Captive

Chapter 9

The television screen came to life, a soft hum vibrated from the chair, and the opening credits began to roll. Bridget found this bearable since nothing was happening yet. Then it started; the first stereotypical slasher victims died—the lovers. Bridget, fully aware that closing her eyes meant a jolt to her body, convinced herself that if she looked away and counted to three and looked back, she would be fine. She focused her glance to the left as far as her peripheral vision would allow. Her lips mimicked the words. One. Two. Three. She turned back to the screen with no encouragement from the clamps. The patient took this as a good sign, and she decided to only look away when the movie became more than she could mentally handle.

She knew the premise behind a slasher movie because every single one of them had the same formula. A group of teenagers do a bunch of idiotic things and ignore all the foreshadowing and warning signs. Then they are picked off one-by-one—the stupid person walking alone by himself, the lovers who sneak away to have unprotected sex (they are usually killed in or right after the act), the macho man who thinks he can save the day, and the last girl standing is usually fairly attractive and barely clothed. She runs away from an assailant who always seems to keep up the pace. The girl causes some bodily injury to her attacker and typically gets injured. Then she narrowly escapes death by killing the bastard. Of course, the movie cannot end without some hint that the super-human killer is still alive and lurking nearby. Bridget knew all of this, and somewhere inside her mind, she knew there really was not a reason to be afraid. Still, despite her folks and friends telling her that "it wasn't real," her imagination always got the best of her. She would not sleep all night if one of these movies popped into her head. Some caused worse reactions than others, but ultimately, they all invaded Bridget's mind, and her fear at the forefront of her brain's amygdala.

Five milliamperes of electricity shot through her body in macroshock caused by metal clamps sending a pulse of electricity through her bare skin. Her fingers gripped the armrest while her toes curled under her feet. Her body tried to convulse forward, but the harness and leather straps kept her firmly against the chair. She yelped as the current vibrated through her body. Bridget did not realize she had zoned out with her eyes focused away from the television screen, and she paid for it. Her face contorted with pain, surprise, and confusion. The jolt lasted only seconds, but the feeling radiated in her fingertips and toes. She felt this once before when she was younger. Bridget was working in a restaurant one summer during college. A heat lamp was not working, so she blindly reached under the table and used her hand to make sure it was plugged in properly. She gripped the plug to check its position in the outlet only to find one of the prongs and the grounding pin protruding in open space. Someone connected the lamp to the outlet through far right opening, completely missing the other two. She had the same reaction then as she did strapped to the chair.

It was now imperative that Bridget at least focus her eyes on the screen. She remembered what Matthews said to her. Confined and linked to the torture device, the patient tried to create a wall between her eyes and the television. She relaxed her body and imagined she was sitting in a movie theater staring at a blank screen. The lights came down, and a film started. Bridget saw her happiest moments come to life before her eyes. Images of fishing with her father appeared. She caught her first fish and jumped when it wriggled on the hook. Her father laughed as he released it and threw it back into the water. The stream transformed into macadam. Bridget was in her early teens; she and her best friend rode their bicycles through mud puddles after a summer rain. Now she was in high school, spinning an aluminum color guard flag on the football field during pre-game. The flag morphed into a fire baton—Bridget's fondest memory of marching band. She twirled the flaming baton horizontally and then between each of her fingers. She tossed it high and caught it before it hit the ground. The crowd smiled in amazement. Bridget was the best member of that squad. No person that twirled with her or after her shared the same passion or discipline.