Page 11 of One Minute Out

I turn one of the locks, then begin to reach for the other, but I can tell I’m not going to get out in time. He’s only three huge bounds away from sinking his teeth into the back of my neck.

Fuck it. I’m shooting this dog.

Spinning around, I lift my pistol to line it up on the animal’s fat face; he’s ten feet away, just on the far side of the stairwell.

The Malinois launches himself at me just as a man appears, leaping into view from the stairs, obviously responding to my shout or the sound of movement down here in the kitchen.

He turns towards me, swinging his subgun, and the big canine slams into the man’s back, knocking him facedown and causing the dog to roll and slide on the tile, crashing through chairs and a small wooden table.

I turn back to the door, open the second lock, and dive outside while pulling it shut behind me.

I’m in the well-lit drive; there could be four or five guns lining up on me right now, but I don’t even scan for threats.

I run. I just... fucking... run.

•••

Twenty-four-year-old Liliana Brinza raced through the woods down the hill, lost in the dark with no real concept of where she was or where she was going; all she knew for certain was that she had to get the hell away from the dungeon she’d been living in for the past week or so.

She’d arrived at night, and since then she’d lived in the room with the red light, only to be dragged out, away from the other women, once or twice a day to be raped.

The old man was the worst. He’d beaten her and raped her, and he’d been seconds away from doing it again when the man in black appeared. Liliana was no fool; she saw the opportunity and raced up the stairs, hid in a closet while she decided on her next move, listening to gunfire and the frantic shouts of men downstairs. Then she heard the dogs in the house and finally she took a chance and ran for the back door next to the empty kennels. She saw no one outside at all, so she raced across the back pasture to the woods, hid in some brush for a few minutes, and now she wanted to find a road or a town or another house with a phone or anything that could help her out of this desperate situation.

She ran on, her bare feet bleeding and thin branches whipping against her body, and she told herself she was in the clear, that no one was out here looking for her.

This horrific ordeal was over.

Just then a form spun in her direction from behind a tree, moved in front of her in the moonlight, took her by the mouth and covered it, and pulled her down to the ground.

He had her in a headlock, held her facing away from him as they sat in the grass, with his other hand still tight against her mouth.

She couldn’t scream, but she could bite. So she did.

•••

It’s not my night. A dog bites my right hand, and now a woman bites my left. I pull away from her choppers before she sinks in deep enough to do damage, and I lean into her ear, stifling a scream of pain. With one arm wrapped around her neck and my hand still hovering over her mouth ready to stanch any noise, I say, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Guessing she might speak Russian, I say “Nyet problem, nyet problem,” which means “no problem,” and is an admittedly asinine thing to tell a woman who just left her terror dungeon to find herself racing barefoot through an ink-black forest pursued by vicious dogs and men with guns.

Only to end up with some asshole holding her in a headlock telling her everything is cool.

I loosen my grip, and in both languages I say, “I’m here to help you.”

Her breathing is almost out of control for several seconds. Finally she swallows, controls herself. In English she says, “You... you are man in black?”

She can’t see me, I’ve got her held facing away, so it’s a reasonable question.

“Da. I mean... yes.”

In the distance I hear barking dogs, but they aren’t close. I’d seen wild boar in the trees as I made it to the woods, so I wonder if the Malinois are off chasing the wrong fleeing prey.

“You are British?” she asks softly.

Why not? “Sure,” I lie, but I don’t bother to fake an accent.

“The other girls?”

“They would not leave.”

To my surprise, she nods. “Yes. They have family, or they think they go somewhere better. I no have any family, and I know where they are going.”

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