Sheila Sharpe
Locked in a Box
(continued)
Which control, left or right? Total confusion, the slate sea rushing up. On pure instinct, I eased up on the left control toggle and the spiral slowed, slower…stopped, the world still reeling in my head. Water everywhere, and my mouth dry as the desert.
Sinking fast. Gliding close to the water, I angled toward the shore, feet skimming the waves. The surf coming up, I laser-focused on a patch of beach, willed more speed. It would be close. “One, two, three, four,” then my feet hit the wet sand.
I slipped out of my harness and packed my gear, wired on adrenaline. I felt invincible. I’d beaten the death spiral. The high fueled my hike halfway up the bluff steps then sudden spasms of shaking forced me to sit. The sea surged below, and I imagined my body crashing, shrouded in yellow, the sharks circling. Blocking out this scene, I checked my watch, I was due back in my office at four-thirty. Plenty of time. I resumed climbing, ticked at myself for freezing in the spiral. Something more than fear had disabled me. What was it?
One step from the top, a nightmare image shot up from the deep—my father crumpled on his dressing room floor wearing, a toreador's costume, his head in a pool of blood.
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The brass elevator doors were almost closed when a pale, manicured hand reached in and gripped one door. I jabbed the Open button, and a tall blonde slipped through the opening. Two beefy men in suits followed, then a busty matron swathed in pink velour. The doors rumbled shut, and I stifled a gasp, my chest a block of cement. Nine hundred pounds of air-sucking flesh packed in a five-by-seven-foot box. I always took the stairs, but today some fool had locked the stairwell. I was a daredevil in the sky but trap me in an elevator and I could die of fright.
“Second floor,” said the suit behind me, spewing garlic-breath. No other requests. I punched two, and then number seven for my floor at the top. The decrepit car creaked into motion like an old arthritic man lurching from his recliner. My pulse rate quickened. I tracked every jerk and gut-rolling sway.
At the second floor, the elevator rattled to a stop and the bodies fled.
The car staggered upward. I stepped back surprised to see the blonde still standing in the corner across from me. Her furtive glance triggered a sense of déjà-vu. Had we met before? I didn’t think so, but I felt an instant visceral dislike. She looked like a snooty fashion plate, her hair precision cut in an asymmetrical bob. A gold blouse shimmered under her tapestry vest and a matching purse hung from her shoulder, an artsy getup from a pricey boutique. Her lips pursed as she eyed my out-of-style pantsuit, and windblown auburn curls.
Silently picking on Fashion Plate kept me sane on the crawl to the third floor. Then my perceptions warped—the fake walnut walls creeping in, the ceiling pressing down, the floor a magnified chessboard of black and white tiles. I stood stiffly on a white square, and the blonde’s gold sandals gleamed on a black square. She shot a sidelong glance. I countered with a stony stare.
The ding sounded like a gong. Four miles to go.
The blonde’s lily-scented perfume cloyed the air. Sudden quiet. The air-conditioner had stopped wheezing. My heart rate spiked.
Ding. Number four glowed red above the brass.
The box was heating up, sweat oozed in my armpits. I shrugged off my jacket. She reached into her bag. A reflection streaked across the polished brass doors. A knife? I froze. She shook out a handkerchief, an emerald-cut diamond winking on her finger. Innocuous. The blonde seemed to intend no harm, but my prickling antennae said she did.
It was an uneventful crawl to the fifth floor, but after passing the sixth floor, the elevator slowed and began vibrating. As the car jolted to a stop, I begged the doors to open. Dead silence followed.
“I think we’re stuck,” the blonde said.
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The lights went out. Pitch dark. I throttled the scream rising in my throat.
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Inside a black box, my heart pounding. Gypsy music pulsates, clicking castanets. Cymbals crash. Footsteps circling. A menacing voice whispers, “Katie, Katie, you can’t hide from me.” The scrape of metal, the hasp latches. I’m locked in! I beat on the lid. All sides closing in…
“Are you all right? You’re gasping.”
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Her voice brought me back to the present, my throat too constricted to speak. The dark felt alive, strangling. I started the drill to abort panic. Slow breathing. Imagine the wide-open sea.
“Are you hyperventilating?” she asked. “I have a paper bag in my purse.” Sounds of crinkling paper. “You might want to breathe into it, get a little carbon dioxide.”
“I’m fine now.” The cloak of darkness was not enough. I wanted to sink through the floor.
“Would you like some water? I have a bottle in my purse.”
My throat was parched. “Yes, thanks. Do you have dinner in your bag as well?”
Her low chuckle, and then the bottle arrived in my hand. I gulped the warm water.
“Are you claustrophobic?” she asked.
“So it would seem.”
“I hyperventilate from anxiety, too,” she said as if we were in a Woody Allen movie.
This was getting weird. I groped along the wall searching for the control panel.
“I already pressed all the buttons,” she said, sensing my purpose. “Nothing lights up. There’s no emergency line, and my cell died on the way here.”
I felt inside my jacket pockets—keys, wallet, but no cell. I’d left it in the car. Sounds like rats scuttling. What was she doing? I peered into the dark, the blackness more opaque than my closed eyelids at night. Jingling noises. She was digging through her magic bag.
I leaned back in my corner, the flashback cycling in my mind—the footsteps, the creepy voice, an orchestra playing. Since my father’s death, I’d been claustrophobic and had nightmares of suffocating, symptoms that no type of therapy had been able to cure. Severe childhood asthma was considered the cause, but this wasn’t a flashback to an asthma attack. Someone had locked me in a box. I didn’t recognize the voice, but the music was familiar—the rhythmic beat, the castanets. I hated that foot-tapping music. Dizziness hit, and I grabbed the railing.
“Would you like a mint?” Her sticky fingers touched mine on the railing.
I dropped my hand. “No, thank you.” My tone sounded sharp.
Her sandals clicked on the tile as she drew back. I regretted my rebuff. She couldn’t know; her offerings just aggravated my shame. I felt so vulnerable in this situation that I was bristling like a porcupine. Trained as a singer for the first ten years of my life, I still had my musician’s ear, and the cadence of her voice struck a chord deep in my aural memory.
I heard her sniffing. “It’s so stuffy in here. I can hardly breathe.”
Her plaintive tone awakened my take-charge self. “This is an old elevator. We might be able to open the inner doors and determine where we are.”
We felt our way to the brass panels, hooked fingertips into the crack, and pulled. It took five tries to open them. The minor success empowered me, and the dark seemed less dense. Light was leaking in. I ran my hands up the rough concrete wall and hit smooth metal at chin level.
“I feel the bottom of the seventh-floor doors,” I said. “Let’s try to open them.”
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Again, we pulled, grunting with the awkward effort. The doors wouldn’t budge.
​
“My nails are broken, and my fingers hurt,” she whined.
What a wuss she was. “Let’s try one more—”
“I suggest we bang on the doors and yell for help,” she said.
“Act like helpless women?”
“Exactly.”
I faced the door and squeaked, “Help.” She started laughing, and then the motor sputtered. The lights came on. The car lurched up a few feet and bumped to a stop. The doors opened.
“You see, it worked,” she crowed, as we rushed into the refrigerated foyer.
We stood blinking at each other under the harsh glare of the ceiling fluorescents.
“I’m Kate Devlin.” I offered my hand.
“Yes, I know.” Smug smile. “I’m Elise Devereaux, your four-thirty appointment.”
I stared at her, speechless. This possibility hadn’t occurred to me. Clients never came to my office a half-hour early. Fashion Plate knew who I was all along and had never let on. A remarkable performance. She grasped my hand, and a familiar dread rooted me—the sensation of walls closing in, of being trapped as the elevator doors clanged shut.​
End Chapter One