Drifts had formed on the curves of the road. Every time Dan's car hit one it shuddered and skidded until the tires found pavement or packed snow, gripped, and pulled us forward again. I rode with one hand clutching the center console and the other wrapped around door handle covered in grimy silver duct tape. The clock said mid-day, but the Dart's headlight struggled to cleave the heavy gray gloom.

I wanted to talk, to ask questions, to cry, to scream, to pull my hair out, but I sat frozen in fear and confusion while we careened along the curving road that followed the river. A thin skin of ice covered the murky brown water. If we lost control and skidded in that direction, would the tall thin riverbank trees be strong enough to stop us before we hit the ice and broke through, sinking to a frigid grave?

He took a right on a road I vaguely remembered riding my bike on as a kid. Snow clung to the street signs, stealing any chance I had of refreshing my memory about the names of these twisting residential roads. Lights shone in the windows of the houses, beacons of warmth and safety in the bleak storm.

Dan pulled into the last driveway on a dead-end street. His rusted mobile home sat up on concrete blocks. It rocked in the wind, creaking as if calling out for help. "Come on, girl," he said before getting out of the Dart and hiking across the miniscule yard and scurrying through the front door.

"You don't lock it?" He seemed like the kind of guy who'd have six deadbolts on the door and a rifle propped up next to it.

"No point." He didn't elaborate, nor did he stop in the combination living room/dining room/kitchen that made up the front of the house, but he barreled straight on through into a dark, narrow hallway, tracking snowy footprints across horrible brown shag carpeting. I caught a glimpse of a snake tank, glowing with red light, in one room, and a twin-sized bed in another, and then he was opening the back door. He looked back at me over his shoulder and held a finger to his lips for me to be quiet.

Obediently, I stayed silent and slipped past him, outside, onto a metal staircase leading into a postage-stamp back yard. He closed the door so gently it made no sound that could be heard against the ticking of ice crystals against all the hard surfaces in the world.

Again, he gestured to be silent and quick, and he led me to a little rusted shed that stood between the house and the woods that I knew stretched all the way between the village limit and the state line.

Visions of movie villains wielding chainsaws and axes flashed across my mind and I stumbled to a halt. No one knew where I was. Not a soul in the world would search for me in Dan Tanner's tool shed.

Then again, maybe someone would. "The police chief knows I left with you." I wasn't one hundred percent certain of that, but I suspected it was true.

"That man you talked to ain't the chief of nothing. Get in the shed, girl."

"This is a bad idea." I took a step backward.

The low hum of an engine stretched droning tones toward us, and Dan's eyes grew wide as saucers. Before I realized what he meant to do, he grabbed the front of my coat and propelled me in the direction of the shed. I staggered and he pushed my back, forcing me through the narrow space between the doors. Lashing out to regain my balance, my hand landed on a dirty shelf full of antique tools. A jar of screws fell and hit the concrete floor, shattered, and sent its contents rolling in every direction around an enormous circular drain. A few bounced and clattered in the narrow slits of the drain cover, but they didn't fall through.

My captor, or savior, killer, or friend—I hadn't decided which—grabbed onto the grate by means I couldn't quite see and lifted hard. It swung up, not a drain at all, but a door. Dim light from somewhere beneath us lit a treacherously narrow set of wooden stairs that led downward into a space I couldn't see.

"Go on, then."

It was still a bad idea, but the way he kept glancing out the door made me wonder if there wasn't something outside I needed to fear even more than I feared this madman who'd shoved me into his creepy old shed. On trembling legs, I stepped down into the unknown.

At the bottom of the staircase, I found a room about the size of a small living room. Fluorescent lights flickered on the ceiling behind yellowed plastic shields. There was a table big enough for two people, but only one chair, a sofa, and six sets of industrial shelves packed full of plastic bins of various sizes and shapes. I turned slowly, taking it all in. Flat screen televisions covered the walls. My neighbor in California had spent one year's tax return turning his garage into a "man cave gaming room." This subterranean space reminded me a lot of that.

Above me, the door banged shut and Dan clattered down the stairs backward, on all fours—a smart move that looked significantly less precarious than the way I'd done it.

I put myself as far from him as possible, but he made no move in my direction. Instead, he snatched up a remote control out of a box beside the sofa and hit the red power button.

A single screen flickered to life, showing a crossroads. The fronts of three small houses could be seen in the shot, all dimmed by heavy snow. A Toyota pickup rolled through the stop sign and inched along out of the frame.

Dan blew out a breath as if he'd been holding it since I'd climbed in his car. He dropped down onto the sofa and pulled a hand over his face.

"Is that showing the road in front of your house?"

He nodded and pulled the entire box of remotes onto his lap. Thirty seconds later, every screen in the room flickered and glowed with life giving us a view of what seemed like the entire town.

I inched closer to the television nearest the left end of the sofa. My father's truck and Jake's sat still and silent in front of my father's house. The angle zoomed out and showed the fields, the pasture, and the river in the distance beyond them.

"What do you see?"

Nothing. Snow, the swaying bare branches of trees, a small two-story house that looked like a deserted shack, a barn on the verge of collapse.

"Look at the rest of them, girl."

Again, I turned in a slow circle.

There was the interior of Summerfield Market. Not a single shopper walked among the aisles. I didn't see any of the three men who I knew were always there.

There was the village office and police station. No one sat at the receptionist's desk. No traffic moved in the parking lot, though it was still business hours.

"What is all this?"

"Your big shot brother already told you what it is. It's a contained environment, a sound stage measured in miles, and still under construction. Far as I know, this here World War Two bomb shelter's the only place in this town that ain't part of the show."

I gaped at him, stupid as a deer in headlights.

"Looks like you just landed your next starring role, Jess Kellerman."

*******************************************************************

I do hope you're enjoying this as we go. It's been a long time since I "pantsed" a story, and I forgot how fun and exciting it can be! I'll be as surprised as you to find out what happens next. Haha!