Number One-Part 4

Melanie woke up with her head resting on cold concrete. There was something hard nudging her in the thigh, and she opened her eyes to a pair of old hiking boots directly in front of her head. She pushed herself up awkwardly, not sure how she ended up lying on the floor. She glanced quickly out the window to find that it was now bright and sunny outside. She must have fallen asleep.
“Bathroom,” the booted figure said abruptly. She looked up to find it was Blue Eyes. Chubby was nowhere in sight. She tried to stand but stumbled on the blanket as she was getting up. Blue Eyes caught her arm and hauled her unceremoniously to her feet. He released her handcuffed arm and pushed her quickly towards the bathroom. Melanie thought briefly about trying to get away, maybe kicking him in the junk and running, but she was fairly certain she wouldn’t get far. Her mind was slowly clearing away the fog of sleep. She was pretty sure she could outrun him distance-wise, but he looked like he could catch her before she had a chance to get too far away. That, and a full night lying on a frigid concrete floor with no padding hadn’t exactly been kind to her. Her legs didn’t seem to want to obey very well as they made their way to the bathroom, and she’d had to put her hand out to steady herself against the wall at least twice.
As before, the door was left open a crack so he could hear what was going on. As she sat down, she simultaneously turned on the tap, so that when she was finished it would sound like she was still going. She hoped it would buy her more time to try and pry the nail loose. She had managed to get it to turn on her previous visit, but hadn’t had the time to pull it free. It was one of those skinny jobs with the tiny ball-type head instead of a flat head, but she could still grip it slightly between her fingers. She twisted it back and forth as much as she could, but it still wouldn’t pull away from the window frame. She tried wiggling it sideways, hoping it might compress the wood around the nail and make the hole bigger so it could be pulled free. She was so intent on getting the nail out she nearly forgot about the time, and suddenly heard shuffling outside the door followed by a quick knock.
“Almost done,” she called a little too eagerly. She washed her hands under the still running water and flushed, and turned around to find Blue Eyes already in the room. Dammit. It had felt close to coming loose on that last tug, too.
When they re-entered the room, Chubby was waiting for them. He was holding the tray, which now had another full glass of water and two pop-tarts on it. Blue Eyes re-attached her to the pole and Chubby set the tray on the ground, and they both left.
Well, at least they’re strawberry, she thought to herself as she took a swig of the water and started on one of the pop-tarts. Her mother would certainly not approve of this diet of pop-tarts and peanut butter sandwiches. Thankfully they had left the blanket there, so she folded it as best she could and sat on it like a cushion. Much better than the cold concrete of the floor. She was still hungry after finishing the second pop-tart, but she doubted that trying to look like a sad little orphan and asking for more would work very well. In fact, it would probably earn her a swift smack to the head.
She leaned back against the pole and stared out at the trees beyond the window, her mind blank. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think anymore. Maybe she could just accept her fate, whatever it was. It would surely make her last hours a lot easier. No. That was no way to think. There was a way out of this. There had to be a way out of this.
The door opened and Blue Eyes came in to take her tray away. She barely glanced at him as he came and went. He wasn’t bad looking, really. On any other day she might have smiled politely at him, maybe hoped he would talk to her. But now, she just really hoped he wouldn’t say a word. And he was doing well so far. She didn’t want to hear either of them speak. It would just piss her off even more. She couldn’t think of a single reason she should be here, and it was really making her hate the two people who she knew were keeping her from leaving. She hadn’t been treated poorly, yet. She hadn’t been tortured, yet. Unless you counted the psychological torture of not know what you’ve done to end up in a situation like this. In that case, there was plenty of torture going on. It wasn’t so bad, really. Neither of them was particularly mean. Oh great, Mel thought, here comes the Stockholm Syndrome. No. I’m trapped in a basement because of them. It’s their fault and I’m allowed to hate them.
God, this sucked. If they had left anything, anything, in the room for her to do it would’ve been better than this. Watching the weather channel on a TV all day would have been better than this. She had nothing to occupy her mine, and she had exhausted all her theories of ways to escape. Except for that nail in the bathroom. She was sure if she had just one more trip she could get it out. She’d felt it budge the last time. She knew she could get it out of the window frame. After that it was just a matter of picking the lock on the handcuffs. Not that she’d ever picked a lock before, but she’d burn that bridge when she got there. She had vague notions of tumblers and needing to push things around inside the lock, but that was more for door locks. This was handcuffs, and she had no idea how they worked. She lifted her wrist and studied the tiny keyhole. But the light in the room was too dim to see anything inside. She twisted around the pole, trying to get better light, but still saw nothing. Now that was a skill that would be useful at some point. She made a mental note to learn the art of lockpicking when she finally got free. And it’s not like she needed to do it quickly, either. She had no pressing engagements to get to. Though Blue Eyes had checked on her regularly yesterday, she was fairly certain they had left her alone all night long. That would give her a good eight hours that night to fiddle all she wanted. Now she just needed to get that nail.
She sighed and shuffled around the pole so she could lean against it and stare out the window. The hours that passed so slowly yesterday didn’t pass nearly as slowly today. Maybe because she had a plan, but more probably because she had something other than bare walls to look at. She watched the sun become more and more intense outside the window as it rose through the sky. As it did, she could feel it get slightly warmer in the basement, though it was still cooler than she liked. She estimated it was a few hours past noon the next time blue eyes checked on her. Guess they didn’t have a schedule, after all.
She still had one arm free, but he didn’t seem to mind that. He simply shook the handcuffs lightly and let them drop when he was satisfied she was still secure. Earlier, staring out the window, she’s made her mind up to ask him why she was here again. He hadn’t answered yesterday, the first time she’d asked, but it didn’t hurt to try again.
“What am I here for?” she said clearly, and loudly enough she knew he could hear. She’d kept her voice neutral, tried to sound more curious than angry or scared. He stopped, almost to the door, and turned. She wasn’t good at reading people particularly well, but she thought he looked sad. But sad about what, exactly? When he didn’t say anything, she tried a different question.
“Why me? What have I done?” she asked. She had done her best to keep from sounding like she was pleading, but she wasn’t sure she had managed it. He just stood there staring at her. After a few minutes that seemed to stretch into eternity, he shook his head slowly, turned, and left. She sagged back against the pole and readjusted her legs to keep them from falling asleep. For a second there she’d thought she was going to get an answer. Damn.
She spread the blanket out and lay down, her head turned so she could see out the window. And with no immediate threat and the room finally getting warmer, she fell asleep. Melanie had no idea how long she’d slept for, perhaps a few hours, because it was getting dark when she woke. There was no one in the room, and nothing to indicate anyone had come or gone while she was asleep, either. She shifted into a sitting position slowly. Her whole body ached from sleeping on the hard concrete for two days. Her mind was surprisingly blank considering where she was. Maybe she was just tired of contemplating her fate, and looking for a means of escape. Tired of trying to figure anything out. Her brain just wanted to idle for a while.
The door opened and Blue Eyes came in, the handcuff keys in his hand. Melanie automatically rose to her feet, suspecting it was late enough for her evening trip to the bathroom. As he unlocked the handcuffs, her heart sped up. This was it, her chance to get that nail. She had to keep herself from running to the bathroom as he followed her down the hallway.
As she sat her hand simultaneously went to the little nail and began to pull. It moved slightly. She wiggled it back and forth a few times, and pulled again, this time twisting it at the same time. It moved achingly slow, but it moved. She kept twisting and pulling until it suddenly popped free of the frame. She nearly toppled over when it suddenly came free, not realizing how much force she had been using to pull on it. She was about to slip it in her pocket, but thought better of it. The material of her scrub pants was too thin, and they might be able to see there was something in her pocket when she left the bathroom. Not that they were that observant, but better safe than sorry.
Shuffling came from outside the door, and Melanie stuck her hand quickly down her shirt and slipped the nail into her sports bra. She wasn’t particularly well-endowed, but they definitely wouldn’t see it there. She was just wiping her wet hands dry as the door opened and Blue Eyes pointed her down the hallway. She went obediently, her heart pounding in her ears. She prayed she didn’t look as suspicious as she felt. The tray was waiting on the floor for her, bearing another anemic sandwich and sad glass of water. Blue Eyes reattached her to the pole and left, leaving her with the tray.
She almost couldn’t believe she’d gotten away with it. It had seemed too easy. She was tempted to take the nail out, make sure it was real, that she hadn’t imagined it, but she knew they would be back for the tray soon, and she had to eat before they took it back. She was starving. Melanie had always thought that she didn’t really eat much normally. But being stuck here with nothing but peanut butter and jam sandwiches and pop-tarts, her stomach had been complaining almost continuously. The first thing I’m doing when I get out of here is eating an entire pizza, she thought as she took the last bite of sandwich. And washing it down with a nice cold beer. Or several beers.
She had just drained the last swallow of water from the cup when Chubby came to take the tray. She put the cup on it and picked it up to hand it to him. He paused before he took it, looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite understand. She felt a little silly, sitting there holding the tray out for him to take. Slowly his arm came up and he took it from her, leaving without a word.
What the hell was that about? Melanie couldn’t quite understand why he had paused. Clearly he hadn’t been expecting her to hand him the tray. She thought it might be because she should feel some kind of contempt towards him. And she did. But they hadn’t mistreated her, or been particularly cruel, so there was no reason for her to show any outward hostility. She hoped that particular move hadn’t made Chubby suspicious. Great. Now she was convincing herself they knew she was up to something. She could picture them standing upstairs talking:
“She handed me the tray.”
“So?”
“Well, why would she do that? Was she trying to be nice? Maybe she’s up to something.”
“Well, maybe we should check on her again every few minutes.”
This was insane. Now she was just being paranoid. It was nothing, and Chubby probably hadn’t thought twice about it. He didn’t seem very bright, anyways. He probably forgot about it the second he closed the door behind him. Well, no point in sitting here waiting for rescue. She had her own self-rescue to attend.
Melanie pulled the nail out of it’s snug, warm hiding place and brought her left, handcuffed wrist up the pole so she could see it more clearly. It was a stroke of luck that they’d chosen to handcuff her left hand, since she was strictly right-handed. She used the pointy end of the nail and pushed it awkwardly into the side of the handcuffs that were attached to the pole. Luckily, the nail was thin enough to fit into the keyhole. It was a tight fit, and it was going to scrape the edges of the hole, but there was nothing she could do about that. She’d simply have to succeed or face the consequences if they found out what she was trying to do. She’d been here two days and they hadn’t hurt her, there was no reason to think they’d start now.
She twisted the nail around in the slot to little avail. She couldn’t even hear the nail scratching anything inside the cuff. She worked feverently for a few minutes before she realized she was in full view of the door. If they did decide to check on her again tonight, they would definitely walk in on her, bent over the handcuffs with a nail in her hand. That would be sure to bring some consequences. She shuffled around so she was sitting cross-legged with the door behind her and the pole directly in front of her. At least this way, if she heard the door open, she might be able to palm the nail before they saw what she was trying to do. And Blue Eyes never really inspected the handcuffs, he just shook them to make sure they were still firmly attached. He might not see they were scratched. So there was a chance she might get more time if they did come back tonight, as long as they didn’t catch her with the nail in her hand.
She worked away with they nail, trying to make contact with anything inside the lock mechanism, for what felt like hours. But it wasn’t working. She realized she wasn’t doing anything except scratching the inside of the keyhole, which might not necessarily be a good thing. Maybe if she could bend the tip of the nail slightly it would be a better tool. After all, she wasn’t getting far with the nail the way it was. Night had descended outside the window, but she wasn’t sure when, so she had no sense of how long she had been fiddling.
She tried to bend a slight bit of the tip of the nail with her fingers, but despite how thin the nail was, she couldn’t get enough of a grip on it. She tried putting it under her foot and pulling on it, but that didn’t work, either. Finally she set it up at an angle against the pole and the concrete floor and put some weight on it with her foot, and it bent slightly. One small victory, she grinned.
She went back to work with her newly bent nail. But still she made no progress. After another long while, she could feel her hands beginning to cramp and she was having trouble holding onto the nail. Clearly not built for lengthy lock-picking sessions, she thought. She set the nail on the floor and flexed her fingers, giving them a bit of a break. Maybe she just needed to bend the nail a little more. After a few minutes she bent the nail a bit farther, using the same technique as before.
Her fingers were numb and aching within a few minutes this time. She was clutching the nail with a death-grip. Relax, she told herself. You’ve got lots of time, you can do this. They do this in the movies all the time. Hell, ditzy actresses do this in the movies all the time. If a ditzy actress can pretend to pick the lock on a set of handcuffs, surely you can do it for real. She tried to keep giving herself a mental pep talk as she worked away. She bent the nail a few more times, until it was nearly at a 90 degree angle, before she had any reason to believe she was making progress.
Well, progress would have been the handcuffs popping open and me getting the hell out of here, she thought, but she did feel the nail make contact with something inside the locking mechanism. She wiggled and wiggled, cursing herself for not taking up the art of locksmithing when she had the chance. She looked out the window once, as she took a quick break, her fingers aching like an 80-year-old arthritis victim, and thought she saw the trees getting a bit brighter. The idea that she was running out of time filled her with dread. She had to do this. There was no way they wouldn’t notice that she had been messing with the handcuffs now. The keyhole was bent and scratched around the edges. It would be blatantly obvious what she had been doing if they saw that. Then they’d search her, find the nail, and she’d be out of options.
She bent intently over the lock again and wiggled the nail in as far as she could, moving it around. Please, please, please, she thought. Just this once, please let this work, let me do this. This has to work. She was breathing hard, and her heart pounded even harder when she glanced out the window and realized that it really was getting lighter outside. She’d been working the lock all night with no success.
And then, suddenly, it worked. The side of the handcuffs that were latched around the pole moved. She wiggled the nail again, pulling on them, and they came free. She had done it!
Melanie stood up, suddenly completely unsure of what to do. Where should she go now? It didn’t seem very intelligent to leave the house by way of the door, since she had no idea what time it was, and for all she knew one of them was lying in a sleeping bag directly outside the door, waiting for morning. In fact, since it really was now morning, there was no telling when they would be coming. She had to get the hell out of there, and fast.