The Story Collection: Volume Two

by Matt Shaw

  “Petrol money!” I smiled.

  Seems only fair, I thought.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I don’t like the darkness.

  I feel as though I’ve already died.

  Nothing even moving from the limited depths of the blackness to make me believe there’s anything else in here with me. I know I’m alone but, even so, I can’t help but feel it would be nicer if my imagination was fooled into thinking there was something else in here. Some company for what could be my final hours.

  But I am alone.

  I know I am.

  Just me and my, for once, unwelcome memories which remind me that, once upon a time, everything was fine. Everything was nice. Normal. The more memories flood into my consciousness, the more desperate my current situation feels. The more upset I find myself becoming. My eyes are already sore from the tears already spilt. I can’t get upset. I can’t. I need to stay strong. I need to survive.

  Thinking of my memories, on my eighteenth birthday, my absent father bought me a RADO watch. Analogue clock-face with diamonds where the numbers twelve, three, six and nine are. I love that watch. I’ve worn it every day since I was given it - only taking it off when I go to sleep or wash. Right now, I’ve give anything for a Casio watch - one of the ones you can get from a market stall for less than a tenner.

  Digital display.

  A light.

  All that money spent on the RADO and it doesn’t come with a little light, to help see the screen. I guess the makers felt as though it’d cheapen their product.

  Be nice to know what the time is, though.

  I have no idea how long I’ve been in here.

  Could be hours. Could be minutes. Feels like hours. Not even sure how long I was in here before I woke up. No way of knowing.

  I wish I could turn the clock back to yesterday, even though I know it’s impossible. Wish I had let Kayla talk me into staying in for birthday drinks with my friends. Could have woken up in my own bed, instead of....whatever this is.

  I keep straining, occasionally, to try and hear anything outside but since the banging noise which originally woke me - I’ve heard nothing.

  Wish I could hear some voices.

  Someone.

  Anyone.

  Could be someone walking past.

  Could be whoever put me in here.

  I don’t care.

  If it’s the first group, they might hear me and help me out of here. If it’s the actual people who put me here - they might have pity and let me out...oh, who am I trying to kid? If they managed to think about putting me here in the first place, I’m sure they wouldn’t care if they heard my cries. Won’t care that I’ll die if left alone. Especially if it’s the same people who took my sister when she was sixteen - after what they put her through, this is tame.

  “HELLO? ANYONE?” I called out.

  My damned heart beating so hard it’s all I can hear.

  “PLEASE! IF ANYONE IS OUT THERE! PLEASE! LET ME OUT!”

  I paused.

  Nothing...

  Wait.

  What was that? Sounded as though a door closed. A door?

  I’m not underground?

  Of course I’m not. I woke up to a tapping noise. Most likely caused by nails being driven into the lid, pinning it into place. I’ve heard nothing since. Certainly haven’t heard the sound of soil, or anything, landing on the lid.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  It’s not over yet.

  I might still get out of here. For the first time, since waking up, I felt a little bit of hope wash through me. A little bit. Better than the feeling I previously had - no hope.

  “HELLO! PLEASE! PLEASE! LET ME OUT!”

  I waited, desperately hoping to hear someone outside again - if only to hear someone tell me to shut up. At least I’d know I wasn’t alone.

  Nothing.

  The sound of the door closing must have been them leaving.

  Not necessarily a bad thing, though. Maybe they’ve gone to get the ransom money. My dad already come through and paid to get me back?

  Maybe.

  Hopefully.

  There it is again; the wonderful feeling of ‘hope’.

  Just need to be strong a little while longer.

  “Nice and spacious, isn’t it?” said Kayla.

  I turned my head to the side and was pleased to note I was no longer lying in the claustrophobic blackness of my prison. Instead, I was sitting in the driver’s seat of my brand new mini - admiring the leather interior as the helium-filled balloons escaped into the atmosphere. Kayla was sat next to me. Oh good, another memory reminding me that everything used to be okay. More than okay.

  “I can’t believe they bought you a car....” she said, running her fingers across the cold leather of the door’s interior. “I want a car!”

  “You haven’t turned twenty-one yet,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll treat you just the same as they’ve treated me when the time comes!” Although, deep down, I’m sure they’ll treat her slightly better - not that I’m not grateful for this car.

  I put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine quietly purred to life. Nice.

  “I can’t wait that long, you think they’ll let me have it early?” she asked. I gave her a look - one I hoped told her not to be impatient.“Might talk to them in a couple of weeks,” she said.

  My look failed.

  “If they buy you a car now,” I said, “I want an expensive non-birthday present when you turn twenty-one too!”

  “That won’t ever happen,” she said. “You’re not the favourite...” she laughed.

  Blackness. Back in the cold box. Her words echoing through my mind ‘you’re not the favourite... you’re not the favourite... you’re not the favourite...’ meant in jest but taken literally in these circumstances.

  “Well how much do they want?” I can hear my dad asking my mother, who has answered the telephone to the kidnappers.

  “Half a million,” she’d say in a matter of fact tone. No emotion.

  “Go back and offer then £250,000 and see what they say,” he’ll counter-offer.

  Mum would turn her back to him, when she addresses the person on the other end of the phone. A couple of minutes will pass before they offer their own counter-offer which mum will repeat to dad as he controls the finances, “They said we could have half back, for that amount.”

  “Well, that seems a fair compromise.”

  I need to stay positive. I know I do, but it’s hard. My mind playing tricks on me; making me think mum and dad don’t love me enough to want to pay anything to get me back.

  “In our defense, we have another child... you were always the practice run,” whispered dad’s voice in my head. Not his voice. My imagination. My poisoned imagination - damaged by the situation it’s currently trying to deal with. It’s not my dad’s voice.

  It’s not my dad’s voice.

  Mum and dad always try and treat Kayla and I fairly. What they do for one, they usually try and repeat for the second. On the rare occasions they don’t - neither Kayla nor I moan about it. We were both raised to appreciate what we’ve already got. Even so, I really, really hope this isn’t one of the occasions where they don’t treat us equally.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I reversed the car into a tight parking spot, in the McDonalds car park, and switched the engine off. My sister passed me the large drink I ordered and the brown paper bag which contained my meal, having already taken her own food out, placing it on her lap.

  “Thanks for taking me out today,” said Kayla. “I’ve enjoyed myself.”

  I smiled. It was always nice to hear she had enjoyed herself doing something outside of the house. Even if we didn’t actually get round to leaving the car. I bit into my hamburger. Nothing like lining the stomach with garbage before what was likely to be a heavy night drinking with my university friends.

  I swallowed my mouthful and tried her one more time, “You sure you don’t want to come w
ith me tonight? Big group of us going.” I said. I thought she might feel safe in a large crowd. “It should be a laugh.”

  She shook her head, “No, thanks. I won’t know anyone.”

  One more push, “They’re a friendly bunch.”

  “Maybe next time?”

  I took the hint, “Sure.” I passed her my meal to hold onto, “Can you hold this a minute?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I shifted uneasily in my chair - my legs felt as though they were trapped under the steering wheel.

  “Just trying to get comfortable,” I said.

  I shifted my bum in the seat, to the right, trying to maneuver my legs around the steering wheel but this just made me aware of the lack of space I had in the chair; my elbow hitting the door.

  “There’s not much room in here, is there?” I tried to laugh it off but I could feel myself getting hot and bothered. I flicked the electric-window switch but it didn’t do anything.

  “Probably for the best,” said Kayla. “Noisy out there,” she pointed out into the car-park where a group of lads were mucking about, sitting on the bonnet of their cars whilst they ate their cheap burgers.

  “Just feel uncomfortable,” I said. I could feel the sweat starting to form on my forehead as the air got staler. Even the tightness of my wrist watch was starting to bother me as claustrophobia started to set in.

  “Turn the air-con on,” suggested Kayla. She was getting irritated too but not because of the lack of space she had - if anything it looked as though she had more space on her side - but rather, she was getting annoyed by the fact she still had hold of my food. Her own food getting colder on her lap with each passing second of my growing frustration.

  A few button presses later and I couldn’t get the air-con working either. The sweat now really dripping from my forehead. Each breath feeling hot and empty of anything even remotely worthy of being called oxygen. At least I can do something about the watch... I undid the clip on the strap and pulled it off my wrist, accidentally dropping it to the floor.

  “Shit,” I leaned forward to pick it up to save losing it under the chair.

  THUMP!

  “SHIT!”

  I had banged my head into the wooden lid of the box.

  Kayla laughed.

  I turned to give her one of my typical ‘fuck you’ looks. Back in the car.

  “Hurry up and take this back,” she moaned as she waved my meal in my face, “mine’s getting cold!”

  “Sorry,” I reluctantly took it from her and rested it back on my lap - trying my best to ignore my imagined feeling of being cramped.

  “What is wrong with you?” she asked.

  “Just feel funny...”

  “Probably nervous about tonight. You know what happens when you normally go drinking with your friends. One of you always ends up in trouble.”

  ‘One of you always ends up in trouble.’

  ‘One of you always ends up in trouble.’

  I wonder why that’s the only part of the fractured memory to echo in the small confines of my wooden box.

  “That’s why you should come out with me,” I said - choosing to ignore the echoing of her previous sentence.

  “I can’t,” she turned away.

  Okay, definitely don’t bring it up again. No reason to upset her.

  “Do you think we’d both be in here?” she asked. She was lying next to me in the box now.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I had chosen to come with you.... would we both have ended up in here?”

  I didn’t answer her. Just turned away. Looked dead ahead. Up to where the lid would be - if I could see it in the darkness. It was hard to say whether we’d have both ended up in here. Hard to say considering I don’t know who it was who had even put me here, in the first place. Maybe they’d have just taken me. Or, maybe, they’d have chosen to take Kayla - thinking of her as the weaker of the two potential victims.

  Victim.

  Is that what I am now?

  “I’m sorry,” said Kayla. “Had I known....”

  I turned back to her; to tell her not to apologise. After all, she’d done nothing wrong. None of this was her fault and I’d hate for her to think it was.

  She wasn’t there.

  Just a wooden wall made from what felt to be the thickest of timber.

  “It’s not your fault, Kayla!” I said - on the off chance she could hear.

  I wiped some sweat from my forehead. It’s hot as Hell in here. For all I know, this is Hell. I hope not. Eternity stuck here. So claustrophobic, everything is starting to annoy me. Even my shoes feel tight. Wiggling my toes, I can feel how sticky my socks are. I desperately want to get air to them. Get rid of my shoes, and socks, at least. But there isn’t enough room. Too cramped. Can’t lift my feet, or move around, enough to be able to kick the shoes off. Even if I could...

  Of all the days to tie a double-knot in my black and white Converse All-Stars.

  They’re not coming off. Just need to try and ignore them. Try and ignore the fact I even have feet.

  Why is it,the more you can’t move,the more you want to?

  I took a big gulp of hot air in. I knew I shouldn’t really but it felt as though it was the smart thing to do; like my body needed it. Craved it, even.

  “How did you do it?” I asked Kayla, as I sat on the edge of the dirty bed in the near empty room. She was huddled in the corner of the room, shaking. Her own kidnapper having only just left the room, doing his flies up as he made his most-welcome exit.

  Kayla didn’t answer me. Too busy crying. I stood up and walked over to her. My hand, on her shoulder, caused her to jump. “It’s okay,” I reassured her, “it’s just me.”

  I felt guilty making her re-live this moment, even if it were only in my head, but I wanted to know how she managed it. I needed to know. I thought, if I could understand how she survived her ordeal - I could learn how to survive mine.

  “Why us?” I imagined her asking me through her tears.

  I had asked myself the same question, many times, from the blackness of my Hell.

  I watched, unseen from the corner of the room, as the masked man forced himself upon Kayla for the second time that day. I’d have done anything to have been there, when it really happened. Anything. Even now, I’d love nothing more than to find the cunt who was doing this so I could end his insignificant life.

  It broke my heart to hear Kayla screaming for our mum. Sometimes dad. I kept telling her that everything was going to be okay. Kept whispering, from the eternal black of my box, that there’d be a phone-call soon promising what the kidnapper sought and that she’d be released. Back home with mum, dad and me. She’s screaming so loud, with each penetrative thrust, trying to push the man away. I can’t hear if she is whispering reassurance to me, too. Reassurance that there’d be a phone-call soon and the lid would be removed. Maybe I should take Kayla to a happier place, in my memories... somewhere where it’s easier for her to give me the same reassurances that I had given her - even if it were after the fact.

  “You never answered me,” she said from the comfort of the picnic blanket we had set up in the privacy of the family garden. She laid down on her back, looking up to the sky, and took a deep breath of the fresh air.

  “What’s that?” I asked as I laid down next to her. I too took a deep breath. Stale. Musty. Not pleasant.

  She took another bite from her sandwich, “Why us?”

  I took a bite from my sandwich; disappointed there was no taste other than the stale air I’d just breathed in. Ignore it.

  “I don’t know,” I told her. I don’t know. I hadn’t chosen to ignore her question earlier, when she asked the same thing. I honestly had no idea why these people kept picking on our family. Sure, it was well known that our father had money. He was involved in so many different companies it was impossible for people not to know. And some of the companies were global. Multi-million pound companies.

  “There’s lots of rich
folk in London,” said Kayla. “Why’d they choose our family again?”

  Why they chose our family the first time - when Kayla was taken on her way home from school... I don’t know. Someone spotted an opportunity, I guess. She was walking home, by herself. A thin, pretty little girl dressed in a school uniform... The world can be a sick place. But that is only a guess. I’ll never know why they originally targeted Kayla.