Willis' Lucky Escape-1

Willis’ Lucky Escape

by

          Austin Mitchell

         Willis
woke up with a headache. He knew that it was after midnight because he had
heard the National Anthem being played on the radio in an adjoining room. The
room was dark and his hands and feet were bound. As he lay in the darkness he
recollected what had happened earlier in the day. After dropping off a female
passenger in Queensbury, he had been driving his taxi on Molynes Road when two
men waved him down. It had been about two o’clock. They wanted to go to Papine. His first instinct had been to
drive on but he remembered that he hadn’t made Bydie’s money yet. This was
Friday and the man would want his money first thing tomorrow morning. One man
came to sit beside him while the other one sat in the back.

            They were on Hope Road when he
found a knife sticking him in his side.

             “Hey guy, we’re going to show you
which road to turn into. My brethren has his gun with him so don’t bother try
anything.”

            “It’s not my taxi this, brethren.
It’s a man I’m driving it for.”

              “All the better, we don’t like to
take away anything from people like ourselves.”

              Despite his pleas to the men,
they took him to a lonely road in Meadowbrook Estate. They had tied his hands
and feet and locked him in the car trunk. He was highly suspicious that he was
in Portmore and that the men had gone on a robbery spree with his taxi.

             Willis knew that when they returned,
they were going to kill him. They would probably run the car with him in the
trunk over a precipice. He felt weak, having not eaten since midday. They had
taken away his cell phone, his wallet and all the money he had on him.

             Willis wondered what Marlene was
doing when she didn’t see him come home. He was normally home by eleven
o’clock. He would eat his dinner before having a bath and going to bed. He had
to be up by six o’clock or even earlier. His two children, ten year old Roger
and six year old, Jassette, were bound to ask for him. Jassette, especially,
never liked to go to her bed until he came home.

            Willis heard voices and suspected
that the men had returned. He hadn’t heard a car, maybe they had left it down
the road.

         The door to the room where he was, was
kicked open and the light turned on.

           “Who are you? The guys aren’t here,
Vinny,” the man said.

            “Who are you talking to, Bounce?”
the man named Vinny asked.

             “I found a man tied up.”

             “I’ll soon be there,” Vinny
replied.

              A few seconds later,Vinny came
into the room.

            “Who are you? What are you doing
here?”

              Willis remained silent. Who were
these men, he wondered?

             “Two men took away my taxi. They
tied me up, left me in this room here. They said that when they returned
they’re going to kill me.”

             Willis was sure that the two men
were armed. Both of them had their shirts out of their pants.

            “We can’t do anything for you. You
just have to wait on those men,” the man named Vinny said and left.

              The other man followed him. The
room was again plunged into darkness.

              Willis slumped back into a corner
of the room. He wondered who this last set of men were. It seemed that there
were enemies of his kidnappers.

              One of his kidnappers had a
distinct voice that he would recognize anywhere, Willis thought. It had a nasal
drift to it. This was the man who had been in the back of the car. He also had
a mole in his  forehead. The other man,
the one who had his knife sticking him in his side, had a huge knife mark on
the right side of his face.

             He missed his cell phone and knew
that Marlene would have called it several times.

             Reggae music was coming from at
least two places. He suspected one of them to be Bam’s jerk pit over in
Braeton.

            It must be after one o’clock now, he
thought. The second group of men had turned off the radio. Willis stretched out
on his back on the floor. He knew he would be killed once his kidnappers
returned.

           Then he thought he heard voices.

            The men had returned! He heard
footsteps and then the lights were turned on.

             “They kicked in the door, Coley,”
one of the men said.

              “Hey guy, anybody came here?” the
other man asked.

               “It  must have been Bounce and Vinny, Cliffy,”
Coley said.

               “Let’s get out of here. How did
they trail us here? They might have told other members of their gang where we
are,”Cliffy warned.

                  Coley turned to Willis.

                “Hey, guy we’re going to give
you back your taxi. We’re going to drive you somewhere and leave you with it.
We’re going to blindfold you. Do you know where you are?”

               “No, I don’t know where I am,”
Willis replied.

                “He’s lying, remember it’s a
taxi man we’re dealing with. He knows everywhere in town,” Cliffy opined.

                They locked him in the car
trunk. They hadn’t bothered to blindfold 
him. He knew that there were two cars now. He was certain that the men
were going to kill him.

               They were driving for about a
hour and a half when the car stopped. He was tense, waiting for one of the men
to open the car trunk.

                They opened the car trunk, but
from his position he couldn’t tell where he was.

                The men started pushing the
car. He was sure they were pushing it over a gully. He shouted at them, but
they paid him no mind. He felt the car rolling, then he himself rolling, and
then the car plunged into water then everything went black! Austin's blog: stredwick.blogspot.com