Tell Me a Story

Fear

Once he had sat down, and the car started moving, Jake expected to feel fear, but it did not come. Instead a sense of calm washed over him as the car trundled along at a steady pace, and the rain pattered on the window sounding as if it was coming from a distant world.

The driver asked Jake where he lived – all part of the act – and Jake didn’t bother to answer. Instead he chuckled in a manner that did not befit his age and it was the driver that shivered in fear, not the little boy, as he heard it.

They drove for only twenty minutes before arriving at a large block of flats in a much more run down part of town than Jake came from. It was one of many areas his father had warned him to stay away from. His mother said it was where the drug addicts lived. Something she presumably knew because it was where she received supply for her own, expensive habit.

The back door opened and the blonde man was standing there. His smile now faded, all pretence disappeared. Now he looked tired, and regretful, like he had resigned himself to do something he had neither the energy nor the inclination for. Maybe kidnapping was not such a hobby for this man, Jake mused. He supposed in many cases it probably wasn’t.

“Come with me,” the man said plainly and Jake simply nodded.

He stepped out of the car and shook of the blonde man’s hand as it touched his shoulder, instead walking beside him, showing no sign of resistance or attempting to run. His kidnapper watched him warily to begin with, suspecting a ploy, but eventually looked away and walked slightly ahead, trust Jake would not be so stupid as to run.

They entered the run down block of flats and moved straight past a broken lift and the building’s mail boxes, most of which had either been battered in or ripped out at some point. The carpet below their feet was tatty and full of holes and the paper that covered the ceiling was colourless and – in several places – peeling away completely, lilting towards the ground as if preparing to jump.

The stairs were in equally bad condition and were in many places large stains stretched across the fabric. They walked up six flights of steps that smelt of urine, sick or both and by the time they reached the top floor, Jake was worried the smell might cause him to throw up himself.

Jake scurried into the flat as quick as he could when the blonde man opened the door and found himself in an apartment so small it would have fit inside his bedroom. Although, to be fair Jake’s bedroom was rather large, and his house was almost as large as this block of flats. 

The studio flat was made up of two rooms. The main area contained a small, single bed, with different sized legs meaning it leant horribly to the left; a kitchen area that contained only a sink which was missing its tap and a microwave; and a small armchair that looked as if it had been rescued from a skip, facing a black and white telly. The room had no light bulbs and the single dirty window next to the bed struggled to provide enough to see by.

Jake could hardly believe anyone lived like this.

The rough hand of his kidnapper fell on his shoulder and before Jake knew what was happening his phone had been snatched from his pocket and he was thrown down into the armchair facing the old, dusty television. It was incredibly uncomfy and he squirmed around, desperately trying to get into some sort of position where he didn’t feel like the chair was physically attacking him.

“The door’s locked so don’t move,” came the gruff voice of the kidnapper and before he turned and disappeared into the only other room in the flat. Jake got a glimpse of a disgusting cramped toilet that looked as if it was trying to escape from the wall before the door was slammed shut and Jake was left alone. 

Jake was up the moment the toilet door had closed. He had no intention of trying the door, knowing the kidnapper was not lying, but he also had no intention of staying in the horrible chair. Instead he moved over to the chair, staring past the dirty marks that covered it down to the street below which now looked more like a river than a road. Looking through the stained glass was like looking through some sort of foggy lens. It made the street below look blurred and misplaced, like it was out of sync with reality.

After a couple of minutes of standing, staring out of that window, Jake heard the toilet door open. He turned to face the blonde man, to see how the call had gone, but his expression gave nothing away. The kidnapper placed Jake’s phone in his pocket and walked over to the bed, which gave a horrible groan as he sat down.

“What’s your name?” Jake asked, not moving away from the window.

“Martin,” said the man and then, “were you thinking of trying to climb down?”

“No,” Jake said, moving away from the window. He studied the horrible arm chair before deciding he would be better off sitting on the floor. He lowered himself and crossed his legs. It was not much better, if not by very much.

“You don’t seem very scared,” said Martin, studying the boy intently.

“I’m not.” And it was true, he wasn’t, however much he felt that he should be. “I don’t scare easily, I guess,” he said with a small shrug.

Martin chuckled and stroked the blonde stubble that grew unevenly across his chin. He continued to study the boy and saw that he was telling the truth – he wasn’t scared. Martin was hardly well versed in kidnapping’s but he reckoned if their roles had been reversed, he would have been terrified.  

“What scares you then, kid?” Martin asked, “ghosts? Pirates? Vampires? Demons? The Devil himself? I got some stories that would keep you awake for a year, no doubt – stories about little boys who forgot that the world was filled with nasty monsters and were punished as a result.” He gave his most menacing grin as he spoke but Jake found it hardly affected him.

“Go on then,” he said.

“What?” Martin asked, confused.

“Tell me a story,” Jake said, leaning forward, “tell me something that will scare me.”

Martin felt uneasy as he studied the boy. There was something about him, something that freaked him out. He had got into Martin’s car without question and he had known straight away that he wasn’t being taken home. He was outside in the rain when he should have been tucked up in bed. What was this boy hiding from?

“Alright,” Martin said, after brief consideration. He wouldn’t let the boy get to him, he would scare the living hell out of the kid with one of his stories and then things would be how they were supposed to be. Kidnapper in charge, kidnappee scared for his life.

“This is the story of two little kids called Mary and Adam – one scared of nothing and one who just wanted to be liked,” Martin said, leaning forward on the bed, as Jake had done on the floor. “This is what happened when they heard noises coming from the ancient well at that bottom of the garden, and decided to find out what was down there.”

And so he began...