Chained (12 page)

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?

The baby isn't born yet.  It doesn't know anything.

Do you want to die a murderer?

I'm already a murderer.

You didn't pull the trigger.  You could never have known Travis would do that.  It's not your fault.

What about Sophie?  If she's dead, it's because of me.

You didn't kill her either.  You didn't kill any of them.  Travis and Master did.  You wanted to survive.  They are the evil ones here.  You aren't a murderer...but you will become one if you do this.

I don't want to live!

The baby doesn't want to die.  Feel him thrashing.  He protests.  Don't do this.

I began to pass out and my numb fingers released the chain.  I slumped against the cot, gasping.  I couldn't cry anymore.  I couldn't even scream.  I held onto the edge of the cot, just breathing.