Chapter Eleven
Escape or Die
Evette limped slightly as she made her way home to her apartment that evening. They had left her cuffed to the chair for the whole day. She hurt all over, but at least she still had her life, whatever that was good for.
They expected her to come to work tomorrow to resume her old duties. With any luck by the time she was missed tomorrow she would already be well on the way to being out of the country with Mama and the kids.
All she was going back to her apartment for was to gather up a few items and to satisfy any tail that they may have put on her to make sure she was going home.
She went down the hall to her room. The door was ajar again. She slammed the door the rest of the way inward and stormed into her apartment. After everything that she had suffered through today she was in no mood for anymore of Missy’s foolishness.
“Missy!”
Evette didn’t see her anywhere. The light was on in the kitchen and she headed for it. She pushed through the doors and couldn’t help the scream that escaped her lips.
Missy was lying stretched out on top of the table. She had been tied to it and horribly tortured.
Her sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling in a clear testament that life was no longer present within her. Evette backed up slowly through the doors hers eyes on the horror before her.
Who had done this?
She thought she heard something in the room behind her and turned to see the source of the sound in a panic only to be met with a cloud of knockout gas.
She clung to the door fighting to stay conscious, but it was no use. She slipped the rest of the way to the floor all ability to reason leaving her.
Evette lifted her head slightly from where it had been resting against her chest. It was hard to lift her head because of how tight her arms were about her head.
Dimly she realized, as she looked around that she was hanging from the ceiling where her chandelier had once been.
The chandelier was gone, with only its chain left, to which she was cuffed to. She had been stripped down to her panties and bra and the realization of that caused an inadvertent moan to escape out from her bruised lips, as she remembered the vision of what had been done to poor Missy lying in the kitchen.
She couldn’t feel her hands and her arms hurt horribly.
“Well, look at what we have here. A traitorous slut if I ever saw one!”
It was Robert her fellow agent!
Robert had done this?
It was hard to talk but she managed to get out, “Why are you doing this Robert? Missy? Why?”
He waved a hand dismissively, “Missy was just me having some fun while I waited. Sort of like a mouse for the cat to play with, while it waits for its main target to appear, the traitorous little rat that she is!”
“You think I’m a traitor? I haven’t done anything to betray my country!”
“Oh yes you have! I intend on getting the whole story out of you too! I’m going to make my career with you! When the Committee finds out how you’ve been in cahoots with the strangers among us they’ll have no choice but to appoint me as chief inspector for the Committee.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Now let me go!”
“You’ll squeal little rat in time! It appears that the office has already worked you over some, but you haven’t felt anything yet.”
As he said it he ran one hand caressingly over a deep bruise on her side above her hip that she had gotten with the fight with the stranger.
Her body convulsed at his touch and she tried to swing away from it, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t kick him either, because her ankles were cuffed together. She felt on the verge of throwing up at the sensation of his hand on her.
“Don’t like to be touched do you? I learned all about that from Missy. I wonder why? Maybe later I’ll see if I can bring back some old memories for you, but right now all I want is your full and complete confession.”
He left her and she was grateful for the absence of his touch, but apprehensive over what was to come next. He went to the couch and grabbed the electrical wire that had fed the chandelier. He approached her with the jagged ends of the bared wires.
He shrugged his shoulders and with a nasty grin on his face said, “I know its crude, but it’s always proven effective.”
He jabbed the jaggedly sharp copper wire ends of the insulated wire in his hands into the dark bruise on her side.
Her body convulsed from the agony of the electric shock and she screamed. Robert pulled the wire away and Evette hung limply from her wrists crying in pain.
“Are you going to tell me about your arrangement with the strangers yet or not?”
Tears falling from her face Evette shook her head, “I don’t know what you mean!”
“Maybe that wasn’t a tender enough spot.”
His fingers stroked along the edge of her panties and she sobbed.
He patted her, “I think I’ll save this for later. The experience should be a torture for you all of its own I think.”
His hand rose up over her belly to her chest.
“Don’t do this Robert, please!” Evette said unable to stop herself from pleading even though she knew it would do her no good.
“I have to Evette, my destiny awaits me and besides I’ve always wanted to see!”
His hand closed over the front of her bra and yanked hard. The straps of the bra broke and it came away in his hand.
Evette screamed and jerked as the wires were jabbed into the side of one breast and then the other one. The action was repeated again and again.
Blood or sweat or more likely a combination of them both must have trickled down the wire cord and created a live connection with Robert’s hand, because he gave a shout and jumped back shaking his hand violently, as he dropped the wire cord temporarily.
“Wow! That does hurt! I pity you honey. I really do.” He said laughing.
In shaking the electric jolt out of his hand he had turned in the process and his back was now facing Evette. There was no thought to her actions other than those guided by the need to survive and stop the pain.
In an effort of superhuman quality she gripped the chains of the cuffs ignoring the pain the action caused her chaffed wrists and pulled herself upward.
She worked out regularly and it showed now as the muscles of her abdomen flexed hard, as she lifted her legs up before her, still cuffed together as they were. With a contortion of her torso she lifted and swung her legs up towards Robert’s head. As her first leg cleared his head she bowed her legs open so that Robert’s head slid in between her thighs.
“What the……!” was all Robert managed to get out before the toned thighs clamped shut around his neck cutting off his air.
Robert was knocked to his knees as Evette’s bottom was seated on his left shoulder, as her left leg was slung across the front of his neck, with her foot locked behind his right shoulder blade, as she pressed hard with her thigh back against the one behind his neck.
Robert’s hands rose to grasp at the thigh across his throat, as he tried to pull her leg free, but her thigh remained clamped over his throat. Evette screamed gutturally in a mixture of both pain and raw physical exertion, as she pressed her thighs together as tight as she could.
Robert’s attempts to free himself dimmed as his oxygen deprivation increased. He finally blacked out at almost the same moment as Evette’s strength gave out.
Robert’s unconscious body fell to the floor as Evette hung for a moment trying to get her breathing back under control.
She had to get free before he came awake again!
Desperation gave strength to her worn out muscles and she began swinging back and forth from the chain overhead even as she cried out at the pain of the cuffs cutting into her wrists. She heard a screw snap out of the fixture overhead and then the whole fixture gave way.
Fortunately she landed against the sofa which broke her fall, but it still hurt. In an effort to get up she fell off the sofa onto the hard wood floor with a loud thump.
Lifting her head she saw Robert beginning to stir slightly, which set her moving again.
Scooting as best as she could across the floor with her wrists and ankles bound she made it to Robert’s side. Her hands felt dead and alien to her as she forced her fingers to move, as she searched his pockets in search of the keys.
She found them!
Pulling the little key out she fumbled with it to unlock her hands. Her task was made harder by the slipperiness of the key that was now soaked in her own blood from the deep lacerations on her wrists.
The cuffs finally sprang open and she hurriedly unlocked her ankles, as her hands started to work better for her again. Robert was lifting his head off the floor, when she jumped on his back and twisted his left arm up and behind his back so hard that she dislocated his shoulder.
Robert came to full consciousness then with a pain filled screech of agony. He tried to move but couldn’t because of the continued pressure on his arm and the weight on his back. Before he could recover from the first shock he was beset by another.
Evette’s right hand disappeared between Robert’s thighs from behind, as her fingers searched for his distinction of being a male. Finding what she was after she gripped down cruelly, her nails digging into the soft flesh despite the layer of the pants that he wore separating his skin from her hand.
Robert’s scream was high pitched and pained, when after the initial momentary pause of first reaction, the pain fully registered across all corners of his consciousness.
“Scream little kitty cat!” Evette said savagely, as she twisted hard. And scream Robert did.
He was moaning and shaking uncontrollably when she finally relaxed her twisting grip slightly. “Now Robert I need you to explain to me how I’m supposedly so connected to the strangers that you thought you should pay me a little visit!”
“You mean you really don’t know?”
Evette’s grip tightened again and Robert screamed, “I’ll tell you! Please stop!”
She held her grip a moment longer and then relaxed it slightly.
Robert began to blubber out his tale, “I thought something was fishy in the way you handled the store owner. I went back and had the shop scanned more thoroughly. The scan turned up an anomaly, the trace of an abnormal radioactive isotope. I had the scan broadcasted outward to pick up any other signs of the radioactive signature. The scan took a while to complete, but when it was complete it showed two definite contacts. This apartment and another location in the slums.”
Evette demanded, “What did you do about the contact in the slums?”
After a momentary hesitation he responded, “I sent a team to investigate. I haven’t heard back from them yet.”
“What was the source of the contact?” She asked feeling dread begin to fill her up inside.
“Gold, but it’s got a slight radioactive signature to it likely gained from passing through space on the way here from wherever the strangers came from. I thought you took it as a payoff for some service you agreed to do for the strangers. I’m sorry!”
“I bet you are!” Said Evette, as she gripped and twisted hard.
Robert let loose with another high pitched scream of agony. Evette let go of him and got to her knees.
“I’m going to let you go now Robert.”
Blubbering he responded, “Oh thank you! I’ll make this up to you I swear!”
He started to rise hampered by his injured arm, but his movement was arrested as Evette grasped his head with both hands and said, “To hell!” and twisted sharply breaking his neck.
She let his lifeless body fall to the floor, as she stumbled to her feet.
The children and Mama were in danger!
All because of her!
She had to get to them!
She avoided the sight that the kitchen would offer and headed for her bedroom instead. Her whole body hurt terribly, but her chest was truly throbbing in agony.
She sobbed in pain, as she pulled a shirt on and then a pair of pants. Shoving her feet into a pair of running shoes she grabbed a coat on her way out the door. The Committee car assigned to her fired up as she turned the key.
She drove faster than anyone should through the narrow hilly streets of the city. She didn’t even look to see if she was followed in her mad dash to the slum section of the city.
Reaching the slums she roared up streets and spun her tires down byways that hadn’t seen the passage of a car in years.
The car spun out on a sharp curve and slammed into the corner of a building. Evette picked her head up off the steering wheel and saw steam rising from around the edges of the smashed up hood.
The car was done for. She was close to the old church anyway.
Evette had to shove hard to get the door open. Walking around the car she made her way up the deserted and rundown street. When she reached sight of the church she groaned in despair.
The boarded up front doors of the church had been torn open once more. Before she had left the apartment she had taken Robert’s pistol. Pulling it out of her waistband she cautiously approached the open doors, even though what she wanted to do most was to just run heedlessly into the church.
She made it to the doors and peered in. She didn’t hear or see anyone.
Had they taken the children and Mama away?
Slowly she moved into the old church and the unholy scene unfolded before her.
A low keening wail of, “No!” came over and over to her lips.
Lowering the barrel of the gun Evette walked through the scene of the destruction of everything she held dear in her life. Children lay as they were wherever they had been when they had been shot.
Here and there and everywhere throughout the church. On the floor, hung over pews, and up against walls.
Tears falling steady down her face Evette made her way through the scene of wanton slaughter. Making it to the second story she saw more of the same.
Finally she made it to where Mama lay on the floor of the old kitchen that had served children for so many years.
The gun slipped from her fingers to fall onto the floor unnoticed, as she fell to her knees beside Mama.
Her body wracked by sobs, Evette managed to sputter out, “I’m so sorry Mama! I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault! I brought this down on you and the children! I was just trying to make a way for us! I didn’t mean for this to happen! I’m so sorry Mama! You and the children were all I had! What do I do now Mama? What’s left? They’ve taken everything!”
In her near hysteria her fingers touched the fallen gun by her side. She picked the gun up and cradled it in her hands.
Why not?
She’d fought hard and survived all these years for what?
Her eyes drifted back to Mama. Mama wouldn’t approve of her doing this.
Something about Mama caught her attention suddenly. Mama was laying on her front with her face turned towards her. One arm was stretched out and the other was by her side.
The outstretched hand was in the shape of a fist except for one finger that pointed towards the old cupboard under the sink on the other side of the room.
Evette laid the gun back down and got up and went to the sink. Kneeling down she opened the cupboard door and looked in. Crouched in the back corner of the cupboard were two little children.
A little black boy of about six called Tyrone and a little white girl that couldn’t have been more than three. The little boy was holding the girl tight to him with one arm, while the other hand clutched an old hammer defensively.
“Yevy?” The little boy asked uncertainly.
She opened her arms and the little boy flew into them followed by the little girl, who she didn’t even know. Evette held them tight to her despite the pain it caused and rocked back and forth consolingly whispering into their hair.
Her teary eyes caught something she hadn’t noticed before.
A little red flashing light.
Her eyes flared wide at the realization of what it must be symbolic of. In a burst of adrenaline she got to her feet still holding onto the little girl and clutching Tyrone’s hand tightly as she started for the rooftop exit.
“We have to go!”
Out on the roof she started climbing down the outside face of the adjoining building. It was hard with the little girl in her arms, but she managed it somehow.
She set the little girl down, who didn’t want her to let go, but Evette insisted because she needed to go back for Tyrone.
Looking up it was only to discover that the brave little boy hadn’t waited for her, but was already halfway down the building.
He’d reached about as far as he could though safely and fearing that there was not much time left Evette opened her arms and the boy let go trustingly and fell down towards her.
The impact of the boy drove her to the ground and forced a cry of pain from her tightly clamped lips.
The boy was crying, “I’m so sorry Yevy!” as he clamored off of her causing her more pain in the process.
“No it’s alright Tyrone.” She managed to get out as she got to her feet.
She didn’t think she could carry even the slight weight of the little blond haired girl so she grabbed both of their hands and walked down the street as fast as the little girl could go.
They hadn’t gone sixty feet when the old church behind them blew into a million pieces and collapsed in on itself.
Evette tugged the two children along even as they tried to look back over their shoulders at the fireball that rose up out of the destroyed church. The only true home they had ever known.
Pausing several blocks away Evette let the children rest. She needed the rest too.
She felt like she was running on gas fumes alone, but she couldn’t stop now. She had to see the children to safety.
Where was safe anymore though?
She couldn’t go back to her apartment. She had no friends to speak of and she had no money other than what was in her pocket and that wasn’t much.
Where on Earth was there a place that she could she take these children that would be safe? And then a solution hit her squarely between the eyes.
Why not somewhere else than Earth itself?
Instinctively she knew she could trust the strangers with children, which was more than she could say of pretty much anyone else in the city. They would be safe with the strangers away from this world gone mad.
She thought about it for a moment longer. It really was her only option, but where had the strangers gone to?
How would she find them in the night before they likely left the city in the morning?
Then something the Committee member had said came back to her. He had asked her if she knew of what the sanctuary was that one of the men had said that they had found.
What would be a sanctuary to men from a different world on a Holy mission?
It had to have an absence of people and be a place where nobody went to, but still be in the city. She thought about what she knew of the men and what would be a fitting sanctuary.
She remembered the shopkeeper’s story and the particular reason these men had given for being here, which she had discounted before as a lie. She glanced up from her pondering. She thought she knew where they were and it wasn’t so far from here either.
She got the children back up on their feet and started off towards where she thought the strangers would be. She tried to block out of her mind the bargaining chip she would have to offer if they refused to take the children with them, but the deal she would no doubt have to make came back to haunt her throughout the course of the walk.