Children of the Underground

Chapter 1

The day of Ashlee Addley’s abduction was unremarkable.

It was in the evening that things escalated, and it started when she was sitting on the couch, holding her recently published novel.

The title was Goodbye Oklahoma, and the cover art was cringy and disappointing. A brunette woman with a ripped tank top was being cradled by a macho cowboy wearing an unnecessarily gaudy hat. It was supposed to be a romance novel, but based on the paperback art, it might as well be an erotica.

Well, looks like it’s time for you to join the middle-aged women who left their jobs as daycare providers when their midlife crisis brought the light of erotica writing to their life. Way to go, Ash. Dreams really can come true, huh?

Angrily, she threw the book down on the end table in front of her. It shook slightly from the force, but miraculously held strong. It was a miracle that any part of her apartment was still standing, to be honest. With all of the energy and fury that came trampling through, it ought to be in shambles.

It was quite possible that she had never been more depressed in her life. She had experienced her fair share of trials over the years (most of which left her crying on the bathroom floor), but nothing hurt as much as holding her greatest failure in her own hands.

She had always imagined that her first published novel would be a smashing hit. It would hit the New York Times’ bestseller list faster than she could announce it was released, and critics would claim it to be “the most profound piece of literature to be produced in this century.” Instead, the latest review toted Goodbye Oklahoma to be “the worst romance novel ever to poison the stomachs of those unfortunate enough to read it.”

Attempting frivolously to distract herself, she leaned back in her seat and allowed her eyes to wander. The apartment was dull, however, and offered no rescue from the dark confine of her thoughts. She could see every inch of the humble dwelling from her spot, from the mini-fridge they called their kitchen to the mattress that was hardly more comfortable than the floor. The walls were stained from years of previous tenants smoking cigarettes, and the yellow carpet was certainly at least as old as her mother. It was covered in thousands of stains she would never know the story to, and a few that she would never be able to forget. The large, red stain that sat just below the foot of the mattress was blood.

The front door of the apartment opened, and Ashlee was immediately relieved for her solitude to be interrupted.

She shared the apartment with her boyfriend, Chase, and it was he who had walked through the door. Frantically, she grabbed her book and tossed it underneath the couch and out of his sight.

“How was work?” She asked, trying her hardest to sound cheerful.

Chase grunted, his back to her as he hung his coat up next to the door.

Shit. He’s in a mood.

“Bad day, huh?”

“Did I say it was a bad day?” His voice was stoic, but she knew what it was leading to. When he turned around to look at her, his face taught.

“I’m sorry,” her voice quivered, and she felt herself receding into her seat. “I just figured that you seemed to be in a bad mood and thought maybe it was because of work.”

“Well maybe you should stop figuring stuff,” he groaned. Without offering her anything more, he turned away again and went towards the fridge.

Ashlee was startled by how fast her heart had begun to beat. It was thumping with such force that it hurt.

Why aren’t you used to this feeling by now? Have you ever known a life where this wasn't the usual?

“Why the fuck are we out of beer?”

He was leaning over the fridge now, frantically looking through it as if a single Budweiser might be hiding behind the carton of milk.

She wanted to answer with “you drank the rest of them last night,” but she had quickly learned where answers like that landed her. So, she replied with “I’m not sure. I think we’ve been low for a while.”

Chase’s face turned red. Slowly and deliberately, he stood straight up, slammed the door of the mini fridge shut, and turned to his girlfriend.

“So, you knew we were running low on beer?”

Ashlee started shaking. Her heart stopped hurting, though. Maybe it had just went and stopped all together.

“I…” She hesitated. It was a trap.

“You what?”

“I suppose I did.”

He took a heavy step towards her and it made a thud. “So, you knew we were out and you didn’t go and get some more?”

She hated when he did this to her. He had been fully aware that they were out of beer last night. When he had cracked open the final one, he had let out a sigh and commented that he would “have to pick some up after work tomorrow.” Ashlee was very aware that the best way to combat the attack was by lying down and giving in, but that was just too damn hard to do.

“You drank the last one yesterday,” she whimpered. Her voice couldn’t come out with any more strength than that of a dying mouse. “You said you were going to pick more up after work.”

Chase’s face contorted into the one that frightened Ashlee to her very core. If she wasn’t aware of what she was walking into before, she was now more aware than ever.

“That’s funny that you remember that,” he took another step towards her, “because I don’t remember that at all.”

After another step, his right foot landed on one of the red stains that Ashlee knew the story behind.

“Don’t you think it’s funny that you ‘remember’ something that I don’t?”

Another step.

Ashlee sunk further in her seat.

“Because it seems to me like you’re making shit up so that you don’t have to own up to anything.”

Another step. Now he was looming over her.

He was an arbitrarily handsome man. His slim body was complimented by his broad shoulders, a soft scruff covered his chin, and his blue eyes had turned more than one head in the past. When Ashlee had first met him, she was immediately in love, astounded that a man as handsome as him would ever want to be seen with a girl like her.

Now he looked like an angel possessed by a demon, hunched over her with clenched fists and icy eyes that held no comfort.

“Is it that hard to just say you’re fucking sorry?” He growled.

“I’m sorry.” She could barely hear her own words; they came out as a whisper.

He reached a hand towards her, and when he did, she flinched. There seemed to be no malice in his actions, though. The callouses of his fingers rubbed gently against her chin as he propped up her head.

“Was that so hard?” The fury had dissipated from his eyes. He leaned forward and kissed her. She didn’t kiss him back.

He turned and walked back towards the fridge. “Good thing I still have some whiskey left over,” he grumbled, reaching for the bottle that sat against the wall.

Slowly, Ashlee’s heartrate began to return to normal. The threat of war faded into the background as she watched her boyfriend take a second and third swig from the Jack Daniel’s bottle. Why did he always have to drink so damn much?

For a long couple of minutes, they existed together in silence. Ashlee sulked on the couch, replacing the familiar feeling of fear with the comforting feeling of sadness, and Chase stood by the fridge, staring off into the distance between each drink of whiskey.

“Why are you being so quiet?” He asked suddenly.

Slightly startled, Ashlee shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t have anything to say, I guess.”

“Are you giving me the silent treatment? You trying to punish me for being upset that you lied to me?”

What?

“No. I’m not upset at all, I just don’t have anything to say.”

“I’m not the asshole,” he growled, putting the cap back on the whiskey bottle. “And I’m kinda getting sick of you always making me out to be one.”

I didn’t fucking say anything!

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I don’t think you’re an asshole.”

Except that sometimes you fucking are.

“How dare I speak my damn mind,” he snarled, now speaking as if to an audience. “How dare I stand up for myself, huh? If a man ever gets mad at a woman he’s the asshole, right? But what about when she’s being an asshole and asking for it? Am I not supposed to stand up for myself?”

Ashlee didn’t know how to reply to that, so she stayed silent.

Before she could possibly see it coming, a deafening sound exploded next to her left ear. Chase had thrown the Jack Daniel’s bottle at the wall with enough force to make it shatter. Her face was warm, and when she touched it, her hands were covered in blood. Red glass shards were scattered around her feet.

She had never been so afraid to look up at the man she loved as she was in that moment, but she knew that avoiding eye contact any longer would end in much worse than a few minor cuts and a shattered bottle.

The demon possessed angel had returned her look with a frightening ferocity. He stood as if he was ready to fight in the greatest war of his life, but he was blind to the white flag that the opposing party was flying.

“What do you got to say now?”

“I didn’t have anything to say in the first place!” Ashlee screamed out, tears flooding her eyes. They mixed with the blood on her cheeks as they went down, acting as a sort of war paint.

She desperately wished to be alone again with only her greatest failure as company.

More crashing.

Chase had grabbed a glass sitting on their small dining table and threw it at the wall closest to him, shattering that as well.

“I’m so fucking sick of your bullshit!”

Frantic desperation was beginning to take over her. Whenever he got this aggressive, it always ended with a stain in the carpet.

Chase began advancing towards her.

“I go to work every day so that I can support your lazy ass, and then all I get from you when I get home is fucking attitude.”

He grabbed her by the arm with a calloused hand and forced her off the couch. Pulling her towards him so that she could smell the whiskey emanating from his breath, he held her in place with his other hand and growled down at her like a lion about to eat its prey.

“I think it’s about time that we work on that attitude of yours.”

Before she had time to formulate an escape plan, Chase had flung Ashlee against the wall. Her head slammed against it, and for a moment she saw stars. It brought a brief second of quiet peace to break the horror that had erupted without notice. All good things come to an end, though, because the short-lived tranquility was interrupted by the sharp sting of a slap to her face.

“Please,” she whimpered, lapsing into the dark pool of helplessness she had become familiar with. “I don’t want to fight.”

“I don’t want to fight either, but you started it, so now you’re going to get it.”

He grabbed a handful of her hair in a fist and pulled her head back. They were face-to-face now, mere inches separating them. She felt as though she could get drunk just off his breath.

He was drinking before he even got home. Nobody would reek this bad after just a couple of shots.

They had been in hundreds of fights in the year that they had been together (many of which were accrued in just the three months they had been living together), but Ashlee still didn’t have a good formula down for dealing with his anger. When they got to this point, she had tried every method in the book.

Sometimes pleading would help. Sometimes taking her clothes off would help. Sometimes staying silent would help. Sometimes nothing helped.

Regardless of what she tried, though, it was always a roll of the dice. Pleading would help one day and get her a black eye the next. Taking her clothes off would get him to put the bottle down one night and leave her locked in the bathroom three days later.

There was no winning with him, and she had never before felt such a concoction of guilt, fear, and hopelessness.

“Please,” she whimpered again, staring him square in the eye. It was a vain attempt to reach his soul. “How about we just sit and watch TV? Can we just relax and have a good night? I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

A pause stood between them, and that pause was her friend. His glare softened, his expression relaxed, and the fist ripping at her scalp loosened. She saw an opening, and she went for it.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I really am. Let’s just sit and watch TV, huh? I’ll even go to the store and buy more beer if you want. I know I should have done that earlier.”

The fist came down off her scalp.

“Yeah, you should have.”

The evil left his eyes. He took a step back.

“You don’t need to, though. I’ve got another bottle of whiskey by the bed.”

He strode over the bed, grabbed his bottle, and walked back over to the couch.

She had won.

Once the TV was on, the tense air was filled with the white noise of Seinfeld. Chase stared at it blankly while sipping at his medicine, and resolve was found suddenly and uncomfortably. It was that part of their fights that caused Ashlee the most stress. Not only could she never see when they were going to come, but the ending never actually felt final. In a way, she supposed they were constantly fighting in one, gigantic battle. The moments of peace were simply the breaks where the soldiers spent time regaining their arms.

Tenderly, she took a seat next to him. Her face and head hurt both inside and out, but she focused all of her energy on maintaining composure and an expression of contentment.

For the next half hour they acted as a normal couple. Chase laughed at the dumb jokes that Ashlee thought were off color, and eventually she curled up under his arm and began closing her eyes. She had thought that the night was over and that she could finally lapse into sleep, but she was wrong.

“What’s this?”

Chase’s voice awoke her from her doze, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the cringy cover of her most recent failure in his hands.

Fuck.

“It’s nothing.” She tried reaching for it, but Chase pulled it away.

“It has your name on it.”

Her heart rate was increasing again.

“It’s nothing. I didn’t want you to see it.”

She tried grabbing it again, but that prodded him into standing up.

“Goodbye Oklahoma? Seriously, Ash, what the fuck is this?”

She should have known that all the little battles would lead to the war. Of course her night wouldn’t be over with just a broken bottle and a couple bangs to the head. Now he found something that she had been hiding from him, and only God would know how he was going to react to it. He knew she was a writer. He knew that she had been working as a proofreader for a publishing agency just before they had started dating. She had even told him that she was thinking about leaving Minneapolis to try and get on with a bigger agency in New York. He didn’t know, though, that she had been pursuing a career as a novelist. It wouldn’t matter much that it was a pile of garbage that would never see any commercial success. All he would see is that she lied to him.

“It’s a book that I’ve been working on for a while.”

His reply to her was a silent look encouraging her to explain before he threw it at her face.

“I didn’t tell you because I knew it wasn’t going to be any good. It’s already tanked in every review it’s gotten. It’s not going anywhere, and so I don’t really want to tell anybody.”

Chase analyzed the front and back cover. “Is this a porno?”

“What? No. It’s a romance.”

He shoved the cover in her face and pointed to the large-breasted woman and the shirtless cowboy. “This looks like the start of a porno, Ash. What the fuck did you write?”

“It’s a romance about a woman that leaves an abusive relationship and runs off with an Oklahoman cowboy,” she explained quickly, hardly thinking about her words. “It’s a piece of trash and I really don’t want to talk about it…”

She would have kept going, but the words were blown from her mouth when the book slammed against her nose. Instantly, she felt the warmth of blood running down into her mouth.

“Is this your fantasy?” He paused long enough to slap her. “You want to run off with some southern douchebag because you think I’m an asshole?”

“No…”

Another slap.

“No man would want you anyway.”

Another slap.

“You’re a worthless sack of shit, and you’re lucky I do for you what I do. Without me you’d be living on the fucking street.”

Another slap.

Ashlee’s world was spinning, her mouth tasted like rust, and the fear she felt was becoming more and more primitive.

“But all you can think about is leaving, huh? You want to run off with someone else, huh? Well, they wouldn’t fucking have you anyway.”

She had braced for another slap, but this time it was a punch right to the gut that sent her sprawling to the ground.

Ashlee tried frantically to get up before he sent another blow, but his footsteps were walking away from her.

Where is he going?

He strode towards the mattress and knelt over next to the black box against the wall. There was one thing in that box, and she only saw him take it out when he was wasted and bored.

You’ve got to get out of here.

“I’ll fix that attitude,” he mumbled, fumbling with the lock.

Get out. Get out. Get out.

Her legs felt like they were made of Jell-O. Getting up at that moment was the hardest thing she had ever done, and when she finally managed to make it on her feet, she fell against the wall.

“Blow your fucking head off and then see who’s laughing…”

After a few steps, she felt a little more in control. Like a fawn just learning how to walk, though, she wasn’t sure if she could get anywhere on her own.

Run.

Chase had managed to get the lock open, and he was pulling his pistol out of the box.

Seeing the gun was all it took for her adrenaline to full kick in, and in an instant she was outside. The Minneapolis January greeted her with harsh, subzero air, but she couldn’t feel it. All she felt were her legs moving like lightening beneath her, and suddenly she was racing down the street like she did when she was a kid. Now, though, she was running for her life.

She didn’t know where she was running to until she arrived. It was a small, white door with the number 321 on the third floor of an apartment complex that was nearly two miles away from the hell-hole she had escaped from. The run must have taken her nearly twenty minutes, but she couldn’t recall any of it.

Frantically, she banged against the door and screamed.

A young, brunette woman dressed in nothing more than a black tank-top and a pair of boy short underpants answered the door.

“Oh my god, Ash!”

Once she saw her friend's face, she passed out.