The Abduction of Monica 8: Connection

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

(story continues from The Abduction of Monica 7: Bound Meditation)

It seemed like I didn’t sleep at all that night, although I suppose I must have.  I took the guest room next to Monica’s, leaving both doors open, in case Sofiya couldn’t handle the restraints and freaked out.  I lay awake for a long time listening for some sound from next door, but heard nothing.  The walls were solid and soundproofed, but had she cried out I would have heard her through the open doors.

The silence oppressed me and I tossed and turned, images of Monica and Mary bound and at the mercy of...whoever... refusing to go away.  Just for a change from that obsession, Sofiya and her New Age supernatural energies kept returning.  What was the world coming to when we had to deal with this sort of stuff?  I couldn’t believe the lives of Monica and Mary were dependant on a psychic from Siberia. I thought of Paul and hoped he might have something concrete to show us in the morning.

I guess I drifted off during the small hours.  As I had been the previous morning, I was woken by Jill.

“Steven – there’s another email.” I was awake in an instant, but feeling anything but rested. “I haven’t opened it.  I’m afraid of what might be in it.”

Jill’s face was tense with anxiety.  In my haste to get to the study, we hurried downstairs without first checking on Sofiya, for we did not have to pass her door.  It was 4am. Monica’s study was in darkness save for the pool of light from a desk lamp and the laptop screen.  Monica’s email was opened and the latest email had just been highlighted.  It was simply called “Day 2 - 98 to go”.

Jill looked at me and stood aside for me to sit at the desk.  I clicked on the email.

There was nothing in the covering email.  No taunts, no explanation or descriptions, just the attachment.  I double clicked on it.

The first thing I noticed was the sound – a hissing of rain somewhere in the background, like the old long playing records.  Then the picture came into focus – this time it was Mary whose face suddenly filled the screen.  She was secured to a massive timber post, perhaps half a metre square, by a steel bar that acted as a gag.  It had been bent to follow the contours of her cheeks then to fold back into her mouth, trapping her tongue and pulling the corners of her mouth back.  Somewhere behind her head it must have been fastened to a rigid plate that was bolted to the post, for as the camera moved back, Mary moved as much as she could, merely shifting her weight from foot to foot, but in so doing her head remained rigid and immovable.  Only her eyes stared beyond the camera to whoever was filming.

Mary stood with wrists locked together in a single manacle which had been pulled above her head by a chain presumably running over a pulley out of the picture. The tension on the chain and her arms caused her shoulders to rise but her head could not, because of the rigid gag bar.  Mary’s ankles were secured by a spreader bar perhaps half a metre wide, but unlike her tensioned arms, Mary’s legs were not at full stretch.  Rather, they were slightly bent at the knee, and because of her fixed gag, Mary was unable to stand fully upright.

Whoever had done this knew in great detail the limitations of the human body, and was devious enough to exploit such deficiencies,  I could not help but feel that what we were seeing was just a preliminary wearing down of Monica and Mary.  They were an initial series of awkward positions that would leave the girls’ muscles screaming in agony with the effort of maintaining the enforced poses.  As the camera view dropped briefly, I saw that Mary was standing on a large wooden pad with dozens of small pointed dowels standing upright on it, like an Indian bed of nails.  The difference was that these were much coarser, such that the foot might be able to spread the load on only 8 or 9 at a time.  And Mary’s legs were not straight, but bent, her feet positioned a short distance out from the wall.

Tied to the spreader bar were two vertical wooden poles that rose upwards to penetrate Mary, front and rear.  The base of attached dildos could just be seen in the shadow between Mary’s legs, where the muscles quivered and seemed to be on the verge of spasming. 

Mary tried to ease the pain of the extreme position – probably for the hundredth time – shifting her feet slightly on the spiked pad and easing her pelvis out away from the wall.  The two poles came with her, the attachments sliding deeper inside her, then easing out again in the new position.  To my relief I saw that Mary’s lean and slender body as yet bore no marks of serious beatings or other form of such torture.  It was a small mercy, I suppose, but any such grace had to be clung to, given the duration these two were facing if we were unable to find them.

The camera swung around, just slowly enough to take in the huge timber posts and aging brick walls that gave the impression of a large industrial building of a bygone age.  There was a glimpse of light through broken windows, of greenery outside, then more walls – and Monica.

The sight of her made me draw breath, not so much through the severity of the position, but through the familiarity of it.  She stood spreadeagled between two large posts, in the same star position I had chained Sofiya only hours ago.  Monica’s bondage was much tighter, though, with leather cuffs buckled tightly on wrists and ankles, and a wide spreader bar linking the latter.  Taut ropes pulled her arms upwards and outwards, the ropes disappearing off camera, while short chains anchored her ankle cuffs to eyebolts in the wooden floor.

Monica’s body was stretched every bit as severely as if she was on a rack, including her head, for strapped over her black hair was a complex leather head harness trapping a large ball in her mouth.  From a D-ring on the strap running across the top of her head, a rope stretched vertically upwards to a pulley out of sight, holding her head erect, while a high leather posture collar prevented her from turning it.  Monica could wriggle her fingers and toes but precious little else as she stood like a sacrifice for the gods.  The picture zoomed in on the tear-rimmed blue eyes that seemed to gaze into our very hearts, knowing we were watching.  Beads of sweat rolled down Monica’s cheeks and dripped on to her breasts.

As the picture again zoomed out, for the first time my eyes took in the groups of red weals across her breasts, stomach and thighs – two on each, carefully spaced an inch apart.  The view travelled around behind her, and again the pairs of weals could be seen – two across the calves, two on the back of the thighs and two on the buttocks.  In the middle of her back, written in bright red lipstick, were the simple words: “Day 2 – 98 to go”.  Then the screen went blank.

Jill hung her head and I felt her hand on my shoulder.  I placed mine over it.  There was nothing we could do or say to console each other, to take away the awfulness of what we had just seen.  We had both been around the scene long enough to know professionalism when we saw it, and to realise the vulnerability and potential for the long term torture of Monica and Mary over the next three months, with the torments no doubt becoming more and more protracted and painful.  And of course, what might happen at the end of this just didn’t bear thinking about.

“This is Warren’s work,” I whispered.  “I’m absolutely sure of it.  It’s revenge, pure and simple.  He’s going to kill them.”

We sat in silence for a minute, sharing the frustration and hopelessness of our position.  It was only then that I remembered Sofiya lying similarly spreadeagled upstairs.  I motioned Jill to come with me. 

The fact that both women had been restrained in a similar way was coincidental.  It was a not uncommon position, especially on a bed, but it unnerved me, nevertheless.  I wanted Jill to witness this.

As I turned on the light Sofiya lay like a black star on the bed and I saw the dark sweat stain around her body on the white satin sheets.  I heard a small intake of breath behind me as Jill took in the scene.

I moved across to the bed and knelt down to undo the cuff at Sofiya’s left wrist. 

“You okay?” I asked, aware that she had made no sound since we had entered the room, nor had she even turned her head at our entry.  Her cheeks were wet with tears but she seemed to be almost in a trance. 

She made the barest murmur, almost a whimper, while Jill undid the cuffs on the other side of the bed.  I slid Sofiya’s booted legs off the edge of the bed and reached across to pull her up by both wrists.  Only then did she seem to realise where she was.  For a moment her head lolled back, then she focussed and moaned.

I caught Sofiya’s shoulders and sat beside her, supporting her as she came to her senses, while Jill knelt and held her hand.  Her dress was soaking wet with perspiration and she must have been much weakened because of it.  It was a serious thing for a person of her slight physique.

“Sofie – tell me what happened,” I said softly, waiting for her to gather composure.  Without a word she slowly got to her feet and turned to face us.  Her hand moved to the zipper of her dress and pulled it down until the two halves parted.  Jill and I were riveted as Sofiya opened the dress to reveal red weals across her breasts, stomach and thighs.

“Dear Jesus...” Jill breathed.

*   *   *

By the time Paul Bowden visited us that morning, we had almost got our minds around the bizarre phenomenon that Sofiya had demonstrated.  On her back and legs – after we had removed the boots – we saw the same marks that the email attachment had graphically shown inflicted on Monica. 

They had been painful – like bad sunburn, Sofiya said – but astonishingly they had all but disappeared by the time two hours had passed.  By then Sofiya had been rehydrated and fed and offered much solace from the girls, but she had attached herself to me, insisting that too much female energy around her destroyed her concentration when searching for another female.

Why hadn’t she called out to me, I had asked.

“I could not,” she said.  “You know how you have dreams when you try to scream but cannot?  It was like my mouth was full – I was gagged – you know?”

She did not want to see the video, but was not at all surprised at the events.

“I do not want to confuse my thought with other voices,” she told me. “I must learn facts myself, not see them from some other source.”

“What do you mean by ‘voices’?” I asked.  That sounded just a little too weird and scary.  Sofiya sounded quite with it until she dropped a little unnerving slip like this.

“I can’t describe properly.  In Russian or Buryat we have words...  Maybe ‘thoughts’, maybe ‘images’. Maybe sensations or emotions.  Sometimes a whole mixture...” Her voice faltered and stopped.

We were sitting at the end of the table on the verandah, the others giving us space to explore the experience Sofiya had undergone.

“Can you actually contact her, I mean telepathically?” I had no idea where I was going with this.

“No.  I can sense thoughts, some feelings... the pain.” She looked at me and I saw her eyes glisten with tears as she spoke.  She sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.  She had showered and once again dressed in Monica’s clothes – this time a pale green strappy dress which showed off her bare shoulders and which looked like it had come from a springtime collection.  She still wore the silver collar, and her blonde hair now smelt of apples.  I was glad to see that she had recovered some of her brightness, though this had been sobered by the realisation of what had transpired.

“Can you see things through Monica’s eyes?  Can you tell where they are?”

This, of course, was the crux of the whole thing.

“It takes time – in some instances it is harder than others.  I think now that Monica does not know where she is, except that... I do not think she is in this country.”

“Not in Australia?  Then where?”

This was a turn-up for the books.  Until now we had no reason to think Monica and Mary were not somewhere in Australia, if not necessarily in Queensland.  I would not have been surprised if they had been spirited away to the back blocks of New South Wales, or even further afield.  Driving with a couple of bound and gagged women in the back of a truck or van was a relatively easy option.

Sofiya shrugged. 

“Even Monica does not know.”

I sat in thought.  Had it not been for the strange stigmata that had appeared on Sofiya’s body I would have reserved my judgement on her claims, but this seemed to be conclusive proof that there was something to this girl that my logical personality could not get to grips with.

We had returned to Monica’s study and I had gone through the video again, step by step, freeze-framing and seeing what clues I could pick up from the background.  Sofiya sat in one of the guest chairs, listening to music on Monica’s ipod and refusing to look at the video.

There was a brief shot that showed a view through an open window which intrigued me.  Beyond the window was a blur of green, of foliage and rain.  A thought occurred to me and by the time Paul Bowden arrived I had a theory.  It was a long shot, but it backed up Sofiya’s view of the world.  It seemed I had come a long way in altering my view since yesterday.  Twelve hours was a long time in psychic detective work, it seemed.

Sofiya’s nervousness and unease with the other girls was more pronounced now.  It was as though she was a bloodhound on a scent, concerned that the trail would be contaminated by their presence.  When Paul arrived to give us his news, Sofiya sat outside on the front steps while the rest of us crowded in to the study to exchange our news.

Paul was as surprised as us at the events of the night and viewed the latest email attachment with great concern.  He was astonished at the story of Sofiya’s replicated weals, but something in his manner suggested stranger things had occurred in the presence of this Russian girl before now.  When I told him of her conviction that Monica and Mary were no longer in Australia, it got his attention very quickly.

“I think they’re in New Zealand,” I said, dropping the news amongst the assembly like a bomb.

“How do you figure that?” Paul asked, as the others gaped at me.

“What Sofiya said was enough to start me thinking.  I thought about the rain in the video.  You can hear it on the roof, in the background, and see it through the window.  I checked up on the weather forecasts for the last 24 hours.  There was no rain in Australia – hasn’t been since Monday.  Hardly surprising at this time of year.  Yet in the North Island of New Zealand there’s a low pressure area that has brought showers and storms.”

The gathering was silent for a long time.  Then Paul spoke.

“Supposing we accept that they’re not in Australia.  Why pick New Zealand?”

“They speak the same language – after a fashion.  It’s less than 3 hours away for a small jet.  Minimal customs and immigration formalities between the two countries.  Easy access to regional airports.  Plenty of places to go to ground in.  Good wireless and mobile coverage.  Enough?”

I had mulled the situation over since Sofiya suggested it, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.  It had just taken Sofiya to see the bigger picture and get us thinking. 

It set the direction for the discussions from that point.  Paul told us they had tracked down the rented BMW X5 that the Russians had hired when they visited us.  Given that it had been parked at Bilboes for a day while Dimitri and Ivana had exploited the staff of Bilboes – namely Leila and myself – it had been possible to work backwards on calculating the mileage done, allowing for the time at the Grand Heritage Hotel.  The total on the odometer over four days was barely over a hundred and twenty kilometres.  Aside from Brisbane International, the only other airfields were Caboolture to the north and Archerfield to the south.  It would not take Paul Bowden long to see what private air traffic had been operating out of any of these.

I couldn’t wait for this investigation to take place.  We had something to go on now – I was sure of it.  Sofiya came back inside again to talk with Paul and me when the other girls had left.  She ran through her experience again for Paul’s benefit, at the end of which there was a call on Paul’s mobile.  He nodded and grunted and asked a few brief questions before disconnecting.

“There was a Lear jet flight to Hamilton in New Zealand around 10 o’clock Monday night from Archerfield.  Based on that we checked out a couple of quarries near Archerfield and found a burnt out BMW saloon with Monica’s plates on it.  It’s a common place to get rid of stolen cars.”

It was enough for me.

“Sofie – better get your things together – we’re flying to New Zealand this afternoon.”

*   *   *

19.06.09

story continues in The Abduction of Monica 9: Transported - Mary's Story

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