Changing Skies

Part 8 -Home

Corette

As the car rode and bumped on, I continued to jostle against whatever was beneath me. The cloth over my head smelled faintly of grease and lint. Although, overall, it smelled...how to put this...new. Unfortunately, this simple reassurance was dissolved with the realization that the air was pungent with the stench of rust.

I wiggled from my current position and angled my head toward the closest light source I could sense though the fabric. It was a faint fluorescent glow, likely coming in through the back window. When this light would ebb away and then sharply appear a few seconds later, I realized it was storefronts. Civilization! There's still a chance I can get out of here.

I can't just leave Mama alone. She freak or worse. Besides, I'd rather not think about the other consequences. Right now, I need to focus on escape.

Around my wrist I could feel the bindings. Fingering  the knots I discovered the it wasn't rope, but another material. It was much too smooth, like thick, rough laminated paper and was even sticky in various spots. Around the knots, I used what little stubs of fingernails I had left the claw and file at what I thought might be weak spots. When a nail broke or became jagged, I gritted my teeth.

Distracted by my current task it took a few minutes  before I noticed that the comforting lights had all but stopped now. My face became ghost-white and I counted the seconds before I hoped with the core and every fiber of my being that I would see another.
'1....2....3....4.....5.......7.....10..........15.-'

There! It passed by for only a few seconds but it was definitely bright enough to see though the dark tinted windows. The squeezing pressure in my chest lessened ever so slightly.

But, after this literal ray of hope had passed, it the time it took for me spot other lights took painstakingly longer after every light. The distance from my home ever growing.

Then the car began to crawl to a stop. My heart was pounding so heavily from inside my chest I could hear it echoing against the walls of my ripcage. Then the car turned off and footstepsp disturbed gravel became increasingly louder as they neared the trunk. Squirming more frantically in the cramped area I moved around to discover a torso, head, and a single leg. A, hopefully only unconscious, body. I shuffled around to feel for the other leg but was met with a stump. I jerked around and gulped as a pit grew in the bottom of my stomach and my eyes watered.

With a click, the lid snapped open and a pair of arms wrapped around me. Still immobiled, my captor didn't even try acting like he thought I was a threat and just laid me gently in a patch of grass amongst the rocks. The other body, I heard land across me with a muted thud.

I tried to roll away as anywhere is better than here at the moment. Instead
I felt a heavy sneaker against my cheek. I tried to scream but it quickly died out with the increasing pressure on my head. Between the sharp rocks and strong-willed shoe I wouldn't be going anywhere. Lest I wanted a broken neck. I do not.

I heard the sound that only happens when air is moved around, fast as a speeding train, really close to your head, except this time it was more as though air was being squeezed from a small frictionless container. There was the slight tapping of metal on glass. Then a sting as a needle of a syringe pricked into my left arm and a liquid slowly seaping into my body.

The Voice I recognized as the kidnapper muttered to himself, "Never can be too careful."

Then my arm felt as it had just been stabbed with a four foot icicle by Frosty the Snowman himself. The ice spread throughout my arm, then my chest, and from there it spread to the rest of my body. The chill caused me to curl up within myself. I knew it wouldn't help just as I knew that there wasn't any actually frost dusting my brow and nose.

The serum grew still. It soon became so freezing, it burned. I didn't notice until later that, while I lie on the ground, twitching violently, the sneaker had left my face.

Then the second round activated. It crept around, spreading like paste. The burning grew so intense my entire body became numb. I couldn't feel anything. Even head was fuzzy as my thoughts buzzed and blurred. I couldn't feel my chest rising and falling, but my breathing was rapid and short. I was hyperventilating.

My consciousness was fluctuating back and forth between hazy fever dreams  and a not much better reality, but before I because fully engulfed, I was being lifted, placed upon a sholder, and shortly after, said shoulder began to move.