Shallow Creek

The drills continued to drone as Brendan reached the steps.  He mounted the first one as the drills stopped suddenly.  A gut-wrenching click was followed by one of the men saying, “Done.”

Frantic now, Brendan realized he’d missed his chance.  Banging on the door now was just going to bring a world of hurt down those stairs.  His only chance now would be to wait out the night and hope only a couple of these guys came by first thing in the morning to start work again, whatever that “work” was.

He listened dejectedly as the men left and locked the barn’s outer door.  After it was clear that they’d really left this time, Brendan clicked his flashlight back on and inspected his new accommodations for the night.

As he’d suspected from his first brief glance at the long, rectangular basement, it was a kitchen. Everything was stainless steel: all the appliances, all the countertops, and all the storage bins.  He was no expert, but he now wondered if people really meant it when they said meth was cooked.  If it was cooked, then it would need a kitchen.  If it needed a kitchen, then this was it, even if the sterile scene looked nothing like the haphazard meth setups he’d seen on the Internet.  This long basement even had huge ventilation ducts and a sprinkler system.

The faint scent that continued to permeate the whole place suddenly became apparent when Brendan saw series of gas outlets along both walls.  These idiots had installed active natural gas lines and hadn’t capped them properly.

In a panic, Brendan ran down each side of the kitchen, checking each valve was in the off position.  They were.

He followed any exposed hoses and pipes to the places they disappeared into the concrete walls, looking for more valves to shut off.  There were none.

Now his head started to hurt.  Brendan staggered back to the stairs and climbed up right beneath the trapdoor.  He pushed up on the door, and it had a little bit of play, but now he noticed the rubber gasket all the way around the edges.  No fresh air could get in while the seal remained intact.  Brendan produced his trusty knife and went to work.  He sliced and poked at the rubber while the smell intensified.

Realizing his efforts had little impact on his situation, Brendan gave up on destroying the seal.  Maybe there was something in the basement that he could use to pry the door open.  His first expedition through the stainless steel nightmare hadn’t revealed anything, but he had to try again.

He jumped off the steps, landing in the puddle at the bottom.  Both feet slid out from under him and the beam from his flashlight darted chaotically across the vented ceiling.  His fall stopped abruptly when something cracked the back of his head with the force of a pissed-off mule.  Stars filled the darkness as his eyes flittered open and closed, his body refusing to cooperate with his brain’s demands.

Did natural gas sink or rise in regular air?  He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t care to move right now.  He was just so damn sleepy.

The defeat didn’t even worry him.  Suddenly all the stuff with Michelle and Kim and Grant floated away into a totally irrelevant place, some place that didn’t affect him at all.  He wondered what would happen in the morning when Grant’s friends found him dead on the floor, but by that point, what was the worst they could do to him?

He allowed his eyes to close fully and embraced the thick blanket enveloping him.

Chapter 33

Brendan gulped huge bursts of air and tried to get up, but something heavy lay on his chest.  He tried in vain to struggle against it, but he had no strength to resist.

“Okay, he’s awake,” said a strange voice.  “Move him.”

His eyes refused to focus consistently as a dark view of shadowy figures blurred above him.  Where the hell was he anyway?

Then he remembered the basement, the kitchen where his skull had lost a battle with a concrete step.  That could only mean Grant’s buddies had found him.  He lashed out with what little force he could muster, but strong hands easily grappled him into compliance.

A drum pounded furiously inside his skull, but he knew he had bigger problems now.  What was his excuse going to be for why he was unconscious in a damn meth lab?

“Get the restraints on there,” said the same strange voice.  He was pretty sure it wasn’t either of the guys who’d inadvertently locked him in the kitchen.

Straps wrapped across his chest and legs, locking all his appendages and rendering him totally useless.  Escape wasn’t happening.  Suddenly a bizarre combination of nausea and fatigue hit him all at once and he let his eyes sink shut.

The next thing he knew, he was floating across the ground, staring up at the ceiling of the dark barn.  There was something stuck to his face, covering his mouth, but he couldn’t shake it off no matter how hard he tried.  Then a beautiful night sky distracted him, framing silhouettes of random faces as they whisked him along.