The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

equals. I could even run out and shut him in, like he did to me.
    He clearly hadn’t thought that part of his plan through. But what was the rest of his plan? He talked about getting royalties from gas wells on the farm. The only chance of his family ever owning the farm would be if all the members of my family were dead, as well as Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Jeff. That was unthinkable. But apparently he was thinking the unthinkable. Had I been right about what had happened between him and Ralph? That would make it less unthinkable.
    No, I couldn’t wait for him to come and get me. Whatever else he was planning to do would be done by that time. I had to get out of here as fast as possible. But how? I was engulfed in black despair. My family was going to die. Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Jeff were going to die. I didn’t know how, but I was sure of it.
    I wallowed in these thoughts for a few minutes and then abruptly shook myself mentally. This kind of thinking was getting me nowhere. There must be a way to get out of here. The words of Uncle Jeff came to me. He worked with the reliability of systems. He said, “Look for the weakest link.” That was where you had to concentrate your efforts, to make sure the system didn’t fail, whether it was an airplane—or a jail.
    This was a kind of jail. What was its weakest link? The door. I felt the hasp. It was a straight piece of metal, attached to the door by several large screws. It was on hinges and swung over a staple in which the padlock could be inserted, so that the door could be locked from the inside. To keep the nasty outside world out.
    The hasp on the other side was identical to this one, except I remembered that it was bent at a right angle and the padlock went through a staple attached to the frame. If I could get enough pressure on the door to pull out the screws that fastened the hasp to the other side, then the padlock would no longer hold the door closed.
    I swung the inside hasp toward me and tentatively pulled on it. It felt very solid. The screws were strong and they were in tight. And I was trying to pull out the screws on the outside hasp. Even if I could generate enough leverage on this hasp to pull out screws, it was a fifty-fifty chance that the screws on this side would be the ones pulled out. Both sides wouldn’t come out at the same time. This was like pulling the protective strips off the ends of Band-Aids. Even when you pulled on both strips at the same time, one would always come off before the other.
    I still pulled as hard as I could on the hasp, bracing one foot against the wall beside the door to give me additional leverage. I would give anything to be Charles Atlas right now. In order to pull hard, I had to grip the metal hasp tightly, so that my fingers wouldn’t slide off it. After a few seconds of pulling as hard as I could, my fingers hurt so much from the metal digging into them that I lost my grip.
    I sat down on the concrete floor with a thump. That hurt, but not as much as the thought that there was no way for me to open the door without tools. Unless I could kick it open. I stood up and kicked it several times with the bottom of my foot, but it didn’t budge. Of course not. The door opened inward; I was kicking the door against the frame. And the frame was made of concrete. I backed up a couple of steps and ran into it with my shoulder, just to see what would happen. That hurt my shoulder but had no affect on the door.
    I remembered that Veronica had said there was a toolbox in the shelter. I had to pull myself away from the door and find it. With the right tools, I could take the door off its hinges.
    I turned away from the door for the first time since Ed had locked me in. I saw nothing. When I didn’t move, I heard nothing. There were no monsters. They had disappeared with my childhood. I was completely alone, except for perhaps a spider or two. For starters, I needed to find a flashlight and the toolbox.
    I went to the wall where the equipment was stored and started attempting to identify objects by feel. I tried to remember where items I had seen were located. Unfortunately, I hadn’t looked at them carefully during the tour and didn’t have a good mental map of the layout.
    I located the water bottles and the food readily enough. Most of the food was in cans. I would need a can opener before I could eat any of it. What I really needed was a light. A cardboard box felt like the one that had been labeled as containing