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 get hurt. I’m… I’m going to go for help.”
“No! He’ll come back! You have to do something!”
“He’s not coming back!”
The noise she’s making reminds him of her sister’s last sound, that final emptying scream. Could he have done more to help her? Should he have done less?
He can’t concentrate with her crying. The opportunity is slipping by. What would he be willing to do to free her? Anything? A moral lapse? No. To lapse is to fall. This is a leap. This is worth the price.
He swings at the glass with the pipe, aiming near her upper leg. The impact makes a loud reverberating bounce that echoes through the underground tunnels. The glass does not break.
“No! Stop! That hurts! Get me out of here!”
“I’m trying-”
“Get me out!”
“I’m trying!” He swings. “I’m trying!”
Again and again, until the glass shatters. She falls forward onto the shards.
He throws the pipe away and goes to lift her up. Blood has already soaked her thin shirt. She presses herself onto him, holding him, crying deeply, allowing big gulps of air to enter her lungs.
“I’ll take you somewhere safe,” he tells her, but all she can do is moan.
In his car. He drives her to the nearest hospital. She hasn’t said anything since he carried her up through the tunnels and out of the river. He continues to glance over at her, hoping she will say something, anything. When she doesn’t, he speaks just to break the still air.
“He can’t hurt you anymore.”
She looks out the window. “When I woke up in that thing, he began telling me stories. He would tell me about the horrible things he was going to do to my sister. Only, every time he would describe something really bad, he would ring a bell. At some point the stories stopped. He would just come and sit next to me and ring the bell.”
He grips the steering wheel tightly. “You know, I had it in my hands. I had the bell, and it slipped away from me.” He looks at her, her confused expression. “It’s gone now. It’s all gone.”
She puts her hand on the door handle, turns to him. “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of your sister.” He sees a tear roll down her cheek, a tear she does not wipe away.
She says, “I think you should just let me out here.”
He turns onto San Fernando Road. “The emergency room is right there. Just let me-”
She throws the door open; he slams on the brakes. She uses the recoil of being thrown back to push herself out of the car. She gets to her feet and runs toward the hospital, flailing her arms as she goes.
There is nothing more he can do. He reengages his stalled engine. He leaves.
He puts his window down, even though the late-night air is cool. He wants to drive forever, wants the car never to run out of gas, never to stop. No acceleration, no deceleration. A constant, smooth, uninterrupted drive.
This fantasy cannot hold. He knows he needs to go home. He looks down and remembers her blood all over his clothes. He can’t go home like this. He’s too tired to want to figure things out, though he knows he needs to. But then, as ideas do, something comes to him.
For the last time tonight he heads to the river.
He finds their bodies, largely unchanged since he left them hours ago. He examines the man, stiff and cold, roughly his same build. First he takes off the man’s jacket. Then his shirt, his pants.
They fit him well enough. At least they are clean.
He dresses the man in his clothing. Now the kidnapper is wearing the blood of the sister of the dead woman next to him. For him and for now, this is enough.
As he reclaims his personal belongings from his exchanged clothing, he finds the empty powder packet in the suit jacket. He leaves it in the possession of the corpse.
“You,” he says to the dead man. “This is your fault.”
Home. He tries to be quiet as he opens the door. He closes it softly. He crosses the front room, slinks into his office and into his chair. He breathes in and out, trying to calm down. His skin is clammy from the lack of sleep.
He goes into the bedroom. His wife is sleeping. He sits down on his side of the bed, trying not to wake her. He doesn’t bother to undress.
She turns to him, still asleep. She manages to mutter, “Poor baby, always working late. You get a lot done?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s great. Mmm, I got to get up soon. Wake me up at 7, ’kay?”
“Sure.”
He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, sets it on the nightstand next to his pillow. Does the same with his keys, his change. He reaches into the suit jacket. The right pocket. He finds it there.
The bell, washed clean by the river, traveled on its journey, has arrived here.
Maybe it’s the fatigue, but he’s not so concerned with
