NYC Midnight - 500-word Fiction Challenge 2023 Submittal Another nail snapped, one side tearing skin off with it, but the door finally budged. “Hurry,” my best friend whispered, her breath hot on my shoulder. Wriggling my fingers through the crack, I gripped the jagged wood and yanked. The door groaned in protest, but I put my entire weight into it. The bottom scraped along the rough, concrete floor a tiny bit more, finally giving us the small piece of hope we desperately needed. Somewhere, the clock chimed its half past the hour warning. In thirty minutes, he’d come for us. “I need you to hold here,” I instructed, guiding her bloodied hands halfway up the door. “Pull back as hard as you can.” A scream came from one floor up, the girl in the room next to us had been dragged away an hour and a half ago. The girl before her had gone silent two hours before that. I forced my shoulders through the narrow opening and scraped my chest and ribs as I went. When I had finally made it through, I knew I had to ride the wave of adrenaline before it crashed to save Sam as well. I swept my hands along the ground for anything that could help pry the door open. My fingers reached up a wall of cobwebs, landing on a metal pipe. Another shriek echoed down to whatever hell hole we were attempting to escape from. I wasn’t religious, but I prayed to whatever or whoever was listening to keep that poor girl alive a little longer to give us every chance possible to escape. With the pipe in between the door and frame, I forced it as wide as it would go, allowing Sam to crawl through. “We need to keep moving,” She spoke with a confidence I hadn’t heard in days. I followed behind her, splashing through water and whatever infested it, until we reached another door. When my hand found the cold metal padlock, my heart dropped. “Shit,” I cursed. Just enough moonlight broke through the crooked boards, and brought our attention to a rusty toolbox on a workbench. “We need something to break or cut the lock.” Sam searched among the metal tools, finding a small flashlight. After a few clicks of the button and no success, she unscrewed the bottom and dumped the batteries onto the floor. I blindly searched the countertop, until something stabbed into my raw palm. A few curse words were muttered just as I heard Sam replacing the batteries, successfully turning the flashlight on and hovered it over my hand. “Grab those pliers, I’ll cut that fishing lure once we’re out of here.” Sam pointed to a blue handle pair, handed me the flashlight, then lifted a sledgehammer. It only took her one try and we broke out into the foggy night. We ran down the gravel driveway for the truck we had stupidly got in when hitchhiking, hearing one last scream from the torture house before starting the engine. * While in France, I forgot to check my emails daily and when I did, I noticed I had made it to the next round, but missed the deadline.
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AuthorI hope you enjoy these short stories that I've either written for publication or for contests. ArchivesCategories
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