Fighting Rough

30

John woke up with searing pain rushing through his throbbing skull. His body felt stiff with the cold. He could barely think, let alone think straight, with his throbbing headache. It was worse than the one migraine he’d had in his life, and that migraine had kept him out of work for two days.

John tried to move. But he couldn’t. His body was responding, but his legs and arms seemed to be tied together. He strained against his bindings, but it was absolutely no use. He couldn’t move an inch.

He lay on his back. The ground was uneven and cold. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was staring straight up to the sky. He could see some naked tree branches stretched out over the sky. The sky itself was cloudy and grey.

Where was he?

What had happened?

He tried to think. Where had he been last? What had been doing?

The last thing he could remember was leaving the camp early in the morning. The light had been just rising. Or so he thought. The memory was fuzzy. His whole brain felt hazy, and he felt nauseous and dizzy. His thinking wasn’t clear. It was hard to hold onto one thought for too long.

What had he been thinking about? Oh yeah, he’d been trying to remember what had happened to him, trying to figure out why he was bound and lying on the ground.

He’d left with someone. There’d been someone else, someone he cared about. He tried to get his brain to focus, to remember, but it was like trying to run that last mile of a marathon.

Suddenly, it came to him. Cynthia had been with him.

Where was she now? And what had happened in the meantime?

John knew he needed to act rationally. Even if he couldn’t think rationally, he could still do something. He’d been complaining, and perhaps hurt, thinking that his brother Max didn’t have the answers. But in the last week he had learned something important from Max, which was that no matter what, there was always something helpful to do, some action that would get you to a better place than when you started. No matter how hopeless things seemed, there was always something to do, something to try.

Not that John could really think thoughts like that now, remembering what his brother had told him. Instead, it was an attitude that he’d internalized over time.

It hurt immensely, but John managed to turn his head to the side, so that his cheek was pressed into the snow.

There was a man not far away. Only a few feet. He seemed familiar but John couldn’t place him.

He opened his eyes wider, trying to see, even though the extra light only seemed to make the pain worse.

“Ah, you’re awake. Good.” The man spoke in a strange way, with a strange cadence.

“Who are you?” said John. His voice came out scratch and raspy. How long had he been unconscious? Maybe he was dehydrated. Just speaking those words made the pain in his head worse.

“Who am I? That’s a complicated question to ask anyone. I mean, who are any of us?”

It took John a moment to process this strange reply.

“No, I mean. Who are you? And why do you have me tied up like this?”

“You mean you don’t remember me?”

“No,” said John, the words causing him more pain.

The stranger had been facing slightly away from John. Now he turned fully towards him. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, and one of his shirt sleeves was missing. It looked like it’d been cut off. Bits of frayed cloth hung down.

The man had some kind of wound, right below his shoulder, where a tape bandage covered the flesh.

John was so cold it was hard to imagine that the stranger could stand the temperatures without a jacket.

“Well this is a strange development,” said the stranger. “This is going to… ruin it a little for me…”

“What? Ruin what?”

“I’ll have to explain everything to you, I suppose. Otherwise, you won’t understand what’s going on. Who knows how badly I damaged your brain. I wouldn’t worry about it, though. You won’t need it for much longer. The principal thing is that you can get the idea into your head that I’m about to torture you. It’s going to be painful. As painful as I can possibly make it. I want you to fully understand that fact. Otherwise, you’ll just be some incoherent mess of pain. And that doesn’t really do it for me. Not at all.”

John’s confused mind was reeling. He understood everything well enough to know he’d soon die.

Unless he could find a way out.

He thrashed against his bindings. But it accomplished nothing. Nothing at all.

Cynthia.

He’d left with Cynthia.

Where was she?

“Where is she?” said John.

“Your friend? She tried to save you. But I tricked her, and she didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late. You’re all the same, all of you. Your feeble minds are so easily fooled by a sign of faked emotion. I just don’t understand it. And I never will.”

John watched as the man snorted something from a small plastic card. Maybe it was a credit card, nothing but a relic of the pre-EMP world.

“Don’t worry about this little injury,” said the demented stranger. “Your friend tried her best, like I said. It was worth it to me to receive this injury, if the trade-off was going to be that she lived. At least for a little while. This won’t slow me down. Not in the least bit.”

So Cynthia was alive.

“Where do you have her? Where is she?”

“Where is she? Are you blind? She’s right behind you. So you two care about each other, is that right? What is it? Something romantic? A husband-wife situation? Girlfriend-boyfriend? That’ll make this all the better. You’ll be in pain when I hurt her, and vice-versa. I knew she cared enough about you to try to help you, but that could happen between strangers. You’re all so boring, all you normal people, and yet so interesting.”

John turned his head over, facing the other direction. It caused him considerable pain to do so. Something wasn’t right about his neck, or his back.

Cynthia was there, tied up just like he was. She was unconscious.

“Cynthia,” hissed John. “Cynthia, wake up.”

But she didn’t wake up. He could see she was still breathing, though. She was still alive. For now.

“Don’t worry, she’ll wake up eventually. She’ll be able to see what I do to you. You know, I was going to wait until you were both awake. For the full effect. But I think I’ll start off slow with you, and see if your screams wake her up. This is going to take a while, anyway, and there’s plenty of time for fun with the both of you.”

The man, still not wearing a jacket, drew a large knife from somewhere. He stood up and began walking towards John.

John thrashed again against the rope that bound him. But it was no use. There was nothing he could do. He was helpless. The helplessness itself ate away at him, causing him deep emotional pain.

If he could have only done something. If he could have only gone down fighting. That would have been better. Far better.

“Let’s start with the fingernails, shall we?” said the stranger, leaning down over John. He laughed. “No, we’ll move onto that. First thing’s first, let’s see some blood. Just a little. Don’t worry, I’m not going to let you bleed out. The end will be much more painful than that.”

The man moved out of view. John felt him tugging on his pant leg, doing something with it. He heard the sounds of fabric tearing. John felt the cold of the snow and the air against his now-bare leg. The man had cut away part of his pants, from the knee downward.

John felt the knife running delicately across his skin. The steel was cold, but it didn’t yet cut him or pierce him.

A second later, that changed.

John barely felt it, but he knew the knife had cut him.

“Like I said,” said the stranger. “I like to start off slow. This is the lowest amount of pain you’ll feel for the rest of the day. Soon enough I’ll break out the pliers. I always have them with me. You know, so I can remove your nails.”