It was there like a gash in the dark: light, calling her to awaken, bringing her back to life.
It took a second for her eyes to focus, and then Tamara saw it, a sliver of heaven, blue sky and fragments of white clouds framed between two dark lines on either side. She remembered a verse from the Bible almost instantly: “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction…”
Was this the narrow gate? Was she dead? How could that be when, of all things, she could smell engine oil and dirty rags? No, she wasn’t dead, and she was fine with that. Because all she could think was that something bad had happened—that her babies were in danger and that they needed her.
Slowly her senses pieced together her surroundings: she was in a car, in the trunk. From behind her she could hear music pounding through speakers. She could feel the scratchy felt of carpeting and something hard and plastic, a handle of some kind, probably the one you lifted to get to the spare tire, digging into her ribs. With some effort she lifted her head and stretched her neck, causing her back muscles to scream. Beyond this though, she was immobile. Her hands and feet were tied behind her, and below her the sound of the road was rolling on and on, vibrating her body as it did so. Someone was driving her somewhere but…
And that’s when she remembered the monster that had shown up on her doorstep, lean and determined, violent and savage. Fear stabbed at her instantly, as it had when she’d opened the door to the house and found him standing there. At first she thought he was one of the neighbors or someone from church, come to bring by another pie or ready-made dinner, then she saw the bite mark in his neck and the blood down his clothes and…
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Her head hurt badly. And something sticky had dried down the side of her right temple, over her ear and across her cheek to her chin. Blood, most likely. She flexed her jaw and felt it bend on her skin like rubber. Thinking made her feel dizzy, just a bit at first, and then it compounded. She closed her eyes to that heavenly sky out there, beyond the slit in the rubber lining of the trunk lid, and forced herself to calm down, to breathe deeply and slowly. But her mind was having none of it, because, God help her, she couldn’t remember what happened next.
To Janie. Or to Seth.
What if he killed them? My God. What if they’re in here with me?
Her throat squeezed with emotion, nearly choking her. There was no one lying in front her, so she wiggled around as best she could to feel if anyone was behind her. There seemed to be no one. Still, she tried to cry out their names, but the words only came out in gasping whispers.
“Janie? Baby girl? Are you in here? Seth? Seth? Can you hear me?”
Silence.
She tried two more times, with no reply, before deciding that they weren’t there. A sob bounced around between her lungs as she fought with the idea of whether or not she should be happy about that. Were they safe? Were they…
Jesus! Please. Please. I beg you. Don’t let them be dead somewhere. Pleeaase.
Again she felt the urge to go for a swim in a deep pool of panic. This time it took all she had, every ounce of energy, not to submit. Instead, she focused on the music. She didn’t know the song, but it sounded country, something about a dollar bill and going for a drink in the morning.
A drink sounded good. A drink of water at least. Ten drinks of it maybe. She was parched, and as she ran her tongue over the inside of her mouth she could feel that she was missing a tooth on the bottom left side, and another one was loose. Her tongue seemed to be sticky. More blood.
You bastard. I never saw you coming.
He had stepped into the foyer and just punched her in the face, so hard that those cartoon stars came over her in a very real and adult way, a cascade of them really. She stumbled backwards, shocked and in dismay, as he threw another punch, which missed.
You didn’t get me with the second one, did you? I’ve taken enough self-defense classes. First punch was a gift, but then I gave you a few back.
Her memory began to send out torn images: after dodging the second punch he’d grabbed her by the shoulders. She countered by jamming the heel of her hand just to the left of his right nostril, missing her intended mark by a mere half-inch but still hurting him. He hesitated, giving her time to ball up her right hand, and with the knuckle of her middle finger protruding in a crude point, she punched him hard, just below the left eye.
As they struggled, they knocked over the table in the foyer. The vase on it crashed to the ground, and Tamara was just beginning to think of how she could get her hand on one of the shards when he head butted her in the mouth. Blood began to spill over her gums and down her throat. She was just beginning to contemplate an escape when…
Janie. Janie screamed. I didn’t know she could scream that loud.
The man, with his wild, shark-like black eyes, seemed stunned for a moment. He bear-hugged Tamara viciously, squeezing the breath out of her as the stubble from his unshaven face dug into the soft skin of her neck. Then he looked past Tamara at…
The car hit a dip of some kind, bouncing her in the trunk and bringing her back to the present. Her left hip yelped in protest to the landing, and she was beginning to go dizzy again, so she focused on the pins and needles that were streaming down her legs.
Breathe. Breathe. You have to remember what happened next. You must.
The man looked at Janie, who was standing behind them in the hallway adjacent to the foyer, and that’s when Tamara heard them: feet. Feet were running from behind Janie. No, Seth! Stay away! Run away! Both of you… RUN!
But Seth hadn’t run, and nor had Janie. Instead they both stood there in horror as the man slammed Tamara from one side of the hall to the next, the walls reverberating as he whipped her back and forth with a strength seemingly fueled by an inhuman rage.
Tamara swung at him repeatedly, catching him in the ear and forehead, but missing a good half-dozen times too before she began beating on his chest
He knocked the wind out of her but she managed to fill her lungs with enough air to yell to the kids.
“Run! Get to the neighbors’ house!”
But Janie was frozen in place, her jaw slack. First the thing under the bed, then the ones at the park and market, and now this; evidently she couldn’t take anymore. She wasn’t moving. Not an inch.
Then… the man had said something, hadn’t he? By Tamara’s ear. Not in her ear. He wasn’t speaking to her but to himself, or someone else.
She rolled in the trunk, slightly forwards and to the right, as the car slowed, made a turn and then accelerated again. She supposed she should be wondering where he was taking her, but she couldn’t until she knew what had happened to the kids.
Focus. Focus. What did he say? What was it? Something…
“Gotta do what ya gotta do, and I got a job to do.”
“No!” Tamara screamed as he brought his fist back suddenly for one good, solid punch. It smashed into the side of her head and, immediately, she began sliding into unconscious.
He pushed her against the wall and let her slide slowly down its length. She fought against the black with all her might, looking to her babies as the monster stood over her. She mouthed the word “run” over and over again, in silence, unable to speak, filled with a maddening sense of desperation.
Then the monster began to advance on the children and she could do nothing at all about it but pray.
God. My Lord. Please help.
Defeat came over her.
But not over Seth.
The memory came to her with digital clarity.
“Oh my God!” Tamara sobbed aloud into the darkness of the trunk. “No. No! My baby boy. My beautiful baby boy.”
Little Seth. Her little man.
He’d tried to protect her.
By throwing his juice box at the monster in the hall.
Thank you for reading A MILLION TO ONE. I’d be grateful if you would take a couple of minutes to leave a review. It only needs to be one or two sentences, and it really does help other readers decide if they’d enjoy the book.
Love is a promise.
You just have to believe.
The story continues with ONE PLUS ONE.
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