JESSIE IS UNDERWATER, FLOATING IN frigid black emptiness.
Innately, she knows she’s sunk far, far below the surface. She’s naked, her skin pale as snow; almost luminescent. Her legs kick lazily, arms spread out to her sides as if balancing her body—but to what end? There is no up, no down. There is only the great vacuity of her surroundings, squeezing in on her, slowly crushing her throat, her lungs; pressuring her brain to such a degree she begins to see bright spots of white amidst the dark. She wonders how much longer she can hold her breath. She wonders if she’ll die.
Before she can ponder the thought further, a light appears high above—a pinprick in the fabric of this freezing world. A beacon, shining down, calling to her. She holds out a hand, catching the taut string of light so it smears against her palm. Slowly she begins to rise toward the source, which is now expanding, growing brighter, larger. Closer.
Like a distant sun, it’s warm against her skin and she begins to kick, to swim up and up, higher—toward salvation, she hopes. Toward life.
When she reaches the surface, however, she does not burst through into warm air, does not rise above the water at all, but instead meets a ceiling of ice. Hard and thick, impenetrable. Panicking, she begins to beat on the ice, her hands screaming in agony as her knuckles split and blood smokes the water, illuminated by the light she’d followed, which she now realizes is not a light at all, but an eye—a great single eye watching her through the frozen barrier.
Terror clouds her mind and she’s unsure how to proceed. Does she break through the ice and slip into the embrace of the monster waiting on the other side? Or does she drown; let herself slip into the great depths of this underwater world, drifting forever downward, her body nothing but the shell of a burnt-out star, detritus floating through a boundless universe.
She pulls her bloodied hands back, begins to fall away … when the great creature widens that blindingly bright eye, thrusts its massive bulk against the barrier between them. The water thrums with the blows of its weight and Jessie only now fully comprehends the immensity of the thing. More lights begin to appear and she realizes it’s opening more of its eyes; white lights cover the breadth of the world above—a hundred moons, a thousand—all of them glaring at her with a hunger so fierce she feels it in her bones, feels the pull of it in her gut, as if her body is rebelling against her mind, her will, demanding to be food, needing to be consumed by this impossible creature.
Another hard blow and this time the ice cracks—a sound like thunder in her ears. Overcome with terror, Jessie opens her mouth and begins to scream.
Begins to drink.
CRACK!
The ice shatters and something long and sleek pushes through, slithering toward her like an endless black tongue.
She tries to swim away but it encircles her legs, her hips, and squeezes. She opens her throat to welcome death, icy black water flows into her as the brittle black tendril wraps tighter and tighter until her ribs snap. Hip bones crack. Organs are crushed as blood presses into her head. Her eyes bulge as hot bile shoots up her throat. She gags, her body convulses ….
And she wakes.
JESSIE FINDS HERSELF IN A strange bed.
The room is cold, and dark.
She turns her head into a pool of something wet, sticky. It reeks to high heaven, assaults her nasal passages like acidic gas, and she realizes with a sick shame that she’s vomited onto her pillow.
How much did I drink?
Her mind swims anxiously as she recalls moments of the dream. Of drowning. Of being burst like a grape by that thing. The memory conjures a deep dread, a feeling of danger. She starts to lift one hand, wanting to wipe the vomit from her cheek … and finds she cannot. “Huh?” she mumbles, her tongue thick, lips crusted with bile.
Confused, she tries to lift her other hand. But that, too, resists.
As streaks of panic infiltrate her dulled mind, Jessie’s senses sharpen, her reasoning wakes, and logic takes over the controls of her sleep-addled brain, knocking aside the muddled, half-assed navigation run by fear and confusion.
She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, holds it, then lets it out. Then again. And again. A mind-clearing, nerve-settling routine from her rowing competitions, a way to sync her mind and body—one unit, one tool, one weapon.
When she opens her eyes, her head feels clearer, her body more tuned into what’s happening.
She lifts her head off the soiled pillow, ignores the stench of whatever her last meal was, the sticky residue—now dried to a crusty film—on her lips, cheek, and chin. The room is dark, but her eyes are adjusting. She takes a quick glance around, recognizes it as her bedroom; the one she picked at Brad’s country home. Moonlight seeps through the window that faces the rear of the house; the one facing the lake.
Jessie’s brain hits her with a flash of the nightmare—those moon-like eyes opening across an expanse of black ice—but she forces it away, focuses on the here and now. On reality.
She tries to lift her hands again, but something restricts them. She raises her head as high as possible, the muscles in her shoulders straining, to look down the length of her body—which is uncovered and, unlike the dream, at least partially clothed. Her jeans and flannel button-down had been removed, along with her socks and shoes, leaving her stripped to nothing but underwear and her favorite tank top—a flimsy thing she’d had since high school that bore a faded, ridiculous (and totally hilarious, she’d always thought) image of a winking black cat with a knife in its teeth, a skull-and-bones pirate hat on its furry head. Her bare legs are spread in a way that brings heat to her cheeks, but she pushes that shit away as well.
Focus, Jess. This is very, very bad.
She pulls at one ankle, feels a taut rope dig into her skin.
“Fuck,” she says, confused and terrified and distantly angry. In the dim light, she sees a black line running across each ankle, both tied to the bedframe, the dark rope coiled around the fat, decorative knobs perched at each corner. She can’t see her hands because they’re tucked against her hips, but she feels that same bound sensation against her wrists when she tries jerking them up and assumes they’ve (whoever they might be—something she would get to in a hot minute) tied her hands to the same bed knobs as her feet.
There’s a clump from the hallway, and Jessie twists her head to see a bar of light underneath her closed door. A shadow moves past it. Hushed voices.
Men’s voices.
Jessie waits a beat, thinking. Tries to remember ….
We were on the deck. Brad gave us his fancy cognac. And then ….
Nothing.
The dream.
Drugged? By who? Brad? Tom? Impossible.
She hears the voices again, followed by the sound of a door opening down the hall. Someone laughs.
“Okay … enough of this shit,” she murmurs, then turns her right ankle so the heel of one foot is aligned with the wooden bed knob. It’s an old granny-style frame, probably oak or pine. Everything in this place is an antique, Brad had said when showing them around.
Good, I hope it’s old as fuck.
