Sherri had no idea how soon her captors would be back to give her water and let her use the toilet again. As the hours ticked past and darkness fell, she sawed nonstop at her ropes. Fear began to creep in past the pain in her shoulders. She had to hurry. They would come to care for her eventually. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered to give her that first bottle of water.

It felt as if her bonds were weakening a little. Pulling hard against her ropes to hold them taut, she sawed even more feverishly against the edge of the bed frame. She felt the bits of rust catching and pulling at the rope’s fibers. Was that a little wiggle that hadn’t been there before?

All of a sudden, her straining hands popped free. She’d done it.

Bending down, she quickly picked loose the knots holding her ankles to the chair legs. Cautious of landing on her face this time, she stood up carefully, using the back of the chair for support.

Exquisite agony raced through her body as blood returned to limbs, her joints took their first, creaky movements in over a day, and muscles randomly cramped.

She made it over to the front door and gave it a tug. It was solidly locked. Which was kind of ridiculous, given how flimsy the rest of the cabin was. She took quick stock of the supplies at hand.

First, she tore the cloth back off the recliner. It was roughly a three-foot square piece of heavy upholstery fabric. She laid it on the floor and piled on it the pieces of rope that had bound her, several handfuls of stuffing from the chair seat, a couple of the bed springs from the cot, and a piece of flat metal the length of her forearm from the cot that lay on the floor.

Thinking fast, she raced into the bathroom, broke the mirror with her elbow, and scooped up several shards of the broken glass. They would make for good signaling devices or makeshift blades. Using the discarded water bottle from earlier, she drank as much of the nasty sink water as she could and prayed it wasn’t laced with deadly bacteria. Then she filled the bottle full and added that to her stash.

She picked up the metal chair she’d been tied to, and tossed it through the bathroom window. Then, working quickly, she tied the cloth into a bundle around her finds, threw it outside, and climbed out after it. Using her bare hands, she paused long enough to rip off a long sliver of the wooden siding. It was just about the right length and heft for a walking stick.