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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Horror
- Subject: Horror / Scary
- Published: 09/08/2018
Freedom
Born 1964, F, from Gordon, ACT, AustraliaYou have to understand what it was like in there. The cold stone walls dripping with slimy water, the lumps of food on dirty cracked plates, the race to eat these disgusting meals before the rats and beetles got to it, the casual cruelty from the guards. And the fear. The constant, eroding anticipation of pain, humiliation. It was dehumanising. You’re treated like an animal, you live like an animal.
I did not deserve to be there.
Funny thing was, I didn’t even want to go with them in the first place. Oh sure, we’d been through school together, been in more than a few scrapes together. But you’ve got to grow out of it eventually, don’t you? Leave childhood friendships behind, grow up. We’re nearly 30, after all. Mark’s even getting married!
And of course Tex thought it would be a blast to have a stag party on one of the islands. Nightclubbing, booze, drugs, women. Be young and wild one last time before we sagged into middle age. That Tex. I don’t think he needs to ever panic about growing up, know what I mean?
So let me introduce you to everyone before I go any further. Just to get everyone straight. And I like to remember us as we were. Before everything turned to shit.
I’ll start with me. My name’s James. Never Jim or Jimmy. Just James. More dignified, don’t you think? No-one’s going to hire a Jim or Jimmy for a serious career, and that’s what I want. Wanted. I’m good with numbers, always wanted a career in accountancy. That might sound boring to you, it sure bored the crap out of my friends. But hey, someone’s got to do it, right? And they weren’t too bored to accept free beers from the money I earned through college doing people’s taxes and accounts. So yeah, that’s me. The sensible and mature one, the designated driver, the friend who could always be tapped for a few bucks to pay speeding fines, the one who could buy beer because I was old even when I was underage.
Then there’s Mark. The first one of us to get married, I don’t know why. I give it six months before she finds him humping her sister or best friend and kicks him out.
Tex. The Peter Pan of booze and drugs. He’ll never change. He’s still be drinking and snorting coke at eighty, if he lives that long. I’ll give him this, though. You can always count on him to come up with a party plan. Mark’s stag party, case in point.
Lew. His real name’s Llewellyn, but apparently that sounds kind of gay and he’ll hurt you if you ever call him by his full name. Denial. Not just a river in Africa, right?
So that’s our little group. Except Tex had also invited some stoner friend of his to come with us. Frank. Middle name Trouble. He’s to blame for everything, and I sincerely hope that he dies a thousand blackly painful deaths for what he has done to me.
Problem was, Tex and Frank look exactly like what they are. Any law enforcement officer would take one look at them, with their long grungy hair and defiantly guilty smirks, and have a sudden desire to get to know them better. And once they got close enough to smell their desperate druggie smell, well that’s all she wrote. Open your bags, please, gentlemen.
So their grand plan? Well Frank’s grand plan, anyway. I don’t think … I don’t want to think … that Tex would do something like that to a pal. Who the hell knows, though. So yeah. Frank apparently never went anywhere without his lucky shooting kit. And for reasons best known to himself, he had also brought a respectable quantity of what turned out to be heroin. Experience told him he was incredibly unlikely to be able to smuggle anything through customs, so he put his kit in my luggage. His damned kit. In my luggage. Even now, I still feel rage and disbelief that anyone could be that self-serving. Willing to throw an innocent person to the wolves to save himself. Just … I feel so impotently angry when I think of it, so I’ll move on now.
I’ll skip over the painful details. They’re just a blur, anyway. I can remember being in a room; I thought bizarrely that it was a schoolroom but in retrospect it must have been the courthouse. My hands were cuffed, but I couldn’t remember actually getting handcuffed. There was a fat, sweaty guy standing next to me who would jump up once in a while and rattle off some gibberish. I think he must have been my lawyer. No-one in that room seemed to speak English. Or maybe I was in shock, incapable of understanding the spoken word. I don’t even know how I got there.
The last thing I remember with any clarity was a customs officer calling me over and asking to inspect my luggage. He pawed carelessly through my neatly folded clothes and pulled out a rolled length of dirty canvas that, when unrolled, exposed a syringe, plain white cotton balls, and some brown stuff in a plastic bag. I thought I was going to faint!
Then … bang! Next thing I knew I was in this schoolroom court, being sentenced I think.
I still don’t know if I was actually in jail or being held for sentencing. And more importantly, I had no idea how long I was going to be held in this nightmarish place. I kept asking to speak to someone, asking to use a phone, but no-one here understands English. Or maybe they’re pretending not to understand. Who the hell knows.
I might have been locked up for a month, I might have been here for a year. There was no night or day in that room. Time passed after a fashion, or maybe it stopped altogether. I was there for a second, I had been there forever.
I ate the lumpy, beetle ridden food. I slept on a thin mattress on the hard rock floor, scratching at the insect bites on my arms and feet. I defecated in the corner, retching at the stink of my watery bowel movements. And time passed. Or not.
I think I was losing my mind.
There was a movie, back in the 70s, about a guy who got caught smuggling hashish and got slung into prison. The living conditions were pretty abysmal. I remember shaking my head smugly, thinking he deserved it. That could never happen to me. Pretty funny, right? Anyway, at the end of the movie, the guy kills a guard, puts on the uniform, and casually strolls out the front gate to freedom.
I began to fantasise about doing the same. Could I kill one of these uniformed sadistic animals? Bet on it.
I was confident that I could find my way outside if given the opportunity. I would lie there in my damp dark prison, imagining how good it would feel to turn my face to the sun. Feel the light, the heat burning my skin. I wanted it so badly that I was driving myself insane. I ran scenarios in my head, thought of ways I could do this. And at some point, my fantasies became a plan.
There were shards of rock lying all over the filthy floor. I used some of the larger, sharper pieces to scrape away at the rotten mortar holding one of the wall rocks in place. Sometimes the tool would slip and slice across my hand, sometimes I would scrape my knuckles on the rough stone, leaving a smear of blood and skin. But I persevered. It’s not like I had anything else to do.
Finally, finally, finally. I could feel the rock loosening. I was scared that it was my imagination, but in the end the rock just slid out with no fanfare, no drama. It was almost an anticlimax. So there I was, sitting cradling this rock, my cheeks wet with tears. I was really going to do this. Really going to do it. Or die trying.
I hid the rock under my mattress. After all, it wasn’t as if I had to worry about the maid discovering it while changing the linen. I was scared, excited … but mostly scared. What if this, what if that. I probably would have vacillated forever, except I woke out of a restless half-sleep to find a rat licking greedily at my bloody knuckles. I sat up in horrified disgust and heard maybe a dozen more rats scampering away. I groped under my mattress, grabbed my rock, and settled to the side of the cage door. There would be no more sleep for me until this was over. One way or the other.
Who knows how long I sat there, stood, sat again. Always in motion. Imagine if I missed my one chance at freedom because I cramped at the wrong moment!
At last, I could hear footsteps, but they passed by. No, not passed by. Here. At my door. I could feel my head pulsing in time with my heartbeat. It was really going to happen. The key turned in the lock, the door opened, the guard strolled in then stopped, puzzled when he saw I wasn’t slumped in my bed.
I hit him before he could gather his wits. I never saw his face. I brought the rock down on the back of his head with all my strength. I kept pounding that rock into his head while he went to his knees then fell forward. I couldn’t stop, just kept pounding at him until his head gave way and his skull turned to a spongy, bloody mess. I felt nothing more than a vicious victory. I had done it. I had won!
I noticed he had an envelope in his hand. A letter, clumsily translated into English. Apparently my friends made it home okay, and Tex had somehow, hopefully violently, persuaded Frank to do the right thing. To confess what he’d done. The Embassy had spent the last four months negotiating my release. I was a free man.
I read the letter again, while the guard’s body slowly cooled beside me.
Freedom(Hazel Dow)
You have to understand what it was like in there. The cold stone walls dripping with slimy water, the lumps of food on dirty cracked plates, the race to eat these disgusting meals before the rats and beetles got to it, the casual cruelty from the guards. And the fear. The constant, eroding anticipation of pain, humiliation. It was dehumanising. You’re treated like an animal, you live like an animal.
I did not deserve to be there.
Funny thing was, I didn’t even want to go with them in the first place. Oh sure, we’d been through school together, been in more than a few scrapes together. But you’ve got to grow out of it eventually, don’t you? Leave childhood friendships behind, grow up. We’re nearly 30, after all. Mark’s even getting married!
And of course Tex thought it would be a blast to have a stag party on one of the islands. Nightclubbing, booze, drugs, women. Be young and wild one last time before we sagged into middle age. That Tex. I don’t think he needs to ever panic about growing up, know what I mean?
So let me introduce you to everyone before I go any further. Just to get everyone straight. And I like to remember us as we were. Before everything turned to shit.
I’ll start with me. My name’s James. Never Jim or Jimmy. Just James. More dignified, don’t you think? No-one’s going to hire a Jim or Jimmy for a serious career, and that’s what I want. Wanted. I’m good with numbers, always wanted a career in accountancy. That might sound boring to you, it sure bored the crap out of my friends. But hey, someone’s got to do it, right? And they weren’t too bored to accept free beers from the money I earned through college doing people’s taxes and accounts. So yeah, that’s me. The sensible and mature one, the designated driver, the friend who could always be tapped for a few bucks to pay speeding fines, the one who could buy beer because I was old even when I was underage.
Then there’s Mark. The first one of us to get married, I don’t know why. I give it six months before she finds him humping her sister or best friend and kicks him out.
Tex. The Peter Pan of booze and drugs. He’ll never change. He’s still be drinking and snorting coke at eighty, if he lives that long. I’ll give him this, though. You can always count on him to come up with a party plan. Mark’s stag party, case in point.
Lew. His real name’s Llewellyn, but apparently that sounds kind of gay and he’ll hurt you if you ever call him by his full name. Denial. Not just a river in Africa, right?
So that’s our little group. Except Tex had also invited some stoner friend of his to come with us. Frank. Middle name Trouble. He’s to blame for everything, and I sincerely hope that he dies a thousand blackly painful deaths for what he has done to me.
Problem was, Tex and Frank look exactly like what they are. Any law enforcement officer would take one look at them, with their long grungy hair and defiantly guilty smirks, and have a sudden desire to get to know them better. And once they got close enough to smell their desperate druggie smell, well that’s all she wrote. Open your bags, please, gentlemen.
So their grand plan? Well Frank’s grand plan, anyway. I don’t think … I don’t want to think … that Tex would do something like that to a pal. Who the hell knows, though. So yeah. Frank apparently never went anywhere without his lucky shooting kit. And for reasons best known to himself, he had also brought a respectable quantity of what turned out to be heroin. Experience told him he was incredibly unlikely to be able to smuggle anything through customs, so he put his kit in my luggage. His damned kit. In my luggage. Even now, I still feel rage and disbelief that anyone could be that self-serving. Willing to throw an innocent person to the wolves to save himself. Just … I feel so impotently angry when I think of it, so I’ll move on now.
I’ll skip over the painful details. They’re just a blur, anyway. I can remember being in a room; I thought bizarrely that it was a schoolroom but in retrospect it must have been the courthouse. My hands were cuffed, but I couldn’t remember actually getting handcuffed. There was a fat, sweaty guy standing next to me who would jump up once in a while and rattle off some gibberish. I think he must have been my lawyer. No-one in that room seemed to speak English. Or maybe I was in shock, incapable of understanding the spoken word. I don’t even know how I got there.
The last thing I remember with any clarity was a customs officer calling me over and asking to inspect my luggage. He pawed carelessly through my neatly folded clothes and pulled out a rolled length of dirty canvas that, when unrolled, exposed a syringe, plain white cotton balls, and some brown stuff in a plastic bag. I thought I was going to faint!
Then … bang! Next thing I knew I was in this schoolroom court, being sentenced I think.
I still don’t know if I was actually in jail or being held for sentencing. And more importantly, I had no idea how long I was going to be held in this nightmarish place. I kept asking to speak to someone, asking to use a phone, but no-one here understands English. Or maybe they’re pretending not to understand. Who the hell knows.
I might have been locked up for a month, I might have been here for a year. There was no night or day in that room. Time passed after a fashion, or maybe it stopped altogether. I was there for a second, I had been there forever.
I ate the lumpy, beetle ridden food. I slept on a thin mattress on the hard rock floor, scratching at the insect bites on my arms and feet. I defecated in the corner, retching at the stink of my watery bowel movements. And time passed. Or not.
I think I was losing my mind.
There was a movie, back in the 70s, about a guy who got caught smuggling hashish and got slung into prison. The living conditions were pretty abysmal. I remember shaking my head smugly, thinking he deserved it. That could never happen to me. Pretty funny, right? Anyway, at the end of the movie, the guy kills a guard, puts on the uniform, and casually strolls out the front gate to freedom.
I began to fantasise about doing the same. Could I kill one of these uniformed sadistic animals? Bet on it.
I was confident that I could find my way outside if given the opportunity. I would lie there in my damp dark prison, imagining how good it would feel to turn my face to the sun. Feel the light, the heat burning my skin. I wanted it so badly that I was driving myself insane. I ran scenarios in my head, thought of ways I could do this. And at some point, my fantasies became a plan.
There were shards of rock lying all over the filthy floor. I used some of the larger, sharper pieces to scrape away at the rotten mortar holding one of the wall rocks in place. Sometimes the tool would slip and slice across my hand, sometimes I would scrape my knuckles on the rough stone, leaving a smear of blood and skin. But I persevered. It’s not like I had anything else to do.
Finally, finally, finally. I could feel the rock loosening. I was scared that it was my imagination, but in the end the rock just slid out with no fanfare, no drama. It was almost an anticlimax. So there I was, sitting cradling this rock, my cheeks wet with tears. I was really going to do this. Really going to do it. Or die trying.
I hid the rock under my mattress. After all, it wasn’t as if I had to worry about the maid discovering it while changing the linen. I was scared, excited … but mostly scared. What if this, what if that. I probably would have vacillated forever, except I woke out of a restless half-sleep to find a rat licking greedily at my bloody knuckles. I sat up in horrified disgust and heard maybe a dozen more rats scampering away. I groped under my mattress, grabbed my rock, and settled to the side of the cage door. There would be no more sleep for me until this was over. One way or the other.
Who knows how long I sat there, stood, sat again. Always in motion. Imagine if I missed my one chance at freedom because I cramped at the wrong moment!
At last, I could hear footsteps, but they passed by. No, not passed by. Here. At my door. I could feel my head pulsing in time with my heartbeat. It was really going to happen. The key turned in the lock, the door opened, the guard strolled in then stopped, puzzled when he saw I wasn’t slumped in my bed.
I hit him before he could gather his wits. I never saw his face. I brought the rock down on the back of his head with all my strength. I kept pounding that rock into his head while he went to his knees then fell forward. I couldn’t stop, just kept pounding at him until his head gave way and his skull turned to a spongy, bloody mess. I felt nothing more than a vicious victory. I had done it. I had won!
I noticed he had an envelope in his hand. A letter, clumsily translated into English. Apparently my friends made it home okay, and Tex had somehow, hopefully violently, persuaded Frank to do the right thing. To confess what he’d done. The Embassy had spent the last four months negotiating my release. I was a free man.
I read the letter again, while the guard’s body slowly cooled beside me.
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- 7
Kevin Hughes
10/17/2019Hazel,
I hope you don't mind that I did not re-read your story. Way back in early September I said it deserved five stars and accolades...and I still think that. But I have no need to cry again...if I wanted to cry I could just watch the News, or look at a scale.
Congratulations!
Smiles, Kevin
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JD
10/17/2019Happy Short Story STAR of the Day, Hazel! Thank you for all the great horror stories you've shared on Storystar! :-)
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
JD
10/20/2019If retiring frees your mind for writing more of your awesome stories, then I agree! : )
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Hazel Dow
10/20/2019Thanks Jd! I really need to make some time to get more out. I've got a couple stories half written, and about half a donzen bouncing around in my head. Urgh, I need to retire!
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Rozalie yesberg
09/21/2018Wow! What an incredible story! I felt as if I was living through the character, feeling his pain and disgust. I loved it.
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
JD
09/17/2018Congratulations on another story being chosen for front page feature as one of the Short Story STARS of the Week, Hazel! Thank you for sharing your 'horrible' stories on Storystar! :-)
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
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Hazel Dow
09/21/2018Thank you so very much. I love writing short stories, and this site is awesome for sharing them. Cheers :-)
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Gail Moore
09/17/2018Awesome story, thought it would be another schpelle Corby case but turned out very different.
These kind of stories are a put off for Bali and the Indonesian islands.
Scary stuff.
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Hazel Dow
09/21/2018Haha thanks. I wasn't even thinking about Shapelle! It is a shame that such beautiful destinations suffer from the Shapelle's of the world, I wouldn't like to propagate that image.
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JD
09/08/2018Hi Hazel,
I didn't understand why Kevin said it made him cry...since I know your stories tend to be in the horror vein... which usually leave me cringing, but I don't remember wanting to cry after reading any of the others. So I couldn't imagine why it would make him want to cry... that is, until I took the time to actually read it. You really know how to leave your reader, and your character, in a state of emotional trauma!
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JD
09/09/2018Happy to provide it, Hazel! Thanks again for sharing your 'horrible' stories with us! : )
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Hazel Dow
09/09/2018Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad I could cause trauma all round. If a character isn't relatable, then there's no story. It's hard sometimes to know if I hit the mark, so feedback like yours is invaluable. Cheers :-)
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Kevin Hughes
09/08/2018Hazel,
I rated this five stars, but it only shows three? Did accidentally hit the wrong number of Stars? Jd, can you fix that for me? I don't want it to be rated lower than it earned. And it earned five stars- even though it made me sadder than gazooks.
Smiles, Kevin
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JD
09/08/2018Hey Kevin, I definitely do NOT think you are travelling anywhere near the road to hell. I'd say you're a lot closer to the highway to heaven, good intentions n'all.
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Kevin Hughes
09/08/2018Thanks Jd! I didn't think I hit three stars, but I must have. Sheesh. I have to have better control of my mouse!
Hazel, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I had the best of intentions with Five Stars. LOL
Smiles, Kevin
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JD
09/08/2018Hi Kevin, I am unable to erase a rating, but I can try to counter it with adding a rating, which I have done. Thanks for letting Hazel know that the 3 stars was unintentional. I'm sure she will very much appreciate your intention to give her a 5 star rating, as well as your kind comments. : )
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Kevin Hughes
09/08/2018Hazel,
Absolute Irony shouldn't read like actual Truth. This is a horror story that would have made an Episode of the Twilight Zone. And I can't stop crying.
Smiles, Kevin
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JD
09/09/2018Hazel, in the sense that you are queen of horror, I guess you really are a horrible human being! Good for you! :-)
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Kevin Hughes
09/09/2018I don't think you are a horrible human being, just a terrific writer. I wouldn't want to be inside your brain, home alone, on a dark and stormy night. LOL Smiles, Kevin
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Hazel Dow
09/09/2018Aw thanks, feeling absolutely chuffed that I made you cry. I am a horrible human being lol :-D
COMMENTS (8)