The Box

The Box - Part 2

Olivia looked all the way to the other end of the wooden box. Nothing.

She sobbed as she crouched, wavering on the uneven surface to peer downwards into the coffin. Drawing in breath through her nose, she unfurled her body from the trough and stood straight, chin on her chest as she curled her fingers into fists. She slowly turned to face Eric, his pathetic form igniting more fury than she had ever felt before. As he stood, she jumped to the floor with a metallic thud, her chest rising and falling rapidly with each breath.

"Who is it?!" She roared.

Eric had the decency to look momentarily worried, the glass in his hand twitching just once before he fixed his steely eyes onto Olivia. In a moment of weakness she had seen his anger wane, some unseen part of her mind giving in to sympathy.

Hell, no.

Olivia took a step towards him and, to her relief, he took a step back. His error gave her the extra boost she had been lacking, the push to keep going. She made a decision in a split second. Then she acted.

Olivia centred all her rage into her core and aimed for the wall. She reached him before he had time to react and, grasping his shirt collar, she rammed him with a sickening bang into the wall. If not for the seriousness of the situation, she would have laughed; his face was crimson, spittle dripping down his chin as his eyes bulged. She growled in his face, a primal sound that released some of the anger.

"You pathetic little man!" She spat.

Eric appeared to gather himself and a smile formed on his face, one which reached his eyes as never before witnessed, by Olivia at least.

"You can't kill me, darling. I'm your only chance of getting out of here. Do you know how long it takes to get to Morocco? Before they'll let you out?"

Olivia screamed at him with all the force her lungs could offer, then gave one final shove before letting go. Taking a deep breath, she climbed onto the third and last trough of dirt and began digging, vowing to ignore Eric until she was done. Then she would kill him.

In the corner of her eye, she saw him smooth his crumpled shirt and once again take a seat on the crate. He poured himself another glass of champagne and with a satisfying glance, Olivia noticed that his hands were trembling.

"Good thing you didn't break the glass," he muttered, "these were a wedding gift all those years ago. Do you remember, darling?"

Olivia continued to dig, ignoring her burning skin and her aching muscles.

"Worst day of my life," she couldn't help saying.

She heard Eric snort as she threw more and more soil out of the trough. She had this process down now, if it wasn't for the pain of her earlier escape it would be going a lot faster.

Finally, she hit wood and worked on clearing the dirt from its surface. As she didn't know which end was which, she cleared the edges of each narrow end, quickly running her fingers around the rim of the lid for a tell-tale gap, a finger-hold. She found one and gripped it hard, summoning energy she no longer felt to pull it upwards. This lid was much harder to lift, which gave Olivia hope that Eric had tried extra hard to keep this one shut. That meant that there was someone in it. She yanked and pulled and prised, leaning back with all her body weight, seemingly using every single muscle from her grimacing face to her toes.

Finally, with a long cracking sound, the lid broke and a small piece of the corner came away in her hand. Tossing it aside, she peered into the dark box but could only see a pair of bare feet. But whose feet?

As Olivia worked at pulling off more of the lid, her mind was spinning with possibilities. James? Her mother? Her friends Danny or Emily? Her neighbour, Ted? She felt in her heart that it was James. Eric had already admitted to knowing him and he would think this the best way to get his revenge. Revenge for finally having the guts to leave him.