Stunned by the blow to her head, Amanda was in and out of consciousness. Her thinking was cloudy but there were disassociated sensations she was aware of but couldn’t react to. She was aware of her limbs being grabbed and tugged while she was heaved onto a man’s shoulders. He lumbered up the steep embankment and her awkward position made breathing difficult, his shoulder compressing her stomach. Several times, he lost his grip and dropped her. There were brutal jolts and her face hit the dirt.
At the top of the overpass she was dumped onto the ground. Duct tape was wrapped around her mouth and hands, then she was unceremoniously heaved into the trunk of a waiting car. The trunk lid was slammed in her face and the car started. She felt it making a U-turn, then accelerating away from the scene of her abduction.
She felt the car winding its way back into town, the G-forces tugging her back and forth in the trunk. Between the curvy roads, her inability to see anything, and the blow to her head, she struggled with waves of nausea. That brought its own surge of panic. With her mouth taped shut it was likely she would suffocate to death if she vomited. She lost consciousness again, only waking up when she felt the familiar sensation of the vehicle ascending an onramp.
There was a moment of clarity where she realized she’d been kidnapped and the driver was merging onto the interstate. He was taking her somewhere. He was taking her away from her dad and her job. He was taking her away from the place where she was known. She might never be seen again. She’d seen stories like this on the news. It happened all the time. A girl went into a trunk and was never seen again. She did not want to be another of those girls.
The car was older and small, the trunk loud and minimally insulated. Her hands were trapped behind her back in a painfully awkward position. She rolled onto her belly and blindly groped around with her bound hands, trying to find some protruding piece of metal on which she could start the duct tape tearing, and after that the rest would go easily.
Her fingers found a curved extrusion of metal, what she thought might have been a piece of the trunk lid hinge. She painfully forced her arms upward. It was difficult and took maneuvering her entire body—legs, hips, and arms—to get the tape in a position where she could begin abrading it. It took several attempts and her shoulders felt like they were pulling out of the joints from the effort.
Finally, she was rewarded with the familiar tearing sound, the tape gave way, and she was able to splay her wrists apart. Her hands free, she immediately stripped the tape from her mouth. With that gone, with the restriction of that barrier lifted, the urge to vomit was suddenly again on her full force and her stomach turned loose. In the tight quarters of the trunk, there was nowhere to go. She could not escape the vile puddle she created beneath herself as her guts emptied.
She could not let that distract her. She felt around, having seen on television that newer cars had releases inside the trunk to allow an abducted person to open them from the inside. If this car was new enough to have such a release, she could not find it. She searched, exploring every square inch. Maybe the car was too old and it pre-dated that requirement.
Her next effort was to see if she could take a taillight lens out. She'd seen a story on the news once of a kidnapped girl who was able to knock out a taillight, stick her arm out the opening, and wave down a passing vehicle. Though she was able to successfully remove the bulb from the taillight, she could find no way to remove the lens itself.
Her frustration, her sense of desperation, increased and she panicked. She thought of everything that happened to her. Her mom's death, the funeral, coming to live with her father, and the misunderstanding that tainted their relationship. She had to survive if for no other reason than to correct all of the fucked up things in her life.
Thinking of her father reminded her of the knife he'd given her to wear around her neck. While she was not old enough to carry a gun, he'd assured her she was old enough to carry this knife around her neck when she was bicycling the woods by herself. She reached beneath her shirt and found it hanging there, right at stomach level.
She drew it and gripped it in both hands, desperately afraid she might drop it. She clutched it so hard the handle impressed itself into the soft flesh of her fingers. She tried to imagine how she would wield the knife. She’d seen people fight with knives in the movies but it was never anything she'd ever imagined herself doing. She didn't know where she would strike, but she was certain she would strike. She could do it.
Her dad said to her on more than one occasion he would not raise her to be a victim, he would raise her to be a fighter. And with no obvious path of escape, fight she would.
Amanda waited in the dark confines of the trunk, the knife clenched in her sweaty and cramping fingers. The odor of her own sickness was nearly intolerable as it clung to her skin and dampened her clothes. She had no idea how long she’d been in there. Like most of her generation, she did not wear a watch and was unable to measure the passage of time without her phone. Though she couldn't get an arm out of the taillight hole she eventually managed to disable both taillights, hoping it would get them pulled over, but it hadn’t. The effort distracted her from her fear until the car veered off an exit ramp and decelerated. Her fear overtook her again like a tide rising in the swamp.
They seemed to be on surface streets after that, the car moving, then stopping due to traffic lights or stop signs. She had no idea where she was. They had been on the road for hours. They could be anywhere. They could be in a different state.
She prayed the disabled taillights would catch the eye of a cop needing to fill his ticket quota but it didn’t happen. The vehicle continued its journey without so much as a hiccup. With each successive turn the speed limit dropped, the vehicle moving slower and slower until it turned into a driveway and stopped.
Her panic established a new threshold. It filled her body and overflowed. Her nausea returned and she had to choke down the desire to vomit again. If she was throwing up, she couldn’t fight.
All of the things she'd imagined on the ride had come to this. It was the culmination of all of her violent imaginings. This was where she saved herself or where she failed. This is where she lived or where she died.
When her dad gave her the knife, he promised he’d teach her how to use it effectively but they’d been busy and not gotten to it. She would have to improvise. She gripped it tightly, hoping she could use it effectively. She didn’t care if she killed him. She just wanted to distract him and buy herself some time. If she could hit him somewhere important and distract him, maybe she could hop out of the trunk and run away screaming. If they were in any sort of neighborhood at all, surely the neighbors would hear and call the police. They would save her.
When the car stopped, her attacker killed the engine. All that separated her from the passenger compartment was the back seat. She could clearly hear the ratcheting of the parking brake being set. A latch was pulled inside the vehicle and hinges groaned as the door was shoved open. The driver’s seat creaked and strained. She imagined the large man fighting his way from behind the wheel, pulling himself out of the vehicle.
The loud slam of the driver’s door startled her. She jumped, her breath coming so rapidly she didn't feel like she was getting enough air. She made an involuntary squeal of fear. There was the scuff of footsteps on a hard surface. Those steps came to the rear quarter panel of the car then to the trunk.
He was coming for her.
He was there. He was just outside the door. Keys jingled and one slid into the trunk lock. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut in terror, to not see what sights lay in wait for her, but she forced them open. She had to see what she was doing.
The key turned and the trunk unlatched with a popping sound. The trunk lid squeaked open and there he was, a dark figure silhouetted against a darker night.
She planned on concealing the fact she had escaped her bonds. She planned on waiting until he reached in to strike decisively and accurately. Her plan blew apart like an exploding tire. When she saw him there above her, the needle on her panic gauge maxed out. She screamed and swung blindly with the knife.
She felt it connect, slash him somewhere. Warm wetness splattered her hand.
"Oh shit!" he groaned. “Oh fuck!”
She slashed again but this time he stepped back from the vehicle and slammed the trunk lid on her arm, pinning it. She screamed. The pain was excruciating and she was certain her arm was broken.
He threw his body weight on the car, forcing the trunk lid down even harder. Amanda was unable to keep hold of the knife and it dropped from her numb fingers. She was done. She was dead. She’d had one chance and she blew it.
Her attacker had ended the threat but he had not vented his rage. Not at all.
He raised the trunk lid and slammed it again before she could draw her arm back into the trunk. When he raised it again, she managed to draw her wounded arm back inside and cradle it to her chest before he could close it a third time. Enraged, he flung the trunk lid wide open and shot a meaty arm inside. He grabbed wildly, one hand closing around her bicep and the other coming in to grab her by the shirt. He dragged her roughly over the lip of the trunk and slammed her to the ground.
She scrambled for something to grab, something to break, or at least slow, her fall. Her fingers closed on nothing. She thumped down on her side, her breath knocked from her. She croaked and gasped, struggling for the air to scream but she couldn’t find enough to even breathe. She tried to get away, to roll up under the vehicle, but there was no time. He drew back and kicked her.
Had he been wearing tennis shoes, she might have been spared more damage but the Death Merchant wore black combat boots every day. The hard leather boot impacted her side like a sledgehammer. She felt a crack deep inside her as ribs broke. She mercifully found air, sucking in a breath then crying out.
The Death Merchant understood now he needed to choke down his rage and get her inside before someone heard her. He grabbed her by the forearms and dragged her toward the house. The strain on her injured arm was excruciating and she screamed again. She did not have long fingernails but she desperately tried to claw and scratch at his wrists.
When one nail found purchase and drew blood, he let a boot fly and it caught her in the back of the head, stunning her. She wilted from the blow too disoriented to struggle. She succumbed to the dragging, unable to prevent herself from being pulled to whatever fate awaited her, unable to stop the monster from pulling her to his lair.
The house was dark and silent. She vaguely felt herself being pulled up steps and then pulled over a threshold into the house. He yanked her through the room, bouncing her off furniture, her cries of pain buying her no mercy, sparing her nothing. He flung a door violently open and it bounced off the wall. Without warning, Amanda was shoved through it.
In the blackness of the house’s interior, she could not see that stairs awaited her on the other side of that opening. She tumbled head over heels, rolling out of control before slamming to the concrete floor. She cried and arched her body, uncertain what injury might be the most significant. It was a blur. A mélange of pain and sensation. She sensed somehow it might only be the beginning of what was in store for her.
She'd taken several blows to the head. It throbbed and there was a burning sensation that probably meant a cut or scrape. She alternately attempted to soothe her elbows, her knees, her hip, her back. Everything in her body screamed at her, demanding attention, demanding relief. Before she could make herself get up, before she could try to scurry into the darkness and hide, she heard the thud of heavy steps.
They were coming toward her.