Caged

“Jones!  Jones, open up!”  the voice leaked through his door as the young metalworker pulled his pillow over his head. 

“G’way… ‘m’not met’r huntin’”  But even as he said it, he sighed, beginning to slide his head out from under the pillow to gauge his surroundings.  The room was full of  a rapidly shifting light that a moment’s look identified as a flickering TV.  Had he fallen asleep with that game on again?  That’d explain the mirror.

That was right.  He’d started it up again out of an evening of booze and not much else to do.  Anne had left him alone and while she was his dearest friend, he didn’t mind that so much.  Sometimes, that girl was just so… crazy.

“Jones!  Come on!  I need your help with something.”  Her voice had caught a desperate edge that he raised his eyebrow at.  Sighing, running his fingers through his short, dark curls, he looked around for a pair of pants.

“I’m coming Anne.” He rumbled at the door.  “I’m not coming out in boxers damn it.”

“Jones!”  He then remembered that his front door was three rooms away.  He never did know how she managed that trick of being heard so clearly so far away.  It wasn’t like she was lurking outside his window.  He suddenly looked sharply at his window, then chuckled ruefully at his own idiocy. Ah well, he sighed, opening his bedroom door, sliding his feet into sandals as he passed by the bathroom.  Better go see what the crazy lady wants.

“What?”  He raised an eyebrow as he opened the door to a frightened, ernest face.  “Well? Anne, it’s dark ‘o’clock, and I was asleep.”  He was rewarded by a slight flinch, before he felt guilty himself.  Really, he was better than her mother, wasn’t he?  He didn’t often guilt-sling.

“Jones.  Jones I need your help, or at least your metal cutter.  You can go to sleep if you can just lend me that, but I need to do this now.  Please.  Jones.  Please, I need your help.”  He blinked and pulled her close, into his arms, trying to digest the words that came out in a breathless rush.  “he’s in a cage Jones, a steel one.  It’ll kill him.  I need to get him out. “ 

So she was seeing things, again.  Her voice had that tone and besides which, she said the cage would kill whatever was trapped inside.  He sighed gustily, trying to quell his indignation.  Really if she was going to hallucinate couldn’t she do it at a decent hour?  Did she have to do it at dark-thirty?

“Anne.”  He shifted his grasp to her shoulders, and shook her, once.  “I’ll help.  I’ll go with you though.”  This was almost old procedure with him.  He’d help her because she was his friend and he couldn’t stand to see her so distressed, even if it was at things only she could see.  She was a good friend, really.  Besides, and he squashed that thought immediately.

“Oh hell, thanks Jones.  We have to get going then.  He’s stuck in the cage and I don’t know how long before it kills him.  He doesn’t look like he’s long for it.  C’mon.” 

“Get in the truck, Anne.  I’ll get the cutter.”  He sighed gustily again.  Just as well that he had nothing to do this weekend, because he was sure he wouldn’t get sleep.

The ride had passed uneventfully enough, if strangely silently.  Anne was agitated and Jones was far from talkative in his drowsy, uncaffinated state.  He knew this was going to amount to little for him, but he hoped it at least wouldn’t end in a breaking and entering charge.  That had never happened before, but with his friend seeing random things all the time, he never quite knew where it would lead.

This time, it lead to a yard behind a ghost of a building.  She was right about their being a cage, at least, and a thick affair at that.  He had thought it would be the type of cage used to hold energetic dogs but no, the bars were at least half an inch thick.  It was, of course, empty.

He gritted his teeth on a surge of annoyance, reminding himself once again that Anne couldn’t help what she saw, and he knew that she tried to restrain herself in what she mentioned now.  Still, he repeated to himself.  Can’t she hallucinate at different hours?!

Wordlessly, he passed her his large bolt cutters, wordlessly acknowledging that it was better in her far more awake hands than in his.  Besides, as only she could see what was in there, might as well be her that does the work.  He hoped he didn't have to break out the blowtorch.  He trusted her but fire in her hands always made him somewhat wary.

“Thanks Jones.  Really. “  She didn’t look at him, however, instead appraising the bars.  She walked carefully around the cage with a pickiness that irritated him.  One bar was the same as all the others, unless she could somehow see a weakness that he couldn’t.  He laughed bitterly.  Maybe if she could do that her hallucinations would be less annoying.

As if the laugh was a trigger, the woman seemed to come to a decision and clamped the cutter around one of the bars, at about chest height.  He watched her struggle, then, for even with all of her considerable mass and strength she couldn’t seem to make headway.  Whoever had built this cage knew what they were doing.

“Here Anne, shove over.”  He sighed, walking around to her position, taking the handles in his own hands and trying to close them.  He blinked in surprise.  The bar was thick, sure, but he still made little progress cutting into it.  With a renewed interest in the problem, he carefully wrapped his hand around the bar, below where the cutters were wedged.  It felt normal.

“Grab the right handle, stand beside it.  I have an idea.”  He narrowed his eyes, watching carefully where they were trying to cut.  He waited for her to get into position, knowing she’d have guessed his plan by now.

“On the count of three?”  He nodded at her question.  Each of them had a considerable level of strength, but in this case, perhaps sheer weight would work where strength wouldn’t. 

“One… two…”  He curled his toes around the front edges of his sandals in anticipation.  “Three.”  With that, he threw his weight into his handle, and watched her do the same with hers before his gaze shifted to the bar.  The blades had gone in.  Not all the way, but halfway was better than none.  “Come off, and we’ll do it again.  It’s working.”

Another three count, and they threw themselves at the handles again, rewarded by another small bit of progress into the bar.  “Again.”  On the third count to three, the bar snapped under their combined effort, even as their skulls cracked together.  He stumbled back, rubbing his head, only to see her doing the same, smiling ruefully. 

“Well.. That’s one cut…” She said then, still rubbing her head.  “Somehow this doesn’t make me look forward to the rest of them.” Something in her words horrified him.

“You’re not going to try to cut every bar, are you?!  We’ll be here all night!”  He smiled wryly “And likely concuss ourselves.”

“I thought you had a different cutter.”  Her voice was almost accusatory, but halfway through that tone it caught itself in apology.  After all, she had woken him up.

“I do.  But it won’t work this high up because it needs weight to work and the third…”  He sighed at her expression.  He had been hoping that using the manual method would discourage her from her fools’ errand, or at least the effort would make her stop seeing things.  No chance, here.  “Let me get it out of the back of the truck.”  He could see the annoyance on her face even as he turned around.  Well, let her be annoyed.

It was only a few minutes before he handed her the wand.  “You remember how to use it, Anne? “

“Yeah, I do.  Turn the knobs til the gas is the right mixture, nob up by my hand controls the flame, right?”

“Yeah.  I’ll handle this end.”  He hoped she’d feed him well for this.  The gases were relatively cheap, but…  He turned the knobs and was grateful to see she didn’t let the cutter – or blowtorch, really- let out a sudden blaze.  At least she wouldn’t set the entire area alight.

He was quiet, as she worked, carefully burning through the bars of the empty cage.  Even with the blowtorch, it wasn’t necessarily easy work – however it at least had less risk of concussion, with the unfortunate addition of the risk of third degree burns.  She was really so focused on her task that he couldn’t help but notice the way shadows from the fire painted determined shadows on her face.  She looked almost terrifying, like this.

When she had cut out three bars, she stopped suddenly, handing him the wand at least instead of just letting it drop.  He sighed.  She was still clearly seeing things.  He busied himself with turning off the gas, so as to not let his annoyance at this fools’ errand get the better of him to her face.  He reminded himself once more that she was a good friend.

When he looked at her again, after stowing the torch in the back of his truck, he blinked.  She was walking so oddly, as if she was carrying some large burden, but there was clearly nothing there.  Or… was there?  He blinked, before rubbing his hand across his eyes.  No, it had to be the moonlight and mist playing tricks on him, as well as his own exhaustion.   That was the only way to explain the pathetic figure his friend momentarily bore.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Her voice was almost testy, as she looked concerned at whatever was causing her odd positioning. 

“Are you happy now? We got the thing open, and it was empty.”  He kicked himself even as the words came out in retaliation for her own sharpness.

“It wasn’t empty, Jones.  I’m not crazy.”  Her own voice was tight  “I’ll ride in the back of your truck, back to my place.  I can’t walk it carrying him and I’ll not leave him alone, and the front isn’t big enough for three.

“Anne, there’s nobody there!”  His own voice had a desperate edge that surprised him. “Nobody!  This was a fool’s errand!”  She seemed to wilt under his words, before straightening her back.

“Please, Jones… I’m not crazy.  Please just… take me back home.  I’ll still ride in the back.”

“… Fine. “  He bit his tongue to control the lash of temper.  Really, this pre-coffee state was getting to him, if he was seeing things too.  But he wasn’t crazy and he knew it.  He waited until she was settled in the back before he got into the truck himself and started them carefully on the road back to her place.