Slow River

The bucket is emptied every twelve hours. Sometimes the tent stinks. She is humiliated. She is kept naked though not, she is sure, through prurience.

There are two men; one, the taller, wears clothes that always seem to smell of something frying, like fish; the other, shorter than Lore, moves fast and slightly sideways, like a crab. When they bring her food trays or empty her bucket or hand her the pills, both wear gloves, and hoods like ski masks. She has no idea what they look like, of their race or age, but she feels she could tell them apart even without the height discrepancy. The tall one, whom she thinks of as Fishface, seems nice.

He always averts his head when he enters, almost as though he is ashamed of what he is doing. The other one, though, Crablegs—she does not like him. He is the one who talks, the one who tells her to eat her pills or she will have to be tied up; the one who wakes her up and shouts at her that her family is refusing to pay the ransom.

It was Crablegs who brought in an old folding chair and a camera one time, along with a copy of a news flimsy.

“Sit on the chair,” he said, “and hold this in front of you, so they can see the date.”

Who? she wondered, but could not quite make her mouth shape the words.

He fiddled with the camera and brilliant light flooded the tent.

“Talk. Tell them you’re scared for your life.”

She was not scared. The drugs made everything seem distant and somehow irrelevant. Lore just sat there, blinking.

“Light’s too bright,” she slurred.

“You don’t like it?” He moved closer, shone it directly in her eyes.

She tried to hold up her hand to shield her face, but her finger’s felt like bunches of sausages, and the flimsy got in the way.

“In front of you, I said. So they can see the date. So they know we haven’t killed you yet.”

Yet. She thought about that. She should be scared, but all she could feel was the smooth wood under her buttocks and the slick flimsy against her stomach. Naked, she thought, naked and vulnerable.

“Talk,” Crablegs ordered, and turned up the light.

She just wanted the light to go away, to go back to her cotton-wool dreams. She whimpered.

“That’s it, that’s better.” He filmed for a moment, then adjusted something near the microphone. “Now, tell them how much you want to get out of here,”

She wanted the light to stop. She wanted to lie down and sleep. “Please,” she said. A tear slid slowly down beside her nose, under the curve of her cheekbone, across the corner of her mouth and dripped off her jaw. “Please,” she said again. “Please…”

“Tell them.”

“I want to go home.” It didn’t matter that she slurred, it didn’t matter that after all she had been through to be an adult in the eyes of her parents they would see her like this: naked, vulnerable, weeping. “I want to go home. Please…”

He turned off the light. “You can stop now.”

But Lore couldn’t stop. Her weeping turned to wet heaving sobs, to hiccoughs.

“Oh, shut up. And get off the chair.”

She slid to the floor, clutched at his trouser leg.

“Get off me. Jesus.” He wiped at the slime on his leg. “Jesus.” He threw something at her—a handkerchief. “Clean yourself up.”

He left, carrying the chair and camera, still wiping at his trouser leg.

Her sobs steadied. She cried in a low monotone for hours and hours, until they gave her more drugs, and she slept.

But today is her birthday, at least it might be. Today, she can think a little.

The day began unpleasantly, when the pill she was handed with breakfast half dissolved in her mouth before she could swallow it. Afterward, when Fishface left, she spat clots of soggy white power into her hand, and wiped her hand on the floor. She ate nearly all the food on her tray in an effort to get rid of the taste on her tongue. Some time later she noticed that the leftovers on the plates were sausage, and croissant, and juice. Breakfast. It must be morning. And that was when she started to think, to try count the days, and realized it was her birthday.

Eighteen. She now owns her share of inherited stock in the family corporation. She is rich.

When Fishface brings her lunch tray, she is alert enough to slide the pill under her tongue and pretend to swallow. She can feel it dissolving and wonders how much will get into her bloodstream before she can spit it out.

Fishface’s hood moves slightly in what Lore interprets as a smile. She stares blankly at the floor, hoping he will not notice she is more alert than usual. She catches sight of the white smears on the floor and her heart jitters. She forces herself to look away, look at anything but the floor, and after a moment, he leaves. She waits, listens. Hears a door opening somewhere, then closing. She spits the pill into her hand. Where can she put it?