Kidnapped! - episode 8

[on the closet floor, listening]

Up until now, dear reader, you may be excused for thinking this adventure was more comedic than calamitous, more droll than deadly. And, while each of us views life's events in our own unique way, from my perspective, as you can tell by the tale told thus far, that is how I saw it. Certainly on the night's scale there was much that weighed on the deadly side: the gun, the gunmen, and the abduction. Sitting on the toilet or the closet floor tied and blindfolded is not something you do for a good time…after the age of 12 or so. But on the other side of the balance rested the clear novelty of the adventure, the less than brutish nature of my abductors, and all of life's inevitable quirkiness when people are performing a very high stakes game with absolutely no prior experience. I was definitely winging it in my role, and I had to believe that these two had done little more than breaking and entering, and selling stolen goods. If they are alive today they are probably doing illegal downloads. So, on balance, it wasn't a calamity, say, compared to spending a night with Krampus or Miss Ames. It was intense and important, and could easily escalate into actions that could be calamitous. The problem with this type of adventure is that you don't know how it will end…and that is what makes it scary.

As I blindly listened to what was going on outside the closet, I could hear nothing. It was now or never. Perhaps they had already left. Or, perhaps they were quietly waiting for me beyond the closet door, trying to see if I could escape. I easily slipped my hands out of my bindings. If they discovered me now, there was no way I could re-tie my hands. I would be undone. I removed my blindfold. It was dark in the closet. Quickly I went to open the closet door. Perhaps it was locked or they had placed a chair against the knob. I tried to turn the handle, but my hands were so wet with nervous sweat that they just slid right off the knob. My body was trying to tell me how apprehensive I really was. I bent down to grab the scarf which was my blindfold and used it to grasp the door knob. It turned.

Here is where I was more afraid than anytime in my life. I was shaking for real. I felt there was a good chance the gunman was simply waiting silently outside the closet ready to use the gun if I tried to escape. I opened the door and…no one! I ran to the front door which was open. I slammed it shut. They had my keys, but there was a chain lock on the inside. Quickly I went to slide the chain lock in the slot. It wouldn't go! This was a bad dream; why wouldn't it go? I was about to panic when I saw that this type of chain lock was not just a round knob. It was oblong and had to be inserted on the slotted track the right way. Finally, I was able to chain lock the door to my apartment.

Then I ran to the kitchen in the back of the apartment and picked up the phone. They had cut the wires and the phone was dead. From my window in the back I could see other apartments. By this time it was fairly late and everyone's lights were out. I started screaming out the window trying to wake up a neighbor.

"Help! I'm being robbed! Call the police! My phone has been cut! Please, call the police. There is a robbery going on!"

Meanwhile the two came back up the stairs and opened the door hard against the chain lock. I could hear it bang from the kitchen. I yelled a little louder. If they had tried, I'm sure they could have shouldered the door hard enough to tear the screws of the lock out of the door frame. But they did not. They ran.

Eventually I woke someone up and was just coherent enough to get them to call the police. Not calmly, I tried to explain by yelling out my kitchen window to what was probably their kitchen window, perhaps 50 feet away, what was happening, so they could relay it to the police who were now on the phone. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I do recall that it took some time for me to provide information in a manner that made sense to the police. It was like the telephone game played around the dinner table. There were only three people playing, but one was yelling in a highly agitated state instead of whispering.

After I was told that the police were on their way, I didn't move, literally, until I could see the reflected flashing red lights of a police car from my window.

[To be continued…]