Chained

by Escalera, Tessa

  ***

  When I woke again, my first thought was that I was waking from a nightmare. It must have been something in the Chinese food...maybe a strange form of food poisoning. I was safe in my bed, my mom just a text away.

  This idea was banished as soon as I opened my eyes. At some point I had moved—or been moved to—the cot, and covered with one of the blankets. Light was coming through the window, partially shaded by the bush just visible through the glass. The puddle of my vomit had been cleaned, leaving behind the faint scent of bleach.

  I sat up in the bed and pulled the blanket around my shoulders, shivering in the never-ending cold. My bladder and the cotton-dryness of my mouth overwhelmed my desire to sit still and I stumbled to the bathroom, pulling the chain that flicked the plain bulb into life. In the bathroom was an ancient, rusting claw tub with no shower or curtain, a similarly worn-down toilet and a pedestal sink that looked shockingly white and new compared to the other two appliances. The walls and floor were the same featureless concrete as the other room...prison cell...whatever it was.

  With the most immediate business dealt with, I stood in front of the sink and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink. My eyes, wide and blue and bloodshot, stared back at me from amid my wild and unruly hair. I was still wearing my dress from the date. There were shadows under my eyes and streaks of blood on my cheeks. I looked down at my hands and gasped at the sight of my knuckles crusted in blood. As if the sight restored my nerves, the pain of my injuries flooded me all at once, nearly knocking me to my knees as I clung to the sink for support. Desperately I turned the water on full blast, hot and cold, and scrubbed at my hands until all of the smeared blood was gone and fresh redness welled from the raw skin. I washed my face and drank hand-fulls of the water to try and ease the dryness in my mouth and the ache of hunger in my belly. I finger-combed my hair and smoothed it down until I looked a little less like some sort of monster.

  I stood in front of the mirror and stared at my reflection until the steam rising from the basin obscured the glass. Finally there was no choice but to face what I had been avoiding. I turned the water off and turned to look at my room.

  Have to think. Have to plan, have to escape. But no matter how hard I pushed my brain, I felt like I couldn't form a single coherent thought. On the desk there was a tray that hadn't been there last night. I didn't realize I had started walking until I was lowering myself into the chair, the metal a shocking cold against my legs.

  The tray held a bowl of dry cereal and a glass of orange juice. My stomach growled fiercely at the sight of the food. Next to the bowl were three little bottles...hotel bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotion. The sight was so bizarrely normal that I almost laughed. There was a hairbrush, a toothbrush, a tiny tube of toothpaste. The tray rested on top of what turned out to be a folded nightgown, a faded pink with buttons down the front that looked like something my grandma would wear. It was many sizes too big, and obviously old. The fabric was soft from many washes.

  Despite my misgivings about possibly poisoned or drugged food, I took the spoon in the bowl, using the juice to help me swallow the dry cereal. It wasn't nearly enough.

  My mind cleared rapidly after the addition of the sugar to my system. I pushed myself up from the chair and strode quickly to the door, wrapping my hands around the bars and straining to see every detail of the hallway beyond the door. I wasn't sure what I was searching for...escape route? “gotcha” sign? Movie cameras? (Hey, reality show was as good an explanation as any at this point.) But whatever it was, I didn't see it.

  The wall to the right was bare, marked only by the lines of cinder-blocks fitted together. To the left was the details that made my heart shudder in my chest...a row of doors with one barred window, doors just like mine. I was at the end of the hall, with a straight-on view of the heavy metal door that must lead to...somewhere else. Somewhere other than this dungeon.

  As I stared at the doors to the left, numbly counting the number of cells (5 besides mine), a shard of ice formed in my stomach. That groan I had heard last night....Were there other prisoners here?

  “Hello?” I called. “Is anyone else here?”

  After a moment of silence there was a rustling, and a thin face appeared in the window of the cell closest to mine. “You'd better be quiet,” a girl's voice said. “He doesn't like it when we make noise.”

  “Where are we?”

  Brown eyes stared wearily back at me through the bars. Limp black hair was pulled into a straggly ponytail. “What's your name?”

  “Sarah.”

  “Well, Sarah, I'm Jenny. Cell next to me is Annabelle. Others are empty...for now. Welcome to hell.” The face disappeared and only the voice was left. “Now be quiet before you get us all in trouble.”

  No matter what I said, how I pleaded, Jenny refused to speak to me anymore. I hung on the bars and cried until I could only speak in a whisper, begging for someone to help, someone to talk to. For Travis to return and tell me this was all a joke, or a mistake. For something to happen other than silent gray walls and swinging, sickly light bulbs in the ceiling.

  Finally, for lack of anything else to do, I took the little bottles from the tray and the nightgown and moved into the bathroom. My dress was not made for long-term wear and the edges with their rhinestones were chafing at my arms and legs. I pushed the bathroom door closed and stripped the dress off, turned the star-shaped knobs on the tub and pushed the stopper down until steaming water began to collect in the bottom of the cast-iron vessel.

  I had no idea how long I spent in there. I scrubbed my hair until the shampoo and conditioner bottles were empty. I dragged the brush through my hair until all the tangles were gone. Eventually the water began to run cold and I had to get out. I stood shivering in the little bathroom until I was able to work up the courage to put the nightgown on. I cringed as I pulled the enormous thing over my head, letting the floral-scented folds fall down until it swirled around my ankles. In a moment of strange defiance I took the little belt from my dress, black and sparkly with rhinestones, and used it to cinch the nightgown around my waist until it looked a little more like a dress and less like a tent.

  I was so cold. I climbed onto the cot and wrapped myself in the blankets, staring at the blank TV screen. The bright colors of the old Disney classics stood in stark contrast with the rest of this horrible place.

  I was so hungry. My stomach felt as if it might eat itself, twisting and turning in an attempt to find something to digest.

  I was so numb. It was like the part of my brain that dealt with emotions had given up and run away. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to muster up the amount of fear I knew I should be feeling. Even when I cried, it was like watching someone else. The tears flowed, my head pounded, my nose ran, but I felt disconnected from it all.

  I had no idea how long I sat there. There was no way to tell time besides the gradual changing of the light outside.

  As my hunger grew and the sugar in my blood faded away I lay down on the cot and drifted into sleep, one sentence of Jenny's repeating over and over in my head:

  Welcome to hell.

  Chapter 4: Prisoner

  I woke with a start to the creaking of the door down the hall. The light outside my window was dusky. The light in the hall clicked on, and heavy footfalls approached. The jingle of keys, and one of the other cell doors opened. The click of something being slid across the floor. The process was repeated with Jenny's cell. I sat still and quiet as the lock on my door rattled, unable to reconcile the sight of Travis, cold and emotionless, outside my door with the smiling picture of the man I had gone on a date with. The memory of that date was like recalling something from ages past...something completely unconnected with the present.

  The door opened slightly, and a tray was set down and slid just inside before the door was closed and locked once again. I didn't move until the footsteps had retreated, until the metal door to freedom had closed behind the silent fo
rm of the man I had just recently thought might be my first boyfriend.

  Finally my hunger overcame my fear. I picked up the tray and set it on the desk, on top of the other one from earlier. On a paper plate lay a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cut into two triangles. Another glass of orange juice. A boiled egg, peeled and wrapped in plastic. A single pill that looked like a multivitamin, which I refused to take and flushed down the toilet instead.

  Even once the food was gone, I was still hungry. I had thought I knew what real hunger meant before, but now I understood how wrong I had been. This gnawing, twisting feeling, only slightly eased by the sandwich and egg, this was real hunger. I could have sworn I could feel my body eating away at my fat reserves.

  The orange juice left a strange taste in my mouth and as soon as it was gone, I went into the bathroom and drank handfuls of water to get rid of the oily sensation. Once I was done I stood there, staring at myself in the mirror. Already my hair looked duller, my cheeks a little hollow. The face that stared back at me was that of a frightened girl that I barely recognized.

  “Jenny?” I stood at the door and called. “Jenny, are you there?”

  No movement, but a quiet voice answered. “I'm here.”

  “Please, please tell me what's going on.”

  Jenny sighed. “It's better if you don't know beforehand. It only seems worse when you know what's coming.”

  “I'm scared.” As I said it, I realized it was true. A deep unease, threatening at any moment to transition to full-blown panic, was growing in my throat. My heart felt weary from the strain of beating so fast for so long.

  “I know.”

  “Why is he doing this?”

  I couldn't see Jenny's face, but thin fingers appeared in the window of her door and gripped one of the bars. “I don't know. I just know that it's best not to fight. He likes it when you fight. But it will make things worse for you.”

  My breath caught in my throat, but I managed to strangle it from a scream back down to a sob. “I want to go home. My parents....”

  “It's best if you don't think about them. It's best if you don't think at all. Just do what you're told. Focus on surviving. Someone will find us eventually.”

  A terrible thought lanced through my head, one I was terrified to ask, but too scared to hold onto. “Jenny, how long have you been here?”

  The fingers disappeared. I heard a sound that might have been a sob, or a laugh. “What's the date?”

  When I told her, she responded with what was definitely a laugh, albeit a short and humorless one. “Long enough. Longer than any of the others.”

  A thin wail came from Annabelle's cell. It sounded like the cry of a child. A pale face with huge blue eyes and pitch-black hair appeared at the third door. This must be Annabelle.

  Annabelle didn't say anything, just began to sing. Her voice had an edge to it, a note of desperation and depression beyond anything I could imagine.

  The itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the water spout

  Down came the rain and washed the spider out

  Out came the sun and dried up all the rain

  But itsy-bitsy spider would never climb again!

  The song trailed off into hysterical laughter, followed by furious shushing from Jenny and soon after by quick footsteps and the door at the end of the hall banged open. I ran back to my cot and curled up on it, wrapping myself in the blankets. I was trembling, my heard thumping so hard that it made my chest hurt.

  The footsteps approached, then stopped. There was a jangling of keys, a door clicked open.

  “No! No!” Annabelle screamed. “Out! Go away!” There was the wail again, that childish sound of utter terror. But the owner of the boots and keys was silent. Annabelle's screams raised in intensity, something thudded against the wall, there were several sounds like blows landing, and a repeated thumping like something metal was being hit on the cinder blocks.

  I stuffed my blankets into my ears, trying to stop the noise. Annabelle's screams echoed into the core of my being, grating into my bones. I bit my lip until it bled to keep from crying out. My throat was so tight I could barely breathe.

  Please. Please. Make it stop. I'm sorry. Please stop hurting her. I don't know if I begged these words aloud or silently. Please stop screaming. Please stop. Please make it stop. I lay on my cot, blankets and pillow clutched tightly over my head, begging and pleading for Annabelle's shrieks and cries to stop. I was sure that she was being beaten to death...and I was going to be witness to a murder. My blankets were soaked with sweat and tears.

  As suddenly as it had started, the sounds stopped. Annabelle's screams turned to whimpers and sobs. Boots on the floor, a lock clicking. Then the steps approached my cell and I lay paralyzed, staring at the window in my door.

  A face appeared through the bars. It wasn't Travis this time. This man was older, taller, crueler. A scar slashed across one cheek, the skin on that side of his face rippled and puckered as if it had been burned. Dark, oily hair hung into his eyes, and a thick beard covered most of his face. He looked into my window, and one side of his mouth twisted up into a sinister smile.

  “Tonight.” That was all that he said before turning and striding back down the hall. The door slammed shut behind him, and we were plunged into silence once again, except for the sound of Annabelle's diminishing sobs.

  “Oh Anna...” came Jenny's voice from her cell. “Anna, are you okay?”

  The only answer was a sob.

  “Anna, I told you not to fight. It's better if you don't fight.”

  There was no answer, the only sounds were my heartbeat in my ears and the distant sounds of crying. I wept silently, floating away into oblivion on those last words:

  It's better if you don't fight.

  ***

  Mom's face appeared in the doorway to my bedroom. “Hey Sarah, you got a minute?”

  I was doing homework, of course I had a minute. I gladly pushed the papers away and swiveled in my chair as she walked over to sit down on my bed. I wasn't one of those girls who thought parents were awful, stupid and totally uncool. Yeah, we had our moments, but for the most part we got along. Mom and dad were “safe” when the rest of the world went haywire under the influence of early teenage hormones and the new self-consciousness that comes with acne and periods.

  Mom looked nervous, which was unusual for her. She smoothed a wrinkle in her jeans and tucked a hair behind her ear.

  “Mom? Is something wrong?”

  She looked up at me and smiled. “Oh, no. It's just, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  I wasn't sure how I knew this, but I immediately knew from her tone what “something” was.

  “Mom, they already teach us about that in school.”

  Mom looked surprised. “How do you know...”

  “You look like you did when you talked to me about periods and tampons. Like you might throw up in a minute.”

  She had to laugh a little at that. “I know they teach you about sex at school, so I don't have to give you the whole talk. I just wanted to know if you had any questions that the school might not be able to answer, or that you might be too embarrassed to ask of the people there.”

  I was surprised that I wasn't feeling as awkward over this as I'd always thought I would. I shrugged. “I don't know.”

  “You know that we teach you a different philosophy regarding sex than school does. Any questions about that?”

  There it was...the one thing we didn't get along about. My parents were devout Christians, and all that went along with that set of beliefs like no sex until marriage, no cursing, etc...

  I sighed. “Not right now, mom. I will definitely let you know if I do though.”

  Mom stopped her fidgeting and looked me straight in the eye. “Just remember, no boy and no relationship is worth letting yourself be pressured into something you will regret. Don't give into sex just because you are afraid to lose something.”

  Now it was my turn to fidget. “Mom! You know I
don't have a boyfriend, and I'm way too young for that stuff anyway!”

  Mom laughed and stood up. She kissed me on the forehead then turned to leave. “I know. I wish you would stay too young forever, but I know you won't. Just remember, I'm here if you need to ask anything. Okay?”