McGee awoke to the sensation of being invaded by a pungent odour. It had already conquered his nasal cavities and was on route to a hostile takeover bid for his cranial sinuses. He gasped reflexively, sucking in a great mouthful of the stuff. Coughing only dragged in more. His head spun with effort – what was that smell? Then, somewhere in his mind, he heard Abby's voice in full lecture mode: 'Naphthalene, the primary ingredient of mothballs.'
One mystery solved, but now the back of his head was throbbing; now the front. Then he heard the whisper of croaky voices.
"What did you hit him with, Lucy?"
"Just my brick, the one I keep in my handbag."
"Well, it's left quite a lump, and look at the one on the front."
"That's not my fault; I hit him on the back of the head. That's from where he hit the floor of the trunk."
"Ohh, look at his hair when it's ruffled like that, isn't he adorable?"
McGee's eyes flew open and small hunched figures scattered to the sanctuary of the shadows like vermin, trailing naphthalene fumes in their wake. He could hear them all twittering away in the twilight just beyond the scope of the merge light that surrounded him.
He was lying on his back on a large wrought iron bed. He deeply regretted not taking the time to visit the bathroom before he left the community hall. There was something on his body; a blanket of some kind. His mind searched through the archives: it was a crochet blanket made from individual squares. He remembered his grandmother making one with her friends; everyone contributing a square and the whole set being sewn together to form a blanket. It brought a little smile of familiarity to his lips.
He moved his limbs experimentally and found his right arm was sporting a brand new heavy metal bracelet. He tugged a little and heard the scrape of metal across a wooden floor. Rolling gently to the side, he could just make out a chain running from his arm to a loop of metal protruding from the floorboards.
"Oh, you'll never get out of that," an elderly female voice from the dark assured him, "That nice man from the hardware store set it in concrete."
"Greg, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Greg: lovely boy."
McGee frowned momentarily, trying to judge if this was some post car-accident traumatic event. It seemed real enough, in a surreal kind of way.
The lady he knew as Vera materialised from the shadows.
"Where are we?" His mouth stumbled over the words. That must have been a pretty hard hit to the head. He resolved to put a bit more effort into the next question.
"Somewhere no one will find you," Vera said in a reassuring tone, completely at odds with the actual content of her speech.
"Oh, ah, OK." His words were clearer but now his brain had gone off-topic.
"I suppose you're wondering why you're here." She smiled the sincere smile of the certifiably insane.
"Well, yes, kind of." Bingo, brain and mouth back in synch.
"Well, we all got together and decided that you were the perfect gentleman."
"Ah….thanks, I guess," he replied warily. Now he was sure he was back to normal, he was beginning to have reservations about the other party in the conversation.
"Many of us have been widows for a very long time," Vera explained in her best mad-scientist-exposing-the-plot voice. "The men of our age group are usually only looking for a house keeper or live in nurse and the young men of today are just not interested in the experiences an older woman can offer. Have you ever had a relationship with an older woman, Timothy?"
"Ahhh, yes…" He wondered how much Abby would appreciate being counted among their number.
There was a cackle of laughter from the old crones and in the half light where they cowered, McGee could see rows of inch thick glasses and startlingly white, artificially straight teeth hovering in midair. He began to think he had been kidnapped by a gang of renegade hyperopic Cheshire cats.
Then something struck him; "How did you know my real name?"
"We're not stupid," a voice croaked from the shadows, "we took your wallet."
A sense of unease began to descend on McGee. He felt around surreptiously for his cell.
"Oh we tossed the cell," Vera assured him. "We're old but we're not completely unfamiliar with new technology."
"We're not old." He knew that voice, the polish accent of Lucy again. "We're just chronological over-achievers."
McGee sighed carefully so as not to inflame the pain in his head. He didn't want to hurt them but they were starting to look a tad dangerous.
"So we took your idea from the book and captured ourselves a man," Vera continued; "a virile young man without the need of blue pills."
"Mind you, we have those in case you need them," called a voice from the dark.
"Yes, thank you Dot."
"Where's my car?"
"Oh Irene took it for a spin. You should have seen her on a horse in her younger days, such a daredevil. It broke her heart when they took her driver's licence away."
McGee gulped: his car, this was getting serious. He carefully swivelled his body around to sit on the edge of the bed causing the crocheted blanket to slither to the floor. The movement made him distinctly ill and he paused to let the feeling of imminent purging subside. It would have been easier if there hadn't been an all pervading stench of rotting meat from somewhere in the room.
From an upright angle, things made a lot more sense. The chain was connected to a metal ring set in a concrete block that protruded through the floorboards. He must remember to thank 'Greg' sometime. There was a yellow circular line marked out in paint on the floor. A quick inspection of the length of the chain confirmed his suspicions: the radius was defined by how far he could reach. They were outside the circle, in the 'safety zone'.
Within his territory there was a bed, a hand basin, a toilet with a small paper screen for modesty and even a rudimentary shower – just a spout sticking out of the wall: obviously a voyeuristic point for them. There were no windows but he could see two doors: one an exit, one a cupboard, both beyond his reach.
"You can't really mean this," he appealed to Vera.
"Just wait until you're our age, and you'll see," she was deadly serious.
"But I could hurt you, kill you. I'm a trained agent."
"Oh, you wouldn't do that," she smiled ominously. "You're a gentleman."
He opened his mouth to retort before realising she was right.
"Think about it," Vera invited, "what is the worst they can do: give us life? Five whole years: now there's a deterrent. Besides, if you take anyone of us down, you'll never see the rest of us again. There's no food here and it's very nicely soundproofed."
"Ah the soundproofing, Greg was so handy," reminisced one of the voices from the dark.
"Yes dear, he was," Vera confirmed.
"Well, Timothy, it's getting late. You had better get some sleep. You have a lot of 'servicing' to do tomorrow."
McGee's mouth moved up and down a little but he could not think of anything to say. Despite his rising panic, the throbbing in his head was fast becoming the dominant focus of his energies. Finally he came out with: "Do you have any asprin?"
Vera laughed, "Asprin? Oh my no. It interferes with blood pressure medication."
"It makes me constipated," offered another.
"Me too," quipped another, "but fortunately you lot give me the…"
"Girls!" Vera cut in. From her handbag she took out a strip of pills and popped two onto her hand. "Try these, they'll help."
McGee did not hesitate. He strode to Vera's outstretched hand, swiped the pills and threw them down his throat in one gulp. He toyed briefly with the idea of grabbing her but right now he needed pain relief, bladder relief and some sleep. He would deal with everything else in the morning. He heard them all filing out the little door but did not look back. Maybe by tomorrow, whatever nursing home they had escaped from would adjust their medication and he would be free.
He lay on the bed to think. There must be an easy way out. The last thing he needed was for the rest of NCIS to find him like this: kidnapped by a gang of old ladies. Even his editor would dismiss this situation as too unrealistic. His head was still booming away full throttle. The claws of his mind scrabbled desperately against the slippery walls of consciousness and he realised something he probably should have thought of a whole lot sooner: he had just taken random tablets from his kidnappers. Yep, no one was going to believe this one. The world spun into darkness.