Pick a Prompt

You wake up shackled to a chair and can't remember how you got there. Two voices are talking. You recognize one of them.

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A white hot pain seared across my head, splitting my darkened vision in two. I wanted to groan, could feel the sound starting in the pit of my stomach and rising through my throat, but it stopped there, muffled by the taste of sweaty cotton. I blinked my eyes open but saw nothing except darkness. I wasn't even sure my eyes were open until I felt my lashes scraping across the sticky bind. It was losing its adhesive from sweat and tears and time, but it was still in place. My hands ached, the rope cutting into my wrists. I couldn't pull them away from the chair backing.

Behind me I could hear voices arguing. Were they behind me? The darkness was so thick, the pain pounding in my head so loudly that I wasn't sure of anything except I was in big trouble.

"She would have told," one voice seethed, making an almost hissing sound as it slithered through the darkness and reverberated off my eardrums.

"Nuh-uh," the other voice muttered, "She's always been nice."

I've always been nice. That's right. Things like this don't just happen to nice people. Maybe I was dreaming. That's why it was dark. But the taste of that sweaty cotton was far too real, the smell of the tape and my own sweat invading my nostrils. I tried to shake the cobwebs loose, to listen to everything going on around me so I could decide how to get out of there alive.

"You know as well as I do that she would have told 'em everything. She would have said I did it!" the first voice shouted again. I heard the anger.

"She would have made them understand," the other voice said almost too quietly. But I heard him. I knew who it was. Recognition rang through my skull like a silent movie. Babysitting. I was babysitting the Beasley twins. Drake and Deke. That was Deke. He was quiet and shy, never gave me any trouble at all.

I didn't recongize the first voice. It wasn't Drake. It didn't make sense. Why would the twins tie me up or let me be tied up and what happened to get us to this point? Who was that first voice and where was Drake?

"I didn't mean to hurt him. I see my dad use this thing all the time. Sometimes he shoots birds off the garage. Half the time it doesn't even kill 'em. They just lose a few feathers and fly off. I don't understand why it had real bullets in it," the first voice said, an edge of panic shaking him.

My own heart started to thud and images came sprawling back to my mind. I'd sent Drake and Deke out to the backyard to play while I finished cooking dinner. Deke came in to ask if one of the neighbor boys could play. Then I heard the sound of thunder clapping, echoing off the trees and I went out to make sure the boys were okay. Deke was standing over his brother, his hands covered in crimson blood. I ran to Deke and Drake, surpressing the scream I wanted to cry, shouting at the boy behind me to get the phone and call the police. I'd pulled Deke away from his brother, trying to recall every episode of ER I'd ever watched, thinking maybe pressure on the wound would save his life, and that's when the sharp crack had split across my skull, dissolving me into darkness long enough for that gun-toting neighbor boy to tie me up.

This time a moan did tear through my throat, stifled by he tape and he gag, but audible nonetheless.The boys were quiet behind me, the fear and desperation palpable in the air.

"I have to do it. It' the only way. I can't go back there. I can't go back to that camp. They did bad things there. It was an accident. I didn't mean to hurt Drake. I thought it was my dad's pellet gun," he sobbed. His footsteps scuffed the ground, echoing closer until I could smell his fear as distinct as my own.

The barrel of the gun felt hot against my scalp but maybe that was just the pressure of the knot from the earlier blow to the head. I closed my eyes in the darkness again, heart pounding in my chest, sweat pouring down my face. I could hear the click of the gun cock, could feel the subtle shift of the bullet to the chamber. He wasn't shaking. He wasn't trembling. He wasn't scared. This boy knew what he was doing.

I screamed, the sound so real and loud it was as if the gag were no longer in my mouth. I felt a warmth trickle down my legs, up my back, between my thighs and could smell the foul stench of urine and fear trickling up my body. I shot up in bed, knocked the lamp from the table and almost convinced myself I was still there, still waiting to die. It'd been ten years but that day was still so vivid both in memory and in nightmares. After three ruined mattresses I'd invested in a plastic sheet. How embarrassing a twenty-four year old woman couldn't sleep through the night without peeing the bed, but when the nightmares took over, it was impossible to control myself.

I laid back in the bed, forgetting for the moment that my sheets, blanket, and pajamas were soaked with pee and just thanked god I survived that night so long ago.