The Morning After

I lay on the floor of the rapist’s truck. 

My hands bound behind my back.

My eyes covered.

A blanket over me.

I had been raped and sodomized for 12 hours straight.

I was bleeding.

I was in severe pain.

He said, “I need to find a place to dump your body.”

It was so matter-of-fact.

Like what you say to yourself as you drive home from work.

“I need to pick up a gallon of milk.”

I closed my eyes and prayed.

He drove around for hours.

Turning left, right, and back again.

The ground beneath the tires switching between dirt, gravel, and asphalt.

I fell asleep.

Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.

There was no sense arguing.

The truck suddenly stopped.

His door opened.

I thought, “I hope this happens quickly.”

The passenger door swung open.

He silently pulled me up from the floor and out of the truck.

I felt his body standing behind me.

He cocked his gun.

I squeezed my eyes shut hard, bracing for what was to come.

He spoke.

“I’m going to take the blindfold off.”

“You need to run fast and not look back.”

“If you do, I will kill you.”

The rope around my wrists fell away.

I was suddenly blinded by the morning sun.

There was a wooded hill in front of me.

I ran.

I kept waiting to hear the gunshot.

But it never came.

When I got to the top of the hill, I kept running.

I didn’t want to give him any line of sight.

I crouched.

I saw the truck leaving on the road below.

I threw myself on the ground.

Flattened myself against the dirt.

He couldn’t shoot what he couldn’t see.

Time passed.

I kept listening for the truck.

For footsteps close by.

But there was only silence.

A rush of tears hit me like a wall of water.

My body began to shake uncontrollably.

He had let me live.