Raven Flight

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Meeting the Enemy

When I awoke, I was lying on the floor of an over-sized cage in a dark room. It appeared to be a cage made possibly for a large dog; the bars were made of thick, strong metal that glinted ominously in the dim light. Though the bars were strong enough that only an oncoming truck would be able to bend open the metal enough for me to crawl out, as I glanced at the lock, I wondered if whoever had kidnapped me was smart enough to realize that, unlike a large dog, I had opposable thumbs. Instead of escaping like my mind was pleading its case for me to do, I decided to stick around to see who exactly I was dealing with. A stream of light flowed in a bright beam through the slightly swinging door that was hung unprofessionally on the uncooperative hinges, and I could see shadows of people dancing around energetically in the adjoining room. A thin trail of light slipped out from the crack and glinted off of the waxy surface of the linoleum, like some old school hallway that they had just cleaned. A trail of dark scuffs led to the door, and I turned my attention back to the senseless rambling that was permeating the air. I realized that it must have been their loud conversing that had awoken me from my peaceful slumber.

“I'm not a patient man!” a high, raspy voice shouted above the rest, “I want you to wake her up and escort her to her captivity room IMMEDIATELY!” I rolled my eyes, at once I remembered that these people were supposed to be Mrs. Smith's equals, or as I now knew her as, Mrs. Mildred Whitely. I could hear the other men mumble and try to come up with excuses, but the head man's reprimands came quick and loud, grating against the opposing tones, willing to get his way. I could tell that it wasn't far into the conversation, but I wasn't ready to listen to much more. Annoyed that the argument was getting nowhere for either side, I decided to take action myself.

“Hey people!” I yelled in an enjoyably snooty tone, “I'm already awake, so quit your bickering like a bunch of drooling toddlers!” I couldn't help but smile at myself. I rarely got to use insults, but when I did, I made the best of it. A stunned silence followed my unexpected outburst, and I could tell I had gotten their attention quite effectively. However, it didn't take them long to get over their expected surprise, and a moment later, a stomping flurry of feet raced from the room and through the door, coming to rest a few feet from the bars of my prison.

They all put on strong faces as soon as they stopped, and I could see the forced smirks slipping off the other two's faces, and they stepped back to give their oppressor the spotlight. After a moment, he flicked on the light switch so that I could see him better, well I know that's not the reason he turned the light on, but that's what I used it for. The room lit with a glaringly bright light, and I got an eyeful more than I would have liked of the evident leader of the pack as he moved closer to lean over my cage, his knees creaking humorously, though he probably wasn't a day over 40. I stared at him with a bored look in my eye, but I knew that we were both rating and speculating the situation, looking each other over as enemies. An oily comb-over filled his otherwise shiny bald head, and his overly green eyes bulged from their sockets with a crazed, bloodshot gleam. His shoulders were hunched over-dramatically with shoulder pads, and plastic metals dangled pathetically from his breast pocket. From my position underneath him, I wished he trimmed his nose hair, but I was given the honor of the view. Glancing away from his face, my eyes traveled down over his meticulously pressed green khaki pants to his bulbous-toed black, scuffed shoes (he must have been the one to have made all of those scuff marks leading to his office). From the way he was dressed, he seemed to me to be shooting in the range of a Hitler on steroids look, and from what what I could tell, he had nailed it, spot on.

My scrutinizing thankfully over, I couldn't help but shudder and try to erase his image forever scarred into the insides of my eyelids; He disgusted me. My shudder he mistakenly took as a sign of fear, and he let out a poor excuse of an evil laugh. I guessed it had taken him all week in his mother's basement to perfect it, and from the look of it, I was probably right. It had that desperate, friendless wheeze to it that must have been a reminder of his own sad life when he really listened to it.

“The boss was right!” he said slyly. Maybe I had been wrong about it actually being a sad reminder to himself, but that just made it feel even more pathetic. “You do have a tongue in your head.” Obviously he did as well, because he continued in a monologue about himself that I could have compared with being as interesting as any History lesson ever taught in the history of History. I could tell he was trying to act superior; maybe even clever, and in his own mind, he probably thought he was succeeding too. I listened with only one ear open, and half of the things he was saying were sailing right over my head. One way or another, I was going to make him see that he wasn't the boss of me, and I didn't care what he said, no matter how important they were to himself. If he really wanted to explain his importance to someone, he could bore himself until the mirror cracked. However, I definitely wasn't a mirror, and I didn't look anything like him, so I hoped that he didn't think that I was. I really hadn't gotten any of those types of people either, both the people who can sit and talk about themselves for hours, and the people who will sit there and let them talk, pretending like they actually cared about anything and everything the person had to say. In a short period of time, my obvious lack of fascination in what he was saying became apparent to him, and he caught on quickly, his mouth snapping shut in abrupt realization.

“I was wondering when you would stop,” I said nonchalantly, “You were about to give me a headache!” I chuckled at him and raised my eyes to face him head on for the first time. His chubby droops of cheeks sagged in a stunned pout, and I sighed at how unprofessional the “commanders” were in this place. I stared unfearingly back at him as he turned to the other two men listening behind him, and looked down his nose at them as if he needed to impose his authority on someone in whatever obvious way.

“Take this prisoner to her cell,” he commanded in a quiet but self-appointed authoritative tone. I stuck my nose in the air, and ducking out of the now open door of the cage, walked quickly out of the room, and down the nearest hallway. The guards, or whatever they were, ran to catch up with me so that they could actually lead me to my room. Just as the men had reached me with already out-of-breath huffs and seized either of my arms, we reached the end of the long, bare corridor. Suddenly, and without explanation, my eyes flew open and I couldn't help but release a loud frightened gasp that barreled its way up out of the depths and exited my mouth without my consent.

A heavy, dark gait echoed in my head and I started kicking, pulling, and biting into my live restraints. I did all I could do to get out of the arms of the two escorts that were now gripping my skin and muscle in a very painful and pinched way. An evil laugh over-powered my thoughts and the fear rained down so thickly upon me that I found it hard not to collapse under the weight of the fright. Before I knew it, I had given in unknowingly, and my sight blurred and my body went unnaturally limp, sending me flopping onto the cold, hard floor. My head cracked against the ground with an explosion of red behind my eyelids, and I inhaled in a whispered gasp of breath. The last thing I knew before cascading into a veil of darkness, was a deep voice that sent dark ice daggers shooting into my skull.

“I'll take it from here boys,” was the last thing that echoed as I sank away from the consciousness of the pain.