Author: Winter Writing Contest

I have a dreadful cramp in my left leg but if I stretch out I will disturb the others. This space is too small for three adults, especially blokes with their long legs, but we have no choice. The warning has been given and we need to wait, huddled below our stairs until the danger has passed. It will start in two minutes and then perhaps the pain will be over.

Growing up in the 1970s I read the Government pamphlets and knew ‘Protect and Survive’ by heart: take off a door, paint it white, make a shelter. We laughed at the absurdity of it while hoping that we would never need to put it into action. Yet here I am, sixty years old, curled up in the under stairs cupboard with my son and husband, trying to protect them and praying that we all survive.

In another life, I might be running around New York City, saving children from burning buildings and intercepting crime bosses. I might even have a super-suit.

But for now, I live in a suburb in western Massachusetts.

Let’s back up for a second.

My name is Terry Boutwell. I’m a high school junior. I play soccer, and I invest a lot of my emotional stability in the fates of book characters.

Oh yeah, and I can read minds.

My name is Emma Isabela Lopez, but they call me 52, the fifty-second women abducted the week my life ended. I can hear them coming down the hall. They are coming for me. They are always coming for me. Today, I sit with twenty-three girls (not yet women) who will soon be raped. I have been raped five times this morning. It is only 7:30 a.m. Don’t think I have become accustomed to this. I have not. I might sound as though it is commonplace, but I remember. I remember when I was a person. When I had a name.

“Cingo,” comes a whisper from the corner of the dark, dank space. Cingo is what Honey calls me, a name of her choosing to call me something other than “52.” I cannot bear to speak my name aloud in this place, not even in a whisper — not until I am free.

It started as a whisper and built to a scream.

Ten o’clock. There’s still time.

Ten o’clock. There’s still time.

Ten o’clock. There’s still time!

Dani’s bloodshot eyes opened wide as she came out of her stupor. Turning her head, she glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. She blinked hard until the time came into focus. Its big red numbers flashed:

10:00 pm.

She had one hour to stop him!