Los Angeles Noir - Denise Hamilton [79]
He keeps walking until he reaches a hole in the curved bottom of the tube. The hole is slightly smaller, maybe four feet wide. Attached to the side is a ladder. He aims the flash-light below. He cannot see bottom.
He climbs down the ladder.
The length of the descent surprises him. When he reaches the bottom rung, he extends his leg down, swinging it to feel for some ground. His shoe scrapes against something and he decides to let go of the ladder.
He lands awkwardly, almost twisting his ankle. He shines the flashlight around. Another tube, this one perpendicular to the one he came in. His choice is left or right.
There is a scratching, scurrying sound. He thinks it’s most likely a rat.
Then it sounds different. A whimper. A cry.
He looks in the direction he thinks the sound is coming from. His flashlight only goes a small distance before the beam diffuses into an off-white haze. He thinks he sees movement, but it’s up high, eye-level, not crawling across the floor.
He flinches and throws some light above him. Nothing but gray cement.
His light still pointed above him, he looks forward and sees something more clearly. He turns out his flashlight and lets his eyes adjust. Again he sees it. A flickering.
A light ahead.
He runs toward it. As he gets closer, he can’t quite grasp what it is. The first thing he sees is the reflection of his own flashlight.
Then he sees her.
He holds up his free hand, trying to wave the image away as he fights back the nausea. Looking around, he sees he’s in what appears to be a large circular room. Off to one side hangs a camp lantern that barely illuminates the scene.
In the center of the room are two large pieces of sheet glass, hung vertically. They are sealed together at the four corners with over-sized metal bolts. Between the glass is pinned a young girl, wearing only a white T-shirt, a white pair of underwear.
The glass holds her up off the ground. She is pressed together so tightly that her face is distorted, her cheek blotchy and spread wide, her lips puckered like a fish. Her eyes are closed.
“No more.” Her voice, a dry whisper. “Please, no more.”
He catches himself staring with incomprehension before he snaps out of it and rushes to her, examining the glass for some type of latch or opening. Finding none, he fights with the bolts. His hands burn at the friction of the unmovable metal.
“Please … I’ll do anything … I’ll let you do anything,” she says.
The bolts appear to have been tightened by some massive wrench. He looks around the room for it, but finds only a metal pipe.
“Just whatever you do … Don’t ring the bell anymore.”
He stops, looks at her, really looks at her. “What?”
She opens her eyelids, and her eyes searchlight the room. “Who … who are you? Where is he?” Her voice gets more and more excited, and her eyes go crazy. Except for this flurry, she is unable to move. “Get me out, get me out, get me out!”
“I’m trying. Just calm down. Everything is going to be all right.”
He tries to pry the two panes apart, first with his hands, then with his shoe. Her cries are getting louder; his blood pressure, rising.
The glass does not budge. Now a scream: “Get me out! He’s coming! He’s coming back with the bell! No no no no …”
He tries to quiet her, tell her that he’s here to help. He does not tell her that her kidnapper is dead, in the river, unable to hurt her anymore. The idea of what he did to her burns him, keeps him quiet.
Her screaming shows no sign of stopping. She screams dry, hollow, hyperventilated screams—she can’t get enough air to properly bellow out. It would be better, he thinks, if she could really let it all out. But she is so constricted. Her wheeze crawls up his spine and pools into tension.
He grabs the metal pipe.
“Look. The only way I’m getting you out is to break the glass.” He weighs the pipe in his hand. “But I think it’s too dangerous. You could really