A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

Light noses its way into the shed with me. It comes in through the
slats of the wooden boards. It’s a golden yellow, something I ain’t
seen in years. Seeing the sunlight nearly makes me cry, but I don’t
cry ’cause crying won’t do me any good. I’ve got to keep my wits
about me if I’m going to try and find my way home.
The shed, now that I see it in daylight, is old and rickety. There’s a
lawn mower and a ladder in here, and a bunch of broken bikes. I rise
up to my feet, try and step around them, but my legs are half-asleep
on account of the way I’ve been sitting. I never did sleep, all night
long. I spent the whole night crouched into a ball, waiting for that
man to come back.
At some point in the middle of the night, it started raining. I heard
them raindrops pounding on the roof and, every now and again, a
stray raindrop snuck into the shed with me, landing on my arms and
face. I tried to gather that rain into the palms of my hands and drink
it, but there wasn’t ever more than a couple drops of it. I’m so thirsty.
My throat is bone dry. I ain’t drank in days. My lips is dry, too. They’re
split so that, on them, I feel blood. I run my tongue over that blood
and taste it.
When it was raining, it took everything in me not to go outside, to
leave the safety of the shed, and turn my face up to the sky with my
mouth open wide. But I was scared to death the man was waiting for
me on the other side. So I settled on just drinking one stray raindrop
at a time.
My body hurts now, from running the way I did. There’s dried blood
on my hands and legs. That’s from tripping over the tree. My feet are
covered in blood, too. There’s wood chips and pebbles stuck in
them. It hurts to walk, but I do, anyway, ’cause I got no other choice.
In the sunlight I see scars on my arms, from who knows what.
Probably all the times that lady went and hit me with her belt, or the
time she threw hot water that smelled like a swimming pool on me.
That hurt like heck, when it wasn’t itching half to death.
I go to the front of the shed, but I don’t go straight outside. I stand
in the doorway first, looking out, surveying my surroundings. I don’t
know where I am. I don’t know that I’m alone, that I’m not being
watched.