Outward Bound · Part 1 (1/2)
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Outward Bound is an international, outdoor-education organization which organises challenging expeditions aimed at promoting wilderness survival skills. This story, however, brings a whole new meaning to the term.
Jessica scoured the landscape in every direction, in what turned out to be an utterly futile effort to find a familiar landmark on the featureless Scottish moor. She had to face the fact that she was lost. She cursed to herself beneath her breath. What the hell was she doing out here all alone in the wilderness, miles from civilisation? The Outward Bound holiday hadn't been her idea, nor indeed something that she'd been particularly keen on getting involved in. But her friend Penny had, over the course of several weeks, managed to convince Jessica to go along with her.
Her boyfriend Mike, who as well as being her lover also happened to be Penny's brother, had also cajoled her into taking up the challenge. In fact he'd been extremely keen for her to go; strangely over enthusiastic really, when she thought about it. As he couldn't take any time off work at the moment, he'd told her, she should take a break without him and get away for a few days.
And now, on the first day of the week long vacation, the twenty year old slim, attractive blonde had lost her bearings in the wilds of the western Scottish Highlands. Her party's objective today had been to hike almost twenty miles through the bogs and heather -individually, as opposed to in a group – in an effort to assess their map and compass reading skills, before meeting up again at a pre arranged destination to then be ferried by road back to the hostel for the night. They had, therefore, each left their base camp at fifteen minute intervals.
Unfortunately, Jessica's capabilities with an Ordnance Survey map were basically non-existent, and without understanding in which direction she was supposed to be heading, the compass was as good as useless to her. She'd expected to be able to follow the others, but once out on the moors hadn't caught even a glimpse of anyone else. They were obviously more used to trekking over this terrain than she was, she assumed, and thus already so far ahead that she had no chance of catching them up. Even Penny, who had gone out just ahead of her, was nowhere to be seen. She glanced at her watch. It was five minutes before noon on a lovely sunny June day. She'd taken off her waterproof jacket more than an hour ago, but still found the heat overbearing, so now pulled the thick woollen jumper over her head, leaving only a T-shirt covering her upper body.
That felt much better, she thought, as she crammed the pullover into her rucksack alongside the coat. Her legs though, were a different matter. The early morning had been extremely cool; so cold, in fact, that Jessica had decided to wear tights beneath her black spandex leggings. Now, however, with the temperature rising into the high twenties Celsius, the wisdom of this action was showing itself to be dubious. Her lower body and legs were now swelteringly hot, but although she was alone in an otherwise deserted landscape, Jessica still felt uneasy about stripping off and removing her tights. She therefore decided to grin and bear the discomfort.
She continued onwards through the knee high heather towards a low ridge only a few hundred yards distant, hoping to be able to find her bearings more easily from the higher ground. Not that she was particularly worried at this stage about her loss of direction. This may be the north of Scotland, she told herself, but civilisation couldn't be that far away, could it? And anyway, she wasn't the only person out on the moors today, as there were at least twelve others in her group, some of whom were quite possibly in a very similar predicament to her.
Upon reaching the ridge and consulting the map, Jessica found that she was still none the wiser as to which way she should be heading. She scanned the distant mountain peaks, some of which still had snow in the higher corries, trying to work out which ones corresponded to the summits shown on her map. She failed this exercise dismally. In the foreground, the moor offered no clues to her conundrum, spreading out in a barren expanse of heather and stunted trees for mile after mile, the only thing of note being a large rocky outcrop, maybe four or five hundred yards from where she stood.
What it was that actually caught Jessica's attention, and made her look twice in this direction, she wasn't certain. Possibly the strange shape of the rock itself, or maybe it was the glint of something reflecting the sun's rays. But whatever the reason, she found herself scrutinising this vicinity with far greater thoroughness than she did any other area.
Then she saw it. It seemed totally bizarre and out of place, but there was no mistaking its identity. There, in the middle of nowhere, stood a car, or more precisely, a 4 x 4. Jessica set off through the heather in the direction of this unexpected sight, half expecting that it was a mirage that would disappear as she moved closer. If there was a vehicle out here, she reasoned, then surely there must be someone close by who could point her in the right direction. And even if it proved to be empty or abandoned, at least there must be a track close at hand in order for it to have been driven out here in the first place. That being the case, all she'd have to do was follow that track and, sooner or later, she'd come to a road.
As she drew nearer, Jessica was able to identify the vehicle as a Range Rover, dark green in colour. She also noticed that, as far as she could make out, there was no one inside; a hunch that proved to be accurate once she arrived beside it. Nor, it seemed, was anyone nearby.
For some reason, Jessica peered in through the driver's window; hoping, perhaps, that this might throw up some clue as to the person or persons responsible for leaving it here. A gamekeeper maybe? Or possibly hikers? There was no way of telling.
Jessica started to make her way down the rutted track, which led away in both directions. She'd made up her mind to take the route that the vehicle seemed to have arrived from, rather than the direction in which it faced, reasoning that the latter was more likely to lead further into the hills, whereas following the former would be more likely to lead back to civilisation. However, she had gone no more than ten yards, when the sight of a figure standing motionless to her right made her jump. The man appeared to be in his fifties; grey hair, bushy moustache, wearing a tweed jacket and trousers, and with a deerstalker hat on his head. Across his folded arms rested a double-barrelled shotgun. He seemed to be scowling at Jessica.
“Hello, I seem to have got lost. Could you tell me the way to…”
She stopped in mid sentence, as she noticed the man move for the first time… and point his gun directly at her.
"I'm sorry, am I trespassing or something? I wasn't breaking into your car, if that's what you're thinking."
The stranger began walking slowly towards her, training the gun on her at all times. Jessica stood as still as a statue. When the distance between them was no more than five or six feet, he stopped and finally broke his silence.
“Turn around and walk to the rear of the car… and don't try anything stupid.”
The harsh Scottish accent was menacing in its tone, and doing anything that might endanger her life was the last thing on Jessica’s mind, so she slowly turned and began to move as directed. But she must have hesitated for a fraction of a second too long before obeying his orders, for his next words were barked as a hostile, impatient command.
"Come on, I haven't got all day!”
"Please don't hurt me, I haven't done anything. What do you want?"
"Just shut up and walk.”
By the time they reached the vehicle, Jessica was visibly shaking with fright. She turned to face her adversary, to find that he had momentarily leant the gun against the bumper and was now searching for something in his jacket pocket, although his eyes never left her for even a split second. Jessica was sorely tempted to run at this moment, but to where? There was very little cover available to her, save for the rocky outcrop, and that was several yards away. He'd have ample time to pick up the gun, aim and shoot her before she reached safety if he had a mind to. So reluctantly she managed to curb her instinct to flee.
After several seconds, he finally produced a ring with several keys attached to it and quickly released the rear door. Once open, he quickly removed two of the four items lying therein; a spare wheel and a heavy wooden box. A cloth holdall bag, brown in colour, and an old grey blanket, remained where they lay. This must all be some dreadful mistake, Jessica decided, as he beckoned her to get inside. He must be under the impression that she'd committed some crime or other, and was going to turn her in to the police. She opened her mouth to try to explain, but before more than two syllables had formed, she'd been silenced.
"Shut up and get inside."
The gun barrels were again pointing at her chest from almost point blank range, so, trembling violently now, and with her knees feeling weak, she did as she was ordered. The back of the Range Rover had been partitioned from the front with a metal grille, usually used to keep dogs from jumping through to the seats at the front. As Jessica unwillingly scrambled inside, the thought came to mind that she was entering a cage.
"Lay face down on the floor."
Again she complied, watching as his left hand dipped into the cloth bag. As soon as she saw it emerge again, clutching a long piece of rope, Jessica immediately guessed its purpose.
"No! Please don't tie me up!”
He'd propped the gun against the car again and had climbed into the confined space with her now. Grasping her arms, he forced them up behind her back. Although she squealed half heartedly as she first felt the rope tighten, she was too scared to even think about trying to fight him off; meekly allowing him to wrap the strong cord around her wrists several times so tightly that it cut into her flesh. With the rope wound around her lower arms to his satisfaction, he cinched it and tied a secure knot at the back of her wrists. A second piece of rope was now retrieved, which he swiftly used to bind her upper arms together.
The force used to bring her elbows into close contact with each other caused excruciating pain in Jessica's arms, as she felt her shoulders almost being wrenched from their sockets. Although her groans must have alerted him to the agony he was causing her, he didn’t let up; finally securing a knot at her elbows and pulling the few remaining inches of cord back down to her hands, where another knot was pulled tight and secured to her wrist bond.
Without a break, he produced two more pieces of rope from the holdall, and swiftly bound her ankles together with the first; her knees receiving a similar treatment with the other. With this completed, he removed himself from the boot and stood over her, as if admiring his handiwork. Jessica rolled onto her side and stared up at him, tears filling her eyes.
"Please let me go. What do you want with me?"
"You know something?" He declared with a hint of an evil smirk on his face, "You talk too much. I can soon remedy that, though."
Again he reached into his bag, this time producing a rubber ball, attached to which were two leather straps.
Jessica didn't have time to wonder what this strange contraption was, nor to protest as its purpose became apparent. Within a second or two of its appearance, the ball had been thrust into her mouth, and the two strips of leather buckled securely together at the rear of her head. Jessica's first thoughts were that the ball, combined with her rising panic, would cause her to choke. In vain she tried to sit up and spit the foul tasting object out. Keep calm, she kept telling herself, he'll come to his senses in a minute and let me go. But deep down, she knew that this was unlikely. She was in big trouble here, with seemingly no way of extricating herself from an ever worsening situation. He was leaning over her again now, and she felt his cold, rough hand grab her arm and push her onto her back.
Again she looked up at her abductor, her eyes doing the pleading that her mouth was no longer capable of. But she wasn’t given more than a few seconds for her grave expression to convince him of her displeasure, as the dirty grey blanket was thrown over her, covering her from head to toe.
For a second or two nothing else happened. But then, just as Jessica was beginning to think that he'd abandoned her, and that it was now time to commence struggling, she felt something heavy being placed on her legs; the conclusion she drew being that this must be the spare wheel. Another few seconds elapsed, and then another weighty object was set down on her chest and stomach, almost crushing her. This, she deduced as the tears flowed down her cheeks, must be the wooden box. Before the sound of the door slamming shut reached her ears, she felt two lighter items being thrown in, one only inches from her face, the other by her feet. These, she guessed, must be her rucksack and his holdall bag; only which was which she had no way of telling.
After a brief pause, the rumble of the engine vibrated through the floor of the confined space in which Jessica lay entrapped, and seconds later the Range Rover began its bumpy, bone-jarring journey. Jessica struggled to release the rope around her wrists, but the heavy weights would not allow her to turn onto her side, and her arms remained wedged beneath her body. Besides that, the pain that ran through her wrists, arms and shoulders every time she moved them, suggested that, however desperate she was to be free, twisting and pulling on her restraints would only result in further discomfort and possible injury.
Although the vehicle was moving only very slowly over the hazardous terrain, every dip, every rock or other obstacle that the wheels encountered, either saw Jessica being thrown violently against the floor, or else the heavy obstructions that pinned her down shift from one position to another, causing yet more agony.
At last, to her great relief, the rutted track gave way to a much smoother surface, and she realised that they must now be on a proper road. She had been too distressed up until now – wondering when the next crack on her skull or crushing of her legs and body would occur – to have taken in the length of time they'd been on the move. But now, as the ride became relatively more sedate, she found herself trying to guess the duration of the journey, together with the speed being travelled. That way, she hoped that when she finally escaped or was set free, she'd have a rough idea of how far she was from her point of abduction.
At first, the drone of the engine, together with the occasional sharp bend, suggested to Jessica that they were on a winding mountain road. The fact that every so often the driver was forced to stop, at which point another car could be heard passing by, suggested that they were now on a single track road with passing places. Eventually, however, their speed increased, which was a sure sign that they were now on a two-way main road. The sound of increased traffic also bore out this conclusion.
Unless she was estimating the time wrongly – which was quite likely considering her troubled state of mind – they must have been on the road for the best part of an hour before the vehicle once again slowed down. During this time, Jessica's mind had been buzzing with unanswerable questions. Had her abduction been a spur of the moment decision on his part? Or was he, as the bag containing ropes and gag suggested, on the lookout for a victim? And if the latter was the case, then was she picked at random, having just been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or had he been stalking her and her alone? And what were his motives for her capture? Ransom? Rape? The former seemed unlikely, whilst the latter made her shiver and her flesh creep.
It was by now very hot beneath the blanket, and the coarse material was causing the skin on Jessica's face and arms to itch. With a massive surge of energy, she thrust her body forwards several times, until the top of her head, down as far as her eyes, poked out from beneath the cover. She looked up, but could see only the clear blue sky dotted with occasional small, fluffy white clouds, as they flashed past the car's rear window. The box precluded her seeing much else, except to confirm that the bag near her head was his. The zip at the top hadn't been closed, and Jessica's curiosity was stirred, despite her terror.
She raised her head an inch or two, until her eyes were level with the opening. And then she wished she hadn't been so inquisitive. For not only were there more coils of rope inside, but as well as that she could clearly see a collar, similar to a dog's, with a length of chain attached. If seen in isolation, she might have assumed that this was indeed intended only for a canine neck, but nestling beside it, another metallic object was just visible in the bag's dark interior.
Jessica didn't want to believe her own eyes, but there was no way of denying it. There, only inches away, were two shiny metal bracelets, attached to each other by a sturdy, two link chain, the purpose of which was in no doubt. Handcuffs! The sight of these horrific looking manacles was enough to make her forget about the agony that any sort of movement induced, and fight her bonds with renewed vigour. At least while she was tied with rope there was always a chance, however slender, of breaking loose. If he decided to shackle her wrists with these metal monstrosities, her chances of escape would be reduced to nil.
"Keep still in there, or I'll give you something to really struggle about."
In the heightened state of panic that had gripped her since this latest discovery, it hadn't registered in her head until now that the vehicle's speed had decreased over the last few minutes to the previous, slower pace, which suggested that the road conditions had reverted to their former, single track status. In fact, it didn't even sink in when the car slowly came to a halt. Despite his abrupt warning, and against her better, more logical judgement, Jessica found that she was unable to control the overwhelming urge to regain her freedom at any cost. She kicked out at the weight on her legs, and felt a small sense of triumph as the wheel tumbled off her.
Within seconds, however, she heard the rear door being raised, and a surge of cooler air hit her. Now the box was quickly lifted from her and the blanket whisked away, allowing the refreshing breeze to wash over her profusely perspiring form. Her tormentor loomed large above her, a look of fury bordering on dementia etched on his craggy face.
“I told you to keep still woman!"
She almost expected him to grab her by the throat and throttle her, or at least slap her in the face, but luckily his bark appeared to be worse than his bite… at least for the time being. Jessica's heart was racing, her breathing heavy and irregular. Her T-shirt, now wringing with sweat, clung to her trembling breasts and highlighted her quivering nipples. Her legs and lower body, enmeshed in tights and then encased in tightly fitting spandex leggings, were even hotter. Her feet too, laced up tightly in walking boots and lined with thick socks, were similarly uncomfortable, and it was these that her kidnapper grabbed next, pulling them out of the vehicle and sitting her upright, her bound legs dangling towards the ground.
Jessica gazed out at the unfamiliar landscape. Where exactly had he brought her to? The Range Rover was parked beside a rocky shoreline, with the gentle waves breaking only twenty yards or so from where she sat helplessly bound. The smell of seaweed and the distant cry of gulls filled the air, as Jessica glanced each way along the twisting, narrow road. In either direction, the tarmac stretched along the coastline, giving a clear, uninterrupted view for several hundred yards. The road was completely devoid of other traffic and, judging by the grass growing through the tarmac, was seldom used even in the height of the tourist season. At their backs, the mountains rose in almost vertical cliffs of rock and grass. There was no way any would-be rescuers would suddenly be appearing from that direction.
Dismally, Jessica gazed out to sea, praying that there would be a boat close to shore that she could try to alert the occupants of to her plight. But the only vessel in view was a small rowing boat, washed up and seemingly abandoned on the rocks in front of them. Further out to sea, there were several small, grass covered islands, each no more than a few hundred yards long, none of which looked to be inhabited. The nearest of these was probably only a quarter of a mile away.
Without warning, Jessica was suddenly hauled unceremoniously up onto the man's shoulder; her head over his back, her feet held in the grip of powerful arms against his chest. Slowly, he began to walk towards the shoreline.
What was he doing? Did he intend to drown her? The journey only lasted a few seconds, however, and therefore Jessica really had no time for the horror of her supposed watery death to allow a panic attack to build up. As if relieving himself of a heavy sack, he threw her into the tiny boat.
Jessica lay on the wooden floor, stunned by the force with which she'd been allowed to fall. Now the boat was moving, a rasping sound emanating from beneath as he pulled it towards the water's edge. Half a minute later they were afloat; he sitting in front of her, readying a pair of oars, and she lying in a heap, totally powerless to stop him taking her wherever he chose. Methodically, he began to row, gradually building up his strokes until the craft began to rise and sink in the deeper, choppier water. The threat of drowning still seemed her most likely fate, and the thought again caused tears to roll down her cheeks. But then she noticed the bag.
Why, if he planned to throw her overboard and let her sink, had he brought the holdall with the hideous shackles in it? She was already bound much too tightly to effect an escape and swim away should he be contemplating sending her into the depths, so perhaps this was a sign that she had been spared this ghastly end.
“Where are you taking me?”
The words seemed to disappear into the gag before they passed her lips. Whether he understood the question but chose to ignore her, or whether the breeze had carried her stifled question out to sea, she didn't know. He simply kept on rowing, not looking at his strange cargo, but instead gazing at the horizon.
From her position, Jessica was unable to see where they were headed, but within only a few minutes, the sound of waves breaking on a beach became apparent, and soon his rowing stopped and the boat tipped dangerously from side to side, as he jumped out and began wading through the knee deep water, eventually bringing the craft to rest on a small, sandy beach. Kneeling down beside her now, he hoisted her up onto the boat's seat, and suddenly Jessica's spirits rose. He was working at the ropes on her ankles, loosening the knot and allowing her feet to part. Could it really be true? Had he brought her all this way just to let her go?
She glanced around, then realised why he now felt confident enough to release her lower limbs. They were on the nearest island from the mainland, the green Range Rover still visible across the rippling sea. Still, be grateful for small mercies, she told herself; any release from her bonds was a blessing, even if her overall situation remained perilous. Her ankles were now free of rope and he had begun to release the knot on her knees. Soon, she thought, she'd be able, when the occasion presented itself, to run away.
Automatically, as soon as she was able, Jessica stood and turned her back to him; holding her arms out as far as the ropes allowed and waiting for the feel of his hands as they untied the knots. But this was merely a case of wishful thinking on her part, as instead of the ropes loosening on her lower arms, she felt him clutch her right shoulder and shove her firmly, in a
Outward Bound · Part 1 (1/2)
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