No Rest: 14 Tales of Chilling Suspense by Joslyn Chase

Author:Joslyn Chase [Joslyn Chase]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paraquel Press
Published: 2023-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

get hi, ether, evens

He glanced at the clock. 10:01, and he was getting nowhere.

Graffiti. The day he met Jill, she was sitting at a bus stop. He’d been captivated and pretended he was waiting for a bus, too, giving him an excuse to sit by her. The wall behind the bench was covered with colorful graffiti, giving them plenty to talk about. As her bus approached, she’d taken his hand and written her number across his palm in purple ink.

Numbers.

He looked at the scratched words again—get hi, ether, evens. He moved the “s” from evens to the front, and got seven.

Excited, he hastily turned ether into three, and after an agonizing minute that seemed an eternity, he realized that get hi could be eight. He ran to the steel door and spun 8-3-7 into each of the three dials.

Nothing happened.

The time was now 10:07, and slipping by far too quickly. He hurled the mattress to the floor, checked under the table, toppled the chair. Taped under the seat, he found a cellphone.

He seized it and flicked the power switch. The phone lit up, but showed no signal.

Adam stared at the number pad, feeling his brain burn inside his skull. He tapped in the numbers 8-3-7.

The tiny screen lit up with a response: 5-2-9.

He spun those numbers into the first dial on the steel door, and was rewarded with an audible ping and a green light.

One down, 10:15, and ticking.

Adam searched the room for another clue. He didn’t feel so alone anymore. Thinking about Jill had helped, almost like she was there, beside him.

His gaze flew back to the bed. Crawling beneath it, he found wire cutters wedged against the wall. Sweat dripped into his eyes as he pried the tool loose, and when he rolled to his feet, a wave of nausea washed over him, making him stagger.

It was 10:20.

He ran to the screen and clipped through the mesh, exposing the fan. Jamming the wire cutters into the blades, he stopped their rotation, reached through, and retrieved the item from behind.

It was a screwdriver. His eyes roved frantically, looking for something to use it on.

High above the bunk, was a metal plate, fastened by screws. Adam replaced the mattress, stacked the chair on top, and balanced precariously while removing the plate.

A screen appeared, flanked by a circular depression, designed for a particular item. His finger and the butt-end of the screwdriver did not qualify.

He climbed down, searching the room, trying not to look at the clock, but he couldn’t help noticing it was 10:29.

Stomach cramps seized him, and he doubled over in misery, like the time he had the flu. Jill had been his ministering angel, fixing him chicken soup and making sure he stayed hydrated.

He realized how deathly thirsty he was. Climbing down from the chair, he ran to the table and gulped down the glass of water, nearly choking on the clear glass ball that was hiding in plain sight within it.

He vaulted back onto the chair and inserted the ball into the depression in the hidden screen.

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