In “Stepping on Fingers,” Lea takes action to save herself in a New Hampshire church where she and Drak were staying.
“A sudden calm enveloped Lea. Her attention was drawn back to the large, heavy, circular floor polisher. Its three-pronged plug was fastened securely into what looked like a new, quad wall socket. She looked down at her feet disgustedly. “What a pigsty,” she grumbled. Thrasher, her minder, slept on while Drak seemed to be awaking on the nearby floor, several feet from Thrasher. “This has to be cleaned up, at once,” she grumbled.
Lea grabbed both handles of the waiting floor polisher and squeezed its power lever very hard. With a noisy whirrrrrrr, the polisher began to buck, slamming from side to side in the narrow closet, scattering dirt, clothing and remains of long-cold meals in its path. “Have to clean up this mess!” Whummmmpppp! Denting the closet’s bare pine studs. “If I don’t clean up this mess, no one will!” Whummmpp! Crushing Thrasher’s head against the wall, then ricocheting across the narrow space before bashing Thrasher’s head again. Whirrrrrrrr to the wall and back again, this time pounding the man’s rib cage. Trying to gain his footing on the slippery floor, Thrasher fumbled in his pocket as he realized Lea was standing over him, powering the floor polisher, just before it crashed into him again. His trembling fingers found the Execution Box. But as the bouncing floor polisher hit him squarely again, the Execution Box escaped his grasp. They both watched it drop to the slippery floor as Thrasher groped for it. Lea prayed his creeping fingers could not reach it.
“You can’t throw more junk on the floor! Were you born in a barn?” she yelled, pushing down on the machine’s handle, raising its front edge high off the dirty floor to again bounce over the Execution Box. But the floor polisher only squeaked feebly, careening off the nearest five-gallon can of floor wax until it whirred to a stop in the slum-gullion of blood, dirt, sawdust and one crust of a leftover baloney sandwich growing on the floor under Thrasher’s broken nose.
“Don’t keep making a mess!” Lea screamed at the inert Thrasher. “I’m not here to pick up after you! What do you think this is, your birthday?”
Restarting the floor polisher with one hand, Lea guided its bouncing back and forth, over the gritty floor and the wet, red patch growing around Thrasher’s head. She bent to pick up a rusty ten-penny nail in front of her and some pieces of the Execution Box. She looked around for a wastebasket and let go of the floor polisher. The bulky equipment ground to a halt in the corner as Lea carefully inspected the floor of her bedroom, trying to find something to pick up. There was a faraway look in her green eyes. She didn’t even notice Thrasher’s blind right eye pointed in her direction as she relieved his corpse of the money collection and what was left of the Execution Box.”
@https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester,_New_Hampshire
#kidnapping, #escape, #eliminatekidnapper, #runtosafety
