He began speaking as soon as she pressed the button, so she lost the first few words as she raised it to her head.
"...time. Facing towards the roots of the tree, continue on straight until you reach a stream. You have four minutes this time."
"Wait... I want to speak to Arlene." Erica said but the voice had already gone. She turned to her right and began trotting through the forest once more. The darkness was closing in and her torch was back with her other belongings. Erica paused long enough to check the battery life on the phone. It was down to nineteen percent. She held off using the phone's torch for the moment, reasoning that it would serve her better when it was darker. She couldn't risk using up power and having the phone go dead on her.
Between her fast pace, the encroaching darkness and the increasingly dense undergrowth it was only when Erica stepped into the cold water, soaking her right boot, that she found the small stream. This time she didn't even have a moment to catch her breath before the phone began to vibrate once more.
Before she answered it, she cast around her with her gaze, a futile hope in the dimly lit forest. Still, she wondered if he was actually looking at her, his calls coming so soon after her arrival at the checkpoints. As she clicked the button to answer the phone, Erica began to fear that he didn't need to actually see her, he planned everything so meticulously that Butterman was in control despite not being there.
"Tired?" the voice asked.
"Like you care!" Erica spat out between breaths.
"I am being considerate, I would appreciate a likewise degree of civility from you." he answered, for the first time a color of emotion entering his tone. "Since you have the energy to be rude perhaps a faster pace for this next stretch. Keep the stream to your right, follow it to the crest of the hill. You had seven, now you have six minutes."
Erica wanted to curse but she needed to save her breath. Instead, she turned in the direction he'd instructed and shambled as fast as she could up the hill. Branches slapped across her face, the leaves whipping across her soft skin as she ducked and weaved her way through the woodland. Twice she slipped, falling into the stream beside her. Both boots and the feet inside them completely soaked now.
He called her twice more, shorter runs each time, three minutes, a turn in direction, then two minutes. She was utterly lost now, no idea where her compatriots were or the hut she'd started out from. Whether through chance or design, he'd completely isolated her and the tiny glimmer of light from the setting sun, the sounds of the tree's creaking around her, all jumbled up with her own pent-up emotions and fears had Erica on a knife's edge.
"Let's make this last one a gentle walk." the voice on the phone intoned, "Straight towards the setting sun, two minutes at a walking pace till you arrive at a logging track."
Erica wheezed and walked, head hung low from tiredness, brown hair matted and clumped through her perspiration. Her blue eyes downcast in misery and a need to stop herself tripping over obstacles on the ground. Thirty seconds later the spongy undergrowth disappeared, hardened earth replacing it. Surprised, she looked up to find a dark panel van parked up on the road, not thirty feet from where she stood. Erica's tired mind tried to figure out where she'd gone wrong. It wasn't like Butterman to make a mistake judging distances, he'd guided her flawlessly through a thick wooded area and hadn't made an error once. Unless... unless he wanted her off guard.
She began to spin around when an arm encircled her waist, lifting her clear from the ground. Erica started to kick her legs, attempting to land a solid blow on whoever held her. As she twisted, a hand loomed into her view, clutching a non-too clean rag on it. The dirty fabric was shoved into her face, she smelled a sickly-sweet odour. Erica bucked and thrashed but the limb holding her was just strong enough, capable of holding her just long enough for the chloroform to take effect.
Her movements slowed, her limbs, her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier. Erica's assailant gently lowered her feet back to the ground but she couldn't support herself, her legs buckling as she tried to stand on them.
"Night, night." a cold voice whispered directly into her ear.
Erica came awake gradually. Her eye lids fluttered as a beam of sunlight shone directly into her face. As she became more lucid, she realised she was sitting up, a hard surface pressing against her buttocks and back.
Feigning sleep, she cautiously cracked open a single eye, trying to check out her surroundings. Her attempt at subtlety came to nothing as the stinging brightness of the early morning sun caused her to flinch, the tear duct of her half open eye filling with moisture as the glare half blinded her. Abandoning any subterfuge, Erica rubbed at her eyes with her hands, sweeping the debris of sleep from them so that she could properly look about her.
Her location was a mystery. She knew from her surroundings that she was in a warehouse of some kind, abandoned of course but that was just part and parcel when dealing with a serial killer. They never took victims to a five-star hotel. No, it was abandoned buildings or creepy woods all the way. Erica took some comfort that she could find humour in her situation even though there really wasn't anything to laugh about.
Assuming he hadn't kept her drugged and insensible for days Erica reckoned she was still in the general vicinity of the Ozarks but abandoned buildings, even one of the not inconsiderable size of this one if the room she was in was any indication, were still a common enough sight. For the moment she'd have to accept she didn't know where she was. Next item on her agenda was to check on how she was.
She stood up, stretching tight muscles in her lower back. He'd perched her on a hard wooden chair while she'd been shaking off the effects of the drugging. It was better than the concrete floor beneath her feet but only marginally so. Then she realised that she could feel the cold floor beneath her as he'd removed her boots and socks, no doubt to slow any escape attempt. At least he'd refrained from stripping her bare, she still wore the hiking pants and long-sleeved t-shirt from the evening before. Both garments were stained, sweat and dirt streaking the top, dried mud splattering the lower legs of the pants.
As she was still clothed, rape of her unconscious body seemed unlikely and since he'd left her untied she could assume the doors and windows were secure. This wasn't the sort of man who left things to chance. Aside from her growling stomach and a mild headache Erica found she was in unexpected good health. With nothing else to do, Erica took a closer look at her 'cell'.
The room itself was almost a hundred feet long, maybe forty feet wide. Brick walls and a high ceiling, large windows set over eight foot from the base of the walls. The glass panes in the windows were almost totally covered in dust and dirt save for three or four broken panes scattered throughout the room. It was through one of these broken panes that the sun had poured unimpeded onto Erica's face. At one end of the building there was a large double door. They stood closed and even from her position in the middle of the room she could make out the padlock and chain sealing them shut. A second door, standard sized, was to her right beneath one of the partly broken windows, but again it looked to be firmly closed off with chain and lock.
That left a second small door at the other end of the long warehouse like structure. Wincing from stiff muscles, Erica began to limp her way towards it. She covered half the distance before it opened outwards, a tall figure stepping inside. She began back peddling immediately, recognising the figure as he closed the door behind himself. Erica half turned, spinning on a bare heel and she sought to run, to hide... somewhere.
"Calm, calm, please. Calm yourself please." he called; his voice raised to carry to her rather than as a shouted command. Erica ignored him, there could be no calm, not stuck in a room with Butterman.
"Wait!", his cold voice sounded irritated more than anything else. "Wait, think clearly. If I wanted you dead then it would be done. The building is sealed up, there is nowhere to run to. So just stop. Stop, listen and think."
Her primal instincts were in full flight mode but Erica hadn't risked so much, taken on so much to be found wanting for courage, not now, not at the end. If she was to die then fuck it all, she'd die with pride. So, she stopped, she stopped and turned to face him.
Butterman was clad much like a hunter, khaki jacket and pants over waterproof hiking boots. All of it good quality but not top end, typical of the man. He didn't appear armed but since she definitely wasn't armed the advantage still lay with him. What he did appear to have however was food, well a bag marked McDonald's, so close to being food. More importantly she could smell the coffee from the large cup he carried in his other hand. He walked on, closing the distance between them, drawing level and then he walked right past her as Erica flinched at his proximity. He walked up to the chair she'd awoken on, placing bag and cup on it before moving away.
