Excerpt: Helpless

The man awoke in complete darkness to a pounding sound, like fists on a metal door. He blinked to make sure he had in fact opened his eyes, but the world remained pitch black. Intending to wave his hand in front of his face, he found that he couldn't move. Struggling against his bonds, which held him tight but didn't feel like rope, he realized he was completely incapacitated. His upper arms were bound around his torso. His lower arms were crossed at his chest and bound so secure that he was losing circulation. He couldn't feel his fingers. His legs were bound similarly, in an extra severe cross-legged or yoga position. His feet were also completely asleep. He tried to call out, but it was muffled with something on his face. He moved his cheeks and felt tape. The tape covered his entire face from the nose down. A clear thought came through his mounting panic: he hadn't shaved in a week, when that tape came off, it was going to hurt like hell. He tried to lurch his bound body forward, but found one strip of tape was wound around his neck and secured to something behind him which clanked like metal on metal. He choked and tried to cough through the bindings.

Forced to sit and wait in the darkness, he took an assessment of his situation. He had a headache, and the pounding seemed to come from the back of his head. Resigned to lean his head back against the unknown metal, he found the spot that the headache seemed to emanate from was tender. He was cold, his skin was covered in goosebumps, and he realized he was completely naked. The rest of his bindings were tape as well, a stiff tape that was cutting into his skin. His back and head were leaning against cold metal, and his butt, legs, and his cold testicles rested on a cold cement floor.

He tried to remember what had happened. First, what was his name? He was frustrated with his amnesia. He felt the memories right there. How had he got in here? There had been a girl. She was frightened. But she wasn't a child, she was a grown woman, although young. He remembered blonde hair. She had been clutching his hand, and she had said... his name. What had she said? Something about a door and a bag. A padlock. She had said, "Bill, I'm frightened. There wasn't a padlock on the door when we left it."

Bill, his name was Bill. The girl was Susan. "We were going back for the medicine bag," he would have said out loud to the presumably empty dark room if he had the ability to talk. They had left her father in the field, which he regretted, and were going back to the building. The medicine bag lay on the ground when they arrived. She had pointed out the door, but when he went in for a closer look, he heard a commotion behind him. When he turned around, he realized the clank he had heard was the rusty shovel - no wait, that wasn't rust, that was dried blood. Someone had hit Susan in the back of the head with the shovel so hard that her head broke open. Blood spilled out of the wound and covered the ground. Her had was reduced to a mass of blood and now oozing brains. "Susan!" he had cried. He automatically felt guilty, he had come with her for her safety, and he had failed.

He looked around to identify her attacker, but saw nothing. Looking helplessly at her body, he noticed footprints leading away from the growing pool of blood. There was something unusual about them, they were the prints of large boots, yet were strangely smooth with ridges. He knew he should know what type of footwear made that imprint, something that he had seen recently. He followed the footprints with his eyes, and looked back at the padlock when he discovered they led to the door. Before he had time to react, he was knocked out cold by an unknown object.

He could only assume that whoever had attacked him had put him here. Why?