The T.R.F. Pulitzer Winning Novel "Lady Lost" by 2old.

CHAPTER 2:

At the breakfast table, Barbara was trying to recall the events she had in her dream to try and make sense of it all and why she had the nightmare in the first place since she had been on “the medication”.

Over and over in her mind, she replayed the warnings from television commercials encouraging people to use the medicine her specialist had prescribed.

Or, perhaps it was the reality show she had watched on Netflix before falling asleep, called "Cheapskate Weddings."

......or maybe the potato salad was bad she had for dinner.

Regardless, it was time to head off to work as she was already anticipating a difficult day at the office due to the firm having suffered such a devastating financial loss.

It seems the company that employed Barbara owned a convention center that had burned down the night before. The fire inspector knew it had been started by a careless smoker.

Realigning her thoughts to concentrate on driving, she pulled up in front of her local Starbucks to get her usual latte on the way to work and as she was about to turn the car off, a breaking news announcement came blaring out of the radio speakers.

It was the FBI, seems the careless smoker was a.......Russian spy,
that had entered the country at El Paso Texas...

Her mind was racing, knowing her firm's biggest competitor is located in El Paso and may well have planted a spy under the guise as an illegal immigrant.

But how can that be, she thought.

Industrial espionage is something she had no experience with and the mere thought sent shivers up and down her spine.

As she was sitting in her car listing to the radio broadcast, she was completely unaware of the men dressed in a black suits and dark glasses watching her from behind the mirrored windows of the Starbucks where she would be patronizing in the next few minutes.

Completely unaware of any impending danger, yet always carrying a concealed handgun holstered in her bra, she hurriedly made her way through the Starbucks front door.

She strode confidently up to the counter and placed her order, as the men continued to watch her.

Little did the men realize their images were easily seen in the barista's dark glasses and ever so slowly her hand inched towards the loaded firearm she had hoped to never use in self-defense.

The barista handed Barbara her order and uttered the word ‘chocolatte’ which was the code word the men in the black suits were waiting to hear.

Before she had a chance to react, she was grabbed, a cloth forced over her mouth, and that was the last she remembered... until....

She woke up alone and in the dark, and in the background she could hear small creatures skittering along the floor toward her.

Suddenly the light flashed on and she realized she was lying in a bed, the creatures she has heard were two small dogs that now jumped on the bed, and a lady was walking towards the bed with a tray filled with breakfast and coffee.

I must be dreaming, she thought, as she watched her deceased mother set the tray down on the bed. At least I finally will get my coffee!

CHAPTER 4:

As the events from the last few moments kept playing over and over in her minds’ eye, Barbara just couldn’t shake the unmistakable feeling of deja vu that had been gnawing at her since the beginning of this so-called ‘reality’ that she was seemingly a very real part of and acting the lead role as a pawn in somebody’s twisted version of what they thought reality should be.

Knowing present company would make it impossible to fully dissect what had happened, Barbara headed outside to clear her mind and make some decisions as where to go from here.

As she stepped outside, that gnawing feeling of deja vu washed over her again like a tidal wave as a gleaming white stretch limosine with a pair of cattle horns on the hood rolled through the gates of the estate towards the mansion.

Her heart fluttered as she recognized the limo driver was an actor in the age-old television series "Dynasty".

But she knew that it couldn’t possibly be as John Forsythe had passed on years ago.

"Is someone playing tricks or is my mind playing tricks with me?"

Just then, a noise from behind startled and jolted her back to the stark reality that she was a prisoner of... of... of... as the rain began pouring down.

As she re-entered the house to get out of the rain, she saw the John Forsythe character sitting on the couch, smiling and chatting with the undead groom.

Scenes from 'Friday The 13th" and "Halloween" began to play through her mind as she noticed her fingernails had grown extremely long and blood was dripping from one of them.

She brought the finger up to her mouth instinctively to lick at it like an animal would lick its’ wounds when injured and discovered that she was pleasantly yet sensually aroused by the sweet salty taste that enveloped het tastebuds.

That she liked the taste of blood frightened her that she might have some propensity to be a vampire when she noticed what she licked was some icing off the long forgotten wedding cake.

By now, the wedding cake should be stale and moldy she thought as she closed her eyes and savored the delicious taste of her finger.

Satisfied that she was in no danger, needing a change of clothes, she headed for the nearest ATM.

She stopped at the first one she came to but noticed a sign that said 'Out of Order' and cursed under her breath as she turned and walked away.

With an empty stomach and needing some sustenance, she counted the change in her pocket and decided on the dollar menu at a McDonald's across the street.

She walked in up to the counter and proceeded to give her order to an obviously extraordinarily nervous cashier and was totally oblivious as to what was happening in the back room until she heard an ear-piercing murderous scream emanating from behind the closed door directly behind the cashier. 

Chapter 6

The noise of a siren in the distance stopped everyone cold in their tracks as it's shrieking wail grew ever louder as more and more sirens started to sound and culminate to a deafening roar throughout the city meaning only one thing.....darkness was descending upon the city and there were only mere moments left to seek safe shelter before 'the nameless ones' came from above to claim whatever and whomever was left out in the open.

Totally unbelieving in the occult or the supernatural, Barbara did her best trying to understand what was actually going on and the cause and hoping this was a dream or a hypnotic trance or something that would... and could... be explained by medical and/or scientific means, also allowing her mind to wonder if when the story was told... documented... the author(s) of said story would not be one(s) to use run-on sentences.

Of course, what Barbara didn't realize was that whether or not she believed in the occult or supernatural was of no importance whatsoever because she was part of it now, and had been ever since she licked the blood off her fingernail.

Then it dawned on her that whatever she licked off her finger, whether blood or something that was designed to resemble blood, was the root cause of what she was happening before her eyes and to find what the liquid's chemical makeup... or what it contained... could give answers towards finding an antidote and... if there was an antidote... get her life back to some semblance of where it used to be.

But the incessant wail of the sirens quickly jolted her back to the reality that she was now a part of not knowing if she were an actual player or an unwilling participant in the madness that was unfolding around her.

Shrieking sirens, having just left the carnage of numerous dead bodies across the street, a murderous person she had once trusted as her husband walking beside her, and her body literally shaking from the unsatisfied sexual desire that added to her confusion... she sat down in the middle of the street, pulled out her pack of Lucky Strikes, lit it with her Zippo lighter, and inhaled as much smoke as her lungs could tolerate.

But, of course all that smoke had no effect on her lungs, as she was undead now, so the expected wracking coughing fit did not materialize.

What did materialize... and materialize quickly... was an ambulance responding to the fast-food restaurant flipping end over end down the sidewalk, coming to rest on its top in the 'foam ball corral' of the McDonald's play area as the driver tried to avoid a lady he saw too late sitting in the middle of the street, casually taking drags off a non-filtered cigarette.

She just shrugged her shoulders at the commotion and laid down to face the sky and meet the quickening descension of the darkness and what was coming within it.

Just as she felt her back contact the asphalt coating of the street she felt the heat of a bullet passing right over her, a bullet which would most certainly have ended her life had she still been in a sitting position.

She quickly bolted upright and turned swiftly around and around trying to home in on where the bullet could have came from and find who tried to fire that near fatal shot.

The crowds were gathering as curiosity drew people from businesses and homes and she began to realize it would be impossible to single out the person who had just tried to murder her.

As she was scanning the crowd for the person that had fired that near fatal shot, she noticed that several small red dots were now moving about her abdomen like ants swarming on a piece of candy laying on the ground.

Were these dots "glowing" from inside, through intestinal matter and skin and clothing or were these dots coming from a "shotgun" of laser lights being focused on her from afar?

Suddenly, Barbara felt a searing pain start to emanate from deep within her abdomen and hurriedly looked around for a place where she could be alone to deal with what she already knew was starting to happen since the darkness was almost upon her.

As the abdominal pain climbed closer to an unbearable state and the heat within her belly felt like she had swallowed a gallon of jalapeno juice, she asked herself "Is this really something supernatural or is that Taco Hut lunch preparing for launch?"

"No, it couldn't be.", she was thinking, because she also remembered that she did have brains before the tacos and something in the plate of brains made them compellingly delicious and savory and left her wanting more of them.

Which led to the burning question "Were those human brains or beef brains and am I coming down with Mad Cow Disease"?

But then it occurred to her that no one could "murder" her, except with a stake through the heart, because she was undead, and even the mad cow disease she feared couldn't hurt the undead.

CHAPTER 8

As the secret room opened up to reveal its' contents, all three stood aghast with a look of bewilderment and amazement and immediately noticed a small man sitting behind a desk on the far wall glancing up at the three of them as the door opened causing him to take pause from whatever he had been writing and bearing an eerily striking resemblance to the long lost Jimmy Hoffa.

The resemblance uncanny, they knew it could not be Hoffa as... if still alive... this coming Valentine's Day would be his 106th birthday.

But it was indeed Jimmy Hoffa and somehow someway time had stopped within this secret room and there was no explaining how or why the trio were indeed being met with the actual man that disappeared so many years ago who, now rising from his seat, was looking pleasantly surprised at having visitors.

Having lived a life of opulence, her clothing being from some of the world's best known designers, our heroine was aghast that the little man was still smartly dressed in the suit he must have been wearing when he disappeared in the 1970's.

"Please", with a hand extended toward some chairs, "Please come in and be seated.", Hoffa said to the three of them.

As they approached his desk, he held up a hand while saying "Don't pull the chairs forward as I have members of the Teamsters Union to move them for you as their union contract requires!"

With nods of acknowledgement, the trio took their seats and Sandy was the first one to speak asking Hoffa, "What is this place?"

"It's my 'man cave' where I've been holed up for the past decades, running the Teamsters Union and handling other political issues from the Dark Web."

Unaware that the door was closing silently behind them, large panels in the walls behind and to the sides of Hoffa started to slide open revealing a colossal array of computer screens, TV monitors, banks of computer servers and about a dozen men all dressed in black suits like the ones she saw the men wearing in the coffee shop busily pouring over what seemed to be global coverages of something that Hoffa seemed eager to want to explain.

"Please come and look with me at the global economy and the approaching disaster, imminent due to the policies of the person currently occupying the White House, his imbecilic tariffs, his pathetic handling of foreign affairs... all of which will soon change when our plan is put into action and the reason, now that you know what is going down, is why you will remain locked in here with me for another 48 hours!"

Sandy, the more intelligent of the three, started having wild thoughts at what Hoffa had just said and silently thought to herself that this was something that seemed styled straight out of a James Bond movie.

Should they try to escape to save themselves or do they remain long enough to learn the entire plot so it could be curtailed before causing something resulting in World War III?

As Sandy was musing with that thought, she noticed that her husband and the Rock were starting to take more than a casual interest with the workings of the command center and were hypnotically looking over the shoulders of the men seated in front of the dizzying array of monitors.

A glance from her husband registered with her that she needed to provide a distraction so the two men could overpower the computer operation team and she began a very solicitous moaning, began unbuttoning her blouse, and hiking her skirt... and immediately, Hoffa, grabbed his chest and fell to the floor in the throes of a fatal heart attack.

As Sandy was moving in to check on Hoffa, the Teamsters Union members moved in and grabbed her, her husband and the Rock and then upon securing them, Hoffa leapt to his feet and exclaimed, "I may be old, but I'm not as dumb as you look, sweetheart."

Still struggling against their bonds, their attention suddenly turned to the closed door as it began to open and watched as a squad of soldiers came in... armed to the teeth... and wearing strange uniforms, certainly not those of any branch of the U.S. Military.

While drumming his fingers together in a typical diabolical madman fashion, Hoffa excitedly exclaimed, "Ahhh! My reinforcements have arrived!"

One of the soldiers with obvious officer rank stepped forward saying, "Mr. Hoffa, we are not here to support or defend you but under orders to take you and your guests, forcibly if necessary, to a location of some hours from here so prepare to be bound and blindfolded."

CHAPTER 9:

CHAPTER 10

With the roar of the crowd, the laser light show and all eyes seemingly focused on the center of the arena, the whole scenario had provided the perfect backdrop for the drone operator to swoop in disguised as part of the 'show' to which he/she was hoping Sandy would recognize as an escape route and take the cue when it was close enough to her.

As Sandy grabbed the ladder and was being pulled up and away from the arena a 'package' dropped from the drone, into the arena, the resulting explosion leveling a significant part of the entire complex leaving her with the thought of whether she needed to return and see if her husband had survived or had been blown to bits as it appeared her captors had.

With that thought shoved in the back of her mind for the moment, Sandy was forced to focus all her attention on clinging to the ladder after the concussion from the explosion had nearly blown her off just as the drone cleared the top of the arena.

Hanging there with her life in the balance, she began to shriek... not from pain but from laughter... as her mind was churning with "I wish I had a mirror since I know this past few minutes has evolved into a really bad hair day!"

With the drone still flying on its' mystery trajectory now about a quarter mile from the fiery remains of the arena and Sandy holding on for her life, there came a booming voice seemingly out of thin air that for an instant left her to think that is was God talking to her and asking if she were alright.

It was the drone pilot, talking to her through a speaker mounted on the robotic flying machine, saying the drone was straining and she would be put down in a few minutes... in a heavily forested area... and it would be up to her to find a way to safety.

As the drone set her down near a two lane road then taking off in a westerly direction, she couldn't help but think of why the drone pilot couldn't have taken her all the way to where he was controlling the drone from and providing to her an explanation on why he had chosen to help her escape from the unnamed gentleman and his thugs.

Not having any sense of direction, far in the distance to her left she heard the barking of dogs and assumed those were bloodhounds attempting to pick up her scent, while to her right she could hear what sounded like cars or trucks traveling on the two-lane road and unknowing of which, if either, were those searching to do her harm or those searching to save her.

Ducking into the bushes as the barking and noise of the approaching vehicles grew closer, she discovered a stream just a few yards from the road and quickly jumped in and started to wade forward in its direction of flow in an attempt to cover her scent and tracks from the dogs she was sure were on her trail hoping that the stream led to someone that could help her escape and possibly explain the nightmare that she was in.

The further she waded, the sounds of dogs and vehicles were being drowned out by an increasing roar of an upstream rapids or waterfall, either one dangerous and possibly fatal to a skilled swimmer... let alone, Sandy, who had never had a swimming lesson or swam a stroke or been in water deeper than her knees in her short life.

Fear was quickly overtaking her as she struggled toward the opposite bank of the stream, but deep down she knew that fear was her enemy at the moment and that she had to conquer it here and now or be consumed either by it or by what she thought was tracking her.

Sandy found herself being propelled by the current on a collision course with a huge rock outcropping with no means of slowing the speed so shutting her eyes and anticipating the certain fatal collision suddenly the current changed slightly, delivering her unscathed into a hidden cavern where she was able to regain her footing and wade to a dry area on the rock floor.

"What is this place?", she was asking herself taking stock of her new but somewhat 'very familiar' surroundings.

The familiarity, she realized was the fragrance of flowers along the rock ledges permeating the air with the same fragrances she remembered from childhood and reality began to set in that she would either die here passively enjoying the beauty around her or dig deep to find the courage required to survive the harrowing experiences of the past few days.

As she made her way deeper into the cavern knowing that she couldn't go back outside without compromising her temporary safety, she turned her self toward a glimmer of light ahead that looked light the glowing light of a campfire accompanied by a voice that said, "Welcome Sandy. I've been expecting you."

There was no immediate recognition of who this was until it registered she had seen his face on a recent broadcast of "Morning Joe" and she was in shock as to why the Director of the FBI was standing in front of her, knew her name, and appeared to be alone.

It was all starting to make sense now as she approached Director Wray with a cautious sense of security and familiarity that had eluded her up to this point in time.

One night... Another life... Sandy knew that there was a chance her one-night-stand with the current President of the United States might be discovered and the fact that it was, in fact, close to an orgy that included businessmen from the Soviet Union could have law enforcement question what she had heard and whether they wanted her to make a statement as to what she knew... or silence her forever so the truth would never be revealed.

But the past was the past and couldn't be changed she thought as she stood there, that is, until another familiar voice resounded from the shadows.


Chapter 11