taxi

TAXI

Anna was awaken by lights whizzing blearily past her. Soon, her vision focused and she could see the streetlamps that passed overhead through the car’s smudged rear window. Anna smelled her own sweat, moldy fabric imbued with cigarette smoke, and a scent her sister would have called old ass. She suddenly felt hands on her bare feet and looked down to see a man rubbing them ardently as they rested in his lap.

“Wure awayt.” He said to her, looking pleasantly surprised. The words sounded distorted to Anna as though played through a warped record but she understood them as ‘Your awake.’ He was thirty something, thin, neatly dressed and clean cut. Still, he felt wrong and she was not yet strong enough to draw her legs away from him. “Better step on it Ancel.” he said curtly, tapping the Plexiglas divider above the seat in front of them, this time the words coming through clearly.

Ancel’s head was vaguely visible behind the scratched partition. It was a small head, topped with a blue baseball cap. It did not completely make it’s way above the seat but she could see his beady black eyes, long pointed nose, and the anxious red glow of a cigarette in the car’s rear view mirror. He looked like a rat behind the eerie orange glow of a digital meter that stood on the dash.

A twinge in her right hip surfaced and she remembered at once. It had just gotten dark and she had been finishing her run in the park when something had stabbed into her hip with an awful sting. She had fallen and two men had carried her away. These men!

She looked down again and saw that the man was delicately painting the toenails of her left foot bright pink. Her shoes were sitting neatly on the floorboard between them. There was a bottle of lotion on the floor as well and the sheen of it’s contents was on her feet.

“High arches….. They’re my favorite.” The man said cheerily then began painting the toes on the right foot.

Anna’s head plopped back down on what she could now feel as the car door’s armrest. She also felt something, in a small hidden pocket of her running shirt, as it poked into the right side of her lower back. My mace! Anna suddenly remembered. They had told her it was ‘police issue’ mace where she had bought it and that it would bring down a bear if needed. She had only wanted it for the chance encounter of a bad dog. Now she would need it for something more.

Anna watched the passing buildings slow as the car stopped and a small window in the Plexiglas slid open.

“Traffic‘s bad.” Ancel said.

“Just hurry.” The man holding her feet replied, as he began drawing a broken black line around each of her ankles.

Anna knew what she had to do. While the car was stopped she would mace Mr. Foot Massager then begin kicking him, HARD. She would then pull the old fashioned pop lock that she had spotted on the window above her and make her escape into the traffic. She would wait for the next stop though. This would allow some time for her strength to recover from whatever they had drugged her with.

A burning sensation sprung into her left thigh.

“No!” Anna screamed.

“Good thing I brought a backup shot huh?” The man said and Anna saw the dart in her leg. “Looks like I get these,” He continued, holding her right foot gingerly and sliding a silver ring onto its second toe. “and Ancel gets the leftovers.” He motioned with his head to the rest of her.

Anna reached for her mace but her arm flopped wearily to the side instead.

“I’d say Ancel has a ‘thing’ for amputees,”

Anna’s eyes looked tearfully to the broken lines around her ankles as he spoke.

“but Ancel has a ‘thing’ for lots of things. You’ll understand.”

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