No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

these ancient ore carts, over these mangled eighteenth-century
train rails, through one blocked door after another. Sound
carries funny down there, all warbling and ringing. And I’m
sliding around this old wooden door, and I rested my hand on
the corroded hinge for maybe a second. And … something
awful happens.”
Darby noticed Lars’s attention had drifted back down into
his Colorado Air brochure, so she seized her moment. She slid
off the bench, and her wet Converse hit the floor with squishy
thuds.
Ashley made an abrupt slice motion. “The door swings
shut. The hinge snaps closed, like these two rusty metal jaws,
obliterating my thumb, fracturing three metacarpals. Boom. It
didn’t hurt at all at first. Just shock. And this door was three
hundred pounds of solid oak, completely unmovable. And
there I was, alone in the pitch black, a half-mile below the
surface.”
Darby walked toward him.
“Two days without food or water. I slept a few times.
Scary dreams. Fatigue, dehydration. I didn’t have a knife, but I
seriously considered losing my thumb. I remember staring at it
with my dying flashlight, wondering how hard I’d have to
twist my body weight against the hinge to … you know.”
Ed leaned forward. “You’ve still got both thumbs.”
Darby passed around Ashley’s chair and discreetly
dropped her folded napkin in his lap. Like kids passing a note
in high school.
He noticed — but smoothly finished his story, giving Ed
an ironic thumbs-up: “Correct-amundo. Turns out all I had to
do was wait. Some teenagers from a different town happened
to break into Chink’s Drop and they walked right into me.
Saved by pure, dumb, lottery-ticket luck.”
“And …” Sandi looked at him. “Your phobia is … what,
being trapped?”
“No. Door hinges.”