========= Chapter Three ========= She's afraid. It's dark, and she's afraid .... The door opens, and he's standing in front of her, holding a candle against the gloom. He speaks to her, and she asks him to look at something, and he invites her into the room. She's still afraid, but somehow his company is already making it better .... She turns away from him and slips off her robe, and for a moment she waits in nameless dread. She can hear him moving behind her; she can see the shadows shifting on the wall as he kneels behind her, the candle still in his hand. She feels a touch on her lower back -- his fingers, she realizes. And then he speaks, and she can almost hear his smile of relief .... //Mosquito bites,// he says .... //Are you sure?// she asks .... And he is sure, and he reassures her with a few calming words. And then she turns to face him, and throws herself into his arms .... The first thing Dana was aware of was the pain. Pain in the center of her chest, radiating outwards to her shoulders. A dull, throbbing ache, that seemed to be everywhere all at once, and was worse when she inhaled. The second thing she noticed was the smell: a damp, earthy odor, like that of her mother's garden after a spring rain. There were other scents mixed in as well: the faintly acrid smell of too many bodies in an enclosed area, and the lingering, slightly stale odor of old cooking. People lived here, she realized -- wherever "here" was. She opened her eyes to find that she was lying on a bed in a small, curtained-off space. The lighting was dim, but enough illumination filtered in through the cracks in the curtains to allow her to see the rough, earthen floor -- and turning her head, she saw that the bed she was lying on was set against a wall that was also composed of packed earth and sod. The bed itself was hard and lumpy, and was covered with rough linen that irritated her skin wherever it touched her. The stuffing gave only slightly, and crackled as she shifted her weight. Straw? Abruptly, the curtain was thrown partway open, and Dana's eyes watered slightly at the sudden increase in light. There was a figure standing in the entryway, but he -- or she -- was backlit, and she couldn't make out -- "Hey, Wendy!" Pan. Even as she made the identification, he was bounding across the two feet of intervening space, bouncing to a stop in a crosslegged position on the foot of the bed. "Glad to see you're feeling better." Automatically, Dana scooted up into a sitting position, and as she did so she realized with surprise that the pain in her chest was gone -- just like that. It was almost as if it had never been there at all. She drew an experimental breath. Not a twinge. "You sure slept long enough," Pan went on. "I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to wake up." "Wh - what happened?" Dana asked. She touched her fingertips to her chest. Still no pain. Strange. "Oh, it was Tink," Pan said with a wave of the hand. "She gets a little weird sometimes, and for some reason she told the guys you were a U.F.O., and convinced them to try and shoot you down. But I banished her, so hopefully she'll learn her lesson." "You *banished* her?" "Yeah," he said, with apparent unconcern. "Forever, too. Or until next week, or something like that." Dana could see that he was rapidly losing interest in the topic, but before she could say anything, he went on, "So anyway, now that you're awake, what do you think?" Dana felt her eyebrows rising up her forehead. "What do I think about what?" she asked. "This place!" Pan made a sweeping gesture with his left hand. "My hideout. What do you think?" Dana blinked, and shrugged. "Well, I really haven't seen enough of it to have an opinion --" "Well, come on then!" he interrupted, jumping off the bed. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. "I'll give you the grand tour." A moment later, Dana found herself standing in the middle of a large room. As had been the case with the curtained-off sleeping area, the walls and floors were plain and unfinished -- but there the resemblance ended. Where the bedchamber had seemed rude and primitive, the larger space of which it was a part looked like something out of science fiction. Everywhere she looked, she saw scientific and technical equipment -- from things as simple and straightforward as microscopes and oscilloscopes, to strange and enigmatic devices of unknown function and purpose. The budding scientist within her longed to fly across the room and delve into all the wonderful mysteries awaiting her perusal. But she held herself in check. Something else caught her eye: across the room, hanging on the wall above a slide projector, was a large poster. It depicted what seemed to be a flying saucer hovering over a hillside, and the caption on it read, "I want to believe!" Dana glanced at Pan and raised her eyebrow as she gestured at the poster. "That's not serious, is it?" she asked. "Of course it is!" he exclaimed, gliding over to the poster -- and Dana noticed that his feet didn't quite touch the ground as he did so. "Don't you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials, Wendy?" Dana felt her jaw dropping at the question, but before she could muster a response she was distracted by a distant thud. It sounded like a heavy door being opened, and suddenly there was a draft coming from the far corner of the room. Looking more closely, Dana realized that there was an entryway of sorts in that corner -- a dark hole, about two feet in diameter, and partly concealed by another curtain. The curtain was now swaying slightly in the sudden breeze, and Dana found herself walking slowly towards the entrance. There was a babble of voices coming from the hole, growing louder by the second -- and in the next instant a head appeared. It was a boy's head, Dana realized. A boy's head with long, stringy blond hair and horn-rimmed glasses. As she watched, the boy wriggled on out of what was obviously a tunnel, winding up in a heap on the floor. Even as the new boy was struggling to his feet, another followed, and then another and another and another, until finally there were five of them milling around the room and all talking at once. She heard snatches of conversation, words and phrases such as "grassy knoll", "extraterrestrial biological entity" and, of all things, "Elvis". But there was so much talking going on that she found it impossible to make out the thread of conversation -- or even a coherent sentence. Dana glanced over at Pan, hoping that perhaps he would rein the group in -- or at least provide an expanation. But he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the chaos, and was standing with his arms crossed and a happy smile on his face. "Aren't they the greatest?" he remarked, as he finally noticed Dana looking at him. "These are my men -- the Lost Boys!" "The Lost Boys?" "Yeah!" Pan stepped forward and started cuffing the other boys. "C'mon, guys! Straighten up!" Somewhat to Dana's surprise, the blandishments worked, and in short order she was facing an only somewhat-disorderly row of boys, each standing at a vague semblance of attention. The effect was spoiled, however, by the intermittent whispering and shuffling of feet which continued unabated. Quickly, Dana let her gaze skip down the line, as Pan proceeded to introduce them. First was Ringo, the one with the stringy blond hair, who was wearing jeans and a Ramones t-shirt. Second was John, incongruously wearing a three-piece suit. Next to him was Melvin, who was frankly staring at her with his mouth hanging open. Fourth in line was Jeff, who Dana thought looked vaguely like a ferret, and finally a boy with the unlikely name of Pendrell -- "because nobody knows what his real name is -- not even him," Pan concluded. "Report!" Dana's attention was drawn back to Pan, who now was strutting up and down in front of the other boys, his hands behind his back. Each time he came to the end of the line he would pop in the air, spin about, and then resume his pacing. And of course, the babble immediately started up again. "Faceless guys are --" "Black oil aliens --" "The Trilateral Commission --" "Found a plam in a table lamp --" "She *is* hot!" "Enough!" Immediately the chattering stopped, and Pan came to the end of the row and did the pop-and-spin maneuver one more time, finally coming to a stop at full parade rest. "Men!" he exclaimed. "Do I understand that you are all in agreement?" There was a confused-sounding chorus of assent. "And you believe you've found the Rebel hideout?" More incoherent nattering. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Before Dana had time to react, Pan had her by the elbow and was hurrying her towards the entrance to the tunnel. It was dark and musty smelling, and for an instant she hesitated -- but then Pan prodded at her, and she reluctantly started crawling up the shaft, which was slanted upwards at a steep angle. It seemed to take forever, and with each foot she moved forward, Dana felt more enclosed; more trapped. She was acutely aware of the harshness of her own breathing, as well as that of Pan and the other boys, following along behind. Why was she in the lead, anyway? They were the ones who knew where they were going, and what was at the other end of this tunnel. For that matter, it wasn't really clear to her *why* they were doing this. Pan had made that comment about a "Rebel hideout", but she didn't know what that meant -- and she hadn't been able to glean anything coherent at all from the chatter of the other boys. At last she reached the tunnel's far entrance, to find that it was covered by a heavy steel door, held in place with half a dozen bolts, padlocks and other fastenings. Dana was rapidly losing her capacity to be surprised by anything, and simply shrugged and began unfastening the locks. Two minutes, and the job was done, and she pushed open the door, climbed out of the tunnel and stood up. She was in a small clearing in the middle of a forest. The trees made a lovely, green canopy overhead, and bright sunlight filtered down through the leaves. The air was fresh and sweet, a welcome change from the dank earthiness of the cavern from which she'd just emerged. Dana couldn't help smiling at her surroundings. It was so beautiful here -- Without warning, she was grabbed roughly from behind, and she gasped as an arm was wrapped around her neck, nearly cutting off her air. She was lifted off her feet, and as her assailant dragged her from the clearing, she instinctively started to struggle. But then a voice whispered in her ear, low and harsh and menacing: "Resist or serve." ================END CHAPTER THREE================