Page 3 of Pounded in the Patch
He's taking me to the middle of fucking nowhere. It’s nearly pitch black outside, and I can’t see shit through the tinted windows.
He’s taking me somewhere no one will hear me scream.
Once again, every true crime story I've ever heard flashes through my mind—they always take them somewhere isolated. Away from help, away from witnesses, away from any hope of rescue.
This is really happening.
This is actually happening tome.
I feel the car slow even more, the gravel giving way to the tires. We're climbing now, I think, based on the way my abs flex to keep my body from rolling backward. Up into hills or mountains, away from civilization, away fromsafety.
How far is he taking me? How long have we been driving?
Without any reference points, it's impossible to tell. I could be five miles from my house or fifty. I could be in the same state or halfway across the country by now.
Focus on what you can control.
When he stops the car, when he comes for me, I need to be ready.
Ready for what? Ready to fight? Ready to run? Ready to negotiate my way out of this?
No, I realize.
Ready tosurvive.
The car takes another turn, this one sharper, and I can hear tree branches scraping against the sides of the vehicle. We're in a forest now, deep enough that branches touch the car as we drive past them. The sound is ominous, like skeletal fingers trying to claw their way inside.
Perfect. A forest. Because that's exactly where every horror movie villain takes their victims.
Despite my terror, or maybe because of it, I find myself trying to memorize every detail I can gather. The softer engine sound tells me we're going slower now, maybe ten or fifteen miles per hour. The terrain is rough and getting worse—this isn’t a maintained road.
The car slows further, and I can hear something new—music? No, not music. It's distant, muffled by the car windows, but it's definitely not natural.
I think we're almost there.
Wherever 'there' is.
My heart starts hammering even faster, if that's even possible. This is it.
The sounds are getting clearer now—Halloween recordings.
Wolves howling, psychotic laughter, ghosts booing, and beneath it all, a low tune that sounds like it’s straight out of a slasher movie.
The car makes one final turn, and I can feel the difference even with my eyes closed—the sense of space around us, the way sound carries differently in a clearing.
We're here.
What kind of psychopath has background music playing at their murder site?
Don’t call it that. You don't know that's what this is.
But you know, don't you? Deep down, you know this isn't going to end with him letting you go.
The car finally, mercifully, comes to a stop. The engine cuts off, and sudden silence rushes in like a wave, broken only by the tick of cooling metal and my own ragged breathing.
This is it.
Whatever happens next, this is where it starts, but it doesn’t have to be where it ends.
