DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 9, AUTHOR'S NOTE - 2/8/15, 4:50pm

The gunshot echoed through the mountains. My heart thudded. Someplace behind my shoulder came the sound of trickling liquid.

I wasn't even sure whether I'd been shot. Then I turned to see that the U-Haul's fuel tank was leaking. The last of its gasoline was spilling out onto the ground through a newly-punctured hole. 

The cop collapsed to his knees at the edge of the driveway. From his pocket he fished three cell phones—I recognized mine and Kyle's immediately; the third was apparently his—and he tossed them all indelicately onto a flat granite rock.

"The nearest town is a two-week walk," he called out.

I had no doubt that this was true, judging by the length of time I'd felt the U-Haul passing over dirt roads before we'd arrived. With this announcement echoing in the woods, the cop smashed all three of the cell phones with the butt of the rifle. I watched through a haze of confused panic. As the cop slammed the rifle's butt down again and again on the phones, the woods behind him loomed darkly.

For a moment my thoughts went blank while I tried, and failed, to make sense of what the cop was doing. A rag of fog drifted up the valley. A little cottage briefly appeared on a facing hillside at the far edge of the property. I felt a drop of rain. 

"This is how committed I am to you, Bailey." The cop stood, panting. "Now, there's no point in even trying to escape," he yelled. "There are no more phones"—he kicked at the bent metal and broken plastic left on the rock—"and there's no way you'd be able to find your way out along all these roads." Behind the sound of his echoing voice, the empty silence in the surrounding woods loomed as large as the mountains. "I am NOT going to let you down," he said emphatically. "You ARE going to learn your lesson. When you've finished your book—and when you've written it right—that's when I'll make the long hike outta here, that's when I'll bring back my pickup, and that's when I'll take you home to your dad. Not until then. That's the only way out, for me or for you. It's simple: write your book without making Shawn into a bad guy. Just finish it. Stop wasting my time."

The very last of the U-Haul's fuel trickled away behind me. The cop stood and brushed off his pants.

He really was insane. He'd deliberately stranded all of us. Suddenly, everything had changed. For the first time, I worried that I actually might not make it out of here.

Without another word, the cop unlocked me from the pine branch and dragged me back to the room. He cuffed me to the bed.

A moment later, he returned with an electric saw.

Instinctively, I moved as far away from him as I could. He'd secured the cuff so tight that it was pinching my skin painfully against my wrist bones.

The cop plugged the electric saw into the bathroom outlet, the only one in either room. He turned it on. A screaming whirr ripped through the small, cramped space.

He knelt at the doorway and cut a low rectangle out of the bottom of the door. I had no clue what he was doing. He flicked off the saw, and silence returned. The hole he'd created was like a very low doggy door, only about an arm's-width high.

He swept up the saw dust, and left without a word, locking the door behind him.

For a while I couldn't do anything but sit cuffed to the bed, wallowing in regret for failing at my stupid-ass escape attempt and eyeing the low slot in the door apprehensively, totally confused about its purpose.

Only a few minutes later, though, I found out.

The cop's footsteps arrived outside the door, but this time he didn't knock. Instead, something rocketed through the door slot and slid across the bedroom floor. When it hit the wall beside the bed, I realized that it was a plate. This one too was covered with a tin lid. On top of the lid, attached to the metal handle, was the handcuffs key.

I understood. Now, the cop didn't need to open the door at all unless he absolutely needed to come in. Even though he'd shot out the U-Haul's gas tank and destroyed the cell phones, he was still wary that I'd try to escape again.

But why was he feeding me? I didn't get it. He knew I hadn't written anything in the short time I'd been away. It wasn't until I unlocked the handcuffs and opened the lid that I understood.

The plate was empty, except for a tiny object laying at its exact center: a single dead fly.

Screw him. Screw him.