PENALTY MINUTES
By
Norm E.
FIVE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Elizabeth rolled onto her back. She was incredibly tired out now after XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX “Stop here,’ Shawna instructed Annie, who braked to a halt just behind a XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Bonnie breathed deeply. She was in shock. She knew they´d caught one of
Susan listened as the miles slowly droned on. She had been deposited in a
barrel of some sort by her abductors and nailed inside shortly after been
captured. It was apparently a rather small barrel, as she could only shift
a few inches from side to side without bumping her head.
The ride had been nerve-racking, but since Susan had the bad experience of
already have been tied up, she was at least more accustomed to it now. As
such, she had remained calmer throughout this ordeal than last night´s one.
Still, she was worried inside. If Annie and Shawna had lost track of the
van, she was in hot water again with no one to turn to.
The hum of the engines drowned out much of the conversation her kidnappers
were having, leaving Susan with only mumbled words to listen to to keep her
interested. She could sense, much like Bonnie had overnight, they were
heading east, but how far she couldn´t quite make out. It was definitely
approaching San Bernardino County, though; as a native of Los Angeles, Susan
was more familiar with the area than Bonnie was.
The van started to slow down. Susan listened for any telltale signs of
where she was. They braked to a stop. “OK, bring the whole thing,’ one of
the kidnappers said. Susan felt the entire barrel being lifted up and
carried. “She´ll be less likely to try any escapes if she´s sealed
inside.’
trying to struggle all night long. It was simply no use. She was bound too
intensely. Elizabeth felt like a worm, with all her limbs pinned against
her sides. All she´d been able to do was squirm like one around the plastic
prison. The opening at the top of the bottle seemed an eon away. Dawn had
not brought much more light to the room; only a few beams of sunlight
managed to stream through the boarded-up windows, leaving the storeroom
heavy cloaked in shadows.
Next to her, Felicia had given up long ago and was now sobbing like Bonnie
had been for a while on the bed across the room. Elizabeth inched over and
laid her head on her friend´s shoulder. Even if they were to be trapped
inside the bottle for a long time to come, or carted off to no man´s land,
she´d still stand with her. They were sorority sisters to the end.
Over on the bed, Bonnie had calmed down significantly from a few hours ago.
Ever since her special visitor had comforted her, she´d stopped struggling
like crazy, but could still be heard sobbing occasionally. Like Felicia,
Elizabeth wished she could reach out and comfort the poor girl. This whole
ordeal was more than she could clearly take.
By now, Elizabeth figured, their disappearances would be all over the news.
She was worried about how her family would take it. She´d only gotten in
on Santa Ana State with a scholarship, and if they ransomed her, there would
be no way her parents would be able to pay anything.
There was the sound of activity down below the storeroom. Elizabeth raised
her head toward the sound of more people coming up the stairs. What could
be going on now. A key turned in the lock and the door swung open. “Just
put her over there,’ Leon said, pointing to a large colleague holding a
barrel, “Just so she can´t get immediate help from anyone else.’
Elizabeth frowned. Now who were they kidnapping? This was getting way too
far out of control. The big man set the barrel down in the other corner. A
thumping could be heard inside it. The two of them walked over to Bonnie´s
bed and once again tests the girl´s bonds. “Hmm,’ Leon mumbled, fiddling
with something, “I don´t know how she could have loosened those ties. We
had them at their tightest setting. Oh well, better make them snug again.’
He and the other man worked for a minute, then strode over to the bottle
and examined Elizabeth and Felicia´s bonds. “Yep, they still look pretty
secure,’ the big man commented, “No problems. We might as well call the
coach and tell her we´ve got another of her opponents´ weapons disabled.’
“Might as well,’ the larger man shrugged. The two of them walked out and
relocked the door. Elizabeth growled loud enough for a grunt to escape her
gags. This was now too much. If only someone knew where they were and
could stop this madness. ………..
hill overlooking the big deserted warehouse before them. They were in a
position, thanks to a large amount of bushes in front of them, where they
could observe the building without being noticed. “So this is it?’ Annie
mumbled out loud, “They´ve brought Bonnie and Susan here. I must admit,
it´s good and isolated. I think we were the first people to use this road
in the longest time.’
“Now comes the big question,’ Shawna had already noticed the liberal amount
of guards around the building, “How do we get in without them noticing?’
Annie´s gaze fell on a open drainage ditch outside the left side of the
car. “I think I know,’ she said with a smile, “if we don´t mind getting
wet.’
Shawna saw the ditch. “Oh no!’ she groaned, “Through the sewer grating?’
“What other choice do we have?“ Annie posed. Shawna thought it over and
nodded. “Okay, for Bonnie,’ she said slowly.
The two of them climbed out of the car and crawled down into the ditch.
The open hole led to a long sewer tunnel leading right into the warehouse.
The girls tried to ignore the water swirling around their ankles. After
about three minutes, the sound of voices reached their ears. They followed
it to an air vent leading up into the main floors. They scrambled up it
until they were opposite a vent through which they saw many men sitting
around a table playing cards. “She said good work,’ one of them was now
relating to the others, “We should be commended for taking them out like
this. I guess this means we get extra pay. Good work thinking on picking
this one up, boss.’
“Since when have I ever made a mistake?’ the man at the head of the table
said, placing down some cards, “Are they still behaving themselves up
there?’
“Yep,’ another man said, tossing in some chips, “And the new one´s pretty
calmed. Of course the Marcliff girl´s still under the effects of the muscle
relaxers, but she hasn´t been as abrasive as she was a couple of hours ago.’
“Handcuff key,’ Annie whispered to Shawna, pointing to the set hanging
temptingly out of the back pocket of the kidnapper sitting in the chair
directly in front of them, “I´ll try and get it.’
Shawna nodded and crossed her fingers. Annie carefully slipped her fingers
through the grating toward the keys. She stopped briefly when the man
abruptly stretched, but then returned to normal. She grasped for the keys
and clenched the tightly. Now came the tricky part. Ever so gently, she
extracted them from the man´s pocket and back into the vent. Amazingly, it
worked without anyone noticing. She and Shawna winked at each other. Now
all they´d have to do was find Bonnie and Susan and get out the same way
they got in.
her friends. Even though they´d never mentioned who it was, she could tell.
She´d tried to rescue Bonnie and had paid the price. Bonnie felt so
incredibly guilty. If any harm had been done to whoever it was, she´d never
forgive herself.
And things had gone south again when the latest watchmen had retightened
the plastic ties her friend had loosened for her. Where was he now, Bonnie
wondered. His soothing words now seemed so far away, and she desperately
wanted to hear them again.
Had it really been so long ago that he´d held her hand? Time had long
since stopped for Bonnie. Hours had become like weeks. And the strange
spinning sensation in her head from the muscle relaxers certainly wasn´t
helping things either.
It was then that she became away of a low rumbling getting louder and
louder. She rolled her head to the right, wishing for the umpteenth time
the sack hadn´t been tied over her head. Low voices could just be made out,
voice that sounded rather familiar. “Help!’ she cried through the burlap,
tape and handkerchiefs.
“Bonnie is that you?’ came Shawna´s voice from behind her. Bonnie´s heart
leaped: salvation! She cried out and thumped the mattress with her legs.
A low clank indicated Shawna had entered the room. The sheet was pulled off
Bonnie. “Oh my,’ Annie´s voice sighed softly, “This is awful what they´ve
done to you, Bonnie. Just promise you´ll speak quietly when we let you go,
the kidnappers are all downstairs.’
Bonnie felt the sack being loosened and pulled off her head. She stared up
into the eyes of her friends, who quickly took the gags off her mouth. “Oh
thank God,’ she whispered once her mouth was free, “I was starting to give
up hope! How did………..?’
“We´ll talk later, okay,’ Annie inserted the key she was holding into the
handcuff holding Bonnie´s left wrist to the upper right bedpost and unlocked
it. She proceeded to take off the rest of the handcuffs and released the
plastic ties while Shawna undid the straps holding Bonnie to the bed.
Bonnie sat up and stretched. She still felt rather weak, and swayed a bit
when she tried to stand up. “It´s OK,’ Shawna had noticed, “You just wait
here, Bonnie, we´ll get Susan.’
“They´ve taken more people prisoner,’ Bonnie had noticed the others
imprisoned in the large plastic bottle. “Hey, aren´t they Elizabeth Ferrum
and Felicia Graham from Santa Ana State?’ Annie squinted, “Why are they here
with you?’
“I think maybe they´d best to explain,’ Bonnie said, “We´d better get them
too; we can´t just leave them here.’
Annie looked like she´d be more willing to just let their soccer rivals
sweat it out, but nodded and said, “All right, we´ll see what we can do.’
“I think Susan´s in here,’ Shawna pointed to the barrel, inside of which
Susan could be heard thumping. She and Annie tore off the lid and quickly
freed Susan. “Well, at least you two managed to keep a good tail,’ she
declared as she climbed out of the barrel, “I was worried for a while you´d
gotten lost.’
“This is going to be a problem,’ Annie had approached the plastic bottle,
“I don´t see how we´re going to get in there.’
Low moans came from Elizabeth and Felicia, whose eyes strained with the
sentence, “Just get us out any way you can!’ “All right, don´t worry, we´ll
get you loose,’ Annie told them, “Promise.’
“Maybe if we all pushed from one side, we might be able to tip it over,’
Susan suggested, sizing the bottle up, “I guess we need your help here,
Bonnie.’
“Be glad to,’ Bonnie rose to her feet and walked over, unable to prevent a
little swaying, “After all they did try and release me earlier before they
got caught.’
The four members of the UC-Sherman Oaks team began pushing the bottle
around from the far side. It started tipping ever so slowly, but once they
got the momentum flowing, it started falling, finally crashing down on it´s
side. “Someone would have heard that,’ Bonnie realized belatedly, “Help me
bar the door.’
She rushed over to a nearby desk and pushed it up against the door with
Shawna´s assistance…………and not a moment too soon, for footsteps had pounded
up the stairs at the sound of the bottle crashing. Susan and Annie
meanwhile crawled into the bottle and started untying Felicia and Elizabeth
as fast as they could. “Incredible,’ Felicia commented after her gags were
removed, “I didn´t think anything could knock that bottle over. Thank you
for caring enough to free us.’
“Well, don´t get too sentimental just yet,’ Annie said, helping her and
Elizabeth crawl out of the bottle to safety, “We´d like to know what´s going
on here.’
“There´s no time to explain,’ Felicia said, her eyes darting toward the
visible pounding on the door, “We´ve got to get out of here now.’
She started to run for the open vent. “Answer me one thing now though,’
Bonnie asked, running after her, “They didn´t blindfold you. Who was it who
loosened my bonds for me earlier?’
Felicia opened her mouth to answer, but it was at that moment that the door
broke open and almost a dozen men swarmed in heavily armed. “Don´t any of
you move!’ came the shout of one of the men in the back, “or you´re all
dead!’
None of the girls dared to make a move; trying to escape against heavy
weapons like this would have been foolhardy. Oscar Reginald strolled into
view. “Well well, Miss Marcliff, it seems you´re a very popular young
woman,’ he said, eyeing the additional young women before him, “So many
people willing to try and rescue you. Unfortunately, all they´ve done is
earn you and everyone else here a one-way ticket to one of my ‘retirement
homes.´ Jackson, Norman, get as many chairs and rope and ties and
handkerchiefs you can find,’ he ordered some of his men, “We´re going to
have to work overtime with this one.’
“So you´re going to make us disappear for good, like you said earlier?’
Elizabeth tried to sound defiant, but there was clear fear in her voice.
“Exactly, Miss Ferrum,’ Reginald told her darkly, “You will essentially
vanish from the world. Now you and the others take off your shoes and
socks.’
“Why?’ Shawna sounded indignant to this proposal.
“Because if you don´t, we´ll take EVERYTHING off!’ Reginald threatened her.
He grabbed Bonnie roughly by the arm and dragged her out of the room.
“You´re first, Miss Marcliff,’ he told her, “As our special guest, you get
special treatment.’
“I´d really just like the normal treatment, if that´s OK,’ Bonnie said in a
whimper. She was still too weak to fight back.
“Oh you´re getting the special treatment whether you like it or not,’
Reginald told her, “In fact, I wager you´ll reconsider your own definition
of the phrase ‘tied up´ after you experience this.’