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sending-the-message · 7 years ago

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The Satisfaction Room by StrangeAccounts

“Should we give it a shot?” Emma asked letting her eyes trail over the small leaflet in her hand. We had just gotten married and found ourselves on a little road trip that landed us in New Orleans. Our goal was to live in the moment for a few weeks before settling down in a cheap ramshackle apartment and starting our new life together. It was our one last hurrah before reality needed to slip back in.

That little pamphlet in my wife’s hands belonged to Ivan’s Nighttime Swamp tour. We had picked it up at a small curio shop full of advertisements for other tourist attractions.

The paper read:

‘Come to Ivan’s Nighttime Swamp Tour! Join a small group of fellow explorers with our 15 person airboat tour. Or, if you’re feeling romantic, for only $25 more a ticket, take a ride on our personal 2 person cruise.

Requirements: Must be married and under 30 years of age. Please call in advance’

“Well if we’re going to do it we might as well do it right” I gave a soft laugh and Emma looked up at me beaming.

“So you’re saying the romantic tour?” she asked as more of a statement than a question.

“Of course.” And with our plan decided we left the tiny shack of a curio shop.

We were halfway to our car when I pulled out my phone and dialed in the number listed at the bottom of the sheet.

“Hello?” The man on the other end of the line had a strong eastern European accent, fitting for someone named Ivan.

“Hi, is this Ivan’s Nighttime Swamp Tour?” I asked before continuing on.

“Of course! Which tour are you signing up for?” the man on the other end of the line sang out in a pleasant voice.

“My wife and I were actually looking into the two person tour if that’s possible.”

“Ah, yes. First I must ask, do you love her?” he asked in a playful manner.

“Well, yeah, I wouldn’t have married her if I didn’t.” I laughed at the oddness of his question.

“Perfect, I’ll get it all set up then. You’ll take off at 9pm, an hour before the main tour. Be sure to be there at least 15 minutes early.”

“Sounds good, do you need my credit card number or anything?” There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.

“No, we’ll get all that during the tour. Enjoy the rest of your day to the fullest my friend.”

And with that he hung up. I put my phone back in my pocket just as Emma and I stopped at our car’s doors.

“All set up?” She asked peeping over the roof at me.

“Yup.”

“Good” she cooed as she hopped in the car, me following in tow.

Eventually the sun had begun settling over New Orleans and we had found ourselves on our way towards the swamp tour. About 20 minutes driving through rural wetlands we passed a sun bleached and weather worn sign reading ‘Next right, Ivan’s Swamp Tours.’

We pulled off on a dirt road and parked. The sun had just crested the horizon as I shut my car off, the sound of my engine was replaced by the songs of birds chirping and frogs croaking. Those noises paired with the pink and blue cloudless sky led to a certain kind of powerful feeling, the feeling of peace.

When we exited our car we noticed that only one other vehicle had paired with ours in that empty lot, a green 1990’s Ford f150 with large white lettering advertising Ivan’s business.

“It’s already worth the money.” Emma mused as she shut the car door. The sound had barely dented the local wildlife’s melody.

“Well alright then, let’s hop back in the car and save a few dollars.” I glanced over at my wife trying to hold back a coy smile. Her expression clearly told me she wasn’t having any of it. “Fine, let’s go find a worker.”

We walked off of the graveled parking lot following a well-used dirt path. It took us towards the water’s edge. I looked over at the trees surrounding the trail and noticed how seamlessly they transitioned themselves from the ground into the water. Spanish moss draped over the branches like a curtain, hiding the rest of the swamp.

A lanterns light broke me from my ogling. I turned my head and fixated a bit further down the path towards the light and saw a dock. On one end was a large airboat, clearly meant to hold a large group of people, on the other was the small three person vessel. Standing mid dock next to the smaller boat was a middle aged and slender man talking on the phone. I could only assume that was Ivan.

The man just happened to look down towards the path as we were approaching. His face lit up.

“Oh they’re here!” Ivan shouted, phone still pressed against his cheek. “Wonderful, I’ll talk to you soon.” With a quick motion he hung up the phone and pocketed it. “Welcome my friends!” He walked towards us with a bounce in his step. I could almost taste the excitement radiating off of him.

“Hey, I’m assuming your Ivan?” I asked as he flung his hand out before I could even finish my question. With a swift movement he wrapped both of his hands around mine and shook.

“Yes, yes, and you must be married couple?” He let go of my hand to gently shake Emma’s.

“Yup, that’s my wife Emma and my names John.” His eyes examined us up and down and he nodded quietly to himself.

“Well its nice meeting you both.” With a quick flick of his wrist he directed us over to his small boat. We walked with him onto the rickety old dock, the creaking of ancient wood joined the chorus of wildlife.

He settled one of his feet in the airboat and the other on the dock, extending a hand to help us climb aboard. “Please take a seat lovebirds.”

I let Emma climb aboard first, he gingerly held her hand like a princesses as she took her seat. Next up was me. The small boat lurched in the slightest way as I settled myself in. I felt like this whole process was a little rushed.

“When would you like the payment? I feel like we might have skipped a few steps.” I looked over to Ivan who was undoing some ropes from the wooden beams of the dock.

“Don’t worry about the payment until we’ve gotten back.” With as much charm as he could muster up, he turned and grinned at me. It took a few moments of preparation but eventually the fan blades of the boat began twirling to life. The tour was just beginning to start.

Ivan settled into his ferryman’s seat behind us, guiding our path forward.

“Right next to you both are your own personal spotlights, feel free to use them however much you’d like. Free of charge.” I felt my side get nudged, I turned and looked at Emma who was holding back a smile and rolling her eyes at Ivan’s remarks.

I turned my head away from Emma and looked over toward my end of the boat, a small spotlight lay on a swivel. I let my hands trail around its base until I found its switch and turned it on. A circular light illuminated the swamp water just off to the side of me. I could see the rippling murky green water clear as day. With a small click, Emma’s light joined mine.

“Woah, it’s beautiful out here.” she muttered. I turned my head to see her panning the light over the sparse population of thin trees and bundles of cattails.

“What lives out here?” I asked over the sounds of the swamp. I trailed my light over the water and could see a few bubbles popping up to the surface.

“Everything you can imagine. Frogs, turtles, otters and of course alligators. But don’t worry, we won’t be swimming.” He gave a chuckle, letting his hands rest on the controls of the boat. We were traveling at a slow pace through the waters but even so, in the dark I already couldn’t make out the dock.

The swamp had engrossed us more and more as we traversed further in. With every swivel of my light I had caught a glimpse of a turtle or fish cresting the surface of the water. Everything seemed to be alive.

My wife and I had found ourselves caught in a game of ‘look what I found.’ Every once in a while one of us would chirp up ‘oh look, look!’ to have the other glance over and see some type of critter mucking about in the waters.

After she caught a glimpse of a family of Nutria burrowing into a tree I knew I had to find something interesting to keep up. I grabbed my light and redirected it upwards towards the treetops hoping to find a bird. Instead I caught a glimpse of something else.

There was a dark shape resting in the tree branches above us, I couldn’t make out to many details but it was large, and looked like it was huddled over on itself. I saw two reflective eyes staring right back at me, glowing from the shine of the spotlight.

“What is-” I was quickly interrupted by Ivan reaching over and slamming my light back down to the water.

“An owl, very large. Light hurts their eyes so please keep your spotlights on the water. We don’t want to upset them” His voice sounded nervous. One hand was still on his controls but the other cradled something around his neck, it looked like a necklace.

I sent my gaze over to Emma who had seen the whole thing. Her eyebrows shifted, confused about what just happened. I just shrugged my shoulders and kept my light low like I was instructed.

It was about 30 minutes into our trip when we hit a large clearing. A dark outline of a ferryboat rested dead center in the open water. It’s silhouette outlined by the moon that rested just behind it.

“What’s that?” I asked as our boat slowly crested closer to the ship. At this point I had noticed the sounds from the swamp had completely dissipated into near perfect silence. The only sounds that remained were the sounds of waves slowly lapping against the underside of our boat. I had the feeling that something very wrong was about to happen. Once we were about 25 yards away from the old ferry Ivan stopped.

“Just fellow coworkers. Can you do me a favor and flash your spotlights at them? I just want to make sure they’re still awake.” I gave an awkward laugh before pointing the spotlight at the vessel. It was nearly the size of a home, much too big for the swamp we were in.

It was when my light hit the deck that I saw several shapes of people dressed in all black wearing masks and hoods. They were watching our approach. Before I could even process what that meant, floodlights rained down from above blinding both Emma and myself with an impenetrable light. Within a fraction of the same second loud speakers crackled to life all around us hidden in the swamp.

A deafening song began blaring, consuming everything.

‘I can't get no, sat-is-faction, I can't get no, sat-is-faction’

I tried yelling out ‘Ivan get out of here, please, I can’t think straight’ but even I couldn’t hear one syllable of my own voice over the ear popping music.

I didn’t even feel anything as my world began to darken around me. I could scarcely make out Ivan’s outline in the intense light, two syringes in each of his hands, one facing me and the other facing my wife. It took all my effort but I managed to crane my head over to look over to see my wife’s slumped over body, limp and lifeless.

‘I can't get no, oh, no, no, no, hey, hey, hey That's what I say'

I don’t know how my body fought off the drugs for so long but it did. Long enough to hear that same song repeat two times over. Long enough to feel our small boat being docked by a few men. Long enough to see an old goateed man in a clinical white coat hand Ivan a large stack of money.

But not long enough for anything else.

My mind filled with darkness and for a while I escaped that bleached colored nightmare.

The next thing I remember was the feeling of small hands grinding and pushing their way into my sides. My eyelids managed to peel their way open. They so desperately wanted to close again and slip back into the medical coma I had just awoken from.

“John, please wake up. I need you, please John.” My heavy eyes shifted over to my wife's frightened face. She looked horrified, her skin clammy and pale. That was all my body needed to pump out enough endorphin's to wake me up.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” I muttered, doing my best to sit up, my head was spinning. I cradled my skull in my hands waiting for the room to stop shifting around me.

“I don’t know, I woke up a few minutes ago. All I can remember was the boat ride, some lights and a song. After that everything went black.” I felt my head get a little clearer as my blood began circulating again.

“Jesus, okay. I’m going to go over to the door and see if someone can tell us what’s happening.” I swung my legs off of the bed and tried focusing on the room. Four white walls encompassed us, their colors offset by dim overhead lights. We would have been no better with candlesticks lighting up the room. The only other things of note in the cramped little space we found ourselves in was a metal door in the corner on the far wall. Across from that was a plain metal toilet with no seat.

“Come on, it’s obvious, we’ve been kidnapped. We’re so fucked.” I looked at my wife and saw her break down, tears careened off of her face. She had far more time to process this than I did. At that moment all I knew was I needed to be there for her.

“it’s okay, it’s okay. We’re still together. They wouldn’t keep us together if this was something really bad.” I reached out and embraced Emma, it’s all I could do.

We sat like that for hours until the sounds of a metallic screeching came from the far corner of the room. A large food tray slid under a small grate at the base of the door. A generous portion of eggs, toast, bacon, orange juice and milk rested on the tray.

This is when the flip in my head switched. I felt angry, I wanted out.

“Hey,” I called out, yelling at the door, “What the hell do you guys want? Money? I’ve got some. Let me pay you.”

No response.

“We’re just a couple of kids, alright? We’ve got debts we need to pay off. We can only offer so much but you can take it all.”

Still nothing.

I got up from the bed and headed straight towards the door. I balled up my hand and slammed my fist on the metal with nothing more than a small thud. I could feel that metal was heavy and thick, whoever was on the other side of that door wouldn’t hear me no matter what I did.

Before I knew it Emma was standing right next to me. We both sat down at the base of the door and waited. We didn’t eat or talk, we just hopped they’d open the latch and we’d be able to do something.

But they never did.

We eventually got tired of sitting. I couldn’t tell you if we waited there for 6 hours or 20. There was no way to keep time in the room. In fact besides the bed and the bathroom there was absolutely nothing in the room at all.

Once we settled back down on the only furniture we had, another tray of food slid from under the door. Some grilled salmon, potatoes and herbal tea.

We ate it all.

We began using our meals as a way to tell time. There were three parts to each day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. That was the only way we knew what time of day lay outside our white walled hell.

It took days or weeks, or maybe even months but we got used to our routine. We stopped trying to fight, to make a mess of things, to break out. There was no point. I won’t describe the wasted hours trying too bust down the door or break apart a wall. We tried everything. At the end of the day we were trapped but we were together.

We found ourselves at each other’s throats but also closer than we had even been before. We were both in a shitty situation but we were in it together.

We passed our time playing games of imaginary tic-tac-toe on the floor, then once that became boring, we tried hangman and so on and so on. Once we hit our limits of childish games we began to talk. We found out every little dirty secret and lie about each other. There was nothing left to hide, nothing left to do.

And when two people are both stressed out of their minds and happen to be in love with nothing but a bed, they find themselves doing things. Things happened.

We made love.

The first two weeks after that went by normal. We went back to our imaginary games, sleeping at all hours and eating what was given to us. We went back to our normal routine, that routine was the only thing keeping us slightly sane in that hole.

But that routine was broken when a pregnancy test slid from under the door along with our breakfast.

I looked at Emma and her eyes glazed over.

Her world was crumbling.

For the longest time we had convinced ourselves that it was only us here. We might have been trapped but we had each other and no one else needed to exist. Now we knew better. They could see everything in our little white room and we were never alone.

“Emma,” I began.

“John don’t talk to me right now.” her eyes were fixated on the test. I could feel the tension coming off of her.

I gave her as much space as I could.

I didn’t speak to her.

I didn’t speak to her as she walked over and grabbed the test.

I didn’t speak to her as she waited for the results.

I didn’t speak to her as she dropped the test on the floor and stared at the wall.

I did, however, walk over to the test and see the positive symbol.

“What are we going to do John? I can’t be pregnant here.” she whispered, defeated.

I opened my mouth to respond just as the overhead lights erupted with energy. The room bleached itself in lights just as bright as the night that we were taken. Sure enough, within seconds afterwards, the same song came back on with earsplitting intensity.

I fell to my knees and covered my ears, curling myself up into a ball. I can’t describe the pain of existing in such quiet emptiness for so long just to have piercing music sprout to life without warning.

I didn’t black out though, there was no medication involved this time. I just felt burly large hands wrap around my shoulders and bring me up to my feet. I was shoved out of the room into the vast darkness outside.

For the first time in months I felt the warm, muggy fresh air hit me.

Those big hands tossed me to the ground near a railing. I heard the sloshing of water just a few feet below me just on the other side of the rails. We were still on a boat.

“Stand up.” The voice said. I opened up my eyes and looked next to me expecting to see Emma. She wasn’t there.

“I said stand up.” The voice commanded. I looked over at them and saw a large man in a black shirt and jeans. A skin tight black mask covered his face.

“Where’s Emma?” My voice cracked. I can’t explain how alone I felt in that moment. Emma was my world. She was all I had for so long.

“Last warning, stand up.” The man growled. With my legs shaking under me I stood up. I put all my weight against the handrails and steadied myself.

“Now face me.” I did as I was told and turned my body towards the man. A glimmer of something black rested in his hands and pointed at me. I heard three loud bangs and felt myself fall backwards, headfirst into the water below.

I felt myself, my very essence, escape that night. I went from seeing bubbling water wrapping around me to absolute darkness.

I couldn’t believe it when I opened my eyes. I was sure I was dead.

Yet somehow I had washed up on a tree branch that jutted just out of the water.

I tried lifting my arm and pulling myself out of the muck but instead felt an indescribable amount of pain. I looked down and saw two holes just under my left shoulder. Necrosis had already began to set in.

The murky, stagnant and bacteria ridden water had started a massive infection. Blackened dead skin molded away forming into the foreign holes in my body. With my right hand I quickly felt around my face, looking for the third shot. Sure enough I found it. A small grove in my scalp had burrowed itself in. Luckily the bullet had only grazed me.

Unluckily I had no idea where I was.

I had no current to guide me in the deadened water. The only thing I had was the sun. It had broken through the horizon and was rising so I knew where east was. If I knew east than I knew north.

For the next two days I crawled and swam at a snail’s pace. The further north I went the more wildlife I stumbled across. I had hoped that was a good sign.

I don’t know how I did it but two days straight of dog paddling, dragging and lurching myself forward let me hit landfall. I crawled up the shore and heard the sounds of cars zooming by just up ahead. I scrounged up all my energy and made my way towards them.

I couldn’t see anymore, I was driven by pure instinct. Inch by inch I moved towards the sounds and once I felt one of my hands hit pavement I fell unconscious.

I woke up some time later in another bed surrounded by white walls.

A hospital.

My chest felt like it had been carved open and my head was wrapped in gauze. I was in more pain then I have ever experienced in my life.

But behind that physical pain I felt something more.

Separation.

My heart began racing as I thought back to Emma. She hadn’t made it out. I heard the heart monitor next to me begin beeping loudly. My vision tunneled and got cloudy, a nurse popped her head into my room and looked at me. She looked startled.

“Hey, someone get the Doctor, he’s awake.”

She rushed in the room and began telling me to calm down and gave me some medication through an IV.

I felt my body relax.

“Someone found you on the side of the road a few days ago. You’re lucky to be alive. You’re going to be okay though, the hardest parts over.” She gave a smile.

Next to her on a table was a card. I nodded towards it as best as I could.

“Oh, someone dropped that off for you, it’s a Father’s Day card. You just missed it, it was a few days ago. I’m sure your child’s going to be happy you’re okay.”

I felt a tear trickle down my face. They knew I was alive.

Today is my last day of recovery. I told the police everything but I don’t know how much good that’ll do. My Doctor, Dr. Hargrove, is doing his best to make sure I pull through as best as I can. The infections did a number on my system.

I’m writing this because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but if anyone ever sees my wife Emma, please tell her I love her. I’ll never stop until I find her.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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