hold back. You're only useful to me if you keep your mouth shut and stop arguing. In case you didn't notice, I was getting on just fine before you showed up, so I can easily go back to how things used to be." He pauses. "Come on. Let's get going."
The journey back to the house is slow, especially since the chains around my ankles are only nine or ten inches long, preventing me from taking anything long than baby steps. I can't help looking over my shoulder every now and then, to check whether the guy still has his gun pointed at me, but of course he's far too wily to let his guard down, even for a second. It's pretty clear that I'm going to have to wait a while before I get a chance to make a break, but I'm determined to get the hell out of here. There's no way I'm going to let this bastard think that he's won. Even if it's the last thing I ever do, I'm going to make him regret the day he started treating me like this.
"Here," the guy says as we get into the kitchen. He grabs some stale bread and tosses it at me. "That's your dinner. There's a cup by the sink. Fill it with water and take it downstairs with you, and make sure you get some sleep. You'll be working again in the morning."
Sighing, I do as I'm told before heading down to the dark, fusty-smelling basement. I turn and watch as the door is slammed shut, and I hear him turning the key in the lock. Standing alone down here, I realize that I can't take this much longer. Bread isn't going to keep me going, so I figure the old man is planning to work me until I drop dead. As I listen to the sound of his footsteps in the room directly above the basement, I decide that there's no way I can wait a week to get out of here. I don't know how I'm going to do it yet, but I have to find a way out of here as soon as possible. Taking a deep breath, I figure I'm going to have to escape tomorrow. Either that, or I'll die trying.
Epilogue
The cough gets worse on the second day. Much worse.
Standing by the window, Joseph looks out at the playground near his apartment. It's getting late, but there are still some children playing on the swings. As he continues to cough, Joseph can't stop watching the children, wondering what they might have grown up to become. Politicians? Civic leaders? Inventors? Criminals? He figures they'd probably be a random mix, but there's a part of him that regrets taking any their chance to find out for themselves. Watching them, he realizes that they'll never be anything more than a group of children. They'll never grow up and have their own families. They'll never get old. In a way, they'll be frozen in time. He's never thought about the children before, but now he realizes that he's doomed them all.
He pauses to cough again.
When he was a child, Joseph had plenty of friends. The problem was that they were all idiots, at least as far as he was concerned. He used to play with them only because he knew it was expected of him, and because he didn't want to let anyone know that he hated other people. Even at a young age, he had a strong streak of self-preservation, and he was fully aware that the slightest hint of weirdness would most likely lead to him being booked in for counseling sessions. He'd known a boy named Bobby who, after going to various sessions, had been pulled from school and sent off to some special academy for 'troubled' children. Joseph most certainly didn't want to meet the same fate, so he'd learned to be a chameleon and blend in. For many years now, it had been a successful strategy.
The only problem, in the old days, was his family. There weren't many of them, but they definitely seemed to suspect that something was wrong with him, even if they never came right out and said anything. He'd notice them occasionally, glancing at him as if they expected him to be doing something strange or unusual. Over the years, these moments had merely reinforced Joseph's belief that he was 'weird' and 'special'. He'd tried to keep out of their way
The journey back to the house is slow, especially since the chains around my ankles are only nine or ten inches long, preventing me from taking anything long than baby steps. I can't help looking over my shoulder every now and then, to check whether the guy still has his gun pointed at me, but of course he's far too wily to let his guard down, even for a second. It's pretty clear that I'm going to have to wait a while before I get a chance to make a break, but I'm determined to get the hell out of here. There's no way I'm going to let this bastard think that he's won. Even if it's the last thing I ever do, I'm going to make him regret the day he started treating me like this.
"Here," the guy says as we get into the kitchen. He grabs some stale bread and tosses it at me. "That's your dinner. There's a cup by the sink. Fill it with water and take it downstairs with you, and make sure you get some sleep. You'll be working again in the morning."
Sighing, I do as I'm told before heading down to the dark, fusty-smelling basement. I turn and watch as the door is slammed shut, and I hear him turning the key in the lock. Standing alone down here, I realize that I can't take this much longer. Bread isn't going to keep me going, so I figure the old man is planning to work me until I drop dead. As I listen to the sound of his footsteps in the room directly above the basement, I decide that there's no way I can wait a week to get out of here. I don't know how I'm going to do it yet, but I have to find a way out of here as soon as possible. Taking a deep breath, I figure I'm going to have to escape tomorrow. Either that, or I'll die trying.
Epilogue
The cough gets worse on the second day. Much worse.
Standing by the window, Joseph looks out at the playground near his apartment. It's getting late, but there are still some children playing on the swings. As he continues to cough, Joseph can't stop watching the children, wondering what they might have grown up to become. Politicians? Civic leaders? Inventors? Criminals? He figures they'd probably be a random mix, but there's a part of him that regrets taking any their chance to find out for themselves. Watching them, he realizes that they'll never be anything more than a group of children. They'll never grow up and have their own families. They'll never get old. In a way, they'll be frozen in time. He's never thought about the children before, but now he realizes that he's doomed them all.
He pauses to cough again.
When he was a child, Joseph had plenty of friends. The problem was that they were all idiots, at least as far as he was concerned. He used to play with them only because he knew it was expected of him, and because he didn't want to let anyone know that he hated other people. Even at a young age, he had a strong streak of self-preservation, and he was fully aware that the slightest hint of weirdness would most likely lead to him being booked in for counseling sessions. He'd known a boy named Bobby who, after going to various sessions, had been pulled from school and sent off to some special academy for 'troubled' children. Joseph most certainly didn't want to meet the same fate, so he'd learned to be a chameleon and blend in. For many years now, it had been a successful strategy.
The only problem, in the old days, was his family. There weren't many of them, but they definitely seemed to suspect that something was wrong with him, even if they never came right out and said anything. He'd notice them occasionally, glancing at him as if they expected him to be doing something strange or unusual. Over the years, these moments had merely reinforced Joseph's belief that he was 'weird' and 'special'. He'd tried to keep out of their way
Similar Books
