Path of Jen: Bloodborne

by Sidney Wood

  Three hours later, Jen was sitting on a bench near a different portion of the bazaar, watching the few people still walking in and out of the bazaar. She watched with little interest and even less hope. She was hungry and scared. The bazaar was closing soon, and Jen was worried that she would be out here on the street when it got dark.

  A car door closed nearby, making her jump. She turned and looked up the street toward the sound. A taxi was parked next to the curb and a slender man was leaning against the fender lighting a cigarette. He had his other hand cupped around the cigarette and lighter as if protecting the flame from a non-existent wind. “It’s him!” Jen thought. “He’s the creepy taxi driver from the airport. Oh great! Could things get any worse?" She looked back toward the bazaar hoping more than ever that someone she knew would walk out and save her.

  “Salaam,” said a man’s voice. Jen turned slowly, hoping it was not the driver.

  It was.

  She glared at him and looked away. He said something she couldn’t understand and sounded friendly enough, but Jen continued looking the other way. “English?” he asked.

  Jen’s eyes opened in surprise and she turned in her seat to face him. “Yes,” she replied. She didn’t want to give too much information away, but she realized she desperately needed help from someone. Maybe this was God sending someone to help her?

  “Are you lost?” he asked in heavily accented English. He looked around as if searching for her parent’s or friends.

  Jen considered how to answer. Finally she said, “Well, I guess so. I was at the bazaar with my aunt and we got separated. That was hours ago. I know she is looking for me, but…”

  He took a long drag from his cigarette and nodded in understanding. “American?” he asked.

  Again, Jen hesitated, but eventually answered, “Yes, why?"

  He smiled and took another long drag. He blew the smoke to the side out of his mouth and held out the cigarette to her. Jen shook her head and leaned away. He shrugged and took another drag. After exhaling, he said, “I thought so. I can always recognize a fellow American.”

  Jen raised an eyebrow and looked at him sideways in disbelief.

  “Really!” He laughed. “I was born in Chicago." The smile faded and he added, “My sister too." He paused to stare ahead as if remembering something. He took another long drag and let the smoke roll out of his mouth slowly. Jen turned her head to look away. Something about it made her uncomfortable. “We moved here to live with our uncle when our father died. Our mother was too sick to take care of us on her own. That was twenty years ago." Dropping the cigarette, he stepped on it and scuffed it against the pavement with his shoe. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

  Jen laughed nervously and said, “That will be a trick." To her utter embarrassment, she started to cry. She wiped the tears away furiously and sat up straight. “No! You will not cry!” she told herself silently. She took a calming breath and looked at the taxi driver. “I have no idea where that is. I just got to Tehran early yesterday morning.”

  The man looked confused and wrinkled his brow. Then he smiled and excitedly said, “You! You were the girl at the baggage area!”

  Jen looked down and nodded. She thought of her father chastising her for walking out alone. “I wish you were here right now dad. I need you!" She looked up and shrugged. If you had driven us I could just say “take me to the same place,” but we took a different taxi."

  The driver smiled and winked at her. “Do you think I don’t know the man who took you home? Come on! I’ll call him and then I’ll take you home." He swept his hand in a grand gesture, toward the waiting cab and stepped aside to let her pass.

  Still a little apprehensive, Jen knew this was the best chance she had. She smiled and stood up. She shyly nodded and walked past him to the taxi. He rushed ahead and opened the back door for her. Jen bent down and stepped into the cab. She slid into the middle of the back seat and felt hopeful for the first time in hours. The driver slid into the front seat and closed his door. He pulled a new cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it in the same cupping manner as he had outside. He rolled the front windows down slightly, and exhaled slowly, letting the smoke flow up his face and through his hair before drifting out the window. Some of it came into the back of the taxi and she coughed, but he left her windows up. Jen noticed that there were no door locks or window controls visible back here, and there was a clear plastic partition between her seat in the back and the front of the cab. She suddenly felt uncomfortable and changed her mind about trusting this man. She reached over and tried the door handle. It moved with no resistance and had no effect on the door. She instinctively looked back toward the bazaar for help, and against all odds, she saw her aunt standing near the street looking for her!

  Jen banged a hand on the partition and said, “Hey, I need to get out!" The man ignored her. She hit the plastic harder and shouted, “Hey! Can you hear me? I think I see my aunt! I see my aunt!" He started the car and pulled away from the curb without any indication he heard her. Jen pounded on the window as he drove her quickly past Aunt Fatima and away. Jen screamed as loudly as she could and pounded on the window. Through tear filled eyes, she saw her aunt turn toward her and reach out as Jen was taken. Jen screamed and watched as a shrinking Fatima held a hand to her mouth in horror and then ran back toward the bazaar.

  Chapter Four

  In the back of the car Jen sat, trembling. She had tried kicking and hitting the windows and doors, but nothing had worked. She tried screaming and crying, pleading and demanding, but those had not worked either. She also tried signaling to other drivers as they passed, but no one paid her any attention. She was frightened and still had no idea where she might be, but she knew that there was always some way to improve a situation. She was a sucker for shows with willful and creative heroes or heroines. She sat against the passenger side door and tried to think her way out. “What else can I try?” she thought. She tapped her foot on the floor and found it was solid. “Duh." She leaned back against the seat, about to give up when she remembered a show where a girl had been locked in a trunk. She had climbed through the back seat to get out. “Maybe I can get out by crawling through the trunk!” she thought.

  Jen began tearing at the back seat. She pulled at the top with no luck and then tried from the bottom where the seat-back met the seat cushion. She lifted up and pulled out. It moved! Jen wrenched the seat-back off of the tabs holding it to the framework between her and the trunk and stopped. The spaces between welded supports were too small for her to crawl through. There would be no escaping through the trunk. Jen screamed in frustration and turned back around. She didn’t bother putting the seat-back back into position she just sat against it and fumed.

  “No! I won’t let you do this to me!” she suddenly shouted. Jen turned around placing her back against the plastic partition. She maneuvered onto her side and put one leg up and over the back seat, and held herself up with her other knee on the seat and a shoulder against the partition. She began mule kicking the rear window. The first kick was awkward and she had to reposition to get a solid kick. The next one was better. The third was better still, and she was pretty sure the window gave a little. She knew she couldn’t break it, but she also knew they were held in by a rubber seal. She just might be able to knock it loose. She began focusing on kicking it toward the top passenger side corner. “There!” she thought excitedly as she felt the seal giving way. Two more solid kicks and she had pushed it past the seal on that whole side. She scooted to the other side and began kicking in the same fashion but even more fiercely. She shouted with each kick. After five good kicks, the whole back window tipped back and onto the trunk. It rattled there for a few seconds before sliding off and falling to the road behind them. They were going slowly at this point and it remained intact. Jen launched herself toward the opening and began climbing through just as the sky was blocked out. The taxi had just entered a garage of some kind. “Oh no!” she thought. “I have t
o get out right now!”

  The engine stopped and she heard the driver’s door as she was pulling her upper body out of the window space. She got one knee out before she saw the driver rush past her and pull the garage door down from outside. She scrambled out onto the trunk and rolled to the ground just as his feet disappeared and darkness overtook the garage. “No!” she shouted. “No! Don’t leave me! Please!" She pounded on the garage door.

  Jen pounded her fists against the door until they hurt. She kicked the door while facing it and then turned around and kicked it with her heels a few times. She screamed in frustration and tried to lift it. It was locked. She kicked it again and then collapsed against it, exhausted.

  Jen struggled to control her breathing and her racing heart. She sat still and tried to listen. She couldn’t hear anything of the world outside. Looking up in the darkness and folding her hands in front of her she prayed. “Dear God,” she said out loud. “Please! Oh God, please save me! Please, just let me go home!" Jen couldn’t help feeling terrible about how this would affect her family. She was guilt ridden on top of the fear and frustration she felt. “I didn’t even speak to my mom after the airport,” she realized. “What kind of daughter does that?" She dropped her hands to her knees and prayed again, even more desperately. “Dear God, please! If you help me out of this, I promise I will be a better daughter. I promise I will tell my parents about you! Is that what this is about? Do you want me to tell them? I will! Please!”

  She turned and sat against the door sobbing. Jen was tired and hungry and to make everything worse, she was pretty sure her period was starting. She clenched her fists and pounded them on her knees. “Come on Jen!” She hissed. “You can do this! Find a way out!" Climbing to her feet she began searching for a light switch, a door knob, a window; anything. “There has to be something here,” she reasoned. She searched blindly, moving along the wall to her left and touching everything. She found a workbench with a few pieces of metal and some bolts. Near the end of the bench she found a long wrench. She picked it up and tried putting it in her back pocket, but her pocket was too shallow and it kept tipping out. She tried her front pocket and that seemed to work okay.

  Jen continued along the wall to the far end of the garage. At about head level, about two feet past the corner, she found a light switch. She flipped it up and the garage she had been feeling her way around was instantly revealed. Jen felt a surge of adrenalin. “Where is another door?” she asked aloud. “There!” she answered when she saw a man door set back in a recess not far from the light switch. She rushed forward and tried the door knob. “Locked!" She pounded on it and yelled, and then pulled the wrench from her pocket and started beating on the handle. It was no use. The wrench did nothing but make little dents in the metal. It didn’t magically open the door.

  Jen looked around for another door or window. There were no other doors aside from the garage door they had arrived through. In fact, the garage was relatively bare except for the car and the workbench. “Okay then…what else can I use?” she wondered. Suddenly worried that the taxi driver might come back at any minute, Jen hurried to the workbench and searched for more tools. She found a flat metal tool with a tapered end and a handle. It looked like a scraper or a poker of some kind. The end was tapered but flat, like a stubby knife. The rest of the blade was uniform thickness and width all the way to the handle. For some reason the word “Chisel” came to mind, but she wasn’t sure if that was right. She put it in her other pocket and kept looking. There was nothing else.

  Jen turned to the car and tried the driver’s door. “It opened!" She looked in the door pocket and under the seat but there were only cigarette butts and gum wrappers. She found nothing of use. She stretched and leaned to reach the passenger side and opened the glove box. It was empty. She looked under the passenger seat too. “Nothing." Jen climbed back out of the car and headed to the door by the light switch.

  She pulled out the chisel and looked at it for a second. She put the tapered end in the space next to the door latch and began working it back and forth, trying to get it far enough in there to pry. She pulled out the wrench and began whacking on the handle, trying to hammer the chisel deeper. Soon it was solidly wedged in the door crack and Jen began prying on it to force the door open. It didn’t budge. “Come on!” she yelled. She dropped her hands in anger and then stepped back. She took a few calming breaths and looked for a better way. “The hinges are on my side!" Jen yanked the chisel free and started on the middle hinge. She used the tapered end again, only this time instead of forcing it into the door crack she used it to pry the hinge pins up and out. The first one was pretty easy once she tapped the chisel under the head to get it started. The second was a little harder for some reason, but it finally came out. The last one was the worst. It was the bottom hinge and it seemed welded in place. Jen tried everything she had done to get the other two out, but this one didn’t want to budge. Finally, she got angry and hit it as hard as she could with the wrench. That must have knocked something loose because the next attempt with the chisel popped the pin up and she was able to work it out with little additional trouble.

  Jen didn’t waste any time. She used the chisel again to pry from the back of the door and swung it out and free of the hinges. Once past the hinges and the door frame she pulled it away from the latching mechanism and let it fall against the wall. She ran out into the hall and as far from the garage as possible. When she reached the end of the short hall, there was another door. “Not locked!" She opened it hesitantly, and found herself at the back of an empty store front. Large windows facing the street in front of her let in the evening light. It looked like no one had been there in a long time.

  Frightened but feeling energized by her success so far, Jen raced to the front door and tried to push the door open. It was locked. “Ugh!” she yelled. She raised the wrench to strike one of the windows and hesitated. “Won’t I get into trouble for breaking a window?" She immediately felt stupid for worrying about the window when her life was in danger. “Sorry, store guy,” she said under her breath as she swung the wrench at the tall window next to the door. There was a loud “Crack!” but the window was still intact. She swung again with all her might and this time the window shattered. The sound was deafening, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting out. Carefully avoiding the sharp glass still sticking out of the window sill, Jen stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of the shop.

  Just then a vehicle came around the corner and toward the shop. It was an old beat-up minivan. Jen could see two men in the front seats. She put her head down and began walking away from the store and the van. She dropped the wrench inside the store when she broke the window, but she still held the chisel tightly in her left hand. She tried to keep it hidden as she walked quickly away. The van slowed in front of the shop for a second and then raced toward her. Jen heard the van accelerating and ran as fast as she could.

  The van screeched to a stop next to her and she heard the doors open as she ran by. Jen ducked into the first alley and ran on. Ahead of her was an opening to another street. She could hear the men behind her and she screamed, “Help me!” as she ran. “Anyone! Please, help me!" She skidded and threw her body weight to the left, trying to duck around the next corner as quickly as possible. What felt like a hammer slammed into her right shoulder and then held on as it dragged her spinning to the ground. She heard the chisel clank against the pavement and go skidding away from her. “No!” she shouted as she tried to break the vice-like grasp someone had on her arm. “Let me go!”

  Jen felt hot breath on her neck and strong arms wrapped around her tightly. She smelled leather, cigarettes and spiced sweat as she struggled to get free. “Let go!” she yelled again. “Help!”

  The man holding her spoke calmly while he regained his breath and tried to subdue her. He had a soft voice, but he was squeezing her so tightly that it hurt.

  “You’re hurting me!” she cried.

  “Sh-sh-sh-sh,” he s
aid. He spoke to the other man in Farsi, and Jen could not understand any of it. She glimpsed a thin man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a Member’s Only jacket squatting next to her. He seemed to be reaching out to her and then everything went dark.

  Jen felt the cloth bag against her face. It smelled of sour breath. “Oh no!” she thought. “They’re going to kill me!" Images of prisoners in orange jump suits and wearing black bags over their heads raced through her mind. Jihadi’s dressed in black would make them kneel in the sand and then dramatically pull the bags off of the prisoners’ heads. One of the men dressed in black, usually one with a British accent, would say something about western politics or policies and put a knife to a prisoner’s throat. At the end of the video, the prisoners always died in the most gruesome way. “Is that what is happening to me?” Jen wondered. She began to hyperventilate.

  She heard the man holding her speak again, and the other man answered as if irritated. A hand grasped her left shoulder and she felt a sharp prick. “Ow!” she yelled. A dull pain spread through her shoulder and she suddenly felt hot. Then the heat was slowly replaced with a cool, refreshing feeling. She felt exhausted and began thinking of sleep. The strong arms that were wrapped around her actually felt comforting. Her head felt funny and her whole body began humming. Jen felt her body being lifted off of the ground and she wondered if that was okay. She drifted off to a place somewhere between sleep and waking. She was living in a black room, surrounded by a constant humming, and nothing mattered.

  Chapter Five

  Fatima sat at the kitchen table crying into her sleeve. Her husband, Mahmoud, stood frowning behind her with his arms crossed, chewing on his bottom lip. “How could I have lost her?” she said, barely above a whisper. “It is all my fault." She choked and began sobbing again. Mahmoud put a large hand softly on her shoulder.