TESS lay at the bottom of the pit. Her breathing came in gasps as the terror swept through her veins. Mud oozed up around her, sucking at her arms and legs like quicksand. Her right ankle twisted under her. Even without attempting to move it, she knew she would have trouble doing so.

The smell of mud and decay gagged her. The dark squeezed around her. What shadows she could see were only enough to reveal how deep her earthly tomb was. It had to be at least fifteen feet to the top. She’d never be able to climb out.

She struggled to stand, falling when the ankle refused to hold her up. A fresh wave of panic sent her to her feet again. This time she clawed at the dirt to hold herself up. She clawed at the wall. Chunks of damp earth came off in her hands. She could feel the worms slithering through her fingers.

A shiver slid down Tess’s back. She remembered the voice. The voice that had led her to this hellhole. Had it all been a trap?

“Who are you?” she whispered into the dark.

The moans became muffled sobs.

Tess waited. She slid along the wall, ignoring her throbbing ankle and refusing to sit back down. She glanced up, expecting her captor to be smiling down at her. Instead, there was a flicker of lightning.

“Who are you?” she shouted this time. “And what the hell are you doing here?” She wasn’t sure she wanted an answer.

“He…did this.” The voice came with effort, high-pitched and quaking. “Awful things…” she continued. “I tried to stop him. He had a knife. He…he cut me.”

“Are you hurt? Are you bleeding?” Tess’s eyes tried to adjust to the dark, but she could see nothing but a huddled shadow only six feet away.

“He told me he’d kill me.”

“When did he put you down here? Do you remember?”

“He tied my wrists.”

“I can help you untie—”

“He tied my ankles. I couldn’t move.”

“I can—”

“He ripped my clothes, then took off my blindfold. He said…he told me he wanted me to watch. Then he…he raped me.”

Tess wiped at her face, replacing tears with mud. She remembered her own clothes, the misbuttoned blouse, the missing pantyhose. She felt nauseated. She couldn’t think about it. Not now.

“He cut me when I screamed.” The woman was still confessing, her voice rambling out of control. “He wanted me to scream. I couldn’t fight him. He was so strong. My chest…he crushed my chest, sitting there on top of me. He was so heavy. My arms were pinned under his legs. He sat on top of me so he could stick…so that he could…he shoved himself down my throat. I gagged. He shoved farther. I couldn’t breathe. He kept—”

“Shut up!” Tess yelled. She didn’t recognize her own voice, frightened by the shrillness of it. “Please just shut up!”

Immediately there was silence. No moans. No sobs. Tess listened over the pounding of her heart. A liquid cold invaded her veins. Air continued to leak out, replaced by the rancid smell of death.

Thunder grew closer, vibrating the earth against her back. The flashes of lightning lit up the world above, but didn’t make it down into the black pit. Tess stared up at the branches, eerie skeletal arms waving down at her in the flickering light. Her entire body hurt from trying to control the convulsions threatening to take over.

The rain began, and Tess let her body slide down against the wall until she felt the mud sucking at her again. Her body began rocking back and forth. She hugged herself tight against the cold and against the memories, but both broke through anyway. As though it had been only yesterday, she remembered what it felt like. She remembered being six years old and being buried alive.