Chapter 28: Flashback

There was darkness, a dreamless slumber that made my body fail to do what I wanted it to. And there was a constant purring of a motor. Then I drifted off again.

Sometimes I could feel a sting in my arm, but I wasn’t able to open my eyes and see what it was. Purring motor. Sting. Blackness.

I didn’t know how long I’d been in this state, but I woke up with a splitting headache that made my eyes shut the moment I opened them. Everything hurt, and my limbs felt sore and stiff.

But when I moved to find a better position, I seemed to be stuck. Then I heard someone speak to me, and all the hair on my body instantly rose as a reaction to the chill that ran down my spine.

“Good morning, sweetheart. Did you sleep well?”

Headache or not, my eyes instantly flew wide open at the sound of Kemar’s voice, and I found myself sitting in his red Mustang with my hands tied to the mid console between us, which was why I couldn’t move much.

“It’s not morning, though. As you can see it’s already dark and it’s time for little girls to go to bed and spread their legs.”

~What the hell?~

“Don’t you dare,” I mumbled, but I struggled to make my mouth work. The words came out slurred and almost incomprehensible, and Kemar had either not heard me, or he pretended not to.

“But don’t worry. We’re almost there now.”

“Where?” I asked, a little louder and easier to understand.

“Nah. I can’t tell you that. But I’ll tell you this much: We’re about three thousand five hundred miles away from your precious little home, and your parents have no clue that you’re here with me. They don’t even know where to start looking.”

He laughed his typical short laughter, and it made me nauseous. Then he continued speaking with a triumphant tone in his voice.

“It’s a two-and-a-half-day journey if you drive both night and day. But of course, I had to stop to get some sleep a couple of times. Still, we made it in only four days. That’s a new personal record for me. Great, huh?”

“I don’t care,” I mumbled, and the feeling of being agitated without being able to do much about it was unnerving.

I remembered that he had strangled me until I passed out. Then he’d obviously kept me sedated all the way to wherever we were.

It was too dark to see our surroundings, but I could tell we were driving on a narrow road in the middle of a forest, and it scared me. There weren’t even streetlights or road signs.

“But like I said, we’re almost there now,” he said, and I could see him smirk from his car seat.

“Oh, and just to make it clear, I didn’t do anything…you know…~sexual~ with you while you were out. I prefer hearing you scream. And out here, you can scream as much as you want, ’cause no one will ever hear you.”

I squinted at him and tried to suppress the nausea that washed over me. It wasn’t because I was carsick. It was because I got an absolutely horrendous gut feeling.

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” I asked to confirm my suspicions. “Strangling people without killing them, kidnapping them, and keeping them drugged, and what else?”

He seemed proud. Goddamn proud!

“Well… It’s been quite a few now. I’m starting to get the hang of it.”

“What do you mean ‘get the hang of it’? What did you do to them?”

Thousands of worst-case scenarios started spinning in my head, and I didn’t really want to hear him say any of them out loud. He’d killed them. I just knew.

“You’ll find that out later, sweetheart.”

“Stop calling me that!” I snapped back, but he just snickered and kept quiet until we parked outside a little cottage partially hidden behind some really large trees.

Then he untied me from the car. However, he kept the rope around my wrists until we were inside, and the door was securely bolted and locked behind us.

He also made a big number out of showing me that he put the key into the pocket in his pants and out of my reach. I was his prisoner.

“Undress,” he stated out of the blue.

I raised my eyebrows questioningly, then shook my head and frowned. We’d barely arrived, and he wanted me to take off my clothes? That was insane.

I didn’t even want to do that under normal circumstances, especially after what happened between us. Besides, the cabin was pretty cold, which made me pull my cardigan closer to my body.

“DID YOU HEAR ME? TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF, SLUT!” he shouted, and sudden anxiety made my body grow numb.

But instead of responding, I just stared at him with a blank expression and hoped my fear wasn’t visible.

I didn’t want him to know that I was scared of him. However, his fake calmness that followed his abrupt outburst of rage scared me more than his anger.

“Wait a minute. Didn’t you say that you were a virgin? Is that really true?” he said and cocked his head. Then he walked closer and licked his lips while he studied me with sharp eyes.

He squinted a bit. He chuckled for no reason at all. He walked in a circle around me. He stared at every inch of my body with an expression that made it seem like I was the ugliest sculpture he’d ever seen.

He did all of those things, yet he wanted to see me naked? It didn’t make sense at all.

“Oh, well. Since you’re not answering…”—he stepped closer to whisper into my ear—“I guess it’s up to me to find out.”

He yanked my arm so he could pull up my tank top and grabbed my boobs roughly.

Then he squeezed them so hard that I whimpered, and even though I tried to stop him, he managed to open my jeans and force his hand into my panties.

“NO!” I screamed and tried to pull myself out of his grip. It didn’t help. Nothing of what I did to make him stop helped other than pushing his hand away from my private parts.

He wasn’t a very buff guy and he seemed about average strength, but his technique was scarily precise, and he seemed to know exactly what I would do next.

It was pretty clear that he was used to handling women who tried to get away, and eventually he managed to turn me around and wrap his whole arm around my throat.

Then he squeezed, and I fought to free my airways instead of escaping.

“That’s a good girl. Stand still now so I can examine you.”

He chuckled right into my ear while I clawed at his arm to make him loosen the pressure on my throat. Then I tried to scream when he brutally claimed my vagina as his territory with his hand.

“Examine…Want to know a secret? I’ve always wanted to become a doctor. Unfortunately, it’s too much work, so I did the next best thing and educated myself…”

I tried to kick his shins, to no avail.

“…in the only topic that’s interesting. Pussies. And now I’m going to have a full case study of yours. I think I deserve that for being such an excellent driver and bringing you all the way to…here.”

I wanted to scream and yell. I wanted to slap him. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t ask for him to take me to this godforsaken place, and that I wanted him to bring me back home.

Instead, I was caught in an iron grip while he did all the despicable things he whispered into my ear. When he was finally done and removed his hand from my crotch, I was crying.

Silent, bitter tears from being violated in the most humiliating way a woman can ever experience.

Only, that wasn’t the worst part. It was because I already knew that this was just a taste of what he would do to me.

“You know what? I think you’re right. I think you actually ~are~ a virgin. Aw, how cute.”

He suddenly let go of me, and I gasped for air and felt so dizzy that I almost lost my balance. Then he started opening his pants so he could pull out his manhood.

“Do you see this?” he smirked and stroked himself to get hard. “This is going to make sure you won’t be a child for much longer.”

He threw back his head and laughed before he suddenly yanked my arm and pushed me toward the only couch in the room, an old, two-seater with a worn-out green fabric that felt rough against my skin when I sat down.

He didn’t even let me pull up my jeans. Instead, he forced me to sit before he forcefully ripped my clothes off. He even tore off one of the buttons of my cardigan and slapped my cheek when I tried to protest.

I felt cold. Cold, just like the rest of the cottage, but not as cold as the heart belonging to the man who climbed on top of me. If he even had a heart. Because that was just the first time he raped me.

Raped me. Strangled me. Hit me. Starved me. I lost count of all the cruel things he did to feed his narcissistic ego.

He even took my clothes away and forced me to clean the entire cottage from floor to ceiling before I was allowed to get them back.

However, the physical pain of being abused was livable. Being away from my family, being told that nobody missed me, and that he did both them and society a favor by taking me away—~that~ tore me apart.

I became numb. Apathetic. I guess it was a way of distancing myself from all the pain he put me through, and I kept wondering about the other girls he’d kept imprisoned here.

Because I knew for sure he was telling the truth when he proudly claimed that it was at least eight.

He even showed me evidence, such as broken nails, pieces of torn clothes, and hair that looked like it had been ripped or cut off someone’s scalp.

He had a carpet with blood splatter that he kept as some kind of macabre art. Sick, sick, sick!

But no matter how numb I felt, I never stopped wondering how long he’d kept his other victims alive before he killed them. Was it days? Weeks? Months?

All I knew was that the cottage was a prison cell, and that we were very far from civilization. I knew, because it took him five hours to get back and forth when he shopped for groceries. By car!

Kemar had a few good days, but mostly bad ones. On the good ones, he let me keep my clothes on and gave me a full meal.

On the bad ones, he kept wandering around, talking or shouting, and I never knew if he was yelling at me or himself. It could even be something in his imagination, for all I knew.

But I was never sure what he’d do on those days. One time he hung me upside down with a rope from one of the beams in the ceiling.

Another time he made me crawl on all fours, pretending to be the dog he never had as a child, and I knew it was best to be obedient while I tried to figure out a way to get out of there.

Hopefully before he grew tired of me. There was no way I could manage to steal his keys, because even when he raped me, he didn’t take his pants off completely.

I never got an opportunity to get to them without him noticing. And I hated his laughter when he knew I was thinking about escaping.

“Why me?” I whispered one day. My eyes were brimming with tears, while I listened to his subsiding panting after he’d reached his climax. But he didn’t answer until he’d made me clean up his cum from all over my stomach.

“Funny question, actually,” he chuckled, as if I had told him a joke.

“Because you’re not really my type. You’re too young, and your hair is dark. I prefer them blonde and a little older than you.

“But after seeing you behaving so submissively in the library that day, and learning that you were untouched, I thought why not? A tiny curvy one would be interesting for a change.”

I regretted asking. His answer only made me feel like I was begging for it to happen, simply because I was dumb enough to fall for him.

“Anyway. Do you need something from the store? I need some evening snacks,” he said casually, got up, and started tucking himself back into his pants and putting his shirt back on.

Then he gave me a wink that probably was supposed to be charming. But his eyes didn’t make me feel loved at all.

Instead, I felt ugly, or maybe even despised, and I just couldn’t get my mind to understand what I’d done to make him treat me that way.

Because that’s what he always did; made me feel like everything hurtful he did to me was my own fault.

“As long as you don’t get your period and want me to buy you sanitary supplies,” he said with a threatening tone in his voice and illustrated it with a virtual throat slit.

The message was clear. That’s when he killed his victims.

As soon as he’d left, I went through every corner and room in the entire cottage, searching for a way out.

Unfortunately, the windows seemed to be bolted and were impossible to open, and they had iron bars so you wouldn’t get out even if you broke them.

The door was strong enough to keep an entire police squad out, and I had already searched the ceiling and floor when I cleaned them. There was only one place I could think of, and that was the floorboards under his bed.

I looked outside to make sure his car was gone before I pushed his bed aside, and my suspicions turned out to be right.

One of the floorboards seemed to be loose. Not enough so you could remove it, but the nails that were holding it in place were rusty, and it looked like someone had tried to escape before.

The problem was that Kemar kept all cutlery, tools, and anything else that could be used as either a weapon or a way to get out, outside. Even the stick you use to move the logs in the fireplace.

But I didn’t think he knew about the loose nail that held the picture above the fireplace.

I was more desperate than ever, and I had no time to lose, so I quickly removed the picture, wiggled out the nail, and started working.

But pulling out a rusty old nail with another nail was a lot harder than I imagined.

I almost started to lose hope in getting out of there alive after all. But after spending an unknown amount of time wiggling, scraping, and pulling on the nail, it finally gave way.

It was easier to take out the next one, which enabled me to lift the floorboard just enough to get a strong enough hold to rip it open, and I looked straight down into darkness, cobwebs, and Lord knew what else.

Nevertheless, the thought of what Kemar would do to me when he found out what I’d done made my choice quite simple.

I gathered all my strength and pulled up another floorboard, to get a big enough hole for me to wiggle myself through. Then I pushed all my phobias aside and crawled in the direction I hoped would lead to freedom.

Several times, I hit my head against the beams that held the cottage stable, and I tried to ignore the insects and spiders that were crawling over my body.

I wasn’t really sure if it would be scarier to see them in daylight or just let them exist as despicable monsters in my imagination. It was horrible either way, and I just prayed that they weren’t poisonous.

Then there was the thought of Kemar. What would happen if he suddenly came back right now? Lying the way I was, I wouldn’t be able to turn around and get back into the cottage even if I wanted to.

Not that ~that~ was an option at all. But I started to realize that I probably would die down there, either from the bite of a spider or snake, starvation, or lack of oxygen.

None of that happened though, because I was lucky to find a loose stone in the poorly made concrete wall.

When I managed to push it out, another followed, then another, and I actually became afraid that the whole cottage would fall down and smother me.

So, as soon as the hole was big enough for me to escape through, I wasted no time, and the fresh air that filled my lungs brought life back to my body. I was finally free.

My limbs were shaking when I stood up and brushed off my clothes, but I smiled. I even giggled a bit and pulled my cardigan closer to my body.

It was a cold autumn night. So cold that I could see a little cloud of condensation when I exhaled.

That was not good news since I didn’t have any coat, but hopefully I would find someone that could help me out of here, and in the meantime I’d just…

RUN!

“Going somewhere, sweetheart?”

They were the exact same words he said that first time we talked in the library, only the meaning behind them this time was so far from what it’d been then.

Hearing his voice right behind me was like a promise of doomsday. I backed up a few steps and tried to figure out which direction to run, and found that I was partially blocked by the cottage wall and Kemar.

“I was wondering if you were smart enough to find a way out. And now that you have, I’m actually glad, because…”

He wiggled his eyebrows and rubbed his hands together.

“…here comes the fun part! BOO!” he exclaimed and held up his arms to spook me.

Of course, I reacted by instinct and ran blindly off into the darkness, temporarily only chased by his wicked laughter. Then he started the race.

“You’ll never get away from me, Skylar!” he shouted. Then he went silent, which was scarier than anything. The only sounds I heard were the ones I made, until he suddenly jumped out from the trunk of a tree right next to me.

“BOOOO!” he shouted, and again I heard this shrieking insane laughter. I’d never been more terrified in my life.

I just kept running, and running…and running…Until the ground suddenly disappeared underneath me.

I didn’t realize I was flying through the air until I landed hard on the ground and hit my head. My heart was racing, and I couldn’t breathe because I’d had the air knocked out of me from the fall, but I heard him.

“Skyyyylar? Where’d you go, sweetheart? You know I’m going to find you sooner or later.”

I heard his voice decrease in volume, but I didn’t know if it was because I was losing consciousness, or if it actually was Kemar walking away from me.

But his last words made me realize that I’d lost the game.

“YOU’RE DEAD, WHETHER I FIND YOU OR NOT!”