Episode XXVII

“Why didn’t I question them?” Marla berated herself as she drove. “I don’t know anything about this Lord Acidity, I don’t know why he wants me and,” she abruptly slammed on the brakes. “And I don’t know where I am. Now Marla, how were you expecting to get home? Did you hope that a GPS mapping device would just appear on the dashboard. Stupid, stupid.” As she chided herself Marla quickly decided that she had to turn around and go back to the cabin. Before moving into a three-point turn she swiftly opened the glove box and checked under her seat, but as she had suspected there were no maps to be found—and anyway, she had no idea what road she was on, or if it would even appear on a printed map.

Angry at herself and the men that had kidnapped her Marla sent the van speeding back towards the cabin, its wheels kicking up gravel from the backcountry road. In only a few moments she was pulling up in front of the cabin and pulling the keys out of the ignition. With grim determination she jumped out of the van and only remembered not to slam its door at the very last minute, catching the door and still managing to slightly damage the handle. Though she quickly put this damage behind her she caused much more as she scuffed her feet across the grass, kicking large furrows in the vegetation.

Marla was in a truly foul mood by the time she kicked down the cabin door, after having demolished two stumps in the yard, two of the porch steps, and one of the handrails. The front room was empty and the newly minted heroine stared around dumbstruck until she remembered that there was another room on the back of the cabin, the bedroom where she had been sequestered. Of course, she reasoned, the coward must be hiding back there, trembling in fear. Anticipating catching the cowering man in the closet Marla confidently strode into her former prison turning towards the closet when she heard a noise to the side and barely raised her arm in time to block the blow of a hardened piece of pipe that been set on a collision course with her head.

Though she had been miraculously been gifted with super strength Marla was definitely not invulnerable. Her arm was moving up as the bar came down and so she was able to stop its progress and deflect it away, however it still hurt! She stifled a curse and fell down on one knee while cradling her arm; she knew it would be have a large bruise in the morning. Of course a moment later she realized the bruise was the least of her concerns and she shot her uninjured arm out to grab the henchman’s collar. With ease she pulled him upwards and shoved him against the wall, causing a large dent to form in the rough outline of his torso and head. Marla yelled at the man, demanding that he tell her what the “acid monster” wanted with her. When the man annoyingly responded only with “Lord Acidity will deal with you,” she lost her cool again and threw him across the room hard enough to break through the wall into the cabin’s second bedroom.

The broken-fingered man slid across the floor into the opposite wall where he tried to sit up. Before he could lever himself upwards Marla had reached him and she again picked him up and slammed him into the wall, this time right next to a window overlooking the lake. With a fierce growl she ordered him to answer her question, but again he refused, though not quite as defiantly as before. Frustrated she slammed her left fist forward into the wall, but accidentally struck the window and knocked it completely out of its frame. The hotel owner was so surprised by this that she stood in shocked silence looking out over the lake. After a moment she looked for the other henchman, wondering if he would be more cooperative. However, when she finally spotted him he was on the far side of the lake, apparently being pulled to shore by another man. She wondered if it was a lifeguard, but she figured that it didn’t matter—the other man would probably attack him and try to return to “Lord Acidity.”

Marla turned her attention back to the man pinned against the wall and was about to punch him when all that she had done finally sunk in. With a shock she fully came to her senses and took in the destruction she had caused. She remembered doing everything, of course, but she didn’t know why. Normally she never got this mad, and especially not mad enough to want to kill someone as dead as she had wished this henchman was. Deciding that she wouldn’t get any information out of the man Marla decided to render him unconscious but wasn’t sure exactly how. Finally, thinking that it was worth a try she attempted a Vulcan Nerve Pinch, but she quickly realized she had no Vulcan blood as her powerful fingers slipped and broke his collarbone. This pain was more acute than any she had intentionally delivered and it finally broke through the man’s defenses.

“Lord Acidity wants to silence you. You caused his capture!” The man groaned and then added in an begrudging aside, “of course that was what led to me being able to serve him you were useful.”

“Continue,” Marla ordered, though she was more subdued than when she had thrown the man against the wall. Even if she was feeling calmer she recognized that it was only his pain that kept him talking and that she needed to keep him pinned against the wall to maximize the pain and therefore she did not let him move.

“You also have something that belongs to him; you have stolen from Lord Acidity.”

“What?” the hotel manager interjected. “I am no thief, though you’re one to talk! You stole me away from my hotel.”

“My lord left items in your trust; yet you have kept them even after he appeared to you.”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only stuff I have that isn’t mine is unclaimed property from guests—and I know your Lord Acidity hasn’t stayed at my hotel, I’m sure that I would remember him.”

“You are mistaken, you have stolen from him!”

“Talk about a one track mind,” Marla muttered, then remembering the other reason she had returned she returned to questioning.

“Where are we?”

“Westwood Lake.”

“Of course!” Marla was disgusted with herself. She had never been to Westwood Lake, but she realized now that it was the only lake of this size anywhere near Daze Springs. She tried to question the man for several more minutes, but she couldn’t think of anything particularly relevant and the man’s pain was obviously growing worse.

Finally she dropped the henchman to the floor and used a strip of curtain to bind his hands together. Another strip served to fasten his ankles and a third to bind his four limbs together. She was fairly confident that he would never be able to loosen the knots that held her primitive hog-tying attempt together; she didn’t even think she with her enhanced strength could separate the knots after she’d tightened them. One of the man’s extremely foul socks had served as an effective gag, though Marla had been loathe to touch it. Not for the first time Marla wondered if single men ever bothered to wash their clothing or if they just wore it until it rotted off and they had to replace it.

Relieved to be leaving the cabin behind Marla looked out of the empty window frame onto the lake. She could barely see the lifeguard on the far shore, and disturbingly she could clearly see a patrol car next to him. The last thing she needed was to be found in this cabin. Who would believe her story that she had just woken up with greatly increased strength. Furthermore she would have to contact the FBI in so that they could explain her records, and she didn’t want the sheriff’s department finding out that she was in the Witness Protection Program. She didn’t really want to relocate, especially not now when she wouldn’t be able to obtain a good price for her hotel. And she desperately wanted to find out what Acidity really wanted. She knew the story from the henchman couldn’t be true—the monster hadn’t ever come near the actual hotel building, he couldn’t have anything of his inside.