BAM! BAM!
I slammed on the brakes of my two-year-old Honda CRV and jumped out. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" I screamed as I looked at the two blown tires. I looked behind my SUV and saw the huge hole that caused the blowouts. "What else can go wrong today?" I screamed. But no one was around to hear me.
It was pitch dark. I was on a one-lane dirt road someplace in southern West Virginia. Or maybe even in Kentucky. At this point, I didn't have a clue. My Honda didn't have a built in GPS, and I had left my damn phone in a restaurant several hours ago. I was hopelessly lost. I sat in my crippled SUV and cried. How could this trip have gone so wrong?
I suppose I should start at the beginning. My name is Brianna, but my friends call me Bri. I graduated from the University of Chicago with a bachelors and a masters in nursing when I was 24 years old and was married to Jackson Carter two years later. The first three years of our marriage were wonderful, and the last three years were horrible. Our divorce was final four weeks ago a week after I turned 32.
I decided to change my life and leave the city, so I quit my job and hit the road two weeks ago. I aimlessly wandered the eastern seaboard of the country visiting places I had never been. I spent time in Florida, Virginia Beach, Washington D.C., and had just treated myself to a very expensive night at the resort in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. I put on a pair of mid-thigh length shorts and a button up top, had breakfast at the resort's famous restaurant and then got my car.
I wanted to drive through the beautiful mountainous back country of West Virginia so I got off the main roads and was having a good time touring the places that most people never see. I stopped at a local restaurant, and apparently left my phone on the table when I left.
By the time I realized my phone was missing, I had no idea how to get back to that restaurant. I kept driving, in hopes of finding a larger town, but all I saw was hills, dirt roads, trailers, closed mines and shacks. And I ended up on this one-lane dirt road at 10:00 at night with two flat tires, no phone and no idea where I was. So, I had a good cry.
I don't know how long I sat there until I saw a flickering light off in the woods. It wasn't a natural sight so I got out of my car and started walking through the woods towards the light. When I was about 100 feet away, I saw a couple small fires and three men working around something that appeared to be a big pole.
"That's fer enough!" the voice said as I felt something pushing on my back. "Lift them hands."
I lifted my hands into the air. "Please! Please help me," I whimpered. "I'm . . . I'm l-lost and I . . . "
"Shut up," the voice said. "Walk for ward and keep yer hands up."
When I stepped into the clearing, the three men turned and walked towards me, and the man behind me walked around to my front. As I was looking at the three older men and one young man, I heard one of them say, "Well looky here. Looks like we caught ourselves a little nigger girlie. What chu doin way out here, girlie?"
The three older men were looking at me like I had just shot their favorite hound dog. The younger man had more of a puzzled sympathetic look on his face. I immediately knew that this was the guy I needed to get on my side. He was bigger than the others; maybe 6'3" tall, and looked to weigh well over 200 pounds. He had freckles on his face and his arms were muscular. He wasn't a bad looking man, for a redneck. All he had on was a pair of coveralls and a pair of boots. I guessed that the older men were in their 60s and the younger man was probably early 20s.
"Please," I begged. "My car broke down and I need . . . "
"Shut up," one of the older men said. He looked at one of the other older men and said, "Well, Herb. What do yaw anna do with this here nigger girl?"
The one called Herb looked at me for a few seconds and said, "Donny, we can't let her go. She's seen our operation."
I finally looked away from the men at the big pole they had been working on and realized that it was holding a big piece of netting. When I looked below the netting, the light from the flickering fire supplied just enough light for me to recognize some healthy five-foot-tall marijuana plants. "Oh shit," I thought to myself. I stumbled on a bunch of redneck idiots growing weed."
AS I turned my head back to the men, I saw that the three older ones had moved closer together and were whispering back-and-forth. The younger man had moved closer to me and was only about four feet away. "What's yer name?" He asked.
"Bri-Brianna."
He smiled. "Nice name. I'm Iggy. How old are you Brianna?"
"I . . . I'm 32," I squeaked out.
He walked closer and looked down at me. He said, "You ain't very big, are ya?"
I looked up at this man who was at least a foot taller than me, and I began to tremble. "N-no, I'm not very big. I'm j-j-just 5'2" tall and I weigh 98 pounds."
He laughed and said, "Sheee-it! I weigh more-n-twice that."
"C-can y-y-you please h-help me, Iggy?"
Before he could respond, the three others walked over to us. Donny looked at me and said, "It's too bad ya happened to drive down this road, girlie. Ya see, we can't take no chances on anyone findin this operation cuz we could go to jail. Unnerstand?" My eyes were as big as saucers because I had a feeling what he would say next. "So we can't let ya go. But ya seem like an OK girlie, so we'll make it quick."
As Herb began to lift his gun, Iggy stepped in front of me. "Hey fellas," he said, "let's take her back home with us. Maybe if I talk to her, she won't tell nobody."
The other three men looked at Iggy and then Herb said, "OK, but we have to blindfold her so she can't tell anyone where this place is. And you're responsible for her, Iggy."
Iggy nodded and turned to me, "We're almost done here. When we finish, you come with me." I was more than happy to nod my head. Beats getting shot and buried in the woods. The men worked for another 30 minutes or so and then Herb told Donny to go move my car while Iggy blindfolded me. He lifted me on to the back of a four-by-four and we were racing through the dark woods.
Iggy lived in a run-down log cabin that looked to be over 100 years old. Before the others continued down the road, they reminded him to make sure I couldn't get loose and get the authorities. He led me into his house, which I was surprised to see was neat and fairly clean. I sat on a rocking chair and Iggy disappeared back out the door. A few minutes later, he came back into the cabin carrying a length of chain. "Sorry I have to do this," he said. "But the guys would kill me if you get away."
Before I could tell him that I have nowhere to go, he spun me around and wrapped the chain around my waist and slipped a padlock through it. He attached the other end to a ceiling rafter. "I saw this in a movie one time with that Sam Jackson fella. He did the same thing to that girl that was in The Addams Family. The chain around your waist ain't tight, but it's too small to fit over your butt or shoulders. It's long enough for you to go anywhere inside and even out to the porch."
He was right. I was a prisoner, but that still beats being shot. I said, "How long are you going to keep me here?"
"I don't know," he said. "All I wanted to do was make sure you didn't get yourself shot. That would be a waste for a purty thing like you to get shot for wandering into the wrong woods, wouldn't it?"
Just then there was a knock on the door and Donny walked in carrying a rifle. "Iggy, the more I thought about it, the more I think we need to just shoot her."
I moved behind Iggy and he put his arm in front of me. "Now Donny, how do you know that I just didn't want her for myself? Look at her. She's a sexy little thing, isn't she?"
"She's too damn skinny, Iggy. You fuck her, you'll probably kill her yourself." He put down his gun and said, "Move out the way." Iggy stepped to the side and Donny walked over to me and grabbed my short hair in one hand and ripped my blouse open with the other. Then he pulled out his knife and cut my bra off. "Looky here, Iggy. She ain't got no titties," he laughed as he stared at my small "A cup" breasts. He reached down and began to unfasten my shorts, but I jumped back. He slapped my face and told me to stand still. This time he used his knife to cut my shorts off. Then he cut the sides of my panties and they fell to the floor, leaving me standing there wearing just my sandals.
He squeazed one of my breasts and said, "Come on Iggy. Look at her. Yeah, she's a purty one an she got herself some nice legs and a purty trimmed up pussy, but she ain't got no titties. And she's skinny an too old fer ya, boy. Yer just 18. Besides, she's a nigger, and she'll rat us out quicker-n- shit. We need to get rid of her tonight."