“Charley’s harmless.”
“And a moron.” Carter’s mood darkened. With no news on the Jane Doe, Sonja Hatchell’s disappearance, Jenna Hughes’s stalker, and Charley Perry mouthing off to the press, the day was going rapidly from bad to worse.
God, it’s cold. So cold…and the music…where are the strains of music coming from?
Teeth chattering painfully, Sonja opened a bleary eye and struggled to stay awake. She’d been in and out of consciousness, she thought, though her mind was thick, her thoughts disjointed. She knew time had passed, though she wasn’t certain if it was in minutes, hours, or days. Her brief seconds of wakefulness had been without clarity. Vaguely she remembered being abducted, but she couldn’t recall her captor—had it really happened? And there was a fragmented image of stripping her, but again, the memory was dreamlike…surreal. Then she remembered that the monster had not only shaved her head but filed her teeth…she tried to feel her incisors with her tongue, but tasted blood and felt only sharp little nubs where once her teeth had been.
Oh, God…it hadn’t been a dream.
So where was she now? Why was she still alive?
She seemed weightless, but freezing…every inch of her skin felt as if it were cloaked in ice. Shadows crawled around her, colors that blurred and had no form or meaning in the vast, dark expanse.
Where am I?
Where the hell am I?
This is wrong. So wrong. And weird as all get out!
She strained to see, but the shifting shadows were without form. Her ears were tuned to every noise, but all she heard were the plaintive notes of a ballad that seemed familiar, a song she should recognize.
Was it her imagination, or did she detect malice lurking in the surrounding murkiness, something or someone evil observing her?
Shivering, she tried to concentrate, to remember…to think. Beyond the cold. Beyond the fear that threatened her.
Come on, Sonja! What the hell is this?
Fragments of memory, jagged shards like serrated icicles, cut through her brain.
Jesus, it’s cold!
She stirred and everything around her shifted. Traces of dim light playing eerily around her naked body—yes, naked, she thought frantically and a new, horrifying dread began to pulse through her brain. Every inch of her skin was exposed and colder than it had ever been in her life. She struggled to breathe, felt as if the liquid in which she was nearly immersed was freezing her body from the outside in.
Don’t panic! Just figure your way out of this.
She had the sensation that she was standing, though she felt no pressure on her nearly numb feet…as if she were suspended. Without wires.
Oh God, this was one weird trip…like LSD gone bad. Think, Sonja, think!
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear her mind, hoping that the distorted images would disappear, but when she opened her eyes again, nothing had changed.
With every bit of strength she could muster, she strained to tilt her head and look down at her feet. Her bare feet. Her bare, frozen feet that stood on nothing. Dangling, but not moving. What the hell? Her heart clutched as she tried to focus and looked straight ahead again, to the warped images, the odd play of bits of light. It was as if she were captive in some big tank…a huge glass vat filled with something clear and thick, like water about to freeze, and she did have some kind of straps holding her still, straps connected to a huge lifting device—a mechanical arm, stretched overhead; she just couldn’t feel them, as she was so cold. What is this? What kind of weird sci-fi crap is this? Frantic, she tried to look around. The tub of water itself was housed within a darkened building, a vast warehouse with faint light and shadows that wavered eerily. Through the curved glass, she saw women, softly backlit and unmoving, in odd poses, juxtaposed to each other. The mannequins! They were on the stage, but the dentist’s chair and drill had been moved.
How long had she been out? She remembered him adjusting the IV drip, adding something with a hypodermic needle before passing out and then…then she’d woken up here.
There was still music, a haunting melody from some movie, seeping through the cavernous room.
Desperately she tried to move, to propel herself to the side of the tank and try to climb up the sheer glass walls and over the rim. Move, Sonja. NOW!
She strained. Put every bit of strength into her efforts. Her heart pounded. Her blood pumped. But her arms and legs remained slack. Motionless. Unheeding.
No! Oh, no!
Again she tried. So hard, her filed teeth clenched and she felt as if a blood vessel might pop.
Nothing.
Oh, God.