A helmeted figure stepped out of the shadows and smashed him in the face with the butt of a shotgun. LeBron dropped the pistol and fell to his knees. His vision was blurry, he tasted blood and every part of his body hurt. He couldn’t even see the person who’d just hit him. He groped around in his pocket until he found the novelty folding knife that he’d taken from the shattered case in a truck stop. He was trying to unfold it when the figure in the helmet sighed and kicked him in the jaw hard enough to knock him out.
Chapter 32: Step Right Up
“Wake up.” The words drifted to LeBron from far away. He didn’t want to wake up. He’d maneuvered himself into a position where the pain was equalized around his body. He was afraid that if he moved, he’d lose that equilibrium. He was floating now using the unconsciousness to buffer him from the pain.
“Do you think he’s ok?” The words pierced the cocoon LeBron was struggling to keep intact around himself. Outside the cocoon was pain and death. Inside of it he’d found balance. A face appeared in his thoughts. The person talking was his sister. If he could hear her talking, she must not be dead. He was sitting on something hard and scratchy. His face hurt like crazy. He opened his eyes to a small room illuminated by a weird red glow. Moving his head to the left and right slowly he smiled painfully at this brother and sister. They were squatting to either side of him staring down.
“Where are we?” LeBron asked. It hurt to move his jaw to ask the question. He was guessing one whole side of his face was a bruise. He hoped he didn’t have any facial fractures. The tip of his tongue felt weird and his mouth tasted like snotty blood and dirt.
“We’re locked up in a room inside one of their trucks. We both woke up when they were dragging us out of the Hummer. I was worried you might be dead the way you were laid out on the ground. I tried to check on you, but they bashed me in the head a few times. I woke up in here.” Drew said.
“I skipped the second round of facial pummeling. They were holding me too tight to get away anyway. They talked to some guy over walkie talkies and told him what’d happened. He told them to throw us in the cat cage and lock us up.” Yue said hesitatingly. Drew gave her a hard look.
“Did he say anything else?” Drew asked. He felt like Yue was holding something back.
“They talked about whether they should kill us or not. It didn’t sound like there was a really conclusive answer. I think they were pretty pissed we didn’t just pull over and give them all of our stuff.” Yue said. She felt better for saying it. It actually didn’t even seem as bad now that she’d said it out loud.
“You see anything when they were taking us all to this room?” LeBron asked.
“Not really. I think this was part of a circus or something . The truck was already setup for them to hang their dirt bikes off the ceiling and there were lots of storage rooms built in. They did a pretty thorough job of taking all of our stuff.” Yue finished. She sighed and leaned back against the wall. There was nothing else to say really.
They sat in the eerie red room for what felt like an eternity. There was just enough moldy straw left in the box to be itchy without providing any real cushioning. Whatever cat had been locked in the huge crate previously had really enjoyed marking it’s territory. The strong acidic smell was probably the main reason why the decent sized space was available to use as a temporary jail cell for the three of them. Thank god for PETA and the Tiger King pushing all the animal people to make their cages nice and roomy. They were jostled around occasionally as the truck swerved or hit a bump.
The wooden door rattled surprising the three of them. A short black woman with a brightly colored bandana tied around her head opened up the door. She looked around at the three of them then handed Yue a box filled with water and cans of food. There was also a plastic bag with a few pills in it. Yue snorted out a laugh when she saw the cans of food that they’d been handed were basically a variety pack of the Vienna sausages out of the Hummer. The woman had the nerve to serve them out of their own stash. The woman grinned when she saw Yue had recognized the food.
“You guys need anything else? I assumed you really liked the little sausages considering how many of them we found in that car you wrecked. Eat your food and someone will come by to take you to the bathroom in a little bit. If you can’t wait, I don’t think it’s possible for you to make the inside of this box smell any worse.” The woman smiled again indicating the stench they were all dealing with. She took a step backwards and prepared to close
