Kidnapped

Kidnapped

By

Maria Hammarblad

Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc.

27305 W. Live Oak Rd #424

Castaic, CA 91384

http://www.DesertBreezePublishing.com

Copyright © 2012 by Maria Hammarblad

ISBN 10: 1-61252-168-1

ISBN 13: 978-1-61252-168-8

Published in the United States of America

Publish Date: May 11, 2012

Editor-In-Chief: Gail R. Delaney

Content Editor: J.D. Lux

Marketing Director: Jenifer Ranieri

Cover Artist: Gwen Phifer

Cover Art Copyright by Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc © 2012

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Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, organizations, incidents or persons – living or dead – are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

Dedication

To Mike

Chapter One

Patricia patted the worn, old dashboard gently. "Hang in there, Henry, we're almost home."

While people in general might not admit to talking to their cars, she thought most probably do, and when driving home in the middle of the night she'd take the embarrassment of encouraging a machine before being stranded any day. Besides, having someone to talk to made life seem better, even if it was just an old Ford.

The road curved through the dark forest and the landscape seemed surreal. The darkness and the snow made everything turn black and white, and it reminded her of an old movie. Being home on the sofa flipping through TV channels sounded great, and she pressed the accelerator a little harder without even realizing it. Girls' night out had seemed like a wonderful idea, but next time she should probably sleep over somewhere.

She could have sworn she didn't take her eyes off the deserted road for a second, not even when she reached out to change the radio station, and the man appearing out of nowhere looked like a mirage. He stood still, frozen in the bright headlights, and one second seemed to last forever. Patricia thought, "He doesn't have any warm clothes. Why would anyone go out dressed like that in the middle of winter?" and then her body started acting on its own.

Her foot found the brake and slammed the pedal, but she knew she wouldn't make it. The man was too close, and she was coming too fast. Instinctively, she tried to steer around him, but the icy surface provided poor traction for the tires, and she skidded all over the road. The car passed so close to the man she thought she could hear the bumper brush past his pants, then it rolled over the shoulder and into the woods, and everything went black.

*****

Flashes of memory illuminated the darkness. There was a hideously disfigured face, a light falling from the sky, a car skidding, sliding, rolling... nothing made any sense, and Patricia wasn't aware enough to even try to understand it. Time ceased to exist and only these brief glimpses of the world seemed real. Then, something stung the side of her neck. Sudden pain screamed through her mind, and she tried to lift a hand to rub her neck and her poor pounding head, but her arm didn't move. The words, "Paralyzed, you're paralyzed," flashed through her mind with compelling neon letters, and she popped her eyes wide open, trying to fight down a wave of panic.

She expected to be home, in her own bedroom, or in an ambulance, or maybe a hospital, but when she finally managed to focus, she found herself staring into a pair of cold and dead blue eyes. A male voice said something in a language she couldn't understand, "Koira cha tinn? Waplaho banejem cackat tor tebe? Kako ya ting ro thrab?"

Since the words didn't make any sense and the eyes frightened her, she looked at the rest of the face, and immediately wished she hadn't. Half of it was handsome, but the other part came from a nightmare. She had been raised not to make fun of people, to believe a person's looks in no way mirrors the inside, and not to stare at others' misfortune. It was still almost impossible not to gawk at the combination of scars and destroyed skin that made up most of his left cheek, stretching up towards the temple and down toward the chin. It was both deeply tragic and terrifying.

Trying to pull back from the horror in front of her didn't do her any good. She was in a chair with her arms tied to the armrests, and there was nowhere to go. The man spoke again, repeating the words from earlier, and she found herself babbling, "Who are you? Where am I? I can't understand a word you're saying, please don't hurt me."

The cold eyes locked in with hers, and what she saw in them frightened her. She imagined it to be the gaze of a mass-murderer, empty and void of the life that fills normal people. She was no doubt selected to be his next victim. She whispered, "Oh, please no, I don't want to die."

The face in front of her disappeared, and she was relieved at first, but as she focused on her surroundings she almost wished he'd stayed so she wouldn't have seen it. As gruesome as his face might be, the things surrounding her frightened her more.

The room was cold with gray metal walls, and the chair she was sitting in was black and fairly soft, located behind two others. There didn't appear to be a floor underneath her. When she turned her head to look down, she could see the Earth hanging far below her and the moon slowly wandering its orbit. She squeezed her eyes shut, but everything was still there when she opened them again, and she decided it must be a movie. Normal people didn't have things like these underneath their feet, but he clearly wasn't normal.

As she lifted her eyes to peek around, she saw peculiar panels lining the walls, and three-dimensional pictures of the Earth, the solar system and other things hovering in mid-air. She had either been captured by a mad scientist, by a secret army project, or she was in a spaceship. On the other hand, maybe she'd hit her head when her car rolled and this was all just a dream?

That was an appealing explanation. Seeing things that weren't invented yet, labelled in a language she was sure didn't exist anywhere on Earth, and watching her home planet grow rapidly smaller under her feet made much more sense if it was a hallucination.

The man returned with a little machine. He pressed it against the sides of her head, and she tried to squirm away from it, but there was nowhere to go. She'd heard the brain notices strange things in times of stress, and this was true. She saw that he wore a black glove on his right hand, but the left was bare, with long strong fingers and short clean nails. A bright light filled her mind, and when he spoke again it made sense. It wasn't a language she knew, or even recognized, but she understood him perfectly well. "I've programmed your brain with the universal Stax."

Her mind wanted to hear "Stax" as "English." Maybe it was a glitch in the translation.

"What were you doing with William? Did he give you anything? It's very important that you tell me his plans."

She stared at him, dumbfounded. She could understand him just fine now, but the sentences still didn't make any sense. The name "William" was just like "Stax" – it sort of sounded like he said something else, but her brain insisted on hearing "William."

The man frowned and looked at the device, and she heard a metallic voice echo from the walls. "Maybe her brain isn't developed enough for the programming to work?"

Patricia tensed, wondering who spoke; she couldn't see anyone else in the room. Was there someone behind her, or was someone watching them?

Her warder said in an even voice, "Shut up, computer," and turned his attention back to her, demanding, "Do you understand me?"

She nodded carefully, afraid to try to say anything. She wanted to live. She didn't want to anger him. He seemed completely uninterested when he continued, "Good. William, the man you were with when I landed, how did he contact you? How long have you known him?"

Still afraid to speak, Patricia shook her head, and he continued, "There's no use denying it, I know you know him. I saw you together. He was helping you out of your vehicle before it caught fire."

Trying to formulate a coherent sentence in this new language seemed a daunting task, but once she really tried it wasn't all that bad. "I don't know what you're talking about. Please let me go!"

A memory was trying to make itself heard. She saw her car skidding off the road, reaching a wall of snow and rolling over on the roof. Maybe she'd had an accident and this William, whoever he was, had tried to help her? Maybe that was the man who had appeared in the middle of the road. The thought that this could all be a big misunderstanding, easy to clear up, filled her with relief.

She tried to get that thought together into a sentence, but before she could open her mouth, the man shrugged. "Fine. Have it your way. I'll take you back to Central. They have ways to find out about your friends."

The metallic voice made itself heard again, with words that made Patricia yelp, "Commander, why don't you just torture her yourself?"

She started to plead with him to let her go, promising she didn't know anything. The man looked at her impatiently, as if wondering why she made so much noise, brought out a brownish rod about a foot long and an inch in diameter, touched it to her temple, and after experiencing a brief but searing pain, she was back in darkness.

*****

The next time Patricia woke up the setting had changed. She was in a bare room without a trace of furniture, electronics, or decorations. It had four metal walls, a metal ceiling, and a cold metal floor, and the light seemed to emanate from the very room around her. She wondered how she'd gotten there. Did her nightmarish captor simply carry her around and drop her where it suited him? That would be humiliating.

The floor under her moved and she felt suddenly sick. Her body hung in mid-air for a split second before following the floor downwards, but her stomach was still up at ceiling level. She had never been good with rollercoasters or carousels and she couldn't help it; she threw up. When there was nothing left inside her, she fought herself up into a sitting position. As miserable as she felt, she was still amazed to see the mess she'd made simply disappear into the floor. It only took a few seconds, and then the surface was shining clean again, as if nothing had happened.