Chapter 2
“Hello?” said Leighanne Littrell, picking up the phone in her
living room. No one answered. “Hello?” she repeated, pressing the receiver
tightly to her ear.
She frowned, puzzled. She
could hear muffled noises and voices on the other end of the phone, but she
couldn’t make out what was going on.
She could hear two voices, both male, and one sounded angry.
“Who is this?” she demanded.
“Hello!?”
Suddenly, she heard a loud sound, then static, and then the phone
went dead.
***
“Walk straight ahead, and don’t make any sudden movements, you got
that?” Brian’s captor growled, holding tightly to Brian’s arms as he guided him
forward. “You do anything to attract
attention to yourself, and you’ll pay.”
Brian flinched as he felt something small and hard shove into the
middle of his back. He didn’t even have
to see it to realize what it was. It
was the barrel of a gun.
The man walked swiftly along beside Brian, one hand behind his
back, holding the gun up against his jacket.
“This way,” he said suddenly, roughly shoving Brian to his left. Brian saw an exit sign and with panic,
realized they were leaving the airport.
He wanted to spin out of the man’s grasp and make a run for it,
but he knew what the consequences would be if he even tried. So instead, he cooperated, not knowing what
else to do.
They walked to a pair of doors leading out of the airport. It was not the main entrance, some kind of
side entrance, rather. There were no
people around, no one to spot the gun and realize what was happening. It was just Brian and the man.
The man hurried Brian through the doors and outside. The bright sunlight caused Brian to squint,
but the man gave him no time to let his eyes adjust. “Move,” he snarled, pushing Brian
forward.
They walked on, and Brian could see that they were approaching a
parking lot, with people nearby. He
wondered what would happen next. Would
the man keep his gun shoved against Brian like that, where people could easily
see it?
No. He stopped and slowly
drew the gun away from Brian’s body, hiding it inside his trench coat. “Now, listen,” he said warningly. “Just cause I don’t got you at gunpoint
anymore doesn’t mean I won’t use it if I need to. You just better cooperate and make sure I
don’t have to use it.”
Brian nodded quickly, unable to answer verbally.
“Now come on,” the man said, dragging him on. They walked through the parking lot and
stopped in front of an old, beat-up, black car. The man guided Brian around to the back and
opened the right back door. He shoved
Brian into the seat behind the passenger’s seat.
“Give me your hands,” he ordered, and Brian reluctantly held out
his hands. The man grabbed them roughly
and tied a thick cord around his wrists, binding them tightly together. Brian cried out as the cord cut into his
skin, for it was too tight. The man
showed no mercy. “Now your legs,” he
barked, and, clenching his teeth, Brian swung his legs out of the car. The man bent down and tied his ankles together
as well, then shoved him back into the car.
He buckled the seatbelt around Brian and closed the door. Then he got into the front seat.
“Now, don’t even try to escape cause you won’t make it. Even if you could get untied, I’ve had child
security locks installed in the backseat, so the door won’t open, not from the
inside at least. So if you know what’s
good for you, you’ll just sit still and enjoy the ride.” The man laughed evilly and backed the car
out of its parking space.
Brian stared miserably out the window, as the man put the car into
drive and sped out of the parking lot.
***
After a good half hour, at least, the car lurched to a stop. Brian glanced out the window to find himself
in front of an old abandoned building, which looked like it had once been a
convenience store, or some other small place of business. They must have still been in Atlanta, but in
a much different part of town. This part
was old and run-down, with clusters of tiny old houses squeezed between commercial
buildings, many of which were in worse shape than the houses.
As the man swiped his key out of the ignition and climbed out of
the car, Brian felt a wave of nausea.
To say he was scared would be a gross understatement. Terrified would better describe the emotion,
but even that word didn’t fully illustrate his fear.
The man came around to Brian’s side of the car and opened the
door. “Okay, I’m gonna untie your legs
now so you can walk, but I still have my gun with me, so don’t try anything
funny,” the man said. Brian nodded,
more afraid than obedient, and swung his tied ankles out. The man bent over and, pulling a pocket
knife out of one of the pockets on his coat, sliced the cords.
Brian sighed inwardly in relief as the circulation came back to
his ankles. His wrists still ached, but
he decided not to mention that.
“Come on,” the man said, pulling Brian to his feet. He dragged him onto the cracked sidewalk and
slammed the car door shut behind him with one foot. Then, gripping Brian’s upper arm tightly, he
led him through the scraggly grass in front of the building. Instead of going in the front entrance,
Brian was led around the building to a door in the back. He kicked open the door and shoved Brian in,
quickly closing and locking it behind him.
Brian looked around and found himself in a large, empty room. It had a low ceiling, and the floor was
covered with dirty red and white tiles.
The man didn’t give Brian much of a chance to survey the rest of the
room. Instead, he pushed him forward,
leading him to a door on one side of the room.
He opened the door, and Brian saw a set of stairs. “Up,” the man grunted, and Brian miserably
trudged up the stairs. At the top,
there was another door. The man reached
around Brian and opened it, shoving Brian through it.
They were now in another room, this one small. The wooden floors were old and dusty, and
the room was empty. Across the room was
a door. The man led Brian through it
and into another even smaller room.
This room contained an old twin bed with nothing but a bare mattress on
it. Beside it stood a small wooden
chest of drawers. And that was all,
except for the heavy curtains that were drawn in front of a small window, which
faced the street.
“Lie down,” the man ordered, giving Brian a hard shove that left
him sprawling onto the bed. “Now hold
still, or I’ll beat the living shit out of you,” he warned, pushing Brian down
so that he lay flat on the bed. The man untied Brian’s wrists, but before
Brian had a chance to relax them, he grabbed one and stretched it up to one of
the posts on the headboard of the bed.
Using a piece of cord, he tightly tied Brian’s wrist to the post. Then he did the same with the other
wrist.
When Brian’s hands were securely tied, he began on the feet, tying
each of Brian’s ankles to the short posts at the foot of the bed. Finally, he took a long piece of cord and
lay it across Brian’s stomach. He
looped the cord around the whole mattress and tied the ends in a knot beneath
the bed. Brian was now stuck, unable to
move hardly anything except his head.
“Please, why are you doing this to me?” he demanded, close to
tears.
“You wanna know why I’m doing this to you?” the man asked,
chuckling. “Well, I’ll tell you.” He grinned evilly. Then, slowly, he removed the do-rag from his
head and pulled the sunglasses off his face, exposing his eyes.
As Brian got a good look at his face for the first time, he
gasped.
***
