Just One Witness

High and Shine

20 year old Joshua Kirstone, born in Maine, the sporty child in a family of four, lost his dad when he was 12, began DJing at 17, nicknamed the ‘Quiet Traveller’ because of how often he travelled to perform at shows and still managed to keep good grades at school. His pictures portrayed him as tanned with big brown eyes - a hard side part and a mid fade haircut. A little scar an inch below his eyebrow (from a childhood accident), red cheeks and sharp jawline. He was a little on the skinny side but was fit enough to get the attention of the girls at Beal. Blacked stud pierced in his left earlobe. You can say he was attractive. 

At the moment, he couldn’t answer his phone because a mid size anchor shaped metal was driven through his left calf to his shin, stark naked on a steel chair, he had several bruises on the right leg and his hands chained to the chair. He had become numb to the pain in his leg as it felt like there was a huge cement fit instead of his leg. Already loosing consciousness from the torture of what felt like forever. If this was a nightmare, he wanted to wake up and never sleep again because this was hell. In the dark room he was being tortured, there was only one source of light - a string of christmas lights that sang and blinked. It pissed him off. Everytime the lights came on he got more and more upset, because he was just so scared. “How could this be happening to me?”, “where’s Sarah?”, “Who’s this guy?”, “I can’t get up”, “will I make it out of here alive?”, he thought as he screamed. The pain from the heat that met his back, hissing as it fried the skin meant to cover his body. This was pain, this was real, and it was happening to him. His head exploded and when it was over all that was left was darkness…he was passing out.

   “Where is it?”, the voice echoed. It was the man in the Smiling mask, the curly haired man. He was crouched right in front of him, he seemed to be speaking but Josh could barely hear him as he soon passed out. Clink, the sound.

After what felt like hours, his eyes struggled to open. He’d been out for a while and his left leg felt a little light, his entire body still ached and his head felt like a swirling rock. He wished he could stand outside and breathe in the fresh air. He wanted to, he was choked here and also wished he could die. His eyes stung as they opened, they were dry and the lights made them bad. He was in a new room, well lit. He noticed his hands were still chained but this time to a bed, his head was lifted by what seemed to be a pillow and he was clothed in white - as much as he liked the idea that he may have been rescued and was receiving treatment, he didn’t want to believe it. He tried to move his legs and they were free, looking down he noticed the metal anchor was gone and it left a gaping hole in his leg. It was terrible to look at, it looked like something from a zombie movie. His injury had been cleaned nicely but left open, no one was nice enough to treat it. He looked around, too scared to make a sound. The room was painted white and the ceiling was high.

On his left was a table with a tray on it, the tray contained a tong, some wool, a steel colored sharp looking scissors, a small sized bottle with no inscription on it and a lighter. Looking forward to the door, it was also painted white, there was no key in the keyhole and it was closed. Next to the door was a black backpack, it was set on a chair facing his direction and some red rubber gloves were placed on the bag. The smiling mask man was not here. He wasn’t. He must be somewhere around since he was still changed. He could hear his heart beat like crazy, like it was going to pop out of his chest, the man must be waiting somewhere. He was yet to see Sarah, he didn’t know if she was still alive and it was awfully quiet. If only he could get out of these chains and go find her and get them both out of here alive, he should have never started that trip. Must have been roofies, or something, but he shouldn’t. He only wanted to have a good time and he sure wasn’t having any from the gaping hole in his leg.

After picking Sarah from home at noon, he had picked a couple friends up in his Toyota. He’d bought it from a guy on campus who had used it for about a year and needed urgent cash. It was in good condition and the engine was great, the speed was fair but was enough to crash if it over sped. It may not be new but it was beautiful and it was his. It helped with carrying his DJ equipments safely, he was already tired of always calling an Uber and could manage transporting his equipments safely without arriving an event and finding a string tangled or a broken disc because the driver stuffed his stuff carelessly or getting to an event because the driver didn’t want to go faster.

The party at New Hampshire was a blast. A New York kid was celebrating his graduation and chose to throw a party at New Hampshire, Josh and two other DJs had been invited. It was loud, and booze and pills followed. The party came to life at 8pm as he made sure to keep the party alive with songs from Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Drake, Jay Z, Beyonce, Lil Wayne etc…it was electric and everyone was on top of their voices and toes. Food was not left out, cakes and snacks, some goat was grilled outside with seasonings set on saucers, whoever organised the party sure came prepared. Sarah was having the time of her life, she was dancing with some black kid, dancing was her thing, he couldn’t save his life dancing. 

As time flew and approached 4am, the party’s fire slowly fanned out and people were leaving. At 4am sharp, it was a wrap and he was packing his equipment. He wanted to get to the hotel he’d booked for himself and Sarah earlier. Tired and all, he needed to sleep for as long as possible before heading back to Beal but he couldn’t find Sarah. Dialled her number, it rang severally before she answered “Hey”, “Hey, where are you at?”, he asked, “at the bar”, and the line dropped. She sounded drunk.

He packed his equipments and headed to the car to drop them. His car was packed at the car park, his space labelled 18. He walked to his car, opened it with his car, bent downwards and unlocked the booth. As he stood up he noticed some guys were smoking at the corner, far from him - he didn’t care. He moved to the booth and placed his equipments carelly, closed it and locked his car. He headed back to the venue, a few minutes later he sighted Sarah at the bar…her sparkly red hair and bunny ear hair holder. She was seated one of the bar’s stools next to the counter, face down, she must be have fallen asleep. He walked towards, gave her a light tap, noticed she was deeply sleeping and tapped her more energetically this time, she seemed to wake up a little so he helped her to her feet as they walked out the bar.