Senses started to return...Sara could hear a loud rumbling, feel the uncomfortably cramped position she was in, smell burning accelerant, taste warm blood...the only thing she could not do was see. Even after her eyes groggily opened up, she could see nothing.
There was just utter darkness.
It wasn't right. Where was she?
Sara attempted to find her back pocket (which was a difficult task, considering the tight conditions she had been forced into. Eventually, after groping blindly in the dark for some time, her fingers found the metal handle of her flashlight. She extracted it and switched it on.
She was locked in the trunk of a car. She had figured this out already, but was simply looking for confirmation of this fate. Strangely, when she found it, it didn't make her feel much better...
"Shit..." she whispered. This was bad. Very bad. Soon she was breathing fast and heavily. She lashed out, kicking and pounding at all sides of the trunk. She had to get out of there...the walls were closing in on her...
She had been in terrifying situations before, but nothing close to this: stowed in the trunk of a car owned by a madman who probably intended to kill her...or maybe even do worse.
Sara soon came to grips with sense. She had to calm down. She was trained to cope in deadly situations. Tears were reddening her brown eyes, but her brain was working furiously. Maybe she could find something in there to help her.
The trunk was stocked with an assortment of objects one might find in a car trunk: a spare tire, gas can, First Aid kit, and another flashlight. Great. Nothing useful there...
But then she noticed a small, black object wedged between the spare tire and the metal of the floor. It was a wallet. A wallet! If it was her abductor's, it might have some information on him inside...
Hastily grabbing it, Sara wasted no time in examining it. She tore it open with zeal, and sure enough, there was a driver's license inside.
She was greeted by a blank stare from a much younger, goofier-haired Greg Sanders.
Cursing under her breath, Sara stowed the wallet in her pocket, making a mental note to give it back to him when they got out of this whole mess.
As Sara was drawing her hand from her pocket, it brushed up on something attached to her belt. She grabbed it and yanked it off, and shone the beam of her flashlight on it. It was her cell phone.
He hadn't taken her cell phone. Why would he leave it for her? Didn't he see it? Surely, though, he would have checked...
She dialed in a number and waited. No reception. It wasn't going to work while she was still in the trunk. If she was going to contact help, she'd have to wait until her kidnapper decided to let her out. When he did that, he'd surely take the phone away from her.
Just in case he actually hadn't noticed the phone, Sara hid it inside her shirt, hooking the clip onto her bra strap under her right arm.
Now all she could do was wait.
She didn't have to for very long, though. After about twenty minutes, the car began to slow and then ground to a halt. There was the sound of a door closing, and footsteps on gravel. Sara waited, with baited breath, for the door to pop open...
Finally it did, and Sara looked up into her abductor's face. What was visible of his face, that was, for most of it was hidden by a mask. He hadn't taken it off yet.
"Come on," it said brusquely, and grabbed her by the left arm.
Sara didn't need second-telling from a man who had already tried to kill four of her friends. She hastily obeyed, swinging her legs from the car and hoisting herself out.
"Hold out your hands," the man commanded.
Sara did as she was told and held her shaking hands out, palms up. The man forced them together and held them tight at the wrists. With his free hand, he extracted a short length of rope from his pocket and threw it over her wrists, tying it off so tightly that the coarse threads dug painfully into her skin.
The man then stepped behind her. Sara didn't look round, but merely stared straight ahead. If he was going to kill her then and there, she'd rather not see it.
Then she felt something hard and blunt jab her in the small of the back. She didn't need to look to know what it was.
"Move," growled her abductor, and as a further incentive (though it was unnecessary), the hammer of his gun gave a menacing click.
Sara started to walk forward, down a dirt path that led into a dark, foreboding clump of trees. The sun was setting far behind them, so they were silhouetted against a reddening sky, making them look even more sinister.
How long had she been in the car for? She had been checking out Orwell's place at about noon. She glanced down at her watch wrist and tried to see the time, but they were by now entering the forest and it was impossible to see the face, let alone hands.
Soon they were in almost total darkness, as the light that was the trail entrance shrank away. Eventually, the captor switched on a flashlight and shone it on the path ahead of Sara, all the while keeping his gun trained on her back. It was starting to hurt quite a bit.
"Where are we – ?" began Sara, but she was cut off.
"Quiet!" the man ordered, giving her a sharp jab with the gun barrel.
Suddenly, acting on impulse, Sara stopped abruptly and turned round to face the man. Nothing was on her mind now except the hatred coursing through her veins.
"Look, if you're going to take me hostage, I'd at least like to know why!" she blurted out angrily. "If – "
But she was silenced as the man raised his gun and aimed it right between her eyes.
"Look, I wouldn't tell you even if I knew," he answered calmly, but there was a distinctly dangerous tone in his voice. "I'm just doing a friend a favour."
"A friend?" repeated Sara incredulously. So...there was an accomplice?
"A friend," he replied. "Now, unless you get a move on, you're going to need a bit more than a friend to do you a favour."
Sara took the hint and turned around, allowing herself to be led once more down the trail. She could feel her feet sinking into the thick mud beneath them, and realized that they must be at least a mile into the woods. Finally, the beam of the man's flashlight fell upon a wooden gate.
"Open it," he commanded. Sara reached a shaky palm out, and pushed gently on it. It swung smoothly open, and the abductor led her through.
They were standing on a lawn. Not a smooth, perfectly kept lawn like you saw back in Vegas. This one was tangled and wild, as though it had never seen a lawn mower in its existence. Strange weeds and plants shot out of the ground at scattered intervals, some intertwining with the fence.
The yard that they were standing in seemed to be huge, because it stretched off in all directions, even into the shadows of the trees. A rather depressing looking bungalow stood in the middle, its dilapidated roof sporting an exquisite exhibition of moss. Creepers climbed up the walls, and the windows (emanating a bright yellow light) were encrusted with mold and grime.
Sara and the man walked down a rock path, nearly hidden beneath the long grass, and straight up to the door. He reached out from behind Sara and took the rusty handle, and opened the door. Unlike the gate, it creaked loudly as it ground open. Sara was led brusquely inside the cottage.
The inside seemed to be mostly composed of one room, but there were two doors: one on either end.
The man turned off his flashlight and then grabbed Sara by the arm. The took her over to a severely ugly orange couch and pushed her so hard that she toppled onto it and nearly tipped it over.
"Make yourself comfortable," he said, a hint of gloating in his voice. "But I'm afraid that might be a bit difficult," he added, extracting his duct tape again. He put his gun down on the coffee table and pulled off a long stretch. He then turned Sara on to her back and secured her tightly to the couch by her legs.
"Right, now, I'm off to attend to some unfinished business," he said, standing up and putting away the duct tape. He slid his gun into his belt and headed for the door.
"Oh, by the way, if you manage to untie yourself, I wouldn't suggest trying to leave too soon. You see, there's only one exit, and my aim is very..."
To demonstrate the point, his pointed his pistol and blew the doorknob off one of the two doors.
"Nighty night." With that, he returned the gun to his belt once more and exited. After the door slammed shut, there was the sound of a lock clicking, and then total silence fell.
It was a few minutes before Sara was able to think straight again. How the hell was she going to get out of this one?
She wriggled with all her strength against the bond keeping her on the couch, and to her surprise, she found that she was able to loosen it quite easily. After a short while, it was loose enough that she was able to sit up, and even with her hands stuck together, could rip the duct tape from her feet.
She turned and threw her feet over the edge of the couch, sitting up straight. She raised her wrists to her mouth and tear the tape from them with her teeth. After spitting a few lingering shreds of plastic from her mouth, she tore her phone out of her shirt and raised her finger to dial a number.
Just as she was about to press the first button, an electronic ringing filled the room as the cell phone went off. For a moment, Sara was terrified that the sound might alert her kidnapper, so she flicked it open hastily.
Slowly, she raised the phone to her ear, and heard a voice come through.
"Sara?" A wave of relief washed over her; it was Grissom.
"G-Grissom?" she stammered back.
"Are you okay?" he asked. There was a definite note of anxiety in his voice.
"I've been k-kidnapped," she replied. "Of course I'm not okay!"
"Calm down, Sara," said Grissom, in what was obviously meant to be a soothing tone.
"How am I supposed to calm down?" Sara's anger was starting to overcome her fear at this point. How dare he talk about being calm when she was trapped by a murderous lunatic?
"Look, if you just help me out, we can find you," said Grissom.
Sara took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself down. "Okay," she said finally, trying desperately to keep her voice steady.
"Do you have any idea where you are?" asked Grissom.
"I don't know," answered Sara. "A forest somewhere. I'm in this mouldy old house somewhere in the middle of it. There's a big fence surrounding it."
"Is there anything else you can tell us?"
"No, there was no name or number or anything."
"Okay, don't worry. We're going to find you."
"Wait, if you find the place, be careful," Sara warned desperately. "He says he's keeping watch."
"Don't worry about us."
With that, the line went dead, and Sara Sidle was alone once more.