Unmarked

Elise woke with one of the worst headaches she’d ever had. What happened to her? She vaguely remembered a bar, and some guy…and…. That’s it. She tried to stretch her limbs. She found that she could not. She looked down at the appendages and saw that she had been bound with duct tape, her arms behind her back and her legs put together. She could feel a gag in her mouth. She tried desperately to move any part of her body, panicking now, but she found that she could not. She looked around at her surroundings.

She was in a dirty hotel room. She was sitting on a ratty old bed. There was a bottle on the nightstand. She couldn’t read what it said, but the cloth next to it spoke volumes. That bastard had got her drunk, chloroformed her, and tied her up like she was his prisoner! She shuddered at the realisation that she was now. She looked around some more. As far as she could tell, she was alone.

She tried again to free herself from her bonds. It was no use. The tape wasn’t going to give. She tried to spit out the sock in her mouth, but the tape holding it in place was too tight. She just hoped she wouldn’t suffocate or choke on it. She considered for the first time what was going to happen to her. She hoped, she prayed, that someone would come rescue her, like you hear about in those news stories. She briefly contemplated how many of these situations happened, and how few of them the news must pick up. She began to cry, hopeless and desperate.

Elise heard the door open.

She looked up to see a man of about forty, unshaven and, by the smell of him, unwashed. He was wearing a white wifebeater, stained with unidentifiable liquids. She looked up at him, and felt truly helpless. In his hand was a hacksaw. She saw it and felt the blood drain from her face. She looked up at him again and saw him smile.

“C’mon,” he said in southern drawl, “We’s goin’ fer a ride.”

He bent down to pick her up, and she kicked and screamed, straining against her bonds in a futile attempt to get away from her captor.

“Miss,” he growled, “You don’t wants ta be fightin’ the man with the hacksaw whiles yer all tied up, do ya?” He laughed to himself. What was wrong with this man? What was he going to do to her?

She let him pick her up this time. There was no point to fighting this anymore. He would take her where he wanted, do to her what he wanted, and then….

She tried not to think about it.

He carried her out of the room, and she saw that it was a room in one of those cheap shitty motels, the kind people go to for the purpose of having dirty sex, doing drugs, or both. He carried her out to an unmarked car. She panicked and began squirming again. He gave her a jab in the ribs and said “That ain’t gon’ ta help ya none.”

She went back to quietly sobbing. The worst part about this was that no one would ever know what happened to her. Not her husband, not her family….she had a baby sister, she’d be turning sixteen this year…..she hoped against all hope, once again, that somebody would come to rescue her.

He opened the trunk of the car and shoved her inside unceremoniously. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, not looking directly at her, “Don’t you do nothin’….not that you look capable of doin’ nothin’ seeyin’ yer all tied up.” He guffawed again and she felt bile rise in her throat. She kept it down, knowing that if she threw up, she would choke on her own puke in a stranger’s car and no one would know.

He slammed the trunk of the car down, not bothering to lock it. She sat quietly, trying to study her surroundings through the impenetrable darkness of the trunk and praying she had enough air in her. She was never a religious person, but she was raised in a religious household. She never believed in any sort of god until tonight, when she needed one most.

She heard footsteps. He was back already? He just left. She listened closely and noticed that the footsteps were coming from the direction opposite the one he left. Someone new was coming! This was her only chance. She’d have to act fast.

She braced herself, and threw her body toward the door of the trunk with all her might. Her head was pounding now, just as her heart was pounding. She heard the footsteps stop. Hope swelled in her heart as she began to flail around the trunk, screaming the best she could.

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">The footsteps were approaching the car now! She was so sure she was going to die, that she’d never see her sister again…she began to cry once more out of joy.

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">The trunk was opened by a well-dressed man, who looked to be about thirty years old. “Oh my god!” he exclaimed, “Are you all right? Hold on, I’ll get you out of there and we’ll call the police, okay?” Elise was smiling through her gag now.

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">She was smiling until she saw her kidnapper coming back.

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">She screeched through her gag and tried to warn her rescuer. “Yes, yes, I know, okay? It’ll all be alright now. It’ll all be-“

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">“Alright?” the kidnapper said. He drew a pistol out of the pocket of the coat he had come back wearing.

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">“Please-“ was all her rescuer managed to say before he shot him twice in the heart. Elise screamed now like she never had before. This was her one hope, her one chance, shot dead by her worst nightmare.

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">“You know what they say,” he said in his stupid accent, “Two heads is better than one.”

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">Oh god no, she tried to say, no, please, don’t-

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">Her muffled gagging was cut short as the corpse of her hero was thrown on top of her, and the trunk slammed shut. She heard the car start up and she passed out.

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">“This Monday, the infamous Black Lake Snatcher was found. Forty-seven year old Cletus George Abbot was found in his Texas house with the thirty women who had gone missing over the past five years who had been attributed to his case. About ten out of these twenty women were still alive. One of these was Elise May Roberts, who, sometime during her capture, went into catatonic shock. She is unable to speak about what has happened, but sometime while being held prisoner, she lost her right hand, her left leg, and both of her eyes. She is currently undergoing therapy and intensive medical care. Her family mourns the loss of the young woman she used to be, and stay by her bedside in an attempt to comfort her.

<p style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:1.2em;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:12px;line-height:16.799999237060547px;">More on this at six.”