This is exciting. It’s not that tough dragging the canvas bag. It weighs about a hundred pounds. This is great.
I’m six feet underground. The tunnel leads to this hallway. There are two more doors; one for the black room, one for the white room. The black room is always first. That’s the plan. I drag the bag in there.
Everything’s painted black. A narrow concrete bench runs along one wall. There’s a drain built into the floor. The sprinkler heads, cameras and speakers are all recessed into the ceiling. There are no lights in here. It’s totally dark, damp and dead.
The other room is painted white. The bench that runs along the wall in there is wider. It has a thick, soft cushion on it. There’s a thick, white cotton robe and soft warm fuzzy slippers. There’s even a toilet in the white room. That room is for the good girls.
Between the two rooms is a double Plexiglas wall. Between the layers of Plexiglas is a blackout curtain. I have a remote in my pocket that opens the curtain. Now the black room isn’t so dark. This is fun.
The hardest part is finding girls who look like Anna. With money, time and the right equipment I can find them, track them, and get them when I want them. You can never tell how long a girl will last, or whether she will be good or bad.
I don’t worry much about getting caught. Totally random stranger abductions are hard to solve. No phone calls or internet searches to trace. Everything has to be visual and personal. Nobody but me involved. Two heads make a monster, as the saying goes.
Once the padlock is off I open the bag. She’s been in there for more than thirty-six hours and she’s made a mess of herself. That won’t matter. I have to grab the bottom of the bag and sort of shake her out of there. She stays curled up. Her eyes are tightly shut, which means she’s awake.
She’s fifteen years old. Thin, but not too thin. She has white skin and a nice white smile. Her blonde hair is straight and parted in the middle. Under her pajamas is a willowy, athletic adolescent body. And the arctic blue eyes, the high cheekbones, for that eastern European aristocratic look. Just like Anna.
My little knife is very sharp. Every stitch of clothing is off in a jiffy. Now she whimpers. Her eyes stay closed. There is perhaps nothing as wonderful as the time up to and including the first kiss. I kneel down close so I can whisper in her ear.
“I’m going to call you Anna,” I say. “If you are a good girl you will be warm and dry and in the light. If you are a bad girl you will cold and wet and in the dark.” She starts to cry, but silently. That’s so sweet. “Are you going to be a good girl?”