Chapter 2
Laura: Now

     There was a loud howling sound as the trailer door swung open and light poured into the space setting fire to Laura's dark-adjusted eyes. When the blindness began to fade she was startled to find herself staring at another woman similarly bound against the opposite wall of the trailer. This lady's head hung limp against her restrained chest and Laura wondered if the woman was unconscious. To her right Laura heard the same shuffling sound again and assumed that a third person was imprisoned as well. Then he was there. He stood with his back to Laura facing the woman. "Wake up." he said. The voice was steady and calm, business-like. A moment later he struck the woman with loud echoing smack. On the other side of the box, the third person began to whimper. "Wake up." he said again. The voice was still serene but now there was a barely traceable undercurrent to it. Laura didn't think it was anger... she thought maybe it was excitement, anticipation. There was another pause then the man kicked the drooping woman; his steel-toed boot connected with her upper thigh. Laura heard the sickening sound of crunching bone and again fought the urge to vomit. The dead woman didn't move, would never move again. "Oh well." the man said then with a heavy sigh he turned to face Laura. 
     Looking at him now she was aware of some changes in his appearance. For one thing he had removed the dark shades, revealing eyes so dark brown they could almost have been black. Merriment danced in those eyes. Something about them made Laura think of the eyes of children on Christmas morning. The beard was gone now too; she could see a few still-weeping scratches on his cheek and chin which spoke of the haste with which he had shaved. The hat he still wore, now turned backward on his head. He looked into Laura's eyes and grinned. "Guess her little heart just gave out, huh?" This he spoke with a childish, gee-whiz sort of shrug then he reached forward with one hand. His thumb found the soft wet spot on the back of Laura's head where he had struck her at the station and pressed down. Agony exploded in her skull. The man's face faded in and out of focus. After what seemed like an eternity he released her and spoke again. "We are going to take a walk. You are going to be a good little lamb aren't you." Laura nodded.
     He unfastened the strap from across her chest and she couldn't stop herself from falling forward. The trucker stepped back and let her fall, banging her chin on the hard floor of the trailer. A knife appeared in his hand seemingly conjured out of thin air and he cut the cords that bound her feet. The muscles in her legs were aching and cramped but she still managed to stand. The man stood behind her and placed the point of the knife between her shoulder blades then began to lead her forward toward the light. In her peripheral vision she noticed the struggling form of the third woman on her right then she stood at the opening. "Don't try to run." he said then shoved her forward and out of the trailer. She landed hard on a stone path, her arms still tied behind her back. She'd managed to fall on her side instead of face down this time but now her right arm and shoulder had gone numb. Before she could stand he had hopped down beside her and was dragging her up to her feet.
     Laura found herself being led up a stone path toward a small cabin. The living room floor was covered with a large area rug which the man pulled aside revealing a hatch door. He lifted the hatch and gestured with the knife towards the square of darkness in the floor. "Hop in." he said. His eyes seemed to dare her to defy him. To fight back. To play. She walked to the hatch closed her eyes and plunged into the dark.

Clancy: Then

     The trucker slammed the stall door shut and the world changed. With horror and a shudder of revulsion Clancy shoved the corpse from his lap and climbed down from the toilet. He pushed the door open and fled the stall expecting to find the bearded man waiting for him in the red glow of the dragon, but instead he found the room empty and profoundly changed. It wasn't possible. His mind insisted that what he saw couldn't be real, and yet there he stood, not in a rest stop bathroom but in a long concrete room filled with rusting metal shelves. The shelves were empty. Clancy's felt the reassuring weight of his camera still hanging from his neck. He took a shot of the room. He took another of the headless body slumped against the door of the stall. His mind reeled. "Record it." he thought. "Document it. That's why you stayed." From his coat pocket he retrieved the mechanical pencil and notepad. Clancy turned to a clean page and wrote: Not sure how i got here. He drives an eighteen wheeler, he has a beard. The body is a woman. He cut off her head. Clancy stopped writing. Something about the body had caught his eye. A folded piece of paper was stapled to the corpse's shirt barely visible beneath a dark jacket. Clancy didn't want to touch the body again, didn't want to be near it again, but he needed to know everything he could about his situation. He needed to know where he was and who the trucker was. He approached the body timidly, aware now of the greasy odor of decomposition that permeated the dark structure. Clancy forced his hand to reach under the blood-soaked flap of the woman's jacket and retrieve the paper. Some dark voice in the back of his mind was almost certain that the lifeless hands of the woman would suddenly spring upwards and grip his own arm, piercing his skin with decaying nails. His fingers found the note without event and he unfolded it. The sheet was blank save for an odd sketch drawn in what looked like brown colored pencil. The red light that filled the room seemed to rob objects of their natural color and was beginning to make Clancy feel dizzy. The sketch made little sense. It resembled a map of some sort but without recognizable landmarks, place names, or even any sense of relative scale. The crudely drawn lines could represents roads, tunnels, or none of those things. He folded it closed and placed it in his pocket then resumed writing in his pad leaving a bloody thumbprint in the corner of the blue-lined page. He wrote: strange drawing stapled to the body, looks like a map, this red light is making me feel sick. 
     Clancy made his way to a steel door at the opposite end of the building. it had no handle but instead a large wheel was was bolted in its center. The door reminded Clancy of a door from a submarine or a bomb shelter. It took some effort but the wheel finally creaked loose and began to turn. the door opened outward into perfect darkness. The path ahead was black as ink and stepping through the doorway felt like being devoured.  Within a few minutes Clancy had lost all sense of direction; there were no walls on either side that he could find, only wide open oblivion. He could no longer even find his way back to the room with the headless corpse and grinning dragon door. Suddenly a sharp pain burned a path down his back. Immediately another searing line traced its way across his chest. He felt a blade pierce his left thigh then it was gone. He was being attacked from all sides! Hands in front of him, he began to run hearing the metallic clang of knives as his attackers stabbed and sliced the air around him. Blades tore superficial wounds into his palms and stomach as he ran. Lifting his camera he pressed the button and for a few short seconds the flash dispelled the darkness. He was surrounded by figures, their bodies pale like the flesh of a frog's belly, their faces obscured by black hoods that draped down their backs and chests reaching almost to their feet. In their hands were knives, many of them dripping with his own blood. In the camera's flash Clancy had seen hundreds of them.