halfcent: Thanks :)

dawn wilkerson: *blushes* Thanks :) Hope you like this next part as well ;)

Q the omnipotent night fury: Heh, thanks. No, I'm not going to forget Rambutan, but it takes a lot longer to write chapters for that story ;)

kelco: Thanks :) And one continuation, as requested ;)

"Ow-w-w..."

I sat up slowly and rubbed my head, wincing as my hand brushed over a graze and a large, throbbing lump the size of a basketball.

Alright, maybe not quite that big, but you get the idea.

What...?

It was the night before Halloween, or at least it had been when I was attacked. Hannibal had insisted (mostly thanks to BA) that since we didn't have a client and since we were all together, we were going to cater to trick-or-treaters this year. All well and good, except he'd also decided that the leader of the A-Team couldn't go out and buy his own costume (and that was mostly thanks to the Redskins game that was starting about ten minutes after he mentioned this) and so he'd picked on poor, faithful, overworked and unappreciated little me. I'd had a few twenty dollar bills thrust into my hand and been booted out of my cozy apartment at about four pm to wander the dark, wet, freezing cold streets of LA, California, trudging the snow-covered sidewalks for hours on end.

It's called creative license, okay? C'mon, work with me here.

Anyway, I was sent out in search of Halloween costumes for me, Hannibal and BA (Murdock had picked out and started wearing his costume a week earlier).

I'm not exactly a fan of dressing up – even as a kid I hated it – and I'd only managed to escape this time by saying I planned to be a soldier in combat fatigues. Granted this also involved a costume, but at least it was one I'd worn several times before and therefore one I could just about put on without dying of humiliation.

BA was to be a tribal warrior, since he had most of the outfit in his closet and I just had to buy him a spear. Hannibal's was a giant rutabaga.

Look, I told you; it was the night before Halloween. There wasn't a good selection left; it was either a giant rutabaga or a Roman emperor, and since I happened to be seriously pissed off with him at the time for sending me to run his errands, he'd got the rutabaga.

Since the rutabaga costume also happened to be a lot cheaper than the Roman emperor, I figured I might as well put the change from the money Hannibal gave me to good use and so I'd gone to take in a movie and then an early dinner at a nice little restaurant I knew, and from there onto a wine bar and from there...well, anyway, last thing I remembered was wandering home very late with these damn costumes in a bag and...everything got kinda dark after that.

Now I was here. Wherever here was; I couldn't see a thing. Worse of all, I could feel that my clothes had been torn to shreds and I had no idea how or why.

"Hey...Hannibal?"

My voice echoed eerily in the darkness and I felt a shiver run down my spine. I don't like the dark.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's pathetic, but it's true. I'm okay if there's some light source (even the moon or dashboard lights if we're driving along at night is fine) but complete blackness...uh uh. That seriously freaks me out. Don't ask me why.

No, really...don't ask.

There was no answer – not that I'd really expected one – and the shiver on my tailbone increased a little.

Okay, Face. Okay. Calm down. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.

That actually helped a little. All the time I had my eyes shut and didn't have to see it was dark, I could pretend that it wasn't.

I inhaled, testing the air. Someone – I can't remember who, it may have been Murdock – once told me that it's a good idea to develop your other senses, in case...well, in case you get knocked out and dumped in a dark room, I guess. I hadn't bothered with it, which was why I couldn't smell anything beyond dank air and my own sweat, but the basic idea was good. Dank air...that usually meant underground. Like a cellar or something.

Was it the military? That was possible, I guess, but...no. No, the military would mean Decker, and he wouldn't lock me up in a place like this, would he? No, he'd want to come down and gloat over me, maybe taunt me a little, and he'd want to see my expression while he did it. Unless he'd really lost his marbles and dumped me in his basement, I thought I could rule out Decker.

Most importantly, was there a way out?

I seemed to hear Hannibal's voice echoing in my head: Of course there's a way out, Face. They got you in here, so there must be a way you can get yourself out. But you're not going anywhere until you can see what you're doing, so stop sitting around wondering about things and start making them happen!

Yeah, that's definitely what Hannibal would have said if he'd been there. Quit panicking and do something constructive.

I opened my eyes (it didn't make any difference; I still couldn't see anything) and started making my way across the floor, feeling with my feet. I had a nasty feeling that something – or someone – was watching me. Someone distinctly unfriendly.

Was there someone in the room? Watching me through infrared goggles?

My imagination is a little too good sometimes, particularly in the dark. In my mind's eye, I could see this person stalking me, creeping up behind me, holding a...no, not a meat cleaver, but a butcher knife. Twelve inches of death, raised above their head for a killing blow straight into my spine. I couldn't shake the feeling that if I turned, I'd see them drawing closer and closer, red glowing circles for their goggles and a gleaming steel blade, shining in the darkness, raised for the kill.

You know that's not possible. Goggles don't glow in the dark and you can't even see your hand in front of your face, let alone an imaginary butcher knife.

This might actually have calmed me down had my treacherous mind not added, You probably won't even know they're there until they stab you.

Great. Now I really felt better.

Then again, maybe whoever's watching you doesn't need to sneak up on you. Maybe you're walking right towards them. They're playing a nasty little game here. They want to draw it out and any minute now they're going to reach out and very gently just...touch your face...

It was at this point that I blundered into a cobweb and let out a high-pitched yell.

No, it was not a scream! I don't scream. I never scream. It was a high-pitched yell. Okay?

Okay.

Once my heart rate had slowed to something approaching normal, I continued my explorations, walking into two walls before I finally managed to locate a light switch.

I hesitated. If nobody had snuck up and killed me so far, it probably meant they weren't going to.

Were they waiting for me to turn the light on? I'd watched the movie Alien a couple nights ago and I couldn't quite get a certain part out of my head. You know, the part where the guy's hunting for the alien in the service tunnels and can't find it, then he turns around with his flashlight and sees it about six inches away from him.

If I turned on the light now, what would I see?

Maybe an exit, kid. Like the person it seemed to be based on, my Hannibal-Voice just would not shut up.

It had a point though; standing around here with my hand on the switch wasn't going to get me out of here any faster, and if someone was waiting to kill me, at least I'd be able to see enough to fight them.

I flicked the switch. For a horrible moment I thought that it was a dud, then a filthy light bulb hanging from the ceiling sputtered into life and I looked around me.

I was in a cellar. I'd already surmised as much from the smell of damp earth, but this was a cellar unlike any I'd ever seen before. Someone had put linoleum down on the floor and then turned this place into a dumping ground: bags of all shapes and sizes were piled up in one corner; ladies' bags, rucksacks, plastic bags, even a holdall or two. A desk had been shoved against another wall and I searched it quickly, but came up with nothing more than several paper clips, a few scraps of blank paper and a lot of dust.

There was a door in the far wall and I tried the handle, only to find it rattled uselessly in my grasp.

Well, I hadn't really expected it to be that easy.

A little more searching among the bags turned up the bag of costumes I'd bought in LA and I yanked it out, causing an unzipped rucksack to tip upside down and spill its contents all over me. There was a nametag attached to it and I glanced down at it as I struggled to extricate myself with the maximum amount of dignity and minimum of falling bags.

Kevin Heath...

I frowned at the nametag. I knew that name from somewhere, I just couldn't think where.

I pondered this for a few minutes, trying to remember, then dismissed it. I had more important things to worry about, like formulating some kind of escape plan. Hannibal always told me to look at what you had and then you can work out how to use it to get what you need.

I checked what I had: one empty desk, one pile of bags; assorted sizes, one giant rutabaga costume, one set of military fatigues and one plastic spear.

This proves that Hannibal is not as wise as he likes everyone to think. I mean, Harry Houdini couldn't put together much of an escape with that, so there was no way I stood much of a chance.

And I was scared.

I don't often get scared. I mean, I'm not a tank like BA or suicidal like Hannibal can be sometimes, but I'm a lot tougher than most people think to look at me. But this place felt...twisted, disjointed, like looking at your reflection in a shattered mirror.

Yeah, I know that sounds like a bunch of hippy crap, but it's true. My instincts had kept me alive this far; I wasn't about to start ignoring them now.

It looked like I had three choices. Either I could walk around this place and try to escape in these rags, which were all that remained of my clothes, or I could put on the army fatigues, or I could try my luck as a giant rutabaga.

It probably goes without saying that I put on the army fatigues. That was better. At least I was warmer now.

I tested the door again, just in case someone had sneaked up and unlocked it while I was busy getting dressed. Well, you never know.

In this case, I was unlucky. The door was still locked, and the same jerk who'd taken my clothes had taken my picks.

I stared at the door, imagined it was Decker's face, and kicked it as hard as I could. The shock rocketed up my leg, almost knocking me off my feet, but it did the job; the door slammed open with a clang that echoed through the building. The hell with stealth; it wasn't as if whoever was responsible didn't know I was here.

On the other side of the door, a short corridor stretched out a little way in front of me. It was about eight feet long, five foot wide and completely bare – or so I thought – but something about it didn't feel right. I couldn't see any obvious booby traps, but I guess being hidden is the first requirement of a booby trap. I hadn't seen most of the VC ones back in Nam either.

I started to step into the corridor, then stopped. This had happened before; some instinct had warned me away from a certain patch of jungle. Other soldiers hadn't had that instinct and all of them had wound up in the local MASH unit with legs shredded by Cong traps.

In the end, I went back to the pile of bags and dug out the largest of the holdalls, then dragged it over to the corridor. There was no nametag on this one and I had no idea just what its owner had put in it – possibly bricks, judging by the weight – but I was sure it weighed more than me.

Whatever it was, it saved my life. I'd pushed that holdall about six inches along the corridor, reasoning that if it didn't trigger anything, it was probably safe to follow it, when half a dozen blades flashed out from the wall and shredded it to pieces.

I know, I know. It sounds nuts, right? Like I was wandering around in an old Aztec temple instead of...well, wherever I was. But it's the truth. I think they were on a rotational device; they came out one end, flashed around and went back in the other end. Like a very deadly wheel.

For a moment I couldn't move. I just stood there while my heart tried to hammer its way out of my chest, staring at that corridor. What the hell kind of place was this? More to the point, just who the hell had put me here?

Now that I knew what to look for, I could just about make out the slots in the wall where the blades rotated out from, but that wasn't going to do me much good. The corridor was too narrow to dodge them, and too far to jump. I didn't know if the whole floor was wired, but I wasn't going to try finding out the hard way either. Okay, so none of the blades were above knee high, but that didn't matter; even if they were too blunt to take my leg off (which I doubted) and even if I jumped as far as I could, I'd still lose a serious amount of blood getting from one end of the corridor to the other.

I supposed I could stay where I was, but that didn't hold much appeal; I'd have to eat and drink sometime. Worse, I'd have to sleep, and who knew what kind of person might come creeping up on me while I was out? I could see it now; me stretching out on the ground and going to sleep, all sweet and innocent, a happy little smile on my face as I dreamed of marshmallow bunnies and pretty flowers and a shedload of bikini models, and there would be a hidden door in the wall that would creak open very softly, and my would-be killer would just ease right through it and approach my slumbering form, so quietly even I'd never hear them, and—

Alright, now that's enough! There it was again, my Hannibal-Voice. It was almost as though he was standing right next to me. You're not going to fall asleep, Face; you're going to figure a way out of this.

"Yeah." I spoke aloud; it was good to hear a voice in this place, even my own. "Yeah. Alright."

Thinking of Hannibal made me wonder if the guys had missed me yet. Maybe not. I didn't know how long I'd been gone for and I doubt Hannibal had expected to see me back much before eleven.

Well, at least whoever had grabbed me had left me the bag of costumes. I picked it up (getting these costumes had proven to be more troublesome than I'd expected, and I'd made up my mind that Hannibal was going to get this damn rutabaga outfit if it killed me) and threw it down the corridor. It landed neatly at the other end, or close enough to it for me to grab it when I got there. If I got there.

Great. Now what?

I took a deep breath, then pulled my boots off, took off my socks and stuffed them into the boots and then threw both socks and boots down the corridor after the bag. What I was planning was insane. It was the kind of crazy plan Hannibal would have been proud of. It was also something that would work a whole lot better with bare feet. I didn't know if the blades were triggered with pressure pads or some kind of infrared beams, but I figured so long as I kept above them, it wouldn't matter.

I placed my hands on either side of the corridor, gripping the corner so tightly my knuckles turned white, then carefully lifted myself up, bracing my feet against opposite walls. I was now 'standing' above the floor. I even managed to hold that position for all of five seconds before slipping down.

I winced. I'd have to do a lot better than that. Eight feet wasn't too far, but there was no way I could jump it. No way I was going to risk falling short.

The trouble was, taking it slowly with my plan didn't seem to be an option either. Bare feet offered a better grip than smooth, shiny Army boots – I'd been right about that much, at least – but not enough to keep me up there for longer than a few seconds. It was like running up a slide; if you stopped or even hesitated halfway up, you slithered down again. The only way was to charge it and hurtle on up to the top before gravity had a chance to work out what was happening.

I had a nasty suspicion that this worked the same way. I'd have to leap up, push against the walls and move as fast as I could to the other end, all the while knowing that one little slip and that would be it.

I swallowed. Like I said, I don't scare easily, but this was a little beyond the normal range of things the A-Team encountered.

Not much point waiting, kid, Mind-Hannibal told me. He was right about that; the longer I waited, the more nervous I got, and the more nervous I got, the sweatier my palms were going to get, and then I could kiss any grip from that quarter goodbye.

Even so, I made at least three or four (oh, alright; more like ten) false attempts before finally working up the guts to do it for real.

I'm still not sure how I managed it. It's like falling off a horse; at the time you're fully aware of what's happening, but when you try to look back on it, you remember beginning to fall and you remember hitting the ground but the actual fall itself is something of a blank. I remember throwing myself as far down the corridor as I could in order to reduce the distance I'd have to travel, and I remembered thrashing around with all four limbs like a spider having a temper tantrum and somehow managing to move forward in the midst of all this, but the next really clear memory is of when I caught hold of the wall at the far end of the corridor and yanked, pulling myself forward so hard I torpedoed myself into the opposite wall. I had just enough wits left to turn as I hit, so that instead of cracking my skull on the concrete, I slammed into it sideways with enough force to knock the breath from my body.

I dropped to the ground, whimpering a little as I tried to suck air into my lungs, but – and this is an important but – at least I wasn't sliced to pieces. My scheme, hare-brained though it may have been (or should that be Hannibal-brained?) had worked.

Not that I'd ever had doubts, you understand. Not real doubts, anyway.

Pulling myself to my feet, I took a step forward. The room wobbled around me for a few seconds, then decided to settle into focus.

Actually, calling it a room is a little too generous. It was another, longer corridor, one that was completely bare as far as I could see, save for the door at one end and...was that a person?

I couldn't say for sure whether or not it was; the far end of this corridor was far too dark for that, but there definitely seemed to be a person-shaped patch of shadow down there.

"Hello?" My voice echoed slightly in the empty space. "Is someone there?"

Silence. Feeling a little dumb, I tried again.

"Look, if you're there, I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? I just wanna talk."

This wasn't entirely true. If the person hiding down there was the one responsible for putting me here, then I was planning to do a little more to them than talk.

I got a little closer. I was sure I could make out a person there. Maybe it was this Kevin Heath (and why did that name keep coming back to haunt me?)

I was a lot closer now. I'd been moving slowly – if it was a fellow victim, which was my next guess, I didn't want to scare them – but I'd gotten close enough at this point to see what was there.

Nothing. Just my eyes playing tricks on me. They've done this to me before; I have been known to pull my gun on a full size floor lamp. Kinda like those people who dip their headlights for other people's driveway lights.

Man, this place was nuts. I turned and started walking away from the non-existent person, although I couldn't help the odd glance or two over my shoulder. I'd been so sure there was someone there. Just where the hell was I, anyway?

Wherever it was, there only seemed to be one way out (or rather, forward), and that was through a large, heavy-looking metal door at the far end. You know, the kind of door that you open by spinning a wheel.

I spun the wheel. The door opened. Cold air rolled out and engulfed me, and I shivered. Did I really have to go in there?

Unless you want to go back the way you came.

I shivered again, only this time the frigid air had nothing to do with it. No, I did not. Besides, I knew there was no way out there. If I wanted to escape, I'd have to go on. Go on and hope I ran into an exit sooner or later. I didn't expect to find one inside this freezing room, but I couldn't see one anywhere else either, and so I thought I might as well take a quick look inside.

It was impossible to make out much in the semi-darkness, but it looked like some kind of giant, walk in refrigerator or meat locker. I could just about see objects hanging (and swinging) from the ceiling, but it was too gloomy to spot any details.

What kind of building was this? A slaughterhouse? Who'd brought me here in the first place? And why did I keep thinking about the name on that damn rucksack?

Then it hit me.

Did I say I was scared before?

I was wrong. Now I was scared, my mouth gone completely dry in just under half a second and for the first time in several years – since the POW camp in Vietnam, in fact – I seriously thought I was going to pass out.

Oh boy...

Now I remembered who Kevin Heath was...had been. And I knew who had me. Boy, did I know. I knew something else as well: I wasn't supposed to survive this.

As if in agreement, the door of the meat locker slammed shut behind me, and I was plunged into darkness again.

Okay, so that's it for this chapter ;) More (but not too much more) will be explained next time ;) Hope you liked it and if you read, please review!