It was with palpable relief that Samantha stepped out of the elevator into the concrete cavern of her office’s underground parking garage. More then once, it seemed to the young brunette that the day would never end: an endless series of meetings, some formal in the conference room, some impromptu when one of her coworkers managed to corner the 23-year old sales rep among the cubicles. She was not looking forward to facing the workload which had been piled on her desk today...but that problem could wait until Monday. Now, it was Friday evening and she had the whole weekend to forget about it.
The clacking of Samantha’s heels on the bare concrete echoed through the cavernous space. Hers were the only footsteps to be heard, though. She’d gotten stuck in a late minute conversation with Joe, her department head and so had missed the initial exodus of people fleeing the office to get an early start on their weekend plans. Still, the scattered cars she passed on the way to her own told Samantha plenty of her coworkers would be working late this evening.
“Poor bastards.” She thought with a sigh and a wry smile. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get home is kick off these shoes and maybe take a hot soak…” Besides the heels, which Samantha thought she looked good in regardless of how they killed her feet by the end of the day, the young woman wore a dark navy blue jacket with a matching skirt, a cream colored blouse beneath and dark pantyhose. A bit more formal then a lot of the girls her age at the office, but Samantha was angling to move up into the ranks of management soon and looking the part was important if she wanted to get noticed.
Finally, she came to her car. It was parked in the corner of the lot between two others: a dark gray sedan and a large maroon SUV. The young woman stepped around to the drivers side door and began fumbling for the keys. It took her a moment: they had somehow worked their way to the bottom of her purse and had gotten lost among all the other odds and ends she swore she would clean out one of these days. Samantha had just gotten hold of the wayward key fob and was pulling it out when they struck.
The first man had been crouched between the front of the sedan and the wall of the garage. When Samantha had gone to unlock her own car, turning her back to the him, the man sprang from his hiding place. In a single, swift bound he was behind the young woman. She had a brief glimpse of a tall figure, in his 40s thereabouts, with short dark hair, before she was grabbed. The man’s arm went around Samantha’s torso, just below the swell of her breasts, catching her upper arms in a tight embrace which pinned them to her sides. The keys and Samantha’s purse spilled from her hands as she was yanked back into the crushing grip of the large man. The whole maneuver had taken scant seconds, giving her no chance to react save a startled yelp which was cut off abruptly as the man’s free hand clamped tight across the young woman’s mouth, silencing her.
“Oh my god!” Samantha thought as shock and terror raced through her. Frantically, she began to struggle but found it quite impossible to break free of the arm clutched tight around her. Nor did she have an easy time shaking her head free from the hand pressed to her lips, not long enough to scream for help anyway. While she was wrestling with these problems, a second man appeared from around the other side of the SUV where he had been hiding. He, like the first man, was tall and burly, dressed in a polo and khaki’s which would have fit in with about 90% if the people working at the office. He wore no mask, giving Samantha a good look at a narrow face, bout 30 or 35 years of age, with a head of short, tousled sandy brown hair. In his hands was a roll of silver duct tape.
“Where should I start?” He asks, speaking past Samantha to the man holding her.
“Start with-Oof!-her feet!” The dark-haired man said, giving a grunt of pain. Samantha had, by now, realized struggling was futile against her attacker’s heavier build and was now doing her best to kick and stab at his legs with the thin points of her heels. As his partner approached, bending down with the roll of tape in one hand, the free end of it pulled back in the other, she kicked and stamped and did everything she could to make things difficult for her attackers. Samantha managed to get in a few good blows at both, even drawing blood in one spot, but eventually the man got the tape stuck round one of her ankles. He yanked it beside the other leg and whipped the roll around three or four times until a solid band of silver taped wrapped both, pinning them together. This was repeated with her knees, wrapping them just below the hem of the young woman’s skirt.
“Now the gag.” Samantha saw Sandy-hair come up, still holding the tape in one hand. The other reached into the pocket of his khakis. It came out with a small, wadded up ball of white cloth: a handkerchief or a bandanna perhaps. Realizing what it was intended for, Samantha steeled herself. As soon as she felt the hand draw away from her mouth, she got ready to scream. Unfortunately for her, her captors were just as quick. A brief yelp echoed a moment in the garage, but it was soon cut off by the wad of cloth which was shoved forcefully between her lips, filling her mouth. The first man clamped his hand over her lips once more, keeping Samantha from spitting the gag out while his partner tore a strip of tape off the roll. It was plastered across the young woman’s mouth, followed by several more, sealing the gag in.
As soon as the final piece had been smoothed into place, the dark-haired man spun Samantha around and threw her roughly against the side of the sedan. Taken by surprise and unable to balance herself against the sudden movement with her legs taped together, the young woman would have fallen to the ground, if her captors hadn’t seized both of her flailing arms at the wrists. The young woman groaned sharply into the gag as her hands were twisted behind her back, wrists crossing. “That’ll teach you to kick me, bitch.” The dark haired man growled. His partner sprang forward and, as quickly as he had done with her ankles, wrapped tape tightly around her wrists a half dozen times or so, trapping them together. Samantha gave a frightened moan, realizing how helpless she was now.
Most of the rest of the roll was soon wrapped around Samantha’s arms and chest, running in two parallel bands, above and below her breasts, trapping her arms against her back. The last of the tape was reserved to blindfold the young woman. She whimpered in fright as everything went dark for her. Not far away, she heard the sound of the sedan’s trunk being opened, then she was grabbed once more, this time lifted completely off her feet and carried towards the sedan.
Putting two and two together, the young woman kicked and squirmed, grunting frantically through her gag, but the tape rendered her helpless to resist as she was set down in the trunk. A hand forced her head down and a second later, the lid of the trunk slammed shut mere inches above it.
Inside the tight space, the young woman squirmed, trying to orient herself better. For a few moments, all was quiet outside the trunk, at least as much as she could tell. Then, Samantha heard the muffled sounds of an engine turning over, oddly distant, then a second one came to life, louder, vibrating the entire trunk as it came to life. Samantha was suddenly thrown up against the front wall of the trunk as the sedan backed out of its space, then back again as it rolled forward, driving off with her trapped in the back...