Instinctively she knew that she must say nothing.
Seconds passed. She smelled sweat,
wine, coarse tobacco. The pavement
seemed to move. A man was pushing her, a
rough-skinned hand over her mouth. She
lashed out, stiffened, flailed her arms uselessly, tried to scream, tried to
defend herself against something that was totally alien .… she had no idea who
or what …. or where, or why …… there was something horribly wrong here. Somebody, something, was horribly wrong …….. she
tried bite the hand that was over her mouth.
She felt herself pushed in to a vehicle, landed heavily on her knees,
attempted again to to cry out, and she sensed the hot night air, the stars, and
heard – foolishly – a bird in a tree, making song in the Spanish night.
“Cierra la puerta!”
Movements. A car door. Men shuffling. Terror was like a cold cloth around her neck
and mouth.
She realized she must be in the back of a van. She heard the engine, she
felt the gear change and the picking up of speed. Had she gone mad ? She couldn’t think. Shock
made her stupid. She searched around
frantically in her mind, convinced she had got something wrong somewhere, this
was a joke ……….. and yet she knew that it wasn’t.
What the ………. ?!
As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw that there were two
other occupants. They sat silently
opposite her, watching her. Two men,
obscure in the darkness and smelling of the wine and tobacco she’s been aware
of on the pavement. They hung on to the
side of the van as it heaved and rattled on the uneven road, their faces
non-committal, black eyes, unshaven jaws, an odor of sweat about them,
expressionless.
She realized she was neither bound nor gagged.
“ What d’you want with me ?”
Her voice shook as she spoke. The
brown eyes looked at her, lips closed.
Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle, or can be ordered from most big book stores. ”The Man with Green Fingers”, a novel set in Cyprus is her best seller. More about Catherine, to include her entertaining blogs from around the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk
