And it was pure, infinite, and compact. In it there was no pain, no evil, no good; no nothing, except for fleeting but familiar impressions of pictorial thoughts that came and went at cyclic intervals. And with each passing, it was becoming clear that the darkness was not all there was; something else was out there… another place… another reality where other things existed: wondrous things… needful things… painful things… Mostly painful things… In and out of itself, pain then took form and turned into this living breathing organism, that was struggling to come back; come back to exist in the numbed body of Zoe Greaves…
From that moment on, Zoe became conscious of her own existence, and very slowly, emerged from the darkness. It was a terrifying feeling having to hang on to your pain in order to exist, because (and this hadn’t been disproved by the dead, yet) feeling pain equated to feeling alive. And life was too precious to let go.
Zoe’s first clear sensation of her present situation was of moving. A rather bumpy movement. But her body was not in motion. And the awareness that she could barely budge it (let alone feel it) at all added to her pressing fears. She realized she was dwelling in total blackness, though outside the one she’d been (and God only knew for how long) inside her mind. Highly disoriented, her brain functions seemed limited; like as a result of an electrical surge passing through it and screwing some vital cognitive circuits.
I’m in the trunk of his car… Zoe figured that much out and her face tensed in terror. As a result, the acute pain, which then shot through a region of her head, deterred her from further facial twitches.
My God… where is he taking me?
She thought of doing something… anything… But she was helpless in her current prone position, her spine awkwardly tilted, her upper limbs folded unto her bust, and her legs bent backwards. She was wrapped in a see-through sort of plastic thing, and had difficulty pulling in air through it. Quickly succumbing to panic and on the verge of tears, she heard the sound of her thought:
No… I’m going to die again…Oh, God… why bring me back to let me die again…
She wept for a lengthy moment, no longer caring about the pain such an effort was inflicting on her face. She cried and cried and cried… interminably, her cheeks glistening with tears, and her lips glued together by swollen wounds. The image of Jeff, Solene and the twins provided no comfort at all. Whatever was going to become of all of them? And what if her body was never found? What if they thought she had just up and abandoned them?
She was already regretting her heated reaction towards Jeff. Why had she felt so vexed to the point of stomping off on him? What for? It was killing her. So was the foreknowledge that the many unsaid words she’d never gotten around to telling Solene would forever remain unsaid.
By the time she finally stopped, she wished she could just ease back into the darkness, for an excruciating pain had made its home inside her. Her brow and chin hurt like hell from deep bruises, and it was as if her body (or was it her will?) was sedated or simply incapacitated. She mustered up the strength to not despair, and tried to look around. A beam of sunlight was coming through a peanut-size hole in the tailgate. After scrambling in the dark and drowning in your own distress, to see a light, no matter how tiny, was a reassuring sign that even in the face of imminent doom, hope was still a resilient parasite.
Suddenly, a part of her brain noted a deceleration in the car’s speed. Unmistakably, she understood it was slowing down. She understood it would be over pretty soon again. Her heart sunk to her stomach.
God… Please… No…
A flow of panic was moving through her bones as the car slowed over two hundred yards and then halted. A moment of anticipation ensued. For a long while, nothing seemed to happen. Time seemed to unravel, whereas space (whichever one her mind linked her body to) seemed to transform into an insufferable purgatory.
In her state of semi-consciousness, she was expecting the trunk lid to pop open anytime now; then raw daylight would flood down on her, and after it faded away, the face of her killer would appear.
Mr. Bagley’s.
Had she somehow dreamt it? Was it really possible that the old man was a murderer? A man who looked like he couldn’t hurt a fly?
Her ears suddenly pricked up: they had just picked up some noise outside. The sound of a slamming car door… the scuffling of incoming footsteps… approaching slowly…