Tuesday
Wee Hours
Sweat poured down Ashley's face as she scanned the walls in a controlled panic. It had to be twenty-five degrees hotter in this metal tube than outside.
She looked up. Four or five feet above her head, at the top of the silo, was a large metal hatch, three feet by five feet, closed shut. The hinges were on the outside. She must have, she realized, been brought in here through that hatch. That meant there must be some type of fixed ladder going up the side of the silo to get to that door. If she could get through it, then there might be a way down to the ground.
She jumped and grazed it with her fingertips-barely.
She climbed the plastic bin, reaching-but it suddenly collapsed under her weight.
She stood again, frustrated. What she needed was a long stick. Maybe it would flip open if she could get some pressure on it.
Then again, maybe it was padlocked on the outside.
A long stick…
She looked around. The wooden boards of the flooring might actually be long enough if she could get one loose.
How?
They were screwed down.
Nothing in her tub of goodies could be used as a screwdriver.
Then she saw it: the cans of soup had pull-tabs. She pulled a top off, set the soup to the side, and wiggled the pull-tab back and forth until it broke off from the lid.
She found that all the screws were sunken into the wood a quarter inch or so, not far in but far enough that the pull-tab couldn't grab the screws' surface.
She had an idea. After eating the soup (why let it go to waste?) she scraped away at the wood around a screw with the edge of the can. It was hard going but she eventually got the head of the screw exposed enough that she could get the pull-tab into the thread. Holding the pull-tab as tight as she could and pressing down with force, she was actually able to get the screw moving.
It took a long time, fifteen minutes at least, to get it all the way out. There were ten screws in that board.
The project would take two and a half hours if the muscles in her hand held out, longer if she took breaks. Actually, if she left the last two screws at the end of the board, she might be able to lift it from the opposite side and force them out. That would bring it down to two hours. The flashlight should hold out that long.
There'd be no magic marker on the walls from her.
I'm getting the hell out of here!
*
Ignoring the silent suffocating air of the silo for what seemed like an eternity, Ashley slowly removed one screw after another. She could picture herself prying open the ceiling door, then jumping up and grabbing the lip, muscling herself up and through, then going down the ladder and running away into the night where she couldn't be found.
The moment of truth was finally here.
She got the board vertical, yanked it loose from the last remaining screws, raised it until it rested against the edge of the hatch, and pushed.
Nothing happened.
She pushed up with all her might; nothing. She pounded the plank against the hatch with all the power she could summon. It didn't budge an inch. It was solidly latched shut from the outside.
Ashley slumped to the ground, worn out and beaten. She curled up in a ball and closed her eyes, ready to meet whatever fate was in store for her. But then a memory snuck into her mind, of another time she had felt defeated.
While surfing in Hawaii two years ago, a wave far bigger than any she'd encountered in Southern California had overwhelmed her. At least twenty feet high, it had slammed her into a coral bed fifteen feet down on the ocean floor. Her bodysuit had snagged on a sharp piece of coral. She couldn't escape.
She struggled but knew she was running out of breath. Then a second wave came, smashing her even deeper into the coral. She felt it cutting into her flesh. But this time, when the wave passed, she found that it had somehow freed her from the coral she'd been stuck on.
With her last ounce of strength she'd pushed herself to the surface, her eyes aimed squarely on the dot of sunlight growing ever closer. Her first breath of air upon breaking the surface remained the most powerful moment of her life. It was better than any drug she'd taken, any guy she'd slept with. It was her true north.
And if she'd found it once, Ashley knew she could find it again.
She sat up.
She fished around and found the flashlight, shining it down into the opening where the board had been. Below the wooden platform she was on, there was some kind of giant rusty funnel. The walls sloped down into a spout that was about two feet in diameter.
Could her body fit through it? It would be close. She might slide through. She might get wedged in and get stuck. It was hard to tell.
It looked like something might be jammed in part of the spout, four or five feet into it. What was it? Spider webs? Old rotted clumps of grain? It wasn't a solid blockage and certainly wasn't part of the structure itself. It looked fragile, as if the weight of her body could crush it. Still, she couldn't be sure and she couldn't see past it.
She dropped the empty soup can down.
It rattled against the spout as it bumped up against the blockage, then passed through and fell to the ground. It took a while to hit the bottom. The drop was a long one.
Sweat ran down Ashley's face.
If she pulled another board out, there would be enough room for her to drop down into the funnel. It was possible-maybe-that she'd fit through the spout without getting wedged in, then fall to the ground below without breaking her back and killing herself, and then find that there was a door or opening of some sort that she could escape through.
It was equally possible that she'd get wedged into the spout, inextricably stuck and unable to move. Her own weight might squeeze her in tight and constrict her chest. She might suffocate or worse, forever be on the verge of suffocating while never actually getting there.
She wouldn't be able to kill herself. She'd die a horrible, immobile death.
She screamed at the top of her lungs and beat the side of the silo with the board. The frustration was too much.
"Help me! Somebody help me! I didn't do anything!"
She stuck the board down into the spout and was just able to reach the blockage. As she moved it around and poked at it, she realized, with horror, what it was.
Bones.
Bones covered with years of dust and cobwebs and stale air. Someone had already tried her idea of dropping down and had gotten wedged in.
Ashley scurried away from the sight until the wall stopped her. She didn't want to die like that. It was too horrible.
Tears came to her eyes. There was no way out-not up, not down. She was stuck. The fear took over again.
"Mommy!" she screamed. "Help me!"