Chapter 4: In the Water
(Friday, 04 July 2003. 10:40 hours.)
Steve drifted slowly awake. At first, he felt warm and comfortable, and unusually light, and very safe. Then he realized he was floating, half reclining, in water. It was warm, and gentle currents caressed his body. He thought he must have drifted off in the hot tub, but he knew that wasn't right. He couldn't remember having made it to the cabin. So where the hell am I? The harder he thought, the fuzzier his memories became. The last thing he could clearly recall was how nice it had felt to have Elaine snuggle up to him as he was pulling into traffic when they left for the weekend. What happened to Elaine?
Something was not adding up, and suddenly, Steve did not feel very safe any more. He finally opened his eyes to get his bearings, and found he was floating naked and up to his neck in a large, clear glass tub of warm, fragrant water. What the hell? He tried splashing his way over to the edge of the tub only to realize he was tethered in place by some sort of harness around his head. One strap wrapped around his forehead, keeping his head tipped back, and another passed under his chin to keep his face out of the water. In his foggy state of mind, he never noticed that his thrashing had barely disturbed the surface of the water. That explains why I didn't drown in my sleep, but what am I doing here? And where the hell is here? The whole room was dark, except for one bright light over the tub. It made him feel tremendously vulnerable and exposed.
His heart started to thud, and he suddenly realized, he could hear it all around him, coming from the walls. It beat faster, and the deep pulsing rhythm speeded up, too, causing him to grow more frightened. He took several deep breaths to calm himself, and heard the shushhhh of rushing air coming from the walls. They, whoever 'they' were, were using his own fight or flight instincts to heighten his anxiety. He had no idea what was going to come next, but he was not about to help them. He closed his eyes again, and focused on the rise and fall of his chest and the sensation of his lungs filling with and expelling air, and made a determined effort to shut out the Thudding of his heart and the Shushhhhing of his breathing.
He still had no idea how he'd gotten here, Where the hell is 'here', anyway? or why he had been taken, but he knew it was nothing good. He struggled to focus on what had happened after leaving the house this morning, At least I think it was this morning, but everything was a jumble. He remembered talking with Elaine as they drove up the highway. A cup of coffee, he'd flattered her by saying it was great and asking for more, even though he could tell it was instant by the aroma alone. Jesse and his fancy coffee! Must be rubbing off on me. She had confessed, and he had admired her honesty. Maybe, if I could get out of here, there could be a future for us. Where the hell is 'here' anyway?
He realized that his muddled, panicky thoughts were just taking him in circles, so he stopped thinking and focused on the physical act of breathing again. It was hard to block out the Thudding and the Shushhhhing, but he almost managed to do so for a while.
"Ah, Lieutenant Sloan," a cultured voice called out of the darkness that surrounded him and his lonely little light and startled him into sudden clarity. "It's good to see you're finally awake."
As his senses heightened, he again became aware of the Thudding and Shushhhhing coming from the walls. They had speeded up when he was startled, and as the Voice continued to speak, the rhythm got even faster.
"How do you feel, Lieutenant?"
"Violated!" Steve yelled. "Who are you? Where am I? What do you want? Where is my girlfriend?"
The Voice chuckled and said pleasantly, "So many questions, and none of them requiring answers. Just relax, Lieutenant. You will not be harmed."
"If you mean me no harm, then let me go!" Steve yelled, fighting panic, trying to ignore the rapid rhythm of his own heartbeat and the heaving of his chest.
"Oh, I'm afraid I can't do that just yet, Lieutenant," the Voice crooned. "We have a lot of work to do before I can send you back home."
"Dammit! Let me go!" Steve shouted, and as he reached around to undo the harness holding his head above the Water, he made the sickening realization that his hands and feet were secured below the surface, and the noises from the walls grew louder and faster.
"Oh, calm down, Lieutenant," the Voice said soothingly, but mildly amused, "everything will be all right."
They must have a parabolic microphone out there or a monitor hooked up to the tub behind me. Steve tried to peer into the darkness, looking for the distinctive dish-shaped listening device, but the room felt cavernous and there was nothing visible in it but him in his watery cage. Looking over his shoulder for the monitor was impossible because his restraints prevented any movement beyond a mild splashing about. The Thudding and the Shushhhhing bumped up another notch with his frustration and the volume increased again; and again, Steve tried to calm himself. If he panicked, he knew it was all over; they could do whatever they wanted with him. As he closed his eyes and visualized his heart beating, a slow, steady, healthy rhythm, and his lungs filling with oxygen and emptying out again, the Thudding and Shushhhhing slowed and grew quieter.
So, they bump up the volume whenever I panic. I can't afford to panic. He forced himself to remain as calm and still as possible. After several minutes of just floating in the water, eyes closed and breathing, the room was finally quiet again, and Steve could think.
"ALLLLLL RRRRRIGHTY, THEN!" the Voice shouted and laughed uproariously, and suddenly, the Thudding returned, loud and fast as the noise of a helicopter, and the Shushhhhing became the roaring of waves pounding the beach. "Let's get started."
A large, effervescent tablet plopped into the Water near Steve, and he jumped.
"It won't hurt youuuuuuuu," the Voice crooned.
The surface bubbles teased his face, and, frightened, Steve began to struggle. The Thudding and the Shushhhhing kept getting louder. The tablet tickled as it drifted onto his chest and slid its way down his body, and Steve fought harder, knowing it could be nothing good.
"It will make you feel gooooooood," the Voice murmured, soothingly.
The tablet slipped off his belly, and as the bubbles rose through the warm Water to vex his legs and back, all the fight went out of him, and slowly, the Thudding and Shushhhhing began to fade.
"Thaaaaat'ssss it. Juuuuusssssst givvvvvve innnnnn," the Voice tempted him, and finally, the room grew quiet. Deep down, Steve was still very afraid and knew something bad was happening, but he just couldn't bring the rest of himself to care. The Water was so warm, the golden light above him so pleasant, and the Voice, God, the Voice. The Voice had made it quiet. He grew slightly dizzy, as if he had a mild buzz on, and he couldn't quite remember why he was scared.
Fuzzy images began to flash on the walls around him. Maybe the images were clear and his vision was fuzzy. Either way, the pictures did not stay up quite long enough for him to focus on them, but he recognized every one. They were happy scenes, snapshots of precious moments from his life. He stood with his father and sister by the Christmas tree, surrounded by friends, singing a Christmas carol. As a little boy, he sat on the beach, building sand castles with his mother. The grand opening of BBQ Bob's. Watching a Lakers game with his dad and Jack. Holding CJ for the first time. Soon, Steve was floating happily in the warm, sweet smelling Water, watching through half-shut eyes as the most treasured moments of his life played out before him. He thought he must be dying and this was his life flashing before his eyes, but the experience was so delightful, he didn't want it to end.
An unexpectedly clear image of himself in the hospital, bloodied bandages around his chest, a tube down his throat, more tubes and wires leading off of him in every direction flashed before him for a moment as electric agony coursed through his body, causing him to convulse momentarily. The Thudding and Shushhhhing returned, roaring in his ears, making the water around him tremble. He could feel it in his bones. A familiar face appeared before him, superimposed over the picture of himself, and above the sound of his own agonized screams, he heard the Voice speaking. As he writhed and screamed in Pain, his own image faded away, and the Face continued staring at him. The torture grew inexplicably worse, and finally, he passed out.
~~~~~
Steve came to again and began to weep. He had lost track of the number of times he had blacked out. The Voice and the Face and the Pain and the Water were his constant companions now. The Thudding and the Shushhhhing only came when he was hurt and frightened, and the Voice made them go away. The Voice had been telling him all along how to make the bad things go away for good, but Steve just wasn't sure he could do that.
It had been so long since Steve had seen a nice memory, he was beginning to think the pleasant images had been only figments of his imagination, but then sometimes, a woman was there, and she would drink wine with him and they would talk. Then everything would go dark, and he would find himself in the Water again, and there would be another bad picture, and the Face and the Pain and the Thudding and the Shushhhhing would come back, and he could never be sure what was real and what he was imagining. If he had died, surely, he was in hell, and if he were still alive, he could only hope death would be a relief. The Voice, the Face, the Pain and the Water, the Thudding and the Shushhhhing, were his reality, everything else, his father and friends, his home, the woman with her wine and conversation, all of it had been just a dream. He knew it was all a dream, for the Voice had told him so.
"No," he sobbed weakly as the bad pictures began flashing again. His father in jail. Jesse, bloodied and battered. The hospital in flames. Amanda crying and bleeding from a wound in her arm. From behind all the terrible images, the Face stared at him. Steve tried to close his eyes to what he had been seeing, but at some point when he had blacked out, something had been done to make even that impossible, and now his only respite from the bad pictures was unconsciousness. The Pain began again, but for once, the Thudding and the Shushhhhing were not there, and suddenly, he knew he had been pushed beyond the limits of his endurance.
"Please, no more," Steve pleaded splashing feebly in the Water. "Please, stop. Please, make it stop."
"Are you sure?" the Voice asked.
"Yes. Please," he begged as the Pain intensified. "No more. Please, make it stop."
"This is your life, Steve," the Voice said. "If it stops, you will die."
"I don't care!" he wept. The Water splashed around him as he writhed in Pain. "I can't take any more! Make it stop! Make it be over! Please!" The Voice had called him something else once, a title, something official, not his name, but he couldn't remember what, so it didn't matter any more. If it wasn't real now, it just wasn't real.
"You would die to stop the Pain?" the Voice asked.
"Yes!" Steve wailed. "God, yes! Please, please make it stop!"
"What else would you do to make the Pain go away?"
"Anything! I would do anything to stop it!" Steve didn't care that he was pleading. He thought he could remember a time when he was too proud to beg a bully to leave him alone, but that had been so long ago, back in the imaginary life, that it didn't matter anymore. It was no more real now than the title the voice had once called him.
"Very good," the Voice praised him. "Then listen to me."
Steve listened intently to the Voice. It was soft and warm and pleasant, like the Water, but the Water was treacherous. The Water brought the Pain. The Water let the Pain surround him and course through him so he couldn't get away. But the Voice, ah, the Voice. He could trust the Voice. As it droned on, encouraging him, giving him instructions, the Pain subsided.
The warm, fuzzy images slowly returned as the Voice rambled on. Sometimes the Face returned, and with it the Pain, and the Thudding and the Shushhhhing, but the longer and harder he listened to the Voice, the less he saw the Face, the less he felt the Pain, and the less he heard of those hateful noises. He knew if he just listened to the Voice, it would save him. Eventually, he realized that he couldn't even remember the last time he had felt the Pain or seen the Face. Finally, he felt he could trust the Water again.
"Will you do that to make it stop?" asked the Voice.
"Yes," Steve said rapturously, "oh, yes." He knew he would do anything for the Voice because it had made the Face and the Pain go away and it had made the Water nice again.
Another tablet dropped into the water and tickled and teased him as it dissolved. He giggled as the bubbles caressed his legs on their way up, and everything went black.