Inside Pandora's Box

Amy was still groggy. From what she could tell, she was laying on something soft, but firm. It felt like velvet to the touch, yet it must have been stretched over a hard surface and thinly padded. And it was dark. Even through partially open eyes she could see nothing of her surroundings.

Amy Brant was the best field reporter the newsroom had to offer. If anyone could search out a story, she could. She was the best simply because she cared the most to be the best. She would go to any lengths to uncover the truth if there was indeed a truth to uncover. The proof of that commitment lay in the position she now found herself.

Her senses were beginning to focus. The velvet touched her arms and her legs. More precisely she felt it caress her shoulders and the backs of her thighs. It brushed the sides of her arms as she shifted her elbows. That began to register in her mind as something not quite right. Some facet of that simple touch seemed altogether wrong. It startled her most to realize her thighs were bare.

She was on the trail of a story, tracking down what could only properly be called an urban myth. Pandora's Box. People had heard of it for some time. The city was rampant with rumors and half-bitten tales of unholy debauchery. Some said they knew it was real, some that it was no more than a fanciful fabrication. Everyone wanted to know the truth, but not a one seemed capable of finding it. Those that claimed certainty offered no proof. Others that proposed it a lie, delivered nothing to substantiate their view. There was no way of telling for sure, one way or the other. No way until now.

She should have been dressed. She knew that. She should have had on her jacket, a blouse, a snug pair of jeans. She remembered clearly getting into them before she went out. She had surveyed herself in the mirror, checking her dark lashes and red lips to ensure that her smile was disarming. She had bobbed the blond curls of her hair to maximize her innocence. The jacket and jeans had been selected to minimize threat. She didn't want to drive anyone away that might have useful information.

The underbelly of the city protected it, nurtured it, kept it secret and safe. The Box had to be hidden in order to survive. At least that is what the believers believed. The others merely suggested that such secrecy only proved it to be false. The deception was masked by very inability to prove itself true. No one had the answers. No one. But Amy never accepted that for an answer. Someone had to know. Someone had to have started the lie, or someone had to have been a part of the truth.

She lay still as she struggled to gather her wits. Her heart was beginning to pound in her chest. She was at least partially clothed, that much she could feel. A light shirt of some kind covered her chest. What felt like stockings perhaps graced most of her legs. Shoes were definitely strapped to her feet. Slim bracelets bound each wrist, linked them inseparably at her waist. With a few strong tugs she knew for sure her hands were cuffed together.

The phone call had surprised her, not by its content, but by its timing. She had almost given up. She had been scouring the city for weeks on end, asking from bar to bar, questioning club owners, shop clerks, and street hounds. She had graced the depths of every porno hut and adult video store she could find. She had conversations with prostitutes, pimps, junkies, and thugs. Everyone appeared to have a clue, but no one seemed to have any answers. Then the phone rang, one last time.

Her limbs were starting to tingle as feelings surged back into them. Her fingertips rested lightly over the slow rise and fall of her belly. The hem of her shirt did not lay much past the stretch of her hands. The recognition of smooth velvet on her naked cheeks alarmed her even more. With the exception of stockings and shoes, she was clearly naked below the waist. And the top left her arms bare, with only thin straps touch each shoulder. If anything, it must have been no more than a light camisole.

The call had been from a strange man. The voice clearly garbled by electronic manipulation. It sounded far more sinister than suspicious. The voice had told her where to be, when to be there. It gave her no chance to respond. It only told her the Box was waiting for her. It told her to come alone. Then it went dead.

She stretched out her other senses, tried to hear beyond the loud thumping of her heart. Her breathing sounded muffled. The air around her felt moist with her own panic. As she shifted slightly, she could tell that the velvet surrounded her on both sides as well. Lifting her hands, she discovered the lid of her confinement was only inches above her. Now she truly began to be afraid.

She wanted the story. More than she knew, she wanted to prove it for what it was. She wanted to expose the hoax, unearth the perpetrators of such a wild myth. And if it were not false, if the indescribable stories were in fact true, she wanted to be the one to reveal them to the world. But it was more than her reputation, that drove her. It went far deeper than her career or her fame. Some deep secret part of herself had to know if the things she had heard could actually happen in real life, to real people. To people as real as herself.

Straining her eyes open against the utter darkness, she discovered one more aspect of her imprisonment. The darkness came from more than being inside some form of container. A band of cloth covered her eyes, wrapped snugly around her head. She had been blindfolded and handcuffed, stripped naked and redressed in nothing more modest than lingerie. She wanted to scream, as panicked images flooded her brain. But fortunately, she remained far too afraid for that.

The limo had arrived just as the voice had told her it would. It was sleek and black, transmitting a richness of character altogether at odds with the desolate section of the city where she had been told to appear. It pulled up out of the dark into the yellow circle of streetlight like a chariot of foreboding . It parked across the street and waited on her, silent and knowing. It took her ten full minutes to muster up the courage to leave her own car and walk up to it.

In the confinement of darkness, Amy waited as all her senses came to life. Her heartbeat thudded in her chest while she panted on the edge of hysteria. There was enough air in the container, but it felt hot and stuffy. Her boy trembled as every nerve twitched into consciousness. She smelled her own sweat mingling with the velvet interior like a new form of incense.

The limousine stood patiently while she approached. Nothing else but her seemed to move along the darkened street. In the glow of streetlights, she could just make out the driver, but his dark hat and glasses offered her little to recognize. She tried to get his attention, but he seemed content to ignore her. The only sign that anyone in the vehicle cared for her presence at all came as the rear door opened. It drifted quietly on its hinges, and hovered open while she decided whether or not she really wanted to meet whoever was inside.

She thought about removing the blindfold, but her limbs appeared unwilling to respond. Her senses may have been alive, but her body remained numb. Perhaps it was the fear that gripped her. A thousand imagined possibilities awaited her now. She only knew from stories and rumors the horrors she might expect. She had wanted so desperately to unlock the secrets of the box. Now she was in it, she knew, for better or worse. And for all that it mattered, she had only herself to blame.

On the verge of whimpering, she had no choice but to recall how she had stepped into the open door of the limo. The interior had been dim, and she had seen no one initially as she came near. Only the driver appeared to have any substance at all. But she had gotten in anyway, expecting to encounter the man who had called her on the phone earlier that evening, the man who claimed to be capable of delivering the truth she sought. Once inside, however, she found herself alone.

Before she had made herself comfortable in the seat, the door had closed, swinging shut with the quiet hum and click of electronics. Then the car shifted forward smoothly, and she had no option but to fall back into the rear seat. "Hey," she had shouted towards the unseen driver, "Do you mind telling me where we are going?"

The interior was lit by a row of small lights along the ceiling which cast just enough glow for her to see the whole of the cabin. The driver was hidden behind a smooth black partition, and other than the rear bench, ther existed nothing but an open mini-bar and a small speaker console on the forward wall. Though the eat was soft and comfortable, the floor carpeted and clean, she felt as utterly trapped and helpless in the back of that limo as she did in the small black space in which she found herself now. And the words that came out of the speaker were as clear to her now as her own name.

"Amy Brant," the modulated voice crackled out at her, "why do you seek the Pandora's Box?"

Shocked by the unexpected sound as much as by the use of her own name, she stammered a moment. She was struggling for the correct answer. Some measure of the timbre in the electronic voice informed her that of all the people she had encountered, all the false leads and dead ends, this time she had found what she was looking for. The nature of this encounter was far too elaborate to be nothing. It was in keeping with the curious secrecy of the answers she sought. And that made her reply all the more important. She might make or break her own fate by the simplest twist of her words. For the first time in her career since she was an intern for the college paper, she found herself at a lost for words.

But the voice was not as patient as the limo had been. "Answer!" the speaker blared after a long moment.

She practically jumped. Then with nothing but instinct to rely on, she opted for a measure of professional honesty. "I'm a reporter," she told the voice cautiously, forcing calm into her tone despite her relative anxiety. "I just want the truth."

She thought that might be a solid enough response to start with. Now it was the voices turn. "Are you sure of what you seek?" the speaker hissed coolly. The question seemed to crawl up her spine like a chill hand.

"Yes, I am," she stated firmly. "Its my job." That also seemed appropriate enough. Keep it normal. Keep the man on the other end talking. Find out as much as you can. Its your job after all.

"I'm just looking to write a story," she insisted, "that's all. I can promise you, everything I learn will be kept strictly confidential. No places or names will ever be revealed. You have my journalistic oath to count on. I just want a story."

"Why?" the voice cut in abruptly.

"To settle the rumors," she replied smoothly. Her nerves were settling as she gained confidence in her approach. She was getting the strongest feeling that this was indeed the real deal.

"What rumors?" The voice demanded.

Amy lost nothing of her professionalism. She was riding the wave of her skill as easily as a surfer. She could not see out the darkened glass of the windows, but in the back of her head she was still attempting to calculate speed and distance by the subtle vibrations of the moving car. Yet that was still not as important as the conversation, so she maintained her focus.

"Certainly you must know what I'm talking about," she laughed. "Everyone has heard them. The word is out everywhere. People from all over the city are talking about it." She did not want to sound haughty, but she had to keep her tone light and natural. "Pandora's Box. It's the biggest secret in town. It's an urban legend. No one knows if its real or not. So that's what I'm here to find out. I want to know if such a place really exists."

"And what do you know about it?"

"Well, nothing concrete," she retorted, "that's for sure. Some believe its nothing more than a private club where folks go to have fantastic orgies. Others say it's a secret room where rich women can live out their wildest fantasies. And some tales are even more sinister. I've heard some stories that suggest it is nothing more than a dark alley where unsuspecting women get gang-raped repeatedly. Some have even said its magical. But as I said, I'm a reporter. It's my job to find out what's true or not. To separate the myth from reality."

"And what is the reality?" the voice chimed cryptically.

"I don't know. That is why I'm here. I want to talk to someone who knows for sure. I want factual evidence. If it really does exist, I want proof." Keep it simple. Keep it professional.

"And what proof do you seek?"

The question stalled her for a moment. She wasn't exactly sure. "You tell me," she replied as innocently as possible. "I assume you brought me here because you had information for me. You called me, remember?"

"You were called because you were seeking the Box. There is no more reason than that."

She seemed now to be fencing with words. "Fair enough," she conceded, "But still, you called. What is it you have to offer?"

"I can take you there."

The tone of his sentence unsettled her at once. She hadn't expected the offer so easily. Somehow she thought she might have to barter or bribe some more. But the voice was offering to take her there freely. Or so it seemed.

"What's the catch?" she asked cautiously.

"There is none. I will take you there. Is that not the proof you have wanted?"

Amy bit her lip unconsciously. "Okay," she said slowly, thinking out each word, "but what do you want in return. Certainly I can't expect something for nothing."

"I will take you there," the voice repeated. "I will give you the proof you seek. You have only to answer one question, and answer correctly."

It was a strange game, but it appeared only fitting t the nature of what she was seeking. Whoever this man was, whatever his eccentricities, she was more convinced than ever that he was the real thing. Pandora's Box was real after all, and she was this close to getting the proof she desired.

"What's the question?"

Without discernable pause, the voice replied, "What is Pandora's Box?"

The question stopped her cold. It was a trick. The voice knew she had no idea. That was why she was in this limo in the first place. "That's not a fair question. You know I don't know. I have no way to answer that."

But the speaker crackled once more. "What is Pandora's Box."

Amy paused. A tingling in her belly told her the answer was hovering right in front of her. She had naught but to utter the secret out loud. But still she paused. Her spine tingled and she shifted on the leather uncomfortably. She had nothing but rumors and innuendoes to rely on, nothing but half-truths and pure fabrications to support her. Yet still, it seemed one guess was as good as any. One guess could take her to the end of her chase. One gues could reveal everything she had started out to reveal, everything she had staked her determination on.

One guess was all it would take.

"Pandora's Box is real," she answered flatly.

The voice was silent for a long moment while Amy maintained a controlled tempo to her breathing. Somehow she felt there must be cameras on her, watching her while she spoke with this unseen stranger. Then the speaker hissed again.

"Take a drink from the bar. It is nothing more than a mild drug that will put you to sleep. Pandora's Box is secret. Its location cannot and will not be compromised. If you truly wish the proof you desire, you will do as instructed. Take the drink now, within the next sixty seconds, or the car will stop and you will be asked to step out. You will be free to go as you please, but you will not be contacted again. This will be your only opportunity.

"You decide."

Suddenly her heart beat quickened. She was being put to the test, her resolve challenged. She now had exactly one minute in which to determine her own fate, one minute by which to measure the completeness of her faith. Below the speaker a small digital timer began counting downward in cold blue digits. "Wait," she shouted at the blank partition, "that's not fair. We have to set some ground rules here. I have to make some arrangements for my own safety. Its only fair. Its only professional!"

For the moment her voice lifted close to panic. Thirty seconds had already passed on the timer. Less than half a minute in which to finalize her commitment to the truth. Maybe this was all one big elaborate hoax. Certainly no one would ever willingly drug themselves for a total stranger. If she went unconscious, who's to say what might happen to her. Twenty seconds by which she calculated her desire for answers. Every logical facet of her brain raced to achieve the obvious conclusion. There was no way she would go through with it.

But as the last ten seconds clicked off the timer, she reached boldly for the mini-bar. With the bottle in one hand and a glass in the other she lost at least two seconds attempting to twist the bottle top free. "I want to be perfectly clear," she shouted as she let the glass fall to the floor of the car. Already she could feel the vehicle slowing to a halt. "I only want to see the place for myself. That's all!" With five second remaining she twisted the top off, and sniffed at the clear liqueur inside. "I'm not here to participate." Four. Three. "I mean it." Two.

Oh fuck, she said to herself, what the hell am I doing?

One.

Even as the car rocked gently to a stop, Amy lifted the flask to her lips and tilted it back. The smooth liquid burned down her throat like vodka. Maybe that's all it really was. She sat forward once more and dropped the bottle back in the mini-bar. Maybe by drinking the alcohol, she had effectively called the hidden stranger's bluff. Either way, she felt the car start moving again.

She wanted to call out, to repeat her demands for insurance of safety. She felt she was owed that at least. But her voice refused to work. As did her arms, and her legs. Suddenly her whole body went limp, slumping into the seat cushions like a useless pile of flesh. Mild drug my ass! She cursed inwardly. It was the last thought she could remember before the world went black.

---

So now she found herself half naked, handcuffed and blindfolded inside what could only be a long, velvet-lined box of some sort. Her mind caught up to her, and she had no doubt she was lying inside a coffin. That thought terrified her more than any other at the moment. She wondered what had been done to her while she lay unconscious. Had she been raped? Were the individuals responsible finished with her already? Was it time for her disposal? The thought caused her to quail. What if she was already buried, interred alive beneath so many feet of earth. As a reporter she understood that far worse things had happened to more innocent people.

She refused to panic. With an effort, Amy reached inside her chest for a place of calm. Be rational. Sort it out. Find the facts. It was a necessary step for a reporter such as herself.

Her body told her that she was unhurt, her loins unmolested. She was not sore in any way that might have revealed a violation. Her skin tingled with perspiration, however. The smell of nudity filled the interior of her coffin. Absently, she licked the moisture from her lips, a salty reminder of the heat building up around her.

Straining her ears, all she could make out was a deep hum, perhaps no more than the background vibration of silence. The thumping in her chest measured out the time along with the deliberate pace of her breathing. Her lungs appeared unusually loud. The subtle clink of metal reminded her of the slender bindings over each wrist. The thump of her elbows and knees against the interior of the box echoed with the clear encouragement of open space beyond. At least she had not been buried. At least not yet.