Amplify

"Don't talk to strangers" a phrase that had been drilled into Mercedes' head for as long as she could remember.

"Even if they offer you candy!" her mother would always interject, right at the end of her little speech.

Yes, yes, the latchkey kid lecture. She could recite the whole thing by the time she was 9. But she wasn't 9 anymore and he hadn't been offering candy. Now that she thought about it, bound in the back of his van, he hadn't offered her anything. He'd simply looked at her with black pits for eyes and with smiling lips curled around dagger like teeth simply said;

"Come."

And with that, she dropped her groceries and car keys on the pavement of the grocery store parkinglot and went with him without incident.