Just After Sunset by Stephen King

aware of it. Especially not a lunatic like Pickering. She didn’t know if they were good in the sense of being beautiful, or sexy, but in utilitarian terms, they were very good. They had carried her a long way since the morning she and Henry had found Amy dead in her crib. Pickering clearly had great faith in the powers of duct tape, had probably seen it employed by dozens of psycho killers in dozens of movies, and none of his “nieces” had given him any cause to doubt its efficacy. Maybe because he hadn’t given them a chance, maybe because they were too frightened. But maybe…especially on a wet day, in an unaired house so damp she could smell the mildew…
    Em leaned forward as far as the corsets binding her would allow and gradually began to flex the muscles of her thighs and calves: those new runner’s muscles the lunatic had so admired. First just a little flex, then up to half. She was approaching full flex, and starting to lose hope, when she heard a sucking sound. It was low at first, barely more than a wish, but it got louder. The tape had been wrapped and then rewrapped in crisscrossing layers, it was hellishly strong, but it was pulling free of the floor just the same. But slowly. Dear God, so slowly.
    She relaxed, breathing hard, sweat now breaking on her forehead, under her arms, between her breasts. She wanted to go again at once, but her experience running the Cleveland South track told her she must wait and let her rapidly pumping heart flush the lactic acid from her muscles. Her next effort would generate less force and be less successful if she didn’t. But it was hard. Waiting was hard. She had no idea how long he had been gone. There was a clock on the wall—a sunburst executed in stainless steel (like seemingly everything else in this horrible, heartless room, except the red maple chair she was bound to)—but it had stopped at 9:15. Probably it was a battery job and its battery had died.
    She tried to remain still until she had counted to thirty (with a delightful Maisie after each number), and could only hold out to seventeen. Then she flexed again, pushing down with all her might. This time the sucking sound was immediate and louder. She felt the chair begin to lift . Just a little, but it was definitely rising.
    Em strained, her head thrown back, her teeth bared, fresh blood running down her chin from her swollen lip. The cords on her neck stood out. The sucking sound became louder still, and now she also heard a low ripping sound.
    Hot pain bloomed suddenly in her right calf, tightening it. For a moment Em almost kept on straining—the stakes were high, after all, the stakes were her life —but then she relaxed within her bonds again, gasping for air. And counting.
    “ One, delightful Maisie. Two, delightful Maisie. Three …”
    Because she could probably pull the chair free of the floor in spite of that warning tightness. She was almost sure she could. But if she did so at the expense of a charley horse in her right calf (she’d had them there before; on a couple of occasions they’d hit so hard the muscle had felt like stone rather than flesh), she would lose more time than she gained. And she’d still be bound to the fucking chair. Glued to the fucking chair.
    She knew the clock on the wall was dead, but she looked at it anyway. It was a reflex. Still 9:15. Was he at the drawbridge yet? She had a sudden wild hope: Deke would blow the warning horn and scare him off. Could a thing like that happen? She thought it could. She thought Pickering was like a hyena, only dangerous when he was sure he had the upper hand. And, probably like a hyena, wasn’t able to imagine not having it.
    She listened. She heard thunder, and steadily whooshing rain, but not the blare of the air horn mounted beside the drawbridge keeper’s cabin.
    She tried pulling the chair off the floor again, and almost went catapulting facefirst into the stove when it came free almost at once. She staggered, tottered,