The Missing Pieces

Then she was walking in darkness and knowing the rain only from the sound of it and deducing that she must at least be under shelter. She thought that she heard cars in the distance. Maybe a highway. Where am I going? She turned around and looked into the darkness behind her.

Hello?

There was nothing to be seen there and nothing to be heard. What have I done? She ran.

She emerged into the streets after the rain had ceased. The golden light of the streetlamps glistened on the wet bitumen. Already there were hundreds of winged insects swarming around one of the lamps of which the housing was broken. That snowy mass gyrated around its barren epicentre. She could hear them hissing.

This was a bad place. It had the feeling of a ghost town save that it was lit strangely golden by those lamps of the night. A void called out to her from every fractured window and every split slat. Called and threatened and she looked away.

She stopped and studied one of the houses. An ordinary house among the others yet this one she was studying. She crept up the drive to the door and touched the frame. It was wet like the rest of it and soft. She drew back her hand from that sweating rot and noticed a dark slime on her fingertips. She fell reaching a solitary hand towards the ground as the tension went out of her and she sank into nothing.

When she woke she was tied to a chair and she winced under the lights. A monster of a man who was dressed in a suit stood at her front. He wore a white mask that she could never see the details of. She could hear his breathing and there was something queer about it. He asked who she was and she told him her name and then she spoke in detail about the mission she was undertaking. She was accustomed to the light by now and she admitted that she could not find what they had been looking for. The man looked away and was silent. After a while he left and the light went out.

She could see the city from the car but everything was blurry. She leaned forwards to speak to the driver.

Where are my glasses?

You don’t wear glasses.

She closed her eyes.

When they reached her apartment she unlocked the door and they went in. There was a brown paper box sitting on the counter top no larger than a glasses case. She reached for it but the driver picked it up and slipped it into the breast pocket of his suit. Then he turned to them and explained with honour what he had found and they agreed to take her back to the country.

She tried to run into the bedroom but the bigger man grabbed her. A hand over her mouth stopped her scream.

Her mouth was gagged with a t-shirt and her hands were bound with a zip tie.

Then she was in the boot and she was shaking intensely and the plastic sheet on which she lay crackled as it creased. She thought about how she might escape. She searched for the emergency lever under that slightest of lights but could find nothing. She pushed at the zip tie and it tightened. Then she felt around for the lever but did not find it. She felt to the edge of the mat that covered the emergency tyre and proceeded to explore that compartment and again found nothing. She felt at the carpet at the upper corner. She pulled it back and there was a plug in a socket and some wiring.

He turned off the highway into the outer suburbs. He was thinking about his wife but he did not feel so good thinking about her so he stopped.

He flashed the emergency lights and the black sedan that was in front of him pulled over and he parked behind it. He noted down the plate number and got out of the car. He noticed a big man in the back seat and when he reached the window it was already wound down. The driver was trying to keep still but the cop could tell that he was scared. He explained that he was a deputy from the local station and that he had pulled him over because his tail lights were out. The driver frantically flicked a switch and asked the deputy whether the problem had been solved. The deputy walked to the rear of the car and shook his head and returned to the window.

In the boot of the car she pulled off the gag and cried out for help.

The deputy looked back for a moment and the driver dove for the glove box but the deputy was already onto him and had seized his seat belt and ripped him away from it and he was barking at the driver to stop while the driver wrestled against the belt and when the deputy drew his gun and pointed it in the driver’s face and screamed louder at him the driver started pleading and crying and the deputy ordered him to shut off the engine.

The back door swung open and the big man charged out at the deputy and the deputy rotated to deal with him and quickly shot him dead. The driver stepped on the accelerator but before the car had travelled even a metre the deputy was riding his belt again and had the gun in his face.

Later on in the hospital she tried to assemble the puzzle from its pieces but there were no answers to be found. She would wake in the boot of the car trying to escape. She thought about the past and found herself unable to differentiate the truth from the lie. Any definite recollection of the events could only be questioned at the expense of her sanity. She eventually concluded that since the puzzle could not be solved it really was no puzzle at all and so she moved on pursued only by her shadow.