Right to Life

Look for weaknesses.

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.

Who were these people? Suddenly she was desperate to know.

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. Hey! She listened. Waited.

The sounds had stopped.

The trembling didn't.

What do they want with me? she thought.

Am I going to die here?

Why me?

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.

Greg, she thought. Somebody. Find me.

I'm here.

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.

Why me? bled seamlessly into what do they want from me, which dovetailed into is anyone looking for me, searching or when will I get same water or see some light or a thousand other questions which all line down to one question, how will I get out of here? Alive. Sane.