Oct. 10, 1993
I slowly returned to reality. The first sensation I felt was cold—terrible cold, as if I’d become a block of ice. I tried to move, but my arms and legs were frozen in place. My mouth wouldn’t respond either. Wherever I was, the ground beneath me was hard and jittery. A rumbling sound pervaded the surrounding darkness.
I managed to prise open my heavy eyelids after a struggle, only to gaze right into the wide, frightened eyes of Jennifer Turner. Her face was about a foot from mine, a silver piece of duct tape across her mouth. She lay on her side and appeared to be bound the same as me.
“Mmmph,” she said, deep-blue eyes pleading.
She’s got the same eyes as Laura was the incongruous thought that came to mind.
I wished I could do something to help her, but my situation was equally dire. I rolled over just enough to better take in my surroundings though my immobilized shoulder protested. The two of us were lying on a camouflage tarp, likely the same the killer had hidden under. And we were in the back of a pickup truck, the bed covered with a camper shell. The inside was fairly dark, and I couldn’t make out much else, but I did notice Jennifer was barefoot and wearing only pajamas. I had thought I was cold in my coat and shoes and socks—she must have been nearly hypothermic.
The truck turned off a street and onto a dirt road, by the feel of the bed bouncing and vibrating roughly underneath me. I struggled to loosen my bindings, but it was useless. Unless I could find a way to cut myself free, I wasn’t going anywhere.
Eventually, I managed to sit up by scooting up against the wheel well. My shoulders hurt from the position my arms were pinned in, and my hands were numb even though I was still wearing gloves, likely due to loss of circulation.
Wherever we were had no streetlights, so I couldn’t see anything in the bed other than Jennifer’s pale and terrified form. Up front, through the window of the cab, I could just make out the hulking shape of the killer hunched over the wheel, silhouetted against the dim glare of the headlights.
The truck slid to a stop with an abruptness that startled me. The driver got out, but the dome light either didn’t work or had been disabled intentionally. He left the door open, and gravel and leaves crunched outside. The back hatch of the camper shell opened, followed by the tailgate. I was still woozy from the chloroform or whatever chemical had knocked me out, and my vision blurred slightly as I experienced my terror through an awful, dreamlike haze.
Strong hands seized my legs and dragged me from the bed. Cold air rushed over me, and fat snowflakes pelted my face. I tried to get a glimpse of my attacker’s face, but his features were concealed behind the ski mask. He hoisted me into the air as easily as if I were a toddler. I grunted when a massive shoulder drove into my stomach. I was upside down then, looking at the back of my attacker as he carried me slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain. His footsteps crunched on a gravel path, and his breath was slow and steady, like a bellows. Snow was just beginning to coat the grass alongside the path.
Overwhelmed with terror, the thirteen-year-old boy in me lost control of his bladder. Warm urine stained my crotch. I tried to cry out for help but succeeded only in voicing muffled moans.
The killer carried me for some distance, footsteps growing muffled when he moved onto grass. He stopped and dropped me off his shoulder, holding me with a painful grip by one arm and leg. He swung around and grunted, then I became momentarily weightless.
I briefly glimpsed my abductor’s hulking shadow spin past, along with the backdrop of the town park’s familiar open space. Then I came down atop a thin veneer of ice, broke through it instantly, and plunged into the frigid pond. The cold squeezed my chest as though I were caught in a giant, freezing vise, then I was sinking to the bottom. The pond was likely only a few feet deep, but I was immobilized and panicked as the cold water closed over my head.
Oh, please don’t let it end like this! I flailed around, and the small amount of air I had instinctively held in my lungs was exhausted in seconds. The urge to breathe was overwhelming.
Standby for temporal shift.
Had I not been an instant away from drowning, I would have cried with relief as the awful nightmare collapsed into a singularity and I was narrowly spared a watery death.