that lay between him and the object in a few seconds, and grabbed for it as soon as it was within his grasp.

It felt different in his hand than his mind had expected it to, and he knew instantly that it wasn’t something the plumbers had left behind. He trained the flashlight on it.

It was the pointed stiletto heel of a woman’s shoe; black and dressy, with a tasteful silk bow on top, a sharp four-inch heel underneath.

The heaviness of the shoe startled him as he lifted it. It took several seconds for his mind to process the fact that the shoe was heavy because someone was wearing it.

“Fuck!” Tom shouted. He recoiled reflexively, dropping the shoe along with the foot it contained, and again struck his head against a sharp corner of an overhead beam. A streak of pain burned through him, creating a lightning-like flash in his eyes.

Temporary blindness and harsh pain halted his retreat. Every instinct in his entire being commanded him to flee, to get out, to get away from this situation, but there was
nowhere he could go.

Tom cradled his throbbing head in his hands; his panicked eyes darted here and there in the dim light, like the beady eyes of the rats he had envisioned not long since, desperately searching for an escape route and finding none, stuck to die in this sinking ship of a crawlspace.

He looked back at the human being that lay like a crumpled sack in the corner, only a few feet away.

I’m not alone after all
, he thought, but the idea brought him no comfort.

“Hello?” he called optimistically to where the person lay silent and motionless in the corner, shrouded in shadows. His voice was not much more than a crackling whisper, so hollow and soft it sounded like an answering machine recording from long ago.

“Are you OK?” he asked, but as soon as the words left his lips he realized that an answer would probably frighten him more than anything else ever could.

He took a deep breath and cautiously crept to where the person lay. The flashlight’s ever-weakening beam caressed a distinctively female shape; it traversed along a feminine, slender calf with porcelain skin, over a muddy knee on its journey towards a bright blue dress hiked up over a shapely thigh. The person was lying motionless, in what would have undoubtedly been a very sexy pose, under almost any other circumstances.