Dark Options

This piece was published in the November 2004 issue of The online magazine 'Nocturnal Ooze'

         Leanne Tigner opened her eyes to total darkness. She didn’t know where she was, or how she got there. The air was cold and damp, and she was lying on what felt like a soft bed. Her arms were at her side, and she bent them outward at the elbows, and met with resistance. There seemed to be walls inches away from her on each side.

         Leanne was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic, and really wanted some light. She attempted to sit up, and banged her head into something a foot or so above her. Panic began to set in, and she was forced to take a few deep breaths to calm herself. She reached up to feel what was above her. It was smooth, like glass or polished metal. The obstructions on each side felt the same. She ran her fingers up and noted that the sides met the piece above. It appeared that she was in some kind of box.

         This is not good, she thought. What the hell is going on here? Sooner or later I will need to figure a way out… or die here. That thought got her motivated. She began running her hands across the top, and up and down the sides. She found nothing to indicate a way out, but she was not yet ready to give up.

         Suddenly she was surrounded by bright white light. Her eyes took a few moments to adjust before she noticed a television monitor behind the glass in front of her face. On the monitor she was horrified to see the face of Joe Lygwerski. He was smiling, and she did not like the look of that smile. Behind the monitor appeared to be another layer of glass, and what she saw behind that layer of glass chilled her to the core… dirt. She seemed to be buried alive, and she prayed that the face before her would have the answer to the way out.

         As she surveyed the glass before her, she noticed that in addition to the monitor, there were a pair of speakers, and a microphone placed near a circular pattern of tiny holes drilled in the glass. She guessed the holes were there so that her voice would be heard through the microphone.

         “Joe? What’s going on here? Let me out of here.”

         “Hello Leanne,” he said. “Long time no see.”

         He was still smiling, and that made her nervous, but what was even scarier was the tone of his voice. His voice was smooth… too smooth. He was not an ally in this situation… that much was clear.

         “Joe, I’m sorry. Please just let me out of here, we can work this out.”

         She had dumped him two months earlier. She had been a real bitch, and she knew it. He had not really done anything to deserve the way she had treated him. She had been unfaithful to him, almost from the beginning. She had also lied to him, stolen from him, and manipulated him in any way she saw fit.

         In the end she had simply grown tired of the relationship and decided to move along. Right now she would tell him anything he wanted to hear, just as long as he would let her out of this makeshift coffin.

         Joe Lygwerski had been pissed when she dumped him… Damn pissed. He knew he had treated her well, and had been completely blindsided when she left. Joe, like most men, had no idea that she was even unhappy. He had of course been aware that she had treated him badly when they were together, but he loved her, and so he had accepted it. Well she would regret dumping him, she would regret it profoundly.

         “Kiss my ass Leanne, you played your game and I got the shitty end of the stick. Well now it is time to tally up the price for your bullshit.” He had said it softly, almost in a whisper. Except for the words, the tone of his voice would have been almost comforting.

         “Do you remember Annette, My ex-girlfriend? She screwed me over too. Annette paid the price, although she didn’t get the choice that you are going to have. I am going to switch your monitor over to another feed. What you are about to see is Annette as she is today. This is a live feed; I want you to understand the gravity of your current situation.”

         The screen flickered, and then snapped into focus. On the monitor before her Leanne saw the body of a dead woman. She acknowledged it as a woman only because of the dress. The body was badly decomposed and was otherwise unrecognizable.

         Leanne fought the urge to scream. She needed to remain calm if she had any hope of convincing him to release her. She collected herself just as the screen switched back to Joe.

         “Please Joe, I want for us to get back together. I have been missing you desperately, but I was afraid you wouldn’t want me back after the way I treated you.”

         She saw a flicker of hope cross his face, it was only there for a moment but it gave her something to cling to… briefly.

         “Bullshit Leanne, you are doing exactly as I expected you would. I will admit, you are much better at it than I had imagined, but bullshit is still bullshit.”

         He was still speaking softly, and her hopes were swiftly fading. She began to realize that she may very well die in this glass box.

         “Annette is about twenty feet to your left, she died of dehydration. It was a very slow and apparently excruciating process. You will have dehydration as an option, but I decided to make things a little more interesting this time.”

         “Feel between the cushion and the glass on your left Leanne. You will find your other option there.”

         Leanne slid her fingers between the cushion and the glass on her left side, and found the object directly to the left of her hip. She knew what it was without looking. It was a syringe, and the implications of that made her shudder with revulsion.

         “If you choose dehydration, you can expect to last three to four days. With luck you could last longer. Being the tough bitch she was, Annette lasted almost a hundred hours.”

         Leanne was getting pissed, and she didn’t care if he knew it. She no longer had any illusions that he would release her, and she exploded with rage.

         “You know what Joe? I left you because you are slime. You never gave a shit about anything but yourself the whole time we were together, and I can see nothing has changed. You were a poor excuse for a man in other ways too. In bed for example, I wouldn’t be surprised if you knew more about how to please a man than I do. You sure as hell didn’t know how to please a woman.”

         She could see him struggling to remain calm. Her only hope now was to get him angry enough to dig her up, and beat the hell out of her.

         “If you are finished now, I will continue. The first day won’t be too bad, you will be thirsty, but nothing too severe.”

         “Day two is when you will first begin to realize that you are really going to die, and the thirst will start making you desperate.”

          “Day three will take you to a level of desperation you never knew existed. You will begin to struggle and try to break out of your little coffin there. Your struggles will only be wasted energy, and more importantly… wasted moisture. You can not break out of there I assure you. The box was designed with escape attempts in mind.”

         “By the end of day three you will either be dead, or so weak you will spend most of your time sleeping, so at that point, the fun part for me will be over.”

         Leanne felt a seething hatred for him that just one short day ago she would have thought herself incapable of. She knew now that her suffering was what he craved, and she was determined to keep it from him. There would be no more pleading. She refused to speak to him at all from this moment on.

         “In the syringe is Puff Adder venom. This is cytotoxic venom that attacks tissue and blood cells. You will essentially begin to rot from the inside out. It is an excruciating death, but it will go quicker than dehydration.”

         Leanne shuddered, and Lygwerski noticed, and smiled.

         “Those are your two options Leanne. Don’t feel pressured to make a decision right away. Take your time and think it through. I am a patient man, and I am prepared to wait.”

         Leanne looked straight at the camera and sneered at him. It seemed to make him a bit uneasy, and that suited her just fine. She had a little surprise for him, and she doubted he would be amused.

         “There is one more option Joe, one I am sure you haven’t thought of.”

         Once again a flicker of doubt crossed his face, and Leanne reveled in it.

         “What might this third option be Leanne? I think I have covered all the bases pretty well here.”

         He was trying to sound confident, but she could tell he was having doubts. She raised the syringe to camera level and rolled it between her fingers. Lygwerski looked puzzled for a moment, then realization washed over his face.

         “No Leanne, you were right, we can work this out. Don’t do it honey, I still love you, and I want for us to have a future together.”

         He knew there was no way for him to get out there and dig her up in time. If she wanted to do it, he wouldn’t be able to stop her. His only hope was to cajole her into letting him dig her up so he could get that damn syringe away from her. How could I have been so stupid? He thought.

         “Screw you Joe. I am not some ditzy broad. I know what you are trying to do. The second I see your face leave the screen, I am using the syringe. I am not stupid enough to think that there is a chance of me getting out of this alive.”

         Leanne filled the empty syringe with air and carefully slid the needle into the largest vein she could find on her left forearm. She pressed the plunger and shot the air directly into the vein. She then repeated the procedure twice more. By then the first air bubble had raced through her system and entered her heart. Her body stiffened, and the second and third air bubbles entered her heart in rapid succession. The last sound she ever heard was the enraged scream of Joe Lygwerski.


Phil T. Miller


1,764 words