Chapter 6

Since the men hadn’t bothered to introduce themselves and weren’t likely to, Alice gave them names of her own. The ferret faced driver of the ambulance she called “Weasel”. She called the big prognathic one “Ape”. Weasel was just a nasty little man with hunched shoulders and an annoying leer. Ape was more terrifying. Perhaps it was the way he bent over her and lapped at the blood seeping from her forehead as the elevator plunged down and down until the processed air became heavy and dank.

When the door opened, they wheeled her down a long hallway and into a concrete room where they bent over her to release the straps binding her to the stretcher.

When they unlocked the cuffs, Alice sprang at Ape, clawing for his eyes. He parried her easily, gathering her wrists into a bouquet that he held aloft in one great hand while he slapped her casually with the other.

“Be nice!” he admonished with a chuckle.

He was expecting the knee she aimed at his groin and blocked it with a muscular thigh. He slapped her again, harder. “Behave!” he warned. “Don’t make me punch out teeth.”

Defeated for the moment, she didn’t resist as her wrists were wrapped with rough cord that was tightly and efficiently knotted.

The free end of the rope was tossed over a pipe high above them and pulled until Alice’s hands were jerked above her. She stood on tiptoe to relieve the strain on her shoulders as the rope bit into the tender flesh of her wrists. The rope creaked with tension.

Ape tied off the rope and watched her dangle, laughing. She kicked at him but lost her footing and spun helplessly until she found the floor with her toes again.

They were binding her feet together when the door opened and a third man entered the room. He was enormously fat and carefully shifted his weight with each step as though in doubt that his legs could support him. His nose flared with his labored breathing, and his eyes were mere slits. Alice had no trouble naming this one—Pig.

He tested the strength of a straight backed chair before he eased his great bulk into it, then he gazed at Alice with a steady attention that betrayed neither malice nor mirth. Alice had no interest in engaging him in a staring contest and surveyed the room instead. She could only imagine how far underground they must be—cave deep, mine shaft deep. How many cellars and sub cellars loomed over her? How close was she to hell’s gate? She felt the raw panic of claustrophobia, the fear of live burial.

The room was unpainted concrete, meant for storage probably. Rusty water pipes traversed the walls and ceiling. Conduit fed the single bare bulb overhead. The room was furnished with two chairs and a table, all badly used, and an old refrigerator. A black rubber garden hose descended from a spigot in the corner and coiled on the floor like a serpent of impossible length.

“I saw you compete in the nationals,” said Pig. “It was an unforgettable combination of strength, grace, and beauty.”

He was talking about her gymnastics career, of course. Alice regarded him warily for signs of sarcasm, but his praise seemed genuine.

“Thank you,” she said softly. It was absurd. Here, in this place where she would probably die screaming, she found herself graciously accepting accolades. She looked up at her hands which were growing numb. “I’m afraid I can’t offer to sign any autographs at the moment.”

Pig chuckled appreciatively. “I want you to understand that I have nothing against you personally. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t even be here. I am prepared to see you safely home as soon as you give me what I want.”

“What do you want?” Alice tried to keep the quaver from her voice, sensing that it would be dangerous to show weakness.

“Just a disk,” he said, “a simple computer disk.”

The disk! It was as though a light went on in her mind.

“I’m dreaming!” There was relief in Alice’s laugh. “I fell asleep in front of my keyboard and dreamed all this up! I don’t have to be afraid of you. I can make you disappear or turn you all into bunny rabbits.”

The smile slowly melted from her face. Unmasking her demons had not banished them. The pig-man still sat, regarding her with a sort of amused perplexity. She inventoried her sensations. Terror was normal in dreams where emotions are intensified, and there was nothing odd about seeing and hearing these men and this place in a dream, but what of her other senses?

The concrete chilled her bare feet, and the rough rope chaffed her wrists and ankles. She could smell moldy air and smoke from the cigarette weasel was lighting. Her head still throbbed from her accident, and ditch mud was still gritty between her toes.

“Denial is a rather unhealthy response in your situation,” said Pig. “Why don’t you just tell me where the disk is, and we can all go home.”

Could any dream be so detailed and persistent? Alice closed her eyes. “What disk?”

Pig sighed. “I was afraid that you would indulge in this sort of melodramatic heroics. I can’t help you unless you are prepared to help yourself.”

Ape had moved slowly into Alice’s line of sight. He was fidgeting like a child on Christmas Eve.

“Dispose of those rags, would you?” said Pig. His voice was so polite and reasonable that Alice actually looked around the room expecting to see an untidy pile in some corner. It was only when Ape hovered over her and gripped the damp remains of her gown that she understood.