Oddments: Torn Apart- Woven Together

By Ruth Langdon

The unexpected death of Bryan's college roommate set in motion a series of events that would change his life forever. What seemed to be an innocent invitation for free tacos turned out to be so much more as he was suddenly immersed in an intriguing world where trauma reigns.Bryan finds relief with an eclectic group of survivors at "Taco Tuesday" and unexpectedly discovers firsthand the healing power of connection. But life moves fast for those who have suffered and death is never too far away. The stories of those he surrounds himself with become woven into his own life and lead him down a path he never could have imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885051439

Book preview

Oddments

Torn Apart—Woven Together

~VOLUME 1~

RUTH LANGDON

Copyright © 2022 Ruth Langdon

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2022

ISBN 979-8-88505-142-2 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88505-143-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?

—Marcus Aurelius

CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Torn Apart

Chapter 2: Five Years Later

Chapter 3: Jake

Chapter 4: Friends

Chapter 5: United

Chapter 6: Fred

Chapter 7: Disease

Chapter 8: Sampson

Chapter 9: Sean

Chapter 10: Morning

Chapter 11: Surprise

CHAPTER 1

Torn Apart

Hannah’s trauma

His footsteps echoed in my head. I knew he was coming back, but I couldn’t move. My insides cried out for help, but my voice was muted with fear. I managed to roll myself onto my side. The dried blood on the mattress scraped on my skin like sandpaper. Wet and gritty. It reminded me of getting sand stuck to my skin on the beach. Oh, the beach. How nice it would be to be there and not here. I struggled to bring my mind back to the present. Come on, Hannah. Do you want to live? You got this, I heard myself say. From somewhere deep inside, I found the strength to drag myself off the grotesque mattress onto the dirty floor.

The pain stopped days ago. My body was no longer mine. I couldn’t look at my body anymore. Death by a thousand cuts, that’s what he said the first time he stabbed me. I thought I would die right then. But I didn’t. Sometimes he used a knife. Sometimes he used a vegetable peeler. Once he used his teeth. I learned that if I stopped fighting back, he was not as creative with his torture. Death was nearby, but I wasn’t going to let her take me yet.

Light streamed in from the back of the room. There were footsteps that were pacing upstairs. There isn’t much time. My eyes refocused, and for the first time since this hellish torture began, I had hope. There was a window. Behind a shelf stacked with old produce boxes and outdated cans, there was a small window. I’m going through that window, I muttered to myself as I quickened my pace across the dirty floor in a combination of crawling and diving forward, much like you would see a young child do as they are learning to crawl. I didn’t care how I looked or how scratched my hands, feet, knees, and stomach were getting. I didn’t care about anything other than not dying in this shitty basement.

A rusty can of tomatoes fell as I pulled my bleeding body up while wedging myself between the shelf and the window. The footsteps were circling above my head. I slid up against the cement wall until the window was behind my head. The glass was old. Everything around me was old. There was no way to open the window, but the glass looked thin. There wasn’t enough space to hit the window with any real impact. I felt the ray of hope start to slip away. No. I’m getting out of here, I said to myself and simultaneously inhaled deeply and slammed the back of my head through the window. I was not sure how, but within seconds, I had my head and torso outside. I turned to pull my legs through the broken window. Another second and I would have been free. I tried to kick him in the face as he pulled me back in. Glass became embedded in my skin when my naked body was ripped from the broken window. I lost consciousness as my head hit the floor.

Cutting Thread

Hannah’s breakdown and escape

I was swimming in Lake Harriet with my brothers. The sun was setting. I tried to get out of the water, but I couldn’t. Something was holding me back, just under the surface. The water stung my eyes as I fought to keep them open. My body felt cold. Wet. There’s a figure standing in front of me. How is my brother standing on the water? Why is he upside down? My thoughts raced as the harsh reality started to set in. I was the one upside down, hanging by my feet with the ground a little more than an arm’s length away. Just out of reach. Everything was out of my reach. I was naked, cold, and wet.

There she is. I wasn’t sure you’d be coming back from that one, my captor said in a tone that you might expect when two colleagues run into each other at the park—polite with an air of indifference. I had no more fear left in me. I was going to die here. I could no longer feel my body. Maybe I was already dead? How long have I been here? Hours? Days? Time was a circle with no escape.

My captor didn’t deserve a name. He had one from his mother and father, but not for me. Not anymore. He was my friend. Or so I thought. Before me stood a stranger with only the most perverse of intentions. Pacing. Always pacing like he’s in conflict, but he’s not. No, he’s plotting. It took time and effort to come up with the types of torture he’s been inflicting on me.

Laughter above me. I heard it; I was certain. There’s laughter. I tried to yell, but no sound came out. My throat has dried up from night’s full of screams. I was still in the grocery store. We never left. A warmth came over me. There’s hope. I can get out of here. We never left. I know where I am. There are people nearby. This is going to end. I couldn’t help but smile.

My musings were interrupted by a splash of liquid that stung the numerous cuts on my skin. He’s back, pacing in front of me eating a pickle and flicking the pickle juice into my open wounds. Pickle juice in my eye. Pacing back and forth. The smell of pickles was strong, but the fact that my senses were coming back gave me hope and a feeling of calm.

The next thing I was aware of was that I was outside of my body, floating high above it all. I was watching this predator take pleasure in destroying my body which hung like a carcass. Time stopped. I was able to move around freely and could see everything. Right behind me was a door, and behind that door was a small set of stairs that led back into the grocery store where this nightmare began. My feet were tied with a rag, tied to a ceiling rafter. An old rag. A rag I might be able to rip if I tried.

My captor was nothing. A shell of a man. That was too generous. He probably weighed no more than 120 pounds. How did this skinny fuck ever dominate me in the first place? I reasoned that he had the element of surprise. I thought I was just helping my friend, carry empty bottles down to the basement of the grocery store he worked at. I didn’t suspect a thing. He surprised me from behind and put me in a chokehold. I lost consciousness. Repeatedly. My disbelief was what gave him the advantage.

As I watched it all from above, I felt nothing. I was not afraid. I wasn’t even angry. My captor was a predator. It’s not personal; it’s nature. I watched as he started to urinate on my body. Then something grabbed my attention. In my bloody, matted, piss-soaked hair, something caught the light. Glass. There must be a shard of glass in my hair from when I broke the window. Everything was in slow motion.

A rush of adrenaline washed over my brutalized body. I was back. I opened my eyes and saw his boots. I moved my right hand slowly toward my hair and located the shard of glass. It was embedded into my scalp. I felt nothing. Cutting my fingers, I slowly pulled the shard of glass out of my scalp. It was much larger than it looked from above. I had no idea what I was going to do with the shard of glass, but I was ready.

Without a conscious decision, I thrust myself forward, and in one seamless movement, I grabbed my captor’s penis with my left hand and pulled down as hard as I could. He let out a yelp that sounded like a kicked puppy. As soon as he lurched forward in pain, I opened my legs and caught his head in between my thighs. I squeezed as hard as I could. He started to squirm and pull back. My thoughts wandered to a video I saw as a kid where an octopus killed a shark. I am the octopus. I am going to kill this shark.

Blood, urine, and pickle juice droplets fell into my face as I pulled myself up using his penis as leverage and pulling his head with my thighs as hard as I could. Once I found my balance, I let go of his penis and gripped the glass shard with both hands. I had his head locked firmly between my thighs. We were both wiggling. But like the octopus and the shark, it was clear who had the advantage. Methodically, I worked my way up until my head was just below his head. I had him in my grasp. There was no fear, no pain, only the animalistic will to survive.

The smell of pickles on his breath made my stomach turn. It took every ounce of strength I have left to plunge my makeshift glass knife into his neck. There was so much blood. I was surprised by how easy the glass blade cut into his neck. It reminded me of cutting into a cheese block. There was a little resistance, but then his body gave way, and the blade melted through his skin. I felt his body go limp, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I stabbed until my hands were so cut up from the rough edges of the glass blade that they ceased to function.

His blood washed over me. Rushing like water from a faucet. Then I heard his body fall. It didn’t make as much noise as I thought it would. His head was almost decapitated, and his eyes were still open. His bloody corpse didn’t look real. It reminded me of the cheap Halloween decorations of my youth.

My body was shutting down. I knew that I was dying. I stretched out and let my arms hang down. In hindsight, I probably could have hung on to his body long enough to cut the rag holding my feet. My glass knife lay shattered on the floor next to my tormentor’s mangled and insignificant body. Blood pooled around him like a lake. I felt a sense of satisfaction that, if nothing else, I stopped this monster from hurting anyone else.

The pool of blood gathering below me reminded me of the small pond that was in my cousin’s backyard. We used to run around it as children. One time I fell in, and although it was only a few feet deep, I thought I was going to die. Reflecting on that moment now, when I was minutes or maybe seconds away from death, it all seemed poetic. How many days did I waste worrying about death? Now that she’s here, I was comforted by her presence.

As the blood pond below me grew and my vision began to fade, something caught my eye from the corner. I turned myself to better see, and to my horror, there were what looked like old corpses set up against the wall. Were they there before? I felt hot. Adrenaline rushed over me. I decided to try. To try and get out of this death trap one more time. I took a deep breath and coughed as blood trickled out of my mouth. I steadied myself and thrust upward, and to my surprise, I was able to grab onto the rag that held my feet. I pulled myself up more, and within a few seconds, I was able to untie my feet. I fell hard but was ecstatic to be alive and free.

The door was less than ten feet away. I dragged my body toward the door, pausing momentarily to tell the corpses that I’d be back for them, and pushed my way through the door onto the cold cement floor. It was a false doorway. That’s why I didn’t know where I