Susan sat in a circle of light, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Beyond the perimeter of the light, there was only darkness. It was like being in a tiny vessel submerged in a deep, black vastness. She studied the dark, trying to make out images, but her brain played tricks on her, presenting connections and then taking them away. She could not see how big the room she was in was; she could not see the door she had come through, or the ceiling above her, or the walls on any side. She had a terrible, consuming feeling that there was something very bad in the darkness behind her. She didn’t turn around to look. The darkness was her ally. It would protect her from seeing its secrets. She studied her hands in the lantern light, her palms raw from rubbing them against her pant legs. She was not here. She was somewhere else. She was in an airplane crossing over the polar ice cap at night. She was on a tiny submarine in the Mariana Trench.

But the cold concrete floor radiated through the seat of her pants and the thin soles of her shoes reminding her exactly where she was.

She held her palms over the Coleman, and pretended it was a campfire.

*   *   *

It had taken Susan twenty minutes to find the lantern. When Gretchen had closed the door behind Susan, she had found herself in complete darkness—thick and dangerous and absolute. She kept her back against the door, eyes aching, straining to see, both hands frantically working the doorknob. That’s when Susan heard the first nail. She knew the sound, the head of a hammer driving a heavy nail into wood; then the sudden muted resonance as the nail cleared the wood and continued into concrete. Gretchen was sealing her inside.

Susan didn’t pound on the door, didn’t scream out for help.

She knew there wasn’t any point.

She had to help herself.

Gretchen had said there’d be a lantern.

The hammer hit another nail.

Susan stepped away from the door, and into the black. It felt like falling. The smell of urine and dirt made her stomach turn. She stumbled forward, groping blindly, until she tripped and fell to her knees, and her hands landed on something padded. She ran her fingers over it, a broad swath of damp woven polyester. In addition to urine and dirt, Susan could now detect a hint of mildew. She felt around the object’s edge—it was as wide as the distance between her armpit and fingertips, and three times as long. Susan sat up, momentary distracted from her plight by her successful detective skills. It was a mattress. Just a few inches thick. The sort of thing they used at summer camps, or psych wards. Susan felt a hard knot in her throat as she swallowed. How long did Gretchen expect to keep her here?