by Molly Wens
Carissa steeled herself for what was possibly going to happen next. The anticipation of the unknown danger was the worst of it, she concluded. Finally determining that she could stand no more of Kyle's silent leer, she turned her eyes to the driver.
"Where are you two taking me?” Her voice was calm, belying her inner terror.
"To town,” the driver answered disdainfully, drawing a snort from the passenger in the back seat.
"Don't lie to the bitch, Bert,” Kyle blurted in amusement. He leaned forward to run a hand down the sleeve of Carissa's coat. “Why don't you tell her what we have planned for her. It'd prob'ly get the whore off."
Carissa's mind raced as revulsion coiled in her belly. Her eyes darted about, hoping to see another vehicle or the lights of a house, as they climbed higher along the road. A glimpse of something caught in the corner of her eye. Turning her head she saw the useless rental car that had stranded her in the middle of this predicament go by in the passenger window. Her right hand began to ache, forcing her to relax her grip on the tool in her pocket.
Bert, the driver, guffawed loudly. “Yeah, remember that last'n? She pissed herself when she found out why her mamma told her she shouldn't hitchhike."
Kyle sniggered as he scraped his knuckle down Carissa's cheek, the sound growing louder as she instinctively jerked away from his touch. “You gonna be a fighter, girlie? I like ‘em to scream an’ kick."
Her mind would not focus on any one subject, flitting from this horror to that as she wrestled mentally with her situation. There seemed no way out of the mess, her plight was so hopeless: risk certain death in the frozen desolation of this wilderness, or face unknown terror with these two depraved freaks. Again, she felt the icy touch of Kyle's hand on her face, causing her to wrench her head back and her stomach to lurch a little more.
Kyle cackled malignantly. “This'n here is gonna be fun."
Bile, bitter and repugnant, was rising in her throat as the van slowed and turned onto another steep, narrow back road. With each mile, she could feel her freedom, her safety, her very life slipping away. Her eyes darted about, trying to remember every part of the darkened landscape in the falling snow. She had to find a way to escape, and then find her way back out of this place. Her fingers caressed the plastic handle in her pocket, waiting for just the right moment.
"Damn snow's gettin’ so thick I can hardly see the road,” Bert complained.
"Hurry yer ass up, Bert,” Kyle ordered. “I got me a itch that I want this pretty thing to scratch."
As Carissa glanced at the man in the back seat, he ran his hand over the bulging front of his trousers. Again, bile burned her throat and she breathed deeply to dispel the urge to vomit. The van made another turn. The new road was worse than the last, causing the vehicle to lurch and shake over its surface. She wondered how much further it would be before they got to the place where they would abuse, and most likely, kill her. The faces of her children flashed into her mind—her babies that still needed her. She had to survive this, if only for them.
"I'm getting’ tired of waitin',” Kyle yelled just before he grabbed Carissa and dragged her kicking form into the back seat, hauling her across his lap. He pulled her hair, yanking her head back and clamping his mouth over hers.
She gasped in horror as she lost her grip on the screwdriver. His breath was foul, the taste of him causing her to nearly lose her tight control over the actions of her stomach.
"Hold your horses, dammit, Kyle. I get some of that too.” Bert sounded enraged at not having first dibs, and sped the van up in an effort to reach their destination sooner.
Kyle released her lips and reached his free hand inside her coat to grip her breast. “I'm just gettin'er warmed up, old buddy. She tastes sweet. Can't wait to get my hands on that cunt.” He found and pinched her nipple mercilessly.
Carissa let out a cry of pain as she struggled to get loose. This only amused Kyle more, causing him to cackle louder. The pocket of her coat seemed to have taken on the proportions of a black hole as she fished around its confines in search of the screwdriver. Her other hand tried to fend off the loathsome attacker.
Kyle's drooling tongue darted over his lips as he grabbed the front of her blouse and yanked, the delicate fabric offering no resistance and shredding under his grasp.
"Shit!” he yelled, the lust gleaming in his narrow eyes. “Look at them titties, will ya? Big, ripe milkers!"
His cruel fingers clawed their way between the lace of her bra cup and the flesh of her breast. He pulled the flesh out of its confinement with a brutal squeeze.
The pain caused Carissa to scream. She struggled harder, feeling his fingers crushing together over her tender nipple. The center of his lust, hard as granite, was pressing into her back. “Let—me—go!” she screeched at her tormenter.
"Don't be damaging her none, dammit!” Bert was trying to turn in his seat to look at the two in the back as the van careened up another craggy incline.
"Mind the road, Bert. Get us to the shack.” Kyle yanked harder on Carissa's hair, snapping her head back as his other hand released her nipple to travel down her nude belly.
Carissa bucked wildly against this new assault, feeling his fingers digging inside her waistband. She clawed at his face with her free hand, trying desperately to stop him.
"Fucking cunt,” he bellowed, pulling his hand out of her pants and punching her in the face.
The world exploded into a million shards of colored light as she fell limply against his lap. She tasted blood in her mouth and felt its sticky heat spreading across her face from her nose. Through the haze of semi-conscious shock, she could feel his hand return to her lower abdomen, forcing its way downward inside her trousers and under her panties. He continued to claw his way in and down until his fingers found the slit of her sex. He pinched and pulled on the tender flesh, causing searing pain to rocket through her innards. She heard his breath coming in short gasps, and knew it wouldn't be long before he was on top of her.
She lay, without struggling, attempting to clear her sluggish brain. She heard Bert say that they were almost there, wherever “there” was, at the same time that her fingers finally closed over the handle of the screwdriver.
Kyle pulled his hand out of her pants then and lifted her head to his face. “Hear that, girlie? In just a couple of minutes me and Bert are gonna fuck you good."
Just then, seizing the opportunity, Carissa pulled the screwdriver out of her pocket and jammed it into his thigh with all her might, twisting it and pulling down. She knew a momentary victory as the lecherous creep released his hold on her hair. She grabbed the screwdriver again, shoving it in deeper and using it as leverage to bring her legs up and kick Bert in the back of the skull.
Bert fell unconscious while the van veered sharply and slammed into a tree. Carissa pitched forward, her head slamming into the center console between the front seats. Something struck her ribcage nearly knocking the wind from her lungs. She pulled herself upright and bolted for the door, only to have a cursing Kyle snag the back of her coat and drag her backwards. She pulled her arms out of her overcoat, turned and grasped the handle of the screwdriver again, twisting it savagely and causing blood to gush from his wounded thigh and all over her suit jacket. She didn't wait to hear his howl of pain, reaching for the door handle and sending it flying open.
Her feet hit the ground running, heading for the trees of the mountain slope. Her poorly shod feet slipped repeatedly, throwing the unprotected skin of her torso against the snow-covered mountainside. Between running steps and falls, she managed to button her suit jacket over the tattered remnants of her blouse. It afforded little warmth in the increasing winds and snow of the mounting blizzard. She thought of nothing except escape as she clamored upward along the frozen slope.
Her limbs felt like lead, her lungs burned with the fires of hell as she topped the ridge. She had to stop, if only for a moment, to try to get enough of the thin mountain air. As she gasped, she used her positi
on as a vantage point to survey the snow-covered landscape, glancing fearfully behind her to see if she were being pursued. She saw no one behind her. She could barely see anything at all as the biting wind that sliced through her thin clothing, drove the snowflakes into whirling clouds of white that all but blinded her.
She was lost, cold, bleeding, and worse yet, weakening; her body was shaking uncontrollably in the wintry forest that surrounded her. A voice, soft and sweet, called for its mommy in her mind, forcing her to move, to keep going in hope of finding help or shelter. Her feet felt numb and frozen, she knew that it wouldn't be long before frostbite set in. She had to get them dry and warm. Her hands were not in much better shape as she numbly pulled up the collar of her thin suit jacket. Her face and ears were so cold that they burned in the onslaught of the bitter wind.
Deciding it would be best not to walk along the top of the ridge in the driving gusts, she pointed her icy toes to the other side of the incline and away from the wrecked van and attackers below. Her feet slipped almost immediately, sending her hurtling down the steep mountainside. Sticks, rocks and other debris tore through her clothing, ripping her flesh as she clawed at anything that she could grip in order to stop her downward trajectory. The air left her body in a sharp grunt when a small tree caught her in the midsection, halting her descent.
Carissa lay still, gasping against the pain that wracked her body and the sparse, bitter air that burned her lungs. Every inch of her ached, the throbbing pain nearly causing her to black out. The survivor in her screamed for her to move, to keep moving, to not give in to the exhaustion that was eating her alive. There was a rustle somewhere on the slope above her, bringing the fear back to slash through the pain. She found the strength to lift herself upright, glancing anxiously back up the slope into the blinding snow and darkness.
Panic, something she had always refused to let win, was rooting itself deep in her psyche, and she struggled against its rising tide. She drew panting breaths as she forced her mind to think, to grasp at what the best next move would be. Her body was weakening fast, she knew, as the shivering nearly caused her to drop to her knees against the tree that she used for support. If she moved down the slope again, she figured there was a greater risk of taking another bad tumble, something she wasn't sure she could survive a second time. Climbing back up was nearly impossible, not to mention deadly, since her two attackers were on the other side. She chose to move laterally across the slope using the trees and brush as support to keep her from skidding farther down the grade.
Pulling her jacket tighter around her and blowing on her numb fingers in an effort warm them, she continued on her way. The blood dripping in her eyes from a cut in her scalp that she could not feel was cooling in the wind before she could raise her fingers to wipe it away. The farther she went, the more difficult her movements became. Each step sent jolting spirals of pain up her legs, muting the dull throbbing in her groin and left breast where the cruel hand of the man, Kyle, had brutally assaulted her flesh. The wind was picking up, knifing through her thin clothing. After what seemed like hours, she no longer felt the pain, or anything else. Her steps had become automatic, her eyes unseeing, as she trudged along in the deepening snow. Thoughts of her children kept her going, their joyful, shining faces appeared before her like mirages in the desert, their sweet voices ringing in her ears and drawing her onward.
The world began to spin, and she became vaguely aware that she was falling again. Another tree caught her, causing her to land in a soft bed of pine needles. "Get up!" that inner voice screamed and she pulled herself to a sitting position. She tried to clear her befuddled mind as she looked around her, realizing that she was not sitting in snow. The wind was not as sharp here, the ground not as hard. After a few moments, she realized that she was in the shelter of low-hanging pine boughs, their thick needles blocking the snow and wind, and offering a small bit of refuge.
With her numb hands, she dug a small burrow in the thick bed of dry, dead pine needles and settled her bottom into it, pulling the needles up over her legs and feet and leaning her back against the tree trunk for support. She needed rest, that much she knew. She also knew that if she tarried too long she risked falling asleep and freezing to death, and only the scavengers that hunted these woods would find her body. Pulling her collar up higher and hunching her shoulders, she managed to cover most of her face before putting her stiff hands into the pockets of her jacket.
She thought of her babies and what they must be thinking about, dreaming about in their little beds. She thought of her mother, and how proud the woman had been when Carissa had graduated college, started a new career, given her grandchildren. It was the thought of her ex-husband, though, that got her blood pumping again. He would use her absence to attempt to take the children from her mother, to rule over their lives as he had tried to rule over hers. With her father gone now, Carissa wondered if her mother would have the strength to fight the man to save her babies from that fate.
Renewed determination forced its way through the shuddering numbness, bringing her out of her slumped posture, fetching her head up as she blinked back tears. She would not give in to hopelessness; she was made of sterner stuff. Her fists clenched into tight balls at the anger that was taking hold, and she pulled them out of her pockets. She needed to take stock of her injuries, she decided, as she held her hands up to her face in the darkness. Something fell from the grasp of her numb fingers, landing on the pile of needles in her lap.
She groped over the needles in the dark with her numb fingers until they closed around something with a definite shape. Holding the item inches from her vision helped little as she tried to identify it, and her numbed fingers could not feel the texture of it. Finally, she resorted to sniffing it, detecting the slight odor or sulfur. Matches! She had forgotten that she had picked them up at a restaurant in the airport. She was bringing them back to a co-worker who collected matchbooks from all over the world. She hugged the precious item to her throat and said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever power was out there.
Pulling her legs under her, she knelt and bent forward to build a fire. She wasn't sure if her kidnappers were pursuing her, or if the fire would lead them to her, but she had to have warmth. With a pile of needles built up and the rest of the combustible material pulled back, she struck the first match with stiffened fingers. It guttered in the breeze that filtered into her cave of pine branches and went out in a tiny puff of smoke. She tried it again, this time pulling off two matches and cupping her hands around the diminutive flame. Moving slowly, she brought the matches down to the pine needles, chirping in delight as they slowly offered themselves to the growing flame.
Carissa held her hands over the thin flames, occasionally feeding more needles into the fire to keep it from going out until she got some of the feeling back in her fingers. Tingling pain, excruciating in its pleasure, spread up into her forearms. By the light that the fire offered, she dug around in her little shelter to find small twigs and branches and build the burning pile until her face could feel its warmth. Soon she had enough wood to create a semi-heated area within the confines of the pine tree. The falling snow was insulating the branches over and around her, keeping the heat inside, for the most part. As her body warmed, her shivering increased to almost-violent proportions, forcing her to wait until the quivering subsided before she could gain control of her muscles again.
Next, she turned her attention to her feet. There was no feeling left in them as she gently pried her wet leather pumps away from the skin. Not knowing what frostbite looked like, she was unsure if any real damage was done. Her toes did not appear to be frozen, she was able to wiggle them under the sheer knee-high stockings she wore, and the skin was soft. Still, as she held them up to the fire to warm, the burning pain in her awakening feet was nearly unbearable. There was no way that she would be able to continue walking in her flimsy business shoes with their two-inch heels through the thick layer of snow that blanketed the ground.
To take her attention off her aching feet, she moved on to other parts of her body, taking stock of the damage done. Blood that had frozen in her hair was thawing, and coated her hands as she probed her scalp. Her face and head had sustained numerous scrapes and lacerations from the van's collision with the tree and her fall down the rocky, brush-covered slope. There was a large, deep, burning abrasion across her naked chest and several gouges on her bare abdomen, some of them fairly deep.
Removing her jacket and huddling closer to the fire, she discovered bruises and scrapes along her arms, ribs and back. She decided not to bother with her legs upon looking at the tears in her slacks; she could tell they were chewed up pretty badly.
Seeing the torn remains of her blouse, an idea dawned on her. The ruined garment slipped easily from her shoulders. Though the air around her had warmed considerably, the draft of wind seeping through the heavily laden branches felt like ice against her nude flesh. It only took her a moment to slide her wet jacket on over her bra.
Inspecting the white cotton blouse, she could see that nearly the entire front of it, from collar to hemline, had been torn away. What was left was filthy and blood-spattered, but that did not matter for what she had in mind. Digging around in the bed of pine needles, she found a rock that she felt was sharp enough to do the trick. With meticulous care, she removed the sleeves, half-cutting and half-tearing the fabric apart, just below the shoulders. What little remained of the front she cut away and split into several thin strips.
This should do the trick, she thought as she cut one of the strips in half and tied each smaller length of cloth to opposite corners of the back of the blouse. She quickly removed the jacket and slipped the blouse on backwards. She tied it at the small of her back, tucking the tail into her slacks, effectively concealing her front to offer protection where her jacket did not cover. With a shiver, she put her jacket back on and turned up the collar of her blouse, tying another strip of cloth around her neck to secure the collar to her throat.
