Youre a runner; damn right you are. Look at those legs.
They were good legs, all right, and she didnt need anyone to kiss them to make her aware of it. Especially not a lunatic like Pickering. She didnt know if they were good in the sense of being beautiful, or sexy, but in utilitarian terms, they were very good. They had carried her a long way since the morning she and Henry had found Amy dead in her crib. Pickering clearly had great faith in the powers of duct tape, had probably seen it employed by dozens of psycho killers in dozens of movies, and none of his nieces had given him any cause to doubt its efficacy. Maybe because he hadnt given them a chance, maybe because they were too frightened. But maybe especially on a wet day, in an unaired house so damp she could smell the mildew
Em leaned forward as far as the corsets binding her would allow and gradually began to flex the muscles of her thighs and calves: those new runners muscles the lunatic had so admired. First just a little flex, then up to half. She was approaching full flex, and starting to lose hope, when she heard a sucking sound. It was low at first, barely more than a wish, but it got louder. The tape had been wrapped and then rewrapped in crisscrossing layers, it was hellishly strong, but it was pulling free of the floor just the same. But slowly. Dear God, so slowly.
She relaxed, breathing hard, sweat now breaking on her forehead, under her arms, between her breasts. She wanted to go again at once, but her experience running the Cleveland South track told her she must wait and let her rapidly pumping heart flush the lactic acid from her muscles. Her next effort would generate less force and be less successful if she didnt. But it was hard. Waiting was hard. She had no idea how long he had been gone. There was a clock on the walla sunburst executed in stainless steel (like seemingly everything else in this horrible, heartless room, except the red maple chair she was bound to)but it had stopped at 9:15. Probably it was a battery job and its battery had died.
She tried to remain still until she had counted to thirty (with a delightful Maisie after each number), and could only hold out to seventeen. Then she flexed again, pushing down with all her might. This time the sucking sound was immediate and louder. She felt the chair begin to lift. Just a little, but it was definitely rising.
Em strained, her head thrown back, her teeth bared, fresh blood running down her chin from her swollen lip. The cords on her neck stood out. The sucking sound became louder still, and now she also heard a low ripping sound.
Hot pain bloomed suddenly in her right calf, tightening it. For a moment Em almost kept on strainingthe stakes were high, after all, the stakes were her lifebut then she relaxed within her bonds again, gasping for air. And counting.
One, delightful Maisie. Two, delightful Maisie. Three
Because she could probably pull the chair free of the floor in spite of that warning tightness. She was almost sure she could. But if she did so at the expense of a charley horse in her right calf (shed had them there before; on a couple of occasions theyd hit so hard the muscle had felt like stone rather than flesh), she would lose more time than she gained. And shed still be bound to the fucking chair. Glued to the fucking chair.
She knew the clock on the wall was dead, but she looked at it anyway. It was a reflex. Still 9:15. Was he at the drawbridge yet? She had a sudden wild hope: Deke would blow the warning horn and scare him off. Could a thing like that happen? She thought it could. She thought Pickering was like a hyena, only dangerous when he was sure he had the upper hand. And, probably like a hyena, wasnt able to imagine not having it.
She listened. She heard thunder, and steadily whooshing rain, but not the blare of the air horn mounted beside the drawbridge keepers cabin.
She tried pulling the chair off the floor again, and almost went catapulting facefirst into the stove when it came free almost at once. She staggered, tottered, almost fell over, and backed against the Formica-topped service island in the middle of the kitchen to keep from doing so. Her heart was now running so fast, she couldnt detect the individual beats; it seemed to be just a steady hard hum in her chest and high in her neck, below the points of her jaw. If she had fallen over, she would have been like a turtle lying on its back. There wouldnt have been a chance in the world of getting up again.
Im all right, she thought. It didnt happen.
No. But she could see herself lying there all the same, and with hellish clarity. Lying there with only the swash of blood made by Nicoles hair for company. Lying there and waiting for Pickering to come back and have his fun with her before ending her life. And he would be back when? In seven minutes? Five? Only three?
She looked at the clock. It was 9:15.
She hunched beside the counter, gasping for breath, a woman who had grown a chair out of her back. There was the butcher knife on the counter, but she couldnt reach it with her hands bound to the chairs arms. Even if she could have grasped it, what then? Just stand there, hunched over, with it in her hand. There was nothing she could reach with it, nothing she could cut with it.
She looked at the stove, and wondered if she could turn on one of the burners. If she could do that, then maybe
Another hellish vision came to her: trying to burn through the tape and having her clothes catch on fire from the gas ring instead. She wouldnt risk it. If someone had offered her pills (or even a bullet in the head) to escape the possibility of rape, torture, and deathlikely a slow one, preceded by unspeakable mutilationsshe might have overcome the dissenting voice of her father (Never give up, Emmy, good things are always just around some corner or other) and gone for it. But risking the possibility of third-degree burns all over the upper half of her body? Lying half-baked on the floor, waiting for Pickering to come back, praying for him to come back and put her out of her misery?
No. She wouldnt do that. But what did that leave? She could feel time fleeting, fleeting. The clock on the wall still said 9:15, but she thought the beat of the rain had slacked off a bit. The idea filled her with horror. She pushed it back. Panic would get her killed.
The knife was a cant and the stove was a wont. What did that leave?
The answer was obvious. It left the chair. There werent any others in the kitchen, only three high stools like barstools. She guessed he must have imported this one from a dining room she hoped never to see. Had he bound other womenother niecesto heavy red maple chairs that belonged around a dining-room table? Maybe to this very one? In her heart she was sure he had. And he trusted it even though it was wood instead of metal. What had worked once must work again; she was sure he thought like a hyena in that way, too.
She had to demolish the prison that held her. It was the only way, and she had only minutes to do it.
7
Its probably going to hurt.
She was close to the center island, but the counter stuck out slightly, creating a kind of lip, and she didnt trust it. She didnt want to movedidnt want to risk falling over and becoming a turtlebut she did want a surface wider than that projecting lip to beat against. And so she started toward the refrigerator, which was also stainless steel and big. All the beating surface a girl could want.
She shuffled along with the chair bound to her back and bottom and legs. Her progress was agonizingly slow. It was like trying to walk with a weird, form-fitting coffin strapped to her back. And it would be her coffin, if she fell over. Or if she was still whacking it fruitlessly against the front of the KitchenAid when the man of the house returned.
Once she tottered on the edge of falling overon her faceand managed to keep her balance by what seemed like willpower alone. The pain in her calf came back, once more threatening to become a charley horse and render her right leg useless. She willed that away, too, closing her eyes to do it. Sweat rolled down her face, washing away dried tears she did not remember crying.