Free Torn Apart by Sharon Sala Page B

wear off and he’d come to the conclusion that this wasn’t going to be such a smooth ride, after all.

Five
    T he front door creaked when it opened. It was a sound Bobby had heard plenty of times in his life. Things squeaked. No big deal. But nothing he’d ever experienced before had prepared him to be kidnapped, gagged and tied to a bed. So when the door suddenly squeaked, then slammed, his heart echoed the sound by slamming against his rib cage.
    The man must be back! Maybe now he would untie him and take him home to Mama.
    But when no one called out and no one showed up in the doorway, uncertainty turned to anxiety. Then he heard a shuffling sound and the rustle of what sounded like paper being torn. He didn’t know he was holding his breath until a low, angry growl echoed throughout the house.
    His seven-year-old imagination immediately thought a wild animal had gotten in, and he began to scream. The fact that no one could hear him made his panic even worse.

    Every step Newt took was agony. He wanted to cry but settled for a low, heartfelt sigh as he shuffled across the room to the kitchen table. He leaned over to let go of his packages, and as he did, a swift pain shot up his arm.
    He gasped, then groaned. A large blister between his wrist and elbow had stuck to the sack, and when he’d put it down, it had ripped the skin right off his arm.
    When he began to hear a wild, frantic thumping, followed by a thin, high-pitched squeal, his first thought was, What the hell? Then he remembered the kid.
    Without thinking, he dropped the sheet and began shuffling toward the bedroom, unconcerned about how the appearance of a nude, fat, full-grown male with too much body hair, and skin as red and blistered as a freshly boiled lobster, would affect the boy.
    By the time he got to the bedroom, his pain was beginning to increase even faster than before. Then he saw the raw skin and blood on Bobby Earle’s wrists and ankles, the panic on his face, and knew a moment of regret. It wasn’t supposed to be happening like this.
    “Hey, hey, kid…it’s me, Uncle Newt. Calm down, okay? No one’s gonna hurt you.”
    But Bobby Earle had moved past reason. Newt Collins’s appearance was terrifying, and he couldn’t hear anything Newt was saying for the screams inside his head.
    Newt scooted onto the side of the bed, wanting to make things right. He needed to untie the kid to calm him down, and he needed to calm him down before he removed the duct tape from his mouth. But Newt’s bandaged hands were clumsy, and getting a firm grip on anything, especially a kid who was thrashing around, was almost impossible.
    As he fumbled with the knots in the rope, he felt blisters beginning to pop. He needed Bobby to lie still, to stop bouncing and kicking.
    “Easy, kid…easy. If you’ll just lie still for a— Wait! No! Hey…look, I’m trying to… Shit, kid! I’m trying to untie you! Lie still!”
    Finally all he could think to do was to cut off the ropes.
    He abandoned the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. Once there, he began digging through the drawers, trying to remember where he’d put his one and only decent knife, then found it beneath an oven mitt.
    As he started back to the bedroom, he paused and picked up the sheet he’d dropped earlier. Although it was a case of too little, too late, he wrapped it toga-style around himself and headed down the hall.

    Bobby Earle was so out of his depth, he was on the verge of a mental meltdown. His heart was racing.
    Every muscle in his body was trembling.
    His clothes were drenched with sweat and sticking to his body. He had no understanding of why this had happened, or how his happy life had turned into a living nightmare. All he knew was that the monster from his dreams was real, and he’d taken him away from Mama and Daddy and tied him to his bed.
    Even worse, when the monster had finally come back, he’d come without clothes. At that point Bobby had seen for himself just how monstrous