Page 58 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“Help. He caught me. Please help. The address is—” and then I hear a loud smack, like the phone cracking against the ground, and the line goes dead.

25

SHELBY

I wake up on what feels like a bare mattress, but there’s a blindfold over my eyes and my hands are tied behind me with something. Jesus Christ, it’s my worst nightmare to be bound in any way. The fleeting thought of it can set me into panic attacks, and I can’t breathe for a moment. Fear paralyzes me, but I know that to survive, I can’t let it take over. I have to force myself to stay calm.

Where am I? It’s cold, and the distinct damp and smell of mildew make me think it’s a basement. I stand, but I can’t see anything, and I don’t know what’s around me so I sit back down and try to control my shaking. You have to just think and stay in control, I keep repeating to myself. I have to get out of here alive for my babies. Whoever has wanted me to suffer all this time finally has me, and my instinct is to just start screaming bloody murder.Why? What do you want from me?But I don’t, because I don’t want to give away yet that I’m awake.

The constraints around my wrists feel like a silk tie from a bathrobe, and the blindfold feels like fleece or something soft. Part of me wonders if they don’t want to leave any marks on me, which seems like there is a flicker of hope that they might not plan on killing me. They might want to release me unharmed. The other part of me fears that this is the beginning of some sexual fantasy about to be played out, and I’m so terrified it seems impossible to control myself and keep my wits about me, but then I hear something—footsteps above me. Very muffled and faint, and I think again that I must be in a basement.

I hear the opening and closing of drawers and cabinets; then it stops. There’s a male voice, but I can’t make out if it’s familiar or not, and then a woman’s voice. She yells “No! Stop! I’m just here to talk. It’ll be okay if you just—” A door slams, and it’s quiet. That’s Florence. Oh my God. It’s Florence up there. Where the fuck am I? What’s happening?

The tears start streaming down my face, and I’m panicking. I stand again and try to force myself into action—anything to keep moving and find a way out instead of buckling under the crippling fear that could easily have me trembling on that mattress until I hear footsteps on the stairs and get slaughtered…or worse.

I think of Poppy and her chipped pink nails and her plastic barrettes she leaves all over, and her Mr. Potato Head she carries around like a stuffed animal. I think of June and her Grover pajamas and her soft curls and her color crayons, and I can’t breathe, goddamn it. I can’t leave them.

I reach out and feel the brick next to me. A basement wall. I hold still and take three deep breaths. I remind myself that I have survived worse; that I can see my babies again. Then I take a step. If I look straight down, I can see just enough to make out the tips of my boots and the cement floor underneath. I take tiny steps across the floor, and all I see is dust and bits of garbage around the edges of my feet in the tiny slit I am able to see through. A crumpled chips bag, sawdust, oil spots.

“Fuck!” I smack my shoulder into something. I reach my foot out to try to feel what’s around me. It’s the stairs, I think—jagged, probably old wooden stairs leading up to the main floor, the way all these houses are built. With the toe of my boot, I feel a nail sticking out the side of the second stair. I can use this. I drop to my knees and feel for the nail again with the side of my head, carefully tapping my head against the jagged edges of the stairs to locate the nail. Once I do, I catch the edge of the blindfold on the head of the nail, and I’m able to pull it off of my head.

I feel my chest heave, a sob threatening to explode from within me out of utter relief. I can see now. I calm myself again. I don’t let the crying start. I can’t.

The basement is not familiar at all. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I don’t know this place. I look up at the rickety shelves along the walls; boxes and plastic storage containers line them, stuffed with papers and ordinary basement things. Strings of tangled Christmas lights, a deflated basketball, a tire pump, an oil can. It’s not filled with ice picks and duct tape or the tools of a serial killer who plans to skin me alive and bury me under the floorboards. There is a moment of relief at this, though I know I’m not in any less danger.

I want to pull down all of the boxes and start rifling through them so I know who the fuck lives here—where I am—but all I need to focus on is getting out, so I scan the room for anything I can use that would cut the ties off my wrists.

It’s mostly dark. Now I can see the creaky stairs leading up to the main house, and the only light is filtering down from the cracks around the door at the top of the stairs. It gives just enough light to make out the edges of things. I see piles of boxes in the corner and a lawn mower, some metal ladders, clay pots,and a rusted bicycle. There are tools on a workstation near the back, but a knife does me little good if I can’t grip it.

I hear footsteps again from above me, and I squeeze my eyes closed as my heart pounds. “Oh God, please, please, please,” I mutter, but I keep moving, rushing around, desperate to find something I can use. The footsteps stop. A door opens and then closes. It’s quiet again.

The lawn mower. It’s old and crusted in dirt, but I manage to kick it onto its side with my heavy boots, and it falls with a crack on the cement floor. I gasp and hold my breath, staying perfectly still, and I wait. Did they hear that? Is anyone still here? After a minute that feels like days, nothing happens, so I fall to the floor and I sit in front of the lawn mower, pushing my back as close as I can get. I hold my hands out behind me as far as I am able to stretch them until I reach the lawn mower blade.

“Shit!” I almost scream but instead I hiss it to myself when I cut the side of my hand on the blade. I need to stop shaking. I need to pull it together and focus. I shimmy myself back and try again, but the deformity on my hand is not making this any easier. I push the tie around my wrists back until I feel it press against the blade and then I gingerly slide it back and forth, so carefully and slowly, so I don’t slice my wrist. I hear the fabric ripping. Oh my God, it’s working. I keep going and feel another tear, and after just a couple of minutes, the tie breaks open and my hands are free. They’re free!

I leap to my feet and wonder what to do now. Do I try to make a run for it up the stairs? Do I look through the boxes for a weapon? There is an egress window, but it’s a few feet above me and it’s locked. What do I do?

First, I tiptoe up the basement stairs. I gently place my hand on the doorknob and attempt to turn it as quietly as humanly possible. Of course it’s locked, but I had to try. I place my ear against it, and I hear something.

It sounds like someone is in the kitchen, moving around. I hear the clink of ice in a glass, a cabinet closing and a drink being poured. I let go, my hand cupped over my mouth so I don’t make a sound. Someone is right there. Feet, if not inches, away from me. Fuck. Who?

I move slowly back down the stairs, carefully, so nothing creaks, and then I look around. I could pick up any number of things—a crowbar, a two-by-four—and wait, but what good is that against a gun or whatever weapon they have? I need to escape. There’s no other choice. The wind howls, rattling the narrow window in its frame, high on the wall. The storm is moving in, and I have no idea how far away from anything I am. We could be in the middle of nowhere and I could die out there, but I’ll almost certainly die if I stay here, so I move.

I pick up one of the ladders leaning against the far wall and carry it over, placing it underneath the window. This is it. I just have to do it. I can’t wait even seconds longer than I have to. Someone could be lumbering down those stairs to murder me any second now. I pick up an ancient fire extinguisher from where it lies in a pile of dust near the damp brick wall. The only thing that is even allowing me to do all this despite the disadvantage of two amputated fingers is pure, surging adrenaline. I hoist the extinguisher up over my shoulder and climb up the ladder with one hand, trying to balance the heavy fucking thing without falling. And when I get to the top, I don’t hesitate; I smash it into the glass as hard as I can, looking away so the shards don’t hit me in the face.

The glass cracks with the first blow, but I know someone has heard me by now. I bash the heavy metal extinguisher into the glass over and over, until the cracking explodes and it shatters, and I don’t even bother brushing the glass away. I’m already in a winter parka, boots, and a hat, so I just push my body through.

Behind me I hear the basement door fling open, and I see the light from upstairs flood the basement.

“Hey!” a man’s voice yells. “Hey!” and I know that voice. I finally know who it is. I hear him lumber down the basement stairs, and it’s like all of my nightmares from childhood are coming true—the monster is right behind you, clipping at your heels as you desperately try to claw your way to safety.

I scream “Why!” into the night air as fresh tears start to fall, and I grasp the icy ground around the window frame and push myself forward again, trying to get enough leverage to reach all the way through the small window.

I feel him grab at my leg and start to drag me back inside, but he says nothing, which is so terrifying now that I know who he is and I can’t understand, still, what’s happening—why he could be doing this. I kick behind me and try to pull my pant leg free of his grip. He catches my boot and grabs on harder, pulling me back in with such force, shards of glass around the window tear at the flesh of my hands, and I start to lose my grip.

I’m halfway through the window and it will just take one more hard surge forward to get me out into the night, so I scream with all the air I have in my lungs and kick as hard as I can and I feel the ladder behind me fall. I hear him make a sound—he curses as the ladder hits the concrete floor with a smack, and then with one final heave, I push myself out onto the snowy ground above me. And I run.

I run so hard I’m choking on the freezing air hitting my lungs with a shock. I can see where I am now. I know exactly where I am. But I can’t register which direction to go. The snow is too thick. I just need to get enough of a head start that I can at least hide in the pines about a hundred yards in front of me, so I hold my head down against the wind and try to keep going. And then I am in the air as a hidden slick of ice underneath the snow catches me and I slip, and I’m thrown hard against the frozen ground. So hard the wind is knocked out of me and I’m stopped in my tracks trying to gasp for breath, desperate to get the air back in my lungs.

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