Kidnapped
by Wilma Sherrie Gourgues
He locks the gate;
I scream.
No, this is not
A dream.
He stabs with all
His might.
My soul cries out
In fright.
The evil deed
Now done.
When will I see
The sun?
Prologue
Their hiding place was wet. All I could concentrate on as I huddled in the corner and they continued on with their endless game of cards was the drip, drip, drip of some leaking pipe above me. None of the men paid any attention to me; when he was gone, I didn’t even matter. I was just another one of their games. After the initial excitement of snatching me and whisking me away was over, I had faded from my position as the exotic new toy to this: A pale, thin, washed-out little girl who didn’t speak. Boring, really. I provided them with no entertainment, and thus, I was not worthy of any sort of favors… like food. Or warmth. Or new clothes.
“Two pair,” one of the guys mumbled. I involuntarily shivered at the sound of his voice. I would never forget it, as long as I lived. His was the voice I’d first heard beneath my window.
“Come on, Patrick,” he’d said. “It isn’t worth it. The cops will be after us as soon as they realize—”
“Shut up,” he hissed back. “We’re doing this. Are you with me or not?”
Life is too short for what ifs. I knew this. But sometimes I couldn’t help it. After all, there wasn’t much else to do in a dank basement, especially when your hands and feet were tied with tight rope. So I asked myself, over and over again, What if? What if they’d decided not to go through with it, and had just gotten back into their car and driven away? What if my mom or dad had heard something and checked my room? What if I’d fought and kicked and screamed, instead of snuggling closer to him in my sleep as he carried me away?
But life is so short. I had to remind myself of this. Sometimes it tortured me too much to ask what if and I had to tell myself this in order to stop. Life is short. Life is short. It would be the words I’d never forget, throughout all of it. Because—though I didn’t know it—my nightmare was close to its end.
