Ugh, my head is killing me, I thought as I woke up. I knew I hadn’t had much to drink; I had a 2 drink limit when I’m on a date so I can still trust my judgment – Lord knows I’m already a bad judge of character.
Wait, where am I? “Hello?” I called out as I looked around. The lights were off, but I could tell I was in a workshop of some sort. I could make out the meticulously organized red and black tools lining an entire wall. My heart was racing; I had no idea where I was or how I got there… I tried sitting up, but my wrists were strapped down. I started hyperventilating as it all came rushing back…
There was a drink waiting for me when I got back from the restroom - she drugged me. “THAT BITCH!” I yelled as I tried breaking free from the restraints, but it was no use. I couldn’t think clearly, my mind racing. How am I supposed to get out of here?
I feel my eyes start swelling and tears begin to fill up. Out of all the bad dates I’ve been on and my last terrible relationships nothing ever ended like this.
Is this how it ends? Am I going to die? What is going on? Oh my god, is she a serial killer? She seemed so nice! Why did I drink that beer? It didn’t taste funny? How did no one notice her drugging me? How could I have been this stupid? I’m gonna die here…
I don’t know what was racing faster - my mind or my heart. All the thoughts running through my head - it hurt so bad. I could hear the blood pulsing deep in my head - I could feel the hot blood fill every crevice of my body, carrying panic and sorrow with it. I never thought I’d be in this position; no one would care that I was dead because I sure as shit wasn’t going to survive. This is it for me… That’s all I could think as tears continued to flow and my chin quivered.
There was a creak of a door behind me and suddenly my eyes hurt - someone had turned on the lights. Footsteps began descending and getting closer, but I couldn’t see who it was. My eyes were finally starting to adjust to the fluorescent lighting - it felt like I was in the hospital.
The footsteps stopped and I saw her standing right next to me. A huge smile covered her face and I couldn’t believe it; she seemed so normal. Her hair was a beautiful dark brown with bouncy curls to her collar bone. Her collar bone prominent in the dark green, velvet shift dress. Her skin was even more fair against the dark emerald dress and black, lace kimono. She looked completely out of place in the workshop. Despite everything, I still thought she was beautiful. How could someone so beautiful do this? What’s her endgame? Her eyes were a beautiful hazel and they looked so kind - not the crazy eyes I expected once I realized what was happening. Somewhere deep down I had hoped it wasn’t her and someone randomly picked me up on my way home - I really thought we had the potential to be serious.
“Wow, you were out for a while!” she exclaimed as she continued staring at me with that god-awful grin. She was beautiful, but I could tell there was nothing but malice behind her grin. How could someone so beautiful with such kind eyes do this? There has to be another reason.
“Please, what’s going on?” I was able to muster.
She looked perplexed and asked, “Really?” She leaned in and got right up to my ear… I could feel the warmth of her breath as she just stood there for a while. I looked straight ahead, waiting for her to say something - anything. She began kissing my neck and I couldn’t do anything about it. Her lips that previously felt electrifying felt cold and uninviting now. She licked my neck up to my ear and whispered, “You’re gonna die, silly.”
I began whimpering and the bright lights above me began to blur as my eyes filled with tears. She was right - I was going to die. I was strapped down and still groggy from whatever she had drugged me with; her house was out in the country with no neighbors for miles in either direction. From what she had told me, there was a wooded area on her property and a pond - she could get rid of me without anyone knowing or the prospect of stumbling across a decaying corpse.
She stood up and said, “Right, well… There’s no use in prolonging this any further. You’ve been out like a light for nearly 24 hours! Normally, I’d like to have a little fun beforehand, but you were asleep for too long and I’ve been anxiously waiting!” She turned around and walked to her workbench where she wheeled a small table next to me. I could hardly tell what was on it exactly, but I saw the red and black and knew they were tools. She smiled and looked around - she was missing something. She leaned down, kissed my cheek, and whispered, “You stay right there - I’m gonna go set the mood.” She smiled and walked off, no longer in my line of sight.
I heard her pouring a drink and shuffling through some things. She took a drink and I heard her call out, “What do you feel like listening to?” Records - she was shuffling through records.
I stretched my arms as much as I could and I managed to touch the table she rolled to my side - it looked like something doctors would use in surgery, so I could, in theory, roll it and have it above my body. All I needed to do was stretch my fingers just a little more to be able to get any sort of grip. The shuffling continued. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I had to do something. YES! I was able to roll the table near me.
“CCR, Eagles, Floyd, Zeppelin? What do you feel like?” she called out as my fingers searched for whatever I could reach on the table. My fingers felt the blade of a knife and I inched it towards me until I felt the handle. I grasped it and somehow managed to slip it between the table and my body. I had to figure out a way to get my hand through the restraint, then I would be able to get free - I was sure of it. DAMN! If only I could get my thumb through! I tried breaking it like I had seen in movies but what they don’t tell you is how hard it actually is to break it.
“This one,” she whispered and walked back into my line of sight. She began putting the record in.
I NEED to get out of here.
The music started and it was Fleetwood Mac’s Monday Morning. Monday morning… I had never wished to see another Monday morning as badly as I wanted to see the next Monday.
She began dancing to the music, the fringe flowing as she swayed. She wasn’t paying attention to me, so I kept trying to break my thumb for the entire song to no avail.
Warm Ways began and she slowed down. She closed her eyes as she danced sensually by herself - the entire time a glass of red wine in her hand. I could tell she was in her own world so I took the knife from under me and tried to cut through the restraints, but quickly realized my hand could not bend that way. That was it - I knew I was going to die and there was nothing I could do. I slipped the knife back underneath me.
Blue Letter started and her eyes lit up. She began dancing jovially while looking at me. She walked over to the table and began analyzing her tools. Watching her dance to that awful music and seeing her dressed like Stevie Nicks only confirmed my suspicions - she was a witch. I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen it before - maybe I was blinded by some terrible spell. I knew I had terrible taste in partners, but a witch?! How could I be so blind. From that point on I knew it was all or nothing - I HAD to escape and she had to die; only someone as evil as a witch would be capable of holding someone captive and killing them.
Rhiannon started and she danced closer to me. She leans down and whispers, “And who will be her lover?” and then kissed my cheek. She was Rhiannon. She was the darkness. She was everything wrong with the world.
She picked up a tool that I could only assume was a saw of some sort and leaned in and whispered, “ If I promised you heaven, would you promise not to kill me?” I spat in her face - how could such a vile woman promise such a thing?
“I knew you’d kill me, even with the promise of heaven. I figured I’d jump the gun and kill you first. I’ve been watching you for sometime and know you’ve been on a crazy witch hunt. It’s time you pay.”
“It’s not a crazy witch hunt,” I said. “I’m purifying the world of your evil and impurities!”
“That’s where you and I differ,” she said. “You kill that which you do not understand; I kill in the name of all those who burned before me.”
She picked up another knife from the table and walked to my feet. How am I going to get out of this? She cut my pants from ankle to hips. I could feel the cold, pointed steel at the top of my feet. She cut it and dragged the knife up my shin and up to my knee in one long drag. I yelled the most guttural scream I had ever heard as the warm blood ran down the sides of my calves.
She ran back to the head of the table and yelled in my face. “SCREAM FOR ME, YOU LITTLE BITCH!” she spat. There was nothing but evil behind her eyes now. She walked back to the foot of the table and proceeded to repeat the same cut on my other leg. I tried to keep myself from screaming, but the pain was too much. She laughed as I whimpered in pain.
Two more cuts on each thigh from the top of my knee to my hips; one cut on either side of my knee. I screamed with the first 2 cuts and after that, it started going numb. She wasn’t happy about that. “Doesn’t hurt anymore? Let’s try this,” she said as she set down the knife and picked up a hammer. She went to my feet… She was going to break my feet, but as she raised the hammer, she stopped herself and walked a bit higher. She raised the hammer and swung. I screamed an entirely different scream than before. I then knew what true agony was as a burning sensation filled my entire being. She lifted and swung again, both my knees completely shattered at this point.
She leaned in to admire her work and I grabbed the knife and tried to cut her anywhere I could reach. It barely grazed her, but it drew blood. I knew I wasn’t going to make it - hell, I couldn’t even run, but I had to try everything to give her hell. She was taken aback, but still took the knife from my hand. She yelled and plunged it back into my hand and said, “here you go, since you want it so bad.” I no longer yelled - it didn’t hurt anymore. My body was in complete shock.
She cut my shirt and I, once again, felt the cold, sharp steel against my body - this time at the top of my pubic bone. I didn’t feel pain, only pressure. The pressure continued slowly until she reached the base of my sternum and then she quickly dragged it through to my shoulder… She did the same to the other side and I only felt the hot tears rolling towards my temples.
She sneered and said, “let’s go for a walk.”
She took what I could only presume to be brakes off the table and began wheeling me through the workshop. Everything was so clean and organized - a complete 180 from her. How can she be this crazy? I’ve never met one so manic, I thought as we came to a stop. She opened doors that led outside - the sound of the cicadas loud and the night air warm and damp.
It was a bumpy road – no, not a road – a trail maybe? I had no idea where she was taking me or what her endgame was - she could have killed me long ago, but she didn’t. Stupid, satanic, sadistic, witch! I thought. I wasn’t going to engage - I wasn’t going to give her what she wanted.
The stars were so bright, but that was the only light - the night was dark. We kept going for what felt like an eternity and the feeling was returning to my body. I let out a groan with every bump, but I wanted to scream. The pain was unbearable, but I was so tired. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t let her win.
The darkness grew darker as we entered the woods - the stars no longer visible. Everything kept getting darker and quieter - the cicadas slowing down. I tried so hard, but all I wanted to do was sleep and I had to give in.
We came to an abrupt stop and she whispered in my ear, “Not yet, my little chickadee. We’re almost done.”
There was a break in the canopy and I could see the stars through the darkness. The cicadas grew louder and the damp air felt like a warm blanket. It seemed like a nice way to go until I smelled it… gasoline. And then I felt it - a burn deep inside me as I yelled - all the pain coming back. I wanted to writhe, but the restraints wouldn’t let me.
That cunt!
She cackled as I continued yelling and crying - the two indistinguishable. Dammit! I didn’t want to give her this.
She began yelling and looked me in the eyes as she said, “Burn! Burn for all your sins - let the fire cleanse you from the inside! You, who has wrongly condemned many! It is now your turn to pay!” Evil filled her eyes and she slowly brought up her hands - something in one of them.
That’s when I saw it - a singular match. She lit it and it illuminated her face - that same vile grin slapped across her face. She threw it at me and I watched the darkness get bright, the flames casting dancing shadows on the trees. Then, just as quickly as the flames lit up the entire forest, the pain darkened everything around me. The cicadas were no longer singing, the stars no longer bright, the damp air not wet enough to put out the flames. Everything slowly closed in until I could no longer see anything. Then I didn’t feel anything. All the pain was gone. Everything was gone.