55
THE TEMPERATURE INSIDE THE DRUM instantly began to rise and my claustrophobia drove me into a panic. Without air, we would suffocate in minutes. There was light coming through the opaque sides and I could see shadows moving around it as the drum tipped and fell on its side slamming us against the hard shell. My heart pounded so loudly I could hear it. A drum within a drum. Fear gripped me, its sharp spears ripping my senses. I pressed my knees against the lid and pushed. My muscles cramped, but nothing gave way.
Scott's shadow fell over the barrel and I could hear his clothes rubbing against it as we began to roll—the heavy container crunching the ground like shoes on soft rocks. "This is what you wanted, isn't it, Baimbridge?" he grunted. "You and Sydney together forever? Is that what you wanted, Baimbridge?"
The tank turned another revolution. My right arm was locked behind my back, and I could barely move my left. The temperature in the cylinder climbed rapidly and perspiration poured from me. "Please, Scott. Let her out! She's never done anything to you!"
"You don't know the first goddamned thing about Sydney and me!" His body rubbed the barrel as he lay against it, pushing with his feet, grunting, forcing it to roll in the soft dirt. Sydney's knees were crammed against her chest and my chin jabbed her shoulder. As we tumbled, Sydney rolled on top of me, moaned, and tried to move. We rolled again and I fell into her and I heard the air press from her lungs. Sweat burned my eyes.
"Richard?" she whispered near my ear. "I can't breathe."
I could hear my weight forcing the air out of her as we rolled. "I'm trying to keep my weight off of you."
"It's hot." She panted, then screamed. "Let us out! We can't breathe!"
Her cries pierced my ears and gave me strength. I tensed my body and swelled in size trying to burst the thick plastic container open like Superman, but I was not Superman.
Scott pounded his hand against the drum. "I love it!"
"Shhh. Try to relax," I whispered to Sydney as sweat rolled around my neck as the tank tumbled. "Take slow breaths." The light in the tank grew dimmer as it rolled away from the lantern until there was none. I forced my muscles to go limp and exhaled as her lungs expanded against me. When she exhaled, I inhaled. "We're going to have to take turns breathing."
"What's he doing? Why are we rolling?"
"He's going to drop us in the canal."
The barrel bumped something and tilted up at one end.
Sydney quivered. "What are we going to do?'
"He's just trying to scare us," I lied. I knew what was going to happen.
I felt her body quaking with silent sobs. "I'm sorry, Richard."
"For what?" I gasped.
"For getting you involved."
I panted. "You just gave me the best two weeks of my life." As the tank began to move again, it bumped every few inches and I knew we were on that short pier. As it hit each plank, it pounded us against each other, knocking the last of the air from our lungs. With every bump a new image flashed through my mind. Martha and I lying on a hill picking out rabbits and foxes and elephants in summer clouds. Dad on a tirade, his fingernails cutting into my jaw as he screamed and spit into my face. Martha fading away in that hospital bed while nurses worked to pull her back. Sydney laying naked against my back in the shower her arms moving over my chest and abdomen.
Our bodies were slick with perspiration, our breathing accelerating, gasping at the thin traces of oxygen left in the air. I could feel my heart pounding throughout my body. Tears spilled down my cheeks then back up into my eyes as the cylinder came to rest with me upside down.
What was it all about? Why was I even born?
"If only I could have gotten that gun," I sighed.
"It wouldn't have mattered," Sydney panted. "It didn't w—"
Our vessel abruptly lurched forward and plunged several feet before smacking the water of the canal bashing us against the walls of the drum like a baseball meeting a bat. The centrifugal force of our weight carried the tank deep into the water before it popped back to the surface bobbing like a cork. The side of the drum became cooler giving me a trace of comfort, a smidgeon of hope.
"Hey!" Scott called from a short distance away. "You say it's getting a little hard to breathe in there, Sydney darling?"
"Don't answer him," I panted.
"Maybe you could use a couple of air holes." He sounded delirious.
The first shot caught the corner of the drum ripping through the thick plastic creating a circle of light near my face, the impact reverberating through the drum. The glowing, red hot lead buried itself in the wall melting the plastic and sliding down the wall burning the flesh on my arm.
"Go ahead! Shoot me! Please!" Sydney screamed wrestling for room, for air, for cool. "I can't take it!"
The second bullet thumped into the drum and Sydney flinched. "Oh, God, that hurts," she moaned holding her breath.
I felt trapped. Powerless. Castrated! Rage swept through me like a hot wind on a wild fire. "You hit Sydney!"
"Don't," she hushed me as she drew short labored breaths, her body trembling against mine.
A volley of four more rounds smashed into the barrel and molten lead seared into our flesh as cold water mercifully spewed in behind it—so cold that it, too, burned.
"Oh, Sydney, I'm so sorry. I just wanted to get a picture. I thought that maybe for once something would work out in my favor." I choked back tears. "If I'd just...gotten my hands on that...gun."
"I told you," she panted, her voice growing faint. "The gun didn't work. I tried it."
"The gun under the barrels?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Right after he knocked you out...when he reloaded his gun. I pointed it at him and pulled the trigger, but it wouldn't work. I tried it three times before he turned around."
Outside, we heard shouting. "Shhh. Listen." Men's voices, shouting. Through the hole in front of me I could see lights flickering through the tree tops. Blue, red, white. "Sydney, the police are here!" We shouted and beat the drum. A shot rang out, then more shots. Hand guns. Shotguns. Tear gas launchers. As the tank bobbed in the canal, I watched the scene unfold through my tiny window and relayed it to Sydney. I saw an officer take a hit, heard the faint crackle of fire igniting, and watched the barn as it went up in flames.
They couldn't hear us and no one knew we were there.
As the oxygen diminished, I had difficulty thinking. I tried to get my mouth closer to the hole in front of me to suck air through it, but couldn't reach it and choked on what filled my lungs. The cold water had reached my knees and the euphoria I'd felt when the police arrived evaporated.
Sydney whispered, "We're going to die, aren't we?"
I shuttered and gasped for air. "Ironic isn't it?"
"What?" she breathed.
"I finally have something to live for."
She whispered, "Me, too."
Of all the unjust tragedies I'd witnessed in my life, this was the most unjust. Sydney was so innocent. She had molded a fabulous life for herself...had a...successful...business...and...
Starving for oxygen, I drifted in and out of consciousness.
Think!
"Sydney? What'd you do with that gun?" I coughed.
She panted rapidly. "I...hid it...in...my..."
"Where?"
"It's..." She fell silent.
"Sydney, where is it? Where's the gun?"
"It's...it's..."
"Do you have it? Is it here?"
"What?"
I must have been getting some oxygen through that hole. I wasn't thinking too well, but at least I could still think. "The gun. Is it here?"
"It's..."
"Where, Sydney? Where's the gun?"
Her voice was faint. "Under...my...shirt."