So far so good, she thought optimistically.
She stood up a little too quickly, on wobbly legs, and nearly fell over. She quickly leaned toward the bed and held on for support. She prayed that she would have the strength to at least walk out of the room and find a place to hide before the alleged doctor returned.
Hillary took a deep breath, let go of the bed and balanced on two feet. When she felt steadier, she slowly put her right foot forward in an attempt to take her first step. Feeling much like a one-year-old, or perhaps Frankenstein’s monster, she slowly moved forward. She was amazed to find how difficult and exhausting it was to take just a few small steps.
Realizing that her chance of escaping was grim at best, she scanned the room for an object that she could use as a weapon…a lamp, a clock even, anything. The room was completely empty aside from her bed and the desk. Hillary was overcome with waves of fear and anxiety. She felt nauseous. All she knew was that she had to get out of there. She needed to escape—somehow. She continued making her way toward the door.
When Hillary was just a couple feet away, she heard footsteps approaching. The man was returning. Hillary froze for a second, then positioned herself behind the door as quickly as possible, hoping that the man would look in, notice her absence and assume that she had escaped. Maybe he wouldn’t look behind the door at all, Hillary hoped.
Please, please don’t let him find me, she prayed silently.
The door opened swiftly, causing Hillary to jump, but she remained quiet.
“What the—” the man said, as he walked forward to look under the bed.
Hillary’s heart raced. She could feel it pounding within her chest so hard that it nearly hurt. She fought to catch her breath. Tears began to well up in her eyes, which she shut tightly as she waited, praying that the man would leave. She didn’t dare peek out from behind the door.
She knew the man was still in the room, as she heard him cursing frantically. He either dropped or threw something to the floor. There was a loud crashing sound followed by the sound of his footsteps growing louder, closer.
“Hillary...” he called out. He sounded more worried than angry. He began to run out of the room, flinging the door back even further, right against Hillary. She felt it slam into her and suppressed a yelp.
Her silence didn’t matter. The man noticed the door bounce back before slamming into the wall. Something was behind the door and he had a good idea who that that something was. He halted at the entrance, waiting for Hillary to emerge.
Hillary didn’t hear the man’s footsteps any more. She slowly opened her eyes. She was still behind the door, but the door was not opened as wide. If the man was inside the room, he would surely spot her.
He must have left the room, Hillary thought confidently.
She slowly crept forward. Just as she stretched her head around the door to take a peek, the man lunged forward and grabbed her left arm. Hillary screamed and tried to break free from his tight grip. The man held on to her as he entered the room. Hillary’s clenched right fist met the man’s jaw as she thrashed about and pummeled his face with one blow after the next. Still, the man’s grip remained firm.
Before Hillary even realized what she was doing, she reached up at the man’s left eye and pressed her fingers around his eyeball. The man shut his eye tightly, and jabbed at Hillary’s ribs as hard as he could. Digging her fingers in as far as they could go, Hillary squeezed the eye until she could feel a soft pop and the warmth of blood-tinged gelatinous ooze running down her hand. The man screamed in pain as he twisted Hillary around, forcibly shoved her toward the bed and grabbed at the damaged eye that dangled from its socket. The pain he felt was intense and he cursed himself for being so careless. He cupped his left hand over the wound.
Dropping down to the floor, he desperately searched, with his one remaining eye, for the tray that he had brought into the room with him—the one he had dropped when he noticed Hillary was no longer in bed. He found what he was looking for and quickly grabbed it just as he heard movement to his left. He turned in time to see Hillary jump on him, knocking him off balance. The hypodermic syringe he had picked up flew out of his hand. Hillary eyed it with disgust, fully aware that the man had intended to drug her again. She reached back for the syringe, but the man flung her violently two feet in the other direction as he quickly stood up. While Hillary was still on the floor, he raced toward her, one hand still covering his seeping, useless eye. He knocked her back down as she was in the process of standing and he placed one foot over her shoulder blade to keep her in place.
Hillary screamed in pain as she struggled under the weight of the man. She squirmed frantically, thrashing her body one way, then the other in a futile attempt to throw the man off balance.
“Look what you did to my eye,” he yelled, as he contemplated his next move.
“I wish I could have pulled it out and stepped on it like you’re stepping on me right now,” Hillary shouted venomously.
She continued fighting to free herself. The man pressed his foot down even harder, causing Hillary to wince in pain and yell even louder.
“I need you to calm down,” he said in a soft voice, despite the outrage and pain he felt.
“Let me go!” Hillary shouted, still attempting to budge from underneath the man’s dirty large shoe.
Hillary was overcome with rage, pain and anxiety.
The man knew the syringe was too far away to reach. He wondered whether he should risk running over to grab it or if he should just try to incapacitate Hillary first. If he tried to grab it, Hillary would be up on her feet in no time and either attacking him or trying to escape. If it was the latter, the man did not believe he would be able to catch up with her. He was already growing weak from the throbbing, massive pain within his desecrated eye socket. There was no way he could take that chance. He could not let her escape.
Hillary grew still underneath him.
It’s a trick, the man thought.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Hillary,” he said quietly.
Hillary did not reply. She remained motionless beneath the man’s shoe.
What do I do now? The man wondered. He couldn’t stand there indefinitely with Hillary under him. He knew that with every passing second, she was growing stronger, fully regaining her strength. Meanwhile, his head felt as though a bomb had exploded within his brain and the blood loss from his eye wasn’t helping any, though he was grateful that it had finally stopped bleeding.
With his foot still upon Hillary’s upper chest, the man leaned back attempting to reach the syringe, despite the obvious impossibility. Hillary took full advantage of the man’s imbalance and bolted up as forcefully as she could. The man fell back as Hillary staggered to her feet.
Without thought, he quickly stretched out his arm and reached the syringe. He looked over to see Hillary running out of the room. Without even standing, the man frenziedly crawled over to her and grabbed her ankle just as she came close to exiting the room. Hillary stumbled forward and fought frantically to release her leg from the man’s grasp.
The man tightened his grip on Hillary’s ankle as she tried desperately to pull her leg away from him. He yanked her leg toward him and Hillary lost her balance. With wildly flailing arms, she fell back onto her rear end. She thrashed about like a mermaid stranded on shore, but the man’s hold on her ankle remained firm. He propelled himself forward and cradled both of her legs within his arms, using his upper body strength to keep her from thrashing.
Hillary sat upright as if doing a sit-up. She tried to swing at the man with her tightly-balled fists, but she could not get a good hit. Instead, she dug her fingernails into arm. That, too, did little, given the protective covering of his shirt and his flowing adrenaline. He barely felt it.
Finally, when Hillary’s struggles seemed to subside a bit, the man maneuvered the syringe to his mouth, bringing it between his teeth so that he could remove the tip cap. With Hillary starting to wriggle violently again, he
released one of her legs so that he could properly hold the syringe. He did not want to risk stabbing himself with it.
Hillary thrashed about madly as the man held tightly onto one of her ankles. Placing his weight on her captive leg, he inserted the needle as deep into her calf as it would go while she continued her vain attempt to escape his grasp. She cried out in protest and pain. The man pushed down on the syringe to make sure that every last drop of the drug entered her system. “NOOOOOO,” Hilary protested, as the drug flowed within her veins, slowly making her weaker and weaker and weaker....
~2~
Hillary opened her eyes. She was groggy. It was dark—much darker than it should have been. She would have thought she was blind were it not for a few tiny beams of light she could see above her. Hillary raised her arm to touch the beams. Her hand hit a flat surface—like a ceiling.
No, she panted, starting to sweat as the realization struck her hard. This can’t be.
Hillary was in a box—some sort of coffin. She barely had room to stretch. She began banging on the roof of the box as she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Get me out of here,” she shouted. She felt her knuckles growing raw against the rough texture of her enclosure. Still, she continued to knock against the ceiling of her tomb.
“Please,” she begged, as long streams of tears rolled down her cheeks and dampened her neck. “Please let me out of here. Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?”
Hillary continued banging and pushing up on the top with all her might, hoping to pry it open. It didn’t budge.
Fifteen minutes passed. It felt like fifteen years to Hillary. She was still stuck in the box the only difference was that she had sore, scraped-up knuckles and a hoarse voice from all the screaming she had done. She wondered where she was, though she felt confident that she was not buried underground, since she could see the beams of light from above.
Hillary listened closely to the sounds around her, hoping they might give her a clue as to her whereabouts. In the distance, she could hear a train passing by. She heard various birds tweeting and screeching. She was clearly outdoors. Though she had no idea what season of the year it was, much less what day it was, she could tell it was hot outside because she was sweating within her confined area. She caught a whiff of body odor and wondered just how long she had been in the box. It made her shudder. She began trembling. Though, she reasoned, it could not be that long, since she was not starving, nor was there any indication that she had wet her pants or worse—moved her bowels—within the box.
It’s a joke, she thought, it has to be…someone’s sick idea of a prank.
Hillary waited in silence as thoughts ranging from ludicrous to terrifying invaded her mind. As the hours passed on slowly, she envisioned hundreds of scenarios—from her rescue to her burial within the cold earth and her subsequent suffocation when the air ran out. She had moments of hope, followed by moments of despair, moments of intense fear and several moments of complete detachment where nothing mattered anymore and she just didn’t care what happened to her.
The beams of light grew dim and Hillary knew that it was nearing dusk. The only good thing about it was that it had started cooling off. Hillary had always been afraid of the dark. She began breathing heavily, growing anxious as she thought of the impending blackness. She couldn’t imagine how much longer she could stand being in the box. She cried quietly as she waited for the shroud of darkness to engulf her.
Hillary awoke after drifting off. It took her a few moments to remember the predicament she was in. Yet, it wasn’t dark in the box as she has anticipated. Did she sleep through the night? She winced at the bright light beaming down from the holes at the top of the box. It was as if the sun was right over her. Then she heard movement, the sound of footsteps.
“Who’s there?” she yelled anxiously. “Help me! Please help me!”
No one responded, though Hillary knew someone was close by. She heard the jangling of keys, then the click of a lock being opened.
“Who’s there?” Hillary asked, praying that someone had come to rescue her, but she knew better. If it was someone there to help, they would have spoken up and assured her that everything was going to be all right. Besides, the only person who would have a key to her coffin would be the person who put her there in the first place. Overcome with dread, Hillary wished she were alone again.
Hillary squinted as the person slowly lifted the cover to the box. The lid was only open about six inches, but there was a bright lantern which illuminated nearly the entire tomb where Hillary lay, fearing the worse. She wanted to push the lid open all the way and run out of there, but she wouldn’t know where to go, and her captor would surely catch her. She could only imagine what would happen if she made the person angry. Then again, how much worse could it get?
“Please let me out of here,” she pleaded softly. She tried to look through the crack to see the person who had kidnapped her, but the light was too bright in her eyes. Her captor did not reply.
“Who…who are you?” Hillary asked hesitantly.
Still no reply.
Hillary heard the sound of paper rustling. Then the light was partially blocked by something being shoved into the box through the open lid. In the faint light, it looked like a bag. The person was shaking something from the bag into the box.
Food? Hillary thought, and hoped it was. She had begun to get hungry. Right about now a hamburger would be great. I’d even settle for a piece of bread, a cracker, anything.
Instead of a meal, Hillary felt tiny legs scampering over her legs, up her thighs, along her stomach, up her chest and toward her face.
She screamed as she thrashed her body about, trying her best to get the creepy crawlers off of her. She hated insects more than anything. She couldn’t identify exactly what was crawling on her, but she imagined spiders, cockroaches, beetles and ants. When she was about five years old, she was unfortunate enough to fall into the mound of fierce red ants. They quickly crawled up her body, biting her several times before her mother responded to her ear-piercing screams and pulled her up, hosed her down and applied first aid to twelve red, painful bites. That was years ago, but Hillary remembered it as if it happened yesterday. It was one of the most painful experiences of her life.
Now, as she squirmed within the cramped confines of the box, she knew she had no other choice. She didn’t care if her captor caught her or killed her—she had to get out of there. This was more torture than she could bear...so she thought.
She pushed up at the lid as hard as she could. It went up another few inches as she fought to sit upright and lunge out of there. Her captor dropped the bag in the box and slammed the lid down— hitting Hillary’s head in the processing and crushing three of her fingers under the weight of the lid.
Hillary screamed in agony as her head crashed into the side of the box. She did not lose consciousness, but wished she had. The intense pain from her crushed fingers grew more and more unbearable by the second—making the ant bites she sustained feel like a tickle in comparison.
Hillary’s vicious captor pulled the lid up an inch higher and then slammed it back down on her fingers before she had a chance to move them. Hillary could hear bones crushing and feel skin tearing. She was grateful that she could not see them. Her screams of protest and pain were ignored as her captor began pulling at the fingernails on her crushed fingers.
Hillary could only whimper in pain, praying that she would just pass out. She was beyond praying for rescue. She just wanted to die. It was amazing how quickly the will to live dissipated when pain became so intolerable.
She could feel her captor tearing pieces of her nails off bit by bit until the last shred of nail was off. Her captor then dug something sharp into the freshly sore, soft, sensitive center of the spot where one of her nails used to be. The pain was excruciating. Hillary howled out in pain.
“Please,” she sobbed, “please stop hurting me. Why are you doing this to me?”
Her captor
remained silent and continued squeezing, scraping and poking at Hillary’s deep pink, bleeding fingers. She tried desperately to pull her hand away, but it was caught firmly under the lid and would not budge.
At last she could no longer feel her fingers. She didn’t know if they went numb or if her captor cut them off, but she was grateful that she could no longer feel the pain. Her gut-wrenching yells quelled to soft, piteous moans.
Her captor opened the lid again and shoved what remained of Hillary’s fingers back into the box. Her mutilated hand fell upon her left knee. The light went off and Hillary was engulfed by blackness. Insects continued to scurry about, crawling up her pant legs, on her neck, up her sleeves. Hillary lay motionless, with her eyes closed, ignoring it all. Her stomach began to grumble. It was the only noise she could hear now, the last sound she heard before becoming one with the darkness.
~3~
Hillary gasped as she woke up and opened her eyes. She was sweating and breathing so rapidly, she could hardly catch her breath. She was alone on a bed in an empty room. Her head hurt terribly. She could not remember anything. Each of her limbs was bound to a corner of the bed by thick ropes which felt dry and scratchy against her wrists and ankles. She looked over at herself to find that she was naked. There was no sheet on the bed to cover her—not that she would be able to cover up.
Where am I, she thought, as she looked around the room.
There was a woman sitting on a stool to the right of the bed, reading a book. She turned to face Hillary.
“Oh, look who’s up,” she said, as she stood up, placed her book on the stool and walked over to Hillary.
“Where am I?” Hillary asked.
“Safe,” the woman replied without elaborating.
“Why are my arms and legs tied? Why am I naked? Why am I here?” Hillary asked nervously, growing increasingly hysterical as she fought against the ropes.
“Don’t struggle, you’ll only hurt yourself,” the woman said coldly.
Hillary_Tail of the Dog Page 2