Joselyn

Santa Cruz Wash, Tucson, AZ – August 8th, 2023 – 0951

Joselyn woke with a groan, disoriented and in pain. Her head throbbed and her throat was sore. She felt a weight on her chest which caused her to open her eyes in panic, blurrily focusing on a mouth full of rotting teeth. The smell of rancid breath, presumably attached to the rotting teeth and bloody gums hovering inches from her face, hit her next. She attempted to struggle, only to realize her arms were bound behind her back. A quick jerk of her legs revealed they too were bound or restrained. She tried to turn her head, but the man holding her down reached up and forcefully grabbed her by the mouth.

“Soooo pretty!” He hissed through rotten teeth, “You’ll taste soooooo good. And look! No one will ever look for you now!” He waved up to the black plumes of smoke that were slowly mixing with the dark ashy clouds forming overhead.

He shoved her face to the side to stare at the clearly dead milky eyes of one of this man’s previous victims. Her eyes roamed frantically across what remained of the woman. She realized the girl looked familiar, and worse; she wasn’t whole. Where is her… OH GOD!

“She tasted soooooo good. Will you cry for me, I like it when my meal cries before I butcher it!” He cackled into the air while holding her still.

Jocelyn watched in wide eyed terror as the man reached into his dirty pants and pulled out a rusty, dull looking knife coated in what appeared to be dried blood. It wasn’t until he pressed the knife against her bare stomach that she realized most of her clothing had been removed. When the fuck did that happen!?

She felt the pressure increase against her abdomen as the homeless man pressed harder with the dull knife, a manic gleam in his eye. She attempted to scream again, but only managed muffled grunts when the tip of the blade began to part her skin. The man laughed as her tears began to flow so much that they blurred her vision. Her brain working on overdrive noticed the man shift his elbow up to fully drive the blade into her soft flesh. She squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to will herself anywhere other than the current horror show she knew was about to follow.

When nothing happened, she opened her eyes in confusion as the knife, thankfully, pulled away from her bare stomach.

“What?” The man almost whispered, looking out through the trees over her head. She realized the crazy man wasn’t the only one present when she saw the shadow of two others push through the bushes, kicking sand in her direction.

The crazy bum stood stock still as he watched and listened to something she couldn’t see. She twisted a moment later when she heard the sounds of a struggle break out moments later. The psycho bum absently reached out to push her down as he looked intently towards the commotion.

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“Oh no… oh no… not now! We’re sooooo close to feeding.” He screeched, shifting over to her left side with the dull knife clutched fervently in his hand, a snarl forming on his lips.

“You jumped the wrong motherfucker!” She heard someone behind her barking at whomever the psycho had sent to investigate the disturbance. She began to scream through her muffle only to freeze when the psycho bum jabbed his knife into her cheek. Her eyes swiveled to stare at the crusty implement pressed into her face with a mixture of fear and hope.

“FUCK!” An object landed in the dirt a few feet from her head. She looked over at the same time as the psycho and realized a silver looking pistol lay in the dirt barely a meter away. She looked back to see the psycho staring at it with manic fear. Without thinking she twisted her body violently in an ill-conceived attempt to gain control of the weapon. Forgetting she was still bound she only managed to cover the weapon with her body.

She felt the psycho’s hand tug on her shoulder a second before the distinct shape of a brown boot collided into her face, plunging her into unconsciousness once again.

Jocelyn wasn’t certain how long she had been unconscious, but a pain across her knee woke her sharply with a muffled scream. Through blurry vision she made out the shape of a large man glancing at her before returning to his own struggle with the psycho. That struggle is what woke her, as it was currently taking place across her legs. She attempted, to some degree of success, to retract her legs as the pair fought on top of her.

“YOU CAN’T HAVE HER! YOU CAN’T!” The psycho screamed at the man as he tried to shove his dirty knife into his face.

Her eyes went wide as her brain struggled what was happening next. Before she could react the psycho somehow had become airborne. Unfortunately for Jocelyn his trajectory had him land across her chest, robbing her lungs of what little oxygen she was able to intake with the muffle in her mouth. Moments later, though it felt like days, the weight was lifted from her body causing her to gasp heavily for air. She unclenched her eyes, only to flinch as the shadow of the man that had intervened in the psycho’s torture stood over her, the blade held in his right-hand reflecting sunlight into her eyes.

“Damn it! Fucker ran off!” He mumbled while looking through the bushes just past her head.

He stepped forward with the knife held to the side causing her to flinch in fear. He stood in front of the sun so she couldn’t see many details of the man, only that he was covered in blood and dirt.

“Relax, I’m just going to cut you free.” He held his left hand out in a calming gesture. The amount of blood and gore on it didn’t reassure her one bit. Eventually she pushed past her fear in a desire to possibly be free and nodded for him to go ahead.

He quickly reached down and cut through the restraints around her ankles, then pulled her hands closer to him so he could remove those around her wrists. As soon as she was free of the restraints, she pushed frantically away from him and practically ripped the gag from her mouth, gasping for fresh air as she did so.

The man stepped out of the bushes and fully into the light, not paying her much attention as he looked around for something. That was when Jocelyn remembered the pistol that she had attempted to cover with her body. She looked around behind her seeing the barrel sticking out of the bushes. Faster, and with more control than she thought she had in her, she snatched the weapon up and shakily held it out in front of her, aiming as best she could at the man through tear drenched eyes.

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU! WHERE THE FUCK AM I!?” She screamed at the man who just stared down at her with measured indifference.