A Captives Gamble

Someone woke her, grabbed her and threw her into a bag. She felt herself being dragged and dumped onto something. A motor started. The car drove for what seemed like hours and finally stopped. Again the bag was dragged and then shoved into a space just big enough to hold her. She could barely move.

After pushing the bag into a box in a hole in the ground, he shoveled dirt over it leaving an air tube sticking out so she could breathe. When he was done, he left.

She could hear footsteps and the sound of the car pulling away. She squirmed around and hit the sides of what seemed to be a wooden box -- a coffin. Moving began to hurt, and she she lay still.

He came back the next day, dropped a sandwich and a small bottle of water through a trapdoor in the top of the box, and closed it again. When she heard his footsteps, she screamed at the top of her lungs. Nobody answered. A few minutes later, she heard footsteps and the sound of a car driving away. Who was her captor? What did he want? She was thirsty. She had to move in order to reach the water and had to be even more careful not to spill it. She drank it slowly.

He came back the next day with another sandwich and bottle of water. She sobbed as she heard him approach, but, if he heard, he didn’t care. He dropped another sandwich and a bottle of water into the box. Then he left.
She decided that there was no point in screaming. She was weak enough. Slowly as she had the day before, she ate the sandwich and drank the water. In her awkward position, this took a lot of time, but the one thing she had plenty of was time.

She dozed off for a bit, but she was only able to sleep in spurts. She reviewed what had happened trying to think of some way to get him to release her and came up with nothing.

He returned again with a bottle of water and a sandwich, dropped it through the trap door, and left. In this way days passed, and as they did, she began to realize that she was not going to die.

She began to wonder about her captor. Why had he taken the trouble to put her in this hole and bury her but keep her alive?

Unable to control herself, she peed in her pants. The box was beginning to smell. The accumulation of empty water bottles made it even harder to move. How long would it be before her body atrophied from lack of movement? How long would it be before the total darkness blinded her permanently.

How odd that the same person who had put her there was also keeping her alive. She desperately hoped that he had some specific purpose for her, because if he did she might live to see the light of day again.

He came back and dropped a sandwich and a small bottle of water through the trap door and closed it again. She assumed that another day had passed. His visits were the only way she could mark the passage of time.

She desperately wanted to find some way to get his attention. Perhaps, if he thought that she were ill or dead, he might open the box. So, when he came back the next day and opened the trap door, she was careful not to move. There were no footsteps. She lay there completely still careful not to make a sound. Above the ground, he was listening carefully, hoping she was not dead. Then he shrugged.

“Oh well, if she is she is.”

She didn’t believe in god but found herself praying anyhow. .She gathered together all of her strength and shouted “God help me.” It was at that moment that she heard him drive away not knowing whether he would come back or not. She braced herself for the worst. She gripped the bottle of water wondering whether to drink it. If I am to die, better to die quickly. How long would that take. A few days?

Suddenly, she realized that she would have no way of knowing when it was tomorrow. Perhaps, she had done the wrong thing by not moving when he came. Perhaps, even if he thought she might be dead he would come once more just to check. She listened desperately for the sound of the car. Every once in a while, she heard the sounds of an engine but only briefly. Perhaps she was near a road. Eventually a car stopped. She heard the door open and then the footsteps. She moved inside her prison. She didn’t know whether he could hear her, but she spoke to him anyway.

“Thank you for coming. I really do appreciate those sandwiches. It's nice of you to take the time to bring them here.”

The sandwich and bottle of water dropped in.

“Please don't leave,” she begged as she heard the door close.

“Please. Even if you won't let me out, just stay and talk a bit. Tell me anything or ask me to do anything. Just don't leave me here. Couldn’t I be of more use to you in some other way? I could entertain you or keep house for you, and I don't eat much more than this. If you want me to be quiet, I'll be quiet. You won't even know I’m there.”

She sobbed as she heard the car drive away.

Of course, she had no idea whether he had heard anything she had said. Even if he had listened had she said the right things? But what else could she possibly offer him that he might want? If he wanted money, surely he would have already made that clear, if he wanted sex he could have just taken. But he hadn’t asked her for anything. If he had, she might have had a chance.

The next time he came, she tried talking to him again, but he simply gave her the sandwich and water and drove away. She screamed. She banged on the box in frustration.

She thought about dying. All she had to do was spill the water out. But something in her refused. As long as she was alive, there was hope. It would have been different if he stopped bringing the water and sandwiches. Then she’d have no choice. But as long as he kept giving her the sandwiches and water, she knew she would eat them.

She was surprised to hear a car pull in. It seemed a bit too soon for another day to have passed. She heard chains clanking against the box. The box moved. I was being lifted.

“Oh my god!.Can this be true? Is the box really moving? Yes, it is. I’m going up. Thank god!” She had no idea what was in store, but she knew that anything had to be better than living in a coffin.”

She felt the box drop and heard the sounds of chains and then a motor. She was being taken somewhere. Of course, she still couldn’t see, but the haze was lighter. Daylight! She felt the box moving back and forth in a vehicle. Finally, the car stopped, and she felt herself being lifted again and held up for awhile before being lowered. The chains no longer clanged against the box.

The trap door opened. A piece of bread and a bottle of water dropped in -- just a piece of bread, no sandwich. The bottle of water also felt different. She assumed that her captor had transferred her to others -- people who thought that a piece of bread was enough for a person to eat.
She began to hear sounds and thought that they might be other boxes. Her box moved again bumping into other boxes before being set down. Was she cargo at a loading dock of some sort? And if there were other boxes, were there people in those boxes too?

The thought of human beings being collected in boxes would have been too gruesome to contemplate a short time ago, but now all she cared about was whether she would ever get out of the box, whether she would ever see things again, whether she would hear sounds other than occasional motors and trap doors, whether her body would move, whether she would ever speak to another human being again.

She heard loud voices in the distance, the sound of banging, and dull rumbling. Closer, she heard sounds that seemed to be voices smothered by thick insulated walls. They were unintelligible, and yet they seemed to be voices.
For what seemed like a long time nothing happened. Then she heard sounds , too many all at once, yelling, banging, and grinding. Were they opening the boxes? What were all those sounds?. She couldn’t make them out. They were muted and distorted.

She felt herself moving. The box was definitely moving. If the box had been bigger she would have been rolling around in it. She was dizzy. Her limbs bumped into the sides of the box and then the trapdoor opened and a piece of bread and a bottle of water dropped in again.

“Well so much for sandwich man,” she thought. Maybe he had been a pickup man, a kidnapper. Maybe someone had paid him. Maybe he kept her in a box not because he was a psychopath, but because someone else wanted her in the box for some reason.

She tried to convince herself that if these people had gone to such lengths to get her to wherever she was, they intended to use her in some way and that that she would live, but it was getting harder and harder to think. She had been in the box too long. Her mind seemed to float and wander uncontrollably.

She heard voices yelling in the distance, still not intelligible but definitely voices, human voices. What a pleasure to simply hear human speech! In the background, she heard more grinding, bumping and the sounds of what she thought were boxes being moved.

If boxes were moving, where were they going? Were the occupants of those boxes being released from their coffins? What was happening to them them?

She assumed that nothing good was happening because the voices that were yelling had a harsh tone, but she reminded herself that anything was better than living in a box. She would give these people, whoever they were, whatever they wanted. She would live.

Finally, she felt her box lifted and then dropped onto a soft surface. A odd smelling smoky gas came into the box. Terrified, she moved away from it, but of course she had nowhere to go. She began to get sleepy as the box filled with gas. Her eyes burned, and she could no longer stay awake. As she drifted off, she wondered whether she would ever awaken.

***

There was sunlight and then the smell of salt, the sounds of birds and water splashing like thunder. She felt sand against her bare skin. She laughed with joy. As her eyes began to focus, she saw the box she had been in and other boxes scattered along the beach. Part way out of some boxes were bodies laying still, some moving, Other boxes like hers were empty.

A few hundred feet from the boxes were trees turning quickly into thick brush and woods. She realized that she was nude. The bag she had been in was gone as were the empty bottles and the sandwich wrappers. She was clean. She looked around and saw other people, all nude.

Aside from the lack of clothing, it looked something like a United Nations Convention. There were blacks, Asians, Caucasians, and a variety of other nationalities and racial combinations she couldn't name. Whoever had selected the people certainly had eclectic tastes and also access to people in countries other than the U.S. She looked out at the water. There was no sign of a ship or other land.
In the distance, coming from someplace in the forest, she occasionally heard screams possibly gunfire but nothing really definitive.

She decided that the beach could not possibly be their destination. Someone would come and take them somewhere. The screams she heard were not a good sign. Were people being tortured? Perhaps life here would be difficult. Perhaps they had disobeyed some order. She would not. She would do whatever they wanted -- anything in order to live.

Farther down the beach, more screams erupted. Three riders on horses emerged from the trees. A woman dropped to the ground caught in a net that one of the horsemen had thrown. The men dismounted and tied the woman onto a drag behind one of the horses as she screamed. They quickly mounted again and disappeared into the thick of the forest.

There were more hoof beats closer, shouts and more screams coming from the trees. Should she run? She decided not to. What were her chances of survival alone in a forest? Better to be captured and even to be mistreated than to die.

More riders burst from the woods one pitting an arrow in his bow and at a full gallop the arrow flew straight and true. She heard it hiss and looked up in time to see it coming at her. It pierced her eye entering her brain and killed her instantly.

The other two horsemen shouted praises as they rode up and dismounted.

“She'll make a fine feast tonight. This was a large shipment. We shouldn’t need another one for at least a month.”