Two girls missing in just one week. Gina thought about this as she walked rapidly to her car. The campus was nearly empty now and the parking lot was deserted. There was no moon tonight and the cold flourescents cast tall ominous shadows behind each tree and bush. An icy wind blew across the parking lot and Gina jumped at the sound of every leaf that skittered across the bone-dry asphalt. She saw her car now way off in the distance at the far end of the lot. It was hard to believe that this had been the best parking spot she could find when she had arrived earlier.
“Damn it, Gina”, she said to herself, “why did you stay in the library so long? Studying for finals is one thing but you should have thought about getting someone to walk you to your car!”
When Gina had gotten here the college campus had been teeming with life; people on their way to class, going home for the day, sitting down for a lunch break before the next period began…
Everywhere she heard people talking about Darla and Michelle, the two missing girls. Darla and Gina had two classes together and were pretty good friends. Gina knew who Michelle was by sight but they had never really spoken. She only knew that every heterosexual male on campus wanted to get into Michelle’s pants. She was georgeous; blond hair, blue eyes, boobs to die for, etc. etc. One of those all-American beauty types.
Darla was pretty too. Long auburn hair and a smile that could melt ice. She was on the track team and held the school record in the cross-country event. Both girls were popular, beautiful and missing…
Gina was only a few feet from her car when she heard something shuffle quickly toward her. She let go a frightened little scream as she looked back over her shoulder.
Something small caught her eye. It was just a rat running into one of the open sewer grates.
“Shit girl,” she muttered, “you’d better chill out before you pee yourself”.
This image made her giggle a little as she reached for her keys.
Just three feet from her car now and Gina was thinking about supper and paying bills. She never heard the eighty-pound manhole cover rise up out of the asphalt behind her. She never saw the thick shadows climb out of the hole and hurry toward her. But she did feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as her primordial instincts tried to warn her of the impending danger.
This was all Gina needed to send her already frayed nerves into action. She spun around, her hand already coming out of her purse with the pepper spray.
She depressed the trigger wildly and screamed as the huge shapes closed in.
How many? Three? Four? She heard a bellow of surprise and pain as one of the figures, then another, fell back grasping their faces. Gina jumped to one side in an effort to evade the grasping hands but caught her hip on the mirror of her car and went sprawling onto her back. They were on her before she could move a muscle. She felt a knee land hard in her gut knocking the wind out of her as hands grasped her wrists and twisted the pepper spray from her grasp.
One of the shapes slapped her hard across the face, stunning her. Barely conscious, Gina could only endure as her hands were forced together in front and wrapped tightly with rope.
Seconds later Gina was being lowered through the manhole and into the storm sewer that ran under the parking lot. She kicked feebly only to get slapped across the face again. This time it was hard enough to knock her out. The last thing Gina saw as she slipped into darkness was a handful of stars twinkling indifferently in the night sky as the manhole cover was put back in place.
When Gina awoke, she realized that she was hanging from a pole suspended by her wrists and ankles the same way hunters carried the carcass of a game animal! Her captors were moving at a tremendous rate of speed through subterranean tunnels toward some unknown destination.