Crescent Dawn

“No phone signal down here, I’m afraid, but at least we’ve got a night-light,” she said.

Using the cell phone as a flashlight, she stepped to the door, pushing it first with her shoulder, then applying a few firm kicks with the heel of her foot. The thick door didn’t budge at all, and she knew that even a sumo wrestler wouldn’t have been able to snap off the heavy dead bolt. She eased back over to Julie, flashing the phone toward her to find a scared look on her face.

“I don’t like this one bit,” Julie said in a shaky voice. “I think I want to scream.”

“You know, Julie, that’s a good idea. Why don’t we?”

Summer tilted her head toward the ceiling and let out a loud scream. Julie immediately joined in, yelling repeatedly for help.

Muffled by the thick pantry door, the screams registered only faintly upstairs. The few guests who detected the faraway cries assumed it was somebody with an iPod cranked too high. The sound didn’t register at all in Aldrich’s aged ears.

The women took a short break, then tried yelling again. As more minutes ticked by without a response, they resigned themselves to the fact that they couldn’t be heard. The screaming had served as a release, though, helping to expel the anxiety of their imprisonment. Julie, in particular, seemed to regain the composure that she had been close to losing.

“I guess we might as well get comfortable if we’re going to be in here awhile,” she said, pulling a large box onto the floor and using it as a chair. “Do you think he’ll actually call Aldrich?” she asked somberly.

“I suspect so,” Summer replied. “He didn’t act like a trained killer, nor seem psychotic to me.” Deep down, she wasn’t so certain.

“Personally, I’d rather not wait for Aldrich,” she added. “Maybe there’s something in one of these boxes that can help us get out of here.”

Under the dim glow of her cell phone, she began cracking open some of the other boxes. But it became readily apparent that there was nothing but papers, clothes, and a few odd personal belongings packed away in the former pantry. Soon growing discouraged, she pulled a box down alongside Julie and took a seat.

“It would seem we have little more than a nice wardrobe to help us escape.”

“Well, at least we have something to wear in case we get cold,” Julie said. “Now, if only we had something to eat.”

“I’m afraid the pantry is bare in regards to food,” Summer replied. Then she thought for a moment, contemplating her own words. “Aldrich said that this was built as a secondary pantry, didn’t he?” she asked.

“Yes,” Julie confirmed. “And thank goodness for the rat-proofing.”

“Julie, do you know where the main kitchen is located in the manor?”

The researcher thought for a moment. “I’ve never set foot in it, but it’s located off the main dining hall, along the west side of the residence.”

Summer visualized the orientation of the estate. “We’re on the west side, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“So the kitchen would be located roughly above us?”

“Yes, that would be right. What are you driving at?”

Summer rose to her feet and circled the room, studying the walls behind the storage boxes with her cell-phone light. She slowly made her way to the rear of the pantry, examining a bank of four wooden cabinet doors now visible behind a stack of boxes. She passed the phone to Julie to hold for her.

“If you were Kitchener’s chef and you needed a sack of flour from the pantry, would you go lugging it through the house?” she asked, moving the stack of boxes aside. Then she reached up to the top two cabinet doors and tried to open them. But they were sealed shut.

“They’re faux doors,” Julie said, holding up the light while Summer dug her nails under the doors’ edges to no avail. “Try the bottom doors.”

Julie shoved a box on the floor aside so that Summer could try the lower doors. Tugging at the edges, she was surprised when both doors flew open effortlessly. Behind them appeared to be an empty black compartment.

“Move the light in,” Summer requested.

Julie shoved the cell phone past the doors, illuminating a large tray at the base of the compartment that was affixed to a rear rack. A pulley wheel was visible to one side with a tight loop of rope around it that then ascended past the upper cabinet. Julie turned the cell light upward, revealing a long vertical shaft.

“It’s a dumbwaiter,” Julie said. “Why, of course. How did you know?”

Summer shrugged her shoulders. “A lifelong aversion to doing things the hard way, I suppose.”

She surveyed the shelf for a moment. “It’s a little tight, but I think it will suffice as an elevator. I’m afraid I’m going to have to borrow that light back.”

“You can’t go up that thing,” Julie said. “You’ll break your neck.”

“No worries. I think I can just fit.”

Summer took the cell phone and corkscrewed her long legs into the opening, then wormed the rest of her body in until she sat cross-legged on the tray. A pair of frayed ropes dangled beside the pulley used to hoist the tray, but she dared not test her weight on them. Placing the phone in her lap, she instead surveyed a thin link of bicycle chain that spooled around the actual pulley. She then leaned her head back into the pantry.

“Wish me luck. Hopefully I’ll meet you at the front door in five minutes,” she told Julie.

“Do be careful.”

Summer grabbed the chain with both hands and pulled down hard. The tray immediately rose off its base, and Summer rose up into the chute. Julie quickly grabbed a boxful of clothes and emptied it on the base as a cushion, should Summer lose her grip and fall.

But the athletic young oceanographer didn’t fall. Summer was able to pull herself up ten feet before her hands and arm muscles began to weaken. She then found she could tilt the tray forward and wedge her feet against one side of the chute while pressing her back against the opposite side. Supporting her weight in this ma

She spotted the upper pulley just a few feet above her head and made one more effort to rise to the top. With her hands and arms aching, she muscled herself even with the pulley, scrunching her head beneath the top of the chute. The back side of a cabinet door appeared in front of her, and she quickly pushed on it with her feet. But the door didn’t budge.

She could feel her arms weakening as she pushed with her feet again, this time detecting a hairline movement to the door. She was positioned too high and close to the pulley to wedge herself against the chute for relief and she could feel her hold on the chain waning. Realizing she was seconds from losing her grip, she pushed herself backward as far as she could, then rocketed forward, jamming her feet against the door with all her might.

She heard a horrendous crash as the cabinet door burst open, sending a wave of bright light into the cavernous chute. Summer was momentarily blinded by the sudden change in light as she slid through the door, letting go of the chain as her momentum carried her across a smoothly polished surface.

Her vision clearing, she found herself lying on a large teak buffet. It sat in a small but brightly lit lounge that had been constructed from an original section of the manor’s kitchen. Summer was startled to see a half dozen elderly couples seated around the room having tea. They all silently stared at her as if she was an alien from Ursa Minor.

Slowly sliding off the buffet and onto her feet, she surveyed the source of the loud crash. Scattered about the floor were spoons, teacups, and saucers from a large formal tea set that had been sent flying when she kicked open the door.

Summer ruefully brushed herself off, hiding her grease-stained hands as she smiled at the collected gawkers.