I walked the lonely half-mile out to the far edge of the campus to my car. The wind buffeted me as I trudged across the rain-soaked pavement of the darkened lot. Finally making it to my car, I got in, started it up and turned on the radio to the local rock station. I was startled out of my reverie by a metallic clink on my passenger side window. Looking over, I about wet my pants as I saw the unmistakable shape of a .357 Magnum staring back at me.
I dutifully hit the auto-unlock button and the door was pulled open and I saw the mean-looking face of a girl staring back at me. Ratty, matted brown hair framed her dirt-smudged, pale white face. Her engineer boots, jeans, and white peasant blouse looked as if they hadnât been cleaned in a month as well.
I nervously gripped the staring wheel and stared at her wide-eyed. My whole body shook slightly as I tried to calm myself. She slid wordlessly into the seat beside me and shut the door, never taking her eyes off me, nor pointing the gun away from me.
âDrive.â She commanded me softly.
âUh⊠Where? W-Where do you want me to take you?â I asked still not able to take my eyes off the big gun she held in her small hands.
âJust drive, weâll figure it out on the way.â
âUm, okay.â I said as I nervously turned and attempted to pull myself together. Before I knew it, we were a few miles outside of campus, heading down an empty state highway.
âWhatâs your name?â I finally got the courage to ask.
âWhatâs it to you?â
âJust⊠Just wondering, since you havenât really told me who you are, or why youâre pointing a gun at me.â I said nervously.
âMy name is Ann. Just drive and stop asking questions. Okay?â She said rather agitatedly.
âIâm Jack. Normally Iâd said âNice to meet you.â but I kind of wished I hadnât.â I mentally kicked myself for saying such an idiotic thing to someone who was pointing a gun at me.
âYou some kind of smart ass or something?â She said in a low, angry tone.
âSorry. Itâs just that Iâm nervous, and you wonât stop pointing that gun right at my head. You could blow my head off at any minute if we hit a bump in the road you know.â
âStop your fucking whining or Iâll shoot you.â
âWill you at least point it somewhere else for a change?â
âI said shut up and drive. Got it?â
I then took this instant to slam on my brakes as hard as I could. Since Miss-Know-It-All was smarter than me, she decided it would be a good idea not to buckle her seat belt. She was thrown violently forward into the dashboard and the gun discharged as her head slammed into the hard plastic. My ears ringed from the gun going off point-blank, and I shook my head several times to see if I still had a face. I saw no blood, but my window had been blown out, so I assumed she narrowly missed me and it exited through the window.
Ann wasnât so lucky, momentum had carried her head directly into the hard dashboard and the side of it was split open and bleeding profusely. I grabbed the gun off the floor and pulled her back on to the seat. I drove my car a quarter of a mile down the nearest gravel road and got out. I pulled her limp, bloody body out of the passenger side of my car and dragged her around to the rear. After opening the trunk, I pulled her boots off and threw them. I fished out some duct tape and bound her ankles and wrists, and slapped some over her mouth. I stuffed her in the trunk with the rest of the junk piled in there and shut it. I threw the gun into the ditch to get rid of any evidence.
I had decided that the best course of action was to find the nearest motel and figure out what to do with her later. I drove around for a half-hour to forty-five minutes until I found a suitable place. It was a run-down motel run by a half-deaf, half-blind foreigner that didnât speak good English. $25 got me a cinder-block shack, in the far corner of the run-down compound. No bathroom door, a cockroach-infested closet, no TV, and a leaky toilet greeted us. Just the type of place that you can pull a bloody, bound girl out of your trunk and no one seems to notice.
I threw the mat-haired, semi-conscious girl on the bed. She groaned loudly through the duct-tape, no doubt the head injury was hurting her a lot. I shut the door and looked down at my captor, or should I say captive. Her green eyes finally seemed to comprehend that things had taken a decided turn in my favor. She continued to moan loudly, probably asking for me to take her to the nearest hospital for treatment. She had a deep, red gash that looked as though it went through many layers of skin, her dirty hair was matted on the side with blood and dirty. It would obviously get infect if it wasnât cleaned.
I thought it would be a good idea if I got her cleaned up before she started bleeding on the bed. I took out my pocketknife and pulled the large 4â blade out. She tensed up as I brandished the knife above her.