Sussex, New Jersey
12:30 p.m.
She woke in dark and panic.
Her first thought was that they had buried her alive.
That she was in a coffin.
She was lying on her back against rough unfinished wood, thick wood planks to the left of her, to the right of her, so close that she could barely raise her arms to feel that — yes, there was more rough wood above, she could smell it. Pine. There was a pillow beneath her head and that was all. Panic raced through her like a breath of fire. She had never been aware of being afraid of tight spaces but she was very afraid of this one.
She balled her hands into fists and pounded. She heard the pounding echo and knew she was in a room then, in some kind of box, some kind of room and not underground — at least not buried underground thank god — because there would be no echo if that were so but the panic didn’t recede any. She could hear her own fear in the wildness of her heartbeat. She screamed for help. She pounded and kicked at the lid of the thing and side to side at firm unyielding wood and it hurt, they’d removed her shoes and stockings, she was barefoot and it was only then that she realized that her skirt and blouse were gone too, she was wearing only her slip and panties. And that fact too was terrifying.
It was cold.
She was not underground but it must have been some kind of basement she was in because it was summer, the day was warm and yet in here it was cold.
Where was she?
She was crying. The tears went cold on her face the moment she shed them. Gooseflesh all over her body.
She kicked harder. Kicked until her feet were sore and maybe bleeding and then kicked and pounded again. Her breath came in gasps through the sobbing.
She had maybe two feet between her chest and the lid above. Maybe she could press the lid off. She raised her arms, took a deep breath and pushed with all her might until her neck was straining, the muscles of her arms and shoulders spasming.
It didn’t budge.
She let go of the breath and rested. Then took another and tried again.
She brought her knees up under her as best she could until they pressed tight against the lid, trying to get more leverage, took a third deep breath and pushed until finally all her strength leeched out of her. She lay back, exhausted.
The footboard and headboard, she thought. Maybe there. She slid down until the soles of her feet touched wood, the slip riding up her thighs and then drew her arms up over her head, the palms of her hands against the headboard. She was sweating now despite the cold, as in clammy film, all over her. She pushed and felt the headboard give a quarter inch and then stop. She relaxed immediately and used her fingers to explore it on either side.
She touched metal. The headboard was hinged to the left. That meant there was probably some kind of lock on the outside. Which also meant the headboard was the entrance. How had they gotten her in here?
She lowered her arms and felt around the base of the box opposite her thighs and found a half-inch space between the base and sideboards on either side. On a hunch she pushed off with the soles of her feet and felt the base slide minutely toward the headboard and then stop.
She was on rollers, casters.
They’d rolled her in.
Then locked the headboard behind her.
Somebody had gone to a whole lot of trouble planning this, constructing this. Building this trap for me.
It didn’t change anything knowing that except to scare her further.
There was a woman involved. The woman with the needle. She’d been driving. Why would a woman do this to another woman? How could somebody do that?
She willed herself to stop thinking, to go back to the original plan. The lock might give. It was possible.
It didn’t.
She pushed until every muscle in her body was shaking with the strain and that was when the fear set in deep and final so that she lay still, trembling wide-eyed in the dark. Because she had no choice then but to accept the fact that there was no way out until they decided to let her out to whatever purpose they had in mind, which could be to no good purpose because here she was. Half naked. In a hand-built coffin. Alone in the swimming dark.
Or maybe not alone.
She heard scratching, light raspings, like claws, something working at the top of the box and growing more and more determined-sounding as she lay there helpless, frozen, listening.
Something wanted in.
A rat?
She took a deep breath and shouted. “HEY!” Why that word she didn’t know. The word simply burst out of her, angry and scared, unnaturally loud in that closed space.
The sounds had stopped.
The trembling didn’t.
There was no answer she could think of to any of these questions that wasn’t frightening and nothing to do but ask them over and over again while she waited for whatever deliverance would come in whatever form, in however vast and slow an eternity.
The scratching sounds did not return. The cold did not relent.
THREE
1:05 p.m.
Was it day or night?
She was so cold. Colder every minute. She was thirsty. Her throat was sore from screaming, her hands and knuckles raw from pounding.
What time was it? How long had she been here?
Inside the box there was no benchmark for time, nothing to do but wait and think, thoughts turning in on themselves like the track on a model railroad, like the double-ring symbol for eternity, the snake swallowing its tail.
