Chapter 7
Sometimes silence seems so thick that it can be cut with a knife. Sometimes it's so intense that it hurts your ears and you want to push your fingers in, drilling away until you can hear something of what is going on. And sometimes that silence is so complete that it scares you to your very core.
Hutch came back to consciousness slowly, his body aching from the beating he'd taken, a knife-like pain focussed on his right side. He lay for a moment listening to the overwhelming quiet wondering where he was and as he opened his eyes, he continued that wondering. Not only was the silence complete, but so was the darkness and for a moment he thought he'd been blindfold and he tried to raise his hand to check. He found that surprisingly he wasn't restrained in any way. But as he moved his right hand higher he felt some sort of roof above him, giving maybe 18" clearance between his face and the structure.
Panic rose in his chest. He couldn't see and he couldn't hear and now he felt the pressure of his "roof" bearing down upon him like a ton of bricks. The panic brought the pains in his body into sharper focus and as he continued to move his right hand, the knife-like feeling in his side bloomed into a blaze of pain which took his breath away and he hissed softly. The sound was muffled as though he was in a small space increasing his panic levels further. He rested his hand on his chest and paused, trying desperately to calm himself, but in the dark confines of his prison it was difficult. Sweat started to bead in the warm confines and it prickled annoyingly at his face and ran in stinging rivulets into the wound on his side. He needed to know where he was; to explore the parameters of his prison so that he knew what he could do, how he could move and what effects this was going to have on him.
'Oookay' he whispered to himself softly. 'One step at a time huh?' His voice seemed to be coming to him from a distance and he sucked in warm, stifling air, bracing himself as he raised his hand one more time. This time, he moved his left arm up and out from the side of his body, so that his fingers could quest further. He moved slowly, his senses working with his fingers and about 12" out from his body, he felt something solid. Working his fingertips lightly over the surface, he felt the grain of wood, new sawn and rough and now he recognised the resiny sharp smell of new pine boards that filled his nostrils. Searching further, his fingers continued down the wood and he shuffled over to his side, trying to establish the limits. The wood continued down into the darkness further than he could comfortably reach and he tried the other side with his right hand which found another wooden panel 12" to his right.
Now panicking more, Hutch raised his left hand above him and felt again above his head. There was another set of wooden boards above his nose and suddenly reality hit. He was in some sort of coffin!
He'd been shot for sure, he remembered the blazing trail of the bullet hitting his right side and spinning him into the door of the warehouse. Did they think he was dead? Oh my God! Was he buried? Everyone's worst nightmare come true. To be buried alive! He filled his lungs and yelled out into the darkness
'NOOOOOOO. HELP ME. HERE. OVER HERE. HEEEEEELP'
The confines of the wooden box deadened the noise and cautiously he moved his left hand and knocked on the wood. The sound came back muffled and deadened and confirmed his worst suspicions. He was below ground level.
The shock made him want to move and without thinking he tried to sit up, hitting his forehead on the lid of the box and causing the wound on his side to flare instantly into a red blaze of pain. He collapsed back, breathing quickly and whimpering in fear and pain. His right hand went reflexively to his side and clutched at the bullet hole, feeling the blood warm and sticky on his bare skin. He pressed hard against the wound, trying to stem the bleeding even though a tiny voice in his head told him that it was futile. He was buried alive. He was as good as dead already! But then, if he was still bleeding, he couldn't have been there very long.
And then more thoughts. If this was a coffin, it wasn't lined. Not that he was an expert on the subject, but every coffin he'd ever seen had been lined in sumptuous satin, pillows beneath the occupants head. He'd always thought it more than odd that a funeral casket should be made to look so comfortable when the person usually occupying it was dead. What was that all about? But this coffin wasn't lined. He could feel only rough sawn wood. Was it something that Dalango have improvised for him? Did Dale think he was dead? Or worse, did he know Hutch was still alive and had still buried him? But what would that achieve? He knew Starsky had said that the gangster was cold blooded, but there was cold blooded and there was downright evil, and for some reason Hutch couldn't believe that Dale would leave him there just to waste away. There had to be some reason for it. If he was just going to bury him and leave him, why would he go to the trouble of crating a coffin however rough and ready?
Damn! And what had Dale done to Starsky? Was the brunet still alive? Dalango had said he'd given the sable haired cop the same treatment he'd got. Did that mean the Starsky too was in a casket somewhere? Was he shot too? Was he ok? Did he know what had happened to Hutch?
The questions flowed thick and fast, but oddly they calmed him. The thoughts took his mind from his predicament. Questions made him feel as though he was doing something and organising his thoughts made him feel just a little calmer. But it didn't improve his situation and once again he raised his hands, exploring the rough wooden surface. Biting back the bloom of pain across his right hand side, Hutch's hands grazed the splintered surface looking for an opening, a way out. But the coffin seemed impregnable and he put his hand to his head, feeling his hair damp against his scalp.
The blond cop had no idea any more whether he had his eyes open or closed. It ade no odds. The darkness was impenetrable and he felt it around him as though it were a thick blanket.
'HEEEEEELP. I'M HERE!' he shouted again, although he realised the futility of the cry. Who was going to hear him? Who would be around? Who would be able to rescue him? He hitched a breath, the panic rising again in his throat.
'Stop it. Keep yourself calm. Think about this logically' the words spoken out loud calmed him somewhat, his own company was better than the stony silence. 'Think Hutchinson. Why would they do this. They must have checked ya. They must have known you weren't dead. Even a moron would know the difference, wouldn't they? Yeah, sure they would. So. Why this?'
His right hand, that had rested on the top of his head for a moment, his elbow wedged against the sides of the box as his hand dipped down, tracing the line of his still bare chest, and as it did so, Hutch felt something flutter off his chest and onto the floor besides him. The tiny noise startled him after the utter silence he'd encountered so far and he groped around in the darkness by the side of his body, his blood sticky fingers closing finally on a piece of something that felt like paper. He grasped it and pulled it to him, resting it in front of his eyes, but even at such short range, the complete absence of light precluded him from seeing what it was properly.
When he'd been taken from his apartment, he'd been in bed. He'd worn only his boxers, never having been fond of pyjamas and he'd had no chance to bring anything else with him. So why would there was there anything in there with him? And what was he supposed to do with it if he couldn't see what it was about?
Frustration overwhelmed him and Hutch crumpled the paper in his hand up, banging his left hand against the sides of the casket as he yelled into the blackness. 'FUCK YOU!' he spat out, his hand thudding against the wood by his side and continuing upwards until he was banging the lid of the box.
And then he felt it. As his fist banged up against the wood again, he felt it brush against something that felt different from the other surroundings. The blond stopped abruptly and moved his hand a little to the right, his fingertips questing for the object and finally feeling something warmer and smoother than the wood. It felt like plastic and his fingers traced the perimeters of the smooth patch, feeling it to be a square perhaps 2 millimetres deep and perhaps 4 centimetres around its edges. Exploring further he felt a small rectangular depression in the middle and not believing it could be so simple, he pressed it.
The interior of his wooden prison was suddenly flooded with light from the single naked light bulb wedged behind a sturdy metal grill set into the head of the coffin. The light did two things. First, Hutch felt immediately better and less cut off in the light and then came the feeling of complete panic as he realised just how confining the space truly was. Without the cloying darkness, he seemed to be able to breathe a little easier, although the deafening silence still battered at his ears, leaving him feeling vaguely dizzy.
Hutch was laid on his back, his legs flat out on the ground and now, as he got his first good look at his coffin he realised that there was about 12" space to either side of him, 2 feet space above him and 12" below his feet and above his head, making the dimensions of the box about 8 feet by 5 feet by 2 feet deep. Sufficient space to wriggle, but not enough for him to sit up, or draw his knees fully towards his chest. As he looked down his body he saw the bruises from his fight with Dale's men standing out dark against his golden, lightly tanned skin and on his right side, just below his rib cage, the tattered and bloody bullet wound, the bullet having entered at the back and exited at the front leaving the larger exit wound. It still oozed blood and Hutch's life force had puddled darkly, to soak into the raw wood of the box.
The blond cop raised his head and looked again at the piece of paper still crumpled in his hand. Now he raised it to his eyes and smoothed it out, reading with growing horror the words on the page.
YOU HAVE WATER AND AIR FOR THREE DAYS. PRAY DAVEY WORKS WITH US. WE MAY TELL HIM WHERE TO FIND YOU.
Twisting around and looking above his head, he saw 2 litre bottles of water, screw topped. He was used to drinking at least a litre per day, so the two bottles looked meagre rations. No food of course, but there again, his incarceration didn't exactly make him feel hungry. And as for the air? The oxygen already felt thin and stale. He hoped Dale had his calculations right. And above all, he hoped Starsky would be able to find him in time.
