Endurance

of agony coursed through him, making him want to die to end the pain.

I’ll never be able to get those keys out of his pocket.

Then Felix looked up, and saw the dim silhouette of something coming out of the cave.

# # #

When Kelly opened her eyes, she was lying on dirt.

Am I outside? What’s going on?

It all rushed back to her in a flood of images. Going into the closet. Chasing JD. Talking to Alice.

No, not Alice. Alice was really a crazy, freaky man named Grover. He caught me because my finger was...

Then the pain hit. Kelly stared at her index finger, saw an ugly, serrated cut around the knuckle. She’d seen an injury like that once before. Back home, one of her classmate was helping his father set fox traps, and one snapped down on him. Kelly figured when she stuck her finger in the peep hole, Grover had put a fox trap on it to hold her there.

She bent the digit, wincing, feeling the tears well up but biting them back.

I’ll cry later. I need to figure out what’s going on.

She tore her eyes away from the injury and studied her surroundings.

Even though Kelly was on dirt, she wasn’t outside. She was in some kind of tiny, dark room. The walls were concrete. The door was metal. The only furnishings were a bucket and a water pump.

“Mom! Grandma!”

Her voice echoed around in the enclosed space. She got up and went to the door.

Locked.

“Mom!” Kelly yelled with all of her lung power.

“Who’s there?” someone said back. A man. Not far away.

“Help me! I’m locked in here!”

Kelly put her ear to the door.

“I’m locked in, too” the man answered. He didn’t sound like he was standing outside. More like he was from a room to the left. She walked over to the wall and cupped her hands together, putting them against her mouth as if she were about to shout. Then she pressed her hands to the wall and said, “Can you hear me?”

Kelly held her ear against the cold concrete and waited for a response.

“Yeah, I can hear you.” The man’s voice was quiet, but clear.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“We’re under the Rushmore Inn, being held in slave cells.”

“What do they want with us?”

“They’re sick. They want to use our blood for transfusions. And...”

Kelly didn’t like the way his voice trailed off, like he was about to tell her something and then changed his mind.

“And what?”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Kelly. You?”

“Cam. I came here with my sister’s fiancee, Felix. We’ve been looking for her for a year. We think she’s here.”

A year? They’ve been looking for a year?

Kelly shook her head.

No way. I couldn’t last a year here.

“Have you seen my mom or grandmother?” she asked, her voice getting higher as panic set in. “Letti and Florence Pillsbury?”

“I haven’t seen anyone. Just the guy who brought me down here. Ugly bastard with a split in his face. They need our blood because theirs is bad, or something like that.”

Kelly was horrified. “Our blood?”

“I’m O negative. So is my sister. It’s pretty rare.”

Kelly closed her eyes. She was O negative, too. So were Mom and Grandma.

“What else do they want us for?” she asked.

Cam didn’t answer.

“Cam, please, if you know something, tell me. I can handle it.”

“They... they kidnap women to make babies.”

Kelly knew she had to be brave. Mom told her that the best way to overcome bad situations was to fight the fear and keep a clear head. Emotions weren’t useful.

But Kelly felt the tears coming on anyway.

“Kelly? You okay?”

“I’m only twelve years old!” Kelly wailed.

“Jesus. Look, it will all be okay. We’ll get out of this. I promise.”

“How? What if they’ve already got Mom and Grandma? No one knows we’re here.”

“I’ve been in bad situations before, Kelly. We’ll make it.”

Kelly lost herself to tears, crying so hard her nose began to run. All the while she heard Cam saying, “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” Over and over again.

She thought of Mom, who’d given the same lecture to Kelly since she was four years old and skinned her knee.

“Be strong. You won’t help your situation by crying. Focus on what you need to do to fix it.”

Mom was right. I can cry about the pain. Or I can deal with it.

Kelly blew her nose on her sleeve, then asked Cam, “What situations?”

“What?”

“You said you’ve been in bad situations before.”

“It’s… tough to talk about.”

Kelly pressed her ear to the wall. “Please, Cam. I feel like I’m going to crack up. Tell me something hopeful.”

Cam didn’t answer.

“Please.”

“It happened when I was a kid. I was playing in an abandoned house up the street, with my best friend. A man, a drifter, he grabbed us. I was locked in a closet. My friend... the man hurt him. Bad. For a long time. It was so bad, he died. I heard everything. But I managed to get away. I escaped back then, Kelly. I’ll escape again. We both will.”

“That’s... awful, Cam.”

“Nietzsche said what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I’m strong, Kelly. And I bet you are too. We’re going to get out of this.”

“Be quiet!”

It was a new voice. A woman. Coming from the opposite wall.

“Who’s there?” Kelly yelled.

“Shut up!” the woman said. “We aren’t allowed to talk! They do things to us when we talk!”

“Who are you?” Kelly asked. “What’s your name?”

There was a clanging noise, followed by the woman saying, “No! I wasn’t talking! I was telling them not to talk! Please don’t hurt me! I’m carrying a baby!”

It was followed by a scream so raw, so horrifying, that it was the single most frightening thing Kelly had ever heard in her life.

What could make someone scream like that?