Last Call

by Michele G Miller

  "You bitch!" He was covered in sweat and his face was beet red. His jaw was discolored and I saw blood trickling down the side of it. Somehow my shoe must have cut him pretty badly to cause that.

  "All I wanted was a date. I just wanted you to get to know me," he wailed, and then he stepped in and clutched me by the shoulders to lift me up.

  "Are you scared, Savannah?" he asked ghoulishly. He shook my shoulders; snapping my head back painfully before reaching across his chest and back-handing me.

  Throwing me on the bed, he screeched, "I was going to treat you special. But now I'm going to treat you the way you ought to be treated."

  As he climbed onto the bed beside me, I closed my eyes for a moment and visualized Gage. I went back to the moment when we’d danced in the rain and he had hummed the lyrics to ‘Hey Pretty Girl’…when he held me and all seemed perfectly right in my world.

  There was no doubt in my mind that Ryan was going to kill me now, and I prayed that the call to Gage hadn’t gone through. I didn't want him to walk into my house and find me dead.

  Fire was spreading though my cheek where Ryan hit me, but it didn't compare to the ice cold terror that ran through my veins when he reached behind his back and pulled out a coiled length of rope.

  Sunday - June 17, 2013

  The Stuff of Nightmares

  Any energy left in me surged once I saw the rope in his hands. I tried to buck myself away from him, but his free hand grabbed a hold of my waist and his fingers dug painfully into my side.

  "It’ll hurt a lot less if you just let me have my fun, sweetheart."

  The use of the endearment 'sweetheart' coming from his mouth sounded vile, and I screamed and grunted under the bindings of the tape over my mouth.

  He dropped the rope next to me and for a moment I wondered if he changed his mind. Keeping his hand digging into my side, he leaned over and reached into my nightstand drawer to pull out a syringe.

  I whimpered as I watched him bite the cap off the needle. Clearly this was a premeditated event. He had obviously set things up to drug me. Before I could create a new plan, he jabbed it into my thigh and sank the plunger; emptying the entire contents of the syringe into my body.

  The drug burned as it spread through my veins like liquid fire. Numbness followed almost immediately afterwards, and I cringed when I started to feel my leg muscles unclench and relax.

  Slowly, as if in a dream, he climbed off of me and started to tie the rope around my ankles. It took me a few moments to realize he was actually holding more than one piece of rope. He moved swiftly from one leg to the other, tying them securely to the bed frame.

  I lay there with my arms trapped painfully behind my back, a swath of unyielding tape across my mouth, and my legs tied down to the bottom corners of the bed. Whatever drug he injected me with was beginning to work its way into my brain, and when I looked at Ryan as he climbed back on top of the bed and sat across my hips, I saw two of him.

  His face blurred into two forms and then blended back into one. He twisted his fist into the shirt across my chest and balled it up as he roughly pulled me into a sitting position.

  I flopped forward involuntarily, like I was paralyzed. I couldn't move my arms anymore, either from the drugs or from the numbing pain of the constraints. Once my upper body was parallel to his, I tried to hold my head up as steadily as I could.

  Leaning forward, he placed a kiss across the tape where my lips were. "I wanted you to enjoy being with me, Savannah. I wanted to hear you scream out my name in ecstasy." He murmured the words lovingly, like he was speaking sweet nothings to his lover.

  My head flopped forward and my chin rested on my chest as he pulled me against his body and pulled something from his back pocket. A flash of something silver pulled my gaze to his hand, where I saw a gleaming pocket knife.

  For one clarifying moment, I thought this was all about to end and prepared myself to feel the cold steel slice into my flesh. However all I felt was the jerk of Ryan's body as he leaned down and began to saw the tape from my wrists. The tip of the knife sliced my hand, but my mind was so far gone it barely registered.

  Done cutting the tape, he dropped me unceremoniously and I fell back to the mattress; my arms lying out to the sides like I was about to make a macabre snow angel.

  I closed my eyes when he took the knife to the front of my shirt. The ripping sounds of the cotton were all I could hear as pulsing blood rushed through my ears. My palm was wet and sticky, and I slowly tilted my head to the right to see what I was touching.

  My hand was lying in a puddle of blood. My blood. I saw the rich, thick blood as it covered my hand and dripped from the fingertips that were hanging over the edge of the bed.

  I watched Ryan pull my shirt away from my chest to reveal my bra. His eyes, all four of them, were large and full of unsated lust.

  Blood lust or sexual lust, I wasn't even sure anymore.

  His fingertips ran across the tops of my breasts, and he lowered his knife to run it across my skin. I observed him detachedly as if I was just watching a movie. I felt something grazing my skin, but I didn't think it was because of him. I knew he was there, and yet I didn't know he was there.

  I heard a moan come from my own throat when the sudden, sharp sting of his knife cut into the top of my chest. Forcing my eyes to look, I watched as red droplets of blood appeared in a line across the top of my breast. Ryan smeared the blood with his finger; an evil, crazed laughter springing out of him as he brought his hand to his face.

  Suddenly there was a sinister urgency to his movements, and he leaned down to lick the tops of my breasts. His knife went under the center of my bra and I felt pressure as he tugged it up with the blade. The sharp edge cut through the thin material quickly and the lace dropped to my sides, leaving me exposed to the madman's nightmarish eyes.

  His voice filled my head and words swam around noiselessly, but I could no longer discern what he was saying. It was like my soul had been detached and was no longer in my own body. The drug he’d injected me with didn't stop its slow burn through my veins, and as my lids began to droop closed, I prayed to God for mercy and release from this abhorrent nightmare.

  Excruciating pain and pressure snapped like lightening across my face; forcing my eyes open.

  "Open your eyes," Ryan thundered; slapping my face again.

  His mouth crashed down onto mine, and I gathered from the searing pain along my cheeks and the wetness of his mouth invading mine that the tape was no longer there.

  Ryan's mouth forced mine to open, and as he explored with his tongue I felt his disgusting, clammy hands wandering over my bloodied chest.

  Through my hazy senses I heard the squeal of tires on my street outside, and couldn't help but wonder how many people were going about their mundane evenings while this horror was taking place in my simple little home.

  Ryan moved from my lips; his mouth grazing my chin and then working their way down my neck. No longer rendered speechless, I began to sob. A voice I barely recognized as my own whispered between powerful bursts of tears, "Please…no."

  His dirty lips hovered over my skin as he crowed, "Yes, sweetheart. You’re gonna beg me before we're through."

  He lowered his head to my chest once again, and his hands moved over my stomach and ripped the button from my shorts. The sound of my zipper being lowered was suddenly interrupted by banging on the front door.

  "Savannah?" yelled the achingly sweet voice I prayed I would get to hear again. "SAVY!"

  Ryan jerked up and listened for a moment. He didn't know that I’d been able to place a call to Gage. He didn't know that Gage was here to rescue me. He sat ready, tightly gripping the pocket knife in his hand.

  When a loud noise sounded against the front entrance, he jumped off of me and looked out the window. To my relief I could hear the exquisite sound of sirens off in the distance.

  The sirens increased in their intensity and the slamming at the entrance of my house continued, causing Ryan t
o become more crazed. Loosening the knots at my ankles, he pulled me from the bed and dragged me into my walk-in closet; brutally dumping me on the floor.

  The closet was dark. In just a few seconds he was back and he quickly shut the door. His hands ran up my legs and ripped off my shorts before I heard the sound of his own pants being lowered. I braced myself for the moment when this monster would rape me. For a moment I lay there half naked on the floor, and then he was over me and his knife was pressed threateningly to the pulse at my throat.

  A loud, booming crash echoed through the house and I heard the shouts of other people, although they sounded like they were around my home and not in it.

  Ryan growled in anger when a crash sounded closer to my bedroom. He must have tried to block my door, because it was at that moment I could tell that someone had finally entered my room. Pulling whatever life was left in me, I screamed.

  "No!" he hissed, and as the door to the closet jerked open, Ryan twisted and I felt the bite of his knife slice across my shoulder.

  A growl like none other sounded and suddenly Ryan was pulled from the closet, his knife making a metallic thud next to my head where he’d dropped it.

  "You son of…” Gage was there, and I heard the solid thud of fists making their mark.

  I saw blue lights swirling across the ceiling in my bedroom, and I was finally secure in the notion that I would be okay. I tried to pull myself up, but then realized that my muscles still weren’t cooperating.

  And then I saw his face. Gage threw himself down on the floor next to me, his voice ragged as he yelled, "Savy, baby? Oh my God, are you okay?"

  Pulling me across his lap and into his arms, I heard the shattering anguish in his voice as he grabbed something and wrapped it protectively around me.

  "MEDIC!" he yelled, while I continued to lay there numbly in shock. "I need a damn medic."

  Amid the shouts of the people who had entered my house and room, I began to calmly float away. Someone came and gently removed me from Gage's arms. The light in my closet was flicked on, and the blood and damage was there for everyone to see.

  I slowly opened my eyes as Gage released me into someone else's care. Using every ounce of life left in me, I pinned my eyes on his as my hand slipped through his fingers and fell to the side; blood slowly dripping from the tips.

  Then my eyes closed and I slipped away into nothingness.

  Monday - June 17, 2013

  Recovery

  The click of a door pulled me from a deep sleep and I tried to pry my eyes open slowly. I could tell I was lying in a twin bed, propped up slightly, and the lights were turned down low. My head rolled to the left and I spotted an IV machine, along with some sort of monitor. My eyes followed the IV tube down and into my arm.

  I noticed the bandages wrapping my wrist and hand for the first time, and wiggled my fingers experimentally. Rolling my head back to the right, I saw through the cracks in the blinds that the sky had yet to turn light. A slight movement caught my attention and pulled my gaze from the window to the edge of my bed, where I found a figure sitting in the chair beside me. His upper body was slumped across the mattress, and I had a moment of confusion before I realized who it was. Gage.

  His beautiful dark head was resting on one arm, while his other arm was stretched out and holding my hand. I don't know how I’d initially missed the feel of his hand, because now that I saw it I could feel the reassuring warmth radiating up my fingers and into my arm.

  The strong rhythm of his breath as it moved in and out testified that he was truly sound asleep. For a moment I just lay there quietly, drowsily watching his chest rise and fall, and then everything came crashing down on me and I gasped for air.

  The medics pulling me out of Gage’s arms as he cried my name over and over. His voice as hoarse and dry as a creek bed in the desert. The feel of the scratchy blanket they used to cover my exposed and battered body.

  Before that, the sound of his voice whispering in my ear. Crazed and maddened. Telling me to beg, whining that he’d only wanted a date. The feel of his depraved mouth on my lips, on my skin…his cold fingers groping my body.

  My limbs began to shake uncontrollably. My shoulders crumbled in and my head hung low until I was wrapped into a cocoon of my own making. I raised my arm with the bandages and IV up to cover my mouth to keep from waking Gage. Sobs racked my body, and in mere moments I choked on one so loudly that it sounded like a scream had been ripped from my chest.

  Gage popped up immediately and his hand clasped mine tightly. His free arm scrubbed over his face and hair. "Savannah?" He spoke softly, like he was trying to comfort a wild deer.

  It took just a moment for wakefulness to fully hit him and he leaned toward me; crouching beside the bed.

  "It's okay, baby. Do you need the nurse, Savy? You're alright," he soothed, running his hand up and down my arm while I cried louder and louder.

  I couldn’t speak as I laid there with my eyes streaming with tears. I wanted him to hold me and make the pain go away, but I couldn’t seem to force anything coherent out.

  "I'm going to get the nurse."

  I gripped his hand and shook my head slowly. The dim lighting from a night light in the room cast shadows over his face, and I couldn’t imagine how dark my own face must look to him. He leaned in to get a closer look at me.

  His voice pleaded with me, heartbreakingly deep and thick from sleep or maybe emotion, I couldn't tell. "Savy, what can I do for you? Tell me, please?"

  "Stay," I managed between bouts of tears, and then, "Hold." The words came out like a toddler begging for treats, but he still understood them.

  Slipping onto the narrow bed beside me, he wrapped me up in his arms and pressed my cheek to his chest. I continued to wail huge, unending torrents of tears that streamed relentlessly down my face and soaked his shirt. His hand ran softly and reassuringly through my hair, stroking it away from my wet face.

  Under my face I felt his own chest shaking, and the hand that held my face trembled as his fingers tenderly rubbed my tears away. I wanted to try and fix whatever was hurting him, but I didn’t know how. My own pain was magnified tenfold at knowing he was hurting too, and I closed my eyes to block out the image of horror I’d seen on his face when he found me in that closet. I laid in his arms and cried until I exhausted myself; finally falling into a dreamless sleep.

  When next I awoke, I found myself still wrapped securely in Gage's arms. Sometime in the night he had twisted his body so he was lying on the bed and I was angled over his chest. I opened my eyes carefully and looked up at his somber face as he lay there. He stared out the window as sunlight started to peek through. His jaw was clenched tight, and his muscles flinched as he swallowed. I noted that his eyes looked tired and puffy. There was also a suspicious sheen on his cheek, and I watched as he lifted his hand to rub both of his eyes before taking a deep breath.

  "I didn't think I was going to make it in time," he offered quietly. His arms tightened around me and his voice caught as he spoke again. "I didn't think I would make it, Savy. I was more scared than I’ve ever been in my life."

  "I'm okay." I said it softly, halfheartedly, because I wasn't sure how I was at the moment, but then I thought of something else. Clearing my dry throat, I spoke as clearly as I could manage, trying to ease his pain. "Gage. You did make it. You made it, and you saved me," I finished on a whisper, and mumbled it again as the tears came back. "You saved me."

  The nurse who came in to check on me a little after nine a.m. smiled at Gage and I when she walked in and saw us huddled together on the small bed.

  "Savannah, honey, I need to check your vitals and then breakfast should be coming around."

  I nodded in acquiescence and let Gage climb from the bed while she checked my blood pressure and read the other vitals. Gage wandered over to the window and cracked the blinds slightly, looking out.

  "I need to check your wounds now," she said. For a moment I wondered why she said it in that manner, but when Gage
spoke up I understood.

  "I’ll wait outside." He nodded and then started to leave.

  "No," I insisted, and held my hand out to him. "You can stay. He can stay - it's alright."

  She smiled softly and began to unbutton the snaps on the front of the gown I was wearing. I closed my eyes and held my right hand out, sighing in relief when Gage took hold of it.

  She pulled the gown as far down as she could without exposing me to Gage. It wasn't like he hadn't seen it before, but of course she didn't know that.

  "The cut on your chest is just a surface wound. There was one spot where it went in a little deeper, but it was so small that a butterfly Band-Aid was all that was needed for that." She spoke clinically now, with a soft pleasant voice. Her fingers probed the area around the bandage and then moved to my shoulder.

  "This one was much deeper and did require stitches. It looks good, though - no excess bleeding. Your wrist was the worst one because it hit an artery. We managed to sew it up, and although you lost a lot of blood, we were able to keep from giving you a transfusion."

  "How do you feel? Any pain, dizziness?" she asked as she picked up my chart and made a few notes.

  "I was injected with something…" I whispered; trailing off.

  Gage let go of my hand and stalked back over to the window. His back was stiff and his hand lifted to his neck; rubbing it.

  The nurse watched him for a moment and then smiled reassuringly at me. "Yes, we believe it was most likely a pretty basic drug, common to what many call the 'date rape' drug. But you were in a slight state of paralysis for a while, so we aren’t completely sure yet. We’ve been pumping you full of the IV to flush anything lingering out of your system. And of course, we’ve been administering some painkillers through there as well."