by Indeaki Rune
I don’t know what happened.
This kid was calling my name from a car, he was buff and short. He had a mean looking dog and a woman in the backseat with him. The dog looked like it was well taken care of, white brushed hair with a beautiful blue collar which read Brian. However the woman was dirty and scuffed, wearing clothing that tended to blend with the background.
I didn’t think much of it.
I didn’t want to stop, my girlfriend and I had just come back from a double date and I was done partying for tonight.
I heard the kid swear and take the woman out of the car and placed her on the ground, drawing a device i had only seen in movies to her head.
A gun, pristine and well taken care of. It clicked and I new that the safety was off.
The woman wasn’t crying, only sweating and accepting her fate.
I raised my hands up in what I hoped to be a calming manner and the kid grinned, his square face and big eyes going wide in triumph. I was too frozen in shock to say anything to him.
“get over here!”
I slowly made my way over, hoping to delay the moment all the longer.
The kid took my hands and wrapped them up tightly in a rope and did the same for my knees before placing tape over my mouth. I was sweating badly and felt the need to run and hide forever. My hands hurt from the pressure of being twisted back so far and everything felt so tight.
He then grabbed something from behind him, I didn’t see what it was but when it banged against me all I felt was heavy and disoriented. The pain blossomed from the right side of my head and I swayed.
Somebody picked me up and placed me in the trunk, I felt light headed. As I looked up I saw the woman glaring at me and she uttered “you will feel our pain.” Then slammed the trunk on me.
I struggled and shouted and did everything I could but I couldn’t get out of my bonds. My screams were muffled anyways. Tears streamed from my eyes as the shock settled deeper into my system.
Air felt restricted and every fifteen minutes I would pass out.
My hands were raw and my mouth had accumulated a bunch of sweat.
I banged my head against the car and cried, shaking as I tried rocking it.
Nothing worked and it was silent.
*
I didn’t know how long I had been in there. It had started to get light through the cracks where I could see. I felt crusted and dirty, my head felt like it was swollen. Maybe because they hit me. My face was dried from all the crying and mouth sore from trying to shout. The uncomfortable position made my limbs cramp up and I was so tired.
I tried to nudge into a better position or maybe fall into a dreamless sleep but whenever I closed my eyes I could see the kid. It terrified me to death considering I didn’t know what would happen.
It’s unbearably hot and I am reminded that It’s probably day considering how much lighter it got. The trunk gets hot and sweat pours off from my efforts.
The trunk is not big, it’s very small in fact. I wriggle my toes to get some feeling back into them and then wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait for so long, dreading and also praying for the trunk to open.
It starts getting impossibly cold and I shiver, trying to scrunch up on myself to reclaim some body heat. I can’t feel my arms anymore, which is better than feeling the twisting pain.
I turn sideways and my back cracks, I make a muffled whimper as I try to force back my fear. Finally I end up going limp and trying to understand what I did wrong to deserve this.
I don’t believe in any god. I am in college, I am a bisexual male with lots of money.
Oh.
Maybe this was a money problem?
I tried to lift my body into one corner, maybe I could somehow signal somebody by pressing my fingers into the tail lights.
However it hurts to much to even try and shake my arms now, the pain racks up them and bruises form by minor movement.
I think of how I am studying to help children all over the world by becoming a counselor at schools and I sigh through the tape which has now become gross and sticky.
It ends up finally falling from my chapped lips and taking some skin with it. I breathe a sigh of relief and take huge gulps of air through it before testing my voice but it is much to crackly.
I lay back down.
There is a gentle wind and I fall asleep into blissfulness.
I dream that the kid shoots me in the mouth and I bleed out on the sidewalk.
Waking up was harder than usual. I wake up gasping, feeling something slick in my throat which I know might be blood or anything else. I miss human contact.
I feel anger. I try to move again but stop shortly after, reminding myself that I will probably die in here and two weeks later the police will find my body. Panic surges through my exhausted body. I start scratching frantically at the lid of the trunk, hyperventilating as my finger become caked with blood.
Dried tears agitat my face and I want to scratch my nose.
I finally am able to loosen my knees out of their ropes. When I try moving them it shoots a strange pain up my leg, a thousand pins at once and I let out a wail. It feels as if I have been here for generations, a rotting corpse. Maybe that’s what I’ve become. A corpse.
