Chapter 2

Nothingness.



Then, coughing. Violent, grasping coughs, choking on hot, wet air. Inhaling, retching, choking and again the dank, stale air.



Slowly, breathing began to feel less alien. The room was pitch-black and smelled of mold and disrepair.

Where am I?

 

Thoughts urged to create action; a foot wiggled, hands were being held high by something. Hands. Gravity assisted the hands in realizing that they were chained to something. A wall. The hands recognized the feel of exposed brick, and the recognition began to lift the haze from the struggling mind; began to help the mind reconnect to the body, to remember how things worked.



Then, a sound. Repetitive. Evenly spaced. Footsteps. That’s what they were. From above? Yes. They passed and the sound faded away.



Struggling to adjust to the darkness, he opened his eyes as if for the first time.

Marissa Docette stared at the last sip worth of cheap Chardonnay in her glass. She didn’t need to ask for the bottom-of-the-barrel anymore, all three of the bartenders at The Drop knew she wasn’t drinking for taste. Without having to ask, her glass was refilled and she caught a glimpse of the caricature of someone she knew had something to do with sports. 



“Fucking amazing who they’ll let make wine these days,” she said to no one in particular. It was around midnight as best she could tell. The Drop wasn’t known for having clocks on every wall, and the blacked-out windows made sure it always felt like drinking time. Not that The Drop’s patrons needed any help with that. She was mindlessly cracking the shells of the complimentary peanuts set out on the bar in front of her, half-watching a sports highlight show when the front door opened, granting a brief reprieve of light from the parking lot, narrowing to a sliver before disappearing as the door swung shut. 



The man who entered was a regular, she knew, but beyond that she didn’t know much else. He never really talked to anybody except some oafish guy that he would sometimes come in with. He sat down across the bar at the first empty stool, almost directly across from Marissa. Adam, the stocky bartender working that night, ambled over to the man and exchanged a handshake and began to talk to the man. Marissa lost interest and looked back up at the sports highlights show. The show had gone to commercial and she watched an infomercial about a wet-dry vac that can clean wine stains out of white carpet. 



She was waiting for Cathy, and had been for a little over an hour. It wasn’t unusual for Cathy to run late, three or four times a month she’d stop off at a high school kid’s house to buy pot from him on her way over to the Drop. Another 15 minutes passed and Marissa downed another glass of wine.



She didn’t know how much time had passed from the time the man walked in and now, the first time someone had come or gone since then, but judging by the increasing length of commercial breaks on TV it had to have been about a half-hour. Cathy, usually dapper and wearing clothes that were a generation too young for her, looked slightly disoriented when she crossed the threshold of the bar. She nervously glanced around before spotting Marissa, hitting herself in the forehead as she did so, apparently realizing the stupidity of not looking where they sat every night. Her heels softly clicked across the slimy, beer-stained floor as she hurried over to Marissa.



Marissa, who had been trying hard to act disinterested the whole time, casually glanced up from a suddenly full wine glass, catching the eye of Adam, who winked and nodded, and turned her gaze to Cathy. 



“Tight jeans, low cut top, bloodshot eyes…I’d say I know where you’ve been,” Marissa chided as Cathy sloughed her massive purse onto the bar.



“Hey Adam!” Cathy chirped. “The usual, hun! You losin’ weight?” Adam smiled from across the bar and went about pouring a vodka and cranberry juice. “Oh shit. Fuck.” She reached into her purse and struggled until she found her eye drops, which she pulled out and promptly dripped into her decreasingly red eyes. “I always forget about that bullshit,” Cathy finally turned to Marissa. “Doll, honey, you won’t believe the night I’ve had.”



Marissa studied Cathy’s wide, watery eyes and tentatively sipped her wine. “Regardless of whether I do or don’t, I don’t guess there’s any way for me to not hear about it?” 



Cathy chuffed in reply. “Well, if you must know, the girls are on display because yes, that Thompson boy gives me better pot if I show a little skin. Not to mention he’s almost 18. I’m thinking of it as something of a down payment.” 



Cathy had been married for 16 years to a wealthy, if somewhat sleazy, lawyer, known around Knoxville for having his balding head grace busses, benches and billboards with slogans like “I can get you your money!” and “If you’ve been hurt, we’ll make pay dirt.” He was a philandering alcoholic, so it was only fitting for his wife to share his love for extramarital affairs. 



“I’m surprised you’re going to wait until he’s legal. You’ve been stalking that one since he was a toddler,” Marissa teased. Cathy cackled as she threw her head back and drank her entire vodka in a gulp.



“You won’t believe the gossip I’ve got.”




Anders was on his fifth whiskey sour when the blonde woman who reeked of marijuana had come in. She was wearing tight hip-hugger blue jeans with fake jewels on the back pockets, a low-cut top that left little to the imagination in terms of size and inorganic origin of her breasts and carried a purse that could double as a child carrier. 



Passable, he thought as she blustered by him. He knew that she and her auburn-haired friend were regulars like he was, and he could almost taste the menthol in their cigarettes as the blonde one dramatically reached for her cigarette box in her purse. He’d had a hell of a night so far, and was engrossed in thought for almost an hour before looking up and noticing that except for he and the two women, there were only about seven other people in the bar. The jukebox seemed particularly derelict on this night and the lack of music lent the stolid air an eery quality, smoke hanging like fog just above eye level. In the relative quiet of the bar he heard the red-head say:



“And you’re going to believe some 17 year old who says he heard a gunshot in one of the safest parts of the city? How does he even know what a gunshot really sounds like? He deals pot to 35 year old women and college drop outs, he’s hardly running from the DEA.”



This caught Anders’ attention. He grabbed his whisky sour and casually walked over to the two women at the opposite end of the bar.



“Hi. I’m sorry I couldn’t help but overhear something about gunshots and the DEA, and I’m a sucker for a good story. I’ve seen you two here before, haven’t I?” 



The blonde blushed and Anders caught a glimpse of the red-head rolling her eyes as she turned her head towards her wine glass. 



He extended his hand, “I’m Anders.”





His memory was still hazy, but he had control of his limbs and was finally able to put together complete thoughts. He was able to discern that his hands were chained, above his head, to the exposed brick wall. There was a constant burning in his abdomen that worsened when he inhaled and exhaled. It had been a long time since he bled but he was sure that there was a tinge of blood in his mouth. He knew he had been hurt, but the pain was too widespread to effectively find the epicenter.

He was able to determine by his sensitivity to the temperature of the room that he had likely been stripped down to his boxers and undershirt. He was barefoot, and the cold of the cement floor stung against his pained feet. He had tried to muster the strength to test his bindings, but the pain in his stomach made it implausible to try again. He had resigned himself to trying to acclimate his eyesight to the darkness of his surroundings to see if there was anything that might help him determine where he was or how he’d gotten here.



After what seemed like an eternity, his eyes had adjusted to the point of being able to discern varying levels of shadow. As best he could tell the room was largely empty. There didn’t appear to be any doors or windows, and if there were any, they had been sealed off perfectly. As he was beginning to ponder his next course of action he heard a sudden gasp from across the room. At first he thought it must be some type of exhaust, but within a few seconds he realized that he was hearing the same sounds he had made when he came to. He listened carefully.



And then, from the blackness, a voice choked, “Hel……Hello?”