by Glenn Roug
mountains and hills all around. There was nothing special about the place we arrived in, either. We went through a narrow path and then drove off-road for a few minutes. All I could see when the taxicab came to a stop was a hill not unlike many others in Crete, except that this one had an area enclosed by a rusty mesh fence. I glanced at the cabbie to see if he was having me on but he pointed at a white metal sign that hanged from the fence. It had a skull and crossbones on it and the word DANGER in English, and two words in Greek.
"No trespassing," he translated. He shook his finger at me. "Don't go inside fence." He turned the engine off, as if waiting for me to snap a few pictures and then come back to the car. I said I did not need him right now, but asked if he could return in three hours as I did not have a phone on me to contact him with. He waved goodbye and started the car and drove away. I did not know if that meant a yes or a no.
I began to follow along the fence, looking for a hole I could get in through. On the other side were white-yellowish rocks but nothing that would indicate that a cave was accessible from there. I knew the entrance would be a narrow hole in the ground that could be seen only from up close, and so it did not deter me. I needed a way to get to the rocks. The fence seemed unbroken. I searched inside my bag for a pair of wire cutters I had brought with me.
Suddenly there was a little girl in a blue dress beside me. She had long brown hair. I did not see her arrive nor heard her footsteps. She said something to me in Greek and pointed to the fence. I made an apologetic hand gesture to indicate I could not understand her. She switched to English effortlessly. "You can't go in there," she said. She had a British accent.
"I know." I stopped searching inside my bag. "I read the signs."
She kept on lecturing me. "People die in there all the time. My grandpa died in there."
I wanted to change the subject. "Was he English?"
"No, he was from here. His son met my mom in England. Then we came here."
"I see."
She returned to her first topic of conversation. "A rock fell on his head. There are lots of them there, very loose. One time a whole bunch of kids died. Friends of my grandpa some of them. He was a kid too but he didn't go with them because he was sick that day. So he lived, but only fifty more years and then he went in there anyway and died. The rocks waited for him. There's a rock waiting for you, too."
"Alright, I won't enter," I said with a smile. "Seeing as it would upset you if something were to happen to me."
She pointed in the direction of a faraway road. "I don't care but the soldiers care. They saw the car and maybe they're coming here now. Sometimes they do that. That's what I came here to tell you."
"Thanks for the warning."
"If you go in there now you're stupid, because I told you not to. Also, some of the hairs in your beard just fell off." She turned her back to me and walked away into a nearby plantation, gradually turning into a small blue dot in the middle of a giant green carpet. I sat down on a rock and watched the road where the soldiers might be coming from. Thankfully I had not done anything wrong yet. The wire cutters were still deep inside my bag and the fence was undamaged. Since I had done nothing wrong I could not be arrested; at most warned off. I might even be able to hitch a ride with the soldiers into the village and call my cabbie from there. I would have to come back at night. I would be smarter about it the next time and ask the driver to drop me off a mile away, then get to the fence on foot and cut through it under the cover of darkness and without anyone having seen a car coming. I would use duct tape to temporarily repair the section I cut so no one would notice the intrusion. I could then either enter the cave or, if it proves hard to find, wait for daylight while already on the other side of the fence, and try again from there, undisturbed by snooty little girls or soldiers.
And then, just as I was beginning to feel comfortable with my new plan, someone hit me on the head from behind and put a tape over my mouth and a bag over my head. A moment later I was that someone's prisoner.
XIV.
I was too startled to be scared. I tried to stand up but before I could move a muscle my attacker dropped a few coils of rope over my shoulders and tightened them and made me fall back to the ground with my arms tied to the sides of my body. My ankles were then fastened to each other with another piece of rope. The attacker did not say a word, nor let out any sound besides the shuffling of feet on rocky terrain. I could not tell if it was one person or more. The whole thing took less than three seconds. One moment I was sitting on a rock immersed in thought; in the next I was tied up like a mummy, rolling on the ground blind and unable to move.
Mt attacker dragged me on the ground, pulling me onto a thin flat surface that kept bending underneath me and pinching me as it did. I imagined that the surface was made of three or four planks of wood tied together. It had wheels on one end — I could hear them rolling on the ground — and my attacker was pulling it behind him like a hand truck. I tried to yell but the tape on my mouth was too tight. There was nothing to do but lie still and hope that the soldiers get there in time. They didn't. I was dragged over fields and some rough terrain, judging by the bumps that were shaking my body, and could hear no one. It did not take long — ten or fifteen minutes at the most. Then my attacker rested the head of the surface I was lying on against something and lifted the bottom part and I slid head on onto another, harder surface. I heard a gate closing and an engine coming to life, and knew that I was in the back of a truck. It was an old vehicle judging by the many rattling sounds and the uneven suspension and the smell of burned oil. The ride took anywhere between five and twenty minutes — it is hard to tell time when you are in complete darkness and stressed out of you mind.
The truck came to a halt slowly, with a long sharp squeak. It was a few minutes before someone opened the gate. I was pulled onto a gurney-like cart and wheeled around, this time on level ground. I heard a door open and then I was pushed inside something and kept on rolling until I hit a wall. The door closed then, and I could hear the faint sound of the truck driving away. After this there was complete silence.
Moments went by and then, I assumed, hours, but no one came back to check on me. For the first time since I was abducted I had time to concentrate on myself. My heartbeat was through the roof and I was sweating and thirsty, but I was not injured. Fear found fertile ground now. I was free to think, which is not always a good thing, especially if you are terrified. No calm thoughts ever form in a terrorized mind. I tried to think rationally. Why did they not kill me outright? Why go through the trouble of tying me up and taking me somewhere else only to abandon me alone in there? They never minded leaving bodies behind until now; why go to any trouble to hide mine? Was it possible that they were not sure who I was? That my disguise had worked? Then why not remove the bag from my head as soon as we stopped and take a second look? No, whoever did this knew it was me. The only conclusion I could reach was that they wanted to interrogate me about the cave first before doing away with me. The person who abducted me must have gone to get his boss, and soon they will be back, ask some questions and then shoot me dead and dump my body by the side of the road.
I tried to wriggle out of the ropes but they were too tight. Then I heard a rustling sound and it hit me: the magazines. Those pages I had stuffed under my shirt. They gave my body an extra bulk that the ropes pressed against and that could be removed. My arms were tied but my fingers were free. Using my right thumb and index finger I pulled on the fabric of my shirt until I was grabbing a button. I managed to open it and reached inside. My fingers touched paper. Slowly I tore pieces of it away and threw them outside the shirt. The more paper I pulled out, the easier it became to reach deeper and remove even more paper, until almost none remained. Now the rope was loose, and I was able to wriggle out of it. I brought my head closer to my hand and removed the bag and the tape, and then spat out the ball halves. My gums were bleeding.
I observed the room I was in. It was a tool shed. Dimly lit by a few sun rays that managed to sneak in through cracks in the door, I could see metal shelves around me stacked with farming equipment and old engine parts. A rusty bicycle with no tires leaned against an old wooden wall. The place smelled of grease and sawdust. I undid the rest of the rope and now I was free. I got up and gently pushed the door so I could peer outside. Unlocked, the door moved willingly on its hinges, opening wide at the touch. I stopped it and pulled it back so there would only be a narrow crack between me and the world outside. There was no one out there, just a nearby field and a dirt road and those same mountains in the background, far less beautiful now than they had seemed when I first arrived in Crete. The person who abducted me did a shoddy job of tying me up and securing the door, and did not leave anyone to watch over me. But then the people who worked for them were killers, not kidnappers. Abducting someone was not part of their job description. I must have surprised them there at the cave and they had to act quickly, then went to ask their boss if I should live or die. There was probably just one of them there or they would have left someone with me.
I had to get away before they were back. I looked