Sarah Scott Journalist

128 days till the meet

How do you play a game with no means of winning or disqualification?

Our move was a left turn of the steering wheel instead of a right, and theirs’ was resting a handgun gently against our temples.

I used to think things happen for a reason, but I can’t think of anything I have done to deserve this; at least not in this life. The simple turn of a steering wheel and my dad and I end up in a run-down village, twenty miles away from our hotel with guns itching to change our future.

We thought a holiday in Mexico would be fun.

All I can keep thinking is thank God my mum and brother decided to lie in. If they were with us they would be in the same position as me – a gun pointed to my head while my father lies dead on the floor.

When we pulled over to look at the map, a man with a gun ordered us out of the car. He explained to my dad that if he didn’t let him and his team take me to an un-named place, they would kill him. Of course my dad tried to grab the gun in an attempt to rescue me but the gunman shot him.

At least he was decent enough to go for a head-shot. My dad will have felt no pain, but I don’t want him thinking he failed me. He’s gone – a hole in his head that shouldn’t be there. Permanent.eHhbskans’lb

So here I am, staring at my father’s body with a stream of his blood making its way towards my feet. I think I scream out in pain at the loss of my role model but I don’t hear myself. My face feels wet as I clutch the shirt my father decided to wear this morning. Paralysed to the spot, I feel my raw throat calm down to allow my mind to focus on the immediate danger it faces.

The gunman stands behind me and moves his gun towards the front of my shoulder. He doesn’t want me dead but he is willing to hurt me.

“You follow my instructions exactly or I shoot,” he says, his voice muffled through his dirty beard. I can feel his hot breath on the back of my neck, sending a sickening feeling to my stomach. His accent isn’t Mexican; more Russian than any other. My mind is racing too much to think about minor details. Survival is my target focus.

You hear about these things on the news – girls being taken from the streets- you just never imagine it happening to you. It’s always someone else’s problem.

I manage to nod. The feel of the cold metal on my shoulder is enough to get me moving. We walk through alleyways till we get to behind a derelict house. “Now. . . ” he starts. Just his voice sends shudders through my entire body. He puts his grubby hands on my face; tilting it back and making me meet eye to eye with him. “We’re going to walk down the next street to a van. You’re not going to make a sound. This gun has a suppressor on.” His breath is disgusting. It smells like he has never heard of a mint or judging by his teeth, toothpaste.

“What do you want with me?” I manage to get out before my voice cracks.

“My boss is recruiting a wife, especially one of your build,” he smiles, looking down my top at my breasts. The lump of sick in my throat rises another inch. I don’t belong in their sick and twisted world. I’m nineteen years old, not someone’s wife or property.

This is all a nightmare! I will wake up in my bed back at the hotel and know this is just a dream…

. . . except it’s not. No one is here to help me. My dad is gone. The person that once loved peppermint tea and toffee no longer exists. The body of him lies on a slab of concrete, slowly decaying in the hot, Mexican sun. Nothing will ever be the same again. My family will fall apart. My mum won’t cope without him.

I have never seen a hand-gun up close, although there was a run-down gun shop when we visited Oklahoma but we never went in. I’ve seen guns in action films; something useful must have stuck. Then it clicks in my head. This may be the only opportunity I have. There’s a scene in ‘Die Hard 4.0’where Bruce Willis has a gun pressed into his shoulder, like me, and he kills the gunman by shooting himself in the shoulder so the bullet goes into the chest of the gunman. I know that’s Hollywood, and I am far from there, but if I catch the gunman by surprise and manage to shoot him – as well as myself – he may drop the gun, giving me time to run. Now would be a good time to test if he really does have a suppressor on it or not.

Gun shots don’t look too bad in the movies. There’s a bit of blood, a groan and then they forget about it. A gunshot will be nothing compared to what will happen to me if I get into that van.

I swallow and clench my jaw tight. He’s closer to me now, edging me forward, digging the gun further in my shoulder. As we turn down the road I can see the van at the end of it. It’s almost impulsive that I pull the trigger when I see it, not even giving me time to process my thoughts.

My senses suddenly focus on the hole in my body, letting my eyesight go white round the edges. It’s not like in the movies when there’s a bang, a bit of pain and blood. I don’t think there was a bang. He wasn’t lying about the suppressor after all.

I look down at my bloody shoulder; I’m not usually squeamish but seeing a hole in me is enough to turn my stomach. I’m not sick though. Shock doesn’t let you vomit. I would feel so much better if I emptied the contents of my stomach on the floor right now – it might stop the world from spinning.

I turn around, checking what has happened to the gunman. He is clutching his right breast where the bullet hit. He has dropped his gun in front of my feet so I bend down to pick it up not knowing why. When I get back up my vision goes blurry as I feel a blinding pain rush through me. Shock and adrenaline are wearing off. I’m feeling the pain, the heat and exhaustion on my muscles. I can feel a hole in my body that shouldn’t be there.

 I don’t know how to use a gun but it looks fairly simple. The trigger. I can’t end someone’s life though. I’m not a monster like him. But a wound can heal which means he may be able to find me again. I do the only I can think of which is to shoot his knee caps that will take away his ability to walk. If he can’t walk then he can’t catch me.

I can’t do it point blank, I just can’t. I take aim from where I stand and pull the trigger where the tiny dot on the top of the gun matches the centre of his knee. He cries out in agony. I do the same for the next knee before reaching in his jacket pocket to retrieve the rest of his ammo. He is still conscious, looking at me with his disgusting eyes. The eyes that didn’t blink when shooting my father.

I stuff the ammo in the back pocket of my shorts and run back round the house. I keep running till I can no longer see the wounded body. He’s a body. If I think of him as a person who I may have just killed I feel sick again. If I’m a piece of meat to him then that’s all he is to me.

I’ve been on a deer hunt before with my uncle. He wouldn’t let me use the gun but I watched. I hated it. He only killed one deer that day but I felt so guilty for not stopping him. He told me to get over it and that it was just a slab of meat running around that would not have felt any pain.

Even though that man was happy to hurt me and sell me off to his boss, I feel guilty. I don’t hurt people. I want to be a nurse one day. Nurses don’t hurt people. I know that if I hadn’t done what I did then much worse would happen.

Where do I go now? I can’t drive a car with my shoulder in this state. Even if I could, going back to the car means having to go past my father’s body. If I stay here I will most certainly die from blood loss or being murdered.

Being out of the immediate danger there’s nothing stopping the tears. I can’t see where I’m walking because of them. But I keep walking, stopping now won’t help me.

Out of my two options, attempting to drive out of this village is the best I can come up with. I walk back to the car, supporting my left arm which relieves some of the pressure on my shoulder.I can see the car a few houses away which means if I look left now I will see my father. I don’t know why I look. It doesn’t make the truth any less painful.

I grit my teeth and walk over to him. I close my eyes and reach into his jacket pocket for his wallet and phone. I can smell his blood which is now on my shoes and working its way through to my toes. Money may be useful and my dad would rather me have it than a common thief, so that in mind I take off his watch and wedding ring that my mother once placed on his finger with a vow ‘till death do us part.’  I don’t know the emergency number in Mexico but I estimate I have about fifteen minutes before I pass out. A phone will help me call my mum and brother. “I love you daddy,” I whisper to him before I leave him forever.

I don’t open my eyes until my body is turned away from his corpse. I climb into the driver’s seat and start the engine. Luckily this car is an automatic so all I have to do is press a pedal to get it moving.

To start with I lurch forward at such a speed I feel like I’ve left my stomach behind. I just drive down the road until I start to feel drowsy. This isn’t good!

I find a place to pull over and search for something in this car to wrap round my wound to help stop the bleeding.

I find nothing apart from an old, grey t-shirt shoved in the back. We were renting this car for a week so it could easily be my dad’s top. It really doesn’t matter. I rip the bottom of it off into a strip and start wrapping it round my shoulder. I grit my teeth as my white polo shirt is pressed into my wound.

How the hell do I get back? I have no directions. Even if I did, I can’t drive more than a few miles max without feeling drowsy and nauseous. I need to get things in order. To start with I’ll get help for my shoulder; bleeding to death won’t help my remaining family. If I die now they will never know what happened, and they may never find my father’s body . . . or mine.

I’ll keep driving as far as I can till I find a place where I can get help. Anything will do: a doctor; medicine; a taxi; anything. I put my foot on the accelerator pedal and keep my right hand on the wheel in case I see somewhere I can turn. But this is a long road and I don’t know how long a human’s survival instinct can last. 

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Read Chp.2 – Jack