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I’m saying all this, trembling inside and out, the dread clawing up my throat like an animal. He’s not going to believe me, believe this. He knows there’s no reception, he knows it’s just a desperate act.
Tears spring to my eyes.
“Okay,” I say into the phone, talking to no one, trying so hard to sound confident and real but god, how I’m nothing at all. Hopeless. Helpless. “Call me back.”
I glance at the door handle.
I could open it, jump out of the car. We’re not going that fast. I know I could roll onto the ground and then get up, run into the trees. It’d hurt, but I could do it. He might have a gun, he might find me, but it’s the best chance I have. Now I know that the worst-case scenario is upon me, the thing that every woman dreads when they step into an Uber. The nightmare is happening.
It’s happening.
Oh god, please help me.
I was so stupid. How could I not have checked the car before I got in? I guess because I was so happy to leave, he was the only car on the road, and he knew my name. That’s how.
I take in a deep breath, trying to prepare myself for what I’m about to do.
I need to just open the door.
Roll onto my shoulder.
And run.
Run.
I slowly place my hand on the door handle just as I meet his eyes.
He smirks at me.
Touches a button.
And then the doors all lock with a loud, coordinated click.
NO!
I gasp sharply, trying the door handle, but it’s too late.
I’m locked in here.
“No use fighting it, Lenore,” the man says to me.
And the car keeps disappearing into the night.
I don’t know what to do.
Because of my ability to focus and think clearly, I always thought I’d be good in a crisis situation. I’ve imagined being attacked by someone at night, working out how I’d fight them. I’ve imagined a plane crashing, how I’d get out, who I’d try to save. I’ve imagined another huge earthquake hitting the Bay Area, what I’d do, the steps that I’d take to survive.
But now that I’m in an actual crisis, kidnapped in the back of an Uber, being driven toward what I think is a quarry in the middle of nowhere, I can’t think at all.
I have no plan of escape, nothing.
What are you supposed to do? I keep checking my phone, keep hitting the emergency call button, but nothing is happening. Am I supposed to negotiate? Plead for my life? Make him see me as human so he’s less likely to rape and murder me?
All I know is when I get the chance to fight back, I’m going to fight back.
In fact…
I eye the back of his head.
If I could get him in a chokehold or stick my fingers in his eye sockets or something, pull his hair, anything to make him loose control of the car, I could get it to crash. Maybe the door would unlock, maybe he’d be hurt enough for me to get free.
I have to do something.
I take in a deep breath, carefully reaching over to unbuckle my seatbelt as silently as possible, wincing when I hear the click.
I look up to the rearview, see the man look at me, alert.
There’s no time.
I spring forward, jamming my body in between the two front seats, trying desperately to rip out his hair, claw at his eyes, screaming and screaming, panic tearing out of my lungs, filling the car.
He yelps, my fingers close to his eyes, feeling skin under my nails.
Then he takes his elbow, throws it back at my face until it collides with my cheek in an explosion of stars and pain.
I’m thrown in the back of the seat, slumped over, unable to…unable to …
Everything goes fuzzy, the pain spreading from my cheek, seeping into my veins until the agony is all I feel. Blood trickles from my nose and onto the seat.
“Fucking crazy,” the driver mutters under his breath. “Just crazy.”
I almost laugh but it hurts. I’m crazy?
God, but maybe I am.
Maybe none of this is really happening, just a figment of my imagination.
But as much as I wish that were true, I know it’s real, just as the pain is real.
I’m going to die here.
I don’t know how long I lie like this in the backseat, hair over my face, feeling like the leather is going to swallow me whole.
But eventually the car slows, then stops, like I knew it eventually would.
Every ride must come to an end.
Even mine.
“Wait here,” the man says as he turns off the car, as if I have a choice.
I almost laugh again, getting just enough power to push myself up and look. He leaves the car, locking the door, and then strides off toward the mist. I’m not sure where we are, the quarry maybe. I can barely make out the forest on either side of the car, but in front of us is a wide-open space covered with fast-moving fog.
