The Last Thing I Remember Page 2

  Now don’t get me wrong. Mom was a pretty good mom, all in all. There were a couple of times in my life when she even approached Mom Greatness. She was just . . . timorous. Timid, fearful. Prone to be apprehensive. As in frightened out of her wits about every little thing.

  Are you feeling all right? You don’t look good. Do you have a fever? Wash your hands after you touch that or you’ll get sick. Don’t walk on the road after six, the cars can’t see you. Don’t go into that section of town. Put on your jacket, you’ll catch cold. On and on and on. When I rode my bike, she was afraid a car would hit me. When I drove the car, she was afraid I’d hit another car. Oh, and my karate— she hated that. If she’d had her way, I would have had to wear a full set of metal armor before going to practice. In fact, if she really had her way, I would’ve worn a full set of metal armor and then stayed home.

  When I came down to breakfast that morning, she was turning a couple of fried eggs in a pan. As I walked to the kitchen table, passing about two full feet behind her, she said, “Careful, it’s hot.”

  Dad was at the table already, reading the paper. The Word of the Day for Dad would have to be: oblivious, meaning “unmindful, unconscious, unaware.” He wasn’t always like that. Sometimes he could be pretty cool, pretty smart about things. But he was an engineer for a corporation that manufactured a lot of the secondary systems that go into airplanes—guidance and communication systems and things like that. And sometimes—times like now—when he was involved in some important project, his mind got occupied and it took a lot to get his attention. You basically had to win first prize at a karate tournament or get the Best Grade Point Average of the Year award or wreck the car or set the house on fire before he even realized you were there. Otherwise: oblivious. Unmindful, unconscious, unaware.

  And finally: overwrought would have to be the Word of the Day for Amy, my older sister by one year. Overwrought—“extremely or excessively excited or agitated.” Emo to the extremo, in other words. In fact, as I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat down next to my dad, I could already hear her shouting from the door of her room down the hall: “Mo-om! I just don’t have any others!” Whatever that meant. Something about clothes, probably. Whatever: the Amy crisis of the day. Overwrought.

  “Ah, the cry of the wild older sister in her natural habitat,” I muttered, rooting through the newspaper for the sports page.

  “Hush,” Mom said—but she laughed a little as she said it. She put a plate of eggs and toast in front of me and hurried off to deal with Amy before the poor child got so full of girlish anxiety that she exploded in a cloud of pink dust.

  “So,” murmured my dad’s voice from somewhere behind his newspaper. “What’ve you got going on today?”

  Even when he was in one of his oblivious phases, Dad seemed to feel it was his dadlike duty to ask me questions about my life from time to time. I’m not sure it was part of his duty to actually listen to the answers. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure he was actually behind the newspaper at all. I sometimes thought I could’ve ripped it away suddenly and found a mannequin sitting there with an MP3 player periodically spouting questions like “So—how’s your schoolwork going?” and “So—how’s the high school social scene shaping up?” The real Dad would have already been at his office.

  Anyway, this time it was “So—what’ve you got going on today?” And I’m pretty sure I could’ve answered, “Today I unleash the first devastating attack in my long-planned war for world domination,” and not gotten more than a “Hmm—that sounds interesting” from behind the paper.

  I was about to try it when my jaw dropped open and my eyes went wide. I suddenly remembered something. I’d been so busy checking out my Word of the Day that I hadn’t actually looked to see what day it was.

  “Oh no,” I said. “Is this Wednesday?”

  “Hmm—that sounds interesting,” said the Dad mannequin behind the paper.

  I looked at the top of the newspaper. Yep, it was Wednesday, all right. Wednesday, September 15.

  “Today’s the day I give my karate demonstration!” I said. I had completely forgotten about it. The trouble was, I’d agreed to give the demonstration last June before school let out for the summer. The principal, Mr. Woodman, had asked if I’d do it, and I said sure, and he said save the date and I said okay—but I never wrote it down. I remembered it sometimes, and sometimes I forgot. Lately, I’d forgotten. I hadn’t even been practicing for it.

  I felt the first breath of airy nervousness in my chest, and my little heart went pitty-pat. It wasn’t that I was unprepared. I practiced karate almost every day, and I was always ready to strut my stuff. And I knew I had a freshly washed gi and all the other materials I needed in my closet upstairs.

  No, what made me nervous was that the demonstration was going to be given in first assembly. The entire eleventh grade would be watching. And the class officers— president, vice president, and treasurer—would be sitting, as always, in their official seats in the front row.

  And the class vice president was Beth Summers. Who was so beautiful and so nice I can’t even talk about it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  My Right Leg

  Karate. My karate demonstration. That’s what flashed into my mind as I strained against the straps that held me to the chair. So the last day I remembered wasn’t a completely ordinary day after all, was it? There was my karate demonstration with Beth Summers watching from the front row. Not that that explained anything. Not that it explained how I woke up scarred and burned and strapped to a chair with two men with orders to kill me about to walk through the door. But it did remind me of something. It forced a solid thought into my racing, panicking brain.

  Karate. I was a black belt. I was a martial artist, a good one. I was trained to fight.

  Now, okay, maybe you think that sounds funny. Maybe you think: how exactly was I going to fight when I was strapped to a chair that was bolted to the floor? How was I going to fight when all four of my weapons—both legs and both arms—were immobilized? How was I going to fight when the men ordered to kill me were right outside, were going to come through that door any second?

  And I’ll admit: it didn’t look good. But as the thought of my martial arts training forced itself into my mind, another thought forced its way in as well. The Churchill Card.

  My karate teacher—Sensei Mike—gave me the Churchill Card. He told me to fold it up and keep it in my wallet, and I always did and I always looked at it before I had to compete in a tournament or take an important test in school or do anything else where it came in handy. All it was was a 3 x 5 index card. Sensei Mike had written some words on it with a ballpoint pen. They were the words of Winston Churchill. Churchill was the prime minister of Great Britain during World

  War II. When the Nazis had taken over most of Europe, when Hitler was trying to spread his evil, hateful, murderous philosophy all over the world, Churchill inspired the British to defend their little island. Hitler bombed them and bombed them, but, led by Churchill, the people endured and fought back and somehow held on until the United States came into the war to help them win.

  This is what Churchill told them—this is what Sensei Mike had written on my card:

  Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty— never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

  I didn’t know how I’d gotten here. I didn’t know how I had lain down one night in bed with a life full of school and homework and parents and friends and girls—and then awoken in this horrible room, in this searing pain, in this deadly danger. But I didn’t have time to figure it out now. Somehow it had happened. Somehow I was here. For some reason, they were coming to kill me. And with me strapped down like this, there was no question that my enemies—whoever they were—had overwhelming might on their side.

  If ever there was a moment to remember
the words on the Churchill Card, this was it.

  Never give in. Which, in this case, meant I had to look for a way out. I had to still the panic flaming through me, and think. Think. It did no good to pull and yank against the straps. They’d never break. It did no good to try to slip free of them. They were tight. It did no good to scream. If there were anyone around to help me, they’d’ve come by now.

  I had to think—and look around—look for another way.

  I looked. It wasn’t easy. In my terror, I found it hard to get my eyes to keep still, to train them on things and take them in. I had to force myself to do it. I looked at my left wrist first. At the chair arm it was strapped to. Nothing. The strap was strong and secure. The metal of the chair was smooth. Same with my right wrist. My hand extended over the arm of the chair. I could open and close it into a fist. But there was nothing within reach, nothing I could get hold of.

  What about my ankles? I had to lean forward in the chair as far as I could to get a look at the front of them, then lean over to the side to get another angle. On the left, it was the same as with my wrists. Nothing to see, nothing to use. A strap, a metal chair leg, a bolt holding the chair securely to the floor. Leaning forward to look at my right ankle, I saw more of the same. There was no way out.

  My chest was getting tight. My stomach was turning sour. Tears of despair were blurring my vision.

  Never give in, never, never, never, never.

  I leaned over to the right to get the other angle on my strapped leg. And that’s when I saw it.

  It wasn’t much. Just a rough spot in the chair leg. A little patch where the metal had maybe bumped into something, had somehow gotten scraped and damaged. The thing was, though, the rough spot was right above the strap on my ankle. And whatever had caused the damage had left a little ledge of metal sticking out above the scrape.

  And it was sharp.

  By lifting my foot, I could move the canvas strap on my right ankle against the sharp edge of the metal. I didn’t have a lot of leeway, a lot of room to move. I couldn’t actually cut through the canvas, but I might be able to wear a way through it if I had enough time.

  I didn’t. My time was up. Just then, the door opened, and the two men came into the room.

  My heart would’ve sunk when I saw them, except my heart had already sunk so low there was nowhere left for it to go. But these two—these men—you could see it in their eyes: they were the worst kind of enemies to have. Not even evil—just obedient to evil, just dead in their hearts and minds and following blindly whatever orders they were given. Right now, their orders were “Kill him”— that meant me. One look at them, and I knew no matter what I said, they would follow those orders to the end.

  They were dressed just like I was. White shirts, black slacks. The one on the left was white, slovenly, with limp black hair hanging over idiot eyes and a chunky belly pushing tight against his belt. The one on the right was smaller, thinner. Brown-skinned and foreign-looking with a narrow, jutting face like a rat’s. He had a light in his dark eyes, a sort of breathless smile playing at the corner of his lips. He was excited, I could tell. He was looking forward to this. He liked hurting people. He liked watching them die.

  The chunky thug closed the door behind him.

  I looked at the two of them, too terrified to speak. I half expected them to just pull guns out and shoot me to death where I sat. They didn’t, though, not right off. They came toward me. They stood over me.

  And all the while, I kept lifting and lowering my foot. I couldn’t look down—that would’ve given it away—so I couldn’t be sure I was still rubbing the canvas strap against the sharp little irregularity in the metal of the chair leg. But I hoped I was. And I hoped they wouldn’t notice. And I hoped the strap would start to tear. But I have to admit it: my hope wasn’t very strong.

  The chunky thug smiled stupidly. He talked stupidly, too, in a thick, dull voice. I got the feeling that stupidly was pretty much the way he did everything.

  “Okay, you dumb punk, you asked for it,” he said.

  “That’s right,” said the rat-faced guy. His voice was light and breathless, excited like his eyes. He had an accent of some kind. “If you’d talked to us, maybe we could’ve helped you.”

  I kept lifting and lowering my foot. Hoping they wouldn’t notice. Hoping the strap would tear. Never give in.

  “Where am I?” I said. My own voice was hoarse and raspy. My throat hurt as if I’d been screaming. I probably had been. “Who are you? Where are my parents? Why are you doing this to me?”

  Chunky and Rat Face looked at each other. Chunky shrugged. Rat Face laughed.

  “‘Where am I?’” he mimicked me. “What do you think, we’re idiots? You think we’re gonna fall for that?”

  “I mean it,” I said. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what’s happening. Why are you doing this to me? I haven’t done anything to you.”

  I lifted my foot up and down, up and down. Never give in.

  Chunky stepped up close to the chair and looked down at me. “You’re still being smart with us?” he said. “Didn’t I show you what happens to smart punks? Didn’t you learn anything?”

  “Come on, we oughta do this,” Rat Face told him nervously.

  “I swear,” I said desperately. “The last thing I remember, I was at home, I was in bed. I swear.”

  Anger surged into Chunky’s face. He grabbed the front of my shirt. He pulled back his fist.

  “Say that again,” he said. “I dare you.”

  I looked up at him. I didn’t say it again.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” said Rat Face. “Prince is waiting. Let’s do this, let’s go.”

  Chunky held me another second, his fist raised, daring me to speak. I didn’t. Finally, he smiled his stupid smile. He let go of my shirt front, pushing me back hard. He sneered down at me in triumph. Oh yeah, he was satisfied with himself, all right. He’d ordered me to shut up and frightened me into obeying him. He was a big tough guy, Chunky was. I’ll bet he could beat up almost anyone he happened to find strapped to a chair.

  I moved my foot up and down. Never give in.

  Chunky stepped back from me. Rat Face smiled with excitement. Was this it? Were they going to shoot me now?

  No. Rat Face turned and moved to the white chest of drawers against the wall.

  At that moment, I felt something. A little jolting movement. The strap. The strap on my ankle. I couldn’t look at it for fear of drawing their attention to it, but it felt as if it had given way, just a little bit. The metal must’ve cut into it—just a little bit—but enough so that now I could lift my foot maybe a quarter inch farther, drive it against the metal with just a little bit more force.

  Rat Face opened the second drawer in the bureau. My breath caught as he reached in and took out a hypodermic syringe.

  He looked over at me. He wanted to see the terror in my eyes. He did. I was terrified, all right. And he liked that. He liked seeing how scared I was.

  “What are you going to do?” I said. The words just came out of me. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know.

  Rat Face took a vial of some clear fluid out of the drawer. He was grinning openly now. Chunky was grinning too.

  Rat Face held up the vial so I could see it. “You’re gonna like this stuff,” he said. “You know what this stuff does? It burns. Yeah. It’s, like, some kind of acid or something. I inject this into you and it burns right through you from the inside. Slow, slow, slow. I’ve seen guys scream for an hour before it killed them. Oh yeah. They scream and scream like you wouldn’t believe.”

  I pretended to go wild with fear. I didn’t have to pretend much.

  “I don’t know anything!” I shouted. “I don’t even know where I am!”

  I pulled and thrashed against the straps—not really trying to break out, but just because it helped disguise the fact that I was bringing my right foot up harder and harder, and the strap—I could feel it!—the strap was giving way. The metal was
cutting into it, deeper and deeper.

  Chunky laughed to see my terror. “You should’ve talked when you had a chance, you dumb punk,” he said. “Look at you now.”

  Rat Face brought the hypodermic needle to the top of the vial. He pushed it in and began to draw the clear liquid into the barrel of the syringe.

  I leaned far forward in my chair, pretending to stomp my foot in rage so I could bring the strap up even harder against the metal.

  “Please! Please!” I shouted. “You have to believe me! I don’t know you! I don’t know how I got here! I don’t know where I am!”

  And on that last word, I felt the strap around my ankle break. I couldn’t be absolutely sure because I couldn’t look at it, but I thought I’d managed to cut it clean through. I tested it, moving my foot away from the chair leg just a little.

  Yes. Yes. I’d done it. My right leg was free.

  CHAPTER SIX

  One Shot

  The timing was perfect. Rat Face and Chunky didn’t notice. Rat Face was too busy drawing the poison into his syringe, his eyes bright with anticipation of my agony and death. And Chunky was watching it, too, savoring the sight of the deadly liquid flowing into the glass barrel.

  And now some faint, small, desperate little breath of hope drifted like a tendril of fresh air through the black reaches of my heart. I know: it was only my leg, one leg. The rest of me was still strapped tightly to the chair. But a martial artist has four weapons—two arms, two legs—and now one of my weapons was free. It was something. It was a chance. At least I wouldn’t have to die without a fight.

  Never give in.

  Now there is another saying Sensei Mike taught me. It was something he heard on a television show about the martial arts, an old show called Kung Fu. It was, he said, the first rule of a true martial artist, and it went like this: “Avoid rather than check; check rather than block; block rather than strike; strike rather than hurt; hurt rather than maim; maim rather than kill, for all life is precious.”