Free The Captive by Robert Stallman Page A

not harm you. I am badly hurt. A train hit me. I will get well, but I must have a safe place to rest, water, food. Will you help me?
    The girl nods her head in the darkness, but I am aware that I am manipulating her mind. She is under the direct influence of my will which I am afraid to relax at this point. I ask the boy, and he too nods his head. But I cannot tell. I must wait and see if, when they are released, they run in fright. Then I will have to call them back and kill them. The car jolts over the washboarded road, making me weak with agony. I can only hold on now to the necessity of keeping these two creatures under my control. I manage to remain conscious until the car turns off the road into a lane. We go very slowly, and I notice the boy has turned off the car lights. At last the car turns around in a stand of thick weeds beside the dark bulk of a house. There are a couple of out buildings falling to ruin off to one side. The crickets and frogs keep up a background music that makes me want to sleep. I am having great trouble staying conscious. The boy and girl are helping me out of the car now. I swing my head back once in great agony as I slip and come down on the broken leg, and the stars seem a field of burning, sparkling eyes in the dark sky.
    They are holding me between them again. We descend into a cellar by way of an outdoor entrance, down some cement stairs into a wet, cool place under the house. I  extend my spatial sense, scanning the cellar area. There is nothing living there except some field mice just inside one broken window. The boy is gathering boards now. He talks about an old mattress upstairs. I am dizzy and my mind is slipping into gray spaces so that I am losing track of time. I must hold on until I find out if these people will obey me. The girl still has her arm around my waist as I stand leaning against a wall. The boy comes down the stairs that splinter and crack as he steps on them. He is dragging something, a mattress, which he puts on the boards in a corner. They help me to lie on the musty smelling old padding. The smell is disagreeable, but it is distant and unimportant. It is of no matter. I can rest now. There is a gray space before I regain my hold, and I see that the young people are still standing beside me.
    When you go home , I am telling them, you will speak to no one about me. If you tell, they will come and kill me, and I am a friendly creature to man. I will not harm you. Tell no one. And you must help me by bringing water and food. Small animals, chickens, lambs, even cooked food, although I need the fresh, whole animal food now to help the healing. Will you do these things?
    I see their heads nod. I extort another promise from them, and they nod again. I observe them with my spatial sense, listen to their breathing, catch their scents. But I cannot hold the concentration. I am going to lose hold in a moment. I must simply take the chance. I drop my hold on them, and see them visibly flinch.
    They are backing away in the dark cellar, and I realize they cannot see me but can only sense my presence now that I am not helping them. I can smell their fear coming out strongly now. They are not speaking, but they reach the cellar door and go up the concrete steps quickly. I reach out to them, listening for their words. They have said nothing, and they are afraid. I do not know if they will bring people to kill me, but I am almost too weak to stop them now. Perhaps if they do I could shift at the last minute - but I know that would be impossible. A man would quickly die in my condition. But I can no longer hold to my consciousness,  and as I hear the car doors slam shut and the car roar down the lane, I fall into grayness.
    I awake with the aroma of cooked food making my mouth drool. It is light, and a shaft of sunlight stands serene in the doorway. Beside the mattress is a tin plate with a great yellow heap of scrambled eggs on it. There are strips of bacon across the top and