Chapter Fourteen
10:30 AM
Liz walks onto the front porch of 24 Royal Street. She has a great relationship with Lucky’s parents, particularly Luke. That’s why she turns the doorknob to the front door after a brief ring of the doorbell. Luke always told her not to expect them to answer the door for family.
Liz frowns as she encounters a locked door. The Spencers never lock their doors during the day. They have a lot of people in their lives that they consider family, and many observe their open door policy. Liz tries the doorknob again, but when she finds it locked, rings the doorbell, then knocks on the door.
A curtain moves in a side window, and Liz feels someone looking at her. When she looks up, the curtain is back in place. Liz starts to feel really creepy, a totally new emotion associated with this house.
Just as she turns around to leave, the door swings open, and Liz is faced with a very worried Laura. "Laura!" says Liz. "What’s the matter? Your door was locked, and you look so upset."
Laura leans out of the door, looks left and right, then reaches for Liz’s arm and pulls her quickly through the doorway and into the living room.
"Laura!" exclaims Liz. "What’s up?"
Laura explains, "I had a call from Stefan earlier. He thinks his mother is on the warpath again. Luke said I should lock the doors and be extra careful."
"Where’s Luke, he’s not in town?" Liz asks.
"Luke went to pick up Lucky and Emily in Llanview, Pennsylvania," Laura says. "They went off to visit a friend – without permission of course." Laura purses her lips and shakes her head.
Liz feels a twinge of jealousy. "Well, neither of them said anything to me about that. I wonder why?"
"Liz, why don’t you stay here until Luke and the kids return. We’ll find out the answers to all of our questions then."
"No, Laura," says Liz. "I have to get back to work and then start my riding lessons after that. Call me if you hear from Lucky, will you?" Liz quickly heads out the door as Laura just stares at her back.
Once Liz is outside on the porch, she stops, places her hand on her forehead, and leans over on the post. Why do I feel so creepy and so sad all of a sudden? she wonders. Shrugging her shoulders Liz steps off the porch and heads to Kelly’s.
~*~*~*~
Lucky slowly comes to consciousness. Some sort of soft, rhythmic noise is irritating his senses. After being imprisoned in the coffin, he had screamed and tried to escape by thrashing around the tiny space for what seemed like hours. Finally, he had succumbed to an exhausted sleep.
Right now, his throat is raw and sore from screaming, and his fingers feel bloody from clawing at the box. He thinks that he might have torn off a few fingernails from the way that they are throbbing.
In his terror, he had forgotten about his injured leg, but now it is quickly reminding him of its presence. It drives him nuts not to be able to hold and massage it, anything to alleviate the desperate pain in that area. Throat or no throat, he’s about to start screaming again out of pain and frustration, but that rhythmic sound that woke him up is starting again. Lucky quiets himself and listens intently.
It sounds like counting: 12345…12345…..12345…12345…12345. What is that, and where is it coming from? Lucky is confused. He remembers all sound disappearing when the door to his coffin was closed over his face. Fighting a new wave of panic, Lucky tries to calm himself enough so that he can think and reason. He tries to control his breathing by taking in some air, holding it, and then letting it out slowly. After doing this about 20 times, he finds that he can concentrate a bit.
That counting starts over again, but this time it is interspersed with a few spoken phrases here and there. Lucky listens again, but can’t make out the phrases. He wonders who that could be, but then his brain kicks in.
Todd, oh G*d, where is Todd, what’s happened to him? Did they do the same thing to Todd? Is he in a coffin, too? Is that him counting? Why haven’t we suffocated yet? What are they going to do to us? Ohmigod.
Lucky starts to panic again and tries to shake the coffin by beating his foot on the side of the box. This jars his injury enough that he starts to cry. He can’t hold back the tears because he is so scared. He feels like an animal, not a human being, like an animal caught in a vicious iron trap, trying to chew its leg off to get free.
"Lucky? Lucky?"
Lucky stops crying and listens. What was that? Someone is calling his name. "Todd? Is that you?" Lucky sniffs.
"Yeah, Lucky I can hear you. Are you okay?"
"What do you think, Todd. I’m about to call room service, do you want anything?"
"I wonder why we can hear each other?" Todd asks.
"Electronics," Lucky replies. They must have us connected to a sound system."
"Why would they do that? So we can bore each other to death?" Todd says tersely.
"What was all that counting?" Lucky asks.
Todd stays quiet.
Lucky asks again. "Well, what was that?"
Todd replies, "This isn’t the first time I’ve been locked up like this."
"What are you talking about, Todd? Helena’s held you captive before?" Lucky asks.
"My Dad. Peter." Todd says softly. "He used to lock me up in a trunk when I was bad. I used to count to make the time go faster."
Lucky is chilled. Luke would never do something like that to him. "How long would he keep you in there?"
"Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a day," says Todd.
"Man, I’m sorry," Lucky says.
"Don’t worry about it, I got used to it," Todd says flatly.
"Uhuh. Ahhhhhhh….!!!" Lucky cries.
"Lucky! What’s wrong?" Todd asks urgently.
"My leg, oh G*d, my leg. It’s starting to cramp up or something. I can’t stand this pain. I’m losing my mind," Lucky shouts.
"Let’s find something to take your mind off of it," Todd suggests.
"OH, and how exactly can we do that in these coffins, Todd?" Lucky is fuming.
"We do the beer drinking song," Todd proudly states. "You know, 29 bottles of beer on the wall, you take it down and pass it around, 27 bottles of beer on the wall…"
"What is it with you and the $%&# counting? You can’t even do it right. I’m underage, Todd, I don’t do drinking songs," says Lucky.
"OH. RIGHT. Didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers, Pollyanna. When’s the next tea party?" Todd is as p*ssed as he can manage reclining in a 2 foot by 6 foot long box.
Lucky retaliates. "I can just see you downing two six-packs a night in front of re-runs of Cops. Bring back happy memories? Of course, you have to keep a fresh supply of pork rinds handy, doncha? And, do you run around without a shirt on when the cops come in to bust your wild belching and farting party of one?"
"On a roll, aren’t we kid? Where’d you get that mouth anyway? You should register it as a lethal weapon. I’m sure your breath is already on file."
Todd and Lucky fall silent. It is hard to remain p*ssd in the position that they are in, but they are trying.
After about two minutes, Todd starts laughing, softly at first, then louder and louder. His laughter is contagious, and Lucky starts laughing, too. Soon, they are reduced to making farting and belching noises. They are laughing so hard that they both notice a rather unpleasant side effect of their captivity.
"Uh, Todd, man." Lucky says.
"What Lucky, boy?" Todd asks.
"Um…do you have to go to the bathroom? I’m dyin’ here, man." Lucky flinches.
"OH THANKS A LOT. I hadn’t thought about it, but now that you mention it…….thanks a H*LL of a lot for mentioning it to me, Lucky."
"What are we gonna do?" Lucky asks.
"The way I see it, we have two choices. One - hold it, explode and die. Or two – let it go and suffer the consequences."
"What are you gonna do, Todd?" Lucky asks in a small voice.
"Like I would tell YOU, UN-LUCKY." Todd shouts.
"Why doesn’t this ever happen on TV or in the movies? When someone is held captive or chained to a wall or something?" Lucky asks.
"Welcome to the real world, kid." Todd says. Maybe they are recording us for a new TV show."
~*~*~*~
In the electronic control room, Helena gets up from her chair, stretches and sighs.
"Andreas, remind me why we decided to put surveillance devices in their coffins?" Helena asks.
"For the pleasure of listening to their exquisite fear and pain, madam." Andreas steps up to Helena and licks the side of her neck.
"Those two are too infantile to even put on a good performance," complains Helena.
"Gas them now," she sighs. "And don’t forget this little detail." Helena cocks an eyebrow and waves a little brown vial in front of Andreas.
“ãåãïíüôá åêôõëßóóïíôáé” (The events unfold) says Andreas grinning wickedly as he takes the vial from Helena.
Buchanan Enterprises goes boom
Asa has a cow
Blair gets hot