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“Shhh.”
It had come from my left. I froze. Like a lamb who had stumbled into the lion’s den, hearing its heavy breath inches away, hidden in darkness. Wait… Were those footsteps to my right now? He couldn’t possibly have moved that quickly…
I started to plead, the words blocked by the nasty rag stuffed in my mouth. Tears wet the blindfold.
No, please. Please. I had so much more to do, so much more to see. I was just starting to get my inspiration back, doing what I loved, finding someone I could love. I didn’t want to die. Please.
Please.
Please.
A series of vibrations made me freeze. Was that my phone? Maybe Gabriel was on his way. My knight in shining armor. He’d save me. He’d get me out of this.
Another touch fluttered around my neck, fingers closing around me. I stopped breathing. The fingers slowly climbed up, leaving a tingling sense of disgust against my skin as they softly brushed against my cheek, my nose. The fingers went up, over my hair, rubbing against my buzzed head. The breathing became heavier, the hand moving to cover the front of my face, as if he wanted to sculpt my face out of bloodstained clay.
I had to fight the urge to throw up. I’d drown in it, the gag working like a dam. No. I had to stay strong. I had to stay clear-minded. I was going to get out of this.
As the hands moved down to my neck again, going under my shirt, I focused on everything but the hands. I tried to smell for anything unusual but only got the stench of body odor and dried blood. I listened for any sounds that could tell me where I was, hearing nothing but rotten breath.
But wait… no. There was something past the breathing. A bubbling. Like a filtration system in a fish tank. But it sounded like there was more than one. I heard a heavy door slide open. Like it was rubbing, brick against brick.
I filed that away, trying to ignore the hand that was now gliding over my chest. It made me want to rip off my skin. I wanted to shed it like an exoskeleton, leaving the contaminated pieces behind. Everywhere this monster touched burned. Like his fingers were iron-hot brands, leaving permanent marks wherever they touched.
More vibrations. The touch of the hand (I imagined claws at the end of those fingers) disappeared. A shuffling noise as the vibrations grew further. Footsteps that appeared to be climbing a creaky set of stairs.
A door closing. This one sounded different, further from me than the last door.
The bubbling of the water filters.
My strangled breaths.
It took me a couple of minutes until I was sure: the Midnight Chemist was gone. I was alone. Now was my chance.
I struggled against my binds, hard, using as much force I could muster, adrenaline fueling my muscles. I grunted against the rag in my mouth, feeling the hard leather of the binds cut into my wrists. I didn’t care. I pushed harder, fighting against the forces that held me down on that bed.
Something snapped on my left arm. I focused all my strength there, pulling up, fisting my hand, and tugging, grunting, crying.
Another snap, loud this time. My hand swung upward as the binds dropped off my wrists.
I immediately went for the blindfold, tearing it off before I pulled out the gag and took a deep breath of musty air before bending over the table, nearly throwing up. I held it together. I had to focus on getting out, not getting sick. I went for the other binds next, the latches easy to unclip now that I had one hand free.
I didn’t even bother looking around. I wanted out. I stumbled off the table and saw a set of stairs, likely the same ones the Midnight Chemist used to leave. I ran, hurtling toward them. I didn’t care that they bent under my weight; I just needed to get out. The outline of the door appeared to glow like a portal above me, light shining from the other side.
I pushed it open and climbed out before I fell to my knees.
But I still wasn’t free. I couldn’t slow down. I got back up and looked around, seeing I was now in an empty room, the windows boarded shut from the inside. I went for the door, not caring about all the sound I was making. The door dumped me out into a dark hallway. I went left, running, nearly tripping, gaining my footing, running faster. I saw the front door.
I flew through it, out into the sunlight. There were trees all around me. I took off into them, wanting to put that horror show of a house as far behind me as possible. I was hoping I’d find a neighbor’s house, someone who could help me call for help, but I must have run in a direction that took me deeper into the surrounding woods. I started to get scared that I’d run out of one nightmare and into another—dying of exposure in some mountainous wilderness—but the tree line finally gave way and opened up onto someone’s backyard.
I hurtled out of the woods like a zombie. Dirty with sticks and leaves on my clothes. I was conscious of the fact that I was likely in Northern Georgia, trespassing on someone’s property, but what other choice did I have? I could keep running until I found a gas station, somewhere I could use a phone, but that meant having to potentially outrun the Midnight Chemist and being caught again.
No. I had to take a risk. Had to hope whoever lived here wasn’t a racist trash bag with a quick and uneducated trigger finger.
Instead of knocking on their kitchen window, I went around to the front door and rang the bell. The minute or so it took for them to open felt like an eternity. Like at any moment, I’d be grabbed from behind and dragged into the back of a truck.
But I wasn’t. A woman in Lululemon opened the door, a water bottle in her hand, and immediately looked at me with suspicion that quickly shifted to worry, her plucked brows drawing together on her thin face.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I just need to use your phone. I was— kidnapped.”
