AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I take my chances on the alligator. At least the beast will show me mercy as he forces me down into the murky water for the death roll, drowning me and shoving me in a log for later.
I’ll never be found. No closure for my family.
But I may never be found otherwise. I head for the stairs. I know where they are and can move fast. One flight. Two. I pause and listen. Nothing but the low hum of the TV he’s left on the news channel.
The newscaster warns an approaching hurricane could hit the Eastern Seaboard. She’s called Jodie. If I don’t make this attempt to freedom, then I hope she comes with all her untamable force. I’ve been in a hurricane before. You’re powerless to stop it coming. You cannot beg, bargain or bolt from something that unrivaled, unmatched.
I hope she comes in with severe judgment and sweeps the entire island under and never vomits it up again. We’ll be casualties, but our deaths will be sweet relief. Underwater it’s quiet and still and peaceful. I’d open my mouth and inhale death, letting it consume me whole like the alligator but without the sting.
The door beckons me to come. To find my escape. To take refuge in the marsh. I won’t make the same mistake twice. I’ll hide for hours in one of the thickets until he has to give up.
But then...what if he takes the canoe? What if I make it to the dock and it’s gone? Then what?
My throat is tight and my stomach lurches, but I dash to the door.
I unlock the sliding dead bolt.
Turn the lock on the actual knob.
And I freeze, losing my bladder at his voice.
“Where are you off to this time of night, darling?” It’s a quiet before the storm kind of tone. I turn but he’s not there, and it dawns on me his voice is coming through a hidden speaker.
He sees me. From where I do not know. A camera system. Has he been watching the whole time from working to unlock the fetter that held me to right now in this moment?
A buzzing at the door draws my attention and I gawk in horror as the sliding lock clicks back into place.
With trembling hands, I unlock it again.
But the buzzing repeats and the lock returns to its place.
“I can do this all night if it’s the game you want to play,” he says. “I do enjoy your determination.”
It’s a smart house. He can run anything including lights and appliances with the touch of a finger.
I know now he left the door unlocked the last time on purpose to prove I have no power. He’s been in control the entire time.
I don’t think. My flight-or-fight mode has kicked in and I run. My brain won’t process rationally; it screams hide. Run. Get as far away as I can. I slide the bolt once more and reach for the knob, hoping this time I can wrench open the door before it relocks.
I’m not that fast.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he singsongs through the speakers. “Outside is a no-no. If you need me to talk to you as a small child, I’ll indulge you. But I’d rather treat you like a woman.”
“A woman? You’re holding me prisoner!” I scream and rotate in a circle, looking upward though I don’t know where the hidden cameras are located.
“You gave yourself to me. We’re one flesh. You belong to me. You are me.”
I run through the living area to the other door, but it’s locked too, so I scramble up the stairs to the second floor. My gaze roams over this living area as my blood pressure rises to dangerous heights, pounding in my ears and giving me a sharp pain through the back of my skull.
I know I have nowhere to go. No way out. Nowhere to hide.
I collapse in a heap and pound the floor through my guttural sobs. “Let me out! Let us go. Please, let us go.”
He says nothing for a long time. I know he’s watching me in a crumpled heap, losing my mind. I feel the shift inside me. The breaking point. It cracks along my rib cage and seeps into my blood, which runs thick and cold through my veins. Buzzing zings in my ears.
Suddenly I’m numb.
“You can march yourself to your room like a good girl or we can do this the hard way. I’ll let you have the freewill choice.” His voice is soft and slow like a dad reading his child a bedtime story. But I’m not a child, and this is a horror novel. One I don’t have a pen to change the chapter ending for. I am powerless. Voiceless.
