THE TRUCK SHIFTS UNDER ME. It’s turning, taking a left. A moment of slow, smooth driving, and then the truck tips downward, lowering itself onto a gravel road. It must be nothing but potholes, because the truck tilts up and down and side to side like a theme-park ride. I fight hard against my stomach, against the vomit that wants to come up.
I wonder if I know this road, try to remember a road this rough, but come up empty. I try to think of who might be driving this truck. I try to remember how I got here.
All of my questions are answered by silence. Into the void comes a clear, single thought.
I’ve been abducted.
Once the thought comes, I have to look it in the face, and for the first time in my seventeen years I know what fear actually is.
It doesn’t seem like this should be possible. My grandpapa has been telling me since I was a three-year-old to watch out for myself. Because he’s not just my grandpapa, but also the sheriff, he didn’t leave it at don’t take candy from strangers. Ever the lawman, Grandpapa got specific. Usually at our after-church Sunday brunch, for some reason.
“Don’t ever let them take you to a second location,” he’d say in his low, slow, Johnny Cash intonation.
“You fight like hell!” Nana would pipe in. “You bite and you claw and you kick. You kick them where it hurts them the most! Go for the eyes, the crotch, the instep.”
“Ruth, you promise me you’ll fight and scream and you won’t let them take you?” Grandpapa would ask.
I would nod my head. “I promise.”
It’s a conversation that’s been had around the Carver kitchen table a dozen times, thanks to Grandpapa’s paranoia.
My mom would insist, “Nothing like that is going to happen around here.” Mom is a professional horse trainer and a devout optimist.
My dad, pragmatic, dryly funny, would end the conversation with “May God have mercy on the soul of the poor bastard who ever dared try it.”
And then Nana and Grandpapa and even Mom would all smile.
“Our Ruth is a fighter,” they always told me. They’re not wrong, either. I am a fighter, born and raised. We Carvers aren’t a family; we’re a clan. We’ve lived on the same land, raising cattle and horses for three generations, and everybody in Mauldin knows you don’t mess with the Carvers.
But here I am. In this truck. Did I fight? I don’t know. My memory bank is empty. I can’t even remember the last thing I can remember. What I know for certain is that I failed Grandpapa. I’d promised him I wouldn’t let this happen to me, and I failed him. I’m not the fighter they thought I was.
A sob wants to come up my throat, but I won’t let it. It’s important to focus. Who would want to take me? My first thought is Creepy Kyle, my stalker since the eighth grade. My parents got involved; his parents got involved; the principal got involved. But I can’t imagine Creepy Kyle getting the better of me, ever. I’m not scared of him and never have been.
A political opponent of Grandpapa’s? Things get contentious in South Carolina politics, but that’s hard to imagine.
Ransom? Mom and Dad have money. But not ransom-level money.
Creepy Kyle seems the most likely, yet not likely enough. I want to be able to see, to know where I am, to see who has me. My eyes don’t seem painful. A hopeful sign. Slowly I reach for them again. My fingertips touch the bloody roughness.
The hard squeal of brakes, then a sudden stop. An avalanche of muck covers my face.
A door opens.
Slams shut.
Only one door. That’s better than two.
Footsteps in the gravel. They sound heavy. Too heavy to be Creepy Kyle. Not good. Creepy Kyle would want to keep me alive, I think, but I don’t know this person. I don’t know anything about what this person wants with me.
Is a bullet about to rip through me? Is a knife about to punch me in the throat? Far from fighting, I play dead. Not really with any thought, just instinct. It’s not a very good ploy, considering I was moving my arm a second ago.
Footsteps stop.
For a brief moment I can hear birdsong. It is beautiful.
The tailgate slams open.
Is this it? Is this the end?
I’m not ready. I’m not ready for the end.
The man climbs up into the bed of the truck. It sinks under his weight. Definitely not Creepy Kyle.
I feel hands—giant hands—plunge into the dirt and pluck me out of it like a rag doll. My nose hits the toolbox on the way up. I manage to keep my mouth shut, but it’s hard to play dead. My body won’t go limp like I want it to. It’s shaking, my nervous system giving me away. I give up the pretense.
“Who are you?” My voice sounds rusty, like I haven’t spoken in years.
Nothing.
“Who are you?” I ask again.
The man throws me over his shoulder. Searing pain explodes out of my right arm. I scream.