CHAPTER ONE

The man was in Carly's car before she even knew it. She had filled up with regular at the self service pump with her debit card. It was a little after midnight and the station was deserted but for her old, beat up, maroon Malibu. The window of the convenience store was so filled with junk and advertisements that there was no way that the attendant could see out of it. She had been putting the card back in her wallet as she got back into the driver's seat. She had just closed the door when she felt an ominous presence next to her. She turned to her right and there he was.

He was large and gruff looking, and he seemed to Carly to be in his late forties. He was wearing a black knit cap and had a bulky, waist length coat on, colored light beige. His face was hard and thick, black whiskers covered it from his cheeks to his chin. He was wearing khaki pants and heavy, tan work boots. He had a sharp, long bladed knife in his hand.

"You know," he said to her in a gruff voice. "I'll bet I could slit your throat from ear to ear before you got even one step out of the car. You want to try it?"

A stark coldness came over her. Her belly roiled. Her hands, clasped on the steering wheel, started to shake. She felt her lips start to vibrate with the beginning of a sob and her eyes grew misty.

"Please don't hurt me," she said softly. "I'll let you have the car. I'll give you all my money."

"Shut the fuck up!" he said back angrily. "Just keep your mouth shut and drive the car. Take a right out of the station and head up the road. I'll tell you where to go."

"Plllleeeeeease!" Carly whined. "Please let me go. I'll let you get away." Her voice was tremulous and her hands were shaking. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Her mouth had gone dry and a sickness was spreading all through her body.

The man's hand lashed out like lightning. She felt the blow, it seemed, even before she saw the fist strike her arm. It felt like someone had struck it with a sledgehammer.

"Owwwwwwwwwwwww!" she screamed. "Ohhhhhhhhhh! Oh, god, please don't hurt me! Pleeeeeeease!" Tears had started to flow down her face. She had never been as scared in her life. Her left hand covered where she had been struck.

"I told you to shut the fuck up!" the man boomed at her. "Next time I'll just bury this about six inches into your ribs," he added menacingly, brandishing the fearful looking blade. "Get this piece of shit car going and start driving!"

Tears flowing down her face, Carly nodded and started the engine. It purred to life. Her boyfriend, Randy, kept it well tuned up. She had just left his place. They had gone out to dinner that night. Carly had gotten all spruced up for it, a bright yellow dress that came down to mid-thigh, yellow pumps, bright red lipstick. She had done her finger and toenails to match. It was their two year anniversary for when they started dating.

Afterwards, they had gone back to his apartment and made love. She had to go into to work extra early in the morning, so she decided against staying over. And she decided it was better to fill up her gas tank tonight rather than in the morning when she would be in a hurry. She hadn't expected anything like this to happen.

She gave the man a frightened look and pulled out north onto Route 29. There was hardly any traffic. The night was clear and a bright half moon lit the fields and woods to either side. Her right arm was aching terribly where the man had punched her. She knew that tomorrow it would be all black and blue. The russet colored parka that she wore hadn't had enough padding to soften the blow.

He told her to buckle her seat belt. She had left it off in case she got a chance to jump out of the car. Having the seat belt on would make it just that more difficult and give him more time to cut her with his vicious looking knife. She held the steering wheel with her left hand while she pulled the strap across her chest and buckled the seat belt in place. He put his on too, probably to guard against her stopping short and making him plow into the windshield. He was thinking of everything.

Route 29 was two laned here. Her headlights were reflected in the newly painted yellow lines the County had put in last summer. They had also installed little reflectors every fifty feet or so and they lit up like so many peering eyes as she began to whip by them. She had the speed up to forty five pretty quickly and then let it ease up to fifty. Her mind was racing with the possibilities inherent in this dreadful turn her life had taken. Maybe it was better that she should crash the car and make a run for it. The man looked like he was capable of anything. She said a quick prayer and tried to hold back her tears so that she could see the road clearly. Her eyes were focused straight ahead although she could see the man's bulk out of the corner of her right eye. He was leaning back and thumbing his knife.

They had gone about three miles when she got the courage to speak up. "Where are you taking me?" she asked plaintively.

Like sprung from a trap, the man's fist lashed out again. It struck her arm so hard that she almost drove right off the road.

"Owwwwwwwwwwww! Ohhhhhhhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhhhh!" she cried out. Tears began to stream down her face. She couldn't see. She pulled over and stopped the car and started to sob. She felt his hand take hold of her hair behind her head and pull her head back. The knife was at her throat. It pricked her skin.

"One more time, you stupid cunt, and I'll pull you out of this car, slit your throat and leave you by the side of the road!" he yelled. "I want you to keep your fucking mouth shut and drive. Do you understand? You'll find out where I'm taking you when we get there. And if you want to get there without your throat being slit, you better cooperate. Got it!"

"Yes! Yes!" Carly answered desperately. "I'll be quiet! I promise! Pleeeeeeeease don't hurt me anymore!"

He released her hair. There wasn't a whole lot to grab. Carly liked to keep her golden blond hair short, cut a few inches up from her shoulders. But there had been enough to make her feel that he was about to yank a skein of it right out of her head. Her right foot was jamming the break pedal down. When the man let go of her, she slowly let it up. She jammed it down again when a car came speeding up from behind them, the headlights illuminating the interior of her car, its horn wailing as it passed.

"Watch what your doing you stupid cunt!" the man spat out at her. Carly felt a grimace break out over her face. She could feel her body sweating. Her palms were slippery. Her heart was thumping madly and her arm, her right arm, was throbbing intently. She blinked her eyes to shake out the tears, looked in the rear view mirror and then eased up on the brake. They were back on the road.

They were going the direction Carly was going to take to get home to her place. It was about 8 or 9 miles up the road. When they passed her turnoff, on the left, a long dirt road with three mailboxes at the entrance, she gave out a little sob. She quickly looked over at the man to see if he was going to hit her again, but he hadn't noticed. A sinking feeling came over her and she pressed on.

Carly hadn't had the chance to put her wallet back in her handbag, a plump, yellow thing with a golden brass clasp. She sensed the man picking it up. She gave him a little glance and then fixed her eyes back on the road. It was her life he was holding in his hand, everything about her was in there: her license and employee i.d., her two credit cards, her debit card from Green Mountain Bank and Trust, pictures, mementos, an organ donor card, her four year old senior i.d. from Barrington High. Randy's picture. The man idly flipped through it. He pulled out the debit and credit cards and the $72.00 worth of cash she had in it, and then tossed the wallet back onto the console between the seats. He picked up her purse.

"You smoke?" he asked her calmly, as if they were on some kind of weird blind date together.

"N-no," Carly managed to whimper back.

"Too bad," the man returned as he fished through her purse. There wasn't much in there. Some tampons, a hairbrush, a makeup kit. A comb. Her cell phone. A small box of condoms and a tube of lubricating gel. The man lifted the two latter items out of the purse. "You come all prepared, don't you?" he asked, amused.

Carly said nothing in reply. Her stomach gave another heave as one of the possibilities she had contemplated earlier seemed to enlarge into a probability.

He stuffed the sex aids back into the purse and fished around some more. There was a little tin in there, about two inches wide and four inches long. He opened it. There were four, thin, tightly rolled joints and a few roaches. The man laughed.

"I thought you said you didn't smoke," he chuckled. Carly said nothing. He closed the tin and put it back.

Then he took the cell phone out. He hit a button and it lit up. He stared at it. Then he looked at her.

"I saw on TV that they can track you wherever you go with this. Is that true?"

"I-I don't know," Carly answered. She hadn't thought of it until she saw it. Of course they could. As long as she had the cell phone, the police could track her when she didn't show up tomorrow. She wondered how long it would take before somebody called the police.

The man smiled at her. He lowered the passenger side window and tossed it out. "Just in case," he said, grinning.

He grin made Carly shiver with fear. They would never find her now. She wanted to cry again.

He remained silent for the next twenty minutes. Each time a car came at them from the other direction, she contemplated crashing head on into it. She visualized the airbags filling up and the car careening wildly off the road. Then she thought of herself all disfigured and maimed from the crash and the poor people in the other car. And then the man might not be hurt. He would kill her. But maybe it was better to be killed now rather than later after a night of torture and abuse. On the other hand, he might just use her and let her go. Or maybe she could escape. Or maybe the police would stop them.

That thought emboldened her. She gave he man a sidelong glance. He was staring straight ahead. Cops patrolled this road all night. It was the main drag all the way up to the city, about 75 miles away. She pushed the gas pedal down a little more and the car picked up a little speed, almost imperceptibly. Her eyes flicked to her right. The man hadn't noticed. After a few minutes, she increased the speed again. The car was approaching sixty. The speed limit was fifty. A little later, she increased it again to sixty five. And then to seventy. If a cop saw them now, he would stop them for sure.

All of a sudden, the man came alert. "What the fuck are you doing?" he blurted out. "Slow down, you stupid cunt! Just so you know, if a cop stops us, I'll kill you first before I kill him! Understand!"

Carly felt like her last chance at escape had vanished. She immediately eased up on the gas and the car slowed. It went down to forty.

"Don't be cute," the man said roughly. "Keep the speed at fifty five. Not too slow and not too fast. Or if you want, you can take the rest of the trip in the trunk. Would you prefer that?"

"N-no" Carly whined. "Please don't."