Then a hood was shoved over her head, everything dark again.
“You’ll feel a little prick,” came a voice, distant, mocking, and there was a sharp sensation in her shoulder muscle, almost as though she were being pinched. There was almost relief as the world went dark again.
Cold air moved around her, carrying voices with it. She lifted her head, and there was the semblance of light, yellow flickers cutting through the blackness. Her face itched, her skin was hot, and she began reflexively to shake her head. She felt a tug and the cloth hood that had been put over her head was pulled away.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she found herself taking in deep lungfuls of air.
When she finally opened her eyes, the world in front of her tilted precariously and she shut them again. Her stomach roiled, and she thought she was going to be sick, so she leaned forward, pressing her head to her knees. It felt as though she was on a wooden chair, and it didn’t seem as though she was tied up.
“Wakey, wakey,” came a voice. She sat up, opened her eyes again, and kept them open. The scene in front of her slid into blurry place. It was nighttime. She was in the woods, and a cold wind was moving steadily through the trees. The right side of her body was warmer than the left, and she turned to find a fire in a pit, its flames almost as high as the men who stood around it. She squinted to bring them into focus, and one of them laughed, the sound familiar. Bruce, in a turtleneck sweater and jeans, the skin of his face yellow in the firelight. Oddly, disturbingly, he was holding a glass in his hand, what looked like a whiskey, as though he were at a party.
“Yep, she’s awake,” Bruce said.
Abigail wanted to say something, but when she went to move her lips they barely responded. She ran her tongue over her teeth and lips. Her teeth felt large and strange, and her lips were like rubber.
You drugged me, she said to the men, although the words were only in her head. She closed her eyes again.
She woke to laughter, and lifted her heavy head.
A man danced in front of her, his knees bent at almost right angles, hopping from foot to foot. She couldn’t tell who he was because he was wearing a mask that obscured the top half of his face. Green leaves fanned out from the mask. Behind him was a cluster of men, rocking back and forth, some chuckling, and maybe it was the wind, or the drugs surging through her system, but their laughter seemed to come from somewhere else, from high up in the trees.
The world tilted. She squeezed her eyes shut, and blackness washed over her.
Seconds later—or was it hours?—she shivered awake, opening her eyes. For a moment she watched the men without them knowing she was watching. No one was dancing, and no one was wearing a mask; they were around the fire, their voices still dispersed by the wind. They weren’t looking at her but at another figure, on the other side of the fire, also on a chair. The scene came into focus, and Abigail knew where they were. It was the clearing in the woods behind the swimming pool, the place she’d been to earlier that was called Silvanus Woods. How many men were there? She tried to count and got to five before the figures blurred again. One of them was bending toward the woman in the chair—Jill, of course—and Abigail watched a man pull a hood from her. She was slumped, and Abigail thought—with a rush of terror —that she was dead, but then she tried to stand, and the man pushed her back down by her shoulders, laughing. The man was Alec, her husband, dressed in a puffy ski jacket and with what looked like a cigar clenched between his teeth.
All the men were looking at Jill, and Abigail scanned them again. Besides Alec and Bruce, there was Chip, a bottle of beer in his hand, Eric Newman, also with a beer and smoking a cigarette, and Porter, wearing only a polo shirt and jeans, his dark skin gleaming in the firelight. She also recognized the pilot with his blond hair, who had given her the shot, and one other man with a large gray mustache, its tips waxed. The bartender named Carl.
She moved her legs a fraction to find out if she was bound in any way to the chair. Not that she thought she could run, not with whatever drug was in her, making her heavy and confused, but she still wanted to know. She moved her legs about six inches and felt pretty sure that the only thing holding her down on the chair was the drugs in her system.
She breathed deeply in through her nose, filling her lungs. The world still spun a little, but the nausea was gone and her head was a little clearer.
“Put on the mask, put on the mask,” came a voice, not one she immediately recognized. More laughter, some of it seeming to come from behind her. She willed herself not to look around, lowering her chin slowly back to her chest, deciding to pretend that she was still passed out. I’ll just sit like this for as long as I can, she thought. The longer I delay what is happening, the more clearheaded I’ll be. I’ll fake it. It’s not like I’m even sleepy anymore.