Set sometime in Season 7. No copyright infringement intended. Not making any money out of it. Etc Etc.
Escaping
It was the smell of dried blood that woke up Joy. She slowly opened her eyes, with difficulty, as one was swollen shut from Jarod's tender touch. With consciousness came the awareness of pain, the bite of cold and humidity in her naked body and discomfort of the scratches and a deeper pain down on her body. She gingerly sits on the bed, careful with all her pains and aches.
She slowly closes her shirt, covering her hurt breasts and giving herself the minimum of modesty. She looks at the table and sees the boxes of Chinese takeout still on the table, and her belly reminds her that it has been more than twenty four hours since she had something to eat. She leaves the bed, slowly, gathers her trousers from where he threw them, steps into the legs and closes the buttons, despite the discomfort it creates against the chaffed skin.
It is better to be dressed and in pain than naked and vulnerable. She approaches the table and starts to eat the food in the boxes, all the while studying the basement where he hid her this time.
It is in much better condition than the last one, and she is alone. She says a little prayer of thanks to the heavens; at least he hadn't been able to hurt anybody else but her this time. There are no decomposing bodies hanging from hooks on the ceiling and there are no innocent victims lying beaten and broken in their own waste after months of captivity, as it was in his last hideout.
She eats everything in the boxes, there were three of them. She stuffs herself with food, as she is not sure when she will be given food again. So it is better to be prepared. She stands up and checks the limits of the chain again. Even standing with the chain completely straight, she was still several feet away from his horror tool wall and cabinet. She shivered lightly seeing the assortment of things he had in store for her, and she knew that, if she didn't find a way to escape, she might not make it this time. There are hammers, screwdrivers, and a leather whip hanging from hooks on a wooden support on the wall.
God only knew what type of tools he had in the drawers. She leans her body forward, trying to reach the tools with her feet, but there are still four feet between her body and the wall.
Think Buchanan, think.
She looks at it, frustrated. She returns to the table, which is made of recycled wood. She knocks her hand accidentally on the wood, and moans with pain. She looks at it fixedly for a second, and leans down and looks at the underside of the table. The wood grain shows some failure on the surface and she softly runs her hand on it, feeling the texture. She takes a step back, sits on her own legs and looks at the wall and frowns. The chair is not stuck to the floor. The table is not stuck to the floor. What if…
She stands up, gets one of the chairs and breaks it on the table.
CRACK.
It is broken into pieces. With one of the broken legs in her hands, she turns the table upside down and starts to try to break its legs and, once that it is done, she starts hitting the body trying to fracture the frail wood. There is a small crack, and she keeps on hitting.
Come on, COME ON.
The table could not withstand the attack, and the recycled wood breaks on the glued junction. She now has two long surfaces, of approximately five feet by two. She grabs one of them and uses it as an extension to her arm, trying to reach the wall. It touches the tools, but none of them falls.
Come on!
After two failed attempts, the hammer falls on the floor, and she uses the wood to bring the hammer closer to her body. With the hammer in her hands, she approaches the clamp that holds the chain to the wall, and tries to break it down.
She doesn't hear any noise upstairs, so she uses all her strength and determination to break the link that keeps her prisoner.
He had cemented it to the wall, and firmed it to four thick screws. Her only chance was if she could break the first link of the chain. If she did that, she would be free.
She hits it repetitively with the hammer, but the chain is a thick one, it only bends a little, it does not break.
Come on, come on.
Her arms start to get tired, and her body is shaking with fear and pain. Her hands are wet with cold sweat, more from pure terror than from the physical activity.
She stops a moment to rest her arms, and leans over and supports her tired arms against the wall, and rests her burning forehead against the wall. She closes her eyes, trying in vain to keep the terror tears to fall from her eyes.
Oh God, oh God, please, please please, she murmurs. She opens her eyes, and looks down, behind the bed. There she finds a piece of rope that he had probably separated to tie her down later on. She leaves the hammer on the bed, and leans down and looks under the bed. She stretches her hand and gets the rope, and with it in her hand she looks at the tool cupboard, thinking furiously.
Decision made, she makes a cowboy knot in it, just like those seen in rodeos that the cowboys use to catch errant bulls or horses.
Ok, Joy, you grew up in Montana, you can do it, she slowly approaches the cupboard, aiming the hooks, it is not that difficult, you've seen it done before, she starts to circle the rope over her head, preparing to launch it on the air, you can do it, I'm sure you can, she throws the rope.
And it hits the wall, far away from the hooks.
DAMMIT.
Ok, don't panic, you can try again.
Come on, she raises her arm, and prepares to strike, and lets it fly.
The rope falls on the hooks.
YES.
She slowly pulls the rope, afraid it might fall. It runs slowly by the hooks with the tools. Once the rope is pulled tight, she approaches the bed and uses one of its legs, firmly bolted to the floor, as leverage. She passes one of the tips of the rope under the bed, and holds it firmly in her hands. She sits down on the floor, supports her legs on the bed frame and pulls with as much strength as she can.
The whole cupboard falls down, and the tools are spread out on the floor of the basement. She quickly starts looking for a tool, any tool that might help her. She soon finds a metal saw, screwdrivers and an assortment of other things she brings to the bed.
She starts to use the metal saw, but she realizes that it will take too much time, time she doesn't have.
She puts the screwdriver on the space of the link, gets the hammer and start hitting it, on the hope to open the link enough to slip it out of the hook on the wall, she sees the link starting to give, and she hammers with more determination.
The screwdriver breaks under the strain, but she keeps hitting the link, as it had started to break under the hits.
It opens a space between the link, barely half an inch, and she keeps hammering until the space is wide enough and she unhooks it from the wall.
One problem down, now countless to go.
She gets the pillow out of the pillowcase, and starts to put things into the pillowcase that she might need. The hammer, another screwdriver. She gets the thick duvet and rips a part of it, and puts in the pillowcase as well. She looks at the cupboard on the floor, and starts to search among the things on the floor.
Duct tape. Uhm.
She climbs the stairs, with the screwdriver in her hand as a knife, listening for any sign of activity upstairs. With all the noise she had made, she knows he would have already come downstairs if he had been home, but it is better to be safe than sorry.
She uses the screwdriver to get the screws out of the doorknob, and opens it by the system inside.
She looks down the corridor, and slowly walks down to the living room. The game heads are staring at her.
She goes to the kitchen, and looks for anything she might carry, and find only stale bread and some old cans of soup, well beyond its expiration date.
She goes to the window, and studies the outside. There is no sign of his car, and the sky is clouded, not giving any hint of what time it might be. She tries the door, finds it unlocked, and steps out, her first steps to freedom. She leaves the house and looks at the woods, woods everywhere. The dirt road leads down the mountain.
She looks up at the skies, and goes up to the edge of the woods, leaving a trail of her bare feet on the dust showing that she left on a straight path from the door.
Once she gets to the woods, and she feels the crack of dead leaves and living earth under her feet, she starts to circle the house, going to the back of it. Once she is in a completely different direction, she starts to run.
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