The Escape Part III

For this week's Magpie Tales writing prompt I am still continuing with The Escape from the last 2 weeks' story line. If you didn't have a chance to read the last 2 weeks' you may want to read those first. To follow along read The Escape Part I and The Escape Part II in my blog archive.

The Escape Part III


She felt a crushing pain and everything went black....

Her head was pounding. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or not... she thought they were but all she could see was blackness. Where was she? She dared not move a muscle. She strained her eyes as much as she could to see if they really were open? She noticed that she could no longer hear the rushing of the river and there was no summer breeze to lick away at the oppressive heat. She could smell gasoline and could feel a steady vibration...it was beginning to dawn on her that she was no longer in the woods but in some kind of vehicle! But why was it so dark? If she was laying on the floor of a vehicle she would still be able to see at least its headlights or the headlights of oncoming vehicles.

She was so disoriented. What happened? Where was she? Think Angela think! ‘What was the last thing you remember?’ It was all coming back to her, she had been running from Steve in the woods running to find the locked box she had buried. She slowly moved her hands up towards her face to feel and see if her eyes were indeed open or if she was blindfolded. She felt the heat flushed on her face and winced as her fingers traced over a cut near her temple and then to her lashes....she could feel that her eyes were open and that she wasn’t blindfolded but she still couldn’t figure out why it was so dark? She noticed she was laying on her side...the side that had taken the brunt of her slip down the embankment. Her cuts and scrapes were really burning now as her sweat emitted traces of salt into them. Her ribs felt as if they were being crushed all over again...they were definitely bruised. Her head was a steady thumping mixed with a sharp shearing pain. They hit a bump that jostled her a bit...she had learned how not to scream out in pain and bit at the inside of her lower lip. She noticed a red light flash on for a second before completely going dark again. ‘That bastard’ she thought ‘I’m in the trunk of his car!’ Feeling a little more freedom to move... knowing she was hidden away from his view... she tried to turn over slightly...to take some of the weight off of her bruised and battered side. But she didn’t get very far her legs were just too long and her knees hit the top...she couldn’t tell which way she was facing for sure but she guessed she was facing towards the back though all she had to base this on was the flash of red light. She panicked for a moment as she remembered the key... she felt around for her necklace...it was still there!

The heat and humidity in the trunk was heavy and she was struggling to take a cleansing breath. How long had she been unconscious? Where was he taking her? If he was taking her home they would have been there by now? Wait! How did they get to his car? Steve was strong but there is no way he could have carried her back up that embankment!? He would have had to have carried her out by the road access.

Landon... Landon had been waiting there for her! What if Steve had seen him? Her face got prickly and fear seized her as she began to worry about what Steve could have possibly done to her big brother! He was all she had left in this world and finally after all these years they were reunited. Well she reasoned to herself logically... Steve had never met Landon so at least he wouldn’t recognize him... but what if he thought Landon was her lover waiting to carry her off into the moonlit night... away from him?! What if Steve hurt him in a jealous rage?! Why else would Landon be sitting on the side of the road on the same night that she escaped? Steve would jump to conclusions. He always accused her of having an affair... he was not lucid when he got jealous!

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She was sure that Landon was dead. she was sure she would never escape Steve unless it was through death. She just wanted to give up...to die. The tears stung as they seeped out... her sinuses immediately flooded... she hated crying. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had cried? She held it all back. She was stronger than this. She was a fighter! That’s why she had survived as long as she had. She knew how to push it all back down and quickly... before it got out of control. She knew one day she would cry and let it all out and when she did unleash it all, that it would be a long time before she’d stop. This was not going to be that day! She was not going to give Steve the satisfaction of her tears or her fear!

The brakes of the car squealed and she could feel the car slowing down as it bumped and crunched along some gravel. It felt as if the car was turning but she couldn’t be sure. Then suddenly the car came to a complete stop. They were there! Wherever there was. Could be they had just stopped for gas or something. She heard the engine shut off and the car door open and shut. She heard his footsteps on the gravel and then another door open... he was fishing around in the back seat for something... she could hear him through the flimsy trunk wall. Her eyes were wide trying to see but it was still no use... it was pitch black. She heard the car door close and the jingle of keys... and the crunch of his shoes on the gravel again. He was getting further away. He was just going to leave her here all night to teach her a lesson! She felt trapped and began to panic. But then she could hear his footsteps again. This time they were getting closer! He was coming back towards the car... he was coming to get her!

She knew he’d beat her tonight for leaving, maybe even kill her finally but she didn’t care. She had nothing left to live for. The physical pain would almost be welcomed anyway... it would make her forget how she’d gotten Landon killed. ‘Well’ if he was going to beat or kill her she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of him thinking she was conscious for any of it. She heard the scrape and scratch of the keys in the lock. She closed her eyes softly pretending to still be unconscious. She could feel the warm summer breeze blow across her and even though her eyes were closed she could still tell that the moon was remarkably bright. She could feel him slide his hands under her and flop her into an upright position against, what she imagined was his shoulder and work awkwardly to scoop up the rest of her. She was being carried now. She allowed herself to stay completely relaxed and floppy as he carried her. She could feel the rhythm of his steps and smell his cologne...though it didn’t smell like his usual...he must have bought something new...? She felt as if he was carrying her over his shoulder and carefully, daringly lifted her lashes just a bit...just enough to see that she was correct...he had slung her over his shoulder and she was facing his back. She continued to allow her weight to be dead and floppy...though it was much harder to do with her eyes open...instinct kept wanting to kick in.

She couldn’t see much except the ground as he carried her but when he stopped and jostled with the keys her eyes caught hold of an old tin watering can with some kind of ivy that had begun to wrap itself around the can. It appeared as if it were sitting on top of a crumbling stonewall... but it was hard to tell exactly, as she couldn’t open her eyes completely. She was envious at the sprawling freedom of the ivy... reaching out to touch and wrap itself around whatever it felt like without abandon. She felt a kinship to the tin watering can and couldn't help but notice that for some reason it reminded her of when she was a little girl...before her parents had died. She didn’t know what the memory was or why this insignificant object elicited such a nostalgic response. Perhaps she thought, 'It is because tonight is the night she was going to die? She was finally going to be at peace reunited with her parents and her brother. One big happy family again.' She softly shut her eyes as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind them shutting out the world along with the moonlight....

Stay tuned to read what happens next week.....

© Copyright 2010 Christine Maxwell All rights reserved

The Escape Part II

For this week's Magpie Tales writing prompt I have decided to continue from last week's story line since all the feedback I got was to not leave you all hanging. If you didn't have a chance to read last week's you may want to read that first. To follow along read The Escape Part I.

The Escape Part II
The river was high and running at a pretty good clip. She was grateful for the light that the moon provided...as she followed the trail down river...she knew shortly she would come upon the stone foundation from the old bridge that had once been a frequented crossing from Waldo into Leary. Back in it’s day Leary was the happening place to be not the quaint little “lost in time” town it is now...now it is a town where newcomers go to hideaway and retreat into privacy...a town where every home is secured by a handgun with a redneck owner behind it, who’d just as soon shoot first and ask questions later. Yet it is also a town where, if you are broken down on the side of the road you’d have no problem getting help from a townie passing by. It’s a quiet town that takes care of its own as long as its own recognizes that familiarity breeds contempt.

She had to be careful approaching the stonewall sometimes it was hard to see and the drop was at least 25 feet, if not more, into a bed of jagged granite. She could see the fat white birch up ahead and knew to veer to the left of it. This would take her around the stone wall’s ledge. She followed the edge of the wall down a slight grade using the balls of her feet to feel for anything sharp before allowing the rest of her foot to make contact with the earth. She froze. She could hear the rustling of leaves and the snap of twigs under foot. She crouched down very slowly so as not to make a sound. It took everything within her to fight the urge to move quickly. She knew quick movements could be a fatal error for her. Again she heard the rustling and silently let out sigh of relief. A deer panted a heavy exhale before its hooves solidly beat the earth with a thunderous rhythm that dissolved as it disappeared into the night.

She stayed frozen and quiet for a moment listening to see if she could hear him following her. Listening for any sign that might give him away. She was surprised not to hear him calling out to her...calling her name...she had imagined him whimpering... pathetically at first, pleading with her, crying even and when she still didn’t surface, she had imagined him getting angry and threatening to kill her, “for real this time!” He’d cuss up a storm and demand she come out of hiding and get herself up to the house immediately. But she heard nothing...just the chirping of the crickets and the rushing of the river.

She gathered up her nightgown and slowly...methodically stood up and waited... again she stood frozen, to see if her movement had been noticed and had sparked him to move as well. Nothing. It didn’t appear that he was following her at all.

She could feel the stings from her fall earlier. Her cuts and scrapes were quietly reminding her of their presence. She was almost certain she had bruised her ribs and knew tomorrow she would know for certain. It always hurt more the next day, when the defense of adrenalin had dissipated from the body. She had grown to know pain intimately, it had visited her often, they were old companions...her and pain. It was actually to her advantage... she knew how to ignore the pain in the present in order to carry on. Steve had taught her that much. Many nights he’d beat her black and blue and then force her to make him dinner over again and to “do it right this time” or clean the bathroom again and “do it better this time.”

She hated him and yet a part of her was disappointed that he wasn’t hot on her trail. A part of her felt rejected and betrayed and that he really must not love her if he wasn’t going to hunt her down. It was sick and wrong and she knew it but she couldn’t help it, it was all she’d remembered love to be. Love hurt. When she was six her parents had both died in an accident, so Angela had grown up in foster care. Her older brother, Landon was 15 at the time. They were split up by the system. Not many families wanted to take on a 15 year old teenage boy and the thinking was, that this way Angela could have more opportunities, perhaps even be adopted, without him weighing down her chances.

She was never adopted and suffered much abuse at the hands of dirty men hungry for her innocence and evil women jealous of her youth and her beauty. Though Angela never felt beautiful and never saw beautiful when she looked at her reflection in a mirror... she had been told as much, by many men, women, social workers and teachers. She had been forced after a while to use her beauty as a method of survival, yet still she never saw what they did, until she had met Steve. He was her night in shining armor, come to rescue her from a life of users and abusers, so she thought.

She was 16 then and he was 19. He was still a boy but to her, back then, he was a man! He represented freedom and protection and love. They met at the corner store...she had walked there with her foster mother, who needed to pick up a loaf of bread and a carton of cigarettes. Angela had been made to go along like usual, so that she could sit out front with the stroller. She was squatted down trying to soothe the crying baby when she saw him across the street. He gave her a nod of recognition and it was as if that nod had some magnetic pull that caused her to stand up as he approached the sidewalk where she was. His wide shoulders made his plain white t-shirt look like so much more than it was. He wore faded blue jeans and his blue eyes sparkled with seduction.

He made some comment about the baby looking like her and eluded to asking if the baby was hers. She remembered blushing at the suggestion that he thought she was old enough to have a baby. She was flattered that he saw her in that kind of light...as a woman.

Huh she couldn’t even remember which baby it was now? She could remember the stink of booze on Caroline her foster mother, at the time and she could remember that Caroline smoked Kools but there were so many children, so many babies, so many different homes. Her mind drew a blank on all of the children.

She wondered if that’s how it was for the foster parents too...if all of the children they took in became just blank faces, generic and unknown? Were they just a monthly check? Another form of revenue for a family barely scraping by? Babies in crap filled diapers crying and needy, or eager to please toddlers and preschoolers, were just another body sitting on the floor in front of the television, getting in their way while they watched Jerry Springer, or rebellious and angry teens constantly running away, were nothing more to them than delinquents that stole their cigarettes and booze? Did the foster parents remember their names? She was sure the perverted, hungry men remembered “some” of the names. Only the really “special ones” most likely. She felt bile rise in her throat and she pushed it back down. Feeling the burn and tasting the putrid bitterness that invaded her mouth. She gagged a little.

She found that her fingers were rubbing away mindlessly at the key around her neck. She shivered at the realization that she hadn’t even thought about it since she had made her escape! What if it had fallen off during her slip down the embankment...she hadn’t even thought to check if it was still securely fastened to the chain that hung around her neck. She was fortunate this time but she could not afford to be so careless in the future. This is why Steve got so angry with her all the time. She was so foolish sometimes.

No wonder he got so frustrated with her. She felt a ping of altruistic pity for him for just a flash...a moment. It wasn’t ALL his fault...she was forgetful and careless most of the time. She had a hard time keeping a schedule and was often running behind. She constantly misplaced things which is why Steve was insistent she keep the house in impeccable order...so that it would be easier to find things when she misplaced them. “Everything had a place and there was a place for everything.” he always reminded her with a glare of contempt. Remembering that icy hate-filled glare was enough to snap her out of her moment of compassion for him...he was a monster. That’s all there was to it.

She rubbed the key a few more times before tucking it securely back inside the neck of her nightgown. She had to get to the locked box she had buried before he did. She hadn’t meant for him to discover the map and knew, now that he had, that it was only a matter of time before he discovered what she’d really been up to during her early morning hikes in the woods.

© Copyright 2010 Christine Maxwell All rights reserved

The Escape Part I

The story below is a fictional piece inspired by this picture hosted by The Magpie Tales blog. This is Magpie 24, titled "The Escape"

The moon hung low and big. She had never remembered the moon so big before. Its luminescent glow turning the black night sky a shade of midnight blue. It illuminated the path before her, showing her just where her bare feet should tread. She gathered up the hem of her nightgown and held it high, so as not to be slowed down by it. Her long dark hair flowing behind her as she ran. She knew she had left him sleeping, rolled over to one side...snoring. She had even double-checked, just to make sure the sleeping pills she had slipped him were working. She couldn’t take a chance of him waking up to find her gone. She couldn’t help but look behind her as she bound forward into the night and shivered a bit despite the warm summer air.

She thought now, as she ran away from there...away from him, how she had turned and surveyed the room once more before leaving, why....? As if it held some nostalgic memories for her, something other than pain, fear and heartache? The glow of the moon coming in through the skylight shone bright across the bed where he lay sleeping. She could see him clearly. He looked almost vulnerable and childlike as he slept. “Don’t be a fool” she reminded herself. She thought about how the corners of her side of the chocolate comforter were turned down ‘just so,’ so that she could gingerly slide out of bed, just in case he wasn’t sleeping as deeply as she thought. The cool gray tones of the walls and ceiling made the room feel more like a prison than a bedroom. Their black and white wedding picture hung mockingly on the wall near his side of the bed. The moonlit sky coming through the stark and naked double windows made the room feel unfriendly and even colder somehow, if that was even possible. He hated curtains, they made him feel “claustrophobic.” She laughed satisfactorily to herself as she remembered stepping back into the room just once more, to slide her feet over the plush carpet messing up those crisp clean vacuum lines he always demanded. It was silly she knew but it brought her great satisfaction nonetheless.

She hadn’t brought the map with her...she knew just where it was buried. It pulled her towards it, like a magnet. A pulling she couldn’t resist...a calling she knew she must answer...as if it were the one in need of rescuing. The path was narrowing and she knew it was about to become steep and rocky around the bend. She slowed and carefully lowered herself down the embankment, allowing her right foot to get a firm steady plant each time before shifting and shimmying side ways down the embankment. She trekked slowly knowing she needed to go faster but knowing too she couldn’t afford to be slowed down by slipping either. She was at the big rock now and leaned on it for better balance before turning once more to look back towards the house...her heart caught in her throat as she noticed the light in the attic window glowing its yellow betrayal. She felt the blood drain from her face and found herself nearly choking by the fear alone...frozen for a moment...the dreadful realization that he had woken!

She hadn’t much time at all now! She knew she would have to move quickly. Her only advantage was that she had gotten a head start and that she knew where she was going, while he had to rely on the map. Why hadn’t she just forged the map? She knew why....she was too frightened...convinced that somehow he would have known and his wrath was just too unbearable to risk it. He’d of most likely killed her this time.

She scurried as quickly as she could...trying to be careful so as not to lose her head start. She hadn’t worn shoes because she knew she could get through the woods quieter without them. Plus he always kept her shoes locked in his big tool box...it would have taken time and made noise that she couldn’t risk. She used her left foot to absorb the weight of her balance, while her right foot pioneered the way, making sure to find stable ground as she advanced. She could hear the river getting louder and she knew she wasn’t far at all...her right foot miscalculated and landed on a sharp stick, she tried to compensate for the shift in balance but at the same time her left foot slipped on layers of old decaying leaves that carpeted the forest floor and she lost her footing completely. She let out a stifled whimper as the sharp piercings of sticks and brush punctured and ripped at her flesh...gouging and scraping her all along her left side, while she slid helplessly towards the raging river below. Finally her hand was able to grab a low branch and hold on to it. She gripped it tight and just held on for a moment, making sure it was secure enough to anchor her weight, before trying to recompose her balance and steady herself up onto her feet again. This time she descended backwards down the embankment rather than sideways, as if going down a ladder and carefully lowered herself down the rest of the way. She was almost there, almost home free.

Once she got to the spot where she had buried it, she knew all she had to do was quickly dig it up and cross the river at the calm, shallow spot that lay just a few hundred yards down river. She knew her brother would be waiting on the other side just like they’d planned. Then they could go to the police with it. She would finally be free from that monster once and for all!

To find out what happens next read The Escape Part II


© Copyright 2010 Christine Maxwell All rights reserved