63 Days

The jeep slowed to a crawl as we climbed up and down canyons. Bone dry natural washes served as our road, and as we rounded each bend I could see where the last flood level had been, marked on the wall with a white calcium line. The jeep was noisy, but not as noisy as the screaming in my head. We were out there, Murdock and I…alone.

There was a little incline up the way a bit and we pulled up it, Murdock shifting into a lower gear to make it. At the top I saw a little C-shaped cove, kind of a cave with no roof. There was one big rock in the center but otherwise, it was emtpy. Sand covered the ground, and I was greatful. Sand is easier to sleep on than packed dirt, it form fitted your body much more easily.

We stopped and he jumped out. He walked over to the rock and stretched. Then he turned his gaze to me.

“C’mon, get out.”

I slid out of the seat and put my feet on the ground, wearing the new boots my dad had sent. My ankles were throbbing with the new pressure on them, I’d been wearing those slippers for so long now, they weren’t quite used to ankle high boots yet.

“Ok, little girl, come here. Home sweet home!” he said, opening his arms up to display my apparently new living space. “Grab your pack out of the back of the jeep, and when you’re done, grab all that wood I stuck in there for ya. See how nice I am? I wanna keep ya warm while you’re out here, so I brought ya some wood. Not much to gather out here….” he laughed.

I looked around me. A few shrubs and fallen juniper trees speckled the area around me but for the most part, it was just sand…for miles.

The pack had the usual, a water bottle, a blanket and a pancho incase I got rain. The wood was just scraps of branches and sticks that he’d obviously just collected from around the basecamp. I was greatful, still. I stacked it neatly in one pile behind the rock.

“Ok so here’s the deal. You’re out here for a week. You’re to write in your journal and stuff every night. If you see another car, another person, which is HIGHLY unlikely, you ain’t supposed to talk to ‘em. Don’t mess around now, there’s people watchin’ you every second and yep, I’ll be one of ‘em.” He was pointing his thumb proudly at his chest.

“So if you need water, there’s a tiny stream down there. Don’t drink too much. You might get sick cuz if there’s deer pissin in it up the way, you can get the giardia. Then you’ll be shittin in the bushes with no toilet paper, and and it won’t be pretty for none of us, now will it?”

He walked over to me and stood extremely close. Our bodies were touching.

“So, you might just wanna keep the water I put in that bottle as your water for a week. You’re…prettier if you ain’t shittin’ water.” He took his hands and placed them on my shoulders, letting them run simultaneously down my arms until he was at my hands.

“Don’t worry…I’ll be out there watchin’. “

“Oh you’ll be watching alright” I thought. I knew that anything I did after this would be monitored.

“So,” he said “you got any questions?”

“Uh yeah,” I said. “What am I supposed to eat?”

“Oh! I almost forgot!”

ALMOST FORGOT!??!?

“You get rice and oats, but only enough for 3 days, and remember now, you’ll be here a week. Don’t eat it all up and be piggy. Make it last. By the way, you’re lookin’, uh…really good right now. This hikin is turnin them legs into muscles…” He pushed his body up against my thighs.

“You get any sex whiles you was down in Vegas?” he whispered, almost a low growl. He exhaled and it was a guttural, primal sound…he was enjoying me right now, a little too much. “You let your boyfriend touch on this…body? He stick it to ya pretty good?”

I pushed off a tiny bit and he pulled me back to him firmly, grabbing me by the upper arms.

“Don’t you try that again. If I say sit still, you sit your ass STILL…” he said through clenched teeth. “Little whore…”

With that he turned and walked back to the jeep. He started it up, then moved his finger at me to come over to him. I did as he ordered.

“Now don’t try nothin funny. Oh, and gimme your boots.”

I looked at him in awe. My boots? No shoes? In the desert? Come on! I was 40 miles from anyone, what the hell did they think I was gonna do? Hike out? My ankles were raw!

“GIMME YOUR DAMN BOOTS, WHORE!” he yelled over the rumble of the engine.

I sat down on the sand and unlaced them as fast as I could and stood to hand them to him. I saw him gently rubbing his crotch as I stood, and he stopped the second I looked. I handed them back to him and backed up a little bit, but he caught my chin with his hand and held it there.

“Don’t you worry now, I’ll be right here. Me and a few of the…uh…boys, we’ll be watching you day and night,” he grinned. “Don’t do nothin stupid. I’ll come visit you once a day or so. Won’t that be fun?” he said, putting the jeep in reverse.

He backed out of there, and was gone on his way. I listened til I couldn’t hear the jeep any longer and fell to my knees and cried.