“Is that all you got?”
The voice came from my right hand. I shrieked. Where was he? My hand smacked the top of the box. He wasn't in here. He could hear me? Could he see me?
“What are you doing down there? So quiet?” His voice was low and smug. Whispering.
Panic surged through me. The bad dream. Someone in my ear. The hard arms pinning me. The sting in my arm followed by a hot arc into my muscle and a warm flush spreading across my chest that took me back down into sleep.
Adrenaline had cleared my head now. That voice had broken the window. He had probably drugged me. Yes, that quick hot pain and that cool voice. And then he had taken me.
Who?
Why?
Where?
What did he mean “down there”?
My head spun and my chest burned as I consciously tried to gulp air. There was air. I could breathe but I wanted more. In a dark box, feeling like weights pressed against me, rolled me flat, squeezed out the air. I sucked it in, proving I could. Demonstrative evidence that I was alive.
What did he mean “down there”?
I sobbed. But I didn't scream anymore. My throat was raw and I knew that voice wanted the screaming. And if he wanted it, it wouldn't do me any good. Not if I made it easy.
I had to wipe my nose and mouth with my left hand before I strangled on my own snot and tears.
Gasping and gulping in the damned blind dark.
Flat on my back with a psycho whispering in my ear.
“Cass? You're too quiet. I can hear you scream, but I can't hear you cry. You are, aren't you? Sure you are.”
I clamped my eyes down hard and grit my teeth.
He knows my name.
He didn't grab a stranger.
He grabbed me.
Someone I know put me in a box, in the dark, and he wants me to scream. He wants me terrified.
And I am.
But I won't scream. Not if he wants me to.
I held my breath, went rigid with the effort of listening.
And I heard it.
Footsteps. Vibrations. Above me.
My head lolled back. The footsteps were muffled like there was padding, lots of thick padding between the monster and me.
Dirt?
That smell like a new garden.
Earth?
My muscles went loose.
Not relaxed…
Hopeless.
New panic. Dragging the deep, hard breaths, trying to store all the oxygen I could.
Down there.
The smell of soil that's been turned for a new garden.
The chill.
Down there.
Muffled footsteps above me.
The size and shape of this box.
The total dark.
I had been buried alive.
Buried.
Alive.
Buried.