Outside Forces

by R E Swirsky

CHAPTER 4

  Friday 18:25 Calgary, Alberta, Canada

  Michael remained naked tucked against the wall under Lucy’s bed feeling very unsettled about Johnny’s sudden arrival. He trembled, held his breath, and opened his ears to every sound coming from the other room.

  The chain across the front door rattled and clinked as Lucy unlatched it. The squeak on the hinge cried out as the door opened.

  “Let’s do this, Johnny,” he heard Lucy say.

  The door closed.

  Johnny stammered, “I…I had to come see you, Lucy…before.…” He never finished the sentence.

  The pads of Johnny’s leather soles scraped the linoleum floor as he shuffled about in the other room. Michael continued to stare out from under the bed, his eyes eager to lock onto anything he might see through the open bedroom door. He didn’t dare breathe.

  “So, what is it you want to say to me?” Lucy asked.

  Feet shuffled across the floor out of view.

  “It’s about us. You know.…”

  More shuffling of footsteps. Johnny’s black shoes suddenly appeared in the bedroom doorway.

  “No, Johnny, I don’t know.” Lucy’s voice was steeped in frustration. “…and come back over here if you want to talk to me.”

  The shoes stopped, shuffled back a step, and turned away from the bedroom towards her.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t break up,” he said. “I really like you. We had a good thing going.”

  “What? There was no good thing between us, Johnny. There never was.”

  Johnny turned back towards the bedroom and stepped inside. Michael could almost feel Johnny’s eyes scanning the scene inside the bedroom: the two pillows, the blankets pushed off the bed, and only the single cotton sheet laying mussed on top. What would he make of what he saw?

  Johnny remained inside the bedroom for only a moment before he retreated out of view towards Lucy. More shuffling.

  “Johnny! Stop it.”

  What was Johnny doing to her? Should he show himself?

  “You really should have listened to me, Lucy.”

  Lucy let out a grunt. “Please don’t touch me.”

  She sounded deeply upset.

  More feet shuffled along on the floor.

  “I can still make this right. Just say you’ll take me back so we can be together. There’s still time.”

  “Time? We’ve been through this already. It’s over.”

  More shuffling. Lucy grunted again.

  Was he touching her?

  “Leave me alone!” she shouted. “I told you not to fucking touch me!”

  Michael pushed himself a few inches away from the wall. He felt a need to help her. But she hadn’t called for him. He readied himself to act.

  The shuffling stopped.

  “So that’s it?” Johnny asked.

  “You need to leave.”

  Silence for a moment.

  “What else do you want?” she asked him.

  “I…damn it,” he said softly.

  “Johnny, I really think you need to just go.”

  “I don’t want you hurt, that’s all.”

  “Me? Hurt?” She let out a half laugh. “Just leave already,” she said. The sound of her voice changed. Michael sensed she was moving away from the front door towards the small kitchen.

  “Damn it, Lucy,” Johnny said softly. “Please—you must listen. I.…”

  “It’s not open for discussion anymore,” she said. “There is no us and there never will be. I thought you only came to say goodbye.”

  Johnny released a deep chuckle. It was an unsettling sound. His footsteps moved slowly about in the other room.

  His voice deepened. “You really don’t fucking get it, Lucy.” He chuckled again. “Do you really think it was just coincidence that I showed up in your sorry life two months ago?”

  Lucy made no reply.

  “You don’t know who the fuck I am at all.”

  Michael pushed himself out further from under the bed. He didn’t like the sudden change in Johnny’s voice. He tilted his head to see more through the open doorway, but the angles were all wrong. He couldn’t see a thing.

  “I know enough to have seen the real you. And I don’t like what I saw.”

  Johnny laughed heartily. “You are such a bitch, you know that? And I’m only here tonight because I was getting to like you. I’m not even supposed to fucking be here tonight.”

  “Oh, please.…”

  “Honest, Lucy. I’m supposed to be on a plane hundreds of miles away from you near Mexico. But, believe it or not, I’m here because I still care about you.”

  Michael’s skin crawled.

  “Just get out, Johnny.”

  “You are beautiful… so pretty.…”

  “Go!”

  There was no sound at all for a few moments until Johnny released a heavy sigh. “We really should try to work this out,” he added coldly.

  “How many times do we have to do this? I don’t think I like you anymore. We aren’t ever going to be a thing, so I want you to stop contacting me. It’s over between us.”

  Michael heard Johnny release a guttural groan followed by what sounded like multiple deep anxious breaths. He heard his shoes stomp hard across the floor followed by two loud deliberate thumps on the wall. The front door rattled with each thump.

  “You’re such a skanky bitch. You have no fucking idea what’s headed your way.”

  “Get out!” Lucy screamed.

  “Fuck you,” Michael heard Johnny say before the apartment door opened and slammed shut.

  “And fuck you, Johnny!” Lucy shouted at the closed door. “Fuck you, too!”

  Michael waited a few moments to see if it was okay to come out. Lucy remained quiet in the other room. Michael suspected she was watching out the front window to make sure Johnny had actually left the building.

  Another few minutes passed when the silence was broken by a loud crunch and bang as the front door burst open and crashed against the interior wall. Michael retreated deep under Lucy’s bed again. The loud crash was followed by a flurry of sounds and new noises from the other room. Multiple footsteps, thumping, and one thunderous vibration as the front door slammed closed. Energetic grunts, buffeted with desperate groans and chaotic thrashing, was followed by still more thumping. Something glass fell and broke apart as it hit the floor. There was a small cry that Michael recognized as Lucy. Two more solid thumps were followed by silence—a long, still silence with only minuscule traces of muted and anxious moans.

  Blood pounded in Michael’s ears and he wished it would stop. He shoved himself back deep against the wall and listened for a sound, any sound. The muted silence terrified him.

  And then it came. It was the unmistakable scratchy sound of duct tape being pulled away from its roll. A strange, new voice followed.

  “Settle down! Calm down!”

  It was not Johnny.

  The strange voice sounded youthful, but rough and throaty, as if whoever was speaking had been kicked in the throat one too many times. “Don’t just stand there with your finger up your ass! Get it on her!”

  The tape was ripped off the roll, and then another was stretched out.

  “Stop fighting me!” A few loud thumps sounded as something soft hit the floor. The scuffle continued for a few minutes.

  “Done?” the throaty voice asked.

  “He’s done. Let’s get her up.” That wasn’t Johnny either.

  What the hell? Michael thought.

  The men in the other room continued to struggle with something, tearing and pulling the duct tape as they worked. It was definitely Lucy.

  “What exactly are we doing?” A third, much older voice spoke in broken English. He sounded Eastern European, Russian most likely, but he sounded very shaken and rattled.

  “Just do as you’re told,” the youthful, throaty voice replied.

  “Lucy!” Michael wanted to scream her name, but fear and panic overwhelmed him. He remained tucke
d deep against the wall.

  More feet shuffled about, and then he heard her. It was only a guttural moan but it was unmistakably Lucy. He could hear her trying to scream but she was unable to produce anything more than a muffled grunt.

  “Okay, Miss. Let’s make this quick. Just a couple of things and we’ll be gone.”

  Footsteps moved hastily about the other room. One set approached the bedroom and stepped inside.

  “In here.”

  Michael froze. Terror enveloped him as he watched a scuffed up pair of brown leather loafers slip further into the room and stop just inches away from the bed.

  “That yours?” the throaty man called out as Lucy was dragged forcibly into the bedroom.

  From his position beneath the bed, he was horrified by what he saw. Lucy’s ankles were bound together. A second man stood next to her and the third hung back in the doorway.

  “That’s the one you always take with you?”

  An arm reached down and picked up the large backpack that rested on the floor opposite him.

  “What else?”

  What did they mean by what else? And where was Johnny?

  “C’mon,” the throaty voice called out.

  Lucy groaned and wheezed through her nose.

  Michael stared in disbelief at the duct tape wrapped around Lucy’s bare ankles.

  “How about these? You take these?”

  He could hear Lucy’s laboured breaths and grunts. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t speak.

  One of the men rifled through some papers.

  “It’s here. This is the one. I got it.”

  “Leave the others,” the leader called out.

  The other papers drifted to the floor. It took a moment for Michael to recognize them. It was her tourist pamphlets, brochures and printouts she collected detailing the trails she hiked or planned on hiking this summer.

  “You’re not telling me what this is all about.” It was the Russian man speaking again. His voice trembled. “Why are we doing this? What has she done?”

  “You have much work to do. Starting with her.…” Lucy was suddenly shoved towards the Russian, who stepped away, reluctant to participate. With her feet bound she fell and slammed hard onto the floor at his feet.

  So close—just an arm’s length away.

  Lucy moaned and snapped her head around as she searched around aimlessly until her terrified eyes connected with Michael’s beneath the bed. Something made of cloth was stuffed into her mouth and her once beautiful blue eyes screamed out to him in terror. There were red marks up both of her arms and one of her cheeks had a small cut where blood trickled out.

  “She’s yours now.”

  “What? I don’t.…” The voice came from the man at the doorway. He shuffled back one more step, his highly polished black shoes set him apart from the brown leather loafers of the others.

  Michael wanted to reach out to Lucy as he kept his eyes locked with hers. Help me! her eyes pleaded at him. But he couldn’t move—fear had him paralyzed.

  “Pick her up!” the throaty voice shouted.

  “Me? I don’t do this kind of thing.”

  “Not when you’re sober, you mean.” He gave a raspy chuckle.

  The Russian man said nothing in response.

  “Pick her up, I said!”

  The Russian stepped forward, reached down, and gently pulled Lucy back onto her feet. Lucy moaned and grunted her resistance.

  “Why are you making me do this?” he pleaded. “What is it I have done?”

  No one answered him.

  Michael could only watch as Lucy was dragged out of view. Other feet remained and shuffled about inside the bedroom.

  A drawer on the desk beneath the window to his left was opened and closed. The scraping sound of hangers sliding on the closet rod snuck down to Michael’s ears as someone rifled through her clothes.

  “What else?”

  The men shuffled Lucy around the small apartment. They moved quickly. More doors, drawers, and cupboards were opened in the front room and bathroom. The fridge was opened and closed a few times, glass clinked, and items were removed. Numerous rifling sounds continued as multiple items were identified and scooped up by the strange men. In less than five minutes, the three men, along with Lucy, were gone, and the apartment fell silent.

  Michael remained secluded under the bed. He was afraid to move and confused by everything he had just witnessed. He wanted to act, but his brain seemed to stumble as frantic whispers popped out of nowhere, bursting like soap bubbles and cluttering his thoughts.

  He was too afraid to breathe and much too terrified to move.