Diversion Pt. 02

Sheree is becoming more vocal through her gag. Out of pain, frustration, or desperation, I don't know. And I don't understand what she's trying to say. I hug her tighter to me in response to every gagged utterance, but it doesn't seem to help. She just becomes more vocal and agitated.

We've hobbled a couple of miles or so it seems. I have no idea. We've met no cars on this road during the time we're been walking down it. I see no lights in the distance and hear no cars on the road in either direction. The next time we stop, I walk to the side of the road to relieve my bladder. As I stand there, I look at the dark woods surrounding the road and am amazed we actually made it through.

I shuffle back to Sheree, and we begin again. When we reach the top of a slight hill, I notice the moonlight is reflecting off of something about a quarter of a mile down the road. Whatever it is, it is off the road. After a few chain dragging steps, I see my car! Sheree sees it too, and unintelligible, excited sounds come out of her gagged mouth. She squeezes my hand, pumping our arms together in the air, and we actually begin walking faster. For the first time, I don't mind the pain on my ankles.

As we reach the car, I notice the tag is missing and I recall Kitty saying that she had removed it and thrown it in the river, along with everything else of ours she had found at the campsite. She also removed the registration papers that I kept in the glove box to conceal the identity of the owner of the car from whoever found it. They wanted no one to find us, that was clear. I had left the car unlocked, but she would have found nothing of value. What she didn't find was the spare key I keep in a magnetic keyholder over the back rear tire. It is still there.

Suddenly, I'm back behind the wheel of my car with my beautiful girlfriend beside me on a dark country road. I've got the key in the ignition, and the car starts right up - just as normal. But nothing else is normal. I'm struggling to keep my bare feet from being entangled in my leg chain as I move my foot from the brake to the accelerator. And Sheree is wiping away drool from her gag as she bends down in her seat to rub her sore ankles. But we've made it out of here and we're driving down the road away from this diversion into hell!

First thing is to get out of these damn restraints. We're in a remote part of the country, but if we stop at the closest police station we come across, no matter how small a town, it'll get reported and we're on the news, given the name of Sheree's recently deceased husband. And when the estate gets wind of this and of my obviously, close association with the newly widowed, Sheree Ashworthy, the suspicions around his death will grow wilder. We'd had an ongoing affair, through their marriage, but of course we had nothing to do with his death. But his family won't care about that. They just want Sheree's inheritance to go to them - anyway possible. We can't go to the police.

We enter what appears to be the outskirts of some small town. We first pass an abandoned gas station, and then some other small, run-down commercial buildings, either abandoned or just closed for the night. I have an idea, and when I see an auto mechanic's shop, I slow down and have a look. There are cars parked around it, not rusted over and some can be considered fairly late model, indicating this place is in business. The sign on the building simply reads, "Repairs and Service". And this is what I'm looking for. The tools necessary to get us free are in that building.

I pull into the parking lot on the side of the building, away from the road and park near other cars, apparently awaiting service, parts or payment. I kill the ignition, turn out the lights, and then glance at Sheree wondering how to communicate my idea. She looks at me with a puzzled expression. Then I point to the shop, then at my shackles, shaking them for emphasis, and then run out of non-verbal communication to express myself.

I resort to gag speech and say,"Et em auff, et em auff". I point to my gag, and repeat the same obviously, unintelligible sounds, and make meaningless hand gestures, hoping they'll help with communication. Then I remember I kept a pen in my car. I just need to find it and a piece of paper. I reach into the compartment at the bottom of the door on my side and find the pen. No paper however. It doesn't matter. I start writing on my palm: 'Tools in there to get these off'. I don't need to point to what I am referring. Sheree reads the words and nods. I wipe my palm on my drool covered chin, rub the words away with my fingers, and start again. 'We wait here till owner comes.'

She nods, but more hesitantly this time. I know we're taking a chance on whether a stranger will help us, but at this point, our choices are limited. We've got to get out of the shackles and gags.

The clock on my dashboard read 4:25 when we pulled in the parking lot. Way early for the mechanic to open his shop; so, we wait. We fidget, attempt gag conversation with each other and adjust the weight of our shackles on our bare ankles. Every time we fidget, our ankles pay the price. We try adjusting the straps of our gags to make them less uncomfortable, and wipe the drool away from our chins. Sleep is out of the question; we want release from these constrictions.

We finished the last of the warm beer on our slow walk down the road, but Sheree saved the remains of the vodka and pulls the pint out of the pocket of her hoodie. She leans her head back, has a small splash and passes the bottle to me. I hesitantly accept - the vodka is more difficult for me to swallow with my mouth forced wide open - but I give it a try. I begin to choke on the first attempt and instinctively lean my head down and the vodka spills out of my mouth, but I get a little down my throat on the second attempt. I pass the bottle back to Sheree, who takes one more sip before putting it away.

The dawn is breaking, and I reach for the pen again. We've got to be able to communicate to the mechanic who'll be opening the shop that we need help, but in a manner he can understand. I write on my palm: 'Help us please'. I reach over and grab Sheree's hand, turn her palm over and write on it: 'We were abducted'. She nods, understanding what we have to do. Hopefully, this will explain our situation - since he will be taken aback by our appearances - and he will help us. Now we just wait for the mechanic.

It doesn't take long. We hear his approach before we see the truck. Then a dark pickup turns into the gravel parking lot. It pulls to a stop near the building, the door opens and a guy gets out. He's wearing dark overalls, with a name stitched over his front pocket which I can't read from this distance. He's carrying a bag which must contain his lunch. I hoping he is a straight-arrow guy who can and will help us. I open my door to step out, and signal Sheree to do the same.

He sees us, pauses, and says, "What the fuck? What is this? Wait...wait, stay right there".

We raise our palms with the written messages and point to those words with our other hands. He seems more puzzled than defensive, so we must not be threatening to him, which is a good thing.

As he moves closer, I see the name, 'Buck' on his overalls. He reads both messages, then says, "Who did this to you?"

I resort to hand gestures, trying to get him to secure the tools, he must have, to get us free. I point to the padlocks on our gags, and he immediately says, "I can clip those off with a bolt cutter." I nod my head vigorously; this is what I want to hear. I look over to Sheree, who is giving him the same excitable, appreciative gestures.

We follow him into his shop dragging our ankle chains noisily across the concrete floor. He steps over to a bench cluttered with tools, while we stand, nervously, side by side. I notice Sheree is holding her hand over her mouth, apparently embarrassed for anyone to see her drooling.

Buck returns with a large bolt cutter, and says, "I don't know what you got yourselves into, but you're clearly not jail escapees. To put those things over your head, that's cruel and unusual punishment. They can't do that. I wouldn't help someone escaping from jail, but you're escaping something else entirely. So, I'm gonna get you out of these." He moves up behind Sheree and motions for her to stay still as he raises the bolt cutter.

The padlocks on her gag are easily cut open without any exertion on Buck's part. I step up and begin unbuckling the straps of her gag. I begin to hear ecstatic sighs of relief from Sheree as the last strap is loosened. But in order to remove the hard rubber ring wedged behind her front teeth, she has to open her mouth slightly wider. Moans of pain result since her jaws are already stretched wide open. But she deals with the pain and slides the ring out of her mouth and then flings the gag onto the floor. She wipes her mouth and chin and slowly begins working her jaws. "Thank you," she says. "Thank you."

Buck has moved behind me and I feel a slight tug on the straps as each padlock is snipped off. Sheree moves behind me and says, "Baby, let me get you out of this. You got us free. You did this!" She reaches one hand across my chest and gives me a hug while releasing my gag straps. She turns back to Buck, and says, "Thank you. Those were horrible people who put those on us. And locked them on! I didn't think we'd ever get them off."

When my chin strap is released, I give a sigh of relief. Then I have to work the ring out from behind my teeth. Opening my mouth even the slightest bit wider to get it out brings a stabbing pain in my jaw. But it subsides once the ring slides out and I can close my mouth. My jaws don't want to function immediately and I open and close my mouth, and rub the sides of my face to get the stiffness out.

I thank Buck, and see his attention is now focused on our shackles. He's bending down to examine Sheree's to figure out how to get them off. I point to the slugs that Damon pounded into the holes on both manacles, and explain how I observed him securing them on us.

"Well, if the asshole pounded them in, I can just pound them out. And if I heat them with a soldering iron, I can pound them out easier." Buck walks back to his tool bench, and finds what he's looking for. As he walks back to us, he says, "You want to call the police?"

"No, we took care of them," I reply quickly before Sheree can say anything, and cast a quick glance at her. She says nothing. She leans down and rubs her ankles.

"Really. But if those assholes are still out there..."

"They've been taken care of."

"I hear you, but you two looked like you've been through hell. I don't want anyone else to go through that. Sure you don't want to call the police?"

"They won't be messing with anyone else. Trust me."

"Okay, if you say so. Who wants their leg chains off first? I've got to do some pounding with a hammer, it may hurt."

I look at Sheree, who is still rubbing her sore ankle, and say, "I'll go first. Thank you again, Buck, for your help. You'd never believe what we've been through."

"Well, let's see if I can get you out of these."

He places an anvil next to the manacle on my ankle, positions it so the slug is centered over the anvil, and then reaches for a soldering iron with a large heating element. He places the iron against the slug, holds it in place for a few moments, and then I smell a metallic burning smell. He moves the soldering iron to the side and picks up a large iron nail in one hand and then reaches for a hammer with his other. He places the nail over the heated slug and pounds it with the hammer. My leg feels each blow, but I can deal with it since I see the slug is being pulverized out of the holes in the manacle. After a few blows it's gone, and Buck reaches down and opens the manacle.

"Wow, we found the right guy to help us. Thank you."

"Well, we have to look out after each other, I hope you'd do the same for me."

Sheree reaches over and hugs Buck, and says, "You're a lifesaver. You can't imagine how these things hurt when you walk."

"I'll get his other leg free, then I'll get yours off." He looks at me, and asks, "I hope that didn't hurt too much?"

"No, you did great."

Less than five minutes later, Sheree and I are both free of the shackles. I see bruises on her ankles where the manacles bit into her flesh, and notice I have the same. But we're free. Bruises we can deal with.

We thank Buck again and offer to send him money to compensate him for his trouble when we get home, which he declines. He insists we take the gags and shackles with us. He does not want them in his shop. So, we make our way out to the car, finally walking free of restraints.

Sheree and I take a moment to hug each other tightly, grateful to finally be free, with nothing stopping us from returning home and resuming our lives.

"We found the right guy to help us, that's for sure."

Sheree has been carrying the restraints out of Buck's shop. She opens the back door of my car and throws them inside.

"Once we get on our way, those things are going to be thrown out of the window. That thing strapped over my face was sheer torture." She looks at me, and the tears begin to fall. I put my arms around her and gently raise her chin, to look right in her eyes. "Okay, we're safe now. They can't do anything else to us." I hold her as her body racks with sobs. After a moment, she calms enough to break our embrace and begin wiping the tears off her face.

"I didn't think we'd get out of there. But it's over," she says in a whisper.

"Yeah. It's over. Let's go home."

We drive no more than two or three miles until we come to a bridge over a river. Sheree tells me to slow down as she rolls down her window and reaches behind her for the restraints. She throws the gags and the shackles out the window, and says, "Fuck them," as she rolls the window back up.

"That's probably where they dumped our stuff from the campsite, you know?"

"I don't want to think about it."

"Yeah, it's over."

The blue light flashes behind me no more than half a mile past the bridge. The cop must have been positioned off the road and I went right by without seeing him.

"Don't worry," I tell Sheree. "It's the tag. Remember Kitty removed it. We'll get a ticket and be on our way. But we can't get our names on any kind of police report, even a ticket. You've got enough problems with the estate. The family doesn't need to know about us. Follow along with me. I've got an idea."

Sheree glances nervously behind us as I begin pulling over to the side of the road. She's more concerned about this than I think she should be.

"We'll get out of this; don't worry."

"We can't have anymore problems. I just want to get home."

"And we will. We will."

I start rolling down my window as I see the cop exit his car and start walking up to us, blue lights still flashing.

"I'm going to be Damon, and you're Kitty."

"What?"

"We can't have a record with our names on it. Trust me."

"I don't like this."

The cop reaches the side of the car, and says, "You know you don't have a tag. That's why I pulled you over."

"It was stolen," I reply.

"Stolen?" He glances into the car. "Stole your pants too. Right?"

"Well, they stole everything."

"License and registration, please."

"No... ah, those were stolen too."

"So, you have no identification and no registration for this car?"

"Like I said, they stole everything. We were robbed."

"They stole the tag and the registration?"

"Yeah. They abducted us and took everything. We managed to escape."

"Okay, first you were robbed, then you were abducted. What are your names?"

"Damon Smith. But you've got it backwards. We were abducted, then we were robbed."

"And you? What's your name?" he says, leaning down looking in at Sheree.

She replies quietly and nervously, "Kitty. Kitty Smith."

"Okay," he says. "Wait right here."

"Shit," Sheree says. "This can't be happening!"

"We'll get a ticket. Then we can go. Don't worry."

"This isn't good. We are in serious trouble."

"It's just the tag. And we were abducted. I explained it."

"And I just threw the evidence of that out the window. We're screwed."

Then we both flinch when we hear a voice coming from a speaker apparently mounted on the exterior of the cop car. "Driver and passenger! Step outside the car with your hands in the air. Show me your hands! You are both under arrest!"