* * *
The whirring of the propeller blades rumbled in her head, despite the ear-defenders she was wearing. Imogen shuffled in her seat. Her ass felt stiff. She couldn’t wait to stretch her legs, no matter how unwelcoming the surroundings might be when they landed.
She allowed her eyes to dart quickly about the cabin: eight men, two pilots, one woman and one helicopter; all the soldiers in the cabin had their eyes turned downward, silently praying, whilst Imogen was surveying their surroundings meditatively. All was black but for the flashing lights of the vehicle’s instruments. The sky outside was a deep-ocean blue. A block of grey sat on the desert floor, a building of some sort. She couldn’t make it out through the dark.
Through the wall of darkness, little firecrackers of gunfire broke out. Were they firing at the helicopter? Imogen couldn’t tell; they were firing in all directions. It was like a bullet highway at night, burning red amber lights darting to unknown destinations.
A few minutes later they were over the city. Collections of grey stone buildings stood like blocks of Lego in the sand. To the south, a large fire rose into the night. Its red blaze burnt a hole through the sky. Imogen swallowed hard. Stupid girl, she yelled at herself in her head. Somehow she always presumed everything would be all right; no matter how much of a lesson life gave her she’d still happily agree to missions from the comfort of her home, blissfully unaware, certain everything would be fine. Yeah Imogen, nice one, she thought, She was in the depth of hell and all of her own—
‘Shit,’ she screamed through her ear-defenders. She slammed her eyes shut in fright as some unseen object punched right through the windshield. It smashed to pieces. A terrifying radiant glow lit up the cockpit, completely engulfing the co-pilot and bleeding over onto half of the pilot’s body. Shards of metal and plastic exploded everywhere. One of the soldiers jerked as a piece of glass shot right into his stomach. His uniform was soon covered in blood. Imogen tucked her head into her hands and bent over, making herself compact. Shrapnel rained down upon her, cutting into her uniform. It slit her shoulder.
Suddenly, the whirring of the engines stopped. Smoke rose throughout the craft. They started spinning and plummeting to earth. Imogen wrestled with her body to assume a crash position. The air howled fiercely through the broken windscreen. She knew it was coming. She knew it was coming. Hold on, Imogen. Please, dear God, just hold on, she prayed to herself.
Impact. The ground shuddered. The helicopter leapt upwards in rebellion. Parts of instruments exploded into the air. Imogen held on to her head; if she could feel her head she knew she was alive. She could feel it. Oh God, was this actually happening? Was she dead?
Gunshots fired outside the craft.
‘Get out. Get out,’ one of the soldiers screamed. Imogen unbuckled her belt. The soldier grabbed her by her arm and helped her out of the vehicle. Her head was spinning. She was aware that her body was in crippling agony but couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from. She saw stone walls and shadows of men. Were they friend or enemy? She couldn’t tell.
‘Take cover,’ a soldier yelled. Where the hell was she supposed to take cover? Gun shots were raining everywhere. Shadows leapt through the night and struck at them. Her head.
Her head.
All was black.
Her tummy rumbled. Her head hurt. Shit, it hurt like hell. Where was she? The rumbling of her stomach grew. She was painfully hungry. Her stomach growled louder and louder and louder until it was clear that the rumbling she was hearing could not have been coming from her; no, it was coming from the wheels of a car. She was driving Guy to see Nan and Granddad. Why the hell did her head hurt so much? There was smoke and fog all around. Was she dreaming? And why were people shouting in some foreign tongue?
‘Get off me,’ she mumbled. Someone was jabbing something into her side. Was she dreaming? Smoke and fog outside. She drifted off.
‘You, up.’
‘I’ll get up in a moment,’ she grumbled.
‘Now.’
‘Oh, chill out,’ she spat unconsciously.
Somebody punched her in the arm. She grabbed at it in pain. The foreign tongues yelled again. What the hell was going on? She peeled her eyes open a little. It was grey. The area was covered in sand. Wheels whirred. Her head felt heavy. It had something over it. Helmet, she said to herself. Helicopter helmet. Helicopter? she asked herself. Imogen wake up. Wake up now. Now. NOW. She yanked her eyes open.
She was in a truck, bouncing over rocky terrain. Four foreigners sat in the front of the truck, all dressed in black and wearing headbands. The only part of their body visible through the clothing was their eyes; they were dark and glaring; watchful like a hawk. The men were talking to each other in a language Imogen didn’t understand. Two of them held guns pointed at two of the soldiers Imogen had been travelling with. They were shouting at them. One of the soldiers kept lowering his head from exhaustion— or pain, Imogen couldn’t be sure—
and every time he did so the foreign guy guarding him would jab his gun into the soldier’s chest and yell at him. The foreigner caught her looking at him. He held her gaze lifelessly. They looked at her no differently than they did the male soldiers; they had not realised she was a woman. Her face was completely covered in her helmet, visor and microphone and the few areas of skin visible were coated with sand and dust. Without moving, the foreigner yelled something at her. She turned away, praying that they didn’t find out she was female; she trembled at the idea of what would happen if they did.
Up ahead a bunker stuck out of the sand. The truck turned down a path towards it. Imogen shut her eyes and drifted into unconsciousness.
When Imogen came around, the truck had stopped. They were parked outside a yellow concrete block of a building, with two holes for doors and another large square hole serving as a window. The two foreigners stabbed their guns into the soldier’s chests and indicated for them to step out. It was then Imogen realised they had been handcuffed, and so had she. She hadn’t felt the tight metal piercing into her skin on the journey; she had been too out of it. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but it must have been several hours for the sun was already rising and it was getting hot. The two soldiers shuffled from side to side and eventually made it out of the truck. One of the foreigners then turned to Imogen.
‘You, out,’ he barked. He prodded Imogen’s helmet and indicated with his gun for her to step out. She wobbled her bum up to the door and slowly lowered her legs to the ground.
The foreigner at the front called something to his comrades and they were escorted into the building.
The building was divided into three parts, each not much bigger than Imogen’s barracks at headquarters. All were bare but for one table, a bench that served as a make-shift bed and a couple of worn chairs.
The foreigners pushed Imogen and her two comrades onto the floor. There were seven men stood against a wall wearing a uniform Imogen didn’t recognise. All were silent but for one, whom Imogen took to be the leader of the group. He was a rather short man, covered in facial hair, holding an AK-47. He stepped out of the group and began pacing up and down the room and speaking in very rough English.
‘Who are you?’ he ordered. Imogen and her two comrades remained silent.
‘What are you doing here?’ Again, no answer.
He signalled something with his hand to one of the men against the wall. The other man was far larger than the leader. He looked like a complete brute: muscle-clad with long, unclean black hair and a very nasty looking knife attached to his hip. He lunged forward, picked Imogen up by the neck and threw her into the gang. Punches and kicks rained down on her in a flurry of assault as all the gang members tore into her. Then one of the men grabbed at her helmet and yanked it off her head. Her long blond hair came raining down and her feminine face was revealed. Shocked, the gang broke out into a slur of curses. They had mistaken her for a man. Uncertain what to do, all arms let her go. She collapsed on the fl
oor, panting for breath. The leader of the gang barked orders like a dog. The gang came and lifted her and her companions up and escorted them back out of the building.
The truck they had transferred Imogen and her comrades to was stacked full of crates, though Imogen couldn’t see what was inside them. She was cordoned off from the rest of the truck by a large canopy. Her section of the vehicle housed just Imogen herself and a guard, who was holding her at gunpoint. He was covered in so much hair Imogen could hardly see his face. He smelt bitter, as though his clothes were drenched in alcohol. He took a cigar out of his trouser pocket and lit it with a match.
Realising she was watching him, the man turned and smiled menacingly at her. He reached his hand over and began to massage her shoulder sensually. She squirmed and shut her eyes, praying that somehow she would be magicked back home. She felt the metal of the man’s gun, hot under the burning sun, run down her face, followed by two large, bitter tasting lips that kissed at her mouth. She fought to keep her mouth shut. He began to kiss around her neck and chest. Then his hands were at her jacket. He unbuttoned her top. Her breasts were exposed. He stroked his finger down them, whispering something to her that she was glad she couldn’t understand.
To Imogen’s surprise, her molester’s hands fell suddenly and he cursed in fright. The canopy sectioning him and Imogen off from the rest of the truck flapped open and another foreigner entered. Seeing the man molesting Imogen he ran up, yelled and slapped her attacker across the face. He then turned to Imogen, eyes wide with both fear and hatred, and began to spew unintelligible words at her. She didn’t know what he was saying but he sounded apologetic. Or was she imagining that? To her great surprise, he buttoned her jacket back up and bowed his head to her in apology.
The truck screeched to a halt and several of the foreigners jumped out. They came up to where Imogen was sitting and grabbed by the neck the man who had been molesting her. He shouted a protest but to no avail. One of his comrades took out his gun and whipped it across his head. He fell to the floor only to have the remainder of his comrades stamp into him repeatedly. Then they stopped, picked him up once more and escorted him to the front of the truck, replacing him with a different guard in Imogen’s section. Imogen eyed her new guard in terror, but he showed her the palms of his hands in assurance that he would not harm her. He sat down a few feet away from her so as to give her room and though he still held his gun aimed at her chest, Imogen thanked the Lord for his mercy that her new guard kept his hands off her.
After about an hour, a large building came into view. Imogen presumed it was where they were heading. It looked ominous, if not terrifying. Each corner of the square perimeter was guarded by a tall watch tower. Imogen studied the one closest to them. It was manned by a single sniper; she could see the tip of his rifle sticking out a hole in the stone. The towers connected to concrete walls that were crowned with flesh-eating barbed wire. The only break in the walls was at the front and centre, where two sentry posts were surrounded by men wielding weapons. Three guards came to the front of the truck and spoke to the driver. He showed them papers and they passed through, stopping just before the entrance to the building. The man sitting next to Imogen took out a blindfold from his knapsack and indicated for Imogen to turn around. She did so. Her eyes fell to black.
It felt like several hours had passed when Imogen’s blindfold was finally removed. She wished it hadn’t been. She was crammed in a cell hardly big enough for a single person, in which stood some eight others. All were silent, with dead eyes that spoke of a thousand sorrows and an emptiness about their demeanour that no man could look at without feeling pain in the depths of their soul. All had scars in various places on their bodies. Many were moaning beneath their breath as though praying to God for the end. They were tortured. Imogen couldn’t even scream. She wasn’t ready to accept what had happened. She was bizarrely peaceful inside. She guessed it was a natural defence mechanism to keep her from completely losing her mind.
Time passed at a rate Imogen couldn’t determine. Either days had passed or minutes, she couldn’t tell, but eventually a guard came to the cell and opened the door. An arm reached in and grabbed Imogen by the shoulder, literally tearing her out of the cell. She didn’t fight him; what was the point? She just felt her mind leaving her body in terror as she was escorted to a different room.
Imogen would never say what happened to her in that room. She would have no one know. She felt a pain there beyond words. She felt as though her body had been cleaved in two. Her mind was in no better shape. It fell into horrific hallucinations that would be burnt into her memory forever. It seemed as though she were in that room for an eternity. When finally she was thrown back out of the room and into her cell, she felt as though she had been born again, into a new world of pain and torture. She couldn’t cry, though she wanted to. Emotion was beyond her.
Sometime later in life, or it may just have been days— hell it may have been hours, she’d no clue— but at some point, a fly came buzzing into the cell. Its black, raisin-like, pathetic little body contained what to Imogen was a profound beauty. It licked the cell bars and buzzed about happily, as though the cell were a good home. One of the male prisoners picked up the fly between thumb and finger and almost hypnotically began to move it in and out of the cell. In and out. In and out. In and out. Finally he let the fly go and it was free. It buzzed off like a Harley Davidson out the room. The image of it so lazily floating away repeated over and over in Imogen’s mind, passing time with it in some unknown quantity.
Imogen didn’t know how she hadn’t seen him before, but when she awoke— if she had been dreaming, that is, for she could no longer distinguish between the pains of her waking and dreaming states— there was a man sitting on the floor wearing an army uniform. He would have been a handsome man were it not for his beaten face and green eyes that had been raped of all life. He looked up at Imogen then flinched and closed his eyes as though he were afraid of her.
Later, a tall man in the cell with a dirty, scraggly beard and lips that were dry and cracked as old plaster leant over and touched her on the shoulder. He ran his finger down her arm and grabbed her hand. He whispered something into her ear, though Imogen was so tired all she heard was empty air. Then he kissed her on the cheek and began to massage her breasts. She didn’t even notice. Her body was not her own, she had been made aware of that so, she thought, it wasn’t like the man was actually touching her. She had no body. She was nothing. Fingers groped. They groped at what felt to Imogen to be no more than thin air; an empty shell. They leached onto her. More hands came. They all touched her. Most hands came like desperate creatures grasping for the mercy of Imogen’s soft skin, but amongst them was one hand that lashed out at the others in rebellion. It hurled itself at them like a snake whipping itself at prey. Why was it hitting them? She followed the hand along an arm, up a neck to a young face that somehow still had in it an air of life. Was he a friend? Imogen wondered. She tried to read his eyes but his face grimaced and fell away to the back of the cell as someone hit him.
Suddenly a fight broke out. The cell was exploding, being ripped apart from the inside. Imogen didn’t see what it was, but something smashed into her left temple, sending her sprawling to the floor, unconscious again.