windows. There were wooden benches. There were lockers. There were shelves piled with vacuum-packed clothes and rubber sandals. The ceiling was nothing more than a huge concrete slab fitted with strip lighting.
“AW… PLAY WITH ME, GUYS.”
Michaela shouted, “Go play with yourself!”
Phoenix’s voice came back. He was panting. The guy was getting all hot and excited. I could picture him there, sitting at the computer terminal, rocking backward and forward, his face red, his hands getting all sticky. And there on the booster screen would be us in the locker room. Searching for some way out. Hell, we really were just like bugs caught in that glass jar. Scurrying to one end of the room. Feeling the walls for a hidden exit, looking under the bench, looking into the air-conditioning duct for a passageway to freedom. But we were stuck. We were caught in this madman’s odious paws.
“YOU KNOW I COULD DO SOMETHING TO YOU THAT’S REALLY COOL!” He snickered. I could hear the saliva squelching in his mouth. “YEAH, SOMETHING REALLY COOL. DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS?”
Michaela yelled back. “Go take a flying fuck, OK?”
“I MIGHT TAKE A FLYING FUCK AT YOU, YOU HORNY LITTLE BITCH. DO YOU KNOW SOMETHING? I’VE SEEN YOU NAKED IN THE SHOWER. WE’VE GOT CAMERAS EVERYWHERE. YOU’VE GOT A NICE CHERRY BUTT. I COULD PUT SOME WORK INTO THAT. GET YOU ALL HOT AND SQUIRMY… MAYBE MAKE YOU SCREAM A LITTLE … YOU’D LIKE THAT, WOULDN’T YOU, GIRL?”
“OK,” I said. “Phoenix? What’s this cool idea of yours? What y’ going to do?”
“OH? SO YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME AT LAST?”
I stood in the middle of the locker room and nodded. “Surprise us.”
“WELL, I WAS JUST SITTING AND LOOKING AT THE TEMPERATURE CONTROLS. YOU KNOW THIS THERMOSTAT CONTROL GOES ALL THE WAY DOWN TO BELOW FREEZING? I COULD TURN YOUR ROOMS ACROSS THERE INTO AN ICEBOX. THE JOHN WOULD FREEZE OVER. ICE WOULD FORM ON THE WALLS. I COULD SIT HERE AND WATCH YOUR FACES TURN BLUE. COOL, HUH?” He laughed at his own joke.
“You wouldn’t do that, Phoenix, would you?” Michaela looked up at the walls as she spoke. “We’ve done nothing to hurt you.”
“YEAH, RIGHT!” He paused, the sound of his respiration rasping around the room. “MICHAELA. YOU KNOW, I MIGHT WARM TO YOU IF YOU DO SOMETHING FOR ME.”
“Yeah?”
“ONE BY ONE AND NICE AND SLOW… TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES. START WITH THE SWEATSHIRT. YOU KNOW, MAKE IT FUN. TEASE ME A LITTLE. IF YOU’RE GOOD I’LL LEAVE THAT OLD THERMOSTAT ALONE. MMM? WHAT DO YOU SAY?”
Yeah, but when you get bored with that, what next? I didn’t trust Phoenix one little bit. I looked ’round the room again. And this time look, I told myself. Really look! There’s got to be something here.
“THAT’S IT, MICHAELA… LIFT IT UP OVER YOUR WAIST NICE AND SLOW… SLOWER… THAT’S IT, YEAH…”
The breathing rasped louder. Michaela had got hold of the bottom of the sweatshirt and lifted it in one slow movement, exposing her flat stomach. I knew she was playing for time, but this wouldn’t give us long.
I looked at the lockers again. They stood against the wall from floor to ceiling. They were in three sections, each containing a dozen individual lockers with combination locks, standing side by side along the wall. Then I glanced down at the floor. A line marked the floor, leaving chipped and scratched tiles. Someone had dragged an object-a heavy and hard one at that- across the floor. My eyes returned to the lockers. The curving line scored into the floor ended at the bottom of the farthest cabinet. It was just the kind of mark you’d make dragging a heavy piece of furniture by yourself across the floor. Now I barely heard Phoenix’s breathy noises of approval as Michaela lifted the sweat-shirt up over her breasts. My eyes traced the scratches in the floor to the locker cabinets. The one at the end stood maybe an inch forward of the other two. Someone had been single-handedly shifting that heavy piece of steelwork around. Someone maybe like Phoenix… now why should he go to all that trouble?
“TAKE IT OFF… TAKE IT OFF NOW!”
As Michaela slipped the sweatshirt up over her shoulders I told her, “Move back to the wall.”
Surprised, she stepped back, pulling the sweatshirt back down over her chest.
“HEY, MICHAELA, DON’T GET SHY ON ME NOW. TAKE IT OFF!”
“Stay right back,” I shouted to her, then I reached up, grabbed the locker cabinet and toppled it forward. It fell with a tremendous crash. Tiles cracked, splintered. Michaela looked at me, stunned, as if I’d lost my mind.
“HEY! STOP IT! GET OUT OF THERE!”
“Too late, Phoenix. I’ve found what you’ve been hiding.” I nodded toward a heavy-duty door that had been concealed by the lockers. I whispered to Michaela, “Pray that this is an exit.”
“Hell, it might lead to Phoenix.”
“If it does, I’m going to rip his big ugly head off.” The door didn’t have a handle but rather a steel wheel in its center. I spun it. Behind the door I heard some mechanism turning with a clicking sound.
“LEAVE IT ALONE. YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF HERE!”
I shut out the voice. Instead I threw everything into turning that wheel. Just when I thought I’d have to turn the thing forever a click sounded, followed by a hiss of air. “Stay close, Michaela.” I pushed. The door swung open, revealing something no bigger than a closet.
Hell. It couldn’t be a dead end. There had to be something that-
Yes. The closet-sized room had no ceiling. I hit a switch and the void filled with light. There, running above my head, was something like a large chimney flue. In one wall metal ladder rungs ran up fifteen feet to a hatch.
I felt Michaela’s hand on my arm. I pointed upward and mouthed: Follow me.
By this time Phoenix thundered like some old god of the barbarians. His rage-filled voice blasted the room.
“YOU BASTARDS! I TOLD YOU I’D GET YOU… I PROMISED YOU REVENGE. I PROMISED I’D HURT YOU… NOW… YOU DIDN’T EXPECT THIS, DID YOU?”
I braced myself for an explosion or flood of poison gas.
Instead the lights went out. As simple as that. And without windows the darkness was total. I mean it was just like being sealed into a coffin ten feet underground.
Behind me, Michaela whispered, “Oh, Christ… I can’t see a thing. Greg?”
“Hold out your hand. There… got it.”
“He’s switched off the power.”
“Never mind that now. Just follow me. Walk forward. That’s it. Feel those?”
“Yes.”
“Those are the rungs of a ladder.”
“Jesus Christ… what’s he going to do next?”
“He can’t do a thing. He’s over there in his hidey-hole.”
“But-”
“But what we’re going to do, Michaela, is climb. I’ll go first, you follow.”
“But what if the hatch is locked?”
“There’s a steel wheel like the door we came through. It must be a manual lock. Phoenix can’t do anything to that.” I began to climb. “That’s why he hid the doorway in the first place, to stop others he trapped here from escaping. Are you behind me?”
“Yes.”
“Go slowly. Don’t rush.”
Hell, the mental image of falling and breaking a leg came only too sharply. If we did that we might as well be dead and buried. So… nice and slow… one rung at a time. I climbed the ladder up the shaft in total darkness. God, what a darkness. It coiled ’round you like black smoke. You opened your eyes so wide they hurt, just to see a glimmer of light. But there was no light. And your eyes played tricks on you until purple death’s heads blossomed out of thin air right in front of you.
Now Phoenix had stopped ranting like a mad old god of yore. He was pissed, I knew that much. But he kept quiet. Maybe there weren’t any of those night vision cameras in this shaft. Maybe he was listening hard through those concealed microphones, trying to hear our hands and feet whispering on the rungs. Or maybe for a sudden
