Stowed Away

Chapter Five

Eno woke up to a clanging sound. Groaning, she reached for the alarm she always kept beside on her bedside table. She whisked her hand in the air severally before realizing that there was nothing on the bedside table. Sleepy and confused, she sat up, stretched and rubbed her eyes to awaken fully. Her feet felt something warm as she stretched. The activities of the day before came rushing in.

The clanging sound had been from somewhere else, probably the living room. Eno shook Pauline softly to rouse her. They traipsed towards the direction of the sound until it led them to an open arena, the size of two basketball courts.

The men from the day before stood on a raised slab of cement, one that looked as though it were a platform, with guns almost half their sizes held to their chests, a large bell in their hands. If this were any different, one could say the actors of a play were watching the audience.

Now that it was day, to Eno, the building looked like it had tripled in size. The gargoyles, even more formidable in the morning light. A rainforest stood in the distance, over the rocks, the trees looked like they held secrets, and knew things.

Eno had heard stories, stories about politicians who, days or months to the elections, enlisted the help of armed men and ritualists to push their course towards a successful election. These ritualists, would abduct people, remove parts which they felt was vital to them, and leave the bodies hanging around the streets, a pointer to the fact that it could be anybody.

The abducting business had two sides to it; if you were lucky enough to fall in the hands of those who demand ransoms, there was about five percent chance you would make it out alive. Dead, alive, a torn body part. If you were unfortunate enough to fall in the hands of those who didn’t care about ransoms, and were only looking to enrich themselves by some spiritual means. One which involved, gruesome mutilation and death, there was a little over one percent possibility that you would make it out of there alive.

Eno wasn’t sure which one they were. While the mansions and the gargoyles might indicate sponsorship, by a politician, or more than one. They could very well be a well-established abducting gang.

One of the men, Seth, with arms that stretched over his knees, and prominent eyebrows, dumped a carton in front of each of the abductees.

As Pauline’s sweaty hands pressed into hers, she wondered if this was fattening before killing. Like the fattening process often done to animals. Would they first be fed until their death? Could they be poisoned?

No one carton contained the same thing, everything apart from the plastic cutleries were the same. Hers contained toiletries, and three packs of noodles, and two eggs.

“Hello everyone,” one of the men, whom Eno identified as Chris, said. “Everyone has a carton in front of them now. These cartons contain toiletries and your meal for this morning.”

“You might want to ask where you would cook, and I might be tempted to ask you to find or look for flints, I don’t really care.”

The men laughed, the laughter echoing throughout the environs, and bouncing off the walls of the mansions. Eno didn’t think it was funny, but she suspected that the group of abductors might have a different, warped sense of humor than her or any normal human.

“There is a kitchenette in your room,” Chris said, pointing at each person. “Also, all your cutleries are plastic, if you haven’t noticed. That’s all, see you by 11 AM.”

-

When Eno got the room she slept in the night before, she was too tired to either cook or look around the room. The instant she climbed her bed, she fell asleep.