A Modern Slave

Modern Slave

Janice Magerman

"You hungry dogs, I told you to wait for me. What are a few more minutes, huh?"

"So we should let our tummies suffer because you’re taking your sweet time?" Jerome said before taking a fork full of food into his mouth.

"I didn't take long on purpose. The girl was giving me trouble." 

Her jaw tenses mentioning the girl.

"Not again. Why don't you just beat her and show her who’s boss?"

"I can't hand her over black and blue. These people pay good money for her kind."

"Her kind?" Jerome scoffs. "What's so special about that little bitch?"

"You know very well she's a virgin. Don’t act dumb."

Holding a drumstick to his mouth, Jerome chuckles. "Well, I can change that anytime."

Charmaine points her finger toward her brother as a warning.

"Don't you dare touch her!"

With a plotting smile, Jerome takes a bite of his chicken, while Charmaine turns her attention to her newphew.

"Keanan?" she says, breaking his thoughts.

He looks up from his plate.

"Yes, aunty?"

"You know what; I don't trust your father around this girl. Do me a favour, please, my boy…"

They both know it isn’t a favour, but rather a command.

When she moves to a cupboard, it’s to remove a biscuit tin from inside.

The tin is opened to reveal many small bottles and syringes. She turns to face Keanan again.

"You're stronger than me, my child. You know what to do, don't you?"

With an obedient nod, he rises from his seat.

***

The girl held captive, Verity, has her ear pressed against the door, listening to any sound but not able to make out a thing. After a few seconds, she instead hears heavy footsteps nearing. They pause right at the door, followed by the sound of keys rattling. Then one of them are inserted into the lock and turned, to which Verity retreats from the door. Her breath quickens and becomes shaky.

The door opens slowly to reveal Keanan who steps inside. He halts for a moment, and with authority in his voice, says, "Put on the dress and the shoes."

Verity defies him by shaking her head, and saying, "No."

"Well, I didn’t want to do this but you give me no other choice."

He charges her, grabs a hold of her shoulders and pushes her onto the bed with a mighty force. He climbs on top of her, knees on either side, straddling her chest and makes sure her arms can’t move. With his dominant hand, he presses her mouth shut.

***

As Taryn, Charmaine's young daughter, finishes her food, she hears a muffled scream and turns her head in the direction of the scream, which came from one of the rooms in the hallway.

"What's that?" she says in an inquisitive manner.

"Nothing dear, eat up," Charmaine says.

Minutes later, while Charmaine's busy dragging on a cigarette, Keanan appears in the doorway. 

"Done already?" she says, while discharging a cloud of smoke from her mouth.

With a nod, Keanan says, "She's all yours."

A proud smile settles on Charmaine’s lips. "Good boy."

She puts her cigarette out and leaves the kitchen to tend to the girl, while Jerome finishes the last of his food, licking his fingers afterward.

"Now that’s what I call a meal, thanks, my boy." He gets up, stretching his arms wide and let them drop at his sides again.

"I'll be in the toilet if you need me."

All Keanan says is, "OK."

Keanan starts to collect all the plates to place in the dishwasher. When he’s done, he turns to Taryn and says, "Time to get you into bed young lady."

***

In contrast with the rest of the house, Taryn’s room is like every little girl’s dream bedroom. Keanan tucks her into bed and kisses the top of her head. 

As he’s about to leave, she grabs his hand. "Read me a story, please."

"Not now, my angel. Tomorrow night, I promise."

She nods and let’s go of his hand, closing her eyes to sleep.

***

Her legs sprawled over the side of the bed, Verity seems to be unconscious.

The door creaks open as Charmaine enters the room, and creeps to the bed. She undresses the girl and slips a seductive red dress over her head. It’s a struggle to get the dress on the rest of her body, but she manages to.

Now all she has to do is get the shoes from under the bed, so she bends down to get the box. 

Verity isn’t unconscious after all. She sits up and takes the opportunity to kick Charmaine in the head with her bare foot, momentarily disorientating her.

She has the heel of one of the shoes in her hand. With the adrenaline pumping, she tackles Charmaine and plunges the heel into her eye.  

Yelping in pain, Charmaine pulls on the heel. Eye goo and blood runs down her cheek, while Verity makes a dash for the door, but Charmaine grabs her foot, bringing her down to the floor. She kicks Charmaine in the bleeding eye and this makes her let go with a cry.

Jumping to her feet, she races for the door. When she gets to it, she flings it open and smiles when she sees freedom within reach. Instantly, she takes off and makes it to the end of the hallway, but then a hand appears, punching Verity right in the face, putting an end to her escape.

Now the one who’s disorientated, she stumbles forward, straight into Keanan's arms. When she regains her bearings, she tries to fights him but she’s no match for him, his strong arms holding her firmly in place.

Charmaine runs into the room, screaming at the top of her lungs in a bewildered manner.

"Look what she did to me!"

Girls of all ages exit their rooms, which they share with each other, to see what all the commotion is about.  

"That little whore must die!" she continues to yell.

Confused, Jerome enters the room; still busy zipping up his pants. He pulls his earphones out to hear what all the fuss is. At last he sees Charmaine's bleeding eye.

"What the hell..." He notices Verity in his son’s arms and immediately knows she has something to do with his sister’s assault.

"You did that to my sister?"

Beyond furious, Jerome pulls a gun from behind his back and aims it at Verity.

The girls start screaming when they see the gun. He then points it at them to shut up.

"You whores, go back to your rooms, now!"

Without any hesitation, they run back and disappear from view, while Jerome redirects his aim and cocks the gun.

"Kill her!" Charmaine yells.

Her heartbeat racing, ready to jump out of her chest, Verity squirms and presses her eyes shut.

"Wait..." Keanan says before his father squeezes the trigger.

"Wait?" Jerome says incredulous, spit spewing from his mouth. "What for?" 

"You can't kill her here, dad. Think about it. Your gun doesn’t have a silencer. The whole neighbourhood will hear. Plus, it’ll be a big mess, evidence everywhere," he says, "Take Aunty Charmaine to the hospital and I'll take care of the girl at the usual spot… much cleaner that way."

Jerome considers this for a brief moment. Then a grin spreads across his face. "That's my boy, always thinking ahead."

After a short while, the smile disappears from his face as he turns his attention to Verity, glaring daggers at her. He then spits in her hair and pistol whips her out cold, causing her head to slump to the side, so Keanan let's her fall to the floor with a loud thud.

After Jerome pats his son on the shoulder and hands him the gun, he turns to his sister.

"C'mon sis, let's get you to a hospital, Keanan will take care of things here."

A sniffling mess, Charmaine can only nod. Jerome takes her by the arm, leads her to the door. Before leaving, he throws Keanan the smile of a proud father, which he returns, finally having won his father’s approval.

As soon as they’re out of sight, Keanan glances down at the gun in his hand, and briefly at Verity, which makes him take a sharp intake of breath.

***

Keanan places a limp Verity inside an open car boot and slams the door shut, then rounds the car to the driver’s side. He flings the door open and slides in without effort, closing the door once he’s comfortable in his seat. Taking a moment, he gives a labored breath to ready himself for the task ahead and brings the still car to life. 

After only half an hour of driving, he pulls into a field and parks the car out of view. He climbs out, going straight to the back, and flips the door to the boot open to a wide awake Verity. Pointing the gun at her, he motions her to get out, to which she carefully climbs out. Using a flicking motion of his wrist, he signals which direction she must go. 

Verity obeys and Keanan follows tight behind her, the muzzle stuck in her back. He pauses at the nose of the car, and tells her to continue. She trembles, hot tears running down her face, blurring her vision. Not that she can see anything but darkness. 

"Stop right there."

Verity stops dead in place, her teeth chattering and heart rate increasing at the knowledge of her impending death.

Slowly Keanan lifts the gun towards Verity, and she closes her eyes as if she can sense he’s about to pull the trigger.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Five shots fire off.

Verity's eyes shoot open. For some reason the bullets didn't hit her. Shivering from fear, she takes her time to look back, and her mouth gapes open in confusion when she sees Keanan has the gun pointed at the night sky. 

It seems he’s in some sort of a trance as he lowers his hand in which the gun is held.

After a short beat, he turns the safety off and allows the gun to drop from his hand onto the dirt ground.

Flashback:

The needle doesn't go into Verity's arm but the mattress instead, the contents draining inside, and upon realising the syringe didn't go into her flesh, her eyes widen in surprise and newfound hope.

"When I leave, you look around for a weapon to arm yourself with. You have to pretend to be out of it. Not only that, but you must make sure to incapacitate that woman, or else… I can’t help you," Keanan says.

Not about to argue, Verity nods and thanks Keanan with her eyes. He then lifts himself off her and leaves the room without a word. This is when Verity frantically begins to search the room, but she can’t find anything, not until she looks under the bed and finds a box. Inside there’s a pair of high heel shoes. 

At first she doesn’t know what to do with it, then an idea brews in her mind. When she hears a loud Charmaine returning, with all her strength, she breaks the heel of the shoe off and shoves the box back in its place.

End of Flashback.

From the car, Keanan removes a huge bag that looks heavy, including a petrol can. He walks over to Verity, drops the bag at her feet, then bends down and unzips the bag to reveal stacks and stacks of two hundred rand notes. Not having seen that much money before, Verity’s eyes bug out her head.

Keanan empties the whole bag on the ground. After he’s done that, he pours petrol on the money, dums the can, and fishes a match box from his pocket from which he takes a match. He's about to strike it, but thinks twice, pausing for an instant. He does something Verity doesn’t expect - hands her the matchbox and the match.

Unable to form words, she looks questioningly at him.

"Girls were sold for that money, its drenched in their blood."

Finally realising what this moment symbolises; she strikes the match and drops the burning stick on the notes. Flames immediately engulf the notes, and they stare transfixed as the flames burn the notes to ash.

***

Jerome helps his bandaged up sister into bed. She's unusually quiet, probably because of pain, so he drops two pills in her palm. Without delay, she swallows them down and rests her head carefully on her pillow.

Her brother decides to wait and watch until the pill has taken effect before he leaves the room for the kitchen

A tired Jerome sits down at the kitchen table to take a break. After rubbing his temples, he notices a letter. With a scowl, he picks it up and reads. Panic stricken, he jumps up and bolts for the hallway.

In the hallway, he pushes the unlocked door open and goes straight to a cupboard, opening the doors wide. He pulls a hidden compartment away. 

All the money is gone. Astonished, he shakes his back and forth. He can’t believe his son would do this to him. It can’t be.

***

Dust circles in the air as Jerome’s car comes to a halt at the same field and location as before. In a frantic manner, he leaps out the car. 

Piles of burned black notes scatter around, and Jerome's nostrils flare in anger. When the realisation sets in everything he has worked for is gone, he sinks down on his knees, almost close to tears.

His gun lies near the burned notes. He stares at it with hatred, eyes welling with tears and blurring his vision, feeling betrayed by his own son.

Flashback:

A much younger Jerome with less facial hair teaches his nine-year-old son how to shoot, but Keanan isn’t really into it, which shows, but nonetheless, Jerome forces him to hold the gun firmly in his hand. 

"Hold your hand up to the sky, don’t pull, just squeeze, OK?"

Keanan nods and raises his hand high, takes a laboured breath, then squeezes, launching a bullet into the air. 

His tiny body jerks at the sound.

"Do it again. Finish all the rounds this time." 

With reluctance, Keanan shoots all the rounds just to make his father happy.

End of Flashback.

Angrily, Jerome crawls to the gun and grabs it. He stands to his feet and throws it with all his strength while a fit of sobs takes a hold of him.

After a while of succumbing to his emotions, police sirens can be heard in the far distance. Jerome realises the police are on their way to Charmaine’s house, so he wipes his wet face with the sleeve of his shirt and runs to his car.

***

Two police vans pull up in front of their house that looks like any normal suburban home.

The policemen climb out and knock on the door, but there’s no response. They’ve no other choice but to break the door down. Cautiously, they step inside and scan the living room with their guns raised.

Girls with fear stricken expressions make their way out of their rooms. Two policemen usher them out to safety, while the others continue to survey the premises.

Two other policemen see a closed door and hurries over to it. One of them breaks the door open by kicking it with his booted foot, while the other covers him in case someone decides to creep up on them.

They catch Charmaine trying to climb out through her bedroom window. They aim their guns toward her and tell her to stop. She has no choice but to, and is right away cuffed by one of the policemen, while the other keeps the gun trained on her.

Both policemen escort Charmaine out with cuffs. Everyone from their neighbourhood has gathered in the street and cheers on as she’s put into the back of a police van, including girls that were kept against their will as prostitutes, glad to be free at long last.

***

Focused on the road ahead, Keanan drives, both his hands clutching the steering wheel. From the passenger seat,

Verity stares thoughtfully at Keanan and faintly smiles when he notices. For the first time he expresses happiness, returning her smile. Then a head pops out - it’s Taryn.

Flashback:

Keanan packs the last of the cash into a duffel bag. The door cracks open then, which startles him at first. When he spins around to find it’s only Taryn peering in, his heart rate settles down.

"Pumpkin, I was just about to come and wake you."

She steps inside the office and rubs the sleep from her eyes. "Why?"

"Because we’re about to leave."

Confused, she drops her hand and furrows her brows. "Where to?"

Keanan gives an enthusiastic smile. "On an adventure, like in your books."

Hearing this news excites Taryn. "Really?"

"Yes, my angel." Keanan zips the bag up and sling it over his shoulder. "Come, let's hurry on up."

He takes hold of her small hand and walks her out, closing the door behind him, and on his old life.

End of Flashback.

Keanan glances at Taryn through the rear-view mirror, then at Verity, and says, "Time to start our new adventure."