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John wondered if she was in her bedroom.

He wondered if he’d ever see it.

Hold on, tiger, he thought.  Slow and easy.

Even as he gave himself that directive, however, he knew he was assigning himself an impossible task.

Fran stepped back out less than two minutes later.  She had changed, keeping the jeans and the gold bracelet but adding a nicer pair of shoes and putting on a red blouse that heightened the natural blush of her cheeks.  She was beautiful.  John’s breath caught in his throat again. 

"Ready to go?" she asked.

He nodded, trying to remember how to make words come out of his mouth.  "Nice bracelet," he said, which definitely ranked high among All-Time Dumbest Non-Sequiturs.

Her reaction was unexpected.  For a moment, the glow in her eyes darkened as she fingered the gold links of the jewelry.  "Thanks," she said.  "It was a gift from my husband.  I...I always wear it."

John was silent for a moment, unsure how to react.  The specters of two dead lovers seemed to hang between them during a long period of silence.  Then he pushed forward, clearing his throat and saying, "Anything you want to see first?"

Fran nodded and brightened almost immediately.  "Take me to where you picked the flowers."

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

7:10 PM SUNDAY

It was dark in Casey’s basement. 

He knew that, had always known that, but never had it so fully registered on him.  The darkness hummed around him.  It palpitated with its own deep, thrumming power, washing over him like dark waves that stood permanently at high tide.  And yet the darkness that surrounded him was nothing compared to the darkness that he feared was coming.

He looked around him, blinking quickly as though rapid twitching of his ocular muscles could slice through the darkness like a propeller blade.  Nothing.  His eyes were useless.

He could hear, though, and what he heard frightened him.

The man.  The oldest of the four strangers who had taken him captive.  In the few moments that they took binding his arms, Casey could tell that he was their leader.  Malachi, one of the girls had called him.  He was in charge.  And he was the most to be feared.

"The dark scares you, doesn’t it?" said Malachi.

Casey wanted to answer, wanted to say, "Yes, sir, it does, please let me go, please," but the gag that stretched tightly across his cheeks and through his mouth prevented anything more than a low moan.

"Oh, I’m sorry."  Casey felt the cool swish of air that accompanied Malachi’s movements as he glided toward him.  Or perhaps it was one of the other three, who were in the dark room as well.  Though they hadn’t so much as moved or even breathed, as far as Casey could tell, since they’d brought him down here, below the bar, and tied him to a chair an instant before turning off the lights.

They sat there, silent, Casey gagged and bound tightly, slowly feeling his hands and feet go numb, remembering horror stories of POW’s in World War I who lost their feet when their captors tied them too tightly and they rotted on their legs.  He wondered how long it would take to happen, how long before his hands died and he lost his ability to serve at the bar.  He wondered, and wondering turned to imagination, and imagination turned to fear.

Fear was what they wanted.  He knew that; why else would they be acting like this?  But knowing did not help him overcome the thick dread that froze his blood and made icy sweat ooze from his forehead.

Malachi touched Casey’s neck and Casey jumped, jerking violently away from the man, almost knocking over the chair.  Malachi caught it before it toppled, though, and whispered, "Shh, peace, my son.  I’m just taking off the gag.  You won’t scream, now, will you?"

Casey shook his head back and forth.  Screaming would be useless, anyway.  They were in the bottom of a deep cellar, lined with stone and concrete and dirt to insulate the few expensive wines he kept for special occasions.  Such a thick layer of dense matter would keep anyone outside the cellar from hearing him.  He could drop a grenade on the floor and the only sound to penetrate above would be a slight tapping.  No, he wouldn't scream.

"Good."  The gag loosened, and Casey sucked in a great, gasping draught of air that tasted better to him than the finest Guinness. 

"Now, my friend.  Casey, is it?"

"Y-yes, sir."

"Sir.  Good.  Excellent respect, my friend.  Keep that respect, and you will live through the night."  Malachi paused a moment.  "You are well connected, yes?"

"What?"

"You know the people in the town, correct?"

Casey was struck by the strange cadences of the man's tone and word choices.  It sounded as though this Malachi was speaking English as one would a second language, translating rapidly from some unknown set of linguistics.  Yet he spoke without accent, and obviously had no trouble following Casey's words earlier in the evening.  Still, the wording of Malachi's question – "You know the people in the town, correct?" - struck fear into Casey. 

"I suppose," he answered.

"Of course you do."  Casey sensed rather than saw the man’s predatorial smile growing larger, like the jaws of a Venus flytrap about to spring shut on a helpless fly.  "Of course you do.  I would like to know something, if I may."

Casey waited.  He hadn’t been asked a direct question, and he wasn’t about to volunteer anything. 

"Is anyone moving in to Loston?"

"What?"  The question took him by surprise.  It was the last thing he expected.  Of course, he had no idea what these crazies wanted, so he guessed that
any
conversation he held with them would be one long succession of surprises.  And none of them happy ones.

"Are the inhabitants here expecting any new people?  Move-ins?  Families?" 

Casey sat silently for a moment, thinking.  Fact was, he knew about as much about the town as anyone.  A bar in a small country town was more than just a place to drink, it was a place to come together.  It was a place where just about everyone in the town who was over twenty-one and still ambulatory would show up at least twice a month, and since Casey kept his ears open while he worked, he heard about most of what happened in the town.

So he knew for certain that there were two move-ins this week: a Devorough family that moved in Thursday night, and Coach Harding’s cousin from Los Angeles, who was supposed to be arriving tonight.  But he didn’t answer right away, because he wanted to be absolutely sure he gave them a correct answer.  He sensed that his life depended on it.

The pause, however, proved to be too much for one of the women.  Casey had no doubt that the Malachi could wait until time ran out and God died of old age to get what he wanted, but one of the women - the blonde girl, he guessed - spat out the words, "Where’s the girl?"

Casey heard Malachi grunt and turn.  A light turned on, blinding him, but he made out enough through his tear-streaked vision to see Malachi slap the woman.  It was a hard backhand that made almost no noise but would surely leave a sharp ridge of bruises along her jaw and his knuckles.

Casey only saw it peripherally, though, because as soon as the woman spoke those three words, something happened.  It was like his tongue was locked inside his mouth.  It wasn’t as though he resolved not to speak; rather, he suddenly felt he couldn’t talk even if he wanted to.  Nor was it merely imagination.  He felt
something
change in him, and perceived an actual presence, a real though unseen power that froze his jaw and prevented him from uttering so much as a sound.

That was only part of him, however.  Another part, a part that had somehow been subjugated in that moment, was screaming.  "Yes, yes, I know, I know it all, and I’ll tell you, too, if you’ll just let me alone!" it yelled.

But the sound didn’t come out.

Malachi turned back to Casey, the rage that had momentarily flashed across his face disappearing.  The sharks were hiding under the calm surface again, but Casey knew they were still there, circling.  Waiting.

"Now, who is new to your fair city?"

Casey opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Malachi’s jaw tightened.  He turned back to the woman and slapped her again.  Harder, on the other side.  She cried and fell, and he kicked her in the side.  "You stupid bit," he said.  "You shouldn’t have mentioned the girl directly.  Now he’s locked and we have to break him."

Casey heard the word
break
and the silent screams that couldn’t make it to his lips increased in volume, resounding in his head like thunder across a roiling sky over a black sea.

The man turned back to Casey, and this time he held a small metallic box.  He clipped it to Casey’s wrist, then looked in Casey’s eyes.  Casey recoiled at the hatred and rage that glinted from the man’s bright irises.  "It’s for my salvation," said the man, and pressed a switch.

Agony, liquid fire, ran up Casey’s arm.  It stabbed inward and upward, penetrating the bones of his arm, shearing inward to his trunk and legs, sparking through his spine.  A million firecrackers ignited behind his eyes and burned his skull from the inside out.  He felt his eyes melting in their sockets, and then drip in white-hot rivulets into his skull, searing his brain.

But while it happened, no sound emerged from his lips.  He didn’t scream.  Couldn’t, in fact.  Whatever had kept him from talking apparently prevented
any
noise whatsoever.

Malachi pressed the switch again.  The fire dissipated, leaving Casey gasping and sweating.  He was surprised that he could see, that his eyes had not in fact melted.  He also noticed that his body seemed to have suffered no external ill effects at all. 

Which didn't make the agony he had just experienced any less real.  It just made it more terrifying as Casey realized that whoever these people were, they had ways of causing pain that he had never heard of.

Malachi leaned close, then closer, eye to eye with Casey.  "You can’t talk at all now, though I’m sure you want to."

His hand dropped to the switch again, and Casey managed a whimper.  His torturer smiled at the sound.  "Good.  As soon as you can scream, you’ll be able to tell us what we need to know.  And you will scream.  Oh, yes, you will scream."

He hit the button again.  Casey writhed in his chair, muscles cording up in arms made strong by years of pushing beer barrels under taps, of throwing out people who wanted to start fights.  But his bonds held, and he still made no sound.

The man watched.  And waited. 

"You will tell us what we want to know," he said.

And Casey knew he would, eventually.        

But first, he would scream.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

8:00 PM SUNDAY

Fran looked around and felt her jaw want to drop in amazement. 

Though she was a self-admitted city girl, she thought she’d be prepared for the raw, uncut grace of the mountainous land Gabe had described to her over the last few months.  But as John’s Pathfinder wound up the side of the mountain just outside of Loston, she felt her breath leave her in gradual gasps of awe and delight.  Part of her breathlessness was probably a product of Colorado’s higher altitude, but part of it was simply the crisp beauty of the woodland terrain.  Sheer rock cliffs jutted up from the ground like granite skyscrapers, more lovely than the clumsy steel and glass buildings that cluttered the Los Angeles skyline.  Wild flowers and bushes were everywhere, even in the road, defying all odds to spring forth in the middle of a highway and standing defiantly forth to meet rushing cars that must repeatedly
just
miss them.

The land stole her gaze.

The air stole her breath.

And the man beside her had already stolen her heart.

When he first showed up at the door, she had been prepared for a "local yokel": some furry mountain man whose parents had most likely been close relatives.  Her cousin was a wonderful guy, but she had vivid memories of him as a youngster.  At the time, his greatest source of amusement when visiting her family in Los Angeles had been to pin her to the ground and perform what he grossly called the "spit suck": he would drool a long trail of saliva out of his mouth toward her face, waiting as long as possible before trying to suck it back in his mouth.  And if it broke and sent a thick ooze of spittle raining down on her before he could suck it in, so much the better. 

She had long since forgiven her cousin for such activities, but also knew that his level of maturity often hovered right around that of the adolescents he coached at the high school.  It would be just like him, she thought, to set her up with someone like him, in which case Fran had to be prepared to protect her bra from being snapped all night. 

She knew who John was in general terms, of course; knew what he had done for her cousin in trying to save his daughter, Ruth.  Still, just because he was a noble and courageous soul didn’t necessarily preclude him from also being some kind of weird hillbilly whose idea of fun was getting drunk at the Piggly Wiggly before going out for a rousing night of cow-tipping.

But when John showed up, she had to admit she might have misjudged her cousin's taste.

No mountain man, he was a quiet, soft-spoken gentleman who had brought her flowers. 
Flowers
.  It had been years since a man had brought her flowers, and then it had been roses, expensive but easily purchased.  These, he had picked himself, and from the looks of things, he’d driven quite a ways to do so.

His hair was brown, and looked as though it was perpetually tousled, always on the brink of being combed, but never quite there.  The effect was not one of uncomeliness, however, but more of boyish play.  His eyes, also brown, conveyed the opposite impression: a deep maturity tinged with knowing melancholy.  They were deep limpid pools of experience that only those who have known passion - love, sorrow, hate, or something in between - can possess.  She wanted to ask him from the first moment what had happened to him that he should have such profundity in his gaze.