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A Tradition to Keep

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Chapter 11

Logan approached Abby, holding a log in his hand that he had recovered from the embers of the campfire. The piece of wood had not burned completely, but one end was still glowing in an aggressive orange.

Unimpressed by Abby's mindless babbling for forgiveness, he dragged the glowing end along her right flank, starting at her armpit and letting it run all the way down to her butt cheek. Her left flank received the same treatment. On either side, the log left behind a thick line of charred skin and a burning stench of scorched flesh. Abby screamed madly, rocking herself around on the cross, but there was no escape.

"If you want to die like cunt, you will. Christmas Eve is over for you. No more 'Jingle Bells'!"

Saying that, Logan rudely pulled out the bells on the fishing hooks from Abby's nipples and her clitoris. The tiny barbs on their ends tore her skin on their way out, taking tiny pieces of tissue with them. Logan let the bloody hooks dangle from his finger, presenting Abby the damage they had caused.

"I will take them as souvenir!"

"Alright, Logan you have made your point", Rod concluded. "Let's crash! We'll take care of her body tomorrow. Good night, Abby. Happy dying!"

The trio left for the hut, a couple of moments later, their voices faded in the distance. As if it had received a cue, the glowing of the campfire died and took the last bit of light and warmth away. Abby was alone with her pain, her hunger, her thirst, her weariness and her desperation. Only the light of the moon still kept her company, illuminating the scene of her suffering.

Abby did not cry anymore. She had no tears left to cry out, no more sobs to send out echoing through the night. She wanted her agony to end, right now. She recognized that she was ready to die for it. The realization did not hit her with a shock, but came from within a weird inner calmness. She let herself sink down on the cross, swearing herself not to push herself back up again, to let herself die.

But moment after moment passed. Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes eventually turned into hours. And again and again, Abby broke the promise she had made herself and changed her position, clinging on to life, despite telling herself she was ready to die.

Having lost all sense of time, Abby did not know how long she had been on the cross. Rod had estimated her to die before sunrise. He had crucified other girls before, he had to know. How far away was sunrise, though?

Abby tried to pass the time and to distract herself from the pain. She thought about her family, how they were probably worrying about her, not getting a minute of sleep tonight. How would they react when they were notified about the death of their daughter? What where they going to say when the police finally found her body and presented it to her parents for identification? Were they going to tell her what the coroner had found out during the autopsy? That their daughter had been tortured for hours before dying miserably?

There was a distant humming, getting louder and closer before falling silent again. Abby heard it and did not hear it at the same time. She was beyond reacting to anything around her. Even if Santa and Rudolph manifested right in front of her eyes, asking her if she had seen a little green alien shooting laser beams from a flying saucer, she would not give a fuck about it. She was about to die any minute.

No! She could not let that happen. She could not let her family feel this pain. And she wanted to see them again. She had to endure. Sooner or later, someone would come by and find her. Maybe, if someone flew across the forest? They would be able to spot her between the barren trees and send help immediately. Fat chance, who would spend their Christmas Eve flying over some remote forest? No, no one would find her, probably not even her body. Her abducters were certainly going make her disappear somewhere once they were done with her.

The sound of branches snapping and snow being crushed under heavy foot steps suddenly woke her up from her trance and her grim thoughts. Was Logan coming back for her to make sure she suffered through every last moment of her life?
No, it was Santa! Was she going mad now? Santa was actually coming out of the woods, walking right past her. His walk was clumsy hand he almost crashed into the crossbeam as he walked by. Getting a closer look, Abby recognized what was going on. This was not Santa himself, but a drunk idiot in a Santa costume, probably on his way home from a Christmas party. Still, this was the miracle she had hoped for, her chance to be rescued. A drunk Santa or the Holy Child in person, did it really matter?

"Sir...." Her voice was quiet. Too quiet. She had to speak up. "Sir, help me! Please!"

Every word she pressed over her lips felt like pushing weights heavier than herself. But the man still did not seem to hear her. He stopped at a tree, his back turned towards Abby, opened his pants, laboriously fumbled his member out, and started peeing.

"Please, you have to help me!", Abby was now shouting as loud as she could. The sudden adrenaline rush of having her rescue right in front of her gave her an unexpected new strength.

The man slowly turned around, his urine still flowing, forming a yellow semicircle in the snow. He looked at her with glassy eyes, trying to make out the source of the sounds he had heard. He came closer to the cross, pissing all over his shoes as he walked, and stopped about three feet away. Looking up and down Abby's naked and crucified form, he tried to focus his vision, trying to understand what was going on in front of him. He extended his hand and touched Abby's flat stomach to determine if what he saw was real. Then, with a sudden jolt, he jumped up, stumbling a couple of steps back.

"Oh my god, you are real!", he mumbled.

"Please, sir, help me!" Abby put all of her remaining strength into the conversation. "Take me down and get me to the next hospital. I will die if you don't help me!"

"I... I will get help! I can't do this alone", he babbled, then slipped past the crossbeam and hobbled back into the woods, into the direction he had come from.

"No, don't leave me, you son of a bitch!" Abby had erected herself on the cross as high as he could, ignoring the pain in her feet and the quivering of her legs. "Come back and get me down!"

But he did not come back. Abby heard a car being started in the distance, followed by the howling of its engine as it drove away. This was it. Her final death sentence. Her last chance of being rescued had been a drunk coward who had left her to die.

Abby was alone again. She sank back down, forlorn, moaning in frustration. Her tired glance went over the flat surface of the pond. Behind the trees on the other shore, the sky started to get brighter. The sun was rising.

To be continued.
 
dommmu said:
Her last chance of being rescued had been a drunk coward who had left her to die.
Click to expand...
Nice plot-line. Leave us wanting more. The words of a drunk babbling about a crucifixion versus exposure and dehydration. It still looks grim to me.
 
Chapter 12

Abby proved Rod's prediction wrong by outlasting the night on the cross. But what had it been good for? All that she had achieved was to prolong her suffering. She had been ready to welcome death more than once in the past hours, but everytime it had been near, something inside her had driven it away again.

At least the clear sky made the morning sun shine down on her face. That felt so good, so warm. Rod, Logan and David returned a little while later, surprised to find her still alive.

"Well, that's a first", Rod noted. "Looks like you are tougher than I expected."

"What are we going to do now?", David questioned. "Are we going to stay another day and wait for her to finally die?"

Logan turned around and gave him a matey slap on the forehead.

"Great idea, egghead! And where do we get food for another day? Our provisions have run out and all stores are closed. No, I think we have to show mercy to our Abby and help her to die. Get her down from the cross. Then use the rope to strangle her."

Rod produced a pair of pliers and his switchblade from the pockets of his coat, handing them over to Logan, telling him to use the tools for pulling out the nails and cutting the ropes.

"Can't we just slit her throat? That'll be faster and easier", Logan questioned, examining the knife in his hands.

"Great idea, egghead number two", Rod scolded. No slap on the head for Logan, though. "Did you forget that we have to transport her body in the rental car? We only brought a blanket, not an airtight body bag. If we bleed her out like a pig, she will make a mess! That is going to look suspicious when we return the car, isn't it?"

Logan approved and got to work. Rod headed back for the house, telling his friends that he was going to make the last preparations before they left.

Getting taken down from the cross was not a bit less painful than being nailed to it. In fact, Abby could have sworn that it was worse. Under heavy breathing, Logan and David lifted the cross out of its hole and made it fall backwards on the ground. A last violent thrust threw Abby around and she crashed down on top of the toppled cross.

Logan used the pliers to pull out the nails. They had been hammered so deep into the cross that he had to use all of his strength to remove them. He put a foot on Abby's chest for extra leverage. Abby felt some of her ribs cracking under the pressure. One by one, the nails left her wrists and feet, their movements increasing the damage they had already caused as a last infernal goodbye. Finally, Logan cut the ropes that her wrists had been tied to the crossbeam with.

Abby was free, but she stayed motionless. Like if frozen to the cross, her arms remained stretched out, her legs spread apart, her knees bent, her feet resting against the bottom of the cross.

"I want to fuck her one more time", Logan said. "I want the last memory of her life to be my cock impaling her!"

"You are insatiable, Logan!", David chuckled. "This girl is indeed extraordinary. It think, I will also fuck her one last time. But shouldn't we kill her first, just to be sure that she does not escape?"

"Do I look like a corpse fucker to you? No, I want her to be alive and warm! Look at her, she is completely destroyed. What can she do now?"

Logan kicked her legs apart so that they were spread on the ground. Abby was apathic, death was near and this time she would not reject its ultimate embrace. If she hurried, maybe she could even deny Logan his last triumph over her and die before he managed to enter her. That would make him a corpse fucker, indeed!

Abby turned her face to the side. She did not want to look at Logan, who was already crawling over her, pants pulled down, his erection hovering over her crotch in readyness. Instead, she wanted to pass out with the sight of something beautiful. The rising sun instead. And then she suddenly saw it: a blue stick, protruding from the snow. The shaft of the hammer! There it was again, that tiny spark inside her that made her want to survive.

"No, slut! Don't you try getting away from me now", Logan wheezed in lust. He had caught Abby digging through the snow with her right arm and locked his hands around her throat, pinning her down and choking her.

But Abby was not trying to crawl away. Not yet anyways. What she wanted to reach was very near. She saw her hand moving towards the hammer. It was strange, like she was watching someone else's hand. She did not feel her body anymore, nor did she care about the cold or the pain. Her entire perception was focused on this one tiny object to her right.

Her fingers closed around the stick. She put all of her strength into this one move. Unnoticed by Logan, the iron head of the hammer flew towards his skull, cracking it open, making blood and brain mass seep out of the hole it had created. Abby withdrew the hammer to take a swing for another blow, but that was not necessary. Logan's face became rigid and his gaze turned blank. Then he collapsed over Abby, the weight of his dead body crushing her. She could feel his penis, still stiff, poking her belly.

"Fuck, you killed him!" David stared at the scene, eyes wide in shock from the slaughter he saw.

But he quickly caught himself again, ran towards Abby, who was now trapped under Logan's body, and kicked the hammer out of her hand. The tool flew away in a high arc, landing several yards away. Abby cursed herself for letting David disarm her so easily. Now she had nothing to defend herself with.

David hastily recovered the rope, which was still tied around the top end of the cross, and threw it noose over Abby's head, jerking it tight. Abby felt the rope strangulating her, cutting her off from the air that she so direly needed. Both of her hands grabbed for the rope, trying to pull it away from David, but his grip on it was too firm.

Instinctively, Abby flopped her arms around, desperately searching for anything that she could use as weapon. Maybe she would find a rock before it was too late? David was bent over her, his face hanging over hers, upside down from her perspective. Her breath, turned to steam in the freezing air, made his glasses fog up.

She found what she had been looking for. It was the knife Logan had used to cut the ropes from her wrists. When he had stripped to rape Abby once more, he had dropped it on the ground carelessly, not noticing that it was within her reach.

David's eyes grew wide in shock again, almost gouging out of their sockets, when the blade cut through is throat. Abby's face and chest where splashed with warm blood, but it was only another smaller inconvenience for her, since David finally stopped choking her and let go of the rope. He desperately reached for his neck, trying to stop the bleeding. But it was hopeless. After a couple of seconds, he fell down on the ground, leaving an ever-growing puddle of dark red blood in the white snow.

To be continued.
 
Chapter 13

It took her an unbelievable amount of strength. Strength that Abby wondered about where she took it from. But she eventually managed to free herself from under Logan's body by pushing it up and making it roll to the side. Then she stood up. It probably took her the better half of a minute in her weakened state only to stand up, but she made that happen, too. Her feet were shaky and she slowly teetered over to David's body to recover the switchblade, which she had buried in his throat.

Two of her captors were dead. The third one was distracted by packing up. This was her chance to get away! In the end, she had not been reliant on a miracle. She had freed herself, just by enduring the time of her powerlessness and then striking at the right moment.

"You fucking bitch! What have you done?"

Rod had returned from the lodge, probably to check if his friends had executed their orders. They had not.

Abby held the knife up high, showing Rod that she armed and ready for a fight. Not that she would last long if it really came to this, though. Her hand was shaking and made the knife sway from side to side by itself. She had to take little steps forwards, backwards and to the side every now and then, like a tattered boxer trying to maintain his stance.

"Give me the car keys", she demanded. "I'm getting out of here."

How could she still produce words? Or was it just an incoherent muttering that felt like words to her? Somehow, Rod seemed to understand her. But his answer was discouraging.

"No", he chuckled. Not in his usual cheery way, but in a threatening way. "I won't give you the keys. Look at you, you wouldn't even make it to the car. Do you even know in which direction you would have to go? No, my dear Abby. You are going to die right here and right now."

Without wasting another second, he leapt towards her and tackled her like a defensive end sacking the quarterback. They both landed in the snow, Rod on top of Abby. He quickly used his left arm to pin down her right hand, which held the knife, to prevent her from using that pointy tool on him. His right hand closed around Abby's neck, choking the life out of her.

"Game over, you fucking cunt! You will finally die! Miserably, like the pathetic whore that you are."

Abby heard his words. They were meaningless to her. She also heard something else: a deep, monotone humming. Then she saw it, a little black spot in the sky. A helicopter!

Suddenly remembering the self defence lessons she had taken once, Abby quickly brough her free left hand up to Rod's face and dug the nail of her thumb into his right eye. Rod, caught by suprise from the unexpected attack, rolled himself off Abby, pressing both of his hands against his face, screeching in pain.

Abby reacted quickly, renewed her grip on the knife and rammed it into both of Rod's calves. She had wanted to cut his throat instead, but with his arms as a cover, that would have been to risky. Even maimed like this, he was still dangerous.

The humming was getting louder, which meant that the helicopter was getting closer. They would have to see her and then rescue her. But they weren't here yet. She had to buy some time. Clumsily, she raised herself up and began limping along the shore of the pond, into the direction where she thought to remember the lodge. Once she had reached the fishing hut, she would look for something to signal the helicopter with. Also, it would be a perfect spot to make a stand and to fend Rod off, if he managed to follow her.

He did follow. A quick look over the shoulder made Abby realize that her pierced feet had left bloody footprints in the snow. And then she spotted him: Rod was less than ten yards behind her! The injuries from his legs also made him walk with a heavy limp, but regardless of that it was faster than the half dead zombie walk that Abby showed.

"Come here you, whore! Stop running away, it's useless!"

She would not make it back to the lodge before he caught up with her. She had to find another way. Then Abby noticed something right next to her that she had not seen the night before when she been paraded through the woods to the place of her crucifixion. There was a small landing stage going out into the water. It had a tiny rowing boat tied up at its end.

Abby made her way to the boat and let herself fall down into it. Fighting against her exhaustion, she tried to open the knot of the hawser that kept the boat in place. It was frozen and whatever Abby did could not loosen it. Rembering she still had the knife, she began cutting the rope. It worked! Now, all that Abby had to do was to push herself away and make the boat drift into the open water. Rod would not dare to jump after her. The icy water would probably kill him within moments.

She was just seconds away from completing her escape, already putting her hands against the edge of the landing stage, ready to push, when Logan's hand grabbed her hair. He had crawled across the stage and was now holding on to her, refusing her to leave.

"I told you that I would get you", Rod rejoiced.

This time however, he did not remember to keep up his cover and the knife found its way home, digging into its owner's larynx. With a gargeling noise, he collapsed and let go of Abby.

"Yippie ki yay, motherfucker!", she quoted a line she remembered from the 'Die Hard' movie the guys had watched yesterday after raping her.

Then, with a hard push, she launched the boat away from the shore. The helicopter was coming towards her, flying low. Had they already seen her? Abby threw her hands up in the air, waving at them. This rocked the boat so hard that it almost capsized. The helicopter flew right past her, less than 100 feet over the ground. Had they seen her? Or had they not?

She had to find something else to give away her position. There was a small crate in the stern of the boat. Inside, she found a bengal light. It looked old, but did not seem to have been used before. Abby prayed that it would still work, while she searched for the rip cord. With her hands weak and shaking, it took her a couple of tries, but finally a bright green flame sparked out from the tip of the plastic tube.

The helicopter kept flying away from her in a straight line. They had not seen her. Her heart sunk when she realized that she had been too slow. Then she collapsed in the boat, accepting her fate. The morning sun, now already standing above even the highest tree top of the forest, was the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes.

To be continued.
 
Chapter 14

"She's waking up. Gina, she's waking up!"

Abby recognized the voice. It was the voice of her father.

"Oh my God, my Abby!", the voice of her mother cried out in relief.

Abby opened her eyes and saw her parents sitting next to her bed, smiling with tears of joy running down their faces. Still sleepy, she looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.

She was in a hospital room, with a soft pillow and a thick blanket warming her in her bed. She wore a clean nightgown that hid most of the marks from the whipping and the branding. Her wrists and her feet had been wrapped in fresh bandages. She knew what terrible wounds lay beneath them, but she did not feel any pain. That was probably due to the drip providing her with painkillers and antibiotics. Abby flinched when she discovered the plastic tube ending in a little needle sunken into her elbow. But she had been through worse stuff.

How did she get here? Didn't she just die in that awful icy place?

Then she remembered. During the last hours, she had repeatedly faded in and out of unconsciousness, so there were only fragments in her memory. But she remembered the small black helicopter coming back for her, with a larger bright orange helicopter in tow. She remembered a paramedic lowering himself down from the rescue helicopter and taking her back up with him. And she remembered being wrapped in thermal blankets.

Her next memory was of her being rolled through long and bright corridors on a sickbed. There was a policeman who said "Fuck me, drunk Santa was actually right!" when she passed him. There was a doctor diagnosing her, throwing around all kinds of medical terms she did not understand. But one thing she did understand: She had been damn lucky to survive her injuries and exposure to the cold for so long. And apart from her test for a blood poisoning pending, it looked like she was going to walk away living, albeit with permanent damages that would remain for the rest of her life.

Finally, she remembered a nurse asking her for her name and if she should contact anyone. Abby guessed that she had told her to contact her parents, since they were here now. And she was happy about it.

Their silent reunion was interrupted by the door being opened and Abby's younger sister Laura entering. She balanced a tray with three paper cups in her hand. When she spotted Abby, she froze and dropped the tray. The paper cups crashed on the ground and revealed their content: coffe.

"You are awake!"

Laura jumped onto the bed and landed right on top of Abby. Although Laura had just turned eighteen this year, Abby's sister was still tiny and lightweight for her age, which allowed her to pull stunts like this without hurting anyone. Nevertheless, the air was driven out of Abby's lungs and her ribcage hurt when Laura hugged her. Abby couldn't be mad at the little whirlwind and returned the hug with a faint smile.

"You were supposed to tell me when she is awake", Laura scolded her parents. "How much time has passed since she has woken up?"

"Thirty seconds", Abby's father laughed while he dragged Laura out of the bed to give Abby a little more room to breathe.

"Oh", Laura commented when she saw the spilled coffee. "Looks like I have made a mess. I will clean this up and then get us a new round of coffee, four cups this time!"

"Abby, what happened to you?", her mother asked carefully after Laura had left for the cafetria.

Abby was glad that her mother had waited for them to be alone. Her little sister did not have to hear this. After all, Abby was not sure if she was ready to tell the entire story to her parents yet.

"My flight got cancelled", she replied reluctantly.

"We know that", her father interrupted her. "We tried to call you on your phone, but we couldn't reach you. We were so worried!"

"I know, I'm sorry", she apologized. "I had forgotten to charge my phone and the battery was dead."

"Don't be sorry", her mother calmed her. "It is alright. You are safe now."

"Abby", her father continued after a quick moment of hesitation. "The police told us that they found the bodies of two young men near the place they rescued you from. Did you know these men?"

"Two?", Abby gasped alarmed. "You said, they found TWO bodies?"

If there were only two bodies, it meant that Abby had failed to kill one of her abusers. One of them had survived and managed to flee the scene before the police had arrived. And now he was out there, doubtlessly looking for her, seeking revenge.

"Yes", her father answered. "Were they friends of yours?"

"No... no, I wouldn't say so", Abby sighed. "Can we please do this another time?"

"Whenever you are ready, dear", her mother reassured.

Abby did not know if she was ever going to be ready.

The chief doctor visited her a little while later, congratulating her to her unlikely survival. But he also had bad news for her. He insisted her to stay for a couple of days longer, since her wounds needed further monitoring. She would not be allowed to leave the hospital before the new year.

The next day, the police came to record Abby's statement about the events that had lead to the mysterious discovery of a half-dead naked girl and two dead guys in the middle of nowhere. Maybe Abby was not ready to tell her family what had happened, but when talking to the police, she left no detail out. It helped that they had sent two female officers, presuming from the circumstances that sexual assault had been involved. The two officers were very professional and gave Abby breaks from the questioning whenever she felt like she needed one. There was also a psychologist specialized on abduction and rape victims, who consulted her while she gave her statement.

The days came and went. Outside the visiting hours, there was not much to do except for watching TV, reading and sleeping. Abby's parents and her sister, who stayed at a nearby hotel, visited her every day as long as they were allowed to. They also provided her with fresh magazines for her entertainment and loads of Christmas candy, which were a welcome change to the bland hospital food.

As the days passed, Abby's wounds slowly started healing. It would take them much more time than a couple of days in the hospital, though. The doctors kept telling her that she was lucky, since against all odds, the nails driven through her wrists and feet had not caused any permanent nerve or muscle damage. But they would leave ugly scars. Abby spent a lot of her time alone contemplating about how she would deal with that. Covering them up with some beautiful tattoos sounded promising.

Before long, New Year's Eve came. Abby's room was directly over the entry of the casualty unit and ever since the late afternoon, a new ambulance had arrived every few minutes, delivering more idiots who had drunken too much or had injured themselves with inappropriately handled fireworks.

Alone in a hospital room seemed like the most depressing place to be on New Year's Eve. Abby sat in her bed, sobbing in frustration that she could not be with her family tonight. The hospital staff had not allowed them to stay, claiming everyone had to obey the visiting hours.

Them she reminded herself that there was indeed a more depressing place where she could have been tonight: in a shallow grave, dug by the men who had abducted, raped, tortured and almost killed her. Compared to that, the hospital did not seem too bad.

She looked out of her window at the sky, expecting the fireworks in the nearby city to go off every moment. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door before it was opened.

"I figured that you were still awake."

It was Nico, one of the few male nurses here. Judging by his appearance, one would not have expected him to work at a hospital. His bulky physique, his shaved head and his countless wild looking tattoos covering his arms and his neck made him look more like a bouncer than a nurse.

His warm dark brown eyes were a stark contrast to that and gave Abby a feeling of trust whenever she looked into them. And while all of the other nurses, having heard Abby's story through rumors, always looked at her with a mix of fear and curiosity and acted awkwardly around her, Nico did not. He actually treated her like a person of the same value as himself and not like a freak.

"Someone just left this at the reception for you", he said, handing her an envelope that had her full name written on it. Abigail Rose Turner.

She waited until Nico had left, which he of course only did after their obligatory friendly chit chat. Inside the envelope, she found a 'Get well soon' card. When she opened the card, her ID fell out and landed on the sheets in front of her.

Then the realization hit her: She always kept her ID in her wallet. She had put her wallet into her rucksack. And the last time she had seen her rucksack had been when she put it in the trunk of the rental car. Her missing abductor must have found it, together with the rest of her stuff. And now he knew everything about her! Her full name, the place where she (still) lived, and (given that he managed to hack into her recharged phone) all the contacts to her family and friends, including the access to all of her social media accounts. Even worse: He had found the hospital she was in, meaning that he knew her exact location at this very moment. Was he waiting for her outside?

A bang from outside made her jump in terror. But it was only the fireworks going off. The clock on the wall told her that it was midnight. Holding the card in her shaking hands, she read what was written inside:

Dear Abby,
I want to thank you for the wonderful time we spent together. It is a shame that you had to leave early. I would very much like to see you again soon. But for now, I think it is best to keep some distance and lick our wounds. We both have left our marks on each other.
Maybe, one day we will meet again. I really hope so, since I am looking forward to finish what we started. Until then: A happy new year to you!
Kisses, Rod.

The End.
 
Great story and fightback from Abby, a brave and resourceful young lady. She better be on her guard at Easter when there is another tradition........
 
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