by Molloy, Ruby
Terrified, I stop resisting. He bundles me into the passenger side, forcing me to climb into the driver’s seat, all the while holding the gun to my head.
“Drive!” he yells, and I do, though Sid’s still struggling to close his door. From my rearview mirror I see Jack lying in the road, people gathered round him, others watching Sid and I squeal away from the scene.
“Left,” Sid says, shifting the gun to my side. I’m too frightened to be able to process that this is Sid, the guy I dated for more than four years, the guy who’d cry over ads for abandoned puppies. I’m aware of the gun in my side and I’m aware that his directions are taking us towards the outskirts of London, but that’s it. That’s all I’m thinking about. I follow each new instruction, doing my best to hide any outward signs of anxiety, driving like an automaton.
“Next turn-off!” Sid’s sharp command comes too late. There’s a truck between me and the turn off. He shouts again. “Take it!”
When I don’t comply, he tugs at the wheel and we swerve across two lanes, narrowly missing the truck that’s laden with scaffold poles. Terrified we’re about to hit the concrete barrier that’s fast approaching, I scream. We make it past safely. I steer Myrtle up the slip road, pain ricocheting through my face when Sid backhands me across my mouth. My top lip is split and the taste of blood is on my tongue.
“Now shut the fuck up and when I tell you to do something, you do it!” The gun is hard against my ribs now, Sid thrusting its solid weight into my side until I think I might black out from the pain. “Keep calm and keep driving. Do not stop unless you have to. Do not seek help and do not scream. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“Do you understand?” he bellows.
“Yes. Yes, I understand.” My voice is shaky, my fingers damp where they curl round the steering wheel.
“Good. Now close your window.”
I do as he says, rolling the handle until the summer breeze is gone and the temperature begins to soar. Within minutes beads of perspiration break out on my face and the hair at my nape grows wet and heavy. I think about the gun in my side, about how this might end. I consider ridiculous escape attempts such as ramming Myrtle into a concrete post or a tree.
“Whatever you’re thinking, quit. You try and escape, don’t doubt I’ll use the gun, Frankie.”
“Why are you doing this, Sid?”
His smile is contemptuous. “Like you don’t fucking know! Four years, Frankie and then you go and leave me for a fucking ex-con. Ignoring my text messages, blocking my phone.” He twists the gun, its metal barrel biting into my ribs as if it’s drilling into my side. “Treating me like a piece of scum while you were letting him fuck you! His hand smacks against the side window. “I lost my job because of you!” he shouts.
I flinch, terrified he’s going hurt me, or worse, kill me. I drive for miles, following Sid’s directions as we travel down increasingly minor roads, the city behind us now, with nothing but green spaces. “What’s going to happen to me?” I’m not sure if it’s bravery or fear that urges me to ask the question.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Frankie.” Sid’s voice is warm and sweet and for one brainless moment I wonder if I’ve misread the whole situation. Until he says, “I promise you won’t feel a thing.”
Sweat beads my palms, turning them slippery against the wheel. “Please, let me go, Sid. We’ll figure this out. I think you might need help and I’ll do whatever I can to make you better, promise I will, but first you need to let me go. This isn’t you, Sid. It can’t be! All those years we dated ... I know you Sid!”
“This is me, Frankie. This is what you turned me into. This,” his voice rises hysterically, “is your fault. If you hadn’t cheated on me, if you had waited on me to get back from the States, none of this would be happening!”
“It wasn’t like that, Sid. We ended things before you left, remember? You were sleeping with other girls.”
“Because of you! You wanted a break, pushed me away so you could fuck Zannuto!”
“Please, Sid, that’s not how it was ...”
He raises the gun to my temple once more. “Shut your mouth right-the-fuck-now or I swear I’ll pull the trigger.”
I snap my mouth closed, swallowing back my urge to gag when blood collects between my lips.
“Turn down there.”
I take the gravel road slowly, my stomach a hard knot of fear at the approaching isolation. Ahead of us are woods, with no sight of another house or building on the horizon. The track dips downhill, and in the small valley below sits a static trailer, weathered and sinking into the soil as if it’s been washed here in a flood.
“Turn off the engine, take out the keys and get out.”
I do as he says, holding the keys out towards him as he rounds the car. Snatching them up, he shoves them into his front pocket until they’re nestled in the crease between his stomach and thigh. There’s no sense in running. The woods are a hundred feet away and there’s no other cover, only grass that’s inches deep at most.
“Inside.” He stands beside the open door of the trailer, waiting. My feet won’t carry me forwards. My brain is telling me that if I step inside, I’ll never leave. Out of patience, Sid’s fingers bite into the flesh of my upper arm as he steers me toward a set of freestanding metal steps.
“Sid, please―” I back off, crying out when his hand bites deeper and he forces me inside. My steers me down the narrow aisle towards the far end, where a seating area stretches the trailer’s width. The heat is overpowering and so too is the smell of mould. Black spores coat the walls, and darken every corner. A layer of filth and grease covers the built-in sofa, and maybe the seats were comfortable once, but now they’re hard, squashed flat by a trillion buttocks.
“Hand,” he says, pushing me down onto the sticky cushions. I glance up, confused. A set of steel handcuffs dangles, empty, from his hand.
“No Sid, please no!”
He snatches up my forearm, clamping a cuff to my wrist, fitting the second one to a long steel chain that’s fixed to a heavy ring on the floor. I know by their shine and placement that their purpose is new. Sid kneels at my side, twisting a handful of hair around his hand, tugging until my head rears back and I’m staring into his eyes.
I’m shaking, trying to hold myself together as he reaches out to cup my jaw, squeezing painfully. Certain he’s about to break my bones, I squeeze my eyes closed and prepare for the pain, flinching when I feel his mouth against my bloodied lips. When he releases me I open my eyes. There’s blood on his mouth, shiny and new. He dips his head back down, trailing his mouth, and my blood, along my cheek, nuzzling at my ear. I want to recoil, but I stay where I am, terrified of the consequences if I shy away. His hand grips my side, moving up towards my breast, cupping it in his large hand. I hold still, smothering the cry that’s building in my throat. “Yeah, still nothing there,” he says, squeezing.
A whimper escapes my lips and Sid’s mouth curls with derision. “Was a time when you liked that. Shall we see if the chemistry’s still there?”
I lash out at him, at the same time backing into the corner of the sofa, my foot raised, ready to kick out at him. He laughs. “You really think you’re in a position to fight me off?” He pulls at the chain, fire chasing up my arm as I’m wrenched towards him, falling to the floor when he shoves me to the side. He drops the chain and rises to his feet. “Chain’s long enough to reach the bathroom,” he says, standing. “There’s toiletries and food in the fridge. Blankets and pillows in the corner over there and,” he reaches down to lift a cheap carrier bag from the dusty floor. “There are books in case you get bored.”
Still reeling from his assault, horror rips through me. “You’re leaving me?”
“Uh, yeah, Frankie,” he says, as if I’m stupid. “That was the plan.”
I struggle to stand up, horrified at this person who looks so much like Sid and yet shares none of his warmth. “What happened to you, Sid?”
“What ha
ppened?!” Spittle lands on my cheek and I rear back, away from eyes that are furiously off-tangent. “You fucked another guy, is what happened!” He takes a calming breath and continues. “But that’s okay. You know why?”
I shake my head.
“Because now he’s going to know how it feels to lose you. Only his suffering will be worse.” Cold seeps into my bones as Sid’s eyes shine with excitement. “Zannuto will think you’re dead.” He trails the gun against my temple and says, “You’re going to have to spill a little blood to make it more believable.”
My breath rasps through my throat. “Sid―”
“Where should I shoot you? Here?” He directs the gun to my forehead before continuing its movement down towards to my chest. “Or here?”
“Please ...” I whimper, but I can feel the gun moving again.
“I think here.”
I feel the burn immediately after the gun fires. Screaming as the pain slices through my upper arm and a jettison of blood slides towards my wrist. Sid is quick to move to my side, brushing his chest repeatedly against the wound while I struggle to stay conscious. My vision is hazy, but I can see well enough to make out the blood red map that stains his t-shirt.
“This is what happens when you don’t choose the right guy!”
“My arm ... Oh God, please! You can’t leave me like this! I need help, Sid. It’ll get infected.”
He stands over me, seemingly mesmerised by the rivulets of blood. “I’ll be sure to tell them how you bled out.”
Screaming as he closes the door behind him, I move to the mottled window, watching as he walks to his car and sits behind the wheel. He stares at me, his face flushed, eyes bright with the power of revenge. Terrified that he’ll come back, I hold my breath, desperate for the sound of the engine. When it comes my legs tremble. He reverses in a wide arc, the silver car heading back up the hill, towards the fading sun, and as twin red lights disappear over the crest, I surrender to the shock. My knees buckle. Grit bites into my shins as I rock back and forth. Is this it? Is this the end? Will I die in a squalid trailer, alone?
No! This is not it! I want a life; a good life. I want Mason. I want to see him again, be with him, have him hold me.
I tell myself I am Frankie Finnegan. I am a survivor.
I climb to my feet and the room twists and spins. Clinging onto the kitchen worktop until the vertigo wanes, I move towards the metal ring that’s fixed to the floor, holding the chain and pulling against the ring with all my might. The ring doesn’t move and I know there’s not slightest chance I can free it from the floor. The chain is greased with my blood, clinking behind me as I head towards the bathroom. There’s an avocado chemical toilet with a tiny sink in one corner and the room’s as grubby as the rest of the trailer. There’s no cabinet, only a couple of open shelves. A black comb and a tub of men’s hair product sit on the uppermost shelf. Below there’s a crusty bar of soap and rusted nail clippers―with a splice of someone’s nail still attached. Sid has piled several rolls of toilet paper on the blackish, green carpet, but other than that there’s nothing I can use to clean or wrap around my wound.
I take one of the rolls and return to the main body of the trailer, checking the cupboards beneath the kitchen sink. There’s a bottle of bleach and a dried up pack of wet wipes, but nothing else. Next I try the food cupboards. They’re stocked, as in crammed full of food, mostly tins, though there are packets of crackers, biscuits and peanut butter. It seems Sid planned for me being here a while. Cans of baked beans seem to be the recurring theme, though there are also cans of tuna and sweetcorn, and family sized tins of pears. Opening the black-rimmed fridge door, the interior light reveals packs of cheese and ham, and a multipack of yoghurts. Glancing around, I panic, thinking Sid’s provided me with all this food and no liquids, but then I see a stockpile of bottled water tucked away beneath the plastic-veneered table. A stack of paper cups sits on top.
Unsure how long I’ll be trapped here, or how my wound will fare in the heat, I lift several bottles onto the table. Next, I lift the grim sofa cushions and the plywood planks they sit on. Below are three storages spaces with nothing but a fishing box and a crab line between them. When every cupboard and drawer has been thoroughly searched I realise Sid has left nothing to tend my wound. I retrieve the bottle of bleach from the cupboard. There’s an inch or two sitting in the bottom and I have no idea if it’s safe to use diluted bleach on a wound, but given my circumstances I know this is my only option. I uncap one of the water bottles, pouring its contents into the bleach until bubbles foam up through its narrow opening. Next I unravel the toilet paper, creating a pad to absorb the bleach. Holding the tissue in the hand of my injured arm, I upend the bottle until the pad is soaked through. Clamping my teeth together, my eyes sting before I’ve even placed the pad over the wound. I cry out, counting down as I hold the pad to my arm for thirty seconds. Lifting it clear I examine the gaping wound. It’s a mini-volcano, blood boiling from its hole, a bullet hidden below. The thought makes me lightheaded.
I cover the wound with a clean pad of folded toilet paper, and tear off a strip from the roll of cling film I found in one of the drawers. The pad has been soaked in the diluted bleach and, again, it stings. I blink back tears and when I’m able, I check the windows. The sun is now hidden behind the hill, its position marked by a red ball of fire. There’s no torch or candle for when darkness falls. I take my bearings, memorising the layout of the trailer as darkness bears down on me. When it comes, it’s terrifying. The moon giving off enough light to create grotesque shapes and shadows in the woods. I bed down on the bunk, a blanket and pillow between me and the sofa, more blankets on top when the air cools. I don’t sleep. I lay awake, thinking of Mason. I think of Jack’s lifeless body on the tarmac and I think about Sid. Or at least the Sid I once knew, the guy whose only interest was in having fun. Am I to blame? The darkness distorts my thoughts, pulling it in directions I don’t want it to go. Jack in the road, Mason trembling in the lift, me lying on the kitchen floor, my wrist broken. And God, what of Ivy? Will they have told Ivy?
Tears stream from my eyes and the moon becomes a silvery pond. Noises rise up out of the woods, a soundtrack to my erratic thoughts. I shiver beneath my blankets and wait for dawn.
When the pale sun finally rises behind the woods I shout and scream, peering through the murky windows for anything that doesn’t have four legs or feathers. My throat is raw when I’m done, my voice a husky thread.
Ravenous, I eat for the first time since I was chained, choosing digestive biscuits and a vanilla yoghurt. I take a spoon from the drawer that’s filled with mismatching cutlery, including a peeler, a bottle opener, and a heavy wooden rolling pin. I remove this last item, weighing it in my hand before hiding it beneath the blankets. God, please don’t let me need a weapon!
With food in my belly I think I have it in me to change my dressing. I lift the pad and wince at the hole that’s filled with congealed blood. A thin trickle escapes and rolls down my arm. I repeat yesterday’s cleansing routine with the diluted bleach and cover the wound with a new wad of tissue and a fresh piece of wrap.
It’s hot, and as the sun climbs higher the temperature soars. The chain isn’t long enough to reach the door. I’ve tried. There’s a vent in yellowed ceiling but it’s closed and its hinges are rusted. I bash it with the rolling pin and when that doesn’t work I take out my frustration on the trailer, bashing the pin against its shell, the sound violent enough to scare away a flock of birds. Skin glistening with sweat, I direct the next swing at the window. I guess age weakens glass because the pin smashes through and I almost lose my grip on it when it rebounds against the frame. Glass fragments pepper the ground outside and a few pieces now reside on the sofa, their chunks of double thick glass shining in the sun. Cooler air filters through the hole and I poke out the remaining of the splinters. Done, I sit down and commence bashing the rolling pin against the trailer―anything to gain the attention of a passerby. Maybe someone walks t
heir dog in those woods? Or maybe there’s a farmer who tends sheep in a field I can’t see. The wind might carry the sound and someone will come to investigate. Hope is all I have. I scream once in a while, although my voice is little more than a rasp of air on the hot breeze.
That’s all I do. Bash the rolling pin, eat, and scream. When the heat becomes too much, I stretch out along the blanket on the sofa, letting what little breeze there is wash over me. I doze off. I wake up. I attack the trailer some more. By the time my second night rolls around, the skin surrounding the bullet hole is hot to the touch. I know this is not good and I bathe the wound once more with the diluted bleach.
I sleep through the night, waking thirsty, my body on fire and coated in sweat. My arm is hot, and the smallest movement creates debilitating pain. I pour myself a glass of water and afterwards collapse against the sofa. The heat inside the trailer builds once more. I empty the contents of one bottle over my head and my clothes, but they dry in no time. I’m shivering now, my skin clammy to the touch. Drawing a blanket over my feet and up towards my chin requires all my effort. I doze some more and when I wake up it’s dark and I can’t remember where I am until I catch a glimpse of the moon through the broken window. It’s less bright tonight, less friendly.
When I wake again, it’s day and I can barely move. My arm is fat and excruciatingly painful and even the smallest movement has me wondering if I’m going to pass out. I know the infection is taking hold, robbing me of my energy, pushing me closer to death. My voice is too hoarse for shouting, my body too weak to support my weight. I manage to sit, and I start to throw items through the window; cups, bottles, cushions, anything I can find. They all end up lying in the grass outside the broken window.