by Mitt Ray
mile away. They punished me and told me that they would kill me if I tried to escape again so I never did.
This was one of the reasons why I asked Donna not to escape. I was afraid they might torture and maybe kill her. Karen didn’t think twice. She wouldn’t give you a warning. She acted out of instinct. She did anything that came into her head. She was a beast.
Working for the Steelchilds was a nightmare. You never knew when Karen was going to pounce. I put my best into everything I did but she still ambushed me and it troubled me. It seemed like she got pleasure out of it. She would look for any excuse to swoop. Sometimes she even attacked me for no reason at all. She was simply bored. All she had was her husband Tom, and her daughter Anna. She didn’t need to do a thing, as we, her slaves, did all her work. She spent her time hunting and lazing around the house.
Every day I hatched up plans for getting away, but I never executed them because I knew Karen would find me. And where would I go if I escaped? My parents had disappeared. Karen told me that after she came back from trying to steal my brother. She tortured me to find out if I knew where they had gone. How could I? I was working for her and hadn’t seen my parents since the day I was kidnapped.
Arlene was the oldest slave here. She had been working for Karen and Tom for more than thirty years. She and Karen were really close. I had been here seven years and I had never once seen Karen punish Arlene. They spent a lot of time together. Arlene was even fed properly. She ate until her stomach was full. I only got bad food and very little of it. Normally, it was just leftovers or rotten food. It was so awful that often I had to go hunting for something worth eating.
All this pampering was because Arlene treated Karen like a goddess. She never once said anything bad about Karen in her presence. If Arlene had anything nasty to say about Karen, she did it behind Karen’s back.
But I never told Arlene anything, as I was afraid that she might go and tell Karen. Karen would destroy me. Karen wasn’t afraid to take a life. Arlene used to ask me a lot of questions, but I never gave her proper answers. I didn’t want her or the Ogres to find out anything about me.
Karen was the boss of the house. Tom did as he was told since he was scared of her. On his own, he was nice to us slaves. But when Karen was around, he treated us very badly. Not as bad as her, though.
I often wondered why Tom was so scared of Karen because he was much bigger and stronger than she was. He could easily overpower her if he wanted to. Tom had bigger teeth and longer claws, but not a heavier club. Karen didn’t let him. Their daughter, Anna, never spoke much. She only came to us if she needed something. She was very quiet and never shouted at us or hurt us. But we did our best to please her.
That night, after a hard day’s labouring, I went over to check if Donna was all right. She was awake and looked like she was lost in thought. I asked her what she was thinking and she told me that she was planning her escape. I begged her not to and we spent a lot of time arguing. At first, she wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, and wanted me to come with her. However, after chatting for a while, I managed to convince her not to run away.
I was happy that I had succeeded and I went to my bed to go to sleep.
The next day, I was woken up really early in the morning, even earlier than usual. Karen was shaking my bed and growling. But I was so tired from the previous day, as I had been doing two people’s work, that I just ignored her. Then I heard a sound - a sound similar to the sharpening of a knife. I knew what this meant and suddenly I was fully alert. I was about to run, but Karen stabbed me in my legs. The sound had been that of her sharpening her claws against the floor. She raked me with these sharp claws again and started chuckling. She asked me if I knew where Donna was. I said I didn’t know. She lifted me, holding both my legs with one hand. I was upside down now, with my face right in front of her. I was staring into her scary face. Out came the bad breath and the words from her huge mouth.
“Come on! Speak up! Tell me the truth. I have been trying to find her for the past hour,” she roared.
“I really don’t know,” I answered.
Karen dropped me on the floor. She told me to tidy up the house and she stomped away.
I couldn’t believe it. Donna had lied to me! She had escaped after all. I wanted to go back to bed, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep. The pain was gushing through my wounded leg and I was also worried about Donna. She was my only friend. I told her all my secrets. I enjoyed chatting with her. I loved spending time with her, but now she was gone. I didn’t know what I would do without her. I was also afraid that something bad might happen to her if Karen tracked her down. I wondered if I should go out into the woods and try to find her.
Donna’s Gone
I cleaned my wound and I went into the house to set to work. The first thing I had to do was help Arlene in getting the meals ready for the ogres. All of them ate a lot and it took us a lot of time and effort to prepare the food. It was like preparing a feast for hundreds of people every day! After preparing the meal, I cleaned the house. It was a very big place. I began in the kitchen. I had to do the dishes, wipe up any mess we’d made while cooking, and sweep the floor. Next it was the bedrooms. I made the beds and then washed the soiled bedding and, goodness, did they get it dirty! Karen, Tom and Anna hardly every washed themselves. They smelt bad and all their stink and dirt clung to the bedding. It took me hours to wash the sheets by hand and then dry them. I often wondered why I bothered, because I knew they were going to get it filthy again the moment they lay on the bed.
Then I had to sweep up in the store room. This room was filled with firewood, meat and all the other daily requirements. I hated cleaning this room. It was the smelliest place in the whole house, although actually, it wasn’t as smelly or disgusting as Karen’s unkempt mouth. The rotting meat, blood and vegetables in the store room were covered with maggots. The Ogres didn’t care what or how many animals they hunted, they just chased down anything that moved. They didn’t calculate how much meat they needed. They hunted because they enjoyed it and brought back way more food than they required, day after day, and made no effort to preserve it. This was why most of the food went bad and why I had to clean the store room every day. I had to tread on all the disgusting matter with my bare feet. Scrubbing and mopping the room took me ages and the smell made it seem a lot longer.
Next came the living room and the other few rooms. Tidying these, except the torture room, was a walk in the park compared to what I’d just done. All I had to do was dust and sweep them. Today Arlene came to my aid, now that I’d got to the easiest part of the house. But I wondered why. She never normally helped me.
“Hi, Matt”, she said.
I smiled back at her to let her know that I was pleased to see her. But I wasn’t in the mood to talk. She went on, anyway.
“How are you?”
“Not very good,” I answered.
“So, did you hear about Donna?” she asked.
“Yes, I did,” I replied.
“Do you know where she’s gone?”
Now I understood why she had come to help me clean for the first time in seven years. She wanted to find out about Donna. I was sure that Karen had sent her here. Both of them suspected me of being involved in her escape. I was sure Arlene would go back and report everything to her dear friend, Karen. So I said little.
“I have no idea,” I shrugged.
“Come on, you can trust me,” she cajoled.
“Honestly, I don’t know where Donna is,” I told her.
“I promise I won’t tell anybody,” she smiled.
“If I knew anything I would have told you,” I fibbed. “What makes you think I’d hide something like this from you? If I find out, you will be the first person I’ll tell.”
“Thank you,” she nodded. She pretended to help for the next five minutes and then slipped away, probably to report to Karen. I carried on toiling.
Finally came the torture room. Just stepping into it sent shivers down my
spine. I had been put in here quite a lot of times and I knew what it was used for. Over the years I had heard plenty of screams of pain coming from this room. The floor was always covered with bones and blood and cleaning them, using only my bare hands and a cloth, made my skin crawl.
Once I’d finished, I got to eat the leftovers from the meal I’d cooked earlier in the morning. I had a shower to try and wash away all the smell and dirt I’d absorbed doing the chores. I wished the shower would also wash away the dirty and scary memories that troubled me, but it never did. It had taken me a long while to do my jobs today. The pain in my leg and my worries about Donna slowed me down.
It would soon be time to cook the next meal for the Ogres. I was tired and I needed to take a break, so I went outside and sat down on one of the huge stones in front of the house. Finally I had some time to myself. I wanted to gather my thoughts. In the distance, I could see the sun setting over the woods. It was getting cloudy and it looked like it was going to rain.
This made me think of Donna. I wondered where she was and what she would do to get out of the rain. She was new here and wouldn’t know where to go. I wished I was there to help her. There was also every chance that Karen was going to find her. The rain was going to make it easier for Karen to track Donna now. When it was