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Chapter One
Michelle Townsend slowly awoke, her mind foggy, sluggish. The smell of rotten eggs and the sour stench of ammonia hung in the air and she winced. Her teeth were chattering, and her outstretched arm had become wrapped in goosebumps. The side of her face was numb so she peeled her eyes open to find she was lying on a dirt floor. She tried to remember how she’d gotten there but her thoughts were fuzzy, disjointed. Low humming came to her from behind and she froze. Michelle recognized the melody but couldn’t place it until a man’s voice softly sang its signature line.
“Hmm, hmm, hmm … Panama!”
Her breathing quickened, and she blinked her eyes several times, struggling to clear the fog. She surveyed everything within her limited field of vision, careful to not move and alert him to being awake. The walls around her were made of large stones and were damp and mossy. The far corner was dark, as were the rafters above; the only light, dim and porous, arcing along the dirt in front of her.
She heard the man clear his throat followed by the sound of a mechanical click and a bright light spread into her field of vision. The faint sound of a woman moaning reached her ears and as the light flickered, she realized it was coming from a television or screen of some sort. The woman’s screams rang out louder and louder until she began to cry for her life then it stopped and the light was gone.
Michelle’s eyes strained upward and she saw a doorway several feet away. She desperately tried to see something beyond its threshold, anything to get a sense of where she was or what was out there, but only saw the pitch black of darkness. She knew she had one shot at escape, and only if she could move quickly. Her feet were bare so she stretched her toes slowly and they seemed to move normally. Bending her fingers on the hand by her side, she found they too moved normally. She would have to trust that she could get her legs moving well enough to make it to the door and out.
She heard the loud sticky sound of tape being pulled from its roll and fear gripped her. It was now or never, she knew it. She took a deep breath and pushed her chest from the dirt then pulled her knees and legs beneath her. Suddenly she was standing and wobbling toward the black doorway, her frantic, watery eyes struggling to take it all in. She barely made it to the door before her legs gave out and she fell against the wall beside it.
“Oh, good. You’re awake,” said the man from behind her.
Michelle turned to him and gasped at what she saw. He had odd-looking, telescopic night vision goggles pushed up on his forehead and a compact GoPro video camera taped to a strap around his head like a miner’s lamp. He gestured toward the doorway.
“Go ahead. Run,” he said, his voice light, breezy and he was smiling as if joking with a friend.
Michelle saw him sway slightly to the side and it gave her hope she could get away if her legs would just steady.
She leaned into the door frame and screamed as loud and long as she could. “Hellllllp!!!!! Somebody helllllllp!” Her voice quickly became raspy, and she swallowed hard at what little saliva she had.
“Ch…” He chuckled. “No one’s gonna hear ya.”
She looked in his direction over a shoulder. “Why are you doing this to me?” she cried.
“Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.”
She turned back toward the dark doorway. “Hellllp!!!” she screamed again. “He’s got me! Help!”
She heard the crunching of his footsteps in the dirt so turned back to him. He was now standing in the center of the room directly beneath a single lightbulb dangling from the rafters. He tipped his head toward the door.
“But go ahead. Run.” He dared her, the light, playful tone in his voice replaced with a darker, more sinister version.
Michelle shuffled into the doorway and looked left, then right, but couldn’t see a thing. Her cloudy mind tried to work out what to do but kept coming up short. She turned back to her captor and watched as he reached a hand up and pulled the tattered string dangling from the lightbulb. And all went black.
“I said … run.”
End of Excerpt
