Destiny's Hand

When she woke, the first thing she noticed was the smell of damp wood. Or perhaps moldy earth.

Katherine could barely see in the darkness. Her head ached with that pounding reminder of a night of overindulgence, but she could not recall drinking. Her mind playing the events of the night before like a glitchy movie trailer, frazzling at the point when she stepped out of the elevator and into the underground parking lot.

Her fingers tentatively explored the surfaces within reach, with the anticipation of an undesirable discovery. Her eyes desperate for a tell-tale glimpse of where she might be.

The inky gloom slowly bled away to reveal the shadowy walls that closed in on either side of her. As her eyes adjusted to her unfamiliar surroundings Katherine could make out the rectangle at the end of the room that was likely a door.

Sliding her legs slowly off the side of the metal cot she had awoken on she stepped, barefoot, onto the cold floor. Not wood but stone, or concrete.

The door was a few steps away and Katherine walked towards it with her left arm out in front of her and her right hand patting the air, feeling for any lurking objects that might trip her up.

The door seemed to be locked, with no handle or knob on her side. Pushing against it and at the same time searching for any form of finger hold to wrestle it open proved futile. Panic set in.

Katherine’s mind grappled with the reality that she had been locked in this dank room with no way of getting out.

She gave in to the urge to scream “Hello! Is anyone there?”

Her plea was met with a silence as dark and ominous as the room she found herself in.

She listened, ear pressed to the door, for any sign of response, her eyes wide and her breathing shallow. Nothing.

She called out again, this time banging on the door “Hello! Please help me!”

Fast approaching footsteps broke the silence.

She instinctively stepped away from the door as if it had suddenly come to life.

“Stop yelling. No one is going to hear you!”. He sounded foreign; East European perhaps.

There was a single click sound and a small square of light suddenly appeared at the bottom of the door. Two objects were pushed through the gap. Another click and the light was gone.

Katherine pleaded, “Please tell me where I am. Who are you?”

She was not granted a reply, only the sound of receding footsteps.

Hopelessness replaced dread and Katherine started to cry. Not heaving sobs, just quiet whimpers mixed with hot tears.

There was water in a tin cup and a sandwich with an apple on a tin plate.

Katherine had no appetite, but the water was a welcome relief.

There was no way of knowing what time it was or how long she had slept.

She sat on the cot in defeat. The darkness seemed to be lifting its gloomy veil and the air grew noticeably warmer.

Probably day time, she thought.

In frustrated determination she walked back to the door and placed her ear to the hard surface, listening for any sign of life on the other side.

The silence was broken by the faint sound of what Katherine thought was a voice.

Her breathing caught midway as she strained to hear, daring not to take another breath.

The voice seemed to be that of a woman, not the crusty tone that had rebuked her earlier. The woman seemed to be crying.

Katherine ventured a response, “Hello, can you hear me?” Just loud enough to break through the barrier of the door.

After what seemed like an eternity Katherine braved a louder attempt, “Are you there?”

“Yes” came the response, muffled but clear enough for Katherine to be certain it was a woman and that she couldn’t be too far away.

Her heart pounding with the promise of rescue Katherine eagerly called out once again, beating on the door, “I’m in here! Please help me!”

The silence was thick with expectation and Katherine pressed herself against the door as if she might be able to ethereally pass through it.

The woman’s voice came back, “Don’t shout, he doesn’t like that”.

The words rippled through Katherine like icy tentacles. She realised that the other woman was not her redeemer but her fellow prisoner.

She pushed away from the door in defeat; her mind slid back into that forbidding abyss of hopelessness.

         She had no idea how long she had been curled up on the floor where she had surrendered to her despair, but she was brought back to reality by the click of the hatch once again and the scuffing entry of another cup and plate.

That familiar foreboding voice demanded. “Slide the other two out”

Katherine was momentarily confused by the command and only after he repeated the instruction in a harsher tone, did she realise he meant return the cup and plate he had given her previously.

She obediently did as she was told and before he could close the hatch she shoved her hand through it as if to reach for him and begged, “Please let me out. I want to go home”.

Something hard struck her hand and she flinched in agony, pulling it back and cradling it against her chest, fresh tears welling up.

The slam of the hatch door was like a judge’s gavel and his retreating footsteps her sentence.

Anger brewed deep inside her and she kicked the metal vessels across the room, water cascading across the floor and the apple rolling to a stop against a leg of the cot.

That was the moment Katherine’s resolve conquered her despair. She started to plan her escape.

“Hey, can you hear me?” Katherine called out to the unseen woman with whom she had exchanged a few desperate words some hours ago. Or perhaps it was the previous day. The constant darkness had found a way to twist time and reality into ambiguousness.

The fact that Katherine had only needed to relieve herself once in the bucket she had discovered in a corner, and the subtle changes in the density of the incessant darkness, suggested that she hadn’t been locked up for more than a night and a day.

The expectant reply came almost immediately, “Yes!”

“Where are we? What is this place” Katherine returned, determined to find a way out of her makeshift prison.

The woman’s reply threw her off guard. “I don’t know. I’ve been here for a while now, a week or two I think.” A whimper caught the last word. “There was another girl, but she was taken away”.

Katherine grappled with the notion that there had been others. The thought festered in her mind like a wound.

“What’s your name?” the woman softly called out.

Katherine’s mind raced, “Katherine. What’s yours?”

“I’m Connie” came the muffled reply.

“Well Connie, we need to find a way out of here. I don’t know what this place is but I do know that if we don’t get out then who knows what that asshole plans to do with us”, Katherine used a hushed tone, not wanting to be overheard by their warden or any possible cronies.

“But how?” Connie’s voice broke.

Katherine guessed that Connie was not so much a woman as a young girl, and she felt an intense yearning to protect her.

Sarah had died three years prior and Katherine had taken her younger sister’s passing very badly. Blaming herself for not being there to stop her from taking her own life. Sarah had been a sullen teen, not very sociable and very much a loner. Katherine, being five years older, had left home for college when Sarah was only thirteen. Such a vulnerable age.

“I’m not sure but I’ll figure something out” she assured Connie, determined to make good on her promise.

The darkness in the room soon grew murkier. Katherine knew that night had fallen. Their captor would likely be back with their next meal and that was when she would action her plan.

Katherine slowly paced up and down, listening intently for his footsteps, for what may well have been hours. Her patience was soon rewarded.

Just before the anticipated click of the hatch came, she feigned choking and gagging, with pleas for help.

There was a distinct pause, likely her warden’s uncertainty and confusion. She backed away from the door and continued to fake-choke, ears strained for any sound of the door being unlocked.

Her hope paid off. The door was jerked open and he stood in the entrance, eyes straining to adjust to the dark, one hand on the knob and the other wielding a gun.

“What is it, what is wrong with you?” he demanded in that familiar thick accent.

Katherine hurled the apple at his head with all the might she could muster, making a perfect connection with his nose. He grunted in surprise, his hand leaving the doorknob and covering his nose as blood started to pour.

She charged then, driving the cot across the room and into his legs, doubling him over and pinning him between the metal headboard and the opposite wall.

The gun flew out of his hand, clattered to the floor and skidded away.

Katherine knew that her only chance was to reach the gun to defend herself. She clambered over the foot of the cot and scrambled to get the weapon.

The man regained his composure and realising that his prisoner was about to turn the tables on him, he pushed the cot away and lurched at Katherine, driving her face down to the ground and pinning her under his weight.

She screamed and stretched out her right hand to reach the gun, but his strength far outweighed hers and he grabbed her outstretched arm, pulling it towards him along the ground. She fought with everything she had and managed to grab his hair from behind with her free hand and yank with every ounce of energy she possessed.

He screamed and let go of her arm, which she darted back towards the gun and grabbed hold of the butt, her left hand still firmly gripping his hair.

Katherine had had some practice shooting targets with her brother’s handgun, so she had a fair idea of how to handle a weapon, but she had never been in a do or die situation that required lightning-fast reflexes and zero margin for error.

The gun in her right hand she let go of his hair and released the safety, then twisted her hand above her head and squeezed off a round, hoping to startle him off her rather than shooting him point-blank.

The sound reverberated through the enclosed space with deafening force and the man rolled off Katherine.

She spun around, the gun in both hands pointing at him, gasping for breath. He slowly backed away, hands up defensively in front of his face.

Katherine got to her feet, the gun trained on him with a deadly determination, her hand as steady as a pro’s.

“Please, don’t shoot me” his thick accent pleaded.

She stared at him. The blood from his nose had dried on his upper lip and chin and had stained the front of his grey collared shirt, giving him the look of someone who had just escaped a bar brawl. His hair was dark and his eyes darker.

He was her height but a good few pounds heavier. He was handsome in a rugged way.

“Who else is here?” she spat at him, “Are you alone?” she anticipated being shot by a possible accomplice.

He only nodded. Hands now up in a motion of defeat.

She waited, listening for any sounds coming from the open doorway behind her target. She could make out a wooden staircase beyond the doorway, a faint light pouring in from the doorway above that.

Not a sound. No rescuers coming to his aid.

“Unlock that door” she demanded, flicking the gun once in the direction of the door to the room she guessed Connie was in.

He straightened up slowly, keeping his hands raised.

“The key, it is in my pocket” he motioned left and down with a tilt of his head.

“Slowly reach for it with your RIGHT hand” she commanded.

He did as he was told and cautiously presented a bunch of keys.

“Unlock it!” Katherine spat.

The man turned toward the door and jostled several keys in the slot before he found the right one.

He pulled the door open and the stench of human excrement and stale sweat made Katherine want to hurl. The man reacted in the same way and brought his hands up to cover his nose and mouth.

“Hands back up!” Katherine yelled. “Connie! Connie are you in there?”

The girl came out of the shadows, eyes squinting in the light from the passage. Her pale face drawn and her hair matted. She looked past the man at Katherine and a slight smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. She looked barely 17! The age Sarah was when she died.

“Katherine?” her voice was barely audible, tears starting to track their course down her dirty cheeks.

“Come here honey” Katherine instructed her. “You,” she addressed the man. “step aside and let her pass”.

He hesitated for a moment then stepped to one side to give way to Connie.

Just as the frightened girl stepped through the doorway the man grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to him in a stranglehold. Connie shrieked as a switch knife was suddenly pressed to her throat. Connie’s eyes were wide with fear, her sobs now uncontrollable.

“You drop the gun and the girl won’t die” he bargained.

Katherine froze in place, thrown by the sudden turn of events. Her mind grappling with desperate options.

“Drop the gun, kick it to me!” his voice boomed.

Katherine did as she was told and dropped her lifeline at her feet, then kicked it over to him with her bare foot. Her eyes met Connie’s and she felt the blood drain from her face.

The man shoved Connie towards Katherine and bent to retrieve the gun.

What happened next was so fast Katherine barely had a chance to register.

There was a high-pitched shrill scream, a scuffle and a barrage of gunshots.

He fell to the floor in a heap even before the echo of the first shot died.

Connie had watched her mother die slowly at the hands of her abusive boyfriend. She had been helpless to his taunts and his sadistic outbursts of words and fists over the years. The last emergency room admission had been accompanied with his usual regretful tears and pleas for forgiveness but too late for any second chances. Connie’s mother had died of her injuries and he had finally been locked away for manslaughter. Connie had been just 16.

For over a year she endured the effects of post-traumatic depression and had slipped into an existence of anti-depressants and self-loathing. She had failed her mother and she inflicted the punishment for that crime upon herself.

It had been a day like every other uneventful and dismal day when the charming foreigner had stopped her to ask for directions. He had so cunningly lured her to his car where he coaxed her to help him find his hotel on a street map of the old-fashioned paper kind. Connie had thought it odd that he was using a road map when everyone else used the map app on their smartphones. But her discernment had been clouded by that morning’s double dose of what she called her ‘coping pills’ and before she could register the danger, he had incapacitated her with a chloroform rag and propped her in the car like a limp rag doll.

Finding herself locked in a semi-dark room for 19 days of involuntary anti-depressant rehabilitation and her unclouded thoughts as company had been the antidote to her spiraling self-destruction.

The minute his back was turned and he bent to pick up the gun Connie had acted on pure instinct, and her newfound will to survive.

Without so much as a doubtful second thought, she had shoved him from behind with a wild shriek of bravery, sending him sprawling into the wall, and then she had lunged for the gun that still lay on the floor where Katherine’s kick had sent it.

She aimed and in a blind rage pulled the trigger, again and again until only determined empty clicks broke the silence.

Connie stared at the lifeless man on the floor. He represented all the abuse she and her mother had endured. His death her release from that painful prison.

Her eyes met Katherine’s and she let out a sob, dropping the gun. Katherine rushed over and took the girl in her arms, tearfully comforting her the way she had wished she had been able to comfort Sarah in the hope of derailing the course of events that had led to that fateful day so long ago.

Years of suppressed regrets, sorrow and pain poured out with their tears.

Their captor had been alone that day. His comrade had been apprehended while smuggling a truckload of women across the border a few miles from the shack that had been their prison.

The newspapers would claim how lucky Katherine and Connie had been, but for the two survivors, it was destiny.