Disposable toys

Short story

At six in the evening, the time when my mother always started her shift at the downtown hospital. I was nine years old at the time.

My mother changed and went to the hospital, leaving me home alone with the crackling battery-powered radio that was heavily used back then. I went out to play ball in the street, alone since no one was allowed to play at that time, including me. But my mother wasn't home, so she wouldn't know I was breaking her rules.

My ball rolled far away, and as I went after it, a black pickup truck approached, with a long-nosed man with black, straight hair inside. He said to me, "Your mother asked you to come with me, kid."
My mother had always told me not to trust strangers:
"Oh, really? And where did she ask me to go?"
"To be with her, of course."
"Hmm... And where is she?" I asked suspiciously.
"Don't annoy me with your questions, kid, and get in the truck." He was crazy, and his eyes were terrifying.
Of course, I didn't get in. I ran back home, but he caught me before I could reach the door. He slammed my head on the ground about three times. I felt the blood flowing and saw everything in a daze, then I blacked out. When I woke up, I was in a pigsty surrounded by bars, and inside were some boys and also pigs.
Covered in mud and feces, in overwhelming darkness, I listened to the sobbing sobs of the children and the grunts of the pigs. The wound on my forehead was definitely infected because it was stinging a lot. In the darkness, I saw the thin silhouette of the man who had kidnapped me. He entered the pigsty and took two boys like me in his hands. He tied the hands of one and the feet of the other.
From behind the bars, I saw the man tearing the boys' clothes and then abusing them. I saw some blood. The children inside the pigsty screamed and cried almost as much as the boys who were suffering at the hands of that man.
The man reveled in his depravity with an unpleasant look on his face. The two boys seemed numb and static. The man closed his zipper and picked up an axe.
A shiver ran down my spine. The boys' blood splattered all over the wall, their clothes, and even the face of the deranged killer. He brutally slaughtered the little boys, and after chopping them into pieces, he returned them to the pigsty. Soon, the pigs attacked, and then, swallowing their tears, some starving children dared to eat a piece or two of the flesh of their former "cellmates."
"You'd better eat," I was startled when a blond boy like me said, "He won't feed us again."
The little boy tried, but no matter how hungry I was, I still couldn't eat human flesh.
"I'm not eating that," I said, looking at a piece of muddy meat. "It's too disgusting."
"I'm not eating it either," he admitted and tried to smile. He extended his hand. "I'm Miguel."
"Thales," I smiled back at him and shook his hand.
Two days had passed since the aforementioned incident. I hadn't been raped or killed, and neither had Miguel.
On the third day in the early hours of the morning, everyone was asleep, including the sociopath who kept us there. I looked at the moon and asked for a way to escape. That's when I accidentally saw the padlock.
It was exactly like the padlock my mother used to lock the cookie and treats cabinet. A padlock I had learned to open without a key the previous year. I instinctively thanked the heavens for this opportunity to escape. I woke up Miguel, wanting him to escape with me.
"I'm going to escape from here! I've decided to leave the gate of the pigsty open for anyone else who wants to escape too. I'm going to escape from here!" Miguel came with me to the gate. "I'm going to escape from here!" I told Miguel to watch the third window of the farmhouse, the one in the killer's room. "I'm going to escape from here!"
I took a deep breath. If something went wrong, I would surely die. I fiddled with the padlock, much like the pigs rooted through the mud looking for a piece of the dead children's flesh that afternoon. The first attempt failed but made a very loud noise. The children were gradually waking up to see what was happening. The pigs became increasingly agitated, grunting and thrashing, making a lot of noise. Then, to my dismay, Miguel said:
"The light came on, let's go..."
I continued with the madness of opening the padlock. I heard the panicked footsteps of the psychopath. He definitely didn't want to lose his disposable toys.
"I did it!" I said. "I finally broke the padlock."
I could already taste freedom, and it felt good, but it vanished when I heard the farm door open. The shadow of the murderer was revealed, and he had a shotgun with him.
"Run, Miguel!" I said, holding my new friend's hand.
We started running. The long-nosed farmer blocked the path of the other children and locked the padlock again. Then, he started chasing Miguel and me. Some shots scared us, but we didn't stop running. Miguel stumbled, but I kept running and shouting. Miguel regained his strength, pushed through the pain, and started running again, even though he was limping.
When Miguel caught up to me at my running speed, I looked back for a second and saw his face. What I saw was hope... and then blood. Miguel had just taken a bullet to the head. I didn't even think about taking his body with me; it would slow me down.
After a few minutes of running, I realized I wasn't being chased anymore.
I sat on the crest of a hill with a privileged view of the farm. Fire! The pigsty, all the pigs, and the children were in blazing flames. All dead. I escaped alone without caring about the poor souls that would suffer for it.
The sound of a train whistle came from behind the hill. I didn't waste time and ran into one of the several freight cars. The train took me far away, and that's what I wanted.

                                                           X-X-X

I decided not to go back to my mother's house. She had probably suffered a lot from my disappearance, and besides, I wouldn't be able to find my way back, and the police at the time were quite mediocre when it came to that; I would end up in an orphanage or something worse.
The city the train took me to was small and peaceful. Since I needed to eat, I had to work. I didn't want to beg or depend on anyone.
I worked in various ways, from crafting to babysitting as I got older. Many things happened in my life since then. And today, ten years after that incident, I'm already in college and working in a stable job, even if it's in one of those greasy diners in the countryside. However, not a day has passed when I haven't thought about everything that happened.
I still have nightmares today. And at night, when the lights go out, I hear voices and grunts, see silhouettes, but what I see really often is an image of Miguel with his bloody head beside my bed.