The Escape

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Lacey’s POV:

My eyes are closed and I’m trying to think but I can’t seem to make sense of my thoughts. It’s almost as if I’m wading through muck or something but in my head. It’s all hazy. My body aches all over and I’m utterly exhausted. I don’t know where I’m at but I feel like I’m moving and in the far distance I hear a voice. It’s a voice I can’t recognize though and what’s being said I can’t hear or understand. It sounds too far away.

But then, I remember his face. Halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness, I keep wondering. Who is he? Why is he helping me, some disgusting, helpless, idiot girl he just found in the middle of nowhere? Why…I don’t where I’m at still but somehow I feel as if I’m in someone else’s body but my own. I feel myself being lifted in someone’s arms but who I have no idea.

Gently being laid down on something soft, I feel something on my forehead. It’s almost cold…and wet feeling but somehow soothing. I desperately wish I could open my eyes but for some unforeseen reason, I can’t. I feel like screaming, wishing someone could hear me, but I can’t. I can’t move, I can’t see, or do anything I so wish to do right now. What is wrong with me?! Why is my body not doing what I want it to? Why do I ache so much all over? Why is it that I can hear and feel everything around me but can’t do anything else? Damn It! Will someone please help me?! I feel like screaming and crying at the same time in my frustration.

Laying there in the blackness, I feel a hand gently grazing my cheek and forehead. There’s a soft knocking sound and whoever was touching me quickly jumps up and I hear a door open, slightly creaking.

“Hey you guys. Come on in.” I recognize this voice as the guy’s from the side of the road. I wonder who he’s talking to.

“Oh my gosh! Is she okay?” I hear in a girls voice and the sound of feet getting closer as someone rushes over close to me. Closer still and in the same voice, I hear “What’s wrong with her? Where did you find her? She looks terrible!”

Thanks I think dryly.

I hear yet another set of feet and the door closing.  In the voice I recognize as the guy from the side of the road, I hear “Shhh. Don’t disturb her. From the looks of it, she needs the sleep.”

Asleep? Asleep! If I’m asleep, then why is it I can hear every damn word they’re saying but can’t see who it is?!

Again, coming from the guy from the side of the road I hear in a hushed tone, “I don’t exactly know what’s wrong with her but by the looks of it, she hasn’t eaten in days. She’s pretty badly bruised too. I was afraid I was going to break her by the slightest touch. I got her from the side of the road. I saw her on my way to town this morning but didn’t stop. I couldn’t get the look on her face out of my head. I can’t explain it but I had to go back there and help her.”

Hearing another voice, a guy’s but not the same one, he said “Who was that guy that was following you?”

If only they knew…

“I don’t know man. I first saw him behind me when I turned around to look for the girl where I first seen her. When I found her, she was lying nearly unconscious in the grass. When she opened her eyes and saw me and tried crawling away. Her expression…I tried calming her down but she looked over her shoulder and started panicking, pointing over my shoulder and had the most terrified look I’ve ever seen. At first when she tried talking, nothing came out, but when she could speak, she told me we had to get out of there and I wouldn’t like it if he got there. She was trembling and tugging on my arm. So I picked her up and ran to my car and that guy started following me. You know the rest.”

“Hmm. That’s weird. I wonder why she’s so afraid of him. Is it just me or was it super creepy how he kept following til he found out it wasn’t you guys?”

“Yeah, I know. I was planning on asking her some questions but, well as you can see, she’s not exactly conscious…Oh shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to get to work. Like now! Fuck. My clothes are still at the laundromat! What am I going to do about her?”

“Don’t worry about it. Chill out Eithen. We’ll take care of it. You go to work and we’ll stay here with her until you get back.” I hear in the girl’s voice.

“Yeah and you can take my truck too just in case that creep it out looking for you again.”

“Thanks guys. I owe you big time. Um, will you call me if she wakes up?”

“Yeah man, no problem.”

“Thanks guys. See ya later.”

He was gone, and I heard the unknown girl and guy talk in hushed whispers but they’re voices started to grow more distant. Eventually, I couldn’t hear them at all. The silent blackness, oppressing though it was, I would rather have had than my rambling thoughts and dreams. Fading deeper to unconsciousness, I saw him.

We are back at his place. My attempt of escaping had failed. Running aimlessly lost through the never ending trees, the world caving in around me getting smaller, a root reached out to trip me. Stumbling to the ground, I raise myself up to see his crooked smile and inch from my face, his body shaking in laughter.

Trying desperately to crawl away, he grabs my foot and pulls. Giving all I have, I grab ahold of a small tree, wrapping my arms around it.

“Lacey darling,” his sweet yet menacing voice beacons me. “You better let go,” he commands.

Not listening, I don’t let go. My defiance makes him furious.

“Damn it! You stupid little bitch! I said let go!”

He continues to pull and I start losing me grip. Every second that passes by, in seeming slow motion, my hold grows on the tree grows weaker ‘til my hands slip clear of each other.

His deep throaty menacing laugh echoes throughout the forest, mocking me. In a last desperate attempt, I try digging my nails in the ground, sobbing, with futile effort. Screaming, I lose all hope as he drags me back deeper in the darkness of the forest’s depths…