You Are Dead

12

Thursday 11 December

Logan’s head was pounding. She was lying on her back, totally disoriented and with no idea where she was, shivering with cold. She was light-headed and giddy, and experiencing a faint swaying sensation, as if she were on a boat. And she badly needed to pee. Desperately. She fought against it. There was a vile smell in her nostrils, of mildew and something much stronger, a smell that reminded her of the time she and Jamie had come back from two weeks on the Greek island of Spetses last summer to find the mains fuse in their flat had tripped, and the fridge and freezer had been off for many days during an August heatwave.

They had opened the freezer door to find two steaks crawling with maggots and a chicken that had turned bright green and almost luminous. The smell of the decaying flesh had made them both gag, and it had taken days of keeping the windows open, burning scented candles and constantly spraying the place with air fresheners to finally get rid of it.

Was she having a nightmare?

But her eyes were open. She could see a faint green glow of light. She was lying in some enclosed container, hemmed in on both sides so tightly she could not move her elbows. Her eyes were blurred, as if they had some kind of drops in them, and her mind was fuzzy. She tried to sit up and something hard dug into her neck, painfully, almost choking her.

She cried out.

What the hell?

Where was she?

It was coming back now. And with it, the terror. She felt a dark feeling of dread deep inside her.

Driving down into the underground car park. Someone in the shadows. Then, suddenly, the hooded figure looming above her window. Her car door being yanked open.

The hiss of gas.

Her eyes stinging, agonizingly.

Then nothing.