Captured

By: Jillian Ingram

Cold. Wet. Dirty. The stench of decomposition from previous occupants wafts around my head. Tally marks on the wall show the countless months these young women spent in this cell. This hell hole. 

I lay on the cold concrete floor in a ripped pink tank top and the underwear I've been wearing for months. How did I get here? I'm not sure. I somehow drift into a sleep. It's been hard to do that these past months. The torture. The assault. The constant wants to escape. 

I dream of the grass. the feeling of the morning dew on my ankles. Itchy, but comforting. The fog of that 7 am fall day is everything I've dreamt of. I could almost taste it. 

I wake abruptly to him powerfully shoving the deadbolt metal door open. Bright light from the outside hallway inches into the room.  The tall hefty man with a raging beer gut grabs me by my hair and slams my head against the concrete floor. 

So much for a power nap. 

The tall hefty guy? He's my uncle, Lincoln. Well, technically. my dad's best friend from high school. Apparently when I was younger he took me “under his wing” or so he says. 

He was very charming and sweet. He used to be fit. Skinny. Lean? Not anymore. When I was 13, Lincoln got into drugs. Like hard drugs. Drugs that are supposed to make you skinny. He went off the rails. He would disappear for months on end. No one knew where he went. We never reported him missing because he would always turn back up at some point. 

I remember one time during Christmas. He'd been away for 3 months at that point. No one talked to him, reached out or tried to get contact. Somehow, he shows up at Dad's Christmas party drunk out of his mind. He waved around a beer bottle and yelled at all of the women specifically. He called them tramps and no good. My dad dragged him outside by his shirt collar and I guess beat the living daylights out of him for saying that not only in front of everyone he knew but in front of his only child who was a girl. Me. 

Years passed and we hadn’t seen him. My dad claimed that he ran off but something told me differently. I always had a weird feeling about Lincoln. The way he’d degrade women was eerie. 

2 months ago i was sleeping soundly in my room. I had my noise machine on full blast listening to the sounds of a thunderstorm.

I hear a big loud BOOM. 

I jumped up from my bed and ran out my bedroom door to see Lincoln standing over my parents' bodies. The walls were painted with my parents' blood. He held a .44 caliber rifle in his right hand. His head jerks and turns to me. I think I screamed but nothing came out. The last thing I remember was him shoving me into the wall knocking me out cold. 

My warm blood contrasts with the cold concrete floor I lie on. Blood shouldn’t be comforting but the warmth helped me feel still alive. I'm trapped in here for who knows how long. 

My head is throbbing. I opened my eyes. My left cheek was lying on the floor with my hands bound together in front of me. my eyes adjust to see Lincoln’s feet pacing in front of me. I hear the sound of repeated thudding. Lincoln's hitting himself. 

“F****** stupid!” he repeated. 

“Lincoln.” I say. My voice was hoarse and shaky. I was dehydrated, starving and in dire need of a shower. 

His footsteps stop in place. He kneels down and sits next to me on the cold floor. 

“i’m so sorry.” he says sobbing 

“Lincoln, I need help,” I say. I reached out my bound hands to hold his. I hate this man. I hate him with every muscle and bone in my body. I figured if I could manipulate his fried brain into thinking what he did was a good thing then maybe he’ll let me go. 

“I can't. I can't do that. you know I can’t do that,” he says, rocking back and forth. 

When I first got here and saw the cell, Lincoln confessed everything to me. 

*flashback to 2 months earlier*

“You know how I'd leave for months at a time?” he says as I nod my head obediently. 

“During those times, I was out finding women that I found too beautiful and pure for this world. I’d take them under my wing and show them the world. When I found some kind of courage to ask them to be my beloved wife, they’d call me insane or crazy,” Lincoln's  voice was shaky. He was distressed. 

Before Lincoln could finish, he pulled out a syringe with an orange cap along with this weird spoon bent at a 90° angle. He melted that powder on the spoon, sucked it into the syringe and found a vein. 

Lincoln inhaled and winced as the needle punctured his skin. The syringe filled with dark, almost unnatural blood. Then, he injected the substance and closed his eyes. 

“They called me crazy. Like I said. I will tell them I have one last place to show them.” He holds his hand out and gestures around the room indicating he took them here. 

“You held them here? And then what?” I asked, gulping. Maybe he’ll confess what he’s done and I'll know what will happen to me. Not a healthy kind of closure but something close enough. 

“They wouldn’t stop screaming!” he yelled as he threw his meth pipe across the room.

Lincoln lays his head in the palms of his hands and lets out a big sigh. Still head in hands he says,

“I killed them. I killed them. I threw their bodies in my oven and I ate them,” he says maniacally. Almost as if his brutal killings were amusing. 

*back to present*

“Lincoln. Can I please use the bathroom. I haven’t showered in months and I really need to pee somewhere else other than that corner,” I say holding his hands. 

“I’ve been good, Lincoln. You know I love you dearly. You know I won't leave you. I’m your wife now, remember?” I said yes to marrying him as a part of my plan to escape. 

“Fine. But if you run...I shoot. Wife or not,” he says, brushing my hair out of my face. How sentimental. 

Lincoln unties my hands, picks me up by my wrists and slaps my butt to get me out of the room. 

I step into the lit hallway. Light. For the first time in 2 months. I walked down the hallway into a dark bathroom. The only source of light was a nightlight. Lincoln had punched the big light in there after I told him I hated him for what he did. Killing my parents. 

My feet left blood trails in the bathroom. There were glass shards all in the cell I was being held in from women trying to break out. Lincoln would hit them over the head with beer bottles. 

I look around to see if there’s any window in here. If not then there’s hardly a chance of my escaping with my feet being this bloody. He’d see me. 

The house was quiet. All of a sudden I hear gurgling. What is that? 

I put my ear up to the door. It’s snoring. Lincoln must’ve fallen asleep. Perfect! This is my chance. 

I opened the door quietly and tiptoed out. Adjacent to the bathroom, I saw a glass sliding door. Across the room was Lincoln, in a drug coma passed out on the couch. I make a run for it. I swiftly walk to the door in my eye view. 

I unlock the door and try to open it. It’s loud. I slide the door open just enough for me to slip out. 

I step my foot outside into the dark wooded backyard. I sprint. 

I ran faster than I've ever ran in my life. Freedom. At last. I felt the wet grass soothing the cuts on my feet. The cold wind kissing my cheeks and running through my hair. The air was crisp like a juicy apple that my grandma would grow in her backyard in November. 

I notice that all I'm doing is running but where am I running too? I have no clue where I am. Not a single house for miles. I slow down and look around me. Trees. More trees. Lincoln’s house. Nothing. 

It’s pitch black outside. I see nothing. 

I turn away from Lincoln’s house and look beyond me. 

That’s when it hit me. 

I fell flat on my face into the grass. There it was again. That loud BOOM. 

Lincoln shot me.