I look around and finally find who I'm looking for.
"Come on," I tell Sharon as I quickly take off across the parking lot.
"Where are we going?" she asks as she trots along beside me.
"To see a man about a monster," I answer.
She looks at me in confusion, but before she can ask any more questions, Manning spots us and gets out of his car. He doesn't look real happy to see me, but I'm actually rather glad to see him. To be more specific, I'm glad to see he brought a certain garbage truck.
"Miss Cavendish," he starts.
"Dr. Manning," I interrupt. "There's a woman singing inside."
"That's nice, Miss Cavendish," he counter interrupts. "But since this is a karaoke bar, one would expect there to be people singing."
"You don't understand," I reply. "The men are totally entranced with her singing, but the women find it revolting."
"Well, that's unusual," he says with a rather stunned look on his face.
"Ahem," Sharon sounds.
"Oh, sorry," I tell her. "Dr. Manning, this is my cousin Sharon Mann. Sharon, this is Dr. Tom Manning."
"How do you do?" she says.
"Hi," he says.
She doesn't extend her hand because she has her arms wrapped around her. She's starting to shiver. I realize a second later, I'm doing the same thing. I was in such a rush to get out that I forgot our coats.
Manning starts talking into his wrist trying reach Agents Gordon and Levin as he walks away from us. He calls their names several times, but obviously doesn't get a response. He starts calling other agents informing them to convene at his location.
"Maggie?" Sharon asks through chattering teeth. "What's going on? How do you know this man?"
"It's a long story," I chatter back at her.
"Try me," she says. "It might keep me warm."
"Well, Dr. Manning is sort of Abe's boss," I say shivering.
Before Sharon can ask any more questions, I hear a noise coming from behind the bar and I turn toward it. It's the woman that was singing and there's a man with her. He still has the glazed over look. Then I notice that she's still 'singing.' I run over to Manning.
"Dr. Manning, there she is," I say, nodding in her direction. He turns and looks to where I'm pointing.
"Wow," is all he can seem to say when he gets a look at her. I roll my eyes. A second later, he starts walking toward the couple. "Miss? Excuse me, miss?"
"What's going on?" asks Liz from behind me.
"I'm not entirely sure," I answer.
I watch as Manning tries to engage the couple in conversation, but they ignore him and continue to walk on. Manning pulls his gun out from under his coat and orders them to freeze. Several agents start coming out of the surrounding cars and start to converge on the couple as well. All are carefully pulling their guns out of hiding.
I go back to Sharon and grab her arm.
"Come on, let's get out of here," I say.
I start to pull her away. But before we can get more than a few steps I have to put my hands over my ears again. The woman is starting to 'sing' louder. I turn and look. The agents and Manning all have that mesmerized look on their faces and they're guns are dropping from their nerveless fingers.
I look at Liz, and she as the same look of revulsion on her face as the women in the bar did. I clamp my hands down harder as the 'singing' gets louder; it's really starting to hurt. I look over at the woman and see that's she's no longer the only one 'singing.' In fact, I see several more beautiful women joining her and 'singing.' As more and more of these women 'sing,' the more pain I'm in. It's getting to the point where it's even getting hard to focus. I glance over at Sharon and see she's not doing any better. I take another look as one more beautiful creature joins the others and starts to 'sing.'
And with that I sink to the ground. I curl into a fetal position and pray for the pain to stop. I can feel tears of pain squeeze out from my tightly closed eyes. It hurts so much that I'm barely even aware that someone is picking me up and moving me.