When it's Hangnoose Time in Hell by Clifford D. Simak

Author:Clifford D. Simak [Simak, Clifford D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western Fiction
Publisher: .44 Western Magazine
Published: 1944-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

FOR a long moment he lay in a torpor that was merciful, then slowly, bit by bit, he became aware of his battered body. His stomach was a piece of lead that held him down and behind his back his hands and wrists were a sharp, red ache.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, careful so that the lancing light would not hit them again. But there was no light. He lay still, eyes moving slowly to try to pick up something substantial in the darkness. One by one, he made out the dark, crouched presence of furniture. The posters of the brass bed on which he lay, catching the slight glimmer of stars through the window at his back. The table that stood beside the bed with the lamp upon it..

He moved an arm to reach out and touch the table at his side, and his arm moved an inch or two and would move no more. Sharp pain lanced from wrist to elbow.

Methodically, mechanically, he narrowed down his mind to consider his hands and his brain traced out the tortured lines of bloody rawness where the ropes bit into yielding flesh. His feet, tod, lashed together at the ankles.

They would be coming back. Hamilton with his cold ruthlessness, Perkins with his twisted hate. They would come back to make him talk. And when he talked, they’d kill him.

He had to get out before the two came back. Somehow he had to escape this room. And the window was the only way. A man could break a window with his shoulder, heave his body through. He shuddered at the thought of jagged broken glass, but it was the only way.

Carefully, noiselessly, he swung his feet off the bed, pulled them around until he could stand up. Coldness seeped into him as he stood there in the dark, coldness and a terrible sense of helplessness. He hopped, slowly, carefully, inch by inch. One hop, then another, would take him to the window.

Something tugged at his wrists and he halted, stood with cold sweat breaking out on him. His wrists not only were tied together, but were secured to the bed!

He pivoted cautiously and stared at the table with the lamp upon it. A lamp meant that there would be matches. He bent forward from the waist to bring his eyes closer to the table top, and there the matches were, a water tumbler full of them, sitting near the edge.

Cautiously, he hopped backwards, waggling fingers searching for the table’s edge. He found it and halted, forced his arms backward to carry the fingers to the water tumbler.

Awkwardly one finger caught the tumbler’s top, tipped it over so that the matches spilled on the table top. Scraping, fumbling, his fingers pulled the matches in a pile, then groped to find the rope that bound him to the bed.

Carefully, fumbling time after time, he piled the slack in the rope atop the matches, then stood rigid for a moment, gasping for breath.

What he had to do next would take steadiness, sureness.

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