the Leathermines

The water sound was all I could hear.  It was dark enough that there was a lighter shadow here and there as I went carefully through the dark alley.  I stumbled and fell, the water rushing past me almost covering my face.  I tried to not cough, but I had sucked in some of the cold rain run-off and I couldn’t help it.

I scrambled out of the water going down the center of the alley and up against the wall of the brick building.  Some of the day’s heat was still coming off the brick, but not enough to keep the shivering from making me shake, the chain around my neck rattling.  I tried to keep it from sounding too loud, but everything I did was loud in my ears.

The rushing water.  It was going past me and into a drain.  I could hear the fall of the water, the hollowness of the hit of the drops below.  They reminded me of how hollow I felt.

The city sounded empty.  I didn’t know where I was, but I knew that I wasn’t safe, yet.  The few shreds of clothing I had on were holding the cold water to me, not protecting me from it.  It had been raining when I had forced my way through the small window, the water coming in the way I could see how I could escape.

Escape.  I pushed myself from the brick and crawled back into the water.  I knew it was cold, but the blood I knew was still coming from my hands and nose would be washed away.  As little trail as possible.  That was what I was thinking.

I do not know how far I crawled.  I would stop and listen.  The rushing water would go around me, the sound of the gutter and water falling into it loud and empty sounding to me.  I would start crawling again until I just hurt too much, or I heard something.

A truck.  I heard and saw the lights of a truck.  I scrambled against the wall again, a pile of wet trash squishing under me as I hid myself, not knowing if this was a good truck or bad truck.  The lights were not even, one side being brighter and bluer than the other.  The driver came very close to running me over, but I was happy that there was a can near me that he had to drive around.

He stopped a ways up the alley and left his lights on.  I was scared to move, but used the lights to see what was around me.  Tall looking buildings, few doors and no windows.  The alley ran for a while and then there was a street.  The truck had come from that direction.  There had to be more traffic, and possibly help.

I tore a hole in a plastic bag I was on and pushed it over me.  It smelled of things that I didn’t want to think about, but it was more than I was wearing before, and was camouflage.  I started to crawl along the building again, the red of the tail lights showing me more of the path.  It seemed easier, until my hand went into some broken glass.

I tried not to make noise.  But it hurt.  I bit my lip, but I had already called out.  And one of them had heard me.

I could hear anger in their voices.  I heard doors slam, perhaps the slam of a fist into a door.  And then the truck had more people in it.

I could have tried to get up to run.  I could have tried to crawl more.  I didn’t.  I knew they were about to catch me again so I just lay where I was, in the trash, part of the filth.

They went past me.  I watched as the truck came within inches of running over me and then closed my eyes as the front lights blinded me.  There were more shouts, some swearing, but at each other.  They had not seen me along side the runnel of water, covered in the trash bag, part of the garbage.

I waited.  It seemed like hours, but I am sure it was just a few minutes.  I started towards the street again.  I could hear the far away sounds of traffic over the water.  I thought I could see the lights of cars as they went past the alley.  I smelled diesel and old pizza.  There were people around.

People.  Were they from the same crew?  Was I safe in going to them and trying for help?

It made me freeze, even more than the lessening water going past me had.  I did not know how long I had been held.  I did not know who had been with me.  Except for the one man.

I did not want to see his face, but it came to me.  The superiority as he pulled his hood off.  I knew I was dead when he did that.  They never let you live after you see them.

If I had seen him in a bar, I might have looked twice at him.  He was nice looking.  Maybe a little older than the guys I hung around with.  And if his cock hadn’t been the one to tear my ass to bloody shreds, I could have thought it was a nice cock.  It wasn’t, because it was on him.

I had to keep moving, even as my holes throbbed at the thought of having been taken by him and his crew.  I don’t know how many there were.  They kept shirts on and hoods, their cocks out for me to pleasure as I was tied to the ragged mattress.  The shame of not fighting enough to keep them off made more tears come to my eyes, and make my broken nose hurt again.

There was a doorway ahead.  I crawled to it and checked it.  It was locked, but it was also deep.  I sat for a moment, seeing that the street was closer, that the traffic was heavier.  I was still scared that they would find me before I was able to get to the Police.

I felt a hysterical laugh go through me.  I tried to calm myself, but all I could do was put my face to my knees to muffle myself.  It was funny to me that I was trying to find the police.  I was the police.

My wallet had been left out on the ground after they had torn my clothing, my ID and Shield plainly seen by anyone in the room.  Another reason I knew I was dead.  I don’t think they had known I was Police before they had taken me.  I had few friends outside the force and I knew they wouldn’t have missed me.  With the way I had been fighting with my Lieutenant, I wasn’t sure if my brothers in Blue would be looking for me, either.

Brothers.  I was a police officer.  I was thinking like a victim, and I needed to think like a police officer.  I felt around and found a piece of scrap metal.  The blood on my hand made it hard to hold, but also made the scratches in the wooden door behind me better for later.  It was not as dark and I could see the lighter scratches in the dark paint.  Name.  Shield number.  When I was abducted from the bathroom at the bar.  Name of the bar.  An arrow towards the place they had held me.  And my blood.

I threw the metal down the alleyway towards where the hole had been.  It wasn’t much, but since I had been trying to not leave a trail, I had to leave something.  If anyone was able to find it.  Find me.

There was a siren in the distance.  Fire department.  It was far enough away that I couldn’t recognize the siren.  Most people don’t hear the differences.  I didn’t, until Matt had shown me the tweaks the firemen do to their rigs.  Slight differences.  It helps to let each of them know who is coming.  It wound down and it was quiet again.

I felt unsteady, but I needed to keep moving.  I saw the next doorway and started to crawl to it, the bag around me getting in the way, but giving me some warmth in the cold night.

Just as I made it to the doorway, there was the revving of an engine.  I pulled myself in, covered my head with a newspaper and held very still.  Having so much trash in the alley was making it easy to hide as part of it.  The truck went down the alley, slowly.  A light went across me and past.  I heard something move close to me and heard a gunshot.

“It was just a rat, Lem!  Damnit!  Why do you have to shoot everything?”  The voice was one of the men.  I remember at least five voices, but some of them didn’t say anything while they were raping me.  One liked to talk as he lay on top of me, telling me everything he was going to do to me.  Unlike most men, he actually did what he said, and again, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was forcing me, he wasn’t bad.  That guy had been forceful, but he had used a condom and had held me after he came, as though he was sorry.

But a condom meant less evidence.  I had to remember that.  He had taken it out of the room with him.  He was the only one to use a condom.  The others had spurted on me, in me...  Hell, I think I still had some in my ear from the last bukakke scene they did on me.  Six.  There had been six for that one.  Mostly white, but one black man and possibly an Asian.

The truck had moved on.  I had not moved when the gun had gone off, possibly saving my life from the gun-happy Lem.  Lem.  And Mike?  And Mr....Mr....  I was angry at myself for not remembering the names that they had said.  Mr. Tony.  The one who I was able to see.

The truck had stopped and I could hear them talking again.  I moved the newspaper and could see that they were two, maybe three blocks away.  At the hole.  I carefully lifted the paper more and looked, not seeing anyone else in the alley.

The sky was lighter.  I heard more sirens.  Fire.  Police.  Ambulance.  There as a major something.  I needed to get to where they were and I would be safe.

I moved.  I stood.  I started to walk as well as I could in the garbage and wet.  I just walked and did not look back at them.  The street had a few cars parked along it that I could see...

I leaned against the wall near the corner.  I looked at the street, listened.  My head tilted slightly as I hugged the wall, seeing around the corner.  I leaned back and clenched my jaw and my fists.

There was a guy standing there.  Middle of the night and there was a guy.  That meant that he was one of them.  Which one?  I leaned over to look again just as he lit a cigarette.  Him.  The one who smelled like cigarettes.  Cheap Durals.  Like all the cheap cars I had ever bought from people.  Why that brand?  Always that brand?

I watched him.  He was not concerned with the cars going by.  He ignored the couple who were on the other side of the street as they held each other as they walked.  He flicked the ash from his cig in a specific way, as if he were aiming it at something.  He leaned against the wall, a drain pipe between me and him.  I could hear him, smell him.

I leaned back and put my face carefully on the wall.  How was I going to get past him?  I felt the heaviness of the chain still around my neck and came up with a plan.  It was a bad plan, and if I were in a movie, I knew it would work.  This was real life.  Bad guys were not that stupid.

I moved away from the corner.  Slowly.  I felt around in the garbage and came up with some small things.  A few bolts.  A piece of glass.  A bottle cap.  It would have to do.  I pushed my hands through the black plastic of the bag on me and slowly drew the chain through one of the holes.  It was not long, but it was long enough.

There was another set of sirens.  They went past only a few blocks away.  I used the sound to cover my going back to the corner of the alley.  He was still there, lighting up another cigarette.  Before the flare of the lighter was gone, I tossed the glass at the other side of the alley, making him turn and look.  The drain pipe was still between he and I, but I could see him searching the dimness past the alley opening.

I threw the metal bits I had and he started towards the sounds.  He did not look into the alley.  He stepped to the corner of the other building, blowing smoke as he started to turn.

The chain was sturdy.  I had been able to work the connector free from the post it had been on to or else I would still have been in the hole.  My hands slipped with the blood and crap on them, but I had enough strength to pull the chain across his throat, unbalancing him and slamming him to the blacktop.  His cigarette went flying, the ember making little squiggles in the air as it went.

He had lost his breath.  I slammed my knee into his throat, feeling something break.  He moved a little, but then was still.

If I had been fed anything but cum in the last 24 hours, I would have thrown up.  I had done the same thing the first time I had to shoot someone.  I had almost thrown up when I saw the paperwork I had to do after shooting someone.

I dragged him into the ally and covered him with some of the garbage after taking his shirt, and wallet.  The plastic was off of me and his stinky shirt was on.  It was better, and yet worse.

The sky was lighter, oranger.  There was a fire.  A big one.

I went towards the glow.  I was on the street, bare feet against the steaming pavement.  His shirt did not cover my ass, but I didn’t care.  I was heading towards safety.

Another set of sirens sounded.  It was the 5th.  I smiled.  I knew most of them.  If they were there...  It was the wear house district.  They were two districts away.  It was a big fire, meaning lots of Police.  I would have run, if I wasn’t so tired.  I tried to speed up, rounding a corner and coming face to face with another of my abductors.

I didn’t know it was one of them until he took a swing at me.  I ducked, I yelled and I used the chain to hit him in the face.  I was not as successful at hitting him as I had been with the other guy.  I felt his hand in my hair and I couldn’t get at him enough to make a difference.  He started to drag me back towards the alley, towards the hole.

More sirens.  They were coming up that street.  I fought harder than I thought I ever could.  I didn’t know where the energy was coming from.  I used the chain and swung it at him, hitting myself more than him.  It slowed him down and the cruiser in front of the ambulance slowed and stopped.

The sweetest words I ever heard were shouted by the officer.  “What the fuck are you doing?  Let her go!”

I heard the click of safeties going off, the slides of the pistols chambering.  Music.

The man tried to run.  First with me and then without me.  I heard the officer shout, heard gunfire.  Heard the body fall and land in a puddle.

The EMT was there and helping me to the ambulance.  I was crying.  I could not talk.  The officer waived the fire truck around us and stood there, grimacing at my broken face.

“Can you talk?”  He had his notebook out and that made something in me calm down.  I stopped the EMT for a moment and nodded, though it took a moment for words to come out.

When I did start talking, the horror on the officer’s face was replaced with anger.  I told him some of what I had just been through, not going into the details of the rapes.  I pointed, tried to sound dispassionate and only giving facts.  I pulled off the shirt, the EMT putting it into a bag with the wallet for me.

I was naked in front of a fellow Police officer.  Before I had been abducted, I would have tried to cover myself.  After, it didn’t seem to matter.  They had seen me, had used me.  It did not matter who saw my body, or my broken face.

The Officer used his radio and called my situation in.  There as a very unprofessional response from the dispatch operator, but then it was all business.  Within minutes, there were squad cars surrounding the alley way, the body of the man I had killed pulled out of the way as the SWAT truck came up and into the alley.

“Shit, Monica!  What the hell?”

I burst into tears at the sound of my Lieutenant’s voice.  He looked disheveled, his hastily thrown on clothing missing a few things, like socks and a belt.  By that time, I was in one of the hazmat jumpsuits the ambulance had, all of the things I had been wearing in bags, except the chain still around my neck.  The EMT’s had not done a rape kit on me, the procedure needing to be done in the Hospital, but just about everything else had been documented with a digital camera and bagged when it could.

“Sir-”

He shook his head.  He looked like he wanted to hold me, but knew he couldn’t.  “Fuck that.  What happened?  Who did this to you?”

“They are raiding the wear house now, sir.  Henry...  How long was I there?”

He did hold me.  It felt good, and yet, felt bad.  I was ashamed for having been taken.  I felt dirty for having had the men in me.  I wanted him to hold me, but the touch was just a little too much.

“Monica, you missed duty meeting three days ago.  No one knew where you were.  I got a key from your Mom and looked in your apartment.  I was worried.”

“I thought I was dead.  I saw one of them.  And I killed...”  I burst into tears again, the pain in my nose not enough to keep me from pressing myself into his chest.

The Detective that was first on the scene came up to us and asked more questions.  He put his hand on my shoulder as Henry held me.  It was too much.  I tried to not react, but I pushed both of them away and held my arms to myself.   I tried to answer questions, but the shock and fatigue was heavy on me, all the adrenalin that had kept me going faded fast.

“It was lucky that you came this way.  Most of the area was blocked off because of the fire.”  The Detective was trying to placate me, and I knew it.  Trying to make what happened o.k. in some way.

I was taken to the Hospital, more prodding and scraping and tests and questions.  It was needed, but I had already been violated.  This was just making it worse.  The chain was cut off and taken away.  I fell asleep within minutes of it being off of me.

The nurses were kind.  My whole precinct came to visit off and on when they were not on shift.  Most of them had been worried, some had helped the Lieutenant try to find me.

I talked to IA.  I talked to Detectives.  I talked to counselors.  I talked to...  So many people I am not sure how many there were.  Most with the same questions, but when it was a different question, sometimes it would catch me and I would burst into tears.

It was in the middle of one of those question sessions that I went cold.  There was someone new in the room and I heard his voice before I saw him.  But I knew him.

“Special Agent-”

“Mr. Tony.”

Everyone in the room turned and looked.  First at me, and then at him.  An FBI agent.  A fucking FBI agent.  No wonder he didn’t care if I saw him.  He knew he had to kill me.

My Lieutenant had helped me write the preliminary report.  He knew what I was saying.  There was swearing, but the Agent was disarmed and in cuffs before he could do any more damage.

I was scared, but there was a flash of warmth that went through me.  I flushed at the heat knowing I had his cock in me and now I had his cock in a vise.  He should have just let another agent take the case.

I still have nightmares.  I still can’t go out by myself.  I have had locks and a security system installed in my apartment.  I still work in the Police department, victims services.  And I have a link of the chain that had held me to that mattress that I have with me at all times around my neck to remind me that I survived.  I am not sure I was the lucky one from the evidence dug up, literally.