by catt dahman
“Yes.”
“A man?” She almost asked who it was. Idiot. “Aaron?”
Mike looked scared, eyes wide, face pale.
“Oh, this is a bad thing.”
“I didn’t hit him!” voice low, she was almost whispering despite the need to scream.
Aaron nodded, clutching Mike’s shoulder as the boy wavered on his feet. “You, ummm…didn’t see any man, huh?”
Was that fear of her in his eyes? “I didn’t see a man, and I didn’t hit one; I would have known if I did!” She felt positively sick.
“Ummm-huh”
“Dad?”
“Shhhhh. And all this time sitting here, did you see anyone at all? Hear anything?”
“No, Aaron, nothing. I didn’t hit him!”
“I know. I mean…I don’t think ya did…awe hell.” Hail. Aaron was staring hard into her eyes, trying to desperately communicate something to her. He was scared.
“He’s hurt?” Alice felt a chill and a wash of exhaustion. Had she been out checking her tires and peeing and failed to hear an injured man calling for help? She didn’t hit him, had she? No. But who hit him and left him and when?
There had been no cars. Had he been lying there hours? Her calm remained. And that smell, was it road kill or the man? Was he dead, she wondered? He had to be since Aaron wasn’t doing anything to help him. She felt sicker.
“He is hurt bad. And he wasn’t hit by a car; someone hurt him bad.” Aaron was still locked on her, trying to will her to understand something, but she didn’t get what it was. Maybe he wanted her to help. Wasn’t hit by a car?
Alice started to unlock her Jeep, but Aaron raised his hands in a warning. “No, you can’t help him. He is hurt bad, Alice, and he wasn’t hit by a car. Someone hurt him.” Aaron stressed the last words as he repeated himself.
Someone hurt him, she knew. He didn’t want to say it in front of Mike.
Okay, it seemed as if Aaron thought it wasn’t an accident and was trying not to scare Mike. That was it. And maybe the injury was gruesome. Maybe he was worried that whoever did it might be around? Her thinking was muddled. “What should we do?” She thought she felt far calmer than Aaron looked, but then, she hadn’t seen the injured man. It must be very, very bad.
“I am gonna get my shotgun outta the truck; will you be okay with that? Will it scare you if I am holdin’ it? I think I should have it just to make us feel safer”
“No, it won‘t scare me; my dad hunted.” His thinking he might need his gun was more alarming than the gun itself, but at least he wasn’t looking at her as if she had done anything now. She could remember her stepfather carrying a rifle, dressed to go into the woods and hunt, eyes excited by the thought of the hunt. Guns didn’t scare her; people were the danger.
Alice watched Aaron go over, get his weapon, and walk back with a furtive glance at where the man lay and then all around the road, nervously. That action somehow made her feel much better. She didn’t want to get into the truck with the stranger and his son and go driving away, but she also didn’t want to be in the night on the road, with the hurt (he was dead) man.
Actually, this seemed the best of the choices with Aaron on guard with his gun and her safe in her Jeep. She couldn’t think of how this might play out without difficulty since it would be hours until morning and help had not been called yet, but she was tired, and now the police would be involved.
Despite new developments, she felt even better than when she had sat here all alone. Had she seen that man and sat here alone, she would have been scared out of her mind.
“Mikey, I want you to get in there with Miss Alice, and y’all keep these doors locked.” He took a bottle of water and drank deeply, then handed it to his son.
“Awe, Daddy, I’m afraid with you being out there alone.” Mike looked at Alice for help in convincing his father. He was shaking.
Alice drank her own water and watched Aaron’s face. The man was jumpy and kept casting anxious looks towards his son. This was serious. She finished her cigarette, tossed it, and motioned to Mike, “You do what your daddy says; it’s warmer in here anyway, and he has the gun, so he’ll be fine…right?”
“That’s right, Mikey. I feel better knowing you are close here in the Jeep to take care of Miss Alice.”
Well, he said that, but he meant for her to watch out
for his son. “Come on, Mikey,” she said as she shivered.
Mike looked at his father and nodded at Alice, “Yes, Ma’am.” He walked around the Jeep, and Alice unlocked his door. He slid in, locking the door again. He smelled like pine trees and fear, with the warm scent young children always have.
“ ’Preciate it, Alice,” Aaron said. “You two hang tight, and let me go look around. Everything’s all right.” She decided right then she was going with Aaron and Mike to their house; she was not staying out here with a dead man.
Aaron didn’t look as if everything were fine; he looked worried. Alice tried to think of random topics to keep Mike distracted; sports, school, the usual would-be-good-to-try since every day, all day long, she talked to children. But she felt silly trying to talk about mundane things in this circumstance. He didn’t say anything either, but stared out the windshield apprehensively.
“Your dad will be okay; he’s just checking on things, and then we’ll know more, and we can all get out of this silly mess we seem to have gotten into, ‘K?” That was her best teacher statement.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“He is just being cautious.”
“Yes Ma’am. I’m ready to get done here and get this all over with.”
“Me, too.” She yawned. “I bet you are ready to get home and see your mom? And get into bed.” She smiled. Long day.
“My mom? Oh, yes, Ma’am. I sure do miss my mama.” He looked concerned again and then smiled at Alice. He already had a strong jaw line, even teeth, and bright eyes. “Dad is smart and brave. He’ll be fine.”
“Yes, he is.” Poor kid.
“Here’s to my dad!” Mike held up his water for a toast.
Alice smiled tiredly. Sweet kid. “Indeed!” she toasted back.
Mike waved out his window and told Alice he saw his father walking by the Jeep, looking around. Alice thought of the used tissue over there and sighed, of all things to be embarrassed by at a time like this.
She hated Texas right now. She hated this whole day: peeing on the side of the road and blowing out her tires, and this stupid trip and her cell phone, and her friend who had invited her for a visit. If not for the hurt (‘he is dead,’ a voice said) man, Aaron and Mike would be home by now, a tow truck called, and she would be almost eating sandwiches and drinking soda. Yep, she was that selfish right now.
Later, she would be sorry, but for now, Alice was just too drained to be in this whole big mess that the man was causing. Whoever hurt him/killed him was causing, she amended, with a shudder of new anxiety.
Mike told her about a class trip his school and teacher were planning for the new year, but she wasn’t following very well. Her mind strayed sluggishly.
She felt comfortable now and was glad Mike was there to keep her company. The Jeep was warmer, it seemed, and despite Aaron’s worries, the man, and the fact that she was stranded on a dark road with three flat tires, Alice was very calm and sure of herself. Country air, maybe. Having a child depend on her, maybe.
She wanted children one day, four, maybe five children, healthy, bright, laughing children.
Alice snapped her head up. Had she almost fallen asleep?
Turning her head, she saw Mike was sitting quietly, watching her with a small smile on his cute face. “Sorry,” she mumbled, “I’m tired, I guess.”
“That’s ok, Ma’am. Me, too. Yanno, Ma’am is like Mama, only the letters are changed up.”
“True,” Alice responded. Her head felt heavy, her arms and legs warm and floating.
Why was she so exhausted when Aaron had said a man was lying on the side of the road, that he
r tires tracked his blood, and with him so worried, that he had gotten a gun and put his child into her care? What was wrong with her?
“I hope your dad is about done helping that man.” She wanted to sit up straight and get more information from Aaron. What was even wrong with the man? Why was he out there taking this long? What was Aaron doing? Aaron just said someone hurt the man. She forced her eyes open again. Deep inside, the foreboding and a new alarm were rising in the haze of her brain.
Sudden fatigue was not like her.
“Mike, something’s wrong with me. I feel funny,” she was slurring her words now. “Where is your dad? Is he close to us or back by that man?” I need to get Aaron; something is very wrong.
“What man?”
Mike’s voice sounded far away; did he just ask what man? “The hurt man,” she mumbled into the grey fog that was cotton around her thoughts, swirling, dancing. Her eyes wouldn’t open.
Mike was laughing. From far away, he leaned over her to snap her lock open, but she was unable to move as he leaned his weight across her. Trying to say more, her words were a whisper that made Mike giggle, again.
Darkness rushed over her, but she heard him say one more thing to her.
“It’s a game we play, Alice; there is no man, you silly goose.”
2
Waking, she noticed how tired she still felt, so it was through a haze that Alice took note of herself while yawning. Willing her mind to clear, she felt that her feet were bare but were bound with something around each; she wiggled her toes.
Opening her eyes, she saw her ankles encased in cuffs, with chains that threaded to a bolt on the floor. The concrete floor was bare, freezing cold and had a metal drain. This had to be a nightmare to awaken chained in a bare room.
Tears threatened. This was bad.
Her wrists were also in handcuffs, in front of her, something she had known immediately but refused to acknowledge. She followed the loose chains up to where they bolted into a ceiling. Cuffed and chained to a floor and ceiling, she sobbed. Okay, now self-pity was perfectly acceptable. She could move pretty freely, so she wasn’t confined to one spot or stance, but it could always be worse.
Fighting off grogginess to evaluate her physical condition, she refused to think of the cuffs and chains for now. She was sleepy but didn’t feel any deep, internal pain or soreness, just stiffness in her joints and muscles; she didn’t think she had been raped. Thank you, God. Another sob.
It was cold on the bare floor, and her head ached, but she wasn’t wounded. Yet. Physically. Alice remembered everything from the road until she fell asleep. Until she passed out from being drugged.
Stretching, she felt her limbs awaken painfully as she went over everything again in her mind. Damn Aaron and Mike, both. Her butt was freezing cold, and her bladder ached.
She felt like a poster child for stupid people, falling for strangers on a road and being drugged by a man and a boy. Maybe she had bad luck and didn’t keep herself safe enough, but was being chained up really the right punishment? A little harsh for a mistake. Huh?
“Awake?”
Adrenaline surged through her veins as Alice bolted up, a wave of dizziness sweeping her. A woman sat six or seven feet away to her right.
When she turned at a rattling, she saw on her left a second woman. Both were like Alice, in their twenties, moderately attractive, but sad-faced, bruised, scratched, dressed in featureless baggy dresses, cuffed, and chained. Dizziness was now from fear as much as drug after effects.
“Where am I?” The ceiling wasn’t giving up a clue. “Where are we, I mean?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. Why would I?”
The woman shrugged. “Their basement. Aaron brought you in.” Of course, it would be a basement; isn’t that how all scary stories go? The bad guys always locked everyone in a basement.
“Son of a bitch. He and his kid drugged me and brought me here?” No response. “Why?” Alice inspected the cuffs and rubbed the chafing.
“Because they have plans for us, I guess. They keep saying they need more women. Now they have more, seems simple, huh?”
“More women? No, that’s not simple at all.”
“I guess not.”
Alice shivered. That sounded bad. “I’m Alice.”
“Alice? Okay.”
“How long have you been here?”
Another shrug. “I’ve been here a few day, I think. That’s Tara. She thinks she was here a day or so before me; she doesn’t know for sure. I‘m Connie.”
The woman rubbed gently at a new cut on her chapped lips. Some of the bruises and cuts seemed older, the marks yellow and green, but the flesh around her eyes was livid purple.
Connie was a pixie blonde, with blue eyes, and was too curvy beneath the baggy dress for modern standards, but attractive in a beaten-down way, regardless of the ugly dress.
“Well, hi, I guess.” Alice shivered, distressed at being in a position like this and was wondering at protocol. She felt bruises and scratches on her own face when she felt around.
“What’s your story?”
Alice told her what had happened, and Tara nodded, saying “uh-huh” a few times. Connie asked a few questions.
Picking out every detail, Alice analyzed the events as she told them. While she talked, she was looking at her basement-mates in cuffs, watching them warily. Fool me once…were they victims or part of this? “What about you two?”
“About the same. I’ve had time to think of it since. How easily, they got information that we were alone, stuff about our jobs, a lot of information. Same thing with Tara, pretty much the same way they got you is what they did with us. But it was Aaron with me and Luke who got Tara. Mike pretended to be Luke‘s son that time.”
“That’s insane.” There were more of them involved.
Connie’s eyes filled with tears, “That was? Trust me, it gets far worse here. Insane is the operative word, Alice. Get used to it here.”
“So things are crazy here?”
“You got it. You need to get your mind around all this and stay focused.”
That sounded ominous, but Alice was stuck on another detail. Another man? Luke, she said. Something was still confusing about this, besides the obvious. “Well, why the whole thing about the man on the side of the road? Why not grab us right off? That was some sick-ass game they played.”
Again Connie shrugged, but Tara spoke, “Same play yanno? Play. See? They have a script? They do the same each time. It works, I guess. Maybe, they like the game.”
Connie stared at the floor. “They need the game sometimes.”
Alice remembered Mike had said it was a game.
Tara’s big brown eyes were dejected. If she hadn’t been wounded and pale, she would have been lovely with her slim figure and heavy, thick brown hair, now, lank, greasy hair. She was crying.
Connie added, “They needed time or the drug to work, and they evaluated us, you know? Saw how we acted. They have said they need special women. They had to test us and see if we were what they wanted. They’re picky.”
Special?
“And it was without violence.” Alice didn’t know if that were a positive or negative. “They prey on women who are alone for whatever they want us for.” She dreaded finding out what that purpose was. “What is special?”
“I don’t know…maybe…young or pretty. Maybe the non-fighting type. They saw how we acted under stress and with the kid or if we were just a dumb ass who got caught easily.”
Alice almost laughed. Non-fighting? They were in for a shock.
“I wasn’t alone, though,” Tara whispered.
“You said you were,” Connie moved closer to both women, focused on Tara now.
Connie seemed betrayed.
Alice could feel Tara about to shut down; the woman was weeping and holding herself, so she motioned to Connie to hold back. “Who was with you?” She didn’t look at Tara but just asked, warning Connie, with her eyes, not to speak.<
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“My husband.”
Connie gasped.
This admission wasn’t going to go well. It’s going to be bad.
“He got out to pee and didn’t come back. I was so scared,” she sobbed.
Everyone pees on that road. The giggle was rising with the fear. Hysteria. “Then what?” Alice asked.
“I was more afraid ‘cause Nate didn’t come back. I looked around and called him; then, I thought maybe he went into the woods and got hurt or lost. I didn’t know what to do!” She was getting loud. “What do you do when your husband gets out to pee and then vanishes and you’re stuck there?”
“You didn’t tell me that.” Connie frowned, as if this were an important breech of honesty. “You said the same thing happened to you as I said and Alice said.” She glared at Alice with reproach.
“I suspect Tara didn’t feel like even remembering that part. I can’t imagine the fear, Tara.” Alice frowned back at Connie. Jeez. “Go on, Tara; it’s hard, but we need all the information we can get.”
“I got back in the car, and then, they came, and Luke said a man was by the road; I tried to get out ‘cause I knew it had to be Nate, but Luke asked how old Nate was. He said no the man was older, like elderly. I was crying. Then, it was like you all said, and I awoke here.” Tara cradled her head as she cried.
Connie nodded and scooted back. She had her story now. “But maybe he did go off and get lost in the woods; maybe he is out there and will get us help once he is found.”
‘Unless the men and Mike find him.’ Alice didn’t say anything, but shot Connie a warning look to just be quiet.
“Luke told me Nate wasn’t coming back. He showed me Nate’s car keys; they had…they were covered in blood.” She slumped over and cried harder as she rolled into a fetal position.
No one spoke for a while; finally Connie whispered how sorry she was.
Alice tried to move her hands in the cuffs, scanning the chain again with her eyes. Both women were mentally exhausted, without hope or fight left in them. ‘Fine.’
She wasn’t about to give up or give in without a hell of a fight. There had to be a way to outsmart those morons and get out of this and get them the ass kicking they all needed. No way could a few men pull this off with three women and get away with it. Maybe they had kidnapped them, but keeping them was going to be something she intended to make difficult.