Hi all,

Thanks for all of the encouragement to continue with this story.I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Special thanks to:
Pony – Peddle, pedal, petal. (VBG) I knew one of 'em had to be right.
Kreek and Eli – For looking things over and your insightful, helpful input!

– Warning! Things are getting grimmer. If you are sensitive, please don't read this.

Chapter 4

Hutch opened the door to the LTD and it gave out a loud, painful rusty squeal. He slowly slid in and sat down. He missed having the horn go off whenever he opened the door. He sat there for a long moment as he remembered that Starsky had fixed the horn so it wouldn't blare when the driver's side door was opened. He said it was because it was tough to be on a stakeout with the damn thing blaring at inopportune times.

That had led them into having an argument over the LTD's blaring horn versus the flashy Torino and which was the best vehicle to have during a stakeout. Hutch and the LTD had won. The Torino wasn't practical and didn't blend in anywhere. The day after that argument, Hutch found that the horn had been fixed - thanks to sore loser Starsky. Hutch rather missed the annoying blare and how irritated his partner became every time the blond opened his door. It was if some of the LTD's personality had been taken away.

The tall detective slowly shook his head; he needed to concentrate on the task at hand and not think about some stupid argument. He wiped a hand down his face, stifling a yawn as he did so. Four days. It had been four days and four nights since anyone had seen Starsky. As a police officer, Hutch was painfully aware that the longer his friend was missing, the more likely it was that he was dead. They had beaten long odds before, but how long could their luck hold out? How long before fate caught up with them and one of them paid the ultimate price?

Not that he or anyone else was giving up, but those were the cold facts. For the blond, there would be no giving up. Never. At least not until his partner was found again and that wasn't going to happen unless he got his butt going and located the bike that was missing part of its pedal. He put the car in gear and drove to the Tech school campus.

XXXX

Hutch put the mic back in its cradle on the front of his police radio. Cheryl had just given him the brand of the bicycle the pedal was from; it was a Schwinn, one of the most popular brands of bicycle in the US. Why couldn't it have been an uncommon brand, which would have been far easier to track down?

He watched the students coming and going to and from the school. Questions paraded through his mind as he watched them go about their day. Was one or more of them responsible for Starsky's disappearance? If so, why? For that matter, how did they get to him? He watched as a handful of pretty coeds swished by the LTD. Perhaps he could guess the answer to that after all. A pretty girl with bicycle trouble… a distractingly short skirt, a smile, and even the best cop might not see the attack coming… but why Starsky?

Hutch shook his head to clear those thoughts; he needed to keep an open mind about this. If he locked into one scenario, he could easily miss vital clues. He couldn't afford to get tunnel vision; Starsky's life depended on it.. if he was still alive that is. For the longer he was missing, the more likely his friend was dead. Most kidnap victims were killed in the first three hours after being kidnapped. The blond swallowed hard and prayed that Starsky was in the small percentile that was after the three hours window. But this line of thought wasn't going to help his partner at all.

He caught a glance of himself in the rearview mirror, he looked terrible, he ran a hand through his fine locks to smooth them before heading over to the bike racks and began to search. It was clever of whoever had kidnapped Starsky to leave his car here, hidden in plain sight, surrounded by dozens of other cars. It was the same problem with the bicycle; it was also unlikely that anybody would take notice of a person riding away on a bicycle at a campus.

The blond looked at the sea of bicycles. Cheryl had narrowed the field a bit, but most bikes weren't registered and not all students and their bikes came from the Bay City area. Dobey had two other detectives making some calls to any place in town that sold or repaired Schwinn bikes. Hutch knew that it was a daunting task, since the missing pedal part could be from either a boys' or a girls' bike, and the part hadn't changed much in thee last ten years. There were literally thousands of such bicycles in Bay City alone… talk about a needle in a haystack.

Hutch's lips thinned as he pressed them together into a grim line. It didn't matter if he had to look at every single bicycle in Bay City, for until there was another lead or a break in the case, he would keep looking. Then again, the pedal part might just be a red herring, planted to send them off in the wrong direction. 'One lead at a time Hutchinson, one lead at a time' he coached himself, he'd stay on this line of investigation until it paid off or played out. He would do whatever it took to find his friend and being out here searching, sure as hell beat sitting at his desk and waiting. At least out here, he felt like he was doing something.

XXXX

Late Thursday afternoon

Three beeps issued from the open window of the LTD, interrupting Hutch's thoughts as he continued to look for the Schwinn with the missing part. He was finding that it was fairly common to have some of the black rubber tread missing. This was going to exponentially increase the difficulty in finding the correct bicycle and the owner. But he wasn't willing to give up on his only lead just yet. Huggy had yet to get back to him about what the word on the street was.

The radio squawked "Zebra 3, Zebra 3,"

Hutch leaned through the window of his car to get the mic, "Zebra 3, go ahead."

"Captain Dobey wants you to return to Metro now."

"I'm kinda busy here Mildred, can it wait?" the blond tiredly asked.

Dobey's gruff voice broke in "Hutch, get back here pronto, we have a suspect in custody."

Exhaustion fled the weary detective's body "On my way Cap!" he tossed the mic into the car, unmindful of where it landed and piled in. With engine reving, siren wailing, tires squealingand rubber burning,the blond made tracks back to headquarters.

XXXX

Starsky was awakened by the sensation of something running across his chest. Groggily, he brushed at the annoying thing and felt a sharp bite on the palm of his hand; he shook it to dislodge the thing. The furry thing flew across the width of the well shaft and landed with a soft thump. The brunet slowly blinked at it until his eyes finally focused. It was a rat.

He sat up rapidly, blinking at the rodent invader. His head swam and his stone surroundings spun madly around him as vertigo assailed him. His stomach gave a mighty heave. Nothing came out, but his stomach acid burned hot in the back of his throat. Starsky could feel his face pinch as the sour acid taste filled his dry, parched mouth. He tried to spit the foul taste out, but he didn't have any spit left.

Soft pitter-patter drew his attention back towards the rat. It was clawing at the wall, trying to climb up. It would only get so far up, and then it would slip back down. Each attempt the rat made –and failed- only made it more frantic.

"I tried that already Mickey, panicking doesn't help." Starsky leaned miserably against the stone surface behind him and listlessly stared up at circle of light far above him as he remembered his frenzied, panic induced efforts to climb out and escape.

His first attempts to climb had started out calmly enough. He had remembered a couple of climbing techniques that Hutch had shown him while they were on one of their annual camping trips. One called for putting ones back against the wall and feet against the opposite wall and 'walking' up. The other was for wider gaps, which called for placing hands on one side and feet on the other, and 'walking' up that way.

But even stretching his body to its maximum length, with arms fully extended and with fingers reaching towards one side, his feet to the other, he couldn't touch the opposite wall. The well narrowed as it went up, but the narrower part of the well was at least 20 feet above his head.

Undaunted –at first- Starsky had taken off his shoes and socks off so he could dig his toes into any available nooks, crannies, cracks or any small smooth protuberances in the stone lining in the walls of the well. 'Twenty feet isn't that far up,' he told himself as he dug his fingers and toes digging into the smooth surface. He had managed to get two, maybe three feet off the dirt floor before losing his purchase and falling back down.

With each failed attempt, his desperation had increased, logic fled as he fell victim to panic, scrambling and clawing at the sides of the well, unmindful of pain, unmindful of the energy he was burning in useless attempts to climb out. He had become rather like a drowning man, scrambling and clawing at the wall until he was too exhausted to make another effort.

Panting, he had sat down hard and at some point, sleep had snuck up on him. And now he didn't know how long he had sleeping until the rat woke him up. Starsky looked up at the exit high above him and wished he were like Spiderman, with sticky hands and feet to climb with. But he wasn't Spiderman and wishing wouldn't change that fact.

Still, he knew he would have to try again to get out. Somehow.

With little energy to do anything else just now, he stared at the rat. It stared back at him with beady little black eyes, round, wide and unblinking. It looked terrified. The poor thing was trapped like a rat, just like him. He snickered at his little joke and his belly gave a weak rumble as he looked at the rat, Starsky quickly looked away. He wasn't that hungry. Yet.

An involuntary shiver worked its way up his body as he remembered having been hungry enough to eat a rat in Vietnam. That rodent had been cooked. Lt. Thayer had skinned, gutted and skewered a half dozen of the critters after they had been cut off from the rest of the platoon; their meager c-rations had been consumed days earlier. Thayer had forced each one of the men to eat a least one rat to help keep their strength up. "Eat it, it tastes just like chicken." Lt. Thayer claimed. Lt. Thayer had lied.

Starsky shook his head at the memory. Roasted rat didn't taste like any chicken he'd ever eaten before or since. He curled a lip at his furry companion, raw rat would likely taste even worse than roasted rat. "Don't worry Mickey; I not planning on making Minnie a widow anytime soon… not if I can help it." His voice was raspy, like dried fall leaves in the wind. Something wet to drink was far more appealing than food was, especially raw rat… ugh! Definitely not on the menu.

He was on day five of being in the well… or was it still day four? He consulted his scratches on the wall… four marks, but what if he had missed a day because he had slept through it? He dug his fingers in the dirt in frustration. That only served to remind him that they hurt. He lifted his hands and peered at the digits. They were filthy, dirt, sweat and blood encrusted them. They showed signs of the abuse he had put them through in his efforts to escape the dry well. A couple of the fingernails were swinging loose, being held in place by small bits of bloody, shredded skin.

Starsky tilted his head back and looked up, wondering if it would be worth trying to call for help again. He knew that he would die of thirst long before he died of starvation. He was aware that people could live without eating for a month or so. But without water, he had nine to twelve days and that was only valid if conditions were just right and nothing else came into play... such as hypothermia.

It was summer, but he was a good fifty feet down inside this well. It was cool down here; he was wearing only a t-shirt, jeans, socks and shoes. Even keeping warm in the daytime was difficult, and it was worse at night. But if he moved around too much in his efforts to warm up, it exacerbated his thirst and reduced the time he could survive without water.

He had hollered himself hoarse already, but to be fair, he didn't have the saliva, or the energy to keep it up for very long… but if he didn't try, and someone who could help him was near… he might never be found. It was a double-edged sword. The more energy he used, in yelling, trying to climb out and attempting to stay warm, the weaker and more dehydrated he became.

He could save his energy and perhaps survive longer, but it was very possible that no one would find him because he didn't try. He could just read his epitaph now 'Here lies David Michael Starsky; he died, ironically enough, because he actually kept his mouth shut for once.' Oh yeah… Hutch would have a field day with that one. Starsky rolled his eyes.

He felt a slight cramp deep in his bowels. Terrific. If he didn't want to foul his living space –more than it already was- he figured he best get to digging a little latrine. Starsky moved around, trying to figure out where to start digging.

The rat scurried away from him and around the wall before stopping, quivering with fear and uncertainty as it found itself heading back towards the human.

"Relax Mickey; I'm not digging your grave." Starsky snorted at the rodent, 'I can't believe I'm wasting my breath talking to a rat… then again, at least I'm not all alone down here.' He began to dig along the wall, not that there were a lot of choices, but he did want it as far from his 'bed' as possible. He used his little shard of rock that he scratched off the days with, that is until he found a slightly larger, flat rock, which was a little easier to dig with. He worked slowly and methodically, he couldn't afford to sweat and dehydrate even more quickly.

The scent of old death thickened as he dug deeper and his little pit was nearly complete when a hank of hair came up with his next stroke. Starsky stopped and peered into the hole. Small clods of dirt rolled back into the hole and he cleared it out with his hand. At the bottom he saw a bit of tan, much lighter then the surrounding dirt. A cold finger of dread trailed up his spine. He knew what it was. It was a bone. Something was buried in the bottom of the well.

He pulled back, setting his hands on his knees as he stared at the bone for several long moments. He contemplated covering the bone back up and starting another hole, but the practical part of him thought that there might be a few uses for a bone or two. He might be able to fashion something useful out of it. He might be able to use it to wedge into the wall to assist him in climbing. Or maybe he could dig out a few stones on the wall to make handholds for himself. He smiled as those thoughts entered his mind. He wasn't giving up, with hope renewed; he went back to digging the bone out.

The brunet kept up his efforts, keeping to a slow and steady pace as he burrowed further into the dirt. He wanted to speed up, but knew that he would burn too much energy doing that; he would need every bit of what he had to escape. And he would escape. He would not permit himself to even think of the alternative. He had momentarily given in to unproductive panic earlier; he would not do that again.

He scratched at the bottom of his hole and more hair came up. 'Perhaps it's a dog buried down here' he thought as he continued excavating. At least now he felt like he was doing something. Just sitting here and waiting for them to give him food and water didn't sit with him. His captors might start feeding him, but they hadn't yet. They might give him water, but they hadn't yet. If he waited too long to try to escape, he would become too weak to try… he didn't want to think of what would happen to him after that.

The curly haired detective leaned forward and down to dig deeper, and a wave of dizziness washed over him. The blood rushed to his head and spots filled his vision. He stopped digging for several moments until the spots left his field of vision. He looked back down at the hole. And he promptly shoved himself backwards as two large round dirt filled eye sockets stared blankly back at him. His throat convulsed madly as his heart made a bid for freedom. The large sockets and grinning, gaping jaw could only come from one creature… a human.

Starsky closed his eyes and leaned against the opposite wall as he struggled to slow his rapid heartbeat. He had seen dead people before, but it still bothered him to look at them. Long ago, he had silently vowed that he would never allow himself to get so used to death as to become unmoved by the sight of it.

He re-opened his eyes and looked at the skull; the jaw of the corpse gaped wide open as if locked forever in a silent scream of denial of its fate. The brunet had the morbid feeling that he was peering into his near future. Was to be his fate? To die… be dead, buried and forgotten in the bottom of a dry well?

TBC