Chapter 89

Sarah's eyes had adjusted to the dark garage already as long as she did not look at the light that was streaming in from underneath the garage door. She knew she was in a quiet area for there were not many cars or noises coming from the outside. She tried to imagine where the house might be but it did not help her much because she did not know the West Coast yet. Even if she knew it well, there was no way of telling where she was. The car had made too many turns, and she lost all sense of direction.

She looked around and noticed many wooden boxes and crates scattered around on the garage floor. She was thirsty. The dirty oil rag in her mouth had absorbed all moisture in her mouth making her long for water. She wondered when the criminals would be back and what they would do to her when they got back. Her hands and legs felt numb from ill blood circulation. She tested the tightness of the knots by moving her hands and feet, but she stopped almost immediately when the pain in her hands got worse. She had to make a plan to get out of this place. Sarah knew that the police was probably looking for her already. Her children would have reported it the moment they noticed she was not home and that could not have been too long after she had been kidnapped. That slight bit of hope soon vanished when she realised she was probably so well hidden that they would never be able to find her. The only way they would find her would be dead on a dumping site somewhere. Sarah knew she had to try to get out by herself. Even if she managed to get the ropes loose from her feet and hands, she still needed to escape from the locked garage door. If she could only rid herself of the rag in her mouth, she would be able to call for help and hopefully, someone from the outside would hear her voice. She might even kick the door to draw some attention from surrounding neighbours.

Sarah looked at one of the boxes to her left. She could not see what was inside, but she hoped for something sharp. She tried to reach for it but the ropes were too short for her to manoeuvre. She stretched her legs and got her feet hooked to the side of the crate. She tried to pull, but it was too heavy. A cramp like a bulging ball of pain shot up from her hip because of the odd position and effort to get the crate closer. She bit down on the rag until the pain subsided. She knew there was no way to pull the crate towards her and even if she did, she was not sure if there was anything useful in there. Something gave her hope. The crate was heavy, so it might be filled with some sort of tools. She had to find another way to bring the box closer.

Sarah squinted her eyes to focus in the dark room. She tried to find something to pull the crate with, but there was nothing near she could use. She felt the urge to urinate and knew she would not be able to hold it back much longer. Uneasiness crept up inside at the thought that she would have to urinate through her jeans. She would also have to sit in it until her kidnappers decided to come back. That would cause her skin to itch and burn, but at least it would make her less attractive and therefore the chances of her being raped by her kidnappers would be slimmer. Hopefully.

Sarah squatted to urinate, but the tightness of the ropes prevented her from keeping her balance. She fell back towards the wall and bumped her head with a loud thud. For a moment she thought she was going to faint. Sarah tried to push herself up from the floor with her hands tied behind her back. That was when she felt something. Hope boiled up from deep within. For a moment she had almost forgotten why she squatted in the first place. The pain in her head was subsiding a little.

Something was lying hidden in the dark corner where the wall met the floor. It was cold and hard. Sarah scraped it from the floor with her fingers and wrapped her right hand around it. She picked it up. It was quite heavy but manageable when she started to trace the shape of it with her fingers as a square metal bar almost a meter in length. The garage was too dark to see what she was holding. Sarah passed the bar from one hand to the other analysing it thoroughly. It was not easy to do with the tightness of the rope which gave little space to work with. Her heart jolted when she realised there was another angle to the bar. Another piece of metal had been attached to the bar forming a square shape. Sarah could hardly believe her luck. She could use the bar to hook the crate and pull it closer if it was not too heavy. She would have more strength that way than using her legs. Maybe she did not have to urinate in her jeans after all. She knew that she was setting herself up for disappointment. If there was nothing useful in the crate to free herself from the ropes, it would be catastrophic.

Sarah passed the metal bar to her left hand. Excitement took over and her hands started to shake. The bar dropped to the floor and Sarah cursed through the oily rag. She squatted again, low enough so that she could touch the ground, but the iron bar was gone. She cursed again to her stupidity. She felt around in the dark moving her feet around gently to cover a larger area. Just when she thought she had lost her only chance to free herself, she felt the familiar cold iron object again. She grabbed it firmly in her left hand and positioned it on the floor so that the square attachment was in the direction of the crate. She got to her feet and moved her body to the box as far as possible. She hooked the edge of the crate with the attachment and started to pull, but the crate did not move. Not a single bit. Sarah lowered her body slightly to have the benefit of her body weight combined with the little strength she had with her hands tied behind her back. She pulled again. She thought she heard a shifting sound of the crate but that could have been the wood cracking as well. The bar slipped from the edge of the crate and Sarah was thrown to the side. The rope spun tight from the roof. Instinctively she tried to counter her fall by sticking out her right foot, which hardly had any space to move. She fell down and was jerked back by the rope. Pain shot up from her hands, but at least she was still holding on to the metal bar. She regained her balance to her feet. She hopped closer to the crate and hooked the iron bar to the edge of the crate again. This time she lowered her body even more than the previous time so that the iron bar almost formed a straight line with the crate. She pulled again and at the same time leaned backwards with all her weight. The crate shifted. Her heart pounded faster. It was not enough. She centred her balance again and repeated. The crate moved a little more. She would almost be able to touch it, but she needed to do it one more time. Again the box shifted. Sarah hopped towards the crate and realised that it was within her reach. She dropped the iron bar and grabbed hold of the crate's side. She pulled with all her strength and it shifted again. She knew she would be able to reach inside the box without much effort.

Inside the box, she felt strange objects that her mind could not figure out or even begin to visualise. She could only feel their shapes. At least it was a crate filled with tools as she had hoped. She just had to find the right one, a tool that was sharp enough to cut through the ropes. She picked up each object in the box rotating it, feeling it and trying to imagine what it would look like if there had been light. At the same time, she tried to feel if they had any sharp edges. When an object seemed to be useless to her application, she would drop it outside of the box so that she would not analyse the same tool twice. Time was of the essence and she needed to escape before they came back. Sarah's bladder felt like it was going to explode, but she was more anxious and excited about freedom than anything else. She would have to keep it in for a little while longer.

The crate was almost empty and Sarah's hope started to fade away. There were some larger items which she knew were useless. Most of the tools lay on the floor as she unpacked them. Could it be that there was not one single usable tool in the crate? Sarah thought. Maybe she discarded a tool before assessing it properly, throwing it out of the box too soon without realising it had a sharp edge after all. Sarah squatted more and felt the strain in her thighs. She had to scrape the bottom of the crate in case there was something smaller, a blade or a saw, anything that would be able to cut through the rope. If she could only free her hands, then it would be much easier from there onward to free her feet.

Sarah scraped the bottom of the crate with her fingers stretched out. She wished that she could see what was in it for a brief moment. Her bladder was screaming, but she was determined. Something sharp stuck underneath her index fingernail and she recoiled with sharp pain. She cursed and thought it might have been a wood splinter for a moment. Whatever it was, it went deep. She had to be sure if it was not something usable. Sarah scraped the bottom of the crate again only this time with more caution. That's when she felt it again. She knew it was not a wood splinter, but something flat and long. It seemed like a blade of some sort. She pinched it between her middle finger and thumb and picked it up from the bottom. It was light. She analysed it and realised that it was a small saw with one serrated edge. She imagined it might have been a rusty jigsaw blade, nevertheless, she had found what she was looking for. It was more than enough to cut the ropes around her hands although it might take a while.

Sarah positioned the blade so that it pointed upwards. She secured it between her thumb and index finger and tested the serrated edge on the rope. It was harder than she thought. The rope was hard and thick. The blade was jerky as its teeth got stuck on the fibres. She gave the blade short up-and-down strokes. The ropes around her wrists did not allow for much movement. It was a frustrating task but at least she had some hope of cutting through the rope, eventually. Her bladder was a ball of fire and she felt numbness in her right forearm.

Sarah switched the blade over to the left hand and continued cutting. She paused for a moment to assess the rope and realised she had made some progress. The rope was starting to thin out as she cut through the smaller fibres. Excitement grew in Sarah's heart and she switched the blade again to her right hand. She had more control and power there. Soon, she felt a part of the rope snap and her hands were slightly more movable, not enough to pull them out, but enough to cut the rope quicker. She cut furiously until the last bit of the rope around her wrists snapped off.

Sarah's hands were free. She pumped them to get the blood circulation going again and to ease her hands and arms from the dull pain. She just had to get rid of the ropes around her legs and get out of this place.