At first, the silence didn’t bother Sean. He figured Colton would be ten minutes. His watch had a small light on it. Nine ten P.M. He hoped Brian and his family didn’t come back because he had no idea what he would tell them. The truth? That Brian videotaped naked men and women in the shower at college? Like that would go over well. Breaking and entering … destroying private property … what else would the cops throw at him?
Sean didn’t want to think about that.
He tried to feel around, see if there was a ladder. The room was small, maybe six feet by four feet.
A little bigger than a grave.
Where the hell was Colton?
He checked his watch. Nine twelve. Shit, it had only been two minutes? It felt like thirty … more.
Sean took a deep breath. On one wall were jars. They felt grimy, like someone had forgot they’d canned fruits and veggies and they’d been down here for years. There had to be a ladder here, didn’t there? How did people come up and down to get the jars?
They don’t. They forgot about them.
A mouse … no, larger than a mouse … ran across his foot. He kicked it and the sound it made when it hit the wall made him think larger than a rat.
He wasn’t normally skittish about bugs and rodents, but he couldn’t see them, and what if they had rabies?
Something crawled over his face and he shook his head back and forth. He was shaking; he couldn’t control it.
Dammit, where are you, Colton?
He looked at his watch.
Nine thirteen.
No, his watch had to be broken. Three minutes? It felt like hours.
He looked up and saw nothing and for a second thought that the roof had caved in, that Colton wouldn’t be able to find where he was buried. That he could be down here for hours … days. That he would die.
Don’t be stupid. Colton will get help. If he can’t get you out, he’ll get help.
Every time Sean moved, he felt something else … a rodent, a bug, a cobweb. So he stood still and waited.
He couldn’t stop shaking.
He’d never been so terrified.
It’s just a hole! Colton is coming back!
But it wasn’t just a hole. It was a grave. Why was it even here? Why didn’t they board it up?
Stop, Sean! It’s not a grave.
He reached up, hoping to feel the floor above him, but he couldn’t. He was six foot one, and with his arm extended what? Seven feet? But he still couldn’t feel a ceiling. Had he fallen farther than he thought?
He kept telling himself that Colton was coming back, that he was just in a root cellar, that there was nothing here that could hurt him … but he felt the walls closing in on him.
Nine sixteen.
Six minutes …
Something flew by his face and he screamed.
* * *
“Please, C. Don’t do this.”
Colton opened the cage.
“In.”
“No.”
It was just him and Colton. He had cuffs and shackles, but if he could incapacitate Colton then maybe he had a chance to get away. Hide. It was dark outside. He had to try.
He didn’t want to be locked up again. Prison. The root cellar. Might as well be a well in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t care, he couldn’t do this!
Sean turned and with all his strength head-butted Colton as hard as he could. He ran up the stairs. He tripped over his shackles, struggled to get up. He half crawled up the stairs. If he could just make it to behind the garage …
He hadn’t thought this through, he knew, but the panic was real. He could taste his own fear and mortality. He had to get away or he would be dead.
He was nearly to the top of the stairs when a blinding pain hit him in the back. He collapsed and half fell, half slid down the stairs.
Colton had shot him.
His body convulsed and he heard the zap as Colton held the Taser on him until the charge was spent.
He almost couldn’t breathe.
His limbs twitched. He couldn’t speak.
Colton dragged him by his feet into the cage. His head banged on the stairs and he saw stars. He didn’t know if it was from the pain in his skull or being Tasered.
“D-d-don’t,” Sean squeaked out.
“It’s over, Sean. Over. You think you are some sort of genius? You think only you know what’s right and what’s wrong? If your wife knew half of what we did, she would never