[flipflop]

Opening the bedroom door, they walked in to find Liz thrashing on the bed, screaming into the duct tape gag and expending energy in a completely futile attempt to break free from the handcuffs and shackles.

Walking over to the bed, Carpenter sat down and removed her blindfold. Now that she could finally see, she stopped squirming long enough to look around the room.

First she tilted her head back and shifted her eyes to look up at the brass headboard, where her wrists were secured. Seeing the handcuffs she suddenly realized why she was unable to get her arms free.

Then, lifting her head and looking towards the foot of the bed, she saw the shackles attached to her ankles and realized that continued struggling to get free would be pointless.

Then looking around the room, she could see she was in the bedroom of what appeared to be a rather outdated cabin. The room had two windows, but the shades had been pulled down and the curtains were closed.

There appeared to be no clock in the room so Liz had no idea what time it was, nor how long she had been there.

Then, she heard the voices of the four men, she suddenly realized that she wasn't alone. Shifting her eyes around the room, she first saw Carpenter standing over her. He was watching her intently, but said norhing.

Then she saw the other three men, standing around at different locations throughout the room.

The men all appeared to be huge, well over six feet tall, and she had never seen any of them before.

Suddenly, she was terrified and started to scream. Carpenter let Liz scream for a few minutes, just so she'd wear herself out. The duct tape across her mouth blocked most of if it. Then, after letting her waste her breath, screaming into a mouth full of duct tape, he suddenly sat down next to her, and waved his knife in her face to get her attention.

As Liz stared at the knife, her eyes wide with fear, Carpenter told her, "if you want to stay alive bitch, you'll stop screaming long enough to listen to me". Carpenter had no intention of killing her, the knife had a different purpose. But Liz had no way of knowing that. So she stopped screaming,

"That's better. Now I want you to listen carefully. I'm going to pull that duct rape off your mouth and you are not going to scream. You're just going to listen. Do you understand?" Liz nodded her head. "Good", said Carpenter.

Slowly, he reached out with his finger and gently lifted a corner of the duct tape from her cheek.

Then, carefully pulling it towards him, he slowly removed it from her mouth. "Does that feel better?" Liz replied with a gentle nod of her head.

Suddenly, Liz blurted out "what do you...", but before she could. complete to sentence Carpenter pressed his large index figure over her lips and said, "No talking. Just listening, right now. You'll be able to talk and make all the noise you want in few minutes. But now, it's my turn. And," he continued "I have a big knife." His message was clear do Liz did what she was told.

Lying there, quietly now (no longer thrashing) she stared into Carpenter's cold eyes while he spoke.

"Now from this point forward, if you want to continue to stay alive, you are going to have listen to my instructions very carefully and do absolutely everything I tell you. Do you understand?" Liz replied with a nod of her head. "Good", said Carpenter.

"That means that you are going to do exactly what I tell you to do and say exactly what I tell you to say. Do you understand?" Again, Liz nodded her head. "So far so good", said Carpenter.

"If you do everything I tell you and you follow all these rules, we'll let you go when we're done. But if you don't... well remember...I have this big knife".

Then holding the knife up above her face, he slowly slid the blade against her cheek. Not hard enough to cut her, but hard enough to make her feel the edge of the blade. The look of complete terror that Carpenter saw in Liz's eyes convinced him that his intended message had been received 'loud and clear'.

Folding the knife and putting it back in his belt holster, he then reached down next to the bed and removed the hands free headset from inside. Then while Liz silently watched him, he turned towards her and gently positioned on her head. Then after carefully placing the earpiece around her ear, he adjusted the boom mike so it was properly positioned by her mouth and powered up the device.

Then as Liz watched him with a look that evoked not just fear, but confusion as well, Carpenter picked up her i-phone and laid it on the bed, next to her. Then, he smiled at her and asked, "would you like to talk to your husband?"

Liz thought he was joking, so she didn't answer. But then, he asked her again. Staring st him, with that same confused look, she couldn't believe he was serious. "Y-y-yes!" she stammered. "Okay. Lets call him." said Carpenter.

Picking the phone up off the bed, he went to her contacts and pulled up Dave's name. Then turning the screen so she could see it, he asked her "is this your husband?".

She hesitated to answer at first, but she needed Dave so badly right now. She was so terrified and she just had to hear his voice. "Yes", answered Liz.

Before initiating the call, he looked at Liz and pointed st the headset. "When I dial the number, your going to hear everything through that earpiece you're wearing and you'll be able to talk to him through the microphone so he'll hear everything your saying without any problem. And," he continued, "while you're on the phone with him, if I have anything I want you to tell him, you will follow my directions and do exactly as I say. Got it?" Liz nodded her head. "Good!" said Carpenter. "Now, let's talk to your husband".

Carpenter then hit the call button on Liz's phone and within a few seconds, she heard it ringing through the earpiece of the headset. It rang four times before switching to voicemail. Liz was crestfallen! She wanted to cry.

As soon as she heard the tone, she started speaking in a controlled, but clearly panicked sounding voice. "Dave, it's me! Please call me back right away. I have to talk to you. It's an emergency!"

Then, as Carpenter used the handset to disconnect the call, Liz looked at him with eyes that were slowly filling with tears, and "whimpered, please let me go!"