Read Frozen Solid for Free Online

base. A baggy shirt with ragged sleeves.
    A skeleton and the Frankenstein monster. So they must have come from a costume party. Or were going to one.
    The man produced a metal flask, unscrewed the top, and drank. He passed it to Emily, who almost dropped it. He caught the flask and handed it to her more carefully. She drank, appeared to cough, waved a hand in front of her mouth.
    She and the man talked. There was no sound, but it was easy to recognize what they were doing by their nods and touches and body movements. Occasionally they drank from the flask. After several minutes, the man peeled off fake scars and removed the plastic boltsthat had been held in place by a semicircular wire running behind his neck. He pulled off the wig, which was attached to a bulging rubber forehead. He tossed all of the costumery down onto her desk chair. He was undisguised, but the overhead camera angle still kept Hallie from viewing enough to allow her to recognize him if she saw him later.
    Emily half-turned and kissed the man, put her arms around him, pulled him closer. They kissed more seriously.
    She had a lover. Well, good for her. A year is a long, long time. But, Hallie thought, should I keep watching this? It doesn’t feel right, spying on her like this.
    Think. This is a surveillance camera. If she had wanted to make a sex tape, they would have used something else.
    Emily lay down on her back, giving Hallie the first direct look at her face. Painted skull-white, it was brighter than anything else in the frame. The man lay down beside her, his face buried in her neck, nuzzling, kissing, hidden from the camera. His thigh slid over hers. One hand scurried over her body, nibbling, rubbing, pausing longer here and there. Emily’s back arched as though in spasm, and Hallie saw her mouth open, a silent moan.
    She whispered something in his ear.
    And fell asleep.
    That seemed very strange. Emily never used drugs, rarely drank more than a beer or two, and here she was passing out?
    The man sat back against the wall and watched her. It was maddening—Hallie could see the top of his head and shoulders and thighs, but nothing else. After several minutes, he climbed down from the bunk and out of the picture. When he reappeared, he had on tight-fitting latex gloves. Working carefully and without haste, he unzipped Emily’s leotard and pulled it off, leaving her in bra and panties.
    The son of a bitch. He’d drugged her. With that flask? He’d been drinking from it, too. Or maybe just pretending. Something else, before they got to the room?
    Hallie’s breath came faster. She felt angry and afraid for Emily. Said, out loud, “You better not touch her.”
    He disappeared from the frame and reappeared with two hypodermic syringes. The barrels were the same size, but the needle on one was much longer. Using the smaller syringe, the man injected something into the vein, in Emily’s right arm, from which blood was typically drawn. Hallie watched with growing horror.
    “Leave her alone!” She said that aloud, too.
    Oddly, he was dressed. A date rapist would have been naked by now. He stood beside the bunk, watching. Emily was still asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly. After several minutes, her eyes floated open. She didn’t move or try to speak. Hallie strained, but she still could not see the man’s face.
    He climbed up onto the bed and knelt between Emily’s parted legs, holding the syringe with the long needle up for her to see. Her blink rate and respiration increased. He took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling, leaned closer, and began using the needle. Emily’s eyes stretched wide and her whole body tensed, but she didn’t move.
    He had given her some kind of short-acting paralytic. Oh God.
    Hallie thought she might vomit. Shaking with rage, she had to pause the video. It was some time before she could turn it on again. Now there was no question about watching. It was a thing she had to do.
    The man went back to