By Shawn P. Madison

Artwork by DeVico

It was dark, so dark. Why did they leave him? Didn't they get the money? Hadn't his family paid the ransom? The gag in his mouth was so tight, the coarse fabric tasted salty against his tongue. The rope around his wrists and ankles were too snug, his suit jacket was all bunched up under his armpits. It was too hot, way too hot, and it was so very dark. Utterly dark. Total blackness…

Why had they left him? It had been a long time since they'd come to check on him. Much too long. The air had gone quickly stale, it had gotten very hard to breathe. He had heard sounds outside, sounds like they were covering up this place. Sounds that grew quickly muffled until he couldn't hear them anymore, no matter how hard he tried. That was a long time ago, a very long time ago.

And the silence and darkness had become unbearable...

They hadn't been around after those dreadful sounds had ceased, had never come back to check on him. It was the day that the ransom was to be paid that he'd heard the sounds, the sounds of covering. There had been no more food, no more water after that. No more air...and it was dark.

He had been more than a little afraid ever since. He had screamed until his throat was hoarse yet his screams had been muffled by the filthy rotten tasting gag. It had been much harder to breathe then...very hard, in fact. He had begun to seriously panic, to struggle against the ropes that bound him once he'd realized that they just might not be coming for him…ever…

But the space was too tight, he'd had no leverage. He hadn't been able to get loose. He'd struggled and struggled but to no avail and it was dark, so dark.

He had stopped struggling at some point, stopped fighting, had given up. Now it was just the waiting, that's all he had left.

Just the waiting. He'd been at it for a very long time now. Just waiting and wondering when they'd come back...if they'd come back.

Didn't they get the money? They said they'd let him go once they got paid. They said they'd be back.

But that was a long time ago. Too long. Too long to be in the dark. Much too long to be forced into the dark. Waiting, in the heat. So dark, no sound. Utterly quiet and so dark...

WAIT! What was that? Sounds? Sounds like digging, like the Earth was being dug away from this place. Could it be? Had they come back for him? After all this time, had they finally come?

"I'm here!" he screamed through the gag in his mouth. "I'm here!"

The sounds got louder, they were getting closer. They were almost here. Almost to where he lay, arms and ankles tied and with a gag in his mouth. Almost...
Then came the light...
 

***

Linda Mondezzi dug as quickly as she could. Her heart pumped with the adrenaline coursing through her system. Her hunch looked as if it were about to pay off.

Checking out the far end of the Craven's old family farm had been just an outlandish idea earlier today but the more she thought about it, the more she wondered why this hadn't occurred to anyone else before now. It had been there all along, in the files, this one clue. But no one had seized upon it until today.

She flung the larger rocks away and swept clumps of soil from the old rotted door as fast as she could, oblivious to the dirt covering her clothes. She tucked the badge hanging from the chain around her neck into her blouse and tried once again to wrench the door open.

Half of the crumbling wooden door split off in her hand and she stumbled back momentarily before continuing to dig. She couldn't help but notice as her fingernails dug into the rotted wood how utterly dark it was inside, how dark and how eerily quiet...
 

***

They were almost here, almost here! Freedom was getting closer, freedom from the stale air and the darkness of this place. More light, hands in the empty space where part of the door used to be.

"I'm here!" he screamed again through the gag as the door gave way and the too dark space suddenly filled with light. "I'm free!" he screamed and raced out the door...
 

***

A small wisp of wind swept eerily past Linda Mondezzi from inside the open doorway, sending a slight shiver down her spine, and she smelled stale air coming from inside the tiny shed that had been buried in the side of the hillock. It was worse than just stale air, she thought, it was tinged with the unmistakable stink of old death.

Spooky, she thought as she flipped on the large flashlight and let the narrow beam shine into the inky blackness of the small space.

Several seconds passed by in silence and she felt a small wave of relief pass over her as she peered into the dark confines of the shed. "Well," she mumbled and let the flashlight's beam play across the shed's lone occupant. "You're finally free, Mr. Marquez. Finally free..."

The pile of bones lying within the rotted suit gleamed white in the light of her flashlight. The vacant skull seemed almost to be looking through her from its position on the dirt floor, the remnants of a gag lay loosely between the sagging jawbones.

Her father had worked this case years ago, in the same precinct house and from the very same desk that she toiled at every day. The case of Carlos Marquez had been fresh then, had made headlines. Soon, though, the leads dried up, the case had stalled and those headlines went away. Unfortunately for Carlos, those headlines would now come back. But not in the way his family would have chosen.

"Your twenty two year old kidnapping case is now officially closed, Carlos," Detective Mondezzi sighed. "And you're finally free."

Shaking the dirt from her hands and clothes, Detective Mondezzi turned off the flashlight, leaned against the mound of dirt still covering one side of the shed and tried to shake off the notion that she'd heard a faint scream issue forth from the darkness just as she'd finally tore that rotted old door loose…

END