Tourist trap

My wife and I had read in the newspapers that in the German Spessart woods some middle-aged  hiker couples had been assaulted by  a weird robber. The guy had been disguised as a robber of the late eighteenth centyry and had menaced his victims with an antic gun which nevertheless seemed to by fully functional. The tourists first had thought that the robbery were a kind of tourist attraction but up from the moment when they found themselves gagged and bound to a tree they became aware that it was a real robbery. They had to tell the robber the PINs of their credit cards and some had to spend up to two days tied up in the woods before they were found by the police which had been advised by an anonymous phone call about the whereabouts of the helpless victims. The roober appeared only from time to time and it seemed that he selected only victims who where supposed not to do any resistance. So he yet had not been catched by the police and he had become in certain way a real tourist attraction as he appeared from time to time on one of the many hiking trails in the Spessart woods and for some hikers it was a certain thrill to think that they probably could become victims of the weird robber. So my wife and I we decided to book a week of holiday in the Spessart Woods and we did several hiking tours without any trace of the weird robber. Even so we were thrilled on each tour and we took enough cash money with us to make sure that the robber would not do us any harm. We had heard that in some cases he had even whipped some bound hikers with a twig on when they did not have enough money in their purse. So it was our last day in the Spessart woods and to be honest we were even a little bit disappointed that we hadn't met the robber. We were on our last hiking tour in the late afternoon and it was a 7 km hiking loop near by our hotel and we didn't really expect that the robber would still appear. We were yet 4 km from our hotel in the middle of the woods when we heard some noise in the brushwoods and than a loud and sharp voice ordered us to stand still and to raise up our hands...

There he was, the robber we were searching for but we were not allowed to turn and to have a glance at him. He told us to raise up even higher our hands and to move in front of him into the brushwoods. Me wife and I, we were at the same time thrilled, turned on and scared as we were every time when we suffered a hold up and we told him that we would do everything he would tell us to do...As we are both writers and freelance journalists, my wife tried to do a liitle chat with our captor but he told us to shut up and to move deeper into the woods...

After a while we were deep in the brushwoods. Our captor told us to stand still and then he ordered us to take off the scarves whe were both wearing and to gag one the other. Then we were ordered to stand with our back against a tree and to close our eyes. Then several loops of rope were wounded around our legs, our chest and our belly. Soon we were tightly bound and gagged and again we were ordered to close our eyes while we were fondled and frisked by our captor. Soon he had found my purse with some 400 Euro cash and several credit cards. The robber was quite satisfied with his loot and he loosened my wife's gag and she had to reveil him the PINS of our credit cards and the limit we could withdraw everday in cash from our account. My wife told him everythin he wanted to know and was regagged. Then the roober told us that he hoped that our curiousity had been fully satisfied as he had become aware that a couple had been asking for him for nearly a week. He told us that we have to spend nearly two days in the woods, then he would give a call to the police. The he splitted. My wife and I we struggled in vain against our bonds and the gag, too, was so tight that we couldn't get rid of it. Well, we had asked for it and now we had to stand it. Our only hope was that we were to leave the hotel the next morning and that they would search for in case we would not appear in the morning to check out...But it took actually a whole day before we finally were found by some police men who had searched the nearby woods. And even so, we were not able to give any description of the robbert to the police, as he had told us the whole time to close our eyes when he was fondling us our tying us up so that we couldn't even catch the slightest glance of his face... And up to today, the mysterious Spessart robber has yet not been caught by the police...