Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 37 - Closet Door

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More than a full day passed since David heard a noise other than the windows rattling from the wind.  The sound was haunting from the closet’s darkness, twice followed by torrential downpours that dissipated as swiftly as they blew in over Lake Hazelton.

From the thin crack under the door, he’d slowly counted the passing of three full nights since the guy in the Pink Floyd shirt tied a bandana around David’s mouth, put his hands behind his back and a rope around his wrists, and locked him inside the narrow closet.  He was tossed in so roughly that he ripped a jacket off its hanger as he toppled to the ground before landing on several pairs of smelly boat shoes.

He spent that first day with his left ear pressed to the ground, peering through the slight crack where the closet's door met the floor, and a very faint, warm draft blew against his face. He listened helplessly with the gag around his mouth as they had beaten Jeremy, who tried his best not to scream.  But even he finally gave in, only to be met with a terrible crack that silenced his brother entirely.  At first, David could not tell if they had taken Jeremy away or if his brother was perhaps lying dead on the other side of the door somewhere.

His parents offered no resistance, then, as men from the boat dragged his parents away and out the door.  His mother whimpered, and his father screamed for mercy, but their pleas were ignored.  The screen door slammed behind them, and then a moment later, more faintly, several car doors shut.  

That was two days prior.  Based on the silence that followed, David assumed he had been locked in the house alone ever since.  They must have taken Jeremy, too.  At least, given the silence, he hoped that was the case.

He’d dozed at times, though not much during those first hours he dedicated to pointlessly wriggling his hands in a vain attempt to free himself.  The rope rubbed his flesh raw until a small trickle of blood traced its way down his right arm, tickling.  He wiped the blood off on the wall behind him, a dark shadow in the darkened closet.  

After multiple attempts, he finally managed to stand by pushing his head against the door and scrambling to get his feet underneath himself again within the tight confines of the coat closet.  Balancing on the wobbly nest of shoes on the floor, he almost accidentally found enough momentum to shove his left shoulder against the wall, scraping, and came to his feet.  

He spun around backward, his hands still tied, and easily pushed the door lever.  It wasn’t locked, but the door wouldn’t open.  It was somehow blocked on the opposite side. 

For three days during his imprisonment, David tried to free himself from the constricting gag across his mouth, all to no avail.  His nose was caked with dried snot, and he often struggled to breathe through his nose.  Bending to his knees again, he shoved his face against the door lever until he managed to get it in between his right cheek and the bandana that was wedged tightly across his mouth, now wet and hot from three days of breath and spit. 

Jerking his head away from the lever, the bandana slid further toward the joist until it caught firmly enough for David to work his jaw, biting into it and pushing back out again.  At one point, the bandana got stuck on the curve of the handle, and David started to panic at the idea that he’d worsened his captivity.  In his sudden panic, his upper lip unexpectedly slid out of the cloth.  David rapidly started to open and close his mouth like a ventriloquist dummy.  

“Om on!” he mumbled from behind the remaining gag.  It was the first words he’d uttered since he last saw his parents and brother.

After several minutes, the rag finally slid to his chin before joyfully falling loose around his neck.  David gulped lungs full of air for the first time in days so greedily that he felt a numb tingle in his face and forcibly slowed his breathing so as not to pass out.   

“Hello?” David called out.  He was surprised how much that one word hurt his throat after so many days without water.   “Jeremy?”

There was no response. 

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Filled with hope upon this brief victory, David used the same tactic with the ropes that bound his hands behind his back, struggling to wedge the door handle between the rope and his wrists.  The handle dug into his flesh, grinding painfully against his wrist bone until he finally gave up and thumped bodily upon the bed of shoes on the floor.

A memory came to him then.

He was in the yellow kayak, his legs restricted as he struggled to turn around to free his pack behind him. It was an unexpected and random memory.  But he’d been trying to do something in that kayak that was beyond his ability.  Trapped on the water, the tightness of the watercraft, the claustrophobia, and threatening panic.  He suddenly saw the moments before his death clearer than ever before.  Like then, escape was possible only if he could accomplish some nearly superhuman feat, something beyond himself.

But the last time he’d tried such a thing, it cost him his life.

David settled against the back of the closet, his hands still constrained behind him.  It was difficult to avoid thoughts of defeat, of contemplating the possibility that somehow he had actually died. Now, here he was in some form of hell, separated first from his wife and children, unable to reach them, and now abandoned in a closet with his brother and parents taken, beaten, or held hostage for no reason other than the fact that they’d been in a place and time most inconvenient. 

David faintly heard a rumbling, crunching sound. It was the familiar sound of tires on gravel approaching the lake house, rising up from the distance and escalating in volume before coming to a stop. A car door opened and then slammed shut. Someone was whistling.

Rocking himself forward, David again shoved his head down toward the crack at the bottom of the door, listening as someone — seemingly only one person this time — walked up the dusty gravel path before opening the front screen door with its loud squeak and letting it shut again with a loud bang.  

“Hello?” David called out again.  “Can somebody help me?” 

The whistle stopped and turned instead into a laugh, a feeble chuckle.  David saw shadows dancing on the floor on the door’s other side and heard footsteps approaching the closet.  There was a scraping sound as something was pushed out of the way before the door swung open with a loud creak.

Pink Floyd stood gawking down at David.  The gangly adolescent’s long hair looked even more greasy and matted.  Scabbed-over pimples spread across his chin like bullet holes.  

“Dang, you’re persistent, ain’t you ?” Pink Floyd asked, grinning sadly as he looked down at David.

“Where’s my family?”

“You’ve been in there three days,” Pink Floyd said, ignoring his question.  “I figured you’d be dead.”

“Did you kill them?”

“I ain’t killed anybody,” the man in the skinny teenager’s body said.  “At least not yet.”

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