Hillary_Tail of the Dog (3 page)

Hillary sat upright as if doing a sit-up. She tried to swing at the man with her tightly-balled fists, but she could not get a good hit. Instead, she dug her fingernails into arm. That, too, did little, given the protective covering of his shirt and his flowing adrenaline. He barely felt it.

Finally, when Hillary’s struggles seemed to subside a bit, the man maneuvered the syringe to his mouth, bringing it between his teeth so that he could remove the tip cap. With Hillary starting to wriggle violently again, he released one of her legs so that he could properly hold the syringe. He did not want to risk stabbing himself with it.

Hillary thrashed about madly as the man held tightly onto one of her ankles. Placing his weight on her captive leg, he inserted the needle as deep into her calf as it would go while she continued her vain attempt to escape his grasp. She cried out in protest and pain. The man pushed down on the syringe to make sure that every last drop of the drug entered her system. “
NOOOOOO
,” Hilary protested, as the drug flowed within her veins, slowly making her weaker and weaker and weaker....

~2~

Hillary opened her eyes. She was groggy. It was dark—much darker than it should have been. She would have thought she was blind were it not for a few tiny beams of light she could see above her. Hillary raised her arm to touch the beams. Her hand hit a flat surface—like a ceiling.

No
, she panted, starting to sweat as the realization struck her hard.
This can’t be.

Hillary was in a box—some sort of coffin. She barely had room to stretch. She began banging on the roof of the box as she screamed at the top of her lungs.

“
Get me out of here
,” she shouted. She felt her knuckles growing raw against the rough texture of her enclosure. Still, she continued to knock against the ceiling of her tomb.

“
Please
,” she begged, as long streams of tears rolled down her cheeks and dampened her neck. “
Please let me out of here. Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?
”

Hillary continued banging and pushing up on the top with all her might, hoping to pry it open. It didn’t budge.

Fifteen minutes passed. It felt like fifteen years to Hillary. She was still stuck in the box the only difference was that she had sore, scraped-up knuckles and a hoarse voice from all the screaming she had done. She wondered where she was, though she felt confident that she was not buried underground, since she could see the beams of light from above.

Hillary listened closely to the sounds around her, hoping they might give her a clue as to her whereabouts. In the distance, she could hear a train passing by. She heard various birds tweeting and screeching. She was clearly outdoors. Though she had no idea what season of the year it was, much less what day it was, she could tell it was hot outside because she was sweating within her confined area. She caught a whiff of body odor and wondered just how long she had been in the box. It made her shudder. She began trembling. Though, she reasoned, it could not be that long, since she was not starving, nor was there any indication that she had wet her pants or worse—moved her bowels—within the box.

It’s a joke
, she thought,
it has to be…someone’s sick idea of a prank.

Hillary waited in silence as thoughts ranging from ludicrous to terrifying invaded her mind. As the hours passed on slowly, she envisioned hundreds of scenarios—from her rescue to her burial within the cold earth and her subsequent suffocation when the air ran out. She had moments of hope, followed by moments of despair, moments of intense fear and several moments of complete detachment where nothing mattered anymore and she just didn’t care what happened to her.

The beams of light grew dim and Hillary knew that it was nearing dusk. The only good thing about it was that it had started cooling off. Hillary had always been afraid of the dark. She began breathing heavily, growing anxious as she thought of the impending blackness. She couldn’t imagine how much longer she could stand being in the box. She cried quietly as she waited for the shroud of darkness to engulf her.

Hillary awoke after drifting off. It took her a few moments to remember the predicament she was in. Yet, it wasn’t dark in the box as she has anticipated. Did she sleep through the night? She winced at the bright light beaming down from the holes at the top of the box. It was as if the sun was right over her. Then she heard movement, the sound of footsteps.

“Who’s there?” she yelled anxiously. “Help me! Please help me!”

No one responded, though Hillary knew someone was close by. She heard the jangling of keys, then the click of a lock being opened.

“Who’s there?” Hillary asked, praying that someone had come to rescue her, but she knew better. If it was someone there to help, they would have spoken up and assured her that everything was going to be all right. Besides, the only person who would have a key to her coffin would be the person who put her there in the first place. Overcome with dread, Hillary wished she were alone again.

Hillary squinted as the person slowly lifted the cover to the box. The lid was only open about six inches, but there was a bright lantern which illuminated nearly the entire tomb where Hillary lay, fearing the worse. She wanted to push the lid open all the way and run out of there, but she wouldn’t know where to go, and her captor would surely catch her. She could only imagine what would happen if she made the person angry. Then again, how much worse could it get?

“Please let me out of here,” she pleaded softly. She tried to look through the crack to see the person who had kidnapped her, but the light was too bright in her eyes. Her captor did not reply.

“Who…who are you?” Hillary asked hesitantly.

Still no reply.

Hillary heard the sound of paper rustling. Then the light was partially blocked by something being shoved into the box through the open lid. In the faint light, it looked like a bag. The person was shaking something from the bag into the box.

Food?
Hillary thought, and hoped it was. She had begun to get hungry.
Right about now a hamburger would be great. I’d even settle for a piece of bread, a cracker, anything.

Instead of a meal, Hillary felt tiny legs scampering over her legs, up her thighs, along her stomach, up her chest and toward her face.

She screamed as she thrashed her body about, trying her best to get the creepy crawlers off of her. She hated insects more than anything. She couldn’t identify exactly what was crawling on her, but she imagined spiders, cockroaches, beetles and ants. When she was about five years old, she was unfortunate enough to fall into the mound of fierce red ants. They quickly crawled up her body, biting her several times before her mother responded to her ear-piercing screams and pulled her up, hosed her down and applied first aid to twelve red, painful bites. That was years ago, but Hillary remembered it as if it happened yesterday. It was one of the most painful experiences of her life.

Now, as she squirmed within the cramped confines of the box, she knew she had no other choice. She didn’t care if her captor caught her or killed her—she had to get out of there. This was more torture than she could bear...so she thought.

She pushed up at the lid as hard as she could. It went up another few inches as she fought to sit upright and lunge out of there. Her captor dropped the bag in the box and slammed the lid down— hitting Hillary’s head in the processing and crushing three of her fingers under the weight of the lid.

Hillary screamed in agony as her head crashed into the side of the box. She did not lose consciousness, but wished she had. The intense pain from her crushed fingers grew more and more unbearable by the second—making the ant bites she sustained feel like a tickle in comparison.

Hillary’s vicious captor pulled the lid up an inch higher and then slammed it back down on her fingers before she had a chance to move them. Hillary could hear bones crushing and feel skin tearing. She was grateful that she could not see them. Her screams of protest and pain were ignored as her captor began pulling at the fingernails on her crushed fingers.

Hillary could only whimper in pain, praying that she would just pass out. She was beyond praying for rescue. She just wanted to die. It was amazing how quickly the will to live dissipated when pain became so intolerable.

She could feel her captor tearing pieces of her nails off bit by bit until the last shred of nail was off. Her captor then dug something sharp into the freshly sore, soft, sensitive center of the spot where one of her nails used to be. The pain was excruciating. Hillary howled out in pain.

“
Please
,” she sobbed, “p
lease stop hurting me. Why are you doing this to me
?”

Her captor remained silent and continued squeezing, scraping and poking at Hillary’s deep pink, bleeding fingers. She tried desperately to pull her hand away, but it was caught firmly under the lid and would not budge.

At last she could no longer feel her fingers. She didn’t know if they went numb or if her captor cut them off, but she was grateful that she could no longer feel the pain. Her gut-wrenching yells quelled to soft, piteous moans.

Her captor opened the lid again and shoved what remained of Hillary’s fingers back into the box. Her mutilated hand fell upon her left knee. The light went off and Hillary was engulfed by blackness. Insects continued to scurry about, crawling up her pant legs, on her neck, up her sleeves. Hillary lay motionless, with her eyes closed, ignoring it all. Her stomach began to grumble. It was the only noise she could hear now, the last sound she heard before becoming one with the darkness.

~3~

Hillary gasped as she woke up and opened her eyes. She was sweating and breathing so rapidly, she could hardly catch her breath. She was alone on a bed in an empty room. Her head hurt terribly. She could not remember anything. Each of her limbs was bound to a corner of the bed by thick ropes which felt dry and scratchy against her wrists and ankles. She looked over at herself to find that she was naked. There was no sheet on the bed to cover her—not that she would be able to cover up.

Where am I,
she thought, as she looked around the room.

There was a woman sitting on a stool to the right of the bed, reading a book. She turned to face Hillary.

“Oh, look who’s up,” she said, as she stood up, placed her book on the stool and walked over to Hillary.

“Where am I?” Hillary asked.

“Safe,” the woman replied without elaborating.

“Why are my arms and legs tied? Why am I naked? Why am I here?” Hillary asked nervously, growing increasingly hysterical as she fought against the ropes.

“Don’t struggle, you’ll only hurt yourself,” the woman said coldly.

Hillary looked at her with contempt. She was a tall, slender woman with her amber-colored hair up in a bun, except for a few loose strands that hung down to outline the sides of her face. She had dark eyes, a narrow nose and plump lips that were drawn together tightly in a smug manner. She was wearing jeans and a plain white tee shirt. She crossed her arms in front of her as she scowled at Hillary.

“Who are you?” Hillary asked softly, trying to relax. Surely there had to be a rational explanation for this.

“You can call me Monica,” she replied as she pulled a cell phone from her pocket, pushed a few buttons and held the phone to her ear.

“She’s awake,” Monica said, and after a brief pause, “okay, see you soon.”

“Please, I just want to go home,” Hillary whimpered.

“This is your home now,” Monica answered as she slipped the phone back into her pocket.

Monica looked at her with obvious disgust. It was clear to Hillary that this woman was no friend of hers and had no interest in helping her.

“Where are my parents?” Hillary asked, tears streaking down her cheeks.

“You really don’t remember anything, do you?” Monica asked as if up until now she believed Hillary had been feigning ignorance.

“No! I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t ...I don’t even remember who I am.”

Hillary cried as she tried to search her mind for memories—any memory at all. She couldn’t remember a thing about her identity or how she had gotten to this place.

The door to the room opened and a man walked in.

Hillary suddenly remembered her nakedness and tried her best to bring her knees together, to no avail. Overcome with shame and embarrassment, her face turned bright red as she looked away.

“Can you please cover me up,” she asked quietly.

“There’s no need for that,” the man said. “You’ve been here a long time. I’ve seen every inch of you already, there’s no reason to be modest.”

“Who are you?” she asked, turning her head to face him.

He was an average-looking man, except for the eye patch he wore.

“Dr. Morrison,” he replied. “Hillary, do you remember anything today?”

“Hillary? Is that my name?” she answered, which also answered his question.

Dr. Morrison was holding a notebook. He opened it and wrote something in it.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked Hillary.

“I don’t remember any—well, I think I had a bad dream,” she said.

Hillary was not afraid of Dr. Morrison. He was soft-spoken and didn’t look like he despised her, unlike Monica. She felt like she could trust him. After all, he was a doctor and he was there to help her…right?