Chained

by Escalera, Tessa

  “Go around front. We need to get on the road. We'll never make it in the back country.”

  I had already rounded the second corner. This was the front of the house, with the door and the porch. A white van loomed out of the darkness and I swerved, barely missing it. At the edge of the headlights' beam, I saw Travis pelting toward us. I floored the gas and we leaped forward, toward the opening in the fence ahead.

  “Sophie!” I screamed, when I saw what lay in front of us. “There's a gate!”

  “Keep going. We'll make it.”

  I couldn't help it. As the truck sped forward, to what seemed like our inevitable doom, I screamed. The truck hit the gate with a crash, and then there was a screech as the chain broke and the metal barrier was pushed to the side by the force of our momentum.

  “Which way?” A thin, rutted dirt track was in front of us. Anything more than a few feet ahead was obscured by the driving snow. Ahead in the gloom, I could see where the track ended at a wider dirt road.

  “Left!” cried Sophie and I spun the steering wheel in that direction. The truck's rear tires skidded against icy rocks as we turned. I lowered the gas even further and yanked the wheel again and we righted, speeding down the dirt track in the dark.

  “How do you know this is the right way?”

  “I don't.” I glanced over at the breathless sound of Sophie's voice, to see that she was pale and slumped back against the seat.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Just don't crash us, okay?”

  I squinted to see into the dark, wheel clutched tight in my hands. I gulped deep breaths, trying to calm the fierce pounding of my heart. “I'll do my best.”

  As we sped down the road, two pinpricks of light appeared far behind us. “Travis is chasing us.”

  “Well, don't let him catch us.”

  The jolting ride was making me nauseous and sore, but I kept the gas pedal down. The truck rattled as if it would fall apart at the seams. Please God, let it hold together. Let us get out of here. Please.

  Try as I might, I couldn't get any farther ahead of the vehicle behind us. At least he wasn't drawing any closer. I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead, hands gripping the wheel so tightly that my hands were sweating, despite the cold air in the truck cabin. With a strange shock, I realized that the radio was playing. Country music. In any other setting I would have listened greedily to the crooning guitars. It had been so long since I'd heard music.

  After what seemed like hours but was only about 10 minutes by the dashboard clock, I began to see lights in the distance in front. These lights were passing slowly from left to right and right to left in my field of vision.

  “A road!” I exclaimed. “Sophie, it's a real road!”

  “That's great,” Sophie groaned. Her eyes were closed. “Just keep driving.”

  Travis was slowly gaining on us. I drove as fast as I dared. With excruciating slowness the highway approached. The snow was swirling even faster now, the flakes beginning to stick on the ground.

  The last bit of dirt road was down a hill and around a curve that made me scramble frantically to keep the truck from spinning out.

  With a sudden bump, we were on the road. I shrieked and pulled the truck to the right, jerking it into the right-hand lane as a semi truck roared past us, horn blaring. My heart was in my throat, pounding so hard I could barely breathe.

  As we accelerated, I looked in the rear-view mirror to see a white van brake hard at the edge of the road, as Travis had to wait for a few cars to pass before he could merge. I pushed the truck faster and faster, trying to match the speed of the rest of the cars. We were on a four-lane highway with a black and white sign blurring past that proclaimed a speed limit of 75mph. I went as far over that as I dared.

  Sophie was panting, her face so pale she looked like a ghost. “What's wrong?” I asked her after a glance made my heart drop into my stomach.

  Sophie moved her hands from where they were clasped in her lap. I gasped when a glance revealed the huge red stain between her legs. “What's going on?”

  Sophie leaned forward and retched, strings of vomit falling to the floor in front of her feet. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with her hand and leaned back, clutching her stomach. “If I had to guess...miscarriage.”

  “You're pregnant?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why did Master...”

  “He doesn't know.”

  The detached part of my brain wanted to laugh at the part that suddenly felt like crying. She'd known she was pregnant but hadn't said anything? “Why??”

  “What was the point?”

  A big, fat, traitor tear rolled from my eye to splash on the steering wheel. “He would have left you alone if he'd known.”

  Sophie groaned and turned to lean her head against her window. “I don't care. I didn't want to birth that bastard's child anyways.”

  Another death. Another life destroyed. This is so senseless. Even while Sophie's harsh words shocked me to the core, on some level I understood. My own baby writhed in my belly as if sensing my thoughts.

  As I blinked the tears from my eyes, I happened to catch a glimpse of the fuel gauge. “We're almost out of gas.”

  Sophie let out a sound that sounded much like a whimper. “Keep your eye out for gas stations or hotels then.”

  “But we don't have any money!”

  “Think, stupid. Where else in this forsaken land do you expect to find a bunch of people in one place? Security cameras? Police?”

  People. Sophie was right. Travis and Master did their work in the dark, protected by the privacy of their rural location. People could help us.

  After a few more moments by the clock (which was obviously incorrect, seeing as it showed the time to be 4:12, and it was neither afternoon nor early morning), I saw a grouping of lights in the distance. I couldn't tell if any of the lights behind us were Travis in his van.

  The truck had begun to sputter alarmingly by the time we reached the exit ramp. I coasted down the incline toward the tall sign with the bright yellow shell on it, braking at the end to turn into the parking lot.

  Behind me, a white van turned into the lot as well.

  Chapter 13: Action and Reaction

  I skidded the truck to a stop in front of the gas station doors, yanking the stick into park. The white van stopped behind me, blocking the truck into the parking space.

  “Go without me,” Sophie panted.

  I didn't have time to argue. I threw my door open and stumbled out, slipping on the icy pavement. Behind me, the door to the van slammed shut. I ran to the double glass, pulling one open to the tinkling of little bells. A scruffy man sat behind the counter, reading a magazine. Behind him was a monitor showing the views of the security cameras. I stood there in black and white, my hair wild and crazy, my eyes full of fear, my faded nightgown and swollen belly looking so strange surrounded by the normalcy of the convenience store.

  The man looked up as I burst into the store. “Help me!” I yelled, falling against the counter. “He's holding us captive! Help!”

  The customers in the store screamed as the bell tinkled again and behind me in the monitor I saw Travis, advancing toward me. My heart dropped at the sight of what he held in his hands.

  A gun.

  The gas station attendant's hands flew into the air as the magazine slapped to the floor.

  “Please!” I screamed at the frozen attendant. “Call 911! Call the police!”

  “Don't you dare!” Travis growled, brandishing the gun. One of the customers, a rotund man in his 50s, edged toward the door.

  Without any change in expression, Travis's aim changed. The man crumpled to the floor, a red dot in the middle of his forehead, as the sound of the shot echoed from the glass of the windows. More screaming ensued from the other customers, one older lady and a teenage couple with lots of tattoos and piercings.

  It's strange what details you remember about traumatic events. I saw everything. Every bag of
chips on the rack beneath the counter. The whirling of the slushee machine. The shaking of the attendant's hands as he lunged for the phone on the wall. The crack and flash as he crumpled to the floor, blood blossoming on his shirt.

  By this point I was facing Travis. His face was cold, expressionless. No emotion, no remorse. “Please, don't hurt them,” I begged. “They didn't do anything!”

  The gun lowered until it was pointing straight at my heart. “You have disobeyed the Master. There must be retribution.”

  My knees gave out and I sank to the floor, tears burning in my eyes. “I'm sorry,” I sobbed. “Please. Please stop.” My head was spinning with an overload of adrenaline. I didn't realize I had fallen until I felt the cold of the floor beneath my cheek. “Please don't do this. Please don't kill me.”

  Travis laughed coldly. “Why would I kill you? You're carrying the next generation.”

  There was a sharp pain in the back of my head, and everything spiraled into darkness.

  ***

  When I woke, my thought was that I had dreamed of escape.

  Then memory rushed in, and I sat up in a panic. I had escaped. There had been a desperate flight. A gas station. Gunshots...

  As memory flooded in, I began to freak out. I stood up and fumbled for the chain to turn my light on.

  Clank. There was something on my wrist. As I lunged around feeling for the chain, the metallic sound continued. I found the chain and yanked, it, illuminating the cell with light.

  A chain. A thick manacle surrounded my wrist, and a heavy chain joined it to the wall. I wasn't in my old cell. The chain was connected to a loop of metal that protruded from the cinder-block of the walls. The cot was in the center of the room. Just to my left against the wall was a sink, and just past that a toilet. There was no desk, no chair, no window, no bathroom. Just the cot, toilet and sink, and a chain barely long enough to let me reach all three.

  Something inside of me broke, and I screamed. I ripped the blanket from the cot and threw it at the door on the opposite wall. I kicked the base of the sink, crying out at the sudden pain. I sank to the floor, clutching my injured toes that joined in with the throbbing of my head.

  The door opened and Travis stood in the doorway. His face was cold. There was no sign of the friendliness I had once seen from him. No, this was another man entirely. Ruthless. A cold blooded murderer. I had watched him shoot two people simply for trying to survive. A psychopath in the purest form of the word.

  I don't think any words came out of my mouth. My mind was filled with pure hatred for the man standing before me. I snarled, straining against the end of my chain, reaching for him with a clawed hand.

  Travis strode forward until he was just out of reach of my fingers. “Now Sarah, you need to calm down. You're going to hurt the baby if you let yourself get so agitated.”

  “Let myself?” I shrieked. “You killed two people! Just shot them for no reason!”

  “They were obstructing the mission. They had to be stopped.”

  “The man was just trying to get out! The attendant was just trying to get to the phone!”

  “Either one would have brought the police. They had to be stopped.”

  I collapsed on the bed, sobbing. My chest hurt like my heart was trying to stop beating. “Why??”

  “You disobeyed the Master. If you had not escaped, those men would still be alive.”

  “I didn't kill them!”

  “Your hand was not on the trigger, no. But you had a part in their death, as surely as I did.”

  I spat at him in hatred and screamed at him. “It's not my fault! You killed them!”

  “If you say so.” Without another word, Travis turned on his heel and left the cell, closing the door behind him.

  I sank onto the cot, sobbing bitterly. I lay down and drew my knees as close to my chest as I could and clasped them with my hands.

  My fault. My fault. I did this. I could have prevented it. Even though the rational part of my mind knew that I had not killed those men, my heart refused to believe. God, I killed them. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. They're dead because of me. I am a murderer.

  I sobbed until my lungs protested, the iron manacle chafing my skin. I was shaking with exhaustion and adrenaline, lightheaded and dizzy. I cried until my nose was completely stopped up and my throat was dry.

  Finally sleep claimed me. I surrendered willingly, preferring anything my dreams could conjure to the nightmare that was my reality.

  I stand on a plain, gray and featureless as far as I can see. My gown whips around my ankles. Specks in front of me approach quickly until they turn into shapes. People.

  Across the plain walk my companions in captivity. Jenny, Annabelle, Essie, Sophie. They walk in a line, silent and ghostly, their faded nightgowns flapping in the cold wind. They walk forward until they stand before me, their faces pale, their hair limp and tangled, their eyes dark shadows.

  I raise my arm, as if it belongs to someone else. In my hand is a gun, cold and black and shiny. I cry out and try to lower my arm, but I can't.

  Bang. Jenny falls. Red blossoms over her heart.

  Bang. Annabelle crumples, a hole in her forehead.

  Bang. Little Essie collapses, clutching her belly.

  Bang. Sophie jerks backward, hands over her chest.

  I stand with arm outstretched, smoke drifting from the muzzle of the gun and wafting away on the wind.

  I have killed them. I have killed them all.

  It's all my fault.

  I woke an uncertain amount of time later, my head pounding and my tongue thick and fuzzy with dehydration. As I stumbled to the sink and gulped hand-fulls of water, I realized that sleep could, in fact, be worse than reality.

  I crawled back into my bed and cried silently, not bothering to wipe the tears as they rolled down my face. My escape plan had been foiled, and this new cell offered no hope of any more attempts.

  Now I was truly hopeless. Now I had nothing to look forward to except darkness, pain and suffering. There was nothing to entertain my thoughts, nothing to break the monotony. Nothing but bare gray walls, the aching coldness of the chain against my wrist, and the kicking of the baby in my belly.

  I had no way of knowing day from night, one hour from another. There was nothing to tell time by except my meals. I lay on my cot and shivered in the cold, desperately wishing I hadn't thrown my blanket out of reach.

  Suddenly I realized something. Sophie. What happened to her?

  I stood and walked as far as I could, until I strained against the end of the chain. “Sophie!” I called. “Sophie! Are you there?”

  Only silence answered, echoing my voice back at me. Maybe she was just sleeping. Maybe she was unconscious. I remembered the blood on her gown.

  Suddenly I couldn't breathe. I stumbled back to my cot and fell to my knees next to it, clasping my hands in front of my face.

  God, help me. Help Sophie. Forgive me for making her part of this. Forgive me for escaping. Two men are dead because of me. I don't know how to live with this. Please God. Forgive me. Forgive me.

  They were dead. Sophie, the men at the gas station. It was my fault. I might as well have held the gun to their heads. My chest ached with the intensity of the pain in my heart.

  It was all my fault. I was a murderer.

  I laid against my cot and sobbed, screaming into the darkness, clutching my aching chest and stomach beneath my hands. I had never wanted so intensely to die. This wasn't the absence of hope...it was the hatred of life. It was the hatred of myself.

  A thought hit me and my mind went cold. I stopped crying. I opened my eyes and looked down at the chain around my wrist. The metal lay against my skin, frigid and dark. All the emotion drained from me. I took a length of the chain and I looped it around my neck. I pulled the links tighter until the metal started to cut off my air. I sat there, the chain constricting my throat, and I waited. I waited as spots began to dance in front of my eyes. I waited as my head began to throb.

>   There was a sudden flurry of movement in my belly as the baby began to feel the lack of oxygen.

  What are you doing?? This isn't the way!

  It's the only way. I can't live like this.

  So you'll kill the baby too? The baby had nothing to do with this. If you kill the baby, how are you any better than them?