Last Rites by Neil White

after the cramp of the car ride, squashed into the boot, gripped by panic, hyperventilating, her breath coming out as short rasps that echoed under the lid. There had been voices in the car, just murmurs, too quiet to make out, not rising above the hum of the tyres on the road. Sarah had tried to work out where they were going from the turns and the stops, but she got lost pretty quickly. The car was old, so the suspensionhad bottomed out of every pothole, sending a kick to her back.
    When the car came to a stop, Sarah had been pulled out by the rope around her wrists, her arms twisted back, and then dragged along a path, sharp gravel under her feet, hands over her eyes. She was taken down some stairs and thrown into the room, her chest breaking her fall in the dirt.
    He had untied the rope, his mask still on, but then she had been dragged to the corner of the room, towards the box.
    The box was lying on the floor, long like a rifle chest. Entry was at one end, and she was put in head-first, like a corpse in a mortuary drawer, on her back, her arms by her side. It was only just wide enough, so that her arms were wedged against the sides, impossible to move. Her head pushed against one end, and when the open end of the box was slammed shut, it banged against her feet so that she had to curl her legs up to fit.
    The sides or front had no give to them, no cracks in the lid to allow a view out, and the top was only inches from her face, so that her breath made the air condense around her cheeks, warm and stale, just a vent by her feet to let it out. She wanted to stretch out but couldn't. She had screamed, she had cried, but none of it made a difference. She thought hard on how to stay calm, how to think and how to rationalise, to work out time. But then another night had come, obvious from the cold, and another one after that. Hunger gnawed at her, Sarah's survival instinct superseding her fear, her mouth dry.
    But then he had returned and turned the box over.
    Sarah had spent the next day face down, unable to move her arms, not knowing when she'd ever be able to move again. She felt her captivity against her head, her feet, her back, her front. No water, no food, trapped in her own piss and shit.
    She was tipped out of the box on the third day and allowed some water and a crust of bread. He had stood over her, the light from the room blinding her after those days in darkness, and she spent a few precious moments of movement trying to get used to the glare. He had said nothing. He just watched her, nothing to see but the hood, stood still, his arms by his sides. But then she was slotted back into the box. She struggled and screamed, begged not to go back in, but he was too strong for her.
    This went on for another three days. No talk, no reasons given. Just captivity and silence.
    But there had been the other person, the one in the room with her now.
    Sarah could tell he was younger, from the excitement in his voice when he came into the room, calling her name, taunting, tormenting her. One day he turned the box on its end so that Sarah was upside-down, his groans of effort loud against the lid. She couldn't stop her body slumping down so that her neck bore her weight, unable to get her arms free to provide support. All that kept her in place was the tight dimensions of the box. Sarah wasn't like that for long, just a few minutes, but she thought she was going to suffocate on the weight of her own body pressing down on her, but he returned and threw the box back onto the floor.
    Another game was banging the box with hammers. Just noise, the only break in the silence, but the hammers banged around her, thudding, too loud in the box.
    Although the room scared her, she did not want to go back in the box.
    ‘What do you want?’ asked Sarah, looking up, a tremor to her voice.
    He threw a bag onto the floor. Sarah looked. It contained clothes. Her jeans were clean, and the shirt too, and there was a jumper in there, home-knitted,