by Mark McCabe
Looking about, Sara surveyed the small room to which she had been consigned. From the sound of the lock turning when Tug had left, she guessed that she’d been put somewhere ‘safe’ and out of the way. Her instant appraisal was that this was indeed the case. Her current accommodation looked, and felt, distinctly like a cell.
For one thing, the room’s one door bore a metal plate, a little bit like a letterbox slot, at about head height, no doubt for looking and passing things through. If any further confirmation was needed, it could be found in the room’s sparse furnishings. Functionality and not comfort had clearly been the primary goal. The only items of furniture were a bed, a small table, and a wooden box. A porcelain basin sat on the table. This was not a room anyone would choose to spend much time in, assuming they had a choice.
The wooden framed bed stood beside her. On top of a lumpy, hessian covered mattress lay a pillow and two blankets. The blankets were neatly folded and positioned at one end. At the opposite end, equally tidily placed, lay what appeared to be a set of clothes. It seemed to constitute a shirt and a pair of trousers. The latter brought a small but welcome glimmer of hope. If only they would fit her. She felt very exposed in her nightclothes.
Sara remained where she was for a few minutes, then pulled herself up and explored more thoroughly, shuffling painfully around the room. The door was locked, as she had expected, and the grate couldn’t be opened from her side. The box turned out to be a primitive toilet of sorts. The lid was hinged and had a hole you could sit over with a metal bucket inside which could obviously be taken out and emptied. The porcelain basin contained water, whether for cleaning or drinking she was not sure, but she did both, cupping her hands to drink first and then washing her face and hands.
A lantern hanging from a hook near the door provided light. There was no window. Though a small grate with bars, very high up on one wall, appeared to let in fresh air, the room had a musty smell. Clearly, the ventilation was inadequate. Other than that, it was reasonably clean, though the mattress had seen better days. It was stained and gave off a rather earthy smell. She thought it might be filled with straw or something similar. Sara continued to shiver as she quickly changed into the clothes provided. They were a surprisingly close fit for her. A welcome find of a pair of moccasin shoes completed the outfit.
Adequately dressed for the first time since her ordeal had begun, Sara sat on the edge of the bed. Now she was alone, the enormity of what had happened to her began to sink in. She’d been abducted from her house in the middle of the night and taken to a strange place where everything looked like it belonged in a museum. Of the four people she had encountered, one, a girl, had been bound and badly hurt and two of them looked like elves. And then there was her bizarre encounter with that man.
To add to all of this, she had been slapped, shoved and pawed almost continuously from the moment her ordeal had begun. She knew her body would be a mass of bruises within hours. Finally, she had been locked in a room that could only be described as a cell. God only knew what they planned for her next. It didn’t even bear thinking about.
Sara slumped to the floor again, leaning back against the edge of the bed and pulling her knees up to her chest as she did so. Dragging a blanket around her shoulders and wrapping her arms around her knees, she soon found herself sobbing uncontrollably. She could no longer hold back. I want to go home, she thought. Please, just let me go home.
Sara’s eyes flew open as she heard the click of her alarm clock, that telltale sound it always made just seconds before it rang. She was home. It had all been a dream after all, a horrible dream, but just a dream. She felt a smile creeping out from the corners of her mouth. She had never been so happy to greet a new day in her life, even if it was a weekday. Sunlight glinting off the mirror on her bedside table momentarily blinded her as she rolled over, still groggy with sleep, to switch off the alarm before it could ring. At that same moment, she heard her bedroom door opening.
Shading her eyes with one hand, Sara looked up at the shape in the doorway. Her stomach churned as she recognised her visitor.
It was Tug. The dread creature stood there for a moment, leering at her, with a tray in his hands, then stepped into the room. Her smile withered in an instant. The sound she had heard had been the click of the lock as he had opened it. Sunlight bouncing off the lantern on the wall was the source of the warm beam on to her face.
It was morning, that much was right, but this was not her bedroom. She was still in her cell. The lumpy mattress, the stale smells, Tug; they all made her wonder how she could have been fooled. This nightmare wasn’t over yet, no matter how much she might wish it.
Snapping back to reality, Sara frantically scrambled to the back of the bed, crouching against the wall with the blanket pulled up around her body with one hand and her other arm defensively shielding her face. She grimaced as she felt the stabbing pain in her shoulder, remembering Tug’s rough treatment of her the night before. It all came flooding back to her, in a rush, as if a tap had been suddenly turned. “P-please don’t hurt me,” she stammered. Her heart was thumping and her eyes swam as unbidden tears began to flow.
The terror of the previous night flashed through her mind. She’d been distraught by the time Tug had locked her in the cell and she had sat on the floor crying and sobbing hysterically for what must have been hours. She had no idea how long she had stayed there but remembered climbing up onto the bed at one stage and pulling the blanket over her. The floor had been cold and the bed had offered warmth, if not comfort. Thankfully, once she had finally gotten off to sleep, she had slept right through the night.
And now she had awoken to another confrontation with the creature that had assaulted her the night before. ‘Creature’ was the only word she could apply. She didn’t know what else to call him. He clearly wasn’t human.
To Sara’s relief, her fear of Tug was unfounded this time. She’d been convinced that when she saw him or Ruz next they would be coming to take her away to do something ghastly to her, like whatever it was they had done to the girl she had seen. Tug made no attempt to approach her, however, and the tray he was carrying appeared to bear food, for her it would seem. Her instant thought was of death-row prisoners, waiting for their sentence to be executed. Maybe this was to be her last meal.
Tug simply laughed at her as she cowered on the bed. “Don’t worry, me pretty,” he sneered. “You’re safe for the moment. The boss is laid up for a while so you’ll be our . . . ‘guest’ till he’s better. I’ve brought you some lovely grub. I ain’t a bad cook when I put me hand to it.” The last was said with a surprising sense of pride. With that he turned and left, locking the door behind him as he went. Sara hadn’t missed seeing the dagger sheathed at his waist as he had turned.
As the lock clicked back into place, she felt the tears begin to run down her cheeks once again. She had hoped she would wake up back in her own bed and realise it had all been a horrible dream, and for a few brief moments when she had woken she had convinced herself that was the case. But it wasn’t to be. Here she was, right back in the middle of her nightmare.
Realising she was still cringing against the wall, she tried to relax a little, consciously easing the tension in her body. It was then that she realised how much her shoulder ached. Just to move it was painful. Moving carefully to the edge of the bed, she gingerly undid her shirt, easing one sleeve down so she could examine her neck and arm more closely. As she had suspected, a massive bruise covered most of her left shoulder and a large part of her upper arm. Twisting, she was aware that her hip also hurt. Standing and easing her trousers down on one side, she quickly found more bruising. She must have landed there when she fell.
Sitting down and wiping her eyes, Sara turned her attention to the tray Tug had left for her, finding a bowl of warm soup, some rough chunks of bread and a mug of hot liquid that might have been tea or something similar. At least it was clear they didn’t intend to starve her. Tentatively, she tried some of the soup.
Her hunger satiated, she leaned back cautiously against the wall, careful not to aggravate any sore spots. She stayed there like that for some time, sipping her drink, which smelt, incredibly, of cloves and honey, and wondering with an increasing feeling of despair what was going to happen to her next. Her reverie was rudely interrupted a short while later when Tug returned for her plates.
At his appearance, Sara scurried across the bed again, huddling with her back to the corner as he opened the door, her heart pounding. To her great relief, once again he made no attempt to harm her or touch her. “Ate it all up, did we?” he exclaimed smugly when he saw the empty bowls. He took the tray away then, locking the door behind him again as he left.
She was left alone for the rest of that day. Although in many ways it was a relief not to have to face them again, after a while she almost wished someone would come and talk to her. Just sitting there waiting only gave her more time to worry and to think of dread things they might have planned for her. Try as she could to avoid thinking about it, grim and frightening possibilities kept springing to mind.
At one stage she tried to distract her thoughts, standing on the bed to look out of the grate, but it was too small and too close to the ceiling for her to see anything properly. All she could glimpse was a bit of sky and the very tops of some trees. The sky, or at least the bit she could see, was clear and bright, the kind of day she would normally associate with happiness and laughter. She could even hear birds twittering and chirping as they gaily went about their business outside.
Instead of lifting her spirits, that only served to dampen them further, to make her more aware of her own captivity, and whatever dire fate awaited her. In fact, a great depression was settling over her as the day progressed. Like the shadow that creeps over a sunlit field when a cloud blots out the sun, despair and lethargy were slowly consuming her customary youthful spirit. After a fitful morning, the whole afternoon was spent seated, unmoving, huddled into the corner of her room, her thoughts cycling through the various prospects she considered most likely to befall her.
When the sun started to set and the shadows in her room lengthened, Ruz came with her dinner. She was grateful not to have to endure Tug again. Once Ruz had placed her meal beside the bed, he turned and lit the lantern by the door. Looking at him closely, Sara could see he was no more human than Tug was. Somehow, however, she wasn’t as scared of him.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she blurted out as he turned towards the door, having finished with his chores.
The creature spun around with a start at her words. At first, he looked down at her with a frown from the doorway, but when he spoke his voice was unexpectedly gentle and reassuring. “Don’t worry about that,” he responded soothingly. “When the master gets better he’ll send for you.”
“To d-do what?” Sara pushed. She took little reassurance from his words. The thought of being sent for was hardly a comforting one.
“You’ll see,” Ruz replied. “Just be thankful for the time you’ve got.” Turning once more to leave, he halted with his hand on the door. “What did you do to him, anyway?” he asked, giving her a discerning look. “How did you do that . . . that thing you did to him, when he got hurt?”
“I’ve got no idea,” replied Sara, relaxing a little. This was the first real conversation she had had with anyone in this place. Maybe she could find out what was going on if she could keep him talking. “He just touched me,” she went on. She was equally as stumped as Ruz seemed to be by what had happened and could think of no adequate explanation. “I tried to pull away but couldn’t. I didn’t want him to touch me. Then I felt a tingle against my cheek and he screamed and his body jerked back away from me. It startled me as much as it did everyone else, I think. I don’t know what happened.”
Her tone changed then as she pleaded with him to answer some of the questions she was so desperate to resolve. “Please tell me where I am and what is going on. Why did you take me? What are you going to do to me? And what did you do to that girl? Is she okay?”
“She’s dead,” said Ruz, without a hint of remorse or emotion. “Golkar’s never killed one before. Not directly, like that, anyway. They don’t usually last long, but not like that. Tug usually gets his . . .” Ruz brought himself up with a halt, clearly having said more than he’d intended to.
“Don’t worry about all that, anyway,” he finished unconvincingly. “It was an accident. That wasn’t meant to happen. You’ll be fine.” With that, he quickly turned and left.
Sara sat on the bed, stunned. Dimly she heard the lock click into place. She was dead. That girl was dead. That man, their ‘master’, he had killed her. Sara teetered on the edge of panic. Her whole body rocked back and forth as she squatted on the bed. Somewhere, dimly, she heard a scream, unaware it was herself.
Sara ate little over the next few days, spending most of her time staring at the wall. She cried a lot, often with no warning, and she slept little. Slowly, agonisingly, the days of captivity crept on.
Her fear of Tug and Ruz grew apace with her depression. She huddled in the corner whenever they entered the room and she refused to answer any of their questions. Once, when Tug moved towards the bed after setting her dinner down, she screamed like a banshee. It was the first time either had made any move towards her, other than to deliver food or water, to take it away, or to light her lantern. It turned out he was simply replacing the bucket that comprised her toilet. Her pulse rate took some time to come down after that. She had felt sure her time had come, that his master was ready for her.
And then, one morning, she woke to the sound of a bird chirping at her window grate, a little finch of some sorts with a brightly coloured breast, picking away at spiders or bugs on the stonework. It was the first living creature she had seen, other than her captors, since the night she had been brought there. She had heard the birds many times, but to see one, and so close, was delightful. It was a turning point for Sara, and not before time.
For some reason, she thought of her dad. She remembered a holiday they had been on once, a camping trip in the state forest. They had been collecting firewood together and had been talking as they went. He had asked her about what she wanted to be when she grew up and she had said that she wasn’t sure. And then he had said something that she had remembered many times afterwards. It was one of those pieces of advice you get that strikes a chord, where you know what has been said makes sense and should be stored away for future reference.
He had told her life was what you made of it yourself, nothing would just come to you; you made your own luck in the world and the worst thing to do was to be a victim. “Whatever happens,” he had said, “you are in control of your own life. Don’t blame anyone else if things go wrong or don’t turn out the way you want. Just get on and do something about making it right again. The world is full of people who just curl up in a ball and give in. Don’t be one of those, Sara. As long as you keep trying, I’ll be proud of you, no matter what happens. Don’t be a quitter.”
Sara had followed his advice from that day on. It had been a turning point in her life then, just as it was to be again. At the beginning of the next season, she had been made captain of the basketball team at school and the coach had said he had chosen her because of her fighting qualities. He liked the way she never gave in.
But that’s just what she had done here, she realised. She had given in.
From that moment Sara changed focus. She didn’t give much for her chances, but she wasn’t going to give up without a fight. She realised that this Golkar person had something terrible planned for her and she had just been sitting there waiting for it to happen.
That day Sara ate all of her breakfast. After breakfast, rather
than spend the day sitting despondently, thinking the worst, she began a program of exercises: push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, dips with the bed as support, things she could do in her cell quite easily. Her bruises had all but faded and the soreness in her arm was gone. Thankfully she hadn’t broken anything there. She knew she had to get her strength back and she had to have a plan.
She quickly decided her best chance, as unlikely as it might be, had to be to escape before Golkar recovered. She needed to find out how long she had and she needed to put her captors at their ease in her presence. With that in mind, she began talking to Ruz and Tug again.
Ruz was obviously quite surprised, and visibly heartened, at the change that came over her. Sara thought he must have been worried for a while that she might get sick and die, or go crazy; she had eaten so little at one point and must have seemed on the edge of insanity. She could only assume that he feared his master’s reaction to such an outcome. For him, she guessed, it was probably a huge relief to see her recover her spirits.
It didn’t take Sara long to find out that Golkar’s injuries had been extensive. From comments made by Tug, she was able to ascertain that he would be laid up ‘for some time yet’. She hoped that meant weeks and not days and feverishly continued to work on a plan for escape.
All sorts of schemes went through her head, all flawed in one way or another when examined closely. The main problem was that her captors were armed. They each carried a knife in a sheath on their belt, and they were clearly much stronger than she was.
She also found out her captors were not elves, though they had heard of them and she hadn’t been far off the mark. Ruz spat on the ground at her feet with disgust when she asked him if that was what he was. He named himself a draghar, and claimed the elves were an unfortunate offshoot of the draghar race, spawned as a result of some unnamed evil, centuries into the past. That didn’t sit well with Sara’s concept of elves. She preferred to believe the opposite might be the truth but didn’t dare suggest so to Ruz.