Page 2 of Willow and the Wraith

“Don’t wait too long. Men like Tom won’t wait forever, and once they move on, they’re not likely to look back.”

“That’s fine with me,” she said firmly.

Martha laughed again and told her good night before heading down the corridor. Willow watched her go, then returned to her classroom, thinking about her friend’s words. Was she waiting for a knight in shining armor? Maybe she was. After one too many experiences with a frog who didn’t turn into a prince, she’d decided it was better to wait for the right man to come along.

Although she did occasionally wonder just how long she would have to wait. Given that she was a kindergarten teacher in a small town, she didn’t have a lot of opportunities to meet new men.

Someone will turn up, she assured herself, and started pulling out the boxes of decorations that she’d been working on for the past two weeks, smiling at the friendly ghosts and the cats with the witch’s hats. Her students were going to love them.

Removing everything from the bulletin board, she covered it with orange paper and set to work. By the time she was finished turning her classroom into a Halloween wonderland, several hours had passed and the early fall dusk had already set in. Now that she was no longer moving around she was conscious of the heavy silence surrounding her. Even the janitors tended to leave early on Friday nights. Time to go home.

A chill suddenly crawled down her spine as she gathered up her tote bag, as if a cold breeze had entered the room. Frowning, she turned towards the door and froze. Someone, no, something was standing in front of the closed door. A tall, thin figure - too tall and too thin to be human - with gray skin and large dark eyes above a small pointed chin.

An alien?

Her mouth dropped open in disbelief as she searched desperately for another explanation. She tried to tell herself that it was just someone wearing an early Halloween costume, but the shape of the body was wrong. Unnatural.

“Who - who are you?” she whispered, her voice trembling. “What do you want?”

The alien didn’t respond, just moved towards her with a fluid, predatory grace, and her heart began to pound. She instinctively backed away from the approaching figure, but then her back hit the wall and she started to panic.

The alien calmly raised some kind of device, and a beam of light shot out, pain spiking through her head. As she started to crumple towards the floor, thin, cold arms caught her, and then everything went black.

The sound of voices woke Willow. Two men, arguing. She hated hearing people argue - it brought back too many unpleasant memories - but there was something different about these voices.

Her memory suddenly came rushing back – her classroom, the alien – and her eyes flew open, but her vision was blurry and unfocused. She could tell she was lying on something hard and unyielding, and the air filled with unpleasant, medicinal scent.

Where am I?

She blinked desperately and a white metal ceiling slowly came into focus, illuminated by a harsh white light. She tried to turn her head, to see more of the room, but her body was stiff and unresponsive. When she opened her mouth to try and call for help, all that emerged was a faint whisper.

Panic clawed at her throat as she struggled to make sense of her surroundings. She tried frantically to move her head again, and this time she was able to turn it far enough to see more of the room. It reminded her of a doctor’s office, except she didn’t recognize most of the equipment.

There was a monitor on the wall next to her. She thought it had words displayed on it, but they were in no language she’d ever seen before. The lines that scrolled steadily across the screen were more familiar – like vital signs on a hospital monitor. Have I been sick?

She tried to sit up and one of the lines spiked in response to her attempt.

Her arm started to respond to her efforts, then jerked to a halt. To her horror, she realized that both of her arms had been cuffed to the surface of whatever she was lying on. She tried to move her feet and discovered that her ankles were also restrained.

Oh God, what’s happened to me?

Fighting down a wave of panic, she tried to make out what the men in the other room were arguing about, hoping for some clue. Although it sounded as if they were speaking English, there was something odd about their voices - a subtle undercurrent that made her suddenly suspect they were really speaking another language.

“You should not have woken her,” a voice said, a whispered sibilance beneath his words. “Nor given her the translation implant.”

“Why not?” The second voice was harsher. “I’m bored and tired of waiting. I want to have some fun.”

The way he said fun sent a shiver down her spine.

“You are not paid to have fun,” the first voice said coldly. “You are here for transportation purposes only. My client has very specific requests - which I have fulfilled - and those requests do not include a damaged product.”

Client? Product?

“I’m not going to damage her,” the second male said sulkily. “I just want to play a little.”

“Your idea of play ruined the last female. Fear is one thing - most of our clients enjoy a frightened slave. However, they do not want one who is terrified and too traumatized to react. Not to mention the fact they dislike any sign of previous use.”

Slave? Panic threatened to overwhelm her. This can’t be happening. It has to be a nightmare.

---