Chains

I hang in chains. I stand. The chains are connected to handcuffs around my wrists. The chains will jingle if I move, making a happy jingle bell sound. When that happens he looks at me. He hides in the corner and he thinks I don’t see him, but I do. I’m somewhere cold and dark. I can hear rats running at night, over my head across the pipe I’m chained to. They don’t scare me as much as the man in the corner. He scares me. He had a nice smile and straight white teeth. So did Ted Bundy. I should have known, I should have read more into the look he gave me when I met him. I’m writing this in my head, it’s my story and I have no pen and paper. Even if I did…hear the jingle?

There’s blood on the floor. Not all of it’s mine. When he cut me between my toes I kicked out and he twisted my ankle. I think it might be broke, I felt more than heard the snap, you know? No you don’t know, but I do. Days and nights mix in here, I don’t know what time it is and knowing what time it is has always been important to me. I don’t know why, just a little piece of me for my story. I asked him once, what time it is I mean, he giggled and didn’t answer me. I’m standing, most of my weight is on my right foot, and my left ankle is the one that’s twisted, broke or gone. Who knows? I’m naked; did I write that in my mind already? I’m not sure if I did, so I’ll just re-write it here. I don’t like him looking at me. He touches me and I can’t fight him. He sometimes enjoys himself in the corner, I can hear him and I play a song in my mind when he does that.

My name is Tina. I’m eighteen years old and a cheerleader at Baker High School. I have a lot of friends and I think I’m popular. Was popular. It’s easy to add italics in my mind, I just think of how I would say the word and the italics add themselves. My parents must be frantic. I told them I was going to the gas station on the corner to get a soda. I was really going for a pack of cigarettes. They don’t know I smoke and I don’t want to disappoint them. I bought the soda and pack of cigarettes and was walking out the door when he showed up. I bumped into him on my way out the door and we laughed and apologized. He told me to hold on a second and I stood outside while he paid for his gas. Surely they have video cameras in the station! They would see me standing by his blue BMW! I stood by him while he got his gas and he said he would give me a ride home. I told him it wasn’t far and he laughed and promised me he wasn’t a serial killer or rapist. I believed him, he wore jeans, a chambray shirt and that smile, I didn’t think serial killers wore chambray shirts and jeans. They do. There’s blood on the floor that’s not mine, so I know he told the same story to others and they believed him too.

I got in the car. If I could get out of here I would tell every girl I saw to stay out of cars of strange men even if they drive a blue BMW and they look safe. He’s giggling but I’m not going to hear him or respond. When I cry he huffs like he’s holding back a laugh. I wish, sometimes, when I jingle the chains and the feeling comes back into my arms and the pain is so strong and hot and I cry out, that he would just kill me already. That’s part of his game I guess, waiting to see how much I can take.

I got in the car and we drove and when I told him where I lived he went past my street. I tried to open the door and jump out but he hit me in the face. It stunned me and I wear my seat belt, I couldn’t get out. I tried fighting for the wheel and then he held something against my side and I went out. I think it was a taser gun. One of those little things that you can zap people with. I remember hearing a zap, feeling a strong current through my body and that’s it. When I woke up I was hanging here. My arms are over my head and when I look up I can see my hands in the dull light coming through the window high up in the corner. They look black and disjointed as if the immobility has crippled them. Sometimes the feeling will come back and that only makes it feel like my fingernails are going to shoot off the end of my fingers so I try not to jingle the chains. I think I’m in his basement. I would scream and yell but there’s a gag in my mouth. It’s some kind of cloth and the thought that it’s his dirty sock won’t leave my mind and I gag. If I vomit I’ll die, I’ll choke and I know he won’t save me. That’s the point right? To be rid of me when he’s had his fun?

He’s a cutter. He uses the knife and I’m the Thanksgiving turkey that needs to be carved. I have blood all down my arms and legs. He cut on my backside and if I get out of here I don’t know how I can explain those scars without having to tell how stupid I was to get in his car. It’s my fault and I’ll write here so the world knows, it’s my fault. If I get out of here I’m going to write this for real, with pen and paper and give it to high schools so they can give it to all their students.

I saw a girl in the corner once. She was standing with her arms over her head, but no chains held her, she looked at me and there were tears running down her face. Can ghosts cry? Will I cry in the corner when the next girl hangs here and I’m done?

No! I won’t think like that. To think like that is admitting defeat and I won’t do that. Not yet. I have to finish my story. I have a little sister. Her name is Trinity. I used to hate her name and I would make fun of her and call her Trinnypants. Tina and Trinity. She’s four years younger than me and if I don’t go home, she’ll be an only child. I wonder if she’ll use my stuff. I hope she does, I hope she’ll remember me always. We went on a trip a couple years ago to the lake. My parents own a cabin on the water and we’d go there for a few weeks in the summer and once Trinity was standing on the dock behind me when we were fishing and I cast my line the hook caught her in the back of the head. She had to get three stitches in her head and I had laughed at her and told her she had to be the biggest fish out of the lake. I feel bad I laughed at her. She tried hard not to cry and I laughed. I can’t wipe the tears on my cheeks and they itch. My nose itches and as the blood on my legs and arms dries, it itches. I can’t scratch a damn thing. I tried scratching one leg with the other but with my ankle swollen I can’t bear the weight or move my leg without pain. He gives me more pain than I can take so I’m not going to give myself more.

I’d chew through my wrist with my teeth if I could reach it and he was out of the room. He has to work right? Am I his vacation? Does he take a vacation twice a year to do this? I think he might.

He took the tape off a few minutes ago and I wanted to scream but my voice is gone. I struggled a bit at the beginning and screamed behind the gag a lot, so now my voice is gone and my shot of getting out of here seems gone as well. I’m going to write this as fast as I can in my head because, if I’m figuring right, the room has lightened and darkened four times. If he has a week vacation the festivities are going to pick up and I may not be able to write later. He fed me soup and gave me water to drink. My God! How cold the water was! I would have drank gallons of it had he allowed. He didn’t. One glass and I whispered, ‘more,’ and he shook his head. The soup was warm and soothed my throat the same as the water had. There were vegetables and I didn’t know how good carrots and potatoes could taste! Heaven.

I sleep standing like a harnessed horse in a stall. When I get so exhausted I can’t keep my eyes open, I let myself doze off. I have to be careful, though, he’s snuck up on me while I’ve slept. I wake to the feeling of the knife, slicing through my skin. He’ll pick different parts, not parts that would end it all, but parts like my inner thighs, buttocks or breasts. He doesn’t cut deep, just enough to produce blood that will run. He licks it off my skin. I shiver in disgust when he does it, and he seems to think I’m enjoying it. I’m not, he’s a sick pig and if I can I’m going to kill him. I haven’t figured out but I’m going to try.

He’s upstairs moving around, I can hear his footsteps on the floor above my head, the footsteps make a creaking groan sound as if the whole floor was going to collapse. This must be an old house, my grandmother’s house makes the same noise. He must be on the phone with someone, I only hear one set of footsteps, he sounds angry and that frightens me, if he’s angry that might mean trouble for me. I have to think! Think how to get out of here and get home to Trinnypants and my mom and dad. I know I’ve given them grief in the past, not grief like I was pregnant and had an abortion or got the sudden urge to do drugs, just the normal teen-aged grief of a low math score and a boyfriend they don’t care for. Nothing serious, in my book anyway. I miss them and it makes me want to cry but I won’t give him the satisfaction of letting him see me cry if I can help it, sometimes I can’t.

I want to go to college and be a marine biologist. I want to save the oceans and I can’t because I took a ride I shouldn’t have. I want to make love to someone for the first time, I want to get married someday to someone who shares my views on saving the ocean and all things in it. I want to have children, one boy and one girl. I hear his footsteps pounding on the floor above me, they’re loud! Oh, shit here he comes!

I hurt! Oh God, I hurt all over! I think I’m dying. I’m weak and I can’t fight. He could let me out of these chains and all I could do was lie on the floor. He cut long into the night. He mumbled and I tried to talk to him through the gag, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I screamed and he looked into my eyes and smiled. I closed my eyes and he taped them open. I guess I could consider myself lucky that he didn’t cut off my eyelids. He hasn’t…yet. There’s a pool of blood under me. He forced more water and soup on me. I think I was dehydrating because when I cried, no tears would come. I have to think of something soon, or I’m going to be too weak to ever do anything. Ever. And then I’ll be dead just like the girl in the corner. She came back last night when he tired and went upstairs. She looked at me and shook her head as if she knew the end for me was near. I can’t have it! I want to see the sun and hear the ocean one more time! I’m too young to die! It’s not fair the world will go on without me as if I never was. I can’t take this, I have to get out of here! He ripped the tape off my eyes and went upstairs. He turned the light off and I’m in blackness.

I jingle the chains, the pain the movement causes is too much to bear. I blackout and when I wake my knees are bent and all my weight is on my arms. My right shoulder is now dislocated and the smallest move makes it scream. I’m going to die. It’s official, all my hope is gone. I’m not going to take any more water from him, no more soup and I’m beginning to be okay with the fact I’ll never see the sun again. If I close my eyes I can see it and I can hear waves crashing against the shore. That’s my heaven. I’ll be there soon and it will all be okay.

There’s pounding footsteps upstairs. Sounds like several people are up there! He’s in the corner and he stands when he hears them. I think it might be the police! There’s yelling. He’s coming closer! He’s going to finish me and they’re upstairs and I can’t yell for help! Hear me! Please! Hurry! He’s in front of me, he’s looking in my eyes and for the first time, I look back. I see him, really see him, for the first time since he smiled at me at the gas station a million years ago. He looks scared and I almost feel sorry for him. I try to smile through the gag, but it doesn’t work. He rips the tape off my face and the gag falls to the floor. The movement makes my arm burn, but I don’t call out. There’s no need. The knife he holds tells me that much. He’s going to kill me now. He runs the knife down my face leaving one more mark before the end. The blood runs and I no longer care. I can’t live, I can’t. I want to stay with him. To live through this I will never look at life the same, I won’t be the same person I was before I got into his car. I’ll be scarred forever, scarred with worms on my skin and worms in my brain. The basement door crashes open and footsteps pound down the stairs. He looks at me and smiles. This time I smile back. The knife is so cold! I shiver as the blood pours down my legs. He’s gentle with the cut. I’m still looking in his eyes as he drives the knife in and I push against it before it’s too late and he leaves me. Suddenly he is gone from me, pulled away and there is another face. This face is gentle and kind. Booming noises fill the room and the air is acrid with gunpowder. The chains are removed and I’m lowered to the floor. There’s yelling, but I’m too tired and weak to care. I close my eyes to rest and someone jiggles my arm. My eyes fly open and I scream. I look around and I see him, my captor, lying on the floor beside me, his eyes are open and he’s smiling at me. I smile back and reach out to him. I love him. He closes his eyes and dies. I find my voice and begin to scream, ‘Nooo!’ His blood mixes with mine on the floor and then I’m loaded on a stretcher and taken away.

This is not the end of my story. My recovery was long and filled with surgeries to remove the scars he left. I didn’t want the surgeries, but my parents insisted. I have no reminder of him, the scars that were too bad to cover have been altered so I can’t read his words on me any longer, his chapters. I miss the words he left. I want to have them back. I want to have him back. I want to look into his eyes as he cuts me. I’ve tried to make the scars his again, I take a knife from the kitchen drawer late at night and work on my breasts. I want the scars to be his and mine again. the pain is bad, but it’s been worse and I’m eager for the cold blade against my skin. Trinity stays close to me as I recover. I won’t go back to school, they are going to let me graduate with the seniors in May. That’s just a few weeks from now and I’m scared to think I’ll be going out into the world soon to make my own way. He might be out there, looking for me. I know he’s dead, but he could come back and some nights he does and I smile as he cuts. He comes and he cuts and I smile at him. I must be crazy to miss him, my therapist says it’s normal. Bullshit!

I went to the gas station the other day. The gas station where I met him. I went in a bought a pack of smokes and a diet soda. As I was coming out, I bumped into a guy. We laughed and apologized and he offered to take me home. I got into the car with him.