They ignored me all day.
Paying no attention to me, they’d enter the tent, one or two at a time, and usually naked. My heart nearly stopped when the first naked man came in. I froze, knowing what was going to happen next.
To my immense relief, I was wrong. They just wanted to shoot themselves up with that nasty needle. At first I shrank behind the cot when they came in, trying to make myself invisible. Finally I figured out they really didn’t care about me.
I started keeping a careful watch then. There were at least a half dozen of them. They all looked similar, like they were inbred cousins. Their hair was slightly different colors and different lengths, and their heights ranged from tall to really tall, although they were all skinny. Their eyes were scary. The word feral stuck in my head.
Although it was hard to be sure when the men looked so much alike, I thought only a couple of the men who abducted me were still there. I wondered where the man who had questioned me had gone, and hoped I could escape before he returned.
Whatever was in the syringe seemed to last them hours. When the mixture in the saucer ran out, they dissolved a pink powder in water from a gallon jug. They mixed it in the measuring cup and poured a little on the saucer, where it thickened slightly.
It occurred to me that they might try to inject me with whatever it was. I hid behind the cot and hoped they’d forget I was there.
They didn’t talk to each other, or not in words I could understand.
Feeling a little light-headed from lack of food, I peeked under the edge of the tent. There was nothing to see out there on that side of the tent except trees and bushes. And big slavering brutes of dogs, like huskies but not at all pettable.
I scrabbled away from the tent edge as quietly as I could. Those dogs looked vicious, meaner and bigger than any dog I’d ever seen. Dog fights! That was the only explanation I could think of. Somehow Becky must have come across evidence of a dog-fighting ring.
Having a mundane reason for the whole crazy abduction made the mental uncertainty a little easier to bear.
But it didn’t help with the physical deprivation. I stole sips of water directly from the gallon jug, so my thirst at least was taken care of. My belly felt perilously empty.
They wanted me for some reason. Surely they weren’t going to starve me.
Or themselves. But I didn’t hear anything that sounded like food preparation, not even the ripping open of some packaged food.
The next time a man entered who still had his pants on, I steeled myself to approach him. “Can I have some food?”
I couldn’t tell if he even heard me.
Until a few hours later when he stuck his head back in the tent and tossed a dead rabbit at my feet.