Last Rest Stop Before Hell

Last Rest Stop Before Hell
(M+/f, rape, torture, nc)

Samantha was stunned into silence, it was true. The last thousand miles had been a buffeting, blurry nightmare. Somehow, no one noticed her or cared, or believed their own eyes on seeing her. Perhaps it was shock. Who expected to see a semi rolling down the interstate with a fully naked girl tied to the front grill, spread eagled and totally helpless while barreling along at seventy miles an hour? Nobody, and yet thousands must have.

So by the time the truck rolled into the truck stop after dark, Samantha was a dazed, quivering wreck. The terror at having so many tons of heavy steel ready to crush her if the truck failed to stop in time had driven her to tears, especially with the loud and uncertain brakes that sometimes seemed too desperate to get any traction. Barreling through the thunderstorms going eighty had been as bad. The raindrops pelted her like bullets, smacking her nude flesh a thousand times a minute. Finally, staring straight ahead into the late afternoon sun, blinded by the light and numbed by the blast of air, Samantha had been left as coherent as jelly, shaking in her bonds, in pain, unable to draw the will to cry out for help from the dark front of the now quiet big-rig.

The men, the bastards who had laughed at the actions of the punk teenagers that raped her and put her there, didn’t even check on her before they walked into the building. The driver had parked somewhat towards the edge of the lot, but made no real effort to hide her. Did they even remember her? She didn’t think she’d been visible from the cab. Maybe they really had forgotten. The truck hadn’t stopped once that day, from ten in the morning until just then.

“Help,” she said. It wasn’t even a cry. After hanging in the darkness for several minutes, she had the wherewithal to say something. It wasn’t even as loud as her speaking voice. It was just a word, but repeated. “Help,” she said again. She tried to get her head together. She should be screaming, she knew. But she was just so physically worn down that she couldn’t make herself act normal.

Then she heard the footsteps returning. Her head was hanging low, but she looked up slightly to meet their raised gaze as they took in her naked body. It was them, the truckers. They remembered her just fine.

“Samantha Bellows,” one of them said. He knew her name. How? “Like your ride?”

She shook her head. She couldn’t even speak to them. She did gasp as the other man casually stuck his finger against her pussy, then pushed it into her dry hole. “Let’s do her, Frank,” he said.

Frank shook his head. “Learned your lesson, Samantha?” he asked her.

Lesson? What lesson? “What lesson?” she asked. “What did I do?” Now her emotion was coming back. Now she was responding normally again. “Why did you do this?”

“She didn’t learn,” not Frank said. Frank shook his head.

“You wronged a man that didn’t deserve it,” he said. “And you don’t even care. We would have given you a ride back, but not now. Cut her loose, Zed.”

Zed scowled, but pulled out a pocket knife and cut first her legs and then her torso and arms loose. She tumbled to the pavement, scraping her hands and knees. She didn’t stay there long. Zed grabbed her by her blonde hair and pulled her aside. She was forced, despite her agonized, cramped, sore muscles to crawl along before he ripped her hair out. He pulled her as far as the curb. Then the two of them got back into the truck and drove away. Samantha sat bare assed on the cement, watching in stunned silence as they drove off and left her alone. She didn’t even know where she was. Not the town. Not even the state. The teens that raped her had broken her glasses. Even without the wind in her face, everything was a blur.

For a while she just sat on the curb, trying to get her muscles to work again. She hurt all over, from the long restraint and from where the pack of teens had raped her. The ride had knocked the hysteria out of her, but also her energy. She just sat, her naked ass on the cement. She wasn’t under a light. No other rigs were particularly close. No one saw her, or didn’t care if they did. She watched the comings and goings at the stop. Carloads of families came and went. Truckers stopped and left. Motorists got gas. Samantha just gazed at it all, taking it in as an outsider. But eventually, weak and hungry, she did struggle to her feet and began the slow stagger to the building. She was not looking forward to what would follow. It would be beyond humiliation. But no other action would end the nightmare.

As she walked through the fog of her own mind, she expected that at any minute there would be a cry of shock. Someone would run over to her, preferably another woman. There would be calls of “Call 911”. People would ask in genuine concern, “What happened? Who did this?” She would soon be given privacy, in a back office maybe. The police would show up. She could get through it with minimal invasiveness. She walked ever closer to the building. No one had noticed her yet. She was a blonde, with a reasonably good body for thirty-two. Her ass was shapely. Her breasts were large. Everything jiggled well. All the men should have noticed her by now, unless they were self-absorbed by something else.

By the time she pulled open the front door, she couldn’t believe that no one had paid her any attention. Three men had walked out, passing just five feet from her, and even looked at her. One smiled, but they just kept walking. It was beyond odd. It was weird. Samantha felt a strong touch of fear as she stepped inside. What on Earth would she find in there? Strippers? Live sex acts on stage? No, there were families going in and out. Was there an adults only section? Was everyone high?

It looked like a regular full service rest area. It was large, crowded with people at tables and in the little shops and kiosks. She stood there, stark naked in the door, while they ignored her. Mostly. Some looked. Some looked quite hard. No one stepped up to help her. No one actually did anything. They just looked. Or not. Now she felt on the verge of screaming. Why were they ignoring her? What the hell was going on? She wanted to scream, “Someone help me!” or “Do something!” Finally, as she felt her heart pounding and a sickness growing in the pit of her belly, she did scream out. She didn’t scream words. She just screamed. It was a single, loud, long, anguished scream. She clenched her fists, bent forward to push more air from her lungs, and screamed just for some kind of attention.

It worked. When her scream was over, it was dead silent in the crowded rest area. Everyone, absolutely everyone, was staring at her quietly. Were they even blinking? She couldn’t see. It was all too blurry. But they were certainly staring. That much was clear enough. She stood, tears dripping from her eyes, shaking. Now she clutched her hands over her body, trying to cover her nipples and pussy. Her hair was everywhere,  scattered all over her head on the ride. She caught a blurry glimpse of her reflection in a plastic divider to her right as she glanced around, searching in vain for a friendly face.

“Won’t you help me?” she finally cried. “I’ve been raped! They kidnapped me!”

There was dead silence. Samantha grew increasingly desperate and distressed. This couldn’t be real. No one would ignore her like this. It was impossible. Yet, there they all were, doing nothing. “I was raped,” she repeated, but now quieter. “Some men brought me here. They tied me to their truck.”

“The rapists?” someone asked.

“No, two other men. They tied me, tied me to their truck. They drove me here.”

“Did you thank them for the ride?” someone else asked. There was low laughter following the question.

“No! I mean, they kidnapped me. They brought me here. They left me outside.” Dead quiet. “Won’t you do something?” she cried.

“What is it you want, hon?” asked a middle aged waitress standing nearby, straining to keep a tray of dishes upright.

“Help?” Samantha asked, as if it were a question.

“Help getting free of the truck? Help getting inside? Help us out, hon. What is it you’re asking us for? We ain’t got all day, you know.”

“I, um. I’m naked,” Samantha said, her voice getting quieter with each line.

“We know, dearie. Everyone can see you showing off the goods.” Samantha realized she’d dropped her arms. Everyone could see everything. It made no sense to try to hide her body.

“Can somebody please call the police?” she asked. “Please?”

“No!” Samantha turned to her left, shocked at the blunt reply. She saw a man in a business suit. “Everyone please continue as you were,” he said. “Everything’s under control.” Everything was certainly not under control, but the people, all the blurry people, turned back to their meals and relaxation. Samantha turned back to the man. “I’m the general manager, miss. Please come with me.”

She followed him numbly to his back office. Now it didn’t seem like the place of safety she’d longed for. It was austere, savage in its barrenness. The man sat down at his desk and pointed to one of the other plastic chairs. She sat down, feeling its cold, hard surface on her naked skin. It was just her, the man, and cement walls. A closed filing cabinet and a phone, plus lots of papers filled out the decor.

“We have a problem, miss,” he said. “This is a family establishment.”

“I...” Samantha began to say, but he held up a hand, stopping her.

“You were attacked or something, yeah. I heard. And I’ve called the police. They’ll arrive when they can.”

“Thank you!”

“Right. Now there’s just the matter of you being naked in my family establishment.”

“If I could just have a blanket or something,” Samantha said. “Or those gift shops that sell clothing. A big jacket. I’d pay you back...”

“Miss, we don’t keep spare clothes and we are not a charity. If what you’re telling me is true, then you’ve been seen plenty and a little more won’t hurt.” She stared at him, shocked at his blunt statement. “Well it won’t, will it?”

“No,” she finally said. It seemed like a wrong answer. The man just kept staring at her. His blurry image told her nothing of what he was thinking.

“Now I can’t leave you here unattended. Come with me to the security room.”

“Okay,” she said. They both stood up. He grabbed her arm and led her outside. Away from the customer area, the rest stop was bleak, dimly lit, and cramped. The hallway seemed unusually narrow, the ceiling abnormally low. She was so weak from hunger and the ordeal that she felt like it was all closing in on her. Finally they reached a little room with a bank of video monitors on the wall. No one was in there. The man pushed her to the back of the room where there was a tiny cell with a bench.

“You can’t lock me up!” she begged. “Please! Haven’t I been through enough?”

“Enough?” he asked, holding her a little closer. “What’s enough?”

“I, I was raped. They took me. Brought me here.” She was confused and didn’t know what else to say. The man was standing too close. Close enough for her to mostly see him. He was a normal middle aged middle manager guy in a cheap suit, with a patch of bald and big hairy arms.

“You were raped. Yes. It’s all about you being raped.”

“No, it’s, I mean. Why are you doing this to me?” she whined. He was pushing her slowly back into the cell, his clutch on her arm tighter and tighter.

“Doing what? You need someplace quiet and private to wait. That’s here.”

“But.”

“But what? Not good enough?” Samantha was more confused than ever. He didn’t even sound mad. He sounded mechanical. He sounded like he was reciting from a script. But he terrified her, she realized. Was he a friend of the truckers? Had they put him up to this? And the entire front food court? It was insane. The room seemed to be swaying.

“Please, let me go. I’ll wait outside. I don’t care.”

“Sit your ass down!” he shouted, his voice deafening as it suddenly slammed into her. It was deep. Maybe it even reverberated in the tiny room. Her feet gave way. She slumped onto the bench. The man stood twitching, staring down at her. She cowered. He seemed taller than before. The room seemed taller. She felt her vision slipping. Besides the blur, it was like she was seeing through a wide-angle lens. A blurry wide-angle lens. And then, with a deep, metallic growl, the man reached down and grabbed her neck, squeezing the life out of her.

She screamed, kicking out, but he just slammed her to the floor. She hit her head enough to be dazed for a moment. The man was now sitting atop her body, holding her hands pressed to the floor above her head while delivering hard slaps across her face. His growls were terrifying to her, almost animalistic. Her fatigue was making her see and hear what wasn’t there. For a moment, she even saw him in crystal clarity, right down to the pores in his skin. It had to be a hallucination. But he was definitely attacking her. She tried to scream, but had no voice. At least, not much of one. No one was coming to her aid.

His knee to her crotch was not debilitating like to the men she’d used it on in her past, but it still hurt. She lay on the floor, crying out weakly for help. His pants were off. She saw his cock down between her legs, pressing at her opening. It slid in, and she screamed loudly now in pain, as her blistered, sore pussy was ripped apart once again. She tried to beat him off with her fists, but it was like punching a sofa. She couldn’t make a good contact. Her arms felt sluggish. Her cunt felt agony. He slammed into her hard, again and again, sliding her up the floor with each thrust until her head was pressed against the wall. Her ears were filled with the terrible metallic growling, and the blood rushing through her head finished the effect. It was dreamlike. A terrible, painful, endless dream. But one that did end. The manager man stiffened up, and she felt terrible pain as his semen filled her. It felt cold, somehow. Cold and tingly. She didn’t ponder it much. She was still delirious as he stood up, pulled his pants up, and walked out, leaving Samantha lying on the cold cement floor. She felt everything spinning faster, and she soon blanked out entirely.

She awoke again later. She knew it was later because the blurry clock hands had moved. There was still no one in the room. She was still lying on the floor of the cell. It wasn’t much of a cell. It was maybe five feet deep and eight wide. The bench above her head was the only furnishing. The door was closed. As she crawled to it, she found with a cry of anguish that it was locked. The barred wall exposed her to anyone who might walk in, but she was fully trapped. She rattled the door.

“Hey! Help me!” she cried out, rattling the door harder. How could there be no one in the security room? Who was watching the monitors? Crying again, she slid up onto the bench, tried to get comfortable while resting against the cement wall, and began to wait. She couldn’t imagine how long it would take for someone to show up.

It wasn’t long. Someone came in, a man by his looks. He sat down at the monitors. “Hello. Hey, excuse me,” she said. “Please, you’ve got to listen to me.” She had to report her rape. She had to say something. But as the man stared at the screens, she wasn’t sure he even noticed her. Never mind listening, did he even hear her?

“Please, help me out. Why am I in here?” she asked. Still nothing. She rattled the door, standing up for better leverage. “Hey!” she cried, louder. He still ignored her. “Why are you ignoring me!” she screamed in abject frustration. She tried to reach through the bars to touch him, but he was just out of reach. She finally slumped back down on the bench, crying again. The man sat silently for a while, then stood up and left her alone again. Now she sat for a long time, alone, chilly, humiliated, and most of all confused. In the back of her mind she wondered if she’d been drugged. The world was acting and looking so strange. Was she high? Had she taken something, or been given something. But when? And how? Her long truck ride had been horrible, but clear. Then she’d gone into the rest area. When had she been drugged? Never, it was the only answer.

So Samantha waited. It had to be two hours later when two more people came in. One of them unlocked her cell. The other stepped forward. She squinted to see him. He was a short, greasy man in a suit. “Hello there,” he said. “I’m the general manager here. What seems to be the problem?”

She slunk out of the cell, nervous that they would toss her back in. The other man stood against the far wall. The new manager stood with a wide, phony smile plastered on his mustached face. “Why did you lock me up?” she asked. “Where are the police?”

“We’ve called the police. What seems to be the problem?”

“The other guy raped me! That other manager!”

“I’m the general manager here,” he said, not stressing the I. “No other general manager here raped you. So what seems to be the problem?”

“What? Of course he raped me! Don’t you have a camera in this room?”

“The cameras are for security in the public areas. We don’t have cameras here. Can you tell me, what seems to be the problem?”

“What’s the matter with you?” she cried. Something did not smell right in the room. The blurred eyes of the new manager couldn’t hide his utter lack of a soul as he stood there, repeating the same question. It was like he wasn’t even hearing her statements.

“I’m just trying to find out what seems to be the problem,” he said. “Would you like to tell me that?”

“I, I think I need some air,” she said. She did. “May I just step outside?”

“Of course. We try to extend every courtesy to our customers. Lazio will show you to the door.”

“This way,” the other man said, stepped past them and into the hall. Samantha followed him through the cramped, narrow, damp hallways until they emerged once again into the main public area. The restaurants were mostly closed, and it was dark outside. Fewer people were around, but there were still dozens. Samantha’s hands instinctively went to her privates. “This way,” the man said, holding her arm and walking her across the main lobby to the main doors leading out, the same ones she’d walked in through. Only outside did he let go of her. She turned to him, but he was already walking back inside. Samantha stood, horribly uncertain, confused, and shamed beyond all comparison. She didn’t know what to do. The rest area had become horrifying to her. How could she walk back in? But how could she not? Wouldn’t the police show up? Had they been called? What kind of hell was she in? No one cared about her, believed her, or took her seriously. Where was she, anyway?

No answers came. The night air was warm, and she slowly shuffled away from the front door. She didn’t know where to go. She looked around. It was a typical rest area off the interstate. In fact, she realized it was an enclosed rest area. It was in the middle of two interstates, and fenced off except by road access. She was on a toll road. Hadn’t the booth operator seen her on the truck? She didn’t recall stopping. Maybe the truckers had an electronic pass. Maybe it didn’t matter. She suddenly had the desperate feeling that she had to get away from there. Just leave the rest stop behind her. Walk out and hitchhike naked if she had to. She couldn’t get over the chain link fence. She saw the barbed wire atop it. So she walked towards the on ramp.

The fence came nearly to the pavement as she walked further and further along. She couldn’t see the road from there – it was behind the trees – but she could hear the traffic. A lot, for so late at night. Before long, the fence was so close to the road that she was practically forced to walk on the pavement. When the first truck rushed past her, seeking freeway speed, the air rush nearly knocked her over and under the tires. She cried out, keeping her balance, and continued, now keeping her hand on the fence so she could pull herself out of the way. She had the sinking feeling that somehow, all this was a new way to torment her. She soon found it nearly impossible to walk down the on ramp. But she slunk along the fence, pressing her body flat against the cold links, until she rounded enough of a bend to see the traffic.

Her vision was blurred, but not warped. She could only see the lights as blobs, but she could still see that something was wrong. They were moving fast. Much too fast, and in too many numbers. It wasn’t a road out there, it was a video game raceway. The traffic had to be going over a hundred. Well over. Another semi blasted past her, racing to get on. She watched the blurry form of it accelerate like no vehicle that size should be able and then slide into a gap. The traffic blew past her into the darkness, along a narrow roadway with jersey barriers and fencing set up in what looked like a construction zone. There was no possible way a pedestrian could walk down into that mess and survive.

“There’s just no fucking way,” she said out loud, to herself, but with more confidence than she’d had since her rape and kidnapping began. “This isn’t real. It can’t be real.” She turned and walked back up the ramp. Returning was faster because she didn’t have to keep looking behind her for cars and trucks that were about to run her down. She considered looking at the other side of the interstate, but she had a feeling she would find the same thing. She was trapped in the rest area. Someone had to want her trapped. But why? And more bewilderingly, how?

She got away from the narrow ramp and back into the parking lot. Lost in her thought, she covered half the distance across the parking lot when she looked up and saw a new sight that chilled her to the bone. But she kept walking forward. It looked like everyone in the rest area was outside, standing there, waiting for her. She was scared out of her wits, but she expected answers. Someone would tell her what was going on. Maybe they wanted to. Maybe this was the time they decided on.

She walked up to them. It was a motley mix. Fewer families were there so late. She saw no young children. She saw adolescents out past their reasonable bed times. Boys and girls both. There were rest stop employees. A whole bunch of truckers. Other assorted men and women. She guessed two classrooms full, about sixty people. They stood unmoving, looking towards her. She walked up to within twenty feet of the closest of them.

“What’s happening?” she asked them. “Answer me! What is going on here? Why are you doing this to me?” She stood with her hands defiantly planted on her hips, impatiently demanding a response. Then the little manager stepped forward out of the crowd. He walked up to her, still with that fake plastic smile on his lips and his head lightly cocked to one side. Here it was, finally.

He reached out and grabbed her wrist, his grip impossibly tight. His face never changed. “Punish her!” he said loudly. Samantha screamed as the entire crowd rushed forward. In moments they were upon her, hurling her naked body to the dirty pavement and jumping atop her. She felt punches, but that was minor. She saw flesh. She saw the crowd undressing to make use of her. She felt the first cock slamming into her raw vagina and couldn’t even see who it belonged to. Moments later, another went up her anus. She shrieked like never before. No penis had ever gone up there. Now it was raping her without lube.

She screamed. She struggled. She pinched any skin she could reach. She gouged. Everything she could do, she did. They utterly enveloped her in an angry, screeching, undulating mass of hot flesh. She tasted cock, and cunt too. Before long she was no longer on the ground. She was in the air, lifted up. She stayed up for a time she couldn’t even gauge. Everyone there, no matter their age, sex, appearance, or anything else, had a brutal time with Samantha’s body. Everything went up her cunt or ass. Fingers, cocks, rocks, silverware, pens, cell phones, sticks, dirt. Though she didn’t remember passing out per se, her brain reached the point of horrified rebellion when they carried her to the tanks. The cold, metal tube that was the gasoline nozzle went roughly and quickly deep up her cunny. She felt the burning sensation of gasoline being forcibly shot into her womb. And then her brain could process no more.

***

Her cunt and ass were both hurting, inflamed, sore. She was riding along, the wind blasting her naked body, but with her arms and legs tied spread out wide as they were, there was nothing she could do about it. She just had to wait. She didn’t expect the cars to do anything. They wouldn’t call for help. No one would help her. Her body would be on the receiving end of pebbles and dirt and raindrops for the rest of the day.

When the day ended, at another rest stop much like the last, she didn’t hope for rescue. She just prayed for answers. When the two truckers came around to cut her down, she stared in horror. They were Frank and Zed again.

“Please, tell me what’s going on!” she sobbed, getting up to her knees. “What’s happening to me?”

“Are you sorry?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know what you mean!” she wailed.

“And that’s the problem,” Zed said. “The soul only remembers what is important. Everything else is cast aside, never gone, but invisible to you.”

“What does that mean? Please, I’m begging you. Tell me.”

“Who raped you?” Frank asked.

“Everyone at the last stop!”

“And?”

“The general manager at the last stop. He also raped me.”

“We get that part. Everyone at the last stop. Including the manager of the last stop,” Zed replied.

“Who else?” Frank asked.

“The pack of teen boys. Yesterday morning.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! They just did!”

“Okay,” Frank said. “Tell us about that.”

“They just raped me. I was walking home and they jumped me. They ripped my dress off. They raped me, okay? All four of them.”

“Did they hurt you?” Frank asked.

“Yeah!” she almost shouted at them. “Oh god, why did they do that? Why me?”

“Maybe it was not for a reason. Maybe it just happened,” Frank said. “What will you learn from this?”

“I don’t know what you mean!”

“Because the soul is blind to the unimportant,” Zed said.

“Did they break your glasses?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“When did you begin wearing glasses?”

“I, uh. I don’t know the date.”

“What year?” Frank asked. “Were you a kid?” Samantha knelt dumbfounded, trying to remember. “High school? Recently? Which optometrist did you see?”

“I, I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Were they inconvenient? Was cleaning them annoying?”

“I don’t know.”

“What lesson do you take from this?” Frank asked her.

“I,” she said. She tried to think clearly. “I don’t wear glasses.”

“Nope, you’ve got twenty-fifteen vision,” Zed said.

“But the blurriness?”

“Such eyes as the damaged soul uses are insufficient to witness the greater truth that is visible to the divine spirit,” Zed told her.

“What happened to me?” she asked in a whisper.

“You don’t remember yet?” Frank asked. “How badly did they hurt you? Think. What was your worst injury?”

“They hit me,” she said. “They hit so hard.” She paused. “They stabbed me. Oh god, they stabbed me right in my chest!” She turned her head down and saw the scar on her left breast.

“That one guy was quite strong. He wasn’t wasting the effort of stabbing you unless he did it right,” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Zed added.

“Are you saying I’m dead? Did they kill me?”

“Well, are you dead?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know. Is this hell?”

“Not exactly,” Frank said.

“Purgatory?” she asked.

“Stop guessing!” Zed snapped. “The truth is very different than all your religions of man have ever guessed at. You people can’t just say the words ‘I don’t know’, can you?”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

“More of the same,” Frank said. Samantha felt a whimper escape her throat. “Until you reach some conclusions.”

“What should I do?”

“Your life was mostly good, Samantha. You treated most people well. You were compassionate and generous. But if you were alive, you’d remember the one instance in which you were not. One horrible, grave, selfish act that brought you here rather than someplace nicer.”

“I, I don’t know what you mean.”

“The soul forgets that which it cares not about,” Zed said.

“But how can I atone if I can’t remember?” she cried.

“Forget atonement. That’s a religious concept. You need to take the time to examine who you are. I suggest you start from scratch. Think about your values. When you’re ready to remember, you’ll remember.”

“And then?”

“The way things here work, then you’ll be done and ready to join the grand party,” Frank said.

“How long will that take?” she asked. She couldn’t believe her ears, but now she remembered the knife. She remembered her perfect vision.

“A day. A year,” Frank said. “Maybe never. Maybe this reality is all you’ll ever know, for eternity. Personally, I give you odds of four to one that you’ll make it out someday.”

“I have to stay here?”

“That’s right,” Zed replied.

“Will it be like last night?”

“Things will vary,” Frank said. “But yeah. Rape. Torture. And best of all, that overwhelming, oh-so-pleasant sensation of having no one pay any attention to your real concerns. That’s the real kicker.”

“And don’t try to go getting used to it,” Zed told her. “Your consciousness is free to pass through time, but your soul is right where it was when you died. Circumstances will vary, but you’ll be ashamed and scared and all that just as much tonight as you were last night. And tomorrow, and next month, and next year, and...”

“She gets the picture,” Frank said.

“The soul that moves on is the soul that’s ready to move on,” Zed said.

“No, please!” Samantha cried. “Don’t leave me here like this! Tell me what I did!”

“Give her a hint,” Frank suggested.

“What for?” Zed demanded.

“Just humor me.”

“Eh!” Zed grumbled, but he leaned down close, putting his face near hers. She could see him clearly. “Remember this face? Ring any bells?”

She stared at him. She remembered nothing. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him before. He was a younger man, about her age. Dark hair. Lots of stubble. She just gazed uncomprehending.

“She doesn’t remember,” Zed said.

“Did I hurt you?” She asked. “I’m so sorry!”

“I ain’t human,” Zed snapped. “This face used to belong to someone known to you, up until he offed himself. But he’s in a better situation than you. I just borrowed his look.” He turned to Frank. “She doesn’t have a clue.”

Frank shrugged. “Three to one then. Anyway, Samantha, you have a nice night, if you can. Try to remember that you like sex. Maybe that will slacken the shock. And be a deep thinker. It’s your only chance. Bye bye, girl.”

“No, please!” she begged, but she didn’t get up. They got back in the truck and drove off. She stayed put, kneeling on the hard cement, stark naked. Finally she got up. She knew what to expect now. She knew it wasn’t real. At least, not living real. She steeled herself mentally as she began walking towards the rest area. But with each step, she felt real emotions overlaying and canceling out her newly-found resolve. Her desperate desire to hide her nudity won out after six steps. By twenty steps, she thought it was probably a dream. As she pulled open the door and stepped naked and beaten in to the rest area, she desperately hoped that someone there could help her out. It was a mystery to her emotion of why they just stared, glaring at her. “Can’t somebody please help me?” she cried.

Fin