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Cargo: an edge of your seat thriller
Cargo: an edge of your seat thriller Read online
[Cargo]
Based on the Original Screenplay by James Dylan
J.C Macek III
Copyright © 2018 J.C. Macek III
The right of J.C Macek III to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2018 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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For Novara
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
A Note from Bloodhound Books:
Acknowledgments
1
The Box 1:00 AM: Twenty-Four Hours until Deadline.
Anthony Peterson was in pain.
His head throbbed, and the dream interpreted that pain as a severe injury.
He found himself on his knees out in a field, sure that he was injured. He was calling out to his wife and reaching for her in his pain. But Susan remained just out of reach. The wind blew her white dress around her in slow motion, and the pollen of the field flowed around her in a cocoon. He reached again, and she was even further away, causing his pain to flare even higher.
Every painful place on his body was lit by sickly starlight, and strangely, that starlight hurt. It was as if the light was piercing him. Crucifying him.
One beam actually cut right through the center of his forehead like a deathblow.
Bring it on, if it would end the pain.
He was in agony. He was terrified.
Finally, Anthony Peterson could no longer handle all of this discomfort, this pain, this helplessness. Thus, he reached out to Susan, his bride, his strength. She would care for him. She had to. She was his trophy wife. She had better. He had invested.
But as he cried out for her, Susan was suddenly different. To his horror, his young, beautiful wife had degenerated into an old crone, and she seemed not to recognize him.
Peterson fell back as he watched her walk away down a blood-stained dream street. The field was gone. The pain was not. He held his head and repeated her name as he collapsed onto the bloody path.
Then vibrations rolled through his head like thunder, irritating his headache more.
Tremors. Something was shaking the ground. Were there machines coming? Didn’t they know he was hurt? Wherever he was, he was hurting! How could they not know or care? What was this?
The vibrations paused then came again.
Over and over to his increasing pain, he felt the vibrations pause and restart. Just when he felt it was time to relax again, they returned.
Make it stop! he thought. Stop it. I’m hurt! But the agonizing vibrations did not stop.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Anthony Peterson felt fear. Pain was one thing, but fear? Fear was not like him.
He held his head, curled into a fetal position, and shivered on the cold hard floor of the desolate field with the bloody trail widening through its center.
Each buzzing vibration felt like a reminder of something ominous coming. Every buzz increased his fear to the point that his heart was pounding in his chest, exacerbating the throbbing in his head.
Then, the blue flashes came. Blue flashes like unearthly lightening reached out for him. As the noise rose and the blue flashes overtook his consciousness, he knew that the thing he feared had finally come for him.
And then, Anthony Peterson awoke in the darkness with a series of heavy, terrified gasps.
It was a dream. Only a dream. All a dream.
Susan would be next to him, still young, still beautiful, still his trophy. Should he wake her up and tell her or–?
Anthony Peterson froze as he reached for her. He suddenly realized something quite disturbing.
He was not in their bed.
Had he rolled onto the floor? He must have. It was hard where he was lying.
That must have been one hell of a dream to eject him straight from his bed. He felt ridiculous.
What time was it? He looked around and saw nothing. Where was his clock? Had the electricity gone out?
Goddam, he spent all this money to live in the swankiest part of town and the electric company couldn’t even do their fucking jobs, right?
His heartbeat finally slowed, but his head continued to throb in a defiant reminder of his bad dream. How in the name of fuck had he ended up on the floor? Was that how he had hurt his head?
Slowly, he sat up, still holding his head with one hand, and felt around in the darkness.
He narrowed his eyes in confusion. This was metal. He was on some kind of metal floor.
Where was he?
Equally disturbing was the realization that he was not wearing his night clothes but instead was still wearing his suit and tie from the office.
What was this, a prank?
Nobody did this to Anthony Peterson! Nobody ever! Didn’t they know that? Well, if they didn’t, they soon would. They would know who they had been fool enough to fuck with.
He felt groggy. His body ached nearly as much as his head.
And then, there was the fear. The fear now came to him in the waking world as if reaching straight out from his nightmare to wrap around his throat.
He would never admit this to anyone but himself, but he was indeed frightened. Whoever the fuck had done this to him would pay dearly for it.
Pranks like this? Not funny.
He looked around wildly, trying to see anything that might give him a clue to where he was. Slowly, he made his way to his feet and put his arms out, gasping and breathing hard, walking forward and feeling for…anything.
He was a blind man in the darkness. Alone.
He tried to remember what had happened before…this. Was he hung over? A night on the town? Maybe this was a friend’s garage he was sleeping it off in or–
His hand touched something, and he started. It was cold. A wall? His other hand touched it, and he recoiled slightly in shock.
Where am I?
He placed both hands flat on the wall and pushed.
Metal. Like the floor. He began tracing his way around, feeling along the wall, guiding himself.
He was baffled. No explanation he could come up with made sense. None of the people he knew would consider a prank like this. He didn’t remember running around with any of his young girls recently. No party invitations, no happy hours, no drugs. And
his kids weren’t talking to him, so a night out with them was improbable. It was baffling. Shocking. Where in the name of God was he?
And with that, his dream came into reality. He felt the vibrations again. Heavily.
The machinery from his dreams was here.
It was loud, grating, painful, yet…familiar. It was coming from all around him. What was it, and how could he stop it?
He turned around and leaned against the wall and saw that the blue flashes from his dream had also come reaching into reality.
It was…a blue glow, slight, but bright in the darkness. It flashed every time the vibrations shook the room and reactivated his headache.
He made his way closer, moving his arms blindly in front of himself to avoid any collision. When he was close enough, he realized exactly what was making both the vibrations and the flashes.
It was a cell phone.
He shook his head to clear it as he leaned in and walked closer.
A cell phone…taped to the wall. It was taped in a way that left it flat against the metal with the screen facing forward so as to be seen. He could see the readout on the phone indicating an incoming call along with the time…1:16 AM.
The metal walls amplified the ring notice vibrations and carried it through whatever this place was like a metallic megaphone.
Who could be calling? Who knew he was here and…where was here?
His grogginess cleared somewhat, and he found the presence of mind to reach forward and rip the phone from the wall.
He wadded up and tossed the tape with a few hand flaps, hit the answer key and quickly said, “Hello?” in an expectant voice, sounding more scared than he intended.
There was no immediate response.
The silence was as heavy as the darkness. He imagined some serious and brooding stranger on the line waiting to for the right second to talk. He wrinkled his brow in frustration.
“Hello?” he said again.
After a moment, a deep, serious and fast voice boomed back at him. “Anthony Peterson?”
He almost jumped, but directed his energy into his voice demanding, “Who is this?” with anger.
“Is this Anthony Peterson?” the voice asked again, not intimidated.
“Who the fuck is this?” Peterson asked again in his most authoritative, businesslike voice. He wanted them to know he was no one to fuck with.
“Is this Anthony Peterson?” the voice asked again with the same tone and inflection. He was patient and had his own way of showing who was in charge, whoever the hell he was.
“Yes, this is Anthony Peterson!” he barked back.
Without a pause, the voice said “This is Mrs. Anthony Peterson.”
Peterson’s mind reeled in confusion. What did that mean?
Quickly, he was answered by his wife’s own voice. She was clearly terrified and close to tears. “Anthony! You’ve got to help me! They’ve got me tied to a chair and blindfolded! I don’t know where I am. They won’t tell me anything. I have no idea who they are!” she shouted, and he heard her being violently pulled back from the phone.
“Susan? Susan!” Peterson shouted back in shock as Susan’s cries faded into the distance.
But the kidnapper had the phone again with the same, steady, emotionless voice. “You give us what we want, or we take turns gang fucking her while live-streaming the whole thing to the web.” The caller paused for a second to let his words settle in, then added, “And then, we kill her. It’ll be the world’s first live snuff film.”
Peterson was shocked. Right button, first try. If there was anyone in the world he loved besides himself and his money, it was Susan.
“No! Don’t hurt her! Please don’t hurt her.” He had intended it to be a shout into the phone, but it came out more like a pained and terrified moan.
“A pretty thing like that will get lots of views, don’t you think?”
“Please, just don’t. Don’t do this.”
“Then give us what we want,” the kidnapper said plainly.
It was all very direct. Peterson was not given options. It was either this…or this. Obedience…or bloodshed.
They had Susan and, well, obviously, they had him…somewhere.
If they already planned to do that to Susan, what might they do to him?
“Where am I?” Peterson groaned.
He didn’t expect an answer but he got one.
Immediately, overhead lights flooded the space with white brilliance. Peterson was blinded again and almost dropped the phone to shield his eyes which were clouding over with visual purple.
The kidnapper remained silent. Patient. Plotting. Waiting.
Deliriously Peterson shook his head and forced his eyes open and adjust to the visual onslaught. As the maroon cloud of rhodopsin faded from his eyesight, he finally got a good look at his surroundings, such that they were.
Everything around him was plain. Slate grey. No…more like…what did they call this?
Gunmetal gray.
He shivered as he traced every corner.
To his shock, he found himself in what looked like the inside of a cargo container, the kind they ship things in, overseas or cross-country. His company used them all the time down at the docks, though he had never been close to one, let alone been inside.
It was about forty feet long, he estimated. Maybe eight feet tall and as many feet wide. His very own forty-foot coffin.
Suddenly, everything was more real for Anthony Peterson. This was no extension of his nightmare. This was stark, cold reality, and the acknowledgment of that made him dizzy.
His pained head spun as his captor mirthlessly explained his situation. “You’ve been kidnapped, Mr. Peterson. Trapped. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Nothing. he thought. He paused, thinking…what had happened? He spoke the words as soon as they came into his head. “I remember…being on the street and then…being smothered.” He closed his eyes and looked up, trying to think of something else. Anything…but nothing came. “Then, I woke up here,” he said.
The fast-talking, low voice of the kidnapper took over. “We drugged you, pulled you off the street. The exact kind of thing that happens in human trafficking circles a hundred times a day around the world.”
Peterson winced at those words. Human trafficking. His head throbbed again. His fear was quickly being replaced by anger. What gave them the right to do this?
“Then again, traffickers rarely pinpoint bags of bones like you. Their usual targets look a whole lot more like…well, sweet Susan over here.”
Peterson heard her whimper at those words, and then, a door slammed in the background, separating him from even her voice.
“Where am I?” he demanded.
The kidnapper’s drone continued, speedily, “Maybe you’re in Siberia. Maybe the Middle East. Maybe in a pit in Mexico. Maybe you’re in a New York back alley. Maybe you’re just down the street from your pristine home,” the kidnapper said as if he had the speech prepared.
A chilling thought entered Peterson’s mind. “Are you…outside this container right now?”
“Maybe we are. Maybe we’re a hundred miles away. Maybe we’re next door. The thing is…you’ll never know.”
No stone unturned. They had kidnapping down pat, and they knew exactly how to terrorize a person.
“What do you want?” Peterson asked wearily.
The kidnapper waited a moment, as if for maximum impact, then answered, “Ten million dollars.”
Peterson panicked. “What? Ten mill–? I don’t have that kind of money!” he insisted into the phone.
The kidnapper didn’t hesitate. If there was any emotion in his voice at all, it showed only that he was self-assured. “We both know that you do.”
Peterson shook his head in panic and cried out, “Why me? I’m just a businessman.”
“Because you’re a businessman,” the kidnapper said as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “A very wealthy businessman at that.”
>
Peterson was incredulous. “Well, wait, wait! Is this…something personal? Do I know you?”
“Shut…up,” came the kidnapper’s curt response. There was a tone of definitive finality.
Peterson obeyed and waited.
The kidnapper fired off instructions rapidly as if ready to be done with the very sound of Peterson’s voice.
“If you contact the police, your wife dies, then you die. If you contact the FBI, your wife dies, then you die. If you contact any authorities, your wife dies, then you die. If you contact anyone that doesn’t have to do with collecting the ransom money, your wife dies, then you die. You’ve got air for twenty-four hours. That should be more than enough time to get the money together.”
Peterson winced at every sentence, but the timeline his jailer quoted forced him to interrupt.
“Twenty-four hours?” he responded with shock. He composed himself fast and responded with authority, “No! No! No! That’s not enough time! You’ve got to give me more time.”
The kidnapper continued as if there was no interruption, paying no mind to Peterson’s words. “Once you have the money, we’ll send you the account to wire it to. You do as we say, we let you go, and we let your wife go. If you deviate from the plan one iota, you’re both dead. We’ll rape and murder your wife and live-stream the whole thing.”
Peterson winced again at the very thought. He clenched and unclenched his free fist in fury as every emotion he had ran across his face.
The kidnapper continued his litany. “As for you, though? You, we will leave to die alone…slowly…of suffocation.” The captor paused again for carefully planned dramatic effect, letting his words hang in the air as ominous reminders of the threat. “Chances are, your useless, withered corpse will never be found.”