Left for Dead: A gripping psychological thriller (2 page)

“I’m going off grid.”

“Yeah?”

“Just for a while.”

“That’s brave,” he said, picking a sesame seed from his teeth.

“You could come.”

He’d traveled a bit before. Europe. South America. Now he was trying to make a name for himself in mergers and acquisitions. But he was disillusioned, too. The grind, the way they used you up and spat you out. He finished his pretzel and said he would give it some thought.

I had planned my escape from Winters, Coles and Partners for nearly two years. I spent hours on the Internet, researching. Bought guidebooks. Read blogs. Watched
National Geographic
. All I knew was I wanted to be someplace else. I wanted to move my body like it was meant to move, and not be cooped up in some office cubicle day after day.

I imagined myself as a great explorer, criss-crossing continents, taking in the sights and sounds of the Australian outback, Peru, Great Wall of China, or something closer to home, like the Rockies or the Californian Costal trail.

I began to collect things. Stake out camping stores on the weekend. I bought a flashlight that worked by kinetic energy so you didn’t need batteries, a compass, wet wipes, water purification tablets, a whistle, earplugs, a heavy-duty Swiss army knife, a polyester super quick-dry towel, insect repellent, carabiners, a top of the line Condor backpack.

The nights when I couldn’t sleep because of the stressful, coffee-fueled days in the boardroom, I would take the backpack from its place on the top of the wardrobe and lay out everything on my bed, filling every square inch of it until it looked like an army surplus store. I would gaze at those shiny, useful objects and tell myself you can do this, you need only make the call, write that letter of resignation. But by morning, when the sun rose over the city, I would put the things away and return to the big office in the sky and push any thought of leaving to the back of my mind. Then I met Matthew and Matthew called me brave.

I’d seen him at the welcome when he first joined the firm. Our eyes met across the apricot pastries and lemon brioche and he smiled. He looked vulnerable, standing there in his new suit, collar tight around his neck, as his supervising partner introduced him to everyone. I later found out that blue tie with the tiny maroon hexagons was a gift from his sister.

He made love like a Greek god, would put his heart and soul into it, gaze into my eyes with an intensity that reminded me of glass in the sun. Afterward, he would fold me up in his arms like a father.

We exchanged “I love yous” on a rare weekend away. One of the partners, Chip Emmerson, gave us the keys to his vacation house in the Hamptons, which was actually more mansion than summer house. Matthew and I had gone from room to room, astonished at the scale of the place, marveling at the furnishings, Hellman-Chang everything. Looking up at the Rothko hanging above the Italian marble staircase, Matthew had uttered, “God, one day we could live like this.”

We made love in the pool house because the main residence was too overwhelming. Lying there on the cotton blanket in the afterglow, I murmured into his shoulder—

“Why don’t you come with me?”

“Where?”

“To do the Coastal.”

“I would follow you to the ends of the earth, you know that,” he said.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Let’s do it,” he said.

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

The weekend was cut short when Chip Emmerson arrived unannounced, and he and Matthew spent the rest of the weekend discussing futures and the downfall of the latest Madoffesque scheme, but that was okay because Matthew had said yes.

4

The shudder of the car wakes me. My brain is syrup. My eyelids lead. I inch them open. There’s something on my face, a cloth, tied at the back of my head, my hair caught in the knot. The cloth covers my entire face like a mask, and is ripped open around my lips. I can smell its newness, the plastic sheath it had lived in when it sat on a shelf in some Walmart or Target. It could be a dish cloth or bandanna or pillow case. Whatever it is, it’s cheap and nasty and like sandpaper against my skin.

I’m lying on my side in the backseat of a car, hands tied behind my back. They are secured so tight I can feel my pulse thump from one wrist to the next. My feet are tied, too, the knobs of my ankles jammed together.

The fabric of the mask is so poorly constructed that when I turn my head the right way I can see through the open weave.
In the driver’s seat there’s a man. He sits on a wood-beaded seat cover, hand draped over the steering wheel, eyes on the highway.
We are moving along asphalt, smooth and undulating.
I hear a car whoosh by, the back draft of a big rig, the drone of a motorcycle.

Something catches my eye. Hanging from the rearview is a small Kermit the Frog. Like you would get on a key chain, made of cloth, with matchstick-thin gangly legs and splayed out feet. I watch Kermit dangle there, lobbing from side to side, and begin to think I must be trapped in some crazy dream, that I’ve been slipped acid in a club, or had some type of seizure.

The cogs of my mind turn slowly, straining to put things together. The man looks familiar. I have seen him before. But it’s so hard to think.
Then it comes to me. The gas station. The moonboot. The flat tire. I nearly laugh out loud because this must be some kind of joke. A prank of epic proportions. He was so nice, so ordinary, there can be no other explanation.

But what’s that on my lips? Blood? And what else, Amelia? The ties and the mask? It comes back in a rush, being rendered unconscious and thrown into the trunk of his car.

“What do you want? Why are you doing this?” I say, surprised by the fact that I’m slurring. “You have to let me go.”

He shoots a look over his shoulder, lifts his brass-rimmed aviators, then pulls sharply to the side of the road. Somewhere in my fogged up head I know I’ve screwed up.

He opens the door and gets out and I hear the slow, steady crunch of his boots as he circles the car. He’s watching me, I can feel it. He’s outside the left rear window, his body blocking the light.

A car passes and after it’s gone, he opens the door and pauses again. He reaches inside and touches the top of my head. His whole hand settles there, like a human skull cap, and I do my best not to scream.

I think that maybe I should say something—If you let me go now, I won’t tell anybody. I don’t know who you are so I’ll never be able to identify you. My father is a law enforcement officer (he isn’t) and he’ll be out looking for me as we speak so give this up before you make matters worse for yourself.

“I have money,” I say.

“Do you?”

“You can have all of it if you let me go.”

But it doesn’t matter because here he comes with a rag and the chloroform or whatever it is, leaning in, unhurried, putting his knee on the seat, holding the rag over the gash where my mouth is, and before I know it I’m gone again.

5

It’s dark when I wake.
My head is pounding. And the thirst, the thirst is unbearable.
The car’s not moving and I’m alone inside it. I angle my head and find a strip of light, unnatural and fluorescent. The smell and noise of gasoline shuddering into the tank.

Outside, voices. Faraway and indistinct. I lift my head. Through the tiny squares of cloth, I see him, hands on his hips, talking, unhurried, to the guy at the adjoining pump. The gasoline stops chugging and he removes the fuel dispenser, shuts the flap with a snap, and goes inside to pay.

Even in my groggy, drugged up state, I know I should do something, that this may be my one and only chance. Then it dawns on me that he has made a mistake. Despite Moonboot’s plan to incapacitate me with zip ties and blindfolds, he’s forgotten the gag. So I shout. I shout as loud as I can.

“Help! Somebody help!” I kick the door with my feet. I’m overjoyed because it’s thunderous—the banging, my voice. Someone will hear for sure. “Help! I’m in here! My name is Amelia Kellaway and I’ve been kidnapped! Call the police!”

The door flies open. Oh, thank God.

“I’ve been kidnapped,” I say breathlessly, “from a gas station on the Oregon-California border. You’ve got to help me.”

I try to sit up but am shoved back down again. My head is pinned to the seat.

“Well, would you look at that—a fighter.”

It can’t be. There are people here. They have to come. They have to see what’s happening to me.

Before I can yell again, something is forced into my mouth, and a blanket, heavy with the fresh scent of Ultra Tide, is pulled up over my head. I struggle against my bindings, try to make noise, but it’s no use. Moonboot simply shuts the door and drives away.

*

The next time I stir I’ve wet myself. I can smell it. Not strong but there. My shorts and underwear stick to my skin. It’s pitch black and I can’t see a thing through the tiny squares. It’s impossibly still and I wonder if I’ve been moved someplace else, a basement, an attic, a shed in the woods.

I listen hard for clues. Night crickets. The lone hoot of an owl. The swish of tall grass. A faint, cool breeze through an open window. I deduce I’m still in the backseat of the car. Moonboot is sleeping. I can hear the curl of his breath. He’s reclined his seat all the way back and it’s pushing against my lower legs.

He mutters something and shifts his body, projecting wet snores in my direction. For a moment, I think he might be fake-sleeping and watching me instead.

I start to cry. I don’t want to. I don’t want him to win. But everything hurts—my head, my wrists, my arms, even the mere act of blinking in this stupid mask. I tell myself, don’t give up, you can’t give up, you will get out of this nightmare.

*

“You messed yourself.”

His voice shatters my blissful void of sleep.

“My bad,” he continues. “Next time let me know and we’ll work something out.”

It’s the first time he’s spoken a full sentence since he took me. The way he talks, he could be your next door neighbor or the guy on the bus.

We are driving again. And it’s light. The morning kind. The quality of the air has changed, too. There are shadows of buildings, small-town noises, a lawn mower, a jackhammer, cars, the sluggish forge of a train. I wonder how many miles I am from Del Norte.

“We got to make a stop, fighter. So I’m going to ask you to behave for a bit, if that’s okay with you.”

Keeping the engine idling, he pulls over, reaches into the backseat, pushes a rag in my mouth, and covers me with that blanket again. He drives a few more feet, takes a sharp right. A disembodied voice crackles through a drive-thru speaker.

“Welcome to Wicked Joe’s Burgers, what can I get you?”

Moonboot gives his order and collects his food. He drives for ten minutes and parks up somewhere quiet.

He dislodges my gag, removes the blanket, and settles down to eat. I can see him through the gauze of my mask, staring out the windshield as he chews and sucks on his straw. I watch his jaw rotate and begin to salivate from the smell of bacon and sausage and cheese and ketchup.

Abruptly, he leans and pokes the straw into my mouth. “Wet your whistle with that.”

I nearly vomit at the thought this straw has also touched his lips but I drink and the tepid orange juice is wonderful and the glucose floods my bloodstream and I feel instantly giddy. Next he pushes an egg-soaked corner of a bun into my mouth, followed by a wedge of sausage patty and more juice.

He smashes the trash into a ball and lobs it in the garbage bin outside. I listen to the metal flap swing back and forth and think DNA. Our DNA. Mixed together on that straw and how no one will ever know this important piece of evidence is there.

I’m expecting the chloroform again, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he says—

“Settle in, fighter. There’s a long drive ahead.”

6

Matthew and I never actually talked about when we would go. I was content enough to live off the fantasy, the two of us out there in the windswept wilderness, sharing aluminum pouches of freeze-dried food, making love under the stars. It was like oxygen to me.

The dream kept me going through the long days and nights at the firm when I would sit in those torturous marathon meetings and imagine the sun on my shoulders. I started buying items for him from my little supply shop on Lafayette Street. Soon I had two of everything. Pocket lights and compasses and mini binoculars and waterproof ponchos. I splurged and bought a double sleeping bag for couples.

One day I suggested we set a date and work toward it and he didn’t object. I chose late August. The tail end of summer. The days would be bright but not too hot. Ideal conditions for daytime trekking and nighttime snuggles.

Then “The Deal” happened. It was all he could talk about.
The Cooper Deal
. It was worth eighty million dollars and a huge bonus for him. He and the partners and sycophants would disappear into the war room for days. Matthew slept under his suit jacket at the office, lived on coffee and bagels. He started to tent his fingers and stroke his tie and slap backs and use expressions like “synergy” and “value-add” and “sea change.”

“It’s such a rush, Amelia, to be part of something this big. These guys, man, I can smell the money coming out their pores.”

I told myself it was the lack of sleep, the adrenaline, the poor nutritional choices talking, not my free-spirited, anti-capitalist Matthew.

But it only got worse. He was always wired, talking a million miles an hour, tense like a coiled spring. Sometimes he looked right through me. Even the way he made love changed. It was like he was engaging in some sort of sport, grunting and grinding. Ejaculating was scoring a touchdown. Everything had become a game.

The Cooper Deal was followed by the Sampson Deal and the Carter Deal and the Heller Van Asch Deal and Matthew seemed to slip further and further out of my reach until one day I walked in on him screwing Melissa, the shiny new intern, on the sofa in the breakout room on a Friday night. I stood there, momentarily transfixed by the two glinting nipple piercings on Melissa’s swinging breasts, then simply walked away.