“Dear? Are you awake? Are you all right?”
“I’m awake. I need the bathroom.” Sabrina’s voice cracked and rasped. It had been hours since she’d spoken, and the crying bouts had left her dried out. The request I need the bathroom felt childlike and weak, and she hated herself for it.
“Of course! Of course, dear.”
Remember that she can be manipulated, Sabrina told herself. She shouldn’t fear showing weakness around this woman; she should strive for that. It was clear that the woman could be manipulated-her very existence in this place, her acceptance of it, announced her coercion. You could sell this woman a lie.
A flashlight came on, and Sabrina squinted against the harshness of it. The woman was carrying a bag, and inside the bag were Sabrina’s own clothes, apparently stolen from the house along with her.
“For your comfort,” the woman said. “I’m sorry it took so long. I didn’t know where they put them.”
There was a metallic jingling and then a key ring appeared in the light and the woman set to work unfastening Sabrina’s handcuff from her wrist. She carried herself like a concierge rather than a kidnapper. She gave Sabrina her clothes, then went into the little kitchen and turned her back politely to allow Sabrina to change in privacy. The feeling of slipping into jeans and a sweatshirt was remarkable; they felt more like armor than clothes, made her feel so much less vulnerable than she had in the thin nightgown.
And the only thing between her and freedom was the door, and the woman had the keys for it.
You could run, Sabrina thought. She could knock this woman aside and run. She was stronger than her, and far, far faster.
“Ready for the bathroom?” The woman walked for the door, keys in hand. Sabrina stared at her, astonished at how easy she was making it.
Just run. You posted a sub-six-minute mile for five years straight. Just run!
Then the door was open and the woman shone her light outdoors, and Sabrina understood much more.
The cabin stood in the center of a fenced enclosure, like a shelter in a zoo’s pen. The wooden fences had to be fifteen feet tall, maybe twenty. The corner posts were constructed from telephone poles.
“This way, dear. This way.”
Using the flashlight, the woman guided her away from the cabin and down a short path to an outhouse. Traces of snow lined the path, and Sabrina was shivering, her breath fogging the air. They were up high, but they weren’t in the Beartooths, because there would be much more snow there. How many miles had they covered before she’d regained consciousness? Were they even in Montana?
The woman opened the door and smiled awkwardly.
“I have to wait, of course, but you’ll have privacy.”
Sabrina stepped into the outhouse, pulled the door shut, and fumbled her way onto the seat. When she’d relieved herself, she rose again and tried to stretch in the dark, cramped quarters to get as loose as possible.
It’s just a fence. Fences can be climbed.
The truth was, it had looked easy to climb. It was constructed with plywood panels nailed against a frame of two-by-fours, cheap and easy work, and the frame was on the inside, providing handholds and foot braces all the way to the top. She couldn’t afford to wait in hopes of a better opportunity. This might be the only opportunity.
“Are you okay?” The voice came from just outside the door.
“Yes,” Sabrina said, massaging her hamstrings, bouncing up and down on her toes, telling herself she was just getting ready for a run, that was all it would be, just a short run and a climb and then go, go, go! “I’m fine.”
When the woman opened the outhouse door, she was smiling-right up until Sabrina punched her.
It was a wild blow, catching the woman on the side of her face, just below her left eye. She stumbled backward and cried out and then Sabrina charged her like a linebacker, lowering her head and leading with her right shoulder. The woman fell easily, just as Sabrina had hoped; she went down hard and landed with a grunt of pain and then Sabrina was past her and alone, nothing between her and freedom but that fence.
They didn’t think I would try! How could they think I wouldn’t try?
She was running now, giddy to the point of dizziness with fear and adrenaline, expecting some disaster, expecting the man from her house to rise up again, that strange dart gun in hand or, worse, a real one, but nobody came. It was just her and the open ground and she covered it easily, her stride fast and smooth, and she was half laughing and half crying as she neared the fence, the adrenaline so intense that there was a high hum in her ears, so strong it was something she could almost feel as she reached for one of those two-by-four braces that supported the fence and was about to provide her easy escape over the top.
She didn’t register the impact, didn’t register even any pain, just surprise. There was a reason they called it an electric shock. One minute she was running free and strong and the next she was down on her ass and her right arm felt like it was missing and the rest of her tingled as if spiders were swarming over her flesh. She looked from the ground to the fence in bewilderment, dazed, and finally she understood that the hum in her ears hadn’t been imagined and realized why the woman had freed her from the handcuff with such casual confidence.
The fence was electrified.
Powerfully electrified.
From pole to pole, strands of exposed copper wire ran along the wooden braces, and the voltage passing through was so strong that the hum was audible. Each brace carried a wire. It would take a pole vaulter to clear this fence without contacting the electrical current.
Get up, she thought stupidly, get up and try another place. You can’t just sit here.
She heard a sound behind her then and turned to see the woman approaching. Not running, just walking with a steady stride, all the kindness gone from her face. When she reached Sabrina, she knelt beside her.
“You got buzzed pretty good, didn’t you?”
Sabrina didn’t answer. The woman turned the flashlight away from the fence and panned it to the right, and Sabrina saw the cabin clearly for the first time-two stories, with only one door to the lower level and a set of exterior stairs on each side of the house leading to the second floor. All around the fence were tall pines, and just behind it a cluster of dead trees that hadn’t been cut. Then the flashlight beam stopped moving, and Sabrina gasped.
They weren’t trees. They were telephone poles, ten of them, at least, and what looked like old transformers had been mounted high on them, though no wires were strung.
“What are…you…doing here?” Sabrina croaked as the pain from the shock began to pulse through her arm, the surprise gone and only the agony left. “What do you want?”
“It’s not what we want, dear, it’s what we need. All of us. It has to be done.”
“What does?”
“Awakening. Every society needs one. It’s undeniable, one of the firm truths we have. Eli will explain this to you. He’ll tell you what the mountains have told him. I know that it will be hard at first, but please, please listen. Open your mind, open your heart. Here’s what you need to remember, Sabrina-the mountains have been here since before any of us were even imagined. Now, you tell me: Would they lie?”
Sabrina couldn’t formulate a response, and the woman smiled again, her eyes glittering in the flashlight glow.
“Exactly, dear. Exactly. The mountains wouldn’t lie. They couldn’t! And we should be very grateful that Eli can hear them. Are you ready to go back to the cabin? Have you satisfied yourself with your little experiment?”