Four

    “Eat something.”

            I lowered my head as a blue bag of Cool Ranch Doritos came flying towards my face. Jorge snickered before tossing the remaining bags of chips at the other teenagers. For three days we had been eating whatever could be salvaged from the old, dusty vending machines that had been forgotten in the employee’s lounge. None of us had been in there, but after a few loud shatters and the reappearance of Jessie and Jorge with an armful of sodas and candy bars, it was pretty clear that they hadn’t planned to house us for more than a day and had no intention of leaving the cover of the library to find something actually sustaining for us to eat. So after three days sitting cramped in silence, we all had grown antsy.

            When Brittany saw that I had no intention of moving, she popped the bag of chips open and placed them in my lap. Our hands were still bound, the skin of our wrists raw and purple. Our backs were aching, the bones of our a*s bruising our insides as we were ordered to remain still. I hadn’t spoken much of a word since joining the others. Several of the guys refused to look at me after realizing what had happened. I felt as though I were a part of a freak show.

            Mildred hadn’t taken well to my condition after she found out what Jorge had done. She had bestowed upon him her deathly and painful grip of the ear and had dragged him into the office where she continued to verbally berate him about the consequences of “damaging merchandise.” Jorge had then emerged with a bruised earlobe, a minor wound compared to what I had physically and emotionally endured. The looks Jorge now gave me were ones of spite, but that didn’t matter to me anymore. I did my best to ignore him, trying to float in my own world.

            To my surprise, Kayla and Julissa stayed close. I had never pegged them to be caring or sympathetic young women. In fact, their hierarchy in high school had led me to believe that it would in fact have been them in this unfortunate circumstance. They were gorgeous, sought after by many of our classmates. But I suppose that this is one of those instances that can change a person like that. I know that it had me.

            “Audrey, you haven’t eaten something since we got here. Please eat something,” murmured Brittany. She held a chip to my lips and I begrudgingly bit down on it.

            What had once been my favorite snack food now had no flavor to me. The wondrous explosion of flavor and seasonings were now bland against my tongue. That fiery spice no longer burned as it sat across my lips. I bit, chewed, and swallowed; nothing more than just another routine to add to my schedule as a military brat.

            “Oh, my god. This is so f*****g boring!” wined Jessie as she lie sprawled across the tattered blue loveseat in the far corner of the library. She had been tearing each page of a book out, rolling the paper into balls, and throwing them up at the ceiling.

            “This is bullshit. I’ve never seen Mildred so unorganized,” murmured Jorge.

            “It’s not her fault,” hissed Rudolph. “The f****r she is working with keeps changing his damn mind.”

            “I don’t like just sittin’ still,” huffed Hampton. He gripped the edge of the metal chair that he was sitting in and scooted it forward a bit. It had become a nervous tick, so I had noted. He definitely was a man that wasn’t all there.

            “I swear to god, these kids are easier to watch than you three are!” Rudolph howled. He kicked the chair that his brother was in before storming across the room and to the employee’s lounge. Hampton let out a little cry as the vibration from the toe of his brother’s shoe rattled under the chair and up his back.

            As three of our abductors sat grumbling amongst themselves, I took in the state of the other group of people. They seemed still, like a watercolor painting of dull colors void of expression and life. Destiny lie curled up in Andrew’s lap while his arm idly rested across her shoulder. My sister sat on the floor with her back to another couch near the employee lounge door. Her knees were curled to her chest, her boney arms wrapped around them tightly. Toner and John had settled on sleeping, the occasional snore escaping their lips. Harry, Brandon, and Hannah were all looking through a few of the books that had been closest to them. I watched Brandon poke his head through the bottom shelf off books.

            “Look, I’m in Spain!” he mused.

            A few of his peers grinned. At age fifteen, Brandon already found himself fitting in with all grades in the high school due to his impeccable sense of humor. Unlike most boys his age, he knew when to keep his mouth shut and when a playful joke was needed to lighten the mood.

            As it had been for the last few days, my mind began to wander away from the present conversation. Their voices all fused together as though we were sitting in a tunnel. Their unique and distinct voices all merged into one deep whisper. I was becoming lost in my own thoughts, my mind like an empty room with walls made of mirrors. I was naked, my once smooth and pale skin now clothed with black bruises and my own virgin blood. I had no strength left in me to break those mirrors. No strength left to look away.

            But in reality, I was located in the middle of the library with my peers piled around to my left and two rows of bookshelves horizontally behind me. Between those two rows and another row that lined the once white walls sat Jorge, Jessie, and Hampton lost in their own pointless conversation. In front of me were four metal shelves vertically placed so close to each other that it made the spaces in between them dark. To the right of the bookshelves was the door to where Mildred was and the circulation desk. I didn’t want to just sit there anymore. I had memorized and reorganized this room dozens of times before in my head just to pass the time. If Mildred would be unable to make contact with the person who she was supposed to be selling us to, then I feared she would kill us long before any other buyer would.

            “Can you hotwire a bus?” I whispered to Brittany. She looked at me oddly before shaking her head. “Pass it on.”

            Brittany squinted her eyes out of confusion but did as I said. She slowly turned to Julissa and murmured, “Can you hotwire a bus?”

            Julissa looked as equally confused. The star track runner looked to me before Brittany shrugged and waved her hand, signaling for the girl to do the same. Julissa turned to Kayla and then Kayla turned to Frank. Frank asked my sister and my sister asked Destiny who then whispered into the ear of her boyfriend. Andrew looked to me and nodded his head. I nodded back, approving. I looked over my shoulder to make sure that the adults hadn’t caught on to our little “game.”

            “Who has the keys to the white door?” I then whispered. Since I had been shoved into the darkness of the garage, I hadn’t seen who Jorge had given the keys to and while we could create a distraction long enough to hotwire a car, I knew that picking the lock to a door directly visible by the three adults was too much to ask.

            Brittany shrugged. She turned to Julissa and asked. She shrugged as well. It was John who ended up pointing towards the employee lounge, which means that Rudolph would have had to have the keys. I thought for a moment, stuck on how to get them from him. This wasn’t a movie. I couldn’t calculate my moves based on the theme music that played. There would be no crescendo of sound that would alert me of impending danger. And if a bullet went soaring through my back and out my chest, there would be no health pack or regeneration period waiting. There would be no “to be continued” or “game over.” It would just be my end.

            I opened my lips to start another question, but Julissa leaned forward. She placed her hand out, as though to push me upright back against the bookshelf. She was shaking her head. “I can get the keys,” she whispered, her big brown eyes staring intensely at me. “Just tell me what I do once I have them.”

            “Are you sure?” I asked, my voice low. “Because I can come up with so �" “

            Julissa shook her head. “No. I am the fasted one here. I can get away from him before he would try to hurt me.”

            I remained quiet for a moment. Both Julissa and Brittany’s eyes bore into me. “When you get the keys run to the door. Unlock it and run. Even if no one else makes it out, at least you will and at least you can find help. We only need one person out that door before the rest of us have a chance.”

            Julissa took in a deep breath before nodding. We all craned our necks to look through the gaps of the books on the shelf to see Jessie laying on the couch asleep with her mouth open and head tilted back off the arm rest. Jorge and Hampton were taking the rolled up pages of paper and tossing them in her direction, chuckling after each time one would land near the plump woman’s wide open mouth.

            Julissa rose slowly. I followed suit. My knees ached from the sudden movement. I felt like a pair of ducks waddling across the street as we made our way towards the door in the back corner of the small library. I couldn’t see her face, only the back of her coiled black hair, but I could hear her breaths come out in uneven puffs. She stood to her full height of five foot four inches before pushing open the door.

            I remained crouched, peaking through the door that had gone back to being open just a crack. There was nothing special about the lounge. The floor was of white TrafficMaster tile and the walls were bland. A long brown table with six metal chairs was in the middle of the room. A sink, white refrigerator, and counter was along the far wall. Two vending machines were pressed against the wall, glass shattered all around them, stripped naked of the food they once housed. Julissa’s white tennis shoes crunched against the glass, alerting Rudolph of her presence.

            “What the f**k are you doing in here?” he spat. He set down the book that he had been reading at the table. He was seated in the chair in front of the refrigerator and with a clear view of the cracked door. Luckily for me Julissa’s slender legs were blocking me from sight.

            “I just wanted to talk,” the teenager said. Her bound hands were hanging in front of her lap.

            “Get back out there,” huffed Rudolph. He picked the book back out. “I don’t want to talk to a brat.”

            “I noticed you’re not like the other ones,” Julissa continued, daring to take a step forward.

            Rudolph looked over the rim of the book and let out a snort. “Is that so?”

            Julissa took another step forward. “Yes. They seem so…ignorant. And you seem like a rather intellectual man. Even Mildred seems to have her wits about her.”

            I was impressed. Julissa had never pegged me as the type of person to know how to flatter a man without making it sexual. My mind wandered back to the homecoming dance last year where she had dared to go commando in a short blue dress. That girl didn’t seem to be the one standing in the room now, putting her life on the line for a few kids that she barely knew.

            Rudolph adjusted his seat. He lowered the book a little. His body language made me believe that he was enjoying these compliments by a young girl. While Julissa was seventeen, Rudolph looked to be in his mid to late fifties. His white, wrinkly skin clashed against her smooth light brown complexion.

            “Like I said,” Rudolph muttered. “They are worse than kids sometimes.”

            Julissa then crossed the room. Rudolph’s eyes followed her cautiously. The girl looked over his shoulder. “Age of Innocence. I read that last year in class. Not the type of book I would expect a man like you to read…”

            That was the extent of the conversation. I never got to hear the rest, because my attention was pulled towards a sudden noise that came from across the room. There was movement on the other side of the covered window. All of the newspaper adds and flyers that had been plastered to the window couldn’t hide the shadows that came from whoever was standing on the other side.

            A sudden pang of panic shot through me when I saw Jorge and Hampton stand up, their attention also now on the window. Hampton shook Jessie awake as Jorge walked towards the front of the library. He briefly looked to the left at where all of us teenagers had been left. I remained still, hopeful that the shadows of the corner bookshelves would keep me hidden.

            There was another slam against the window. It looked like the shadow of a person with the arms and chest banging against the window then backing up, only to run forward again. Jorge pulled out his pistol and kept it at his side. The shadow crashed against the window for a third time.

            “What the hell is it?” Jessie spat. “Some punk?”

            Jorge never answered, and a part of me assumed that he never intended on doing so. Instead, the light from the employee’s lounge poured into the dark corner of the library as Julissa came stepping out in a sudden panic. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Rudolph push off from the table, the metal chair crashing to the floor as he ran for the door in a fury. I pulled the door shut. In an instant, John and Frank grabbed a hold of the knob as the man behind the door tried to get out. Heated roars came from his fat mustached lips as he tried pulling the door open.

            The sudden commotion caused Jorge to direct his gun towards where us teenagers were huddled, looking at him with wide eyes. Jorge took a step forward, his lips pursed and his nose flaring. Between the sudden noise of the mysterious figure outside and the corralling of his boss’s husband, Jorge seemed far from being amused. I remained frozen by the door while Julissa stood still, a single key hanging from between her fingers.

            “How close you almost were, little ones. How close you almost were,” Jessie’s voice rang out in haunting laughter.

It was an aged scream and a loud splatter that broke the tension. There was a sudden commotion in the office. Everyone’s attention snapped in the direction of the office as a violent wave of bright red liquid splashed against the alabaster blinds casing the vinyl louvers to hit against the glass like manicured nails tapping a granite countertop. Some of the liquid shot through the louvers and slid down the glass of the window and doors. My lips parted and my eyes widened. There was continued movement inside the office, but it was obvious that blood had just flew from the body of a very living being.

“Mildred!” Hampton cried with such concern that it almost seemed as though he shared a greater love for the woman than the man who was now swearing up a storm in the employee’s lounge.

The lanky man pushed past Jorge and Jessie and into the office. The door swung back with such force that had there not been fresh blood to hold the glass together, it would have shattered upon the door hitting the wall. With Jorge and Jessie’s attention on whatever was going on with Mildred in the office, Julissa took the chance to run to the door. Her firm legs carried her across the library in a flash. Jorge pivoted on the heel of his black boots, reaching out to grab that the young woman. He found the air knocked out of him as Toner bolted forward, knocking into the gut of the man with the same force that he would use in a high school football game against their biggest rival team. They both hit the ground hard where Toner folded his bound hands together to make a double fist. He repeatedly brought his fists down across Jorge’s face.

As Jessie grabbed for the gun, I went for Brittany and Lainey. I lunged over the two men fighting on the floor and gladly welcomed the shadows of the garage. My heart was beating too fast for my mind to wander towards what had transpired here just days before. I saw Andrew bolt through the garage door. He pried the bus doors open and got to work on hotwiring it. I motioned for Brittany to help me life the garage door. It was heavy, a heavy layer of rust digging into our fingers as we lifted the bottom part first.

The dark blue night sky loomed down on us. I had prepared my eyes to be met with sudden light, but instead it was a cloudy sky void of even the light from the stars and moon. I heard the engine of the bus roar to life and saw exhaust poor from the pipe in the back. There was still rough commotion coming from inside the library and I knew that not everyone had gotten out. Rudolph’s voice was now clear as day. A body shoved past me and jumped into the bus. There were shouts and screams followed by gunshots. I heard some growling, almost like a wolf or rabid dog. I kept pushing people onto the bus, barely able to see the silhouettes. The dim light coming from the open library door was the only aid that we had as Andrew finished with the bus.

“Ready to go!” he cried, jumping up from under the dashboard.      

I didn’t know who was on the bus with us and I didn’t know how many were still in the library. I remained on the steps of the bus, each second feeling like an hour. I could feel the fear of those who were waiting on the bus. Their fear was like an anaconda wrapping itself around my body, but it was my own fear that made it hard for me to breath. To leave now and know that I had left even just one person behind would haunt me for the rest of my life.

“Audrey! We have to go!” Andrew yelled, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me back.

I saw Jessie standing in the doorway. There was a deep three line gash across her face as though someone had dug their nails above her left brow and scratched all the way to below the right side of her jaw. It was deep and morbid, her right eye swelling up with blood. If she had been a cartoon character, steam would have probably been blowing from her ears and there would have been a faint whistle in the background. She lifted the gun, her finger on the trigger. My lips parted as she aimed it towards me.

I don’t recall any of us wearing orange that night, but the figure that jumped onto the woman’s back and pulled her back into the library saved my life that night. Their hands had been a grayish color, the skin of their arms bubbled like a sunburn. I don’t think it was one of us that had saved me that night, but I guess I’ll never know how Jessie was attacked.

“Audrey! Come on!” Brittany was now screaming. She pulled me from the steps and yanked on the lever so that the bus doors closed. “You said even if just one of us made it out they could get help! We’re out! Let’s go!”

She was trying to push me into the driver’s seat. I didn’t know what to do; she knew that I didn’t have my license yet. I had practiced in my mom’s blue minivan. A bus was something else entirely.

“Brittany, I can’t �" “

“Just go!” she screamed as three more gunshots rang out.

I sat down, my body folding into the big seat like a brick. I frantically searched around for anything, preferable a knob to turn on the lights or the shifter to put it in reverse. I found the knob to the left of the wheel and the headlights almost blinded me. I pushed the stick into reverse and hit the pedal with so much force that the bus went flying backwards with an intensity that I had been unaware of buses to have. The road that the library was on was so narrow that I backed the bus up into the brick wall of the building that had been across the street.

“Sorry!” I cried. My body was shaking. I was so terrified; terrified for reasons that a single sheet of lined paper wouldn’t be able to hold.

I moved the gearshift again and turned left. I didn’t care how fast I was going or even where I was going. I just wanted to get as far away from that dreaded library as possible. Everyone else remained silent. No one was yelling at me to turn a certain way or to look for a certain direction. It was complete silence as I dangerously rocked the bus down the street.

“Go to a police station!” someone finally cried out.

“No! Just keep driving!” came a male voice.

“We will go to a police station in the next town, just get us out of this damned city!”

I liked the last option. I silently went with it. As we got further and further from that darker part of the city, I lifted my eyes towards the giant rear view mirror. I could see nearly the front half of the seats. And it was then that I could see which five pairs of various colored eyes had not made it onto the bus. My throat swelled. Five people hadn’t made it. Five people had been left behind.