The Empty Chair

smells of methane and decay. The route finally became impassable—thepath ended in a thick bog—and Garrett led them to a two-lane asphalt road. They started through the brush beside the shoulder.
    Several cars drove by leisurely, their drivers oblivious to the felony they were passing.
    Sachs watched them enviously. On the lam for only twenty minutes, she reflected, and already she felt a heart-wrenching tug at the normalcy of everyone else’s life—and at the dark turn hers had taken.
    This is way past stupid, lady.

    “Hey there!”
    Mary Beth McConnell jerked awake.
    With the heat and oppressive atmosphere in the cabin she’d fallen asleep on the smelly couch.
    The voice, nearby, called again. “Miss, are you all right? Hello? Mary Beth?”
    She leapt from the bed and walked quickly toward the broken window. She felt dizzy, had to lower her head for a minute, steady herself against the wall. The pain in her temple throbbed ferociously. She thought: Fuck you, Garrett.
    The pain subsided, her vision cleared. And she continued to the window.
    It was the Missionary. He had his friend with him, a tall, balding man in gray slacks and a work shirt. The Missionary carried an ax.
    “Thank you, thank you!” she whispered.
    “Miss, you all right?”
    “I’m fine. He hasn’t come back.” Her voice was still painfully raw. He handed her another canteen of water and she drank the whole container down.
    “I called the town police,” he told her. “They’re on their way. They’ll be here in fifteen, twenty minutes. But we aren’t gonna wait for them. We’re gonna get you out now, the two of us.”
    “I can’t thank you enough.”
    “Stand back a little. I been chopping wood all my life and that door’s gonna be a stack of firewood in one minute. This’s Tom. He’s working for the county too.”
    “Hi, Tom.”
    “Hi. Your head okay there?” he asked, frowning.
    “Looks worse than it is,” she said, touching the scab.
    Thunk, thunk.
    The ax drove into the door. From the window she could see the blade as it lifted high into the air and caught the sunlight. The cutting edge of the tool glistened, meaning it was very sharp. Mary Beth used to help her father chop wood for their fireplace. She remembered how much she loved watching him edge the ax with a grinding stone on the end of his drill—the orange sparks would fly into the air like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
    “Who’s this boy who kidnapped you?” Tom asked. “Some kind of pervert?”
    Thunk . . . thunk.
    “He’s a high school kid from Tanner’s Corner. He’s scary. Look at all this.” She waved at the insects in the jars.
    “Gosh,” Tom said, leaning close to the window, looking in.
    Thunk.
    A crack as the Missionary worked a large splinter out of the door.
    Thud.
    Mary Beth glanced at the door. Garrett must have reinforced it, maybe nailing two doors together. She said to Tom, “I feel like I’m one of his damn bugs myself. He—” Mary Beth saw a blur as Tom’s left arm shot through the window and gripped the collar of her shirt. His right hand socketed onto her breast. He yanked her forward against the bars and planted his wet, beery-tobacco mouth on her lips. His tongue darted out and ran hard into her teeth.
    He probed her chest, pinching, trying to find her nipple through her shirt as she twisted her head away from him, spitting and screaming.
    “What the hell’re you doing?” the Missionary cried, dropping the ax. He ran to the window.
    But before he could pull Tom off, Mary Beth gripped the hand that spidered across her chest and pulled downward, hard. She ran Tom’s wrist into a stalagmite of glass rising from the window frame. He cried out in pain and shock and let go of her, stumbling backward.
    Wiping her mouth, Mary Beth ran from the window to the middle of the room.
    The Missionary shouted at Tom, “What the fuck’d you do that for?”
    Hit him! Mary Beth was thinking. Nail him with the ax. He’s crazy. Turn him over to the police too.
    Tom wasn’t listening. He was squeezing his bloody arm, examining the slash. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus . . .”
    The Missionary muttered, “I told you to be patient. We woulda had her out in five minutes and spread-eagle at your place in a half hour. Now we got a mess.”
    Spread-eagle . . .
    His comment registered in Mary Beth’s thoughts an instant before its corollary arrived: that there’d been no call to the police; there was no one coming to rescue