Dark Thoughts

• Curren Rajan, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2008

Dark Thoughts

The man got up and looked out the single window in the room. There was something about the way he walked that suggested power-and madness. This was a man that knew what he was doing. And he would kill anyone who got in his way. Outside, the rain had begun to pour down in torrents. The train station was flooded - and so were the trains. The temperature was even worse. It had dropped down to a freezing thirteen degrees Celsius. Lightning flashed in the dark, surging sky for the hundredth time. The pale, dim glow lit up the remote office that Travis Blake and the man were in, sixty floors above the ground. Light spilled onto his face and Travis got a proper look at him. He was about forty, with messy blonde hair. Cut into his face were two narrow eyes, pale blue and deadly. His well-built muscles bulged from underneath a stained white shirt, decked by a neon green tie. It was crooked, and more surprisingly, hanging limply from his nose. His limbs looked dreadfully skinny. Pencil-thin legs snaked out from a scrawny waist, and his lanky arms swayed in the air like twigs. This was the person that had kidnapped him. He had abducted Travis from the family mansion just a few hours ago and brought him to this abandoned skyscraper. And worst of all, he had ruined the boy’s silk pyjamas. His mother had bought them at about three hundred dollars. And speaking of clothes, the kidnapper could have lived in the gutter all his life. And, judging from the stench that emanated from him, he probably had. “It’s an ‘orrible night.” He snarled. There was something wrong about the way he talked. His English was terrible, but his breath was worse. “Why do I put up with zis?” He sat down heavily in his chair and turned to face Travis. “I believe yu’re the son of zat rich guy- Michael Blake?” Travis slowly nodded. It wasn’t easy. Four entire rolls of tape bound him from his neck to shins. The man ignored his discomfort and continued talking. “My name is Punner, lad. Archie ‘unner!” He smiled, revealing a mouth full of filthy, yellow teeth. “Have ya heard of me?” Travis grimaced. His captor was a nutcase with a stupid name. What else could go wrong? “I’m afraid I don’t read the mental hospital admittance lists.” Archie Punner stopped grinning. His eyes flickered with hatred. But then he calmed himself down. “Yu’ll be sorry for tat, lad.” Punner reached forward and picked up a crumpled ball of paper lying on an otherwise empty desk and threw it onto Travis’ lap. “Read it!” Travis laughed. “How?” He was still bound in the masking tape and couldn’t move a muscle. “It’s a ransom note,” Punner explained. “I’ve just mailed a copy to da Blake family.” The grin reappeared on Archie’s face. “Half a million dollars!” He giggled “Tat’s a lot.” Kidnapping. Blackmail. This man made Travis sick-and it wasn’t just the lack of hygiene. He was a criminal. “W-w-hy?” was all that Travis could say. He was beginning to get scared. Punner laughed. A loud, strung out cry, dripping with cruelty. “Why do ya think, boy? For twelve years, yu had eet all! Yu were posh, yu lot.” Punner was rambling now. His anger seemed to be damaging his already poor English as well. “And me? Poor old me, living down in the streets, begging when me was a kid…” A tic had appeared above his eye, making his eyelid dance. Saliva dribbled from his upper lip. “But do yu all care? No!” “That’s why boy!” Punner swore quietly. After that he didn’t speak to him again. Travis sighed. What could he do? There was no way he could escape. A dark silence wrapped itself around the two people. You could hear a possum play the piccolo all the way in Macedonia. Travis laid his head back and closed his eyes. All he wished was that when he opened them, everything would be normal…