Final Chaos

10

Jessica had woken up in the back of a strange car. A station wagon, to be exact.

She was wearing her bicycle helmet, and her entire body hurt, like she’d been run over by a truck.

Her head throbbed, and there was blood on her torn pants.

It hurt to shift her body.

At first, she didn’t think she’d be able to move. She lay on her back, with her legs folded up awkwardly underneath her thighs, twisted together like a pretzel.

She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pain.

How had she gotten here?

What had happened?

But nothing came to her.

It was a strange sensation.

The last thing she remembered was getting ready to go to work at the bike shop.

Had that been today? Or yesterday? Or even longer than that?

She started mentally asking herself questions, like who the president was, what country she lived in, and what her name was.

She knew the answers. They came readily.

She knew who she was.

She was Jessica. She worked as a bike mechanic. She knew all about bikes. She lived in Rochester above a pizza shop.

But still she didn’t know what had happened to her.

She felt herself starting to panic. It was a horrible sensation, not to know what had happened.

Mentally, she took a step back and tried to piece together what she knew.

Given her injuries, she must have been in some sort of accident. It seemed likely that whatever memory problems she was experiencing were a result of the accident.

But why wasn’t she at the hospital? Or lying on the road somewhere?

Her mind went back to the one memory that was clearer than any others she’d ever had. It was that night in the dark alley when she’d been attacked. That night was the reason that she’d bought the gun that she now had.

The gun.

She opened her eyes suddenly and felt for the gun in her pocket. It was still there, small and compact, but with a good weight to it.

She drew it, holster and all, from her pocket.

With her left hand shaking, she grasped the holster and with her right, she drew the small Glock from the holster.

It felt good to have it in her hand.

That memory of that one night haunted her.

She wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Her anxious mind went racing through the possibilities.

Maybe someone had attacked her, knocked her out, and thrown her here in a car.

Or maybe not.

She shouldn’t let herself rush to conclusions.

Suddenly, she remembered that she normally wore a watch. She glanced at her wrist, but her wrist watch was completely blank. It was just a cheap digital watch she’d bought from a big box store a year or so ago. Maybe the battery was dead.

From her other pocket, she took out her cell phone. The screen was cracked. And it didn’t turn on, no matter how long she held the button.

Her head felt foggy and the panic wasn’t helping.

She needed to get out of here.

Slowly, she tried to sit up. Her whole body reacted with searing pain. It was so intense and strong that she couldn’t even tell where it was coming from. Maybe her back. But maybe somewhere else.

Jessica forced her way through the pain, sitting up as rapidly as she could.

The ceiling of the car was low, and her helmeted head smacked into the upholstered roof, adding another wave of pain to her headache.

Somehow, she managed to open the door from the inside. She got out, stood up straight, and immediately felt like she was going to collapse onto the pavement.

Her vision was blurry and she felt overwhelmed with dizziness. But with each second that she stood there, the feeling began to pass.

The driver’s side door was unlocked. Jessica threw it open and felt for the keys in the ignition. But they weren’t there.

She was about to fight through the pain and get herself into the driver’s seat in order to hunt around for the keys when she heard voices behind her.

Ignoring the pain, she dashed forward. She threw herself into some tall hedges that lined the parking lot.

The voices were coming towards the car.

They must be the people who’d kidnapped her.

She wasn’t going to run away.

She wasn’t going to flee.

This wasn’t going to be like the last time, when the best she’d been able to do once it was all over was to rush away and never tell anyone.

No. She was done being a victim.

They’d pay for this.

She was vaguely aware that she wasn’t thinking clearly. She vaguely remembered that she was suffering from amnesia. And that this could be affecting her decision making.

But she brushed those thoughts away as she stepped forward from the bushes and brandished her Glock.

Her finger slipped into the trigger guard and rested against the trigger.

“Hands in the air,” she yelled. “Or I’ll shoot.”

Three figures swam slowly into focus in her blurry field of vision.

None of them moved.

“Hands above your heads,” she yelled again.

Six hands rose into the air slowly.

“Don’t do anything rash,” came a deep male voice.

The present events weren’t coming through to her clearly. She was dizzier than she’d realized.

She felt like she was going to pass out again.

“We’re not trying to hurt you. Just put the gun down and we can help you. We were just trying to get you to a hospital.”

“Who is she?”

“We’ll have to explain later.”

“Jim hit her with the car. She was going fast in the middle of the road.”

A fragment of a memory threatened to surface. Something about trying to get home. The cars were stopped in the middle of the road.

But why would they be?

It must have been a dream. Or a false memory.

Vaguely, as she stared at the three people, she became aware that they weren’t a threat. They didn’t have malice in their eyes like the ones who’d attacked her so long ago.

“Let me help you,” came a woman’s voice. She sounded kind and caring.

“Aly, don’t. She’s got a gun.”

“It’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be fine, isn’t it, dear?”

A woman was approaching her through the fog of her vision.

It didn’t seem like the woman would hurt her.

“Now let’s put that gun down, OK, dear?”

Jessica didn’t know what to do. She was caught up in the fear and the haziness and the confusion.

If only she could remember what was going on, maybe it would all make sense.