Baited - Part One - by Tabitha Gidcomb

Mother often said never to take a ride from a stranger, among the many other wise and foreseeing things mothers say, or should say, to their children, to warn them, to protect them. Never take a ride from a stranger, no matter what. I had always listened, nodding my little head in tune with the last four syllables until she was satisfied that the message had gotten through. Her warm smile, warm and inviting as cocoa on a snowy school day off, would instantly simmer back into position on the mask she wore over her once beautiful face. Even as a child I could see this, could see the worry-worn reality beneath the façade of the daily routine. The purplish-blue reality (she tried so hard to hide it with makeup) bore witness to the truth of the night, when the full of the day has dropped its weight and there is nothing else to do but bleed at the hands of the man you love.

Never take a ride from a stranger. And always that look apart from the other ones, as if it were some cryptic clue, some confession in the form of a riddle. Never take a ride from a stranger. I'd always listened, except for the one time.

(#)

I was sitting on the bleachers, second from the bottom as always, jotting down random thoughts and scattered lines of poetry in my notebook when I saw the car for the first time. A rumble and a roar resembling nothing other on this planet than an older model muscle car came thundering even as it purred up the service road behind the bleachers where I sat. The shiny matte black of the car dominated even as it lurked beneath the radar. A prickle began at the nape of my neck, the hair standing on end as it always did when something definitely bad was about to happen.

A tousle of jet-black hair fell over pale cheeks of a young man as he leaned across the center console as far as it would allow him into the passenger seat. I couldn't help but to look. The car was absolutely gorgeous, sleek in all the right places, detailed with an obvious painstaking care of accurate restoration. It was the kind of vehicle one would expect to see at a car show, not trolling along a college service road at three miles an hour. The engine growled even as it purred, quivering beneath the hood, vain in all its glory. And it had a driver to match.

He flashed his pearly whites at me, still leaning over the console. "What's a pretty little thing like you doin' sittin' all alone? You should be over here." He lightly patted the leather of the passenger seat. "Come on, let's go for a ride." His eyes, mostly hidden by his dark, longish locks, glimmered in a passing ray of late afternoon sun. My breath caught. Even in the fair distance between us, amidst the shadows of the interior of his dark vehicle, a good ten or so yards stretching between my seat on the bleachers and the passenger side door of the car, I could see the glistening mischief on his soft and beautiful face. It was like in the movies, when the villain finally gets his target, the one he has been striving for since the first frame, and can now begin his true villainy; he eyed me as would a victor his prize won only after years of committing innumerable heinous acts to get said prize. A chill trembled down my spine from the prickle at the nape of my neck.

"No, thank you," I said with the firmest resolve I could muster. It was all I could think of, and the sound of it was strong and steady, more so than I had expected. The fear struck without warning then, for reasons I couldn't yet fathom. Another chill quivered down the whole of my back, deeper into the flesh than the first, chilling me to the bone. I shivered in the warm, late summer breeze as I turned attention back to my notebook and began feigning to work, even taking a schoolbook at random from my bag, pretending to do homework.

"Stuck up little..." Whatever the last few words he said then, the roar of the engine drowned them out. Glinting in the afternoon sun, the car sped away on the short length of pavement, doing all of forty miles an hour or more when it hit the section that was still gravel some thirty yards away. The tires barely skimmed across the whole length of deep gravel lane to the road that marked the edge of campus, bounced, and then squealed when they again touched pavement, joggling the car at the rough connection outlet. They left a black rubber streak fifty yards long before disappearing down a side street that let into the heart of the college-side neighborhood where many of the students lived, myself included.

Car and driver left a cloud of dust and scattered gravel in their wake, but the light breeze was gracious and decided to waft the dust cloud away rather than spill it upon me. The commotion caught the attention of the football team practicing on the opposite field, but only for a brief moment; they had a big game this weekend.

I shook off the incident, deliberately, and went back to my notebook. I couldn't focus on the poetry anymore, so I actually did some homework. Normally, the slackened pace of late afternoon on the back edge of campus served the better part of my concentration. I shoved everything back into my bag, frustrated, unfinished homework and all, and zoned out for an endless five minutes.

An unmistakable purring roar rumbled slowly up the service road. The matte black muscle car crept into view from behind the bleachers once again, rolling to a gentle stop. The boy with the tousled black hair leaned over the console, as he had earlier, and smiled as widely as his face would let him. Our eyes locked sight, and he just sat there and stared at me for an indefinite moment. When he finally spoke, his tone was more mocking than before, more obvious of intent, and another chill shot down my spine.

"Come on baby, get in the car. I won't bite, much." He looked me up and down the way a lion eyes its prey from across the savannah, breaking the lock of vision. I turned away, my face flushing, and looked out across the field to where the football team was just finishing practice. One of the players turned to look in our direction. He dropped his helmet on his foot, flinched and then seemed to curse, retrieved it from the ground, and then looked our way again.

"I've already said no in the nicest possible way." The words came automatically, and without emotion. Years of bottling everything up inside had at least one perk: the ability to hide strong feelings of whatever sort from all but the most psychologically adept. The trick was simple. Just go numb.

"You look like you could use a good time," he continued. Either he hadn't heard my reply or he just didn't care. The knot in my stomach suggested the latter. "I can show you a real good time, honey."

"I was taught not to take rides from strangers." It sounded so juvenile even as the words stammered from my lips. I didn't want to look at him again for fear I wouldn't be able to look away.

"You a grown woman, ain't ya?" He called out loudly, his voice going shrill on the last syllable. "Old enough to make your own decisions." The tone went low again, mocking, alluring, filled with all the sounds one would expect from the seductive nature of such villainy. "Oh, yeah, you're a grown woman, alright." It was almost too obvious, and I felt my confidence return in slight. I gave him a hard look, standing my mental ground.

"I choose not to take rides from strangers." That sounded better, to me at least. I also chose not to acknowledge to him the snide comments. Rebuttal would probably have just egged him on. As if his smile couldn't get any wider, he let out a chuckle and accosted me yet again.

"Well then, tell me your name, I'll tell you mine, and strangers we won't be." It was too easy, rehearsed even, as if he'd said it a thousand times to a thousand other girls. And it caught me off balance. I couldn't help but to let out a scoffing sort of single chuckle, one solid and involuntary 'ha!' He misinterpreted my meaning.

"Mmm, see now, the closer we get, the bigger I get." With a swift and fluid motion, he unzipped his pants, shoved his hand between the folds, and brought out the swollen package within. My face went red hot. As quickly and calmly as possible, I stepped off the bleachers, threw the catch on my book bag, and flung the heavy pack over my shoulders. He called to me as I gathered my things, ooh-ing and ahh-ing, and yeah baby come get in the car.

I turned and stared him dead in the eye, and said something I learned from a classmate who always had her thumbs preoccupied with texting on her phone. I spelled out an acronym. "FO, SOB," in as forceful a manner as I could manage. It stunned him, if only for a moment, the exhilaration of rejection as he must have expected, though delivered in an unexpected way. I took that moment to make my escape. I started across the field to where the football team had all but packed up and left for the day. To my surprise, one of the players was jogging across the field toward me and my foul heckler.

The heckler, as he was, took that moment as a sign. The car leapt forward several yards, spun a half circle, and sped back in the direction it had come down the service road instead of skidding off across the gravel again. Our eyes locked once more just before the bleachers broke through the vision. A pure scowl of mixed anger and lust stung from his face to mine. Another shiver quaked through me. No longer bound to my spine, it shook my whole body. I could hear the tires squealing in the distance, turning a corner, and disappearing into the low hum that is the din of a city's own personal white noise. A hand touched my shoulder, and I nearly leapt from out of my own sneakers.

To be conitnued...

Tabitha Gidcomb realized her fervent passion as a writer at the tender age of 8, scribbling out cutesy poems about rainbows and doodles. Over the years, the bright colors faded to oil slick menagerie, tarnished yet still beautiful. As an adult she daily dances on the dark side of the thin gray line, unwittingly bringing back with her shadows a many that haunt her every waking moment with demands to be written into immortality. She must oblige them. This is her first publication.

#suspense #stranger #musclecar #donttakeridesfromstrangers #Serials