Resist
Her senses told her that she is indeed
awake. Yet, she knows that her eyes are still closed. She floats in that realm.
The one that straddles the line between
the light of the world. Versus the darkness of the void. Yet her ears tell her
that the world around her is alive. The sounds of the city drift into her muted
semiconscious existence. She hears sirens from emergency vehicles. The sounds warble about on the
breeze. She realizes that her body is swaying rhythmically as if she’s being
carried. Someone nearby breathes heavily
from exertion. Their breath coming in hurried gasps. As if they are carrying
something heavy as they walk. The soundless void of unconsciousness threatens to pull her back down into the darkness.
Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs. Now consciously
fighting back against the fuzz seeded within her brain. The young woman feels
her memories returning. Going back replaying what she knows. The upscale bar
downtown, her and her girlfriends drinking … a lot. The evening plays back in
her shattered mind. There was a creepy guy they noticed across the bar. The cadence of the breathing around her changes.
She feels herself being shifted about. Then the soft metallic jingle of keys causes her mind to race. The young woman’s
eyes pop open. Terror drives rivers of icy fear into her heart. Her vision is
hampered by black mesh cloth. “I’m in a
bag of some sort.” Her mind yells the terrifying fact as a warning.
A door opens somewhere near her then shuts
quickly. It is then that she realizes the sounds from outside have been muted
once more. “I'm inside now.” She tells herself on the verge of hysterics. “Now it's just us.” She hears a male’s mousy voice
whisper in a hushed almost gleeful tone. “The creepy
bastard from the bar.” Her mind drudges up the memory
out of the alcohol muted subconscious of
her mind. The thought rears up as if trying to free itself from a bubbling tar pit. “I went into the mouth of the alley to smoke…” She traces back the events. Like
walking down, a long dark foreboding hallway. Knowing that somewhere in the
shadows dangers is waiting to take her.
“He spoke to me, I turned around ….” In her mind,
she searches for clues. Like watching an old detective show on TV. A show that has
been interrupted by static during a piviot moment in the story. “His hand was a
blur of movement. Then everything in her world went black.” There she’s all
caught up on the show now. But she knows she not going to like the ending. From
outside the bag the keys jingle again. She feels herself being lowered down. A
new sensation greets her. As her body comes to rest on something hard. A floor
perhaps one that is not carpeted. In the outside world, a door is being unlocked. But inside her mind, her father
speaks to her. “Virginia, honey…” she can
see him now. Dressed in his pristine blue police uniform. He strokes her blonde
hair. Kneeling his lanky frame down to her eye
level. “Sweetie just because you are short. Does not mean you can’t be
tough. It doesn’t mean anything” he told her. Gently placing a kiss on her
forehead and wiping her tears away. The next day he enrolled her in a karate
class. It was run by one of old his partners Marvin. A huge black man who had
become like a second father to her. All throughout
the years of her training that followed.
A foul smell filters down into the bag.
Accompanied by a cool breeze. Hearing the creak of a rusty door hinge squealing. The putrid odor is mixed with the
dank musty smell one finds in a damp basement. Except this basement is filled
with dampness and rotting meat. If she had listened
to the two greatest men to influence her life. She knows beyond a shadow of a
doubt. That she would not be in this life-threatening
predicament. None of that matters to Virginia now. With all the subtly she can
muster. Laying on the floor in what must be a gym back of some sort. She flexes
her feet and hands. Becoming keenly aware that she is not bound. Her hands and
feet are free much to her relief. She is indeed small in stature. The young
woman knows this fact. But what she lacks in size. Virginia makes up in ferocity. A soft moan from somewhere below
catches her attention. It is immediately followed by another and then joined by
several more. “Now for the new girl.” She hears the male’s voice. Up from below
comes the sound of feet dragging across a floor. The sound of a light switch
being flicks echoes around her. She pushes all that back as she feels a body
near her. From outside the sack, there’s
a tug. Followed by the sound of the bag’s zipper being pulled down. Virginia
has closed her eyes once more. She waits coiled, tension rippling through her muscles. But her breathing is slow and easy.
And when the man reaches for her. Believing her to still be unconscious from the blow to her head. She
strikes the moment his fingers brush her arm. Much the same way a Venus flytrap is triggered by its unsuspecting prey.
The scream of anger tears itself from her throat. It startles the kneeling man. He is caught off guard by his “victim.” Driving the palm of her right hand
under his chin. His head snaps back from the teeth-rattling
force of the blow. Her attack is coordinated and relentless. Just like Marvin
taught her. “Don’t stop until your attacker is incapacitated
or yields.” Her small left hand delivers a coordinated precise strike to the man’s exposed throat. Virginia leaps up from the bag on the floor
snarling. Without pausing, she grabs the hair on both sides of the creepers
head. Pulling the stunned man’s head
forward. The tiny young woman delivers three lightning
quick knee strikes. Each blow decimating her attacker’s
face. The first blow ruptures his bottom lip.
The second sends the man’s two front teeth skittering across the hardwood floor. And the third audibly crushes
his nose. With a flailing hand, the
kneeling man interrupts the barrage of
blows. By forcefully shoving Virginia violently backward. He stands cackling
in a sinister rage. “You bitch ... you broke
my nothse.” The last word comes out
comically from his destroyed face. However,
there is nothing funny about the man’s rage.
Nor does she find his size to be a joke. She sees that carrying her tiny hundred- and twenty-pound frame. Would be like a
child cradling a teddy bear to this stocky
man. Pausing briefly, she steadies
herself for his charge. The alcohol and blow to her head taking their combined
toll on her movements.
A moan come through the open door behind
the man. This time the sound is louder and more menacing
than before. Her attacker turns towards the sound. The light from the door
cascading over his damaged and bloodied face. But she can still see the
confusion etched upon the man’s face as he speaks. “Jennifer … Deborah …. Sss Samantha ... Annn … Angela. What are you doing?” He
stammers. Calling out these seemingly random female names. Speaking the way,
one does when greeting old friends. Whom
you haven’t seen in years. The bloodied man stands there enraptured. As if he’d
successfully extracted these women’s names from the “recently deleted” bin of
his mind. Virginia moves in to take full advantage of the creeper’s
distraction. She pauses mid-step. A grimy
grey hand appears. Silently slithering around the man’s broad shoulders. The putrid
limb moves like sensual lover’s caress. A fear so palpable washes over Virginia.
In her mind’s eye, she watches as her own soul. Leaps from her rigid and immobile
body. And takes off running down the darkened hallway. Before vaulting out the
front window of the house. “I …I don’t understand.” The creeper utters
breathlessly. The hand and arm that come
into view. The appendage is a sickly pale grey greenish shade. Rotting sores of
blackish decay cover the limb. “Did you all come back to be with me.” He says
hope tinging his voice. A ragged smile touching the corner of his split and
swollen lips. She can’t see what’s coming up the stairs. But the moans have
risen to an eerie crescendo. They seem to
come from a multitude of hoarse throats. “I’m sorry I hurt you all.” He offers an apology to the unseen entities coming up from the basement. Several
more hands clamp on to the man. Virginia is forced to cover her nose. Using her
tiny bruised hand in a vain attempt to ward off the stench. That now fills the
hallway. Without warning the head of a woman
lashes out. She clamps her teeth down on the creeper’s jaw. It takes all Virginia’s
fortitude not to vomit. As the woman’s face comes into view. She looks as if
she is rotting away. Large sections of her face have decomposed down through to
the white bone beneath. Her eyes are glazed over white jellied orbs.
The Creeper begins to scream. A high-pitched shrill
sound one never expects to hear from a man. The woman shakes her head the way a shark does. Prying loose a
chunk of flesh and chewing. With all the
vigor of a dog with a stole morsel of food. A second woman’s head appears. This
time latching on to the man’s throat. The scream turns into gurgles of “I’m sorry.” As more heads latch on to the creeper. He sways drunkenly in
place. Trying in vain to fight off the mob
of decaying women attacking him. “Move
now …” Virginia hears her daddy screaming
in her mind. She launches herself at the man in the hallway. With all the force
she can muster. The tiny woman rams her assailant. He falls forward into the
basement down several wooden stairs.
Taking his throng of cannibal admirers with him. She pauses in the dim light.
The tangle of limbs comes to rest at the
bottom of the stairs. A dozen rotting sickly colored women grab at the creeper
now. They tear at him with decayed fingers and broken yellowed teeth. Opening him up like a pinata filled with
delicious raw meat. His screams grow fainter from under the pile of bodies. As
his body spasms uncountably. She sees more figures coming around to join in on the
attack. One woman her body showing signs of a savage
beating. Stops staring up at her with glassy
white dead fish eyes. Virginia
gasps as the woman steps over the squirming mass. She whirls about slamming the
door and twisting an old deadbolt into
place. Virginia wills her rubbery legs to move. “Time to see if, I can’t catch my
soul.” She thinks aloud. Now finding herself sprinting through a living room
devoid of furniture. All around her the walls are covered. With neatly cut meticulously place newspaper articles. “The Duffle Bag Killer strikes again.” A bold
headline proclaims from the front page of the local paper. As she whirls about
the room desperately taking in the macabre
scene. She sees women’s pictures in the articles on the wall. The most recent article pinned neatly on the wall closest
to the door. Steals the breath from her lungs. It’s the girl, she saw staring
up from the bottom of the stairs. The one who looked at her as if she were a
meal. The screams from downstairs have ceased now. She hears the first bump on
the door behind her. Virginia runs from the house into the chaos of the night.
Sirens wails, fires burn, gunshots echo, screams carry by. And everywhere
people are frantically running about. Virginia utters a single tiny cry standing on
the small porch. Realizing the reality of her situation. Which has gone from bad to hell on earth. In only a
few short moments. She leaps off the stairs
and straight into the apocalypse.