• I gently lifted the wire away from the chain linked fence, pulling,
    pulling, almost there. It snapped and rapidly ripped across my arm,
    leaving a shallow gash. I hissed in pain, struggling to not cry out. I tried to
    wipe the blood away that quickly flowed back and rolled off my arm. I
    definitely needed a band- aid or something.
    I sighed and stood up cradling my arm. My escape would have to
    wait. A glance to my watch sent panic rushing though me like electricity.
    Oh no I thought 6:30; I’ll never make it in time.
    Rushing through the forest wasn’t as easy as I needed it to be. I
    tripped and got smacked by tons of trees, which slowed me down terribly.
    I ran through His back door and ran into His bathroom. Opening the
    medicine cabinet, I searched for goss and cleaning alcohol. The alcohol
    stung A little but I had felt worse in the last two years.
    Wrapping my injury tightly, I grabbed a blanket and covered my arm
    as well as I could without making it look awkward, then quickly turned on
    the TV two seconds before he walked in.
    “Matt, I’m home, Matt?”
    “I’m in here,” I called quietly making sure that the blanket was in
    place.
    He walked into the living room and smiled.
    “Hey, how are you?”
    “Um okay, how was your day?”
    “Fine, how was yours?”
    “Fine”
    This was the conversation that I had everyday with my kidnaper, don’t ask
    me why.
    His name is Randy Hatch, he was nineteen, yeah nineteen, and I had been living with him for two years.
    Thinking about two years ago makes me miserable. It reminds me that I was once a happy, carefree eleven year old that I should have been at the time, but he had killed that. That content child and replaced it with a cold fearful adolescent who had given up on God and an escape.
    I still try not to think about how I got here, though it replays over and over in my mind. I was walking home from school alone when a man pulled up next to me and asked for directions. He was young, so I didn’t sense a threat, but when I approached the car, he grabbed me and shoved me in the back of it.
    “Matt!” He gasped “What happened to your arm?”
    I looked down at the goss wrapped arm, which was now completely visible.
    “I um, cut myself on… a hanger”
    “A… hanger?”
    “Yeah, because I was trying to… unbend it when the wire slipped and cut my arm.”
    “You were trying to unbend a hanger?”
    “Yes,” I said smiling.
    He didn’t buy it and the next thing I knew I was being dragged down the hallway and thrown into “the closet.”
    “You can come out when you have learned to stay away from that damn fence!”
    The door slammed in my face and clicked locked. I curled up in my little ball and tired to hold back tears. Another break out, ruined because I couldn’t tell a good lie. I went though all the better lies in my head until I couldn’t bear to think about it anymore.
    The door creaked open and light flooded in. It had been about three hours and my body was numb.
    “Okay come out now.” He ordered.
    I didn’t come out at first; I just wanted to soak in the small sliver of light.
    “Come on, I’m not mad any more.”
    Slowly I started to crawl out from the darkness, bracing myself for more thrashings. To my surprise, noting like that came, only him gently helping me to my feet.
    “I don’t understand why you want to leave so bad.” He said with a sigh, “You have everything you could want here.”
    It was true, for the past two years Randy had tried to buy my love with toys, game, treats and anything else he could throw in. I had more toys then I ever did at my old house. Still I longed to see my family again, my little brother my mom. I had taken my family for granite and now they were gone.
    Two years ago I couldn’t understand how Randy could be so heartless and rip apart someone’s life just so he could “feel” something, but now that I’d been to hell and back I could finally comprehend everything. Simply, Randy Hatch was a psycho, who’s little brother drowned when he was twelve and had been alone his whole life. So instead of being mad or upset with him, I felt for him deeply.
    “So…” he started, obviously annoyed with the awkward silence “What did you do today?”
    “What do you think?” I hissed quietly
    “You must have done something other then fiddle with that fence all day.”
    I shrugged and walked into the kitchen. “I might have watched TV or colored a little bit, but…”
    “You sure are a little smart mouth,” he sneered “but you’re too cute to yell at.”
    I glared at him but he didn’t noticed, he was to busy looking in the pantry.
    “My hell, there is noting to eat in this house.” He whined.
    I ignored him and looked out the window, watching the rain fall gently through the trees.
    “Hey” Randy said “Let’s go out to eat.”
    I continued to ignore him, lost in my daydream.
    “Matt!”
    “What?”
    “Were you listening to me?” He sounded like a nagging mother.
    “Of course I did.” I lied.
    He rolled his eyes “I said lets go out to night, you know like into town.”
    I stared blankly at him for a moment did he really mean outside the chain fence?
    Really? Are you serious?
    “Yes,” he smiled “It’s just I’m so sick of being indoors, lets go have some fun, huh?
    I was speechless, this would be my first time passed his mail box since I had got here.
    “Well?” he asked impatiently
    “Yes” I said eagerly. I ran to get my shoes but stopped in the doorway, thinking hard. Randy had never done something like this, there was something up.
    “What’s the catch?” I asked
    Randy made an innocent face and smiled “No catch, I just think it would be good for you to get out of the house.
    My heart skipped a beat. He’s serious. I ran upstairs to change my shirt, it was all muddy from the gate, and brushed my hair.
    “I’m ready” I said with a smile on my face. I hadn’t smiled for the longest time.
    “Okay, let’s go then.”

    *
    The whole town gleamed from the recent rain, everything was so shinny and clean. I looked around for a place we could eat but Randy was preoccupied.
    “Where are we going Randy?” I asked impatiently.
    “A quick stop then we’ll go eat.”
    We drove pass the town and into some neighborhoods, but after twenty more minutes we passed all the houses. I was starting to get scared. What if he was going to kill me and bury me six feet deep, or worse…?
    He stopped by a field and I started to really worry.
    “Get out.” He said.
    I slid out of my seat slowly on to the ground. This was it, I was going to die.
    I looked out into the field and saw that there were a bunch of rocks all over the place, and then it hit me hard, this was a graveyard.
    “Come here,” Randy said pulling me by the collar “I have something to show you.”
    Had he already dug me grave? Was this really the end? Would I never see my family ever again?
    As we got closer to our destination, I saw no open grave, only a tomb stone.
    “Read it.” He commanded.
    I leaned down to read it, expecting my name to be written there like in that movie the “Christmas Carol”, and my heart stopped
    “Jenny Wilson” I whispered just speaking her name made me heart ache.
    “That’s right” Randy sneered “Your mother couldn’t take that her oddest son had been taken from her, so what did she do? I’ll tell you. She put a bullet in her head.
    “No… that can’t be… you’re lying” I cried tears rolling down my cheeks.
    “You know it’s true” he spat back “So now you have two options, I could send you back to live with some obsessive foster family or you can stay with me your choice.
    We stood in silence for a moment as I let it all sink in. I let my head fall and whispered “I hate you.”
    “Well, I knew you would make the right decision.” Randy said smiling.
    So that was that, my mother was dead and my brother was with some strangers that probably lived in Alabama somewhere and I was to stay forever with a broken psycho, who only wanted a little brother, forever .