Help : The End

When I woke up again, sun was shining and the heat was unbearable. My body ached more than before. I was feeling dehydrated and my head was spinning. With blur vision, I looked around and tried to recall the events leading me to this place. I touched my head where I was hit. It was soft and I could feel blood clots with my fingers. Suddenly I remembered last night and I felt chills going down my spine. My eyes got wide open and my heart jumped in my throat.

I was under a small shelter made of straws and my right ankle was tied to a chain whose other end was locked around a tree. In front of me was a vast desert. The shelter still had signs of straw walls on three sides. I desperately started looking around for the person whose sound I had heard before I went unconscious. I was lying on ground and could not gather enough strength to get up. And then I heard her sobbing. It was coming from behind the tree. I did not feel any fear now. I knew ghosts don’t bother during bright sun light. So I mustered up all my leftover body strength and crawled towards the incoming sound. I circled around the tree and there I found a body wrapped around itself like a baby in the mother’s womb. After reaching close enough, I slowly extended my arm and touched the body. It shuddered and then opened up like a flower but with a stench I had never experienced before.

She was still dressed up in her airhostess uniform even with an apron tied up front. Her ankle was also tied to the same tree. Our chains were about ten feet long which allowed us to move around the tree. There was a water bucket placed at one side with some bread pieces under the shelter. A person would come on camel every third day, check on us, refill the bucket, leave some bread pieces and then depart.

At first she did not trust me. She would remain jumbled up at one side and would keep as much distance from me as possible. Physically she seemed normal but psychologically she was closer to losing her mind. I on the other hand was mentally fit but physically I needed sometime to recuperate. The only medicine I had there was time and I knew it can heel every wound.  

After few days, she started feeling normal in my presence and did not sneak away from me. One evening when the sun was setting in the far west, I saw her sitting with her back against the tree. I inched closer and also sat near her. She did not move or squeak. I started narrating my story and she listened quietly. My story was over shortly as it started from her calls and ended up here. I waited patiently for her to speak. The night had spread its wings. The temperature had lowered considerably. And when I had lost all hopes, she started speaking.

It was her last flight before her marriage. Her father had died few years ago due to cancer. They spent everything they had on his treatment but he left the world leaving them with absolute nothing. She soon realized her obligation of looking after her mother and a little brother. It was not until she got selected for airhostess training that their miseries began to wane down. After the successful training, she started flying with a private airline company on domestic and international flights. Relatives who had initially objected to her work were now stunned to her income. Proposals started flooding in and despite her reluctance she was engaged to be married soon.

It was a routine flight till they missed the landing due to bad weather. The pilot was now forced to circle around and make another attempt. She was about to sit at her seat near the door when the turning aircraft wing struck the hill. In the backdrop of loud noise and dreadful screams, she held the door handle tightly with her arms wrapped around it. Next thing she felt was the door knocking out of fuselage and flying away. She just closed her eyes and saw the image of her mother and little brother.

She woke up badly injured in a small room. There were two men and a woman who were discussing as to what to do with her. She kept her eyes closed. One man said that the airline has announced that there are no survivors. They had found her close to the crash site when they went to investigate the loud bang near their home. They picked her up and brought her to their home in a bid to receive some compensation. They belonged to a network of timber mafia who would cut the trees at night and smuggle it to furniture market. In next few days, they inquired about her family and how much will they pay for her safe return. When they found out that she was worth nothing that they decided to wait for the compensation to be given to her mother from airline and then they can grab that in return for her life.

They kept her locked and heavily sedated. They however could not wait more. After three months they sold her to some other party. She was tied to a stretcher and her mouth was duck tapped. She was put in an ambulance and then brought all the way to this place. Her one ankle was tied to a chain attached to a tree and was left alone in the desert. The effect of drugs subsided in few hours. She found her cell phone placed in zip pocket of the apron which she was still wearing. She would always shut down her cell phone and keep it there during the flight. She took it out and switched it on but there was no signal. She turned it off.

Her days here turned into weeks and weeks transformed into months. In initial days, she tried to escape but was unable to get the chain detached from her ankle. One thing she persistently kept doing was to check cellphone signals by switching it on occasionally. During one night, when it was cloudy she turned on the phone and saw one bar of network signals. She almost started crying. Immediately she dialed her mother's number but there was no tone. She dialed one other contact but probably it was late night hence there was no response. She also tried to send sms but there was some error in the settings and then she lost the signal. She kept switching her cellphone on and off over next few months but no luck. By now her mental state was getting worse and she could not think straight. It was after another six months when she was randomly dialing a number during thunderstorm that she found the ring tone. It was my number though it soon got disconnected but she kept dialing this number every time she switched on her phone.

She asked me about her mother and brother. I told her that they both are fine. She was worried as to why she is still here. I told her that the compensation from airline has not yet been given to her mother. Her abductors are probably waiting for the same.

We then started planning the escape. She told me that she has tried a lot but could not open the lock. I instead was focusing more on the tree. Our chain was about ten feet long and we could move around a bit. I told her to look for any sharp object like blade or stone or anything with which we can slowly cut the small tree with which we were tied to. After an elaborate search of the area, I found a small knife from the straw shed. We then turn by turn started cutting the tree. We paused the whole day on which the camel man had to come to replenish our supplies. After he left, we spent another two days and we were finally able to cut half of the stem. We then waited for the camel man to arrive on third day. He was a short and weak person with a petite body. It was not difficult for me to wrap the chain around his neck and knock him down. With little help from Sumbal, I tied his hands and threw him in the shed. We then applied all our remaining energy in pushing the tree down. We got our chains free from the tree but these were still tied to our ankles. We thought of nothing else but picked our chains and ran towards the sitting camel and climbed over it.

Camel would not budge. We tried every trick but failed. Then Sumbal remembering something, produced some sound which she had noticed during her over one year stay here that the camel finally got up from the ground. We still had to move it in the right direction. I knew the way from where the camel man arrived so I held its reins like I had seen in movies and started guiding it towards that direction. After travelling for about one hour, I saw the cell tower in the far distance.

The compound door to the cell tower was open and its keeper was sitting outside. I did not waste a second and jumped from the standing camel and grabbed the old man. I told him in sign language to make the camel sit. We then all went inside the compound and closed the door behind. I took out the phone of Sumbal, switched it on. It showed full signal strength but as I started to dial the first number, its battery died.

I then turned to the old man who was sitting scared in one corner. I asked him about my stuff but he did not reply. I then started searching the small room and finally found my bag including my phone from under his charpoy. Its battery was also dead but I had its charger in my bag and the generator was on. I inserted Sumbal's SIM into my phone and then made calls to every Tom, Dick and Harry I knew including media persons, ambulance service, police emergency and all my family and friends. Sumbal also talked to her mother as she remembered her number. Within next few hours, the compound was surrounded by a mob of people and we were securely guided from out of here to the nearest medical facility. The media had its field day.

Our kidnappers were never found. The person we tied in the desert shed had also escaped. We were nevertheless fortunate to be alive and back with our loved ones. I soon married Sumbal. She still has some psychological issues but I am sure she will overcome these with the passage of time.

Written By: Nadeem Alam

Other short stories by same author:
Click 👇
Help (Part 1)
Help (Part 2)
Help (The End)
Better Than You
The Devil
Lost Girl 
Shadow
My World
Doomsday
Price of Love