May 27th, Disappearing

     Today's prompt is included in bold at the beginning of the story.  I changed it from third person to first to blend with how I'm writing the story.  Today's excerpt is a scene from The Brotherhood, which is a sequel to The Runaway.  Helen is the property of Janet Evanovich and I thank her for letting us play with the characters of her Stephanie Plum series.  The plot is mine as well as any original character I've added.

     It was cold.  I was climbing a snow-laden mountain with the wind stripping  the heat from me as soon as it radiates out to my skin.  I clutch at my arms. They’re bare!   Where is my coat?  I want to sit down, lie down, but I know that’s the most dangerous thing I can do.  Suddenly, I’m doing it anyway.  But the snow feels wrong under my body.  It’s smooth…hard…and dry, not at all like snow.  In an instant my hip and cheek are aching as if I’ve been lying here for hours.  I can't hear the wind anymore.  I’m still cold but now I know that I’m inside.  In a room?  I open my eyes realizing that I’ve been dreaming again.  Instead of the unending expanse of the world around me, I can see only a few feet to the dirty white wall.  I’m still in the room on the floor.  My chest contracts, but I lack even the strength to curl up in a ball and cry.  I’m still here.  Maybe this afternoon I’ll try the door handle again…or maybe not.  For now I closed my eyes and let sleep take me away from the reality of this locked cell of a room that I’d found myself in.

     I must have slept because I was feeling marginally better, as if my energy had been partially restored.  I was in that in between state of dreaming and wakefulness and found myself wondering how long I’d been here.  The last thing that I remembered was getting off work.  It had been dark, darker than usual due to the fact that there was no moon in the sky when I made my way to my car.  I couldn’t help thinking of the horror movies that I loved watching where the next victim of the killer found themselves in just such a situation.

   

     I remembered that feeling…as if someone was watching every move I made.  I’d heard a sound and turned.  There was a huge object close and I remembered putting up my forearm to ward them off as I’d opened my mouth to scream.  Suddenly, something white descended on my head and I felt myself disappearing as everything went dark.

     The loud clanging of the metal door slamming shut woke me and I struggled to sit up.  I had to blink my eyes several times and it took a lot of effort to open them.  When I did, it was all I could do not to scream as I got a good look at the man standing just inside the room. 

     We’d all heard the stories about this man.  No one was willing to work with him.  Not since the incident with the three student nurses who claimed the man was a psychopathic monster.  Oh, no one could prove it, and the one person who tried ended up floating face down in the Delaware.  But we all knew it was true.  Dr. Ripley was pure evil and we all knew it.  I made it a point never to go near the man, so what was I doing here locked in a room that he had access to?

     He smiled that creepy sicko smile of his and laughed.  It was a high pitched laugh that gave away the fact that he was crazy.  I felt the hair stand up on my arms and the back of my neck at just the sight of him. 

     “Hello, dear Alex.  I’ll bet you weren’t expecting to see me here.”

     I bit my lip so I wouldn’t say anything, but he didn’t seem to need an answer as he said, “I am in need of you special skills.”

     Frowning, not sure what special skills he was referring to since the only skills I considered of value were my nursing skills.  I was a mid-wife specialized in traumatic births.  Most of my clients were women in their fifties and I’d even had patients in their sixties. 

     Dr. Ripley nodded.  “I see you’ve put two and two together.  Yes, I need your mid-wife skills.  If you do a good job, I’ll let you live.”

     He motioned with his hand and two beefy guys rushed into the room and grabbed me.  They forced me to stand and walk with them to another room where a woman was strapped to a table.  When I saw who it was, I froze.  I knew this woman.  Her photo had been all over the news about eight months ago when she disappeared from a mental institution.  What was she doing here, and from the looks of her, she was nearly full term.

     She glared at the doctor.  “You won’t get away with this.”

     The doctor smiled.  “Oh, dear Helen, I already have.”  He let loose with a laugh that gave me the impression he’d gone off the deep end.  Then his eyes turned to me.  “I want my child out of her…now, please.  You will make it happen, or I will make sure you suffer the same fate as my pet here when she has served her purpose.”

     It was then I got a look in his eyes and knew that he meant every word.  I had one chance at surviving this ordeal, and that was to take the baby from the woman lying on the table.  I swallowed hard as I asked, “Wouldn’t it be safer for the baby if you waited till it was ready to be born?”

     Ripley looked at Helen, his eyes gleamed as he said, “This bitch took my baby girl from me, it’s only fitting that she give me a replacement on my little Jeannie’s birthday.  She would have been 31 today.”  He turned to me and said, “Take my child from her womb, now!”

     I turned to the woman on the table. There was a look of horror on her face as she whispered, ‘That’s why you did this to me, you monster?”

     Ripley sneered.  “Why dear Helen, I’m not the one who tried to murder my own child.  I would never do that.  My children mean the world to me.  All three of them.  And with this baby I will have a fourth child.”

     Ripley turned and walked to the door where he stopped long enough to say, “You have three hours.  Cut my child out of her if you have to.  Just get it done.”

     With that, he walked through the door and all I heard was the sound of the door being locked.