Michael Serves the Secret Soup — Part 2

Short Story — a police consultant with an uncanny knack for getting confessions learns the truth behind his “gift”

Missed part 1? Click here to read it.

I awoke upright, in a room lit by a naked light bulb, hanging from a joist. Looking at it made my throbbing head scream in pain. I tried to turn away, but found something rigid on either side of my head, holding me in place.

Think, Michael.

The place reeked of fertilizer. Unmarked cardboard boxes stood piled up to the ceiling. Was this some kind of basement? Maybe a storage shed? Of course, it didn’t really matter where I was being kept if I couldn’t move. I tried my arms, only to find them bound to the chair. My ankles felt similarly fixed to its legs.

In wiggling my feet, I discovered my left shoe had come off at some point, presumably when Thomas dragged me off to wherever this place was. I rubbed my bare foot back and forth on the ground and felt dusty concrete.

I tested the range of motion my hands had, and got my first piece of good news: my captor had bound my arms to the chair with duct tape. But he’d wrapped it far too high on my forearms, almost at the elbow. This left me with a relatively generous range of motion.

I tucked my elbows into my sides, then flared them out as far as they would go. The tape crackled. I repeated the process, in a grotesque imitation of the chicken dance. Each time, I could reach the tiniest bit farther. With enough time, escape might be possible.