Jane Nash: Short story: ‘When strangers help’
Emily wasn’t paying attention to the traffic, earbuds firmly in her ears, cranking out tunes to narrate her morning of waking, washing and going to work. On the pedestrian crossing she felt a hand grab her upper arm and drag her sideways. Surprised she looked up from her phone. There were two strangers, one each side of her in the middle of the road, traffic beeping their horns to make them clear the crosswalk.
‘A motorbike didn’t stop,’ he said.’you were headed for a collision.’ She shook her head, the moment passed and she noticed the woman to her right. The woman took her phone from her and tapped in a phone number causing the woman’s own phone to ring.
‘Rod and Trish’ she said, ‘you have our number now’ and she handed the phone back.
‘Thank you for saving me’ mumbled Emily, still shocked from being manhandled.
‘No worries, It’s all in a day’s work,’ Rod replied, releasing her arm. The three of them continued along the pavement a little way.
‘How can I thank you?’ Emily asked, not really expecting to have to give them anything.
‘Nothing much.You didn’t mean to get run over today, did you?’ said Trish.
Emily was unquieted by their response but thanked them again and made her way to the BEE-GOOD advertising agency where she was a receptionist.
At 12.00 pm her phone rang. ‘Hi! It’s Trisha. Fancy a coffee at lunch time? It must be around your lunch time now?’
‘Er, yes, how about Christo’s, do you know where that is?’ she wondered how Trisha would know her lunch schedule. Feeling somewhat beholden to her, Emily exited the building to unexpectedly see both Trish and Rod, beaming at her and waiting. Coffee was initially awkward at Christo’s café, located on the corner, but Trish didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she collected facts about Emily’s opinions and life. Not realising they were mining her data so easily, Emily nevertheless turned the conversation towards them instead. Trish was willowy, almost 6ft tall with wild hair, not cut for some time. She was chatty with small dark eyes. Rod was shorter, squat with thick arms and muscly shoulders. He was also verbose and often competed with Trish for sentence space. They didn’t match as a couple but they shared a sense of enthusiasm which infected Emily. Familiarity breeds a sense of security and by the end of the month, it was a frequent meeting, the two of them with Emily during her lunch at Christo’s Café.
The call came in at ten minutes to midnight one Tuesday. Emily woke, groggy from taking a sleeping pill earlier due to her insomnia.
‘Emily, it’s about Trish. I need your help.’ Rod’s voice wasn’t urgent, instead it was monotonous as if leaving a message on an answer service.
‘Where are you?’ Emily tried to shake herself more awake.
‘I’m front of your apartment building. Please come now.’
Emily’s curiosity of how he knew where she lived was quickly replaced with worry for her new found friend.
In the car, Emily didn’t recognise where they were as Rod drove out of the suburbs onto a back road with no other traffic on it. A cold prickle ran from the back of her neck down to the middle of her back. Her head was still foggy and she knew her speech was slow. Something, however was not quite right. Rod barely spoke while driving. Her survival sense screamed ‘RUN’ but her head tried to ignore her heart and she wiped her sweating palms onto the sides of her trousers. Her increased pulse rate and the trembling shortness of breath she was experiencing still called to alarm. The night as well as being seductive to sleep began to contain a sense of dread.
Rod turned off the back road after about fifteen minutes of bumpy driving, through some cattle gates leading to an old farmhouse. A light shower fell upon Emily as she stepped from the car, helping to clear her head, adrenalin now fully kicked in. Being wet made sense of walking into the farmhouse even with its peeling paint on the weatherboard walls and door frame. The front door opened into darkness. Emily snapped into alert but it was too late. A searing pain struck her in the chest and zapped her body and she fell to the floor. Trisha stepped out of the darkness holding a now discharged taser. Emily’s limbic system went into overload and unable to run away, she fainted.
She opened her eyes as Rod’s hand finished clamping her ankle to the leg of the chair she was now tied to. She could smell her own urine and her legs were wet, her trousers soaked at the crotch. She could taste his breath in the air, sour and pungent from eating garlic.
Trisha walked around the chair, caressing Emily’s cropped blond hair, saying nothing.
‘Why am I here? demanded Emily which was quickly followed by ‘Let me go. Let me go. Let me go. I won’t say anything to anyone, I promise.’ Trisha yanked Emily’s head back, exposing Emily’s throat.
‘Cry out if you like. No one can hear you.’ This sharp action caused Emily to swallow hard which hurt.
Emily noticed two German Shepherd dogs panting, lying down to attention by the front door. ‘Bruce, Highway’ Rod called the dogs. They came to him meek and obedient. ‘Don’t be fooled,’ Rod said, his voice suddenly sharp and cold. ‘They don’t know you. They let you in but they won’t let you out without my say so.’ Emily made a mental note that the dogs were not worth crossing. She asked again, ‘Why am I here?’
Trisha, stood in front of her. ‘Plaything,’ she said smiling. Horror is not a regular emotion to carry, certainly for most people on a daily basis but here Emily was in a not-so-private hell. Her brain couldn’t compute the many possibilities which lay ahead for her. Fear dried her mouth and spiked her eyes. Trish cut Emily’s jacket from her body and held a small pistol pointing at Emily’s heart.
‘Small but deadly’. The couple laughed unnecessarily loud, enjoying the sounds of their own voices. Rod took a large kitchen knife from a drawer. A light was switched on. She was in a living room. The irony did not escape her. He held the point at Emily’s chin. ‘The pistol and the dogs, our security, but this,’ Rod pressed the tip of the knife into Emily’s chin, just enough to make her feel a rivulet of blood run down over her neck. ‘This is for fun.’
‘It’s an old belief, we know, but we saved you – we are now responsible for your life.’
Emily stuttered, ‘I don’t think the principle is meant to work like that.’
‘If you are our responsibility,’ said Trisha
‘We own you’ both predators echoed.
Jane Nash
- When strangers help - 16 de março de 2026
- Perfect day - 9 de março de 2026
- She takes a sip - 2 de março de 2026
Publicada como J.L. Nash, é poeta e contista. Nascida em Stockton-on-Tees, Inglaterra (1969), obteve posteriormente a cidadania australiana, onde vive atualmente com o marido e seu cão pastor australiano (Blue Heeler). Apesar de ter nascido na Inglaterra, passou seus anos de formação entre a Zâmbia e a África do Sul. Foi professora por vinte anos e psicoterapeuta/hipnoterapeuta por dezenove. Também viveu nas Ilhas Marshall por cinco anos, onde se inspirou para escrever seus dois primeiros livros de poesia e se apaixonou perdidamente (casando-se com o autor). Apresentou trabalhos na Conferência do Dia Mundial dos Poetas, representando a Austrália duas vezes, e uma vez no Dia Mundial dos Escritores. Dedica-se à escrita e escreve diariamente. Publicou seus trabalhos em revistas e antologias ao longo dos últimos 25 anos, tendo publicado três livros de poesia individualmente, além de um livro de fotografia e contos em parceria. Seus hobbies incluem pintura em aquarela, estudo da comunicação não verbal com foco em linguística e tocar ukulele. Ela é uma grande leitora e atualmente está trabalhando em uma série de novelas policiais. Um livro de contos também está previsto para publicação em 2026.