Heather Brown - Kidnapped housewife

"Then you're going to wave the white flag at the pigs just to save your skin?" Chinga asked incredulously.

"No, you jerk!" I spat. "But I'm not going to just lie here waiting to become a Swiss cheese either."

"We could shoot our way out!" he enthusiastically suggested, his voice brimming with characteristic instability.

"I like your spirit, hon, but right now what we need on our side is brains not bullets," I gently put him down. "I'm going to try and make a deal."

"You've got just over ten seconds left," Roy Parker droned over the loudspeaker. "I'm going to go into the final countdown. If we don't hear from you, you're dead."

Jesus, the bastard actually sounded bored. Could it be that our bloody demise was such an inevitability?

"Ten…" Roy began to count, "nine… eight…"

I was beginning to wonder if there was any use in even making the effort. Parker sounded like he already had us buried.

But, then, when ten-year-old Robin became so frightened that she called for her mommy; I recaptured my resolve to do something. Paradoxically, I would have to save the lives of Miss Turner and the children by pretending to threaten them.

Scooting out from under the bed, I interrupted Roy Parker at two; two seconds from oblivion.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Don't shoot!"

"Are you giving up?"

"No, I want to talk. Give us some time."

There was a long pause as they apparently conferred. Finally he agreed. "But," he warned, "it better be good."

"We'll murder these kids and their teacher if you don't let us go," I took the boldest of gambles.

"Who're they?" he asked with obvious sincerity.

Jesus, just how dumb were the cops, anyway?

Then, of course, it occurred to me they weren't cops at all – just like Chinga had said. But why would Parker be contracting his services to the very people who'd started all this by paying to have him kidnapped in the first place?

I didn't have time to answer that question because now Roy was using the bullhorn again. Most belligerently.

"We don't care about anybody else you've got in there. This is a vendetta not a courtroom."

Vendetta! Mob talk. The son of a bitch was in with the gangsters. Whatever his price was, they'd met it.

Then our time ran out and the shots started to fly. The cold-hearted mother fucker didn't even warn us.

I was standing right in the middle of the room so I was the prime candidate to get blasted. Miraculously, I wasn't hit – but I seemed the only thing in the room with this distinction.

As fusillade after fusillade of bullets penetrated the building, the motel room became a splintering trash pile. The mirror, the knick-knacks, the skeleton of the television set everything – became rubble.

To make it all worse, the kids and Miss Turner were screaming at the tops of their lungs. As for Chinga, he could have been shitting in his pants for all I knew.

In the meantime, I had somehow made it safely to the bathroom, where I cowered in the tub. The precious seconds of comparative safety the porcelain fortress gave me seemed like a blessed eternity after the fire power I'd just weathered.

Gradually the bullets stopped zinging around, and then stopped altogether. So had the screaming of the teacher and the children. Had they been hit? And Chinga was nowhere in evidence. Meanwhile, the beds were charred with bullet holes.

I didn't have to be too smart to know what was going to happen next. They assumed we were all dead or wounded. In moments they'd come in to finish off the survivors.

I had to keep them out.

Recalling the holocaust of the original hideout, I decided to start a fire as a diversion. Leaving the bathtub and running into the main room. I discovered the quickest way was to put cigarette lighter to the chintzy drapes.

It was an inspired scheme. The place seemed to suddenly erupt in flames – fortunately, right at the window where Parker and his goons could get a good look.

"Shit, the dump is on fire!" I heard somebody cry from outdoors. "I'm not goin' in there."

"You don't have to," I overheard Parker's voice inadvertently carry over the bullhorn as he snapped at the man. "The fire will do your cleaning up for you. We don't have to do anything but let it keep us warm and watch it burn. By the time the fire department shows up, everybody inside will be dead."

I scooted down between the beds and rapidly whispered, "Come on, this is our only chance. They're sitting around on their asses waiting for us to burn up."

Then I took a better look at the people I was supposed to be talking to and shut up. All four of them were without signs of life. There were rivers of blood. All of a sudden I realized I was kneeling in it.

It was no use. Even if some of them were alive, they were wounded so gravely I'd never be able to haul them out before the fire got us. At this moment the blaze I'd set had spread across the front of the room and was enclosing its way around the sides. The air was engorged with acrid smoke.

Reluctantly I concluded that the only one I could save was myself. It was like abandoning my own family, but I had no choice.

Returning to the bathroom, where the fire had not yet reached, I went to work on the small window. Fortunately it was of the usual shlocky construction you find in such places, and the whole frame came out like a piece of a cheap puzzle.

Standing up on the toilet, I hoisted myself through the opening. As I fell to the ground outside, I hadn't any illusions about being home free.

However, luck was with me, because the fire was acting hypnotically on the gunmen. Apparently, there was nothing like a human barbecue to grab their attention.

The torpedoes supposedly guarding the back had drifted around to the front to witness the action. Slipping right between their deserted flanks, I sprinted in a crouching gait to an extension of the parking lot away from the fire. I ran right into the Camaro.

Since Chinga had hot-wired it in the first place, there was no key to worry about. By now I was enough of a thief to start it myself.

With the motor purring, I stole as inconspicuously as I could toward the furthest exit from Parker and his men. It was only when I saw the street that I slammed the accelerator and took off like a bat out of hell.

Switching onto the nearest freeway, I drove until I found an exit I recognized. Wheeling into a residential area, I was only a couple of miles from home.

"My kids – I've got to see my kids," I suddenly broke down and admitted to myself. Too much had happened lately to remind me of them to pretend any more that they weren't a part of my life.

Damn the risk! I wanted to see them – hold them – feel their young bodies next to mine. As I pointed the car toward our house, I'd never felt so completely a mother.

Our house was the same as I'd left it. As I pulled into the driveway, I knew that nothing could ever change the suburbs.

Stealing inside with the key from under the doormat, I immediately tiptoed upstairs to the bedrooms. The house was dark and Anita and Bobby were sleeping – I'd surprise them.

Without even bothering to check on Tom, who was about the furthest thing from my mind, I slipped into Bobby's room first. Yes, there the little darling was, sound asleep.

Gently pulling the covers off to get a better look at him, I noticed how small his pajamas were for him. He seemed to have grown since I'd last seen him.

The buttons seemed to pop. But, most interestingly, the fly was stretched too tautly to completely close. Bobby's eleven-year-old cock and balls were hanging out.

I was fascinated. Especially when I noticed the wispy fringe of curly hair poking out from the top. My little boy was growing hair on his crotch.

I couldn't help feeling as I had when he taken his first step. My son was growing up.