Craack. I wake up with a jolt hitting my head on something wooden. Darkness surrounds and consumes me. The humm of the rain knocks against the roof. The air is thin and hard to breathe. I reach out my hand to feel what I hit my head on. I run my calloused hand over it, it’s rough, uneven, and not very high above my head. I try to think back to what I was doing last night and where I am now. It’s blurry, I have no idea. I continue to run my hand down as far as I can reach and the wood continues. I run my hand up until it comes to another piece of wood that runs perpendicular to the first. My breathing picks up and comes in shallow breaths. I feel for the sides and there was more rough wood. I’m trapped in some kind of box. Panic rises inside of me. I hate small places, let alone being trapped. I realize that I’m laying in something cool, water maybe? I reached for my phone in my pocket, to use the light to see what I am laying in, only to realize that it’s gone. My breathing gets faster. I reach besides my stomach to the ground and into the liquid. If I can’t see what it is maybe I could smell it. The liquid attached itself to the ball of my pointer finger. Right away I can tell that it isn’t water, it’s too thick. It smells salty, rusty, and metallic. It was blood. Was it my blood? What if it wasn’t? What did I do last night? Maybe if I just start over I can remember.




* * *

I’m walking through the hot halls of Elm Creek High School. The town is under one of the worst heat waves in it’s history. Guys walk through the halls with their shirts clinging to their backs with sweat, and girls wear as little clothing as they can get away with to try to stay cool.

“Hey Lila.” I hear the familiar voice that I would never be able to get out of my head. She talks so much that I could pick her silky voice out of a hundred people blindfolded. Katie, a thin brunette with an outgoing personality. “Guess what we’re doing tonight?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going home to sleep. I am so tired, you shouldn’t have came over to my house last night. There should be a rule, no more than one 2 A.M. call asking if you can stay over in a week.” Katie looked over and scowled at me. “Okay so you know, it wouldn’t be that bad if you just came over and went to sleep, but no, you want to stay up and talk about it. I mean seriously how many fights can you get into with your parents or your boyfriend in a week?”

“Yeah, yeah whatever. So anyways we’re going to a party at Jake’s house tonight. Before you say anything, I know you hate parties and people and basically the whole world, but you have to go.”

“I do not hate the world and I’m not going. If its at Jakes house then you can just hang out with him all night.”

“That would just be weird. I would be the third wheel all night. If I want to get back at Nick then I’m going to have to make him jealous and you’re the best person I know that can help me do that.”

I really don’t want to go, but at the same time she’s my best friend, even if right now I wish she wasn’t.

“I’ll pick you up at eight.” With that she started walking away. Even she had on the smallest skirt she owned and a tiny black strapless shirt, but then again that was a normal outfit for Katie to wear any day of the week.

“Hey no. If I have to go I’m driving myself, there’s no way you’re making me stay all night.”

She pauses in mid-stride, looks over her shoulder, and says: “Eight o'clock. Jakes house.”





* * *

There’s a hole in the board above me. I can feel the cool air flowing in. It’s not very big, about the size of a golf ball. I stick my pointer finger out. There’s a slight breeze, maybe I’m outside. I feel something wrap itself around my finger and I start to scream. It was rough, cold, and wet. Was it a person? Did they put me in the box? Should I start talking and hope if it is a person they don’t kill me? I couldn’t lay on my back anymore knowing that there was a hole right above me. I roll over to my side and a sharp pain runs up my spine. I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming. As I lay there the puddle of blood seeps into the previously dry part of my shirt. I open my eyes again now that the pain is starting to dissipate. AHHHHHHHHHH!





* * *

I squeeze my rusty old pickup into a tiny space between two little cars about half a mile away from Jakes house and I text Katie.

Hey r u here yet

I don’t have to wait very long before she responds, she always has her hot pink phone with her.

Ya just walking in meet me on the porch

Jake’s house is an old white house with peeling paint and a wrap around porch that is surrounded by corn on all sides. There are people standing everywhere, there is music blasting from the open windows, and the yard is full of red plastic solo cups. I see Katie standing on the porch talking to a tall guy with blue jeans and a black cutoff shirt. As soon as I reached her she leaves the guy and pulls me into the party.




* * *

I saw it, a big bloodshot eye staring at me through another slightly smaller hole in the right side board. It takes me a minute to get my breathing to slow down. Who was that? I can’t just lay here anymore now that I know someone is out there.

“Hello?”

“I was wondering how long it was gonna take you before you started talking.” He had a deep raspy voice.

“Who are you? Why am I in here?”

“It’s always the same questions with all of you.” He was silent for a minute. “You’re here, because the first day I came in town you caught my attention with your long black hair and tan skin. Since the moment I saw you, I started planning and studying.”

I’m so afraid to here the answer to the question, but I have to ask. “Studying what?”

“You of course. What you do after school and on the weekend. Where you live and who your friends are. I’ve been studying you since that day I saw you walking down the sidewalk with your short black shorts and tight white tank top.”

“You’re lying.” I knew I didn’t sound very convincing.

“Lets see here, your name is Lila Susan Cook. Your best friend is Katie Ambrosy. You're a junior at Elm Creek High School. You drive a 1992 black pickup. You live at 1567 County Road Z. The walls in your room are purple and you have some very slutty clothes in your closet that I think you should consider wearing some time. Although now that I think about it you probably won’t get the chance to. And there’s a cornfield outside your widow that makes a great hiding place. Do you believe me yet or should I keep going?” I didn’t have to see him to tell that he was grinning as he spoke.

He’s been in my room? He might have been watching me for weeks without me even knowing it. Has he been in my room while I was in it?

“Come on Lila don’t stop now we were having such a good talk. By the way how’s your back?”

“Screw you.”

“Oh so I guess we’re done now. Well, that’s fine with me.”

And with that he walked away. Thump, Thump, Thump. It’s quiet, almost too quiet. The rain is not longer a humm, its beating down like a drum. Is he just going to leave me here to die? Light comes through the two jagged holes. Clunk. A crowbar stabs the edge of the box. My ears ring with the noise echoing off the walls of the box. Creaaaaak. Before I can even consider what might be going on, the top board flies off and the light floods in, blinding my eyes. I can just barely make out his shape, he’s fuzzy. I think he has brown hair and maybe a black shirt. I grab the edge of the box, splinters breaking through the skin of my hand. I shoot up only to have a steel toe boot smash into my chest knocking the wind out of my lungs. The giant foot pins me to the bottom of the box. The pain takes over and blurs my vision even more than it had been. His massive hand comes down on my neck holding my head down and with the other he holds a rag soaked in chloroform over my nose.




* * *

The country music pulses through my body and there is drunk people hanging all over each other. The house is completely trashed. I’m pretty sure the whole school is here. Jake is pretty famous for his parties, so when he has one no one dares to miss it.

“Hey I can’t take anymore of this I’m leaving.”

“Come on stay just a little bit longer?” Katie pleaded.

“No, I found you that boy from the porch to hang out with and make Nick jealous with, so my work here is done.” She looked toward him considering what I had just said. “I’ll see you later and make sure you don’t drive home I don’t want to have to go to a funeral this weekend. I’m sure Jake would be more than happy to let you stay here tonight. Okay? I’m leaving.”

“Hey where are you going? This party’s just getting started.” It was porch guy. I could see all of his muscles through the slits in the sides of his black cutoff. Really I should’ve asked him what his name was, but then again I probably wouldn’t see him ever again.

“I’m going home. Parties really aren’t my thing.”

“I might be able to change your mind if you just stay a little longer, or we can go somewhere else if that’s really how you feel.”

What is he thinking? There was no way I was going to stay just for him and there was no way in hell I was going anywhere with him. “No thanks. I’m just gonna head home.”

The outside air hit me like a brick wall. It’s still hot and sticky from today's record breaking heat. Most of the cars are still parked along the winding gravel road and some have couples making out against them. I climb into my crew cab truck and pull the mirror down to check to my hair and face. If I have to go home now I can’t have my parents thinking that I was at a party, they would kill me. I straighten a loose piece of hair when I see something out of my back window. I open the door and look towards the tailgate, nothing. Maybe I’m just imagining things. I pull the door shut. A sharp pain climbs the nerves of my back as a cool blade breaks the skin. Something covers my face. Everything goes black.




* * *

Craack. I wake up, but I’m no longer in a box, I’m hunched over in a three foot by three foot metal cage in the back of my truck on the tailgate. It’s night and a full moon lights the land beneath it, which means I’ve been gone for over a day. I wonder if people are looking for me? I look around, I’m next to water. It almost looks like Bossung Lake. I would know this lake even if there was no light at all. It had a distinct smell of cow manure from the neighboring farm. I have spent countless hot days with Katie and Jake at this lake. Even when summer ends and fall starts creeping in we would still come out here to camp along the wide algae-covered lake. Normally the air around the lake was filled with the sound of the songs of the crickets, but tonight there is an eerie silence.

“Hello? Is anyone out there?” I start to cough, my throat is so dry from the chloroform.

“Just me Lila.” I turn towards the sound of his voice and see him sitting on the roof of the truck. Him! He blended in well with the night, if I’d been farther away I know I would have never saw him. It was the guy from the party, I should’ve recognized his voice.

“Stay the hell away from me.”

He had a big grin on his face that spread from ear to ear. “I don’t think you’re in any position to be demanding anything, but it’s nice to know you recognize me.” He hops down from the roof. With every step he closes the distance between us until he reaches the cage and then he leans on the top looking down at me through the bars.

“What are we doing here?”

“Well you know how I said I’d been planning ever since I saw you? Well this is it.” He held his long hairy arms up like it was supposed to mean something.

“What?” What could we possibly be doing here?

“You know, what if I just show you.”

I hit the water before I even realize what’s going on. He had pushed the cage off of the tailgate and into the lake. The cage sinks lower and lower into the water. The water enters the wound in my back and causes pain to shoot through me. I hold my breath, but I know I can’t do this forever. The water fills my ears and presses against me. My lungs start to burn as the cage still sinks lower and lower, until it smacks the ground sending up yet more pain and sand swirling through the water. This is how I’m going to die? Wet, missing, and at the bottom of a lake that was basically my second home. I can’t hold it any longer. I try to take a breath and the greenish lake water fills my lungs.




* * *

CRAACK! I sit up straight in my bed gasping for air. There’s no more pain in my back, but there’s a pounding in my head. I’m covered with sweat, the sound of rain and thunder fills my ears. It was only a dream. I pull back my white fluffy comforter, exposing my bare legs to the humidity of the night. I crawl off my full size bed and look out the open window at the yard. The rain was coming down in sheets and the clouds held onto the darkness of the night. I scan the barn, the shed, and the part of the road I can see, nothing. I’m about to shut the window and go back to bed when something in the cornfield catches my attention. A dark tall figure crouches at the edge of the cornfield. It was all just a bad dream, wasn’t it?