Chapter 10

Sarah slept through nearly all of the next day, or the same day really, as it was getting close to dawn when Hawkins and his friends, including the four-legged one, left the camper. They had finally been satisfied and had resumed to the silver-colored trailer for a few hours sleep before pulling up stakes and hitting the road for Line Creek, their first scheduled performance.

When Sarah awoke, though she had nearly managed to pull herself out of her drugged hangover a few times while they were moving along the gravel highway north, they were already in the tiny mining community of Line Creek. She opened the door of the camper and stood there for a long few minutes, just watching numbly as the workers hustled around, aided by a few temporary helpers Hawkins' advance truck had hustled together from the locals. The workers were opening up the sides of the trucks, dropping the panels that covered the wheels and gave the show a really polished look of professionalism that amazed her after last night. This looked like an honest-to-God animal show, just like she'd believed so sincerely before things changed so drastically here in this camper just so many hours ago... Christ, was that all some kind of dream? Is Hawkins' show on the level, or wasn't that real last night?

But Sarah had little time to grasp for such wispy fragments of hope, for she quickly was spotted by Henry Hawkins. Dropping his work, he came to her side hurriedly, his face at first blank and expressionless, then smeared with that same wicked grin she remembered now so clearly from last night.

"Feelin' all right?" he asked when he was close enough to talk without being heard by the others.

"Yes," she answered simply, nodding her head.

"There's a little somethin' for you in the camper refrigerator, already mixed with coke."

Sarah's eyes widened with fear, "No, I won't! You can't make me do that again! I won't take it!"

His face tightened into a scowl, and he spoke with deliberate slowness, choosing his words carefully. "You'll take it all right. You only have to remember last night -- all of it -- and you'll take it. You'll do it, Sarah, 'cause you're that kind of woman. I knew it when I first laid eyes on you. Now think! Think very carefully about last night... and then you do as you're told. You've got some work to do tonight, work that'll make you a lot of money. More than you've ever seen, probably. So remember, Sarah... and do as I tell you." And with that he walked away, leaving her as confused and as frightened as when she first woke up alone there in the camper. It was like a hellish nightmare... here she was practically surrounded by people, most of them probably decent people, people who would help her out of this Dante's inferno of wantonness if she only asked... but it was as if she had been paralyzed somehow, crippled and unable to move, except to move back into the camper, to the refrigerator...