Forever Haunted

~ C H A P T E R 2 ~

I was laying on a cold metal table. Tied down with chains once again, my feet were scarred and still burning. Walking felt like stomping across red hot needles barefoot. I was completely immobile. My mouth was duct-taped shut, and I felt that at any moment my captor would come bursting in with some new type of excruciating torture prepared. When he did come in, all he had was a bag and a handful of knives.

The man sat down in a chair next to the table, and slowly fingered through the knives one by one with a look of insanity filling his face. He picked out a nice and small knife and twirled it around a couple of times.

"Ready?" He asked evilly.

He gripped the dagger in his hand and found a nice clean spot on my left arm. He forced the knife up against my skin and slid it against my flesh. He had cut pretty deep and I let out a muffled noise of pain. He smiled and watched a bright red line slowly appear on my arm. Blood trickled down as he continued finding new spots to cut. Some more sensitive than others. In the end, he had cut 56 new cuts. He sprayed them with window cleaner so they would sting and left them uncovered so that they would get infected. He went away for now as it was night time, my only break. I started crying myself to sleep.

I woke up to the sound of laughter. I was still chained down, so I couldn't go investigate, but I knew it meant trouble. Someone as insane as he was didn't have many reasons to laugh unless they meant pain for someone else.

An hour later, he wheeled in what looked like a large bathtub. It was filled with the same materials he had used yesterday to burn my feet...

Terrified, I watched as he positioned the tub in the middle of the room, and set up some sort of chain system above it.

After he had finished, he came over, removed the chains from my body, and put each one of my limbs through a chain loop above the tub, causing me to be hanging in the air like I was doing a belly flop.

My captor slowly raised the chains. Hanging by my ankles and wrists was dreadful, and he could clearly tell, because he smiled, and left the room. Leaving me suspended in the air for multiple hours, occasionally coming in to whip me a couple of times.

Eventually, he came in, and he lit the tub beneath me on fire. The fire was fairly small, but there was nothing in between me and the flames.

He began slowly lowering the chains. My mind exploded.

"Please no. Please no. Please no. Please no." I thought to myself over and over, but that wasn't stopping my steady descent. I descended so low my legs were engulfed in flames. It wasn't killing me but I felt like I was slowly dying. I screamed so loud. This was the worst one yet. My legs were now bleeding from the kisses of third-degree burns. Tears fell down my cheeks as they disappeared in the flames. "Someone please save me!" I thought to myself fully aware that if I said it out loud he would hurt me more. It lasted for what felt like forever. He finally put out the flames and patched me up a little bit so I wouldn't die. I wanted to though. Dying would be a gift from heaven. I passed out from lack of oxygen because I had been hyperventilating.

My eyes slowly opened to see an unfamiliar place. Whatever it was it already felt better than the building I had been in for six years. My eyes fully opened and I saw white curtains and I was on a comfortable bed. I was in a hospital for some reason. I felt better than I did before. I looked at my arms and legs but they were bandaged in white ribbons.

"You're awake!" A semi-familiar voice said. I looked at the man that had delivered me pizza. I felt nervous. Was he my new kidnapper? Did the other one sell me? I backed away as far as I could from the friendly-looking man.

"It's alright." He said. "I don't want to hurt you."

"W-what's happening?" I asked.

"You're in a hospital in Marfa, Texas." He paused. "We picked you up yesterday night. We had hoped to get there sooner, but your kidnapper was very thorough. If we had been any later, you might have died."

I didn't know what to say. This man was so- nice. I had never really met a kind man before. My father walked out on my mother and I, and the only other man I'd met had been the person who had literally lowered me into a tub of flames. It was strange.

"I'm Officer William King by the way. This pizza delivery uniform was a disguise. We got word that something sketchy was going on at the address we found you, and I was sent to investigate. When you ordered pizza we knew we had to do something." There was a long moment of silence.

"May I ask how you got all those burns?" I didn't say anything at first. My throat was dry, and I wasn't sure if I was ready to relive the experience, but I explained everything anyway.

Officer King was a good listener. He didn't interrupt me, and he listened to the whole story. When I had finished, he spoke just one word.

"Wow."

I decided to try and get some rest. I told Officer King, so he nodded, and left the room. He turned out the lights on the way. I had never slept with the lights out because my kidnapper never turned them off and I couldn't get up to do it myself. It felt nice and I could feel my eyes getting heavy which is something they have never done unless I had cried myself to sleep. I fell asleep with no problem because I felt safe for once in my life. I didn't feel scared of what might happen when I awake from my slumber the next day.