4400: Promises Broken
ONEApril 3, 2008
Naked and shivering, Roger Keegan awoke bound to a chair. He sat in the center of a pool of harsh incandescent light, but the room around him was pitch-dark. His feet were flat on the cold concrete floor. Metal handcuffs bit into his wrists, which were secured behind his back. All he could smell was ammonia.
Looks like a cellar, he thought. Am I still at the casino? He had come to Las Vegas for a few days of well-earned vacation: some cards, some strippers, maybe some surfand-turf. Somewhere between his six Cuervo-and-Cokes at the Mirage and his visit to a nearby gentlemen's club, something had gone very, very wrong.
A door creaked open in the darkness, but there was no light to draw Roger's eye. Footsteps were answered by crisp echoes as they drew closer.
Roger swallowed in a futile effort to expel the sour taste of metabolized booze from his tongue, which was coated in a vile paste. Squinting, the forty-two-year-old middle manager saw three dark figures step into the ring of shadow just outside his circle of light. Two looked like men; the other had the appealing curves ... read full excerpt from: 4400: Promises Broken ebook